The Bucklin Wolves Next Generation: Revelations (8 page)

“That may be true. I’m glad to know how I stack up.”

“I mean I don’t have a ton to compare you to, but wow. I just, I mean, I’m sorry I’m at a loss for words. I never expected it to be like that.”

“I’m glad I could please you,” he said, laughing.

They were both about to drift off to sleep when the flimsy door nearly flew off its hinges. The person behind the door had half-kicked it open and half-opened it normally. Seth sat straight up in bed and began to growl, only to find Rowan standing in the doorway.

“We have to go now,” Rowan said.

“What the hell is going on?” Seth asked.

“Intruders,” Rowan said. “I have a security system set up and it’s going off. There’s several people moving in on us.”

“Other wolves?” Seth asked. Or was it the cats? Maybe the cougar had friends who had expertly tracked him back to this place.

“I don’t know,” Rowan responded. “Why don’t we go find out?”

“Seth, no,” Maribel protested.

“You stay here with Eva,” Rowan ordered. “If we’re not back in a certain amount of time, she knows exactly what to do. We have a rendezvous point. You’ll be safe with her. Do you know how to fire a gun?”

“I’ve never done that in my life,” Maribel said.

“Well, then, you’d better learn,” Rowan said.

Seth looked back at Maribel. Just a few minutes ago they had been locked in the ultimate pleasure with one another, and now here they were, in possible mortal danger. There was so much fear on her face.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” he assured her. “There aren’t many shifters or humans who can stand up to me and Rowan.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I trust you. Please come back to me. I couldn’t lose you.”

Those were the words he had always wanted to hear from her lips.

Chapter 9

“How much time do we give them?” Maribel asked.

Eva was completely dressed in a pair of black cargo pants, boots and a tight Under Armour shirt. She had a bag that she had stuffed with Rowan’s clothes and Seth’s that she had just added recently. On the table lay the shotgun and a dangerous-looking handgun. Maribel had never been around guns in her entire life; this was something brand new to her. Both of the weapons looked intimidating. Meanwhile Eva looked like some sort of warrior princess preparing to smash her enemies in battle.

“He gets twenty minutes,” Eva said. “Then I head for the rendezvous point.”

“I thought you were just a sweet city girl who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Maribel said, eyeing Eva’s SWAT team apparel.

“I used to be,” Eva said. “When you date a shifter, you accept a certain amount of danger in your life. After I was kidnapped by Satan’s Angels, I promised myself I wouldn’t be a victim ever again. Rowan and I are pretty isolated. There’s wild shifters, cougars, real wild animals and those that try to peel off from Aster’s pack and cause trouble. Luckily if we catch them Aster deals with them brutally. The point is, though, there’s a lot to get in trouble with out here and I don’t always want Rowan rescuing me.”

“Have you shot any shifters?” Maribel asked.

“Just one,” Eva said. “It was a young buck from Aster’s pack who got a bug up his ass that he wanted to challenge the former head enforcer of Bucklin and take his mate. Rowan was out getting supplies for the house and I was alone. I filled his ass with silver buckshot. When Rowan found out, he marched over to Aster’s territory and beat the pup senseless. Aster just watched, letting Rowan deal out his brand of justice.”

“So what’s going to happen now?” Maribel asked.

“Hopefully it’s just a cougar and the boys can deal with it quickly and easily.”

“What else could it be?”

“Someone from Aster’s clan?”

“Do you think it could be human?”

“Why would a human intrude all the way out here? If it’s a hiker who wandered too far into the forest, then Rowan will just rudely turn him away.”

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

Maribel and Eva sat at the table, looking across at one another as they counted down the minutes. Twenty minutes didn’t seem like very much time, but Eva had repeatedly assured her that was the only time Rowan needed to deal with this threat, especially with Seth backing him up.

Finally Maribel broke down and confessed what she had done with Seth to Eva. Her new girlfriend could only smile and nod her head in approval. “You’re his now.”

“I’m not,” Maribel said. “I’m my own woman.”

“Yes, you are,” Eva said. “But you’ll always be linked to Seth from this day forward. He’s claimed you, girl.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re his mate. You have a choice, but he sees you as his mate and he’ll never see you as anything else. This platonic business relationship you want? You can try, but that’s destroyed in his eyes. His wolf has imprinted on you. You’ll always have his smell on you unless another wolf claims you and imprints himself on you. That means all shifters you meet with will shy away because they smell him on you. All human men will know something’s not quite on the up and up and they’ll find excuses not to see you anymore.”

“Great. So my dating life is over?”

“That’s not such a bad thing. You wouldn’t believe how wonderful it is to be with a shifter.”

Maribel eyed the guns on the table and the outfit Eva was wearing. “Yeah, it looks like a blast.”

Eva shook her head and laughed. “It’s not like that for you. Seth lives in Bucklin. He’s a city wolf. You don’t have to worry about the harsh realities of the wild. Hell, I don’t really have to, either. We live more like reclusive humans than anything else. It’s Aster and his pack who live like true wild wolves. They have their own territory, they don’t wear clothes, and they live in a damn cave.”

“I’m glad we haven’t reached that point,” Maribel said.

“You’re going to be just fine,” Eva said. Her voice was soothing and reassuring, bringing a smile to Maribel’s face. Maybe there was a silver lining to all of this. Maybe she had finally found the man she had always hoped to find. Relationships did take some sacrifices, after all.

“Well, then…” Maribel started to say, but the sound of gunfire in the distance immediately cut her off. The boys weren’t dealing with a wild wolf or a cougar.

“What the fuck?” Eva shouted, jumping up and grabbing the handgun off the table. “You take the shotgun. It’s got a better spray. You just have to point and shoot.”

“I thought it had slugs in it,” Maribel said, remembering that much at least.

“I reloaded it,” Eva said, slinging the pack over one shoulder. “We have to get to the rendezvous point.”

Eva kicked the door to the trailer open and hopped out, holding a flashlight in one hand and her handgun in the other. Rowan’s training had been very good. She looked like a cop getting ready to sweep the area. There was nobody directly outside the trailer. The gunfire appeared to be coming from closer to the tree line where Maribel and Eva had first met one another.

“Should we go help them?” Maribel asked.

“No,” Eva said with authority. “They can handle themselves. I have very specific instructions in this situation. We’ll just get in the way. We have to go to the meeting point.”

Maribel followed her. She had never felt more scared in her entire life. Who would want to assault Rowan and Eva like this? They hadn’t harmed anyone, and they were minding their own business out here.

Each step was harder than the last. Maribel was in the middle of a dark field with only the light from Eva’s flashlight to guide her forward. Any second an armed assailant could spring forth from beneath a bit of tall grass and tackle her to the ground or worse.

“Are you sure we’re okay?” Maribel asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Eva shot back. “Stop talking. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention.”

Your flashlight is taking care of that for us,
Maribel thought. But she was grateful they had some light to show the way. It had to be getting close to morning, but it was still pretty dark outside. The moon was vanishing but the sun had yet to rise.

It was the longest walk of her life, but somehow they made it to the tree line on the opposite end of the field. They now had the cover of the trees to protect them. Maribel had never even considered that there could be another team of assailants lying in wait and watching them. By the time they had made it to the tree line their enemies had worked their way behind the trees and were completely out of sight.

“We’re okay,” Eva huffed, lowering her gun. Just as she smiled at Maribel, a black figure slammed into her from behind, driving her to the ground. Maribel screamed, but another figure jumped out from behind a tree and grabbed her, forcing her to drop the shotgun.

Eva was screaming and trying to fight the attacker off, but he was too big and strong for her to get loose. Eventually he got tired of her struggling and grabbed the rifle that he had been carrying off the ground beside him and drove the butt into the base of Eva’s skull. She immediately went limp and quit struggling.

“You asshole!” Maribel screamed. “She’s pregnant, you son of a bitch!”

Maribel knew all the statistics about trauma causing a miscarriage, but they were all jumbled in her head along with the rage she was now feeling.

“Tell it to someone who cares,” the attacker said, standing up and looking at Maribel. “You’ll get the same if you don’t shut your goddamn shifter-loving mouth.”

The men were decked out in black fatigues and bulletproof vests with black ski masks covering their faces. Whoever they were, they were well-trained paramilitary.

Fuck,
Maribel thought as the word paramilitary floated through her head. The identity of the assailants was becoming clearer to her by the second. Why the fuck had he targeted them? How had he found them? Maribel glanced down at her watch and snorted. It wasn’t to call for help, it was to track her right to Rowan’s trailer.

“There’s the boss now,” the man that had hit Eva said.

Maribel turned to see a helicopter flying over the trees. Its floodlight was shining down on the field, illuminating everything for Maribel. She still couldn’t see Seth and Rowan; they were still fighting the team that had been sent to distract or kill them. Maribel wasn’t sure what their exact purpose was.

The military chopper hovered close to the spot where they were standing as one of the three assailants shone a laser into the sky to indicate their location. Finally it began to descend, and set down gently on the field close to them. The one who had hold of Maribel shoved the barrel of his gun into her back and forced her to walk toward the opening doors. The other two picked Eva’s limp body up and dragged it to the chopper.

Maribel was unceremoniously dumped on the floor of the chopper and Eva was thrown on top of her. She heard the door close behind her and before she could even get out from under her pregnant friend’s body, they were rising into the air.

“They shouldn’t have treated you like that,” a familiar voice said. “That wasn’t part of the plan. I asked them to extract you, not kidnap you.”

“Fuck you,” Maribel growled, settling into the seat across from Jacko. “You’ll burn in hell when Mr. Sokolov hears about this.”

“Hears about it?” Jacko asked, smiling back at her. “Who do you think authorized this little strike?”

“You lie,” Maribel said, feeling the bile rising in her throat.

“Do I?” Jacko asked. “Guess you’ll find out soon enough. My boys should be finishing off your boyfriend and Rowan right about now. You’d better learn to get along, Maribel. I thought we were friends. Remember?”

Maribel leaned over to the chopper window as a brilliant explosion went up in the tree line where Seth and Rowan had been fighting. The trees were ablaze and a second explosion went up just as she screamed with realization. It felt like someone had ripped part of her heart out as she watched the burning trees get smaller on the horizon.

“Seth,” she whimpered. “My god. No.” She loved him. She hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but in this moment, with the flames killing her hopes and dreams, she realized how much she cared for Seth and how much she loved him.

She turned back to Jacko with hate in her eyes. The animal was still smiling back at her from his seat—the smug asshole.

You’ll pay,
she thought.
You did this. Nobody else. You’ll pay ten times over.

“Don’t give me that look,” Jacko said, shaking his head. “I know you have his scent on you, but I can easily replace it with my own. I’ve taken quite a shine to you, Maribel. This one on the floor isn’t too bad either.”

Maribel pushed herself back against the seat she was sitting in, trying to sink into the seat so Jacko couldn’t get to her. He was coming toward her with that same predatory gleam in his eyes. She closed her eyes and turned her head as she felt his hot breath on her face.

“Don’t be scared, my little queen,” he whispered. “Jacko’s going to take good care of you.”

Maribel could only scream as his mouth opened and a long, slender tongue that no human should have snaked out of his head and licked her cheek, leaving hot, sticky saliva on her skin. Jacko wasn’t human, but he wasn’t a were either. He was something much more dangerous and she was trapped alone with him.

Please, Seth,
she thought as he growled an inhuman growl that didn’t resemble the sound of any living animal on the planet.
Please be alive.

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