Page 18 of Watch Me

When we found a window, Fin got up on his hind legs to peer into the broken pane. He huffed in annoyance and dropped back down. Lifting up to look in for myself, therewas an old tractor and a single wooden chair in the middle. But no Channing. She might have been there earlier, but she was gone now.

My wolf was annoyed that the trail ended here. At least she wasn’t left tied-up outside, I told my wolf.

Fin was sniffing at the ground in front of the barn and I rushed to join him. He seemed to be on her trail, but he was also more exposed on that side. The barn had a floodlight and faced the main house, so I stopped short at the edge, waiting to see what Fin would do.

Was he oblivious to his exposed position? Maybe he didn’t care with Channing so close. Fin continued getting closer to the house and I went wide to avoid the lights, watching his progress.

Channing’s scent did appear to be getting stronger as we moved closer to the house. I could hear men snoring, and a TV on low from somewhere inside. Fin stopped outside of a side window as the motion light went off again.

Fuck. He was right in the spotlight less than ten feet from the door. Whining low in my throat, I wanted to run to him and push him back to a safer position. Instead, Iwatched in horror as the door swung open to reveal one of the twins.

“Well, well. What d’we have here?” The inebriated redhead drawled and tumbled out of the door. He caught himself on the hand rail and laughed to himself, and I could see he was the unscared one. Zed. “Look who’s tur-ess-pass-in’ now?”

Growling at the idiot from beside a tree in the shadows caught his attention and his head snapped up.

“How many are you?” Zed asked in the darkness, looking in the wrong direction.

Shifting quickly, I stayed hidden and called out, “More than your drunk ass can handle. It’s not trespassing when you kidnap one of ours!”

This set Zed MacTaryn off laughing again. Did he forget we beat the two of them last summer when they came on our land?

“Give us Channing King,” I called out, interrupting what was likely the result of being high.

“No, you owe us an omega,” he yelled back as if that was a real thing, and I noticed he didn’t sound so drunk anymore. Damn shifter metabolism. “We’re keeping her!”

“The fuck you are,” I mumbled to myself and shifted back.

Chapter twelve

Fin

HearingRicky’svoice,asafe distance back, both relieved some fear and terrified me. He wasn’t in view of the twin who walked outside when I’d triggered the motion sensor. I felt like an idiot and only had a moment to be glad Ricky had stayed back before he appeared. He wasn’t the scared one from our fight last summer. No, that was Zac who I owed a beating for how he hurt me on pack land.

The reason I still had fear running through me was the idea that Ricky was out here naked and in his human form instead of in his stronger wolf body. He had a full on argument by yelling from behind a tree while I moved back from the man who could shift into a bear at any moment.

Even if Ricky could take most people in human form with his fighting skills, his wolf was much smaller than a bear. Also…Drunk shifters didn’t stay drunk. He’d be sober and angry, ready to defend his territory.

Plus, he wasn’t the only bear in the house. I watched in horror as two men came out to see what all the yelling was about, flanking Zed on the rickety front porch in nothing but ragged boxer shorts.

Three bears against two wolves. Zac and Zed were alphas, and I could smell that this older, dark-haired guy was a beta.

We beat them last summer, but that was with Alpha King backing Ricky and I up. I didn’t like our odds.

Growling under my breath, I knew I had no choice. Channing’s scent was all over the driveway and leading up to the door. They brought her here, and we weren’t leaving until she was safe.

Worried about a certain beta wolf, I placed myself between the men and where I knew Ricky was hiding. A vague memory that bears had an even better sense of smell than wolves hit my conscious mind, and I hoped the lingeringcampfire smoke hid some of Ricky’s scent. They hadn’t seen him, and he’d made noise as both a wolf and human. For all they knew, there were three of us.

“This will be fun,” Zac said, the scar on his face making his grin pull in a grotesque way.

A human would have died from the head wound, he was just left a little disfigured. Going down onto his hands, his body started rippling as his orange body hair spread to cover his growing body with red fur. He was the size of a grizzly bear, and the scar was present on this body as well, standing out from the corner of his mouth to under his eye.

His twin shifted beside him but the other man didn’t. I’d heard they had very few in their pack who could shift now. Whether this guy could or not left my mind when Zac lunged for me. His paw missed my head by inches as I hopped back to avoid the blow.

The growl in my throat was met by an echoing one from behind me. As much as I wanted Ricky to stay out of the way and safe from harm, I was glad to have him as backup.Fowler King was our Alpha, but Ricky had a lot more practice with fighting.

Ricky and I backed up as the bears advanced on us. The third man ran back inside, and I hoped it wasn’t for reinforcements. Two-on-two was more doable.

Away from the house, we were in a flat, open area. The light from the moon and the barn had the space lit up. If anyone was in the house, they’d have great seats.