“Like I have any choice,” she said with a loud growl.
Braelyn’s gaze shot to the French doors. As she feared, their captor had heard the growl. He stopped pacing and yanked the doors open. “Keep it down in here,” he barked and stalked over to her. “Unless you are anxious to start our party now. I’m almost done setting everything up.”
She quickly shook her head. “No, I can wait.” Since he’d done nothing but pace and talk to himself, she had no idea what he was “setting up” in the first place.
“Good. It’ll be better if I’m fully prepared.” He bent and lifted his pant leg to show the large hunting knife strapped to his calf. He pulled it free and showed it to her while he kept the gun aimed in her direction. “I’m going to have fun cutting up all that pretty skin of yours.”
Braelyn shivered when he squatted and ran the flat of the knife across her cheek. She bit her tongue to stop herself from whimpering in fear. The blade skimmed along her skin a second time before he stood and went back into the kitchen.
She started to shake so much her teeth chattered. They weren’t going to be able to get out of this. The deranged man in the kitchen would kill her, and there wouldn’t be anyone who could stop him.
“Braelyn,” Skylar said. “Calm down. I’m going to take care of him before he ever lays a finger on you. Do you understand?”
“How? You’re tied up like the rest of us.”
“Not for long. I’m going to shift.”
She fought the urge to laugh hysterically. “You can drop the act now, Skylar. It isn’t fun anymore. You’re not a werewolf, and neither is Roxie.”
“Do it, Skylar,” Roxie said with a groan. “Now. This baby is in a bit of a hurry.”
He met Braelyn’s gaze, then did what she thought was only stuff of Hollywood movies—he shifted. His eyes started to glow, then his body gradually began to shimmer, blurring just before a wolf with the same colored fur as Skylar’s light brown hair took his place.
Unable to truly believe what she’d just seen, Braelyn hurriedly looked over at her mother who had to be wearing the same shocked expression she wore. “He’s a wolf,” her mom said weakly.
Now free since the tie wraps had fallen away during the shift, the wolf walked over to her and put his head on her shoulder for a few seconds before he pulled away to look her directly in her face. Intelligence shone in the wolf’s eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” Roxie said. “It’s still Skylar in there. He understands everything you say.” She then turned her attention on the wolf. “Time to finish this, Skylar.”
The wolf bobbed his lupine head up and down, then trotted closer to the French doors. He sat, threw back his head and let out a long howl. Their captor rushed out of the kitchen and stared at the wolf.
“How the hell did that thing get in here? And where is your boyfriend?” He waved his gun around as his gaze darted around the room.
Much quicker than when he had shifted into a wolf, Skylar shifted to his human form. “I’m right here, asshole.”
Moving almost faster than her eyes could follow, Skylar grabbed the gun out of their captor’s hand. The hunting knife held in his other was quickly taken away as well. Now that the man was no longer armed, Skylar put him out of commission. His fist slammed into the other man’s face, and the sound of crunching bone as his nose broke followed. He took punch after punch until he stood weaving on his feet.
Skylar pulled back his fist one last time. “Come near my mate again and I’ll show you how well I can use my teeth and claws while I’m in my wolf form.”
When he threw the punch, it landed on their captor’s chin. His head flew back with the force, and his eyes rolled back up into his head as he crumpled to the floor. Skylar sank to his knees next to him and searched his pockets until he found more tie wraps. He used them to bind the other man as he’d bound them.
With the knife, Skylar cut first Roxie’s bindings before he set her mom free. Once he cut her free, Braelyn met his worried gaze. “Say something, Braelyn. Anything.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to sort out the jumble of emotions inside her. But before she could organize her thoughts, Roxie let out a pained cry. All three of them rushed over to her.
“Ah, god, I need to push,” Roxie ground out as she started to tear at her pants.
Braelyn knelt next to Roxie as her mother took control of the situation. All business, she turned to Skylar first. “Go upstairs and, in the hall linen closet, grab a bed sheet and a couple of towels.” Once he took off at a run, moving unbelievably fast, her mom looked to her. “Braelyn, help me with Roxie’s pants.”
They’d managed to strip Roxie from the waist down when Skylar returned. Her mom snatched the bed sheet from him and draped it over Roxie’s waist. She then shoved the towels at Braelyn.
“It’s coming,” Roxie shouted. “Skylar, call Beowulf and tell him to get his butt over here, now.”
“I’m on it,” he quickly said and pulled out his cell phone. He was only on it a minute before he hung up. “He’s on his way. He’ll call the midwife.”
“This will be all over before either one of them arrive,” her mom said as she knelt between Roxie’s spread legs and looked under the sheet. “She’s crowning already.”
“You sound as if you’ve done this before.”
Her mother smiled. “I have many times. I used to be a labor/delivery nurse for a number of years until Braelyn talked me into quitting. She didn’t like the long hours I had to put in at the hospital.” Roxie groaned as she started to push. “That’s a girl. A few more of those and you’ll be holding your baby in your arms.”
Five minutes later, after giving six good pushes, a baby’s high-pitched cries echoed in the room. Braelyn watched her mom put the baby on Roxie’s stomach. “It’s a girl,” she said.
“A nice, healthy little girl. Braelyn, go to the kitchen and get the spool of string out of the junk drawer along with one of the knives from the butcher block. And the open bottle of white wine I have in the fridge.”
Going to get what her mother asked for, Braelyn had to walk past her stalker. He groaned when she drew near. She looked back at Skylar to find him already on his way toward her. He gave her stalker a punch to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious once again. She hurried by him and went into the kitchen.
It took her only a few seconds to collect what she needed and returned to the living room. Her mom used the string and the knife—that she sterilized with the wine—to cut the cord. She’d just finished when the doorbell rang. Skylar went to answer it and came back with a large, dark-haired man who rushed straight to Roxie when he saw her.
Roxie pulled back the towel from around the baby she held in her arms. “We have a girl, Beowulf.”
He gently touched the baby’s cheek and then kissed Roxie on the forehead. “She’s beautiful. And of course you couldn’t do this the easy way, Rox, could you?”
“I do like to keep you on your toes.”
“The midwife should be here any minute.”
Now with all the excitement over, Braelyn looked over at Skylar to find him intently watching her. He more than likely was worried about how she had taken the news about him being a werewolf, and that they were mates. But she wasn’t ready to face any of that right now. She turned away from him and went to stand beside her mom.
Chapter Eleven
It wasn’t until after everything had been taken care of that Skylar tried to get Braelyn all to himself. The midwife had arrived and taken over, declaring Roxie and her newborn daughter had managed to get through the birth with no complications. Both mother and baby had then been bundled up in another one of Bev’s cleans sheets, and Beowulf took his wife and child home with the midwife accompanying them.