Best Friends (New Species #15)(116)

It helped her calm down to picture Lash in the attic. He was tall, and the ceiling up there wasn’t. He’d have to probably slouch a bit to reach the stairwell to the second floor—

“Shit.”

“What?” Mel asked.

“Remember the stairs to the attic? You went up there with me at the beginning of summer to help me look for that chest of picture albums my mom wanted to show you, from my childhood.”

Mel did seem to remember. “Crap. I hope he fits.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s an old house with quirks,” Mel answered. “Think tiny, steep space to get to the third floor.”

Mary worried that Lash would get his big body wedged and stuck on that stairwell. She barely managed it at times. Her parents never went up there and always sent her. As a kid, it had been fun. As an adult, not so much.

Minutes ticked by in her head, dragging on forever. “What’s going on in there?”

“I still don’t know,” Mel whispered back. “I’m right here with you, though. Have faith in your man. He looked determined, and my money is on him.”

Regret hit Mary hard. What if she lost both of her parents and Lash? She should have told him no and kept him with her. She couldn’t lose all of them. Her stomach churned, and she swallowed down the bile that rose. The threat of puking was real.

There was suddenly a muted roar.

Mary jolted and her knees almost gave way. Mel kept her up, and she chose to pretend the two big hands that gripped her hips from behind belonged to her best friend instead of Mel’s husband. Snow was just trying to help.

She watched the house, looking for any indication of Lash, but all the windows remained dark and covered. The lights around the house were still on, showing the porch and the side of the house. None of the windows broke and nothing came crashing out of them. It also hadn’t been a gunshot. She counted that as a good thing.

The sheriff suddenly stood and lifted his blowhorn. Brass grabbed him and yanked him back down. They seemed to be arguing with each other but she couldn’t hear it. Just Sheriff Cooper waving his free hand around enough for her to spot him in the house lights. Her gaze locked back on the house.

Her heart pounded when the door was suddenly thrown open and she saw…

Lash. He dragged a much smaller man out and just dropped him on the porch with a loud thud.

“Come get your bad human,” he bellowed. Then he spun in his loincloth, slamming the door closed as he went back inside.

“Holy crap!” Mel blurted.

Mary tried to run forward but Snow’s hands on her hips tightened, and Mel refused to let her go. Sherriff Cooper got up and ran toward the house with his deputy. Brass went with them. They jogged up the few porch steps, and she couldn’t see the downed man once they blocked her view. Instead, she watched as the deputy reached for handcuffs on his belt.

A masculine chuckle startled Mary.

“I asked Lash not to kill the male. He listened. They wouldn’t be restraining the wrists of a dead body.”

She didn’t look at Jaded Wild but she tried to jerk away from Mel again. “They got him. Let me go.”

“Not yet,” Snow ordered. “There could be more of them.”

“There’s just the one asshole,” Mary argued.

“Let Lash make sure. You promised him to stay here.”

She wanted to fight with Snow but figured it was pointless.

The men on the porch were lifting up the asshole who had kept her parents hostage. Then the asshole was shoved forward by Sheriff Cooper and Deputy Tommy. Each of them had a good hold on his upper arms, his hands secured behind his back. They brought him down the stairs, and he was walking on his own. Limping, actually, all the way to the sheriff’s car. They put him in the backseat.

“Where are my parents? Lash?” Mary desperately wanted to go inside the house.

Brass seemed to try to enter the house, but he was stopped by the closed door. Then he knocked, pounding on it with his fist.

“Why isn’t he going in?” Mary needed to know what was going on.

“How would I know? I’m standing right here with you, Mary.”

“Sorry, Mel.” She turned her head, giving a pleading look to Jaded Wild. He seemed to outrank Snow. “They have that asshole secured in the patrol car. Can I go now?”

“No. Wait. There could be more males we don’t know about.”

“You heard that gunshot. What if one of my parents are hurt?”

“Mary!”

She snapped her head toward the sound of Lash’s voice.

Her eyes lit as he rounded the back of the house—and it took her a second to realize that he had something over both shoulders, his arms hooked along the back of…

Her parents’ legs. He was carrying them.

“He’s got them,” Mel gasped.

Snow released her and rushed around them. So did a lot of other New Species. At least a dozen of them darted out from around the barn, booking it toward Lash as he causally kept coming at her with her parents slung over his shoulders. There were ropes twined around their bodies that she could see even from a distance, from their ankles, over their pants at the calves, behind their knees, around the backs of their thighs, and even across their asses.

Mel’s hold on her loosened, and Mary took advantage, yanking free and running. She almost tripped but caught her balance. New Species met Lash and tried to take her parents from him, but he snarled at them.