Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(37)

“Hey Justin,” Danny snarled, straitening up, holding his stomach. The smile fell from his face as he said, “I want her to burn as queen. Turn her.”

“No!” she screamed as Justin leapt across the length of the room. She couldn’t get the gun up fast enough; there wasn’t enough time. The moment slowed as she lurched backward under his weight. She could see every detail of the wolf’s face, every hair, every color deviation in his furious, ice-blue eyes. Every sharp tooth aimed straight for her.

And then the word ended.

That’s all she could think of to explain the explosion that blasted her sideways. The sound of her house detonating like a bomb was deafening, and she screamed as she hit the wall and was showered in debris. The smoke was so thick, so thick. But the air was clearing as the smoke billowed out of the hole in the side of her house.

The grizzly took up so much space as he shredded the wolf that had almost killed her. Danny didn’t exist anymore as a red wolf launched onto Bryson’s back. The dark chocolate bear was relentless in his fury. He took the fight through the next wall, demolishing her home. The roof sagged. She would be crushed. “Bryson,” she whispered. The pain in her body was melting away, replaced by a creeping coldness. The only feeling that remained was a pulsing ache in her jaw and neck.

Shock. This is what shock felt like, right? Her chest of drawers was lying across her legs, but she couldn’t move to lift it off her.

The bear spun and took his massive paw to the red wolf. The animal went flying, slammed against the wall. Bryson cast a look at her, and she could see it in his gold eyes—the rage, the viciousness—and something more. Fear? He roared so loud it rattled her eardrums. Under the plumes of smoke being sucked out of her room and into the night air, a man struggled through, tripping on the boards and sheetrock and splintered furniture. Wes.

He reached her and savagely yanked the dresser off her. It landed several yards behind him under the sagging, creaking ceiling. That thing was gonna go any second now with no support beams under it.

“M-my home,” she whispered. She squeezed tears out of her eyes so she could see him clearly. There were flames behind him, trickling up the walls, creating an inferno.

Wes knelt in front of her, patting her legs, her arms. “Everything will be okay, but we gotta move,” he demanded low.

“Where’s Hunter?” she asked.

“Hurt. Can you walk?”

“I can’t feel…I can’t feel…anything.”

Wes’s frost-blue eyes narrowed at the throbbing ache at her jawline.

Her stomach churned, and she arched over the pain. Then something awful rattled through her body—a growl.

She looked up to lock eyes with Bryson’s bear. He hadn’t gotten here in time, and he would never forgive himself. She knew him. He would never stop replaying this moment in his head. The room started spinning slowly. Flames and wreckage and Wes. And Bryson. Her Bryson. Her heart. The one. There hadn’t been enough time. She’d just found him. Just found happiness. This wasn’t right, wasn’t right at all.

More tears fell from her eyes as she struggled to only look at him. His gold eyes were filling with realization as he stepped through the wreckage, his massive paws crushing everything in his wake. The wolves on the floor weren’t moving. Good.

The slow spinning room sped up. Smoke, smoke, fire, reaching for them. Wes was picking her up, freeing her from the mess on the floor. Her neck was on fire. Maybe the flames had already reached her. Spinning, spinning, faster and faster. Gold eyes. Just hold onto the gold, but darkness was shattering her vision on the edges.

“You were enough,” she croaked out, using the words he had to save her. Her face crumpled, it hurt so bad. “Nothing is your fault.”

And then all that remained was his gold eyes and darkness.

And then nothing at all.





Chapter Seventeen


“AaaaaaaaaaahhhhhHHHHHHHHH!!!” Bryson’s roar turned to a hoarse scream as he forced the Change.

Fire was licking at his body as it burned through the floor, and sheetrock from the failing ceiling rained down around him. He could still taste the blood of the wolves.

In Wes’s arms, Maris was folded. She’d given him absolution before she’d gone limp. He was enough, and this wasn’t his fault.

“Wes,” he called, the scratchy words feeling like gravel against his aching throat. Everything hurt after a Change.

In the single moment that Wes looked at him, the answer to Bryson’s unspoken question was written all over his face.

No. No, no, no, it couldn’t be. No man could be that cursed. No man could be unlucky enough to go through this twice.

Rage and defeat warred within him as he followed Wes out of the hole Bryson had ripped into the side of the house. He coughed, expelling some of the smoke from his lungs and ran to catch up.

The cuts on her jaw were dripping a steady stream of blood as her head bounced across Wes’s arm. “Maybe it’s just cuts from the battle,” he whispered in denial.

The roof caved in with a monstrous crash, shooting fire so close the heat blistered against his back.

“It ain’t, and you know it,” Wes murmured, ignoring the billowing inferno behind them. He stopped long enough to ease her head to the side, and that was enough for him to see. There were black tendrils stretching from the cuts down her neck.