“Nah, not if no one tells him,” offered the deep voice of one of the gray wolves. “Besides, we’re keeping her safe. He’ll thank us.” Dirk, she thought. Or Dave. Or Dick.
Annoyed with men all over again, she waited until the pair stepped away from the door and moved back downstairs. Great. Now she had a cat and a wolf as babysitters. Her duffel bag was nowhere in sight. Yet…
She slowly left her bed, well aware of how to move without making a sound. She searched her closet and retrieved her rifle, the one she’d won contests with. Hunter contests, unbeknownst to her. She took it and a bag of ammunition and made a plan.
Ten minutes later after a very brisk run in human form, she stood outside Monty’s cabin in the shadows, making sure she was alone. Nothing stirred and no one moved. She went inside and grabbed his keys, then used them before she lost her nerve. Sophie quickly texted Rafe to beware hidden traps. It was the best she could do under the circumstances. Then she muted her phone and tucked it into her backpack. She was twenty minutes outside of Cougar Falls, on her way to Kalispell, when her cell phone vibrated. She didn’t answer.
She had a very important place to be, and she had to get there before the wolves did in order to prevent a bloodbath. Simply put, she’d told Axel and Rafe where her uncle might have relocated, but she hadn’t thought to warn them of his safeguards until now. If she knew her uncle, and she did, he’d have wired the perimeter of his camp with booby traps, the way he had around the farm back in Tennessee.
Now it was up to her to get to Monty. And fast.
Per Monty’s GPS, she arrived a few miles outside of his camp and parked under a copse of trees. The moon remained behind a bank of clouds, and with no wind on the horizon, she didn’t have a spotlight on her as she moved through the forest, attuned to foreign sights and sounds. Her wolf whined at her to be set free, but Sophie needed hands for her rifle. For the first time in a long time, she openly communicated with her animal spirit, using the wolf’s senses and sharing her concerns.
No longer not allowed to be anything but herself, she embraced her twin soul and felt stronger because of it. When she came upon the first tripwire, she disarmed it and looked for a second trap to follow.
There. She cut it and continued, deactivating a half dozen more booby traps along the way. She could only be thankful Rafe and his wolves hadn’t arrived. A few of them would have been dead by now, she was sure of it. Her uncle didn’t mess around with defense.
Allowing herself the time, she sent another harried text to Rafe’s cell phone with her exact location.
As she moved, she kept her eyes open for the right tree. Within sight of the camp, of course, but tall. She found it another half mile to the west of her current position. After tightening the straps of her backpack and securing the rifle against her chest, she climbed. She made it twenty-five feet and settled in the crook of a thick branch. Then she took her ammunition and clips and set them close. She unwound her rifle and scope and took aim on the campfire.
She didn’t see her uncle, but then, she hadn’t expected to. She saw her cousin Charley looking as dopey and mean as usual. Not the brains of the outfit, which explained his position at the campfire, as a decoy. A few other inexperienced Hunters patrolled the outer edge of the small camp. A solid two dozen men. Hunters tended to be sexist. They considered women good for nothing but having babies. Nope. Not a woman in sight.
The Folly would be underground, through a makeshift hole against the side of a massive boulder that led down into a large underground cavern her uncle had expanded into his own personal hideaway years ago.
Sophie couldn’t believe she was up in a tree with a loaded rifle. She’d never done anything so risky before. But for Monty, she had to try. And then she heard them. The sound of footfalls, the four-footed kind.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d never intentionally killed a person before, but she knew Monty and the others depended on her to survive.
“We’re here.” Rafe’s voice.
“Come on out, Shifter. We’ve been waiting.” That was Matt, her middle cousin. A rapist and murderer. She could only be glad she’d never been left alone with him, or she feared what he might have done. He had a sickness as bad as her uncle’s, and she knew he’d kill the wolves of the order without thinking twice. “You don’t come into the light, I off your friends. Starting with this one.” He nodded and her cousin Charley moved into the light holding a bloodied man by the collar. He’d been shot in both legs and could barely stand on his own.
She recognized him. It was James, a gray wolf who always had a ready smile for her when he’d stopped by the store.
She felt sick.
Rafe took a step, and she heard the telltale click of safeties. She zeroed in on sound and saw sharpshooters lined up in the woods behind the campfire, giving them perfect vision while hiding them from the wolves. Without thinking, she shot, rapid-fire, at the threat.
Rafe and the wolves in the woods took cover. Hunters returned fire at the wolves and at her. Then more shots came from Rafe’s side of the woods. The gunfire died and the wolves entered the campsite, killing the remaining stragglers until no one else moved.
The chaos stopped as suddenly as it had started and Sophie stared at close to forty wolves all over the place. Good Lord. Rafe had brought an army with him. She hustled down the tree with her gear and stopped when everyone turned to face her.
“Fuck it all, you’re not supposed to be here,” a large white wolf sent her, his teeth stained red as he joined Rafe, now in wolf form. The pack often communicated telepathically, and Sophie had no problem understanding them.
She swallowed hard at the carnage around her. She’d actually killed people. No, not people. Murdering Hunters who would have killed your pack, the wolf reminded her. She tried not to find pleasure in the coppery scent of blood so near. “Someone had to save you from your own foolishness. Why didn’t you take me with you? If I hadn’t been here, you’d be dead now.”
“So you disarmed the traps in the woods. Nice job,” another wolf said as he sidled next to Rafe. She looked at him with wolf eyes and inhaled.
“Mitch?”
“Hey, Sophie. Nice shooting.” He chuffed at her with approval.
“Save it. Where do we go now?” Rafe growled at her.
“I go in there,” she whispered and pointed her rifle toward a dark passage away from the campfire. “You need to wait. They heard the shots, they know we’re here. Just give me a little time. When they come running out, take them here and at the back. Let me show you.”
“No way in hell.” Rafe nudged her behind him and Axel took up the rear. “Shift into your wolf.”
“No.”
“Then you stay here.”
“I can shoot faster than you can attack. And Monty’s in there.” She yanked on his tail. “Rafe, please.”
He stopped still, his fur bristled.
“I know these people and this place,” she murmured. “You have to trust me.”
“Come on, Rafe.” To her surprise, Axel agreed. “She took care of the traps and the shooters in the bushes. We don’t have time to argue. Let her go—we’ll wait. If she’s not out, we go in anyway.”
Rafe snarled at her. “Shit. Well, hurry up. Axel’s going with you. That’s non-negotiable. I’m giving you two a ten minute head start, no more.”
It would have to be enough. Sophie nodded. She showed Mitch and a few others the hideaway’s hidden back exit before returning to the front, where Rafe and Axel sat with their heads cocked. The other wolves had scattered around the camp, keeping to the dark and blending with their environment. The savvy canine hunters would give the humans a true challenge this time.