Page 44 of Bold Mercy

Chapter Twenty-Three

It wasn’t the vampires that came to Shadowfield—of course it wasn’t. It was still daylight, though the cold skies were overcast and the day was dim, the vampires would be sleeping. Maybe a few odd test vampires had attempted to brave the sun, but we never saw them, not that day.

It was the humans who came to Shadowfield, but it was the vampires who sent them.

They snuck in and stood in a line with their guns, and they shot everything that moved—man, woman, or child.

They shot the wolves.

It didn’t matter that they shot us. They didn’t shoot us with silver and though they would hurt us, they wouldn’t kill us, the bastards. Not most of us, anyway. But there were humans among us.

Zach. Joe. Lucy.

“They found us,” I whispered. It was every wolf’s nightmare. I allowed myself to grieve for five seconds before I put my sorrow away, and then, there was only rage.

I strode toward the humans, navigating the people who’d fallen in the startlingly abrupt carnage. Though all wolves were born with an innate sense of self preservation and would never, ever shift in front of humans, some of them were so badly damaged that if they didn’t soon shift, they might never completely heal.

There must have been around thirty humans, mostly men, dressed in leather and draped with belts and guns, and I understood their fear and their anger, truly I did, but I could have happily killed them all, and would have, had my mother not intercepted me. She saw the blank killing rage on my face, and she knew me. She knew what I would do.

Jared, Eli, and all his warriors stood before the crowd of humans, their hands empty, attempting to talk with them, despite the danger of the guns. Zach stood with them, which froze my heart, because he would die from a gunshot.

Then Joe and Lucy ran across a yard and straight for the humans, like they could stop them. Like the humans wouldn’t kill them simply because they were alike. “No,” I screamed. “Get the fuck away. Lucy, inside!”

I should have spent more time with her. That’s what I kept thinking.

“Kait,” my mother yelled, ramming me from the side. “No, baby. Do not let them see you.” She put her arms around my waist and held on for dear life, even as I attempted to free myself from her grip. My mother was strong, and I was her kid. She wasn’t letting me go, not easily.

I spotted her guy as he hurried toward his alpha. He saw my mother, hesitated, undecided, so I helped him make up his mind. “Nigel,” I called, and he would not mistake the command in my voice. “Get her.”

She was not stronger than he was, and though she might not forgive him and he had to know that, he took her away from me. Dr. Hayes and his nurse hurried across the grounds, both of them carrying medical bags.

It was so surreal that I could almost believe I was dreaming, had not the blood been so red and the gunshots so loud.

Jared turned and saw me coming, and he held up a hand to stop me. To tell me to stay where I was, where it was safer, because even though I was a wolf, I was his wolf, and he would not see me hurt.

The humans were calming down—maybe because their violence had not been met with violence, and even though he was a wolf’s alpha, he was still an alpha, and they subconsciously responded to his quiet command. A powerful enough alpha could make it so a human wanted to obey him.

Also, the wolves didn’t scream or shift or do anything else the mob of humans expected werewolves to do.

I was ten yards away from the alpha when one of the humans lifted his gun and shot him. Shot him in the back of the head, the son of a bitch. I didn’t scream, either, because wolves did not scream in front of humans. We went about our suffering quietly, and we killed them just as quietly.

Lucy screamed, though, and her voice was the catalyst to restart the hysteria in the terrified humans. One of them turned his gun on her, and it was like time slowed down. Just as it had in the club.

And just as it had in the club, my power exploded inside me, stronger than ever. Out of control. Huge, red, and dirty. Kait the woman didn’t really want to kill a human. Kait the psycho wanted to kill them all—and she was in charge now. My demon blade was suddenly in my hand, and I went after the humans.

I killed the man who pointed his gun at Lucy, just as his finger was tightening on the trigger. I killed the man who shot my alpha, as well. I ripped the rifle from the man who aimed it at me even as he scrambled away, and I killed the man who attempted to empty his handgun into my body.

The rest of them scattered, a screaming mass of terrified assholes, and they ran. Some of them dropped their guns in their rush. I let them go, but I felt the pounding of doom in my chest. More humans would come. The police would come. Men were dead.

And I had killed them.

Shadowfield was done.

Joe strode to me and took my blood-spattered face between his palms. “Kait,” he said. “Kait. Come back.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant until I lifted my hand to push him away and saw only fur. Silver, white, and blue fur, and lethal black claws. Low growls floated from my mouth, and I realized I was a wolf. But I was a woman, as well. And God only knew what else. I was power, and magic, and beast, and woman.

“Come back,” he murmured. “Jared needs you, honey.”