Page 15 of Ranger’s Justice (Lone Star Wolf Rangers #1)

CHAPTER 14

RUSH

T he scent of blood still clings to me, thick and metallic, the copper tang coating my tongue. My wolf is pacing beneath my skin, restless, still locked in the hunt. The shift back to human form was quick, but it hasn’t changed the beast inside me. I pull on the clothing we’d left strategically placed outside the warehouse.

My instincts are screaming at me to stay near Cassidy, to pull her close, to keep her where she belongs—under my protection. But there’s work to be done.

I step back, exhaling hard, dragging a hand through my sweat-dampened hair as I force my focus to the task at hand. Cassidy is still kneeling beside one of the rescued girls, murmuring in a voice too soft for me to hear. The girl trembles under her touch, but she isn’t pulling away, her big, haunted eyes locked onto Cassidy like she’s the first safe thing she’s seen in a long time.

I don’t think any of them saw me shift, but if they did and report it to anyone, someone will dismiss it as a trauma-induced hallucination.

Dalton is already moving, crouching near another girl, offering a bottle of water. “You’re okay now,” he says, voice softer than usual. “We got you.”

Gage moves through the group, passing out granola bars, ration packs, whatever supplies we have on hand. Some of the girls take them with shaking fingers, others don’t react at all—too far gone, too drugged or broken to process what’s happening yet.

I watch Cassidy for a beat longer, something primal settling in my chest at the sight of her safe, whole, still breathing, and offering aid and comfort to others. I almost lost her back there. That bastard had a gun to her head, and if I’d been a second slower… I don’t let the thought finish.

Instead, I head toward Cassidy, resting a hand on her shoulder. She tenses for half a second before turning to look at me, her eyes searching my face. She sees too much.

“You’re alright?” I murmur.

She nods. “Yeah.” Her voice is steady, but I see the way her fingers tighten around the water bottle she’s holding.

“Stay with them,” I tell her. “Dalton and Gage will keep you covered.”

Her jaw clenches like she wants to argue, but she doesn’t. Not this time. Instead, she glances at the girls, at the terrified, broken faces surrounding her, and nods.

“I’ll make sure they’re okay.”

I squeeze her shoulder once, then step back, forcing myself to walk away. My wolf howls in protest, but I don’t have a choice.

There are still loose ends to tie up.

Gideon and Gage are already moving, their weapons drawn, their sharp gazes locked on the path the surviving traffickers took when they fled.

“They’re heading toward the airstrip,” Gideon mutters as I catch up to them, his voice grim. “Running straight into the fucking desert.”

Good.

Gage checks his weapon, then glances at me. “Are we going to hunt these bastards down as wolves or men?”

I flex my fingers, my wolf still riding too close to the surface, but shake my head. “For now, men. We need intel first.”

The three of us move in tandem, our steps silent over the dirt and broken concrete as we track the bastards who ran. They didn’t get far—blood marks the path ahead, a trail leading us straight toward the desert.

I don’t slow.

They’re trying to disappear into cartel territory, to regroup, to warn whoever else is involved in this operation that their warehouse is gone. I can’t let that happen.

The wind stirs, carrying the scent of sweat and fear, and I grin. They’re close.

Gideon signals, raising two fingers. Two men ahead, moving fast. Sloppy. Panicked. They’re not trained for this—not like we are.

“Circle left,” I murmur, my voice barely more than a breath. “I’ll take point.”

Gage and Gideon split off without a word, flanking the runners from both sides while I move straight down the center.

The first man doesn’t hear me coming. He’s too busy sucking in gasping breaths, his boots kicking up dust as he stumbles over uneven terrain. I let him get a few more yards ahead before I move.

I close the distance fast, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him back. He barely has time to let out a strangled yell before I slam my forearm against his throat, shoving him against the rusted shell of an old fuel tank.

His hands scrabble at my arm, but he’s weak—out of breath, out of time.

I bare my teeth. “Where were you headed?”

He sputters, shaking his head. “I don’t… I don’t…”

I slam him harder into the metal. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

His eyes widen, and behind him, the second man makes a run for it. Gideon is on him in an instant. The bastard barely makes it ten feet before Gideon tackles him to the ground, rolling him onto his stomach and wrenching his arms behind his back.

I tighten my grip on my captive, dragging him closer, lowering my voice to something lethal. “Where did you think you were going?”

His throat bobs. “A rendezvous point.”

“What’s waiting there?”

His eyes dart toward the horizon, where the stretch of an abandoned strip of asphalt half a mile ahead. He licks his lips, hesitating.

I press my knee into his chest, pinning him. “I won’t ask again.”

His breath shudders out. “Buyers. Another shipment.”

Ice crawls through my veins. “When?”

“Tonight. Midnight.”

Gideon and Gage exchange a look.

I bring my Glock up and give the guy’s temple a nasty smack—not enough to kill him, but enough to put his lights out for several hours. It shouldn’t take us that long.

Gage chuckles. “Told you we’d get a lead.”

Gideon exhales sharply, shaking his head. “And now we have a bigger problem.”

I glance at the makeshift airstrip. The mission just changed. We weren’t just shutting down a single warehouse. We’re about to take down an entire operation.

The rendezvous point looms ahead, a skeletal outline in the dim light, its crumbling asphalt stretching into the desert like a scar on the earth. The other cartel survivors are moving fast, darting between rusted-out vehicles and stacks of more shipping containers. They think they can escape.

They’re wrong. I drop to a knee, fingers curling into the dry earth beneath me, my wolf pacing just under my skin, eager, hungry for the hunt. Beside me, Gideon and Gage mirror my movements, their bodies coiled tight with the same raw anticipation.

“Spread out,” I murmur, voice low, lethal. “We take them before they get to their transport.”

Gideon’s lips curl in a rare, predatory smile. “Been waiting all night for this.”

Gage simply nods, rolling his shoulders, already sinking into that razor-sharp focus that makes him one of the most dangerous men on my team.

I glance back toward the warehouse one last time. Cassidy is still there, helping the girls into the transport vehicle, her expression tight with focus. She’s safe. That’s all that matters.

I turn back to Gideon and Gage. We undress and I give the order. “Shift.”

Electricity surges through the air like a gathering storm. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as the charge builds, power twisting and coiling inside me like a live wire. The first crack of energy bursts along my skin, a sharp, electric snap, followed by another. The ground trembles beneath us, the desert sand vibrating with the force of what’s coming.

Then it happens.

Lightning flashes—jagged, raw streaks of white-hot energy arcing through the darkness, splitting the air with a deafening crack. The world around us distorts, edges blurring, shifting, collapsing into something unnatural, something wild.

Mist swirls, thick and charged, glowing with shards of color—deep blues, rich ambers, molten gold that dances in the air like embers caught in a windstorm. The shift tears through me, stretching and breaking and reforming all at once. My vision sharpens, the darkness becoming something tangible, every movement around me a pinpoint of clarity.

Then the mist dissipates, and I emerge on all fours. A low, rolling growl rumbles in my chest as my claws dig into the desert floor. My wolf is free.

To my left, Gideon shakes out his new form, his jet-black coat sleek and shiny, his silver eyes gleaming with anticipation. To my right, Gage is already moving, his sleek, gray form silent as he prowls forward, his ears flicking as he hones in on the sounds of our prey.

We don’t hesitate. We move as one, slipping into the shadows, our wolves nearly invisible in the darkness. The cartel members don’t hear us. They don’t see us.

They don’t stand a chance.

The first man is barely ten yards ahead, running full speed toward a waiting SUV, his breath ragged, his pulse pounding so loud I can hear it in my skull. He clutches his rifle like a lifeline, scanning the desert behind him, expecting men to be chasing him.

He never expected wolves.

I strike first, launching at him like a bullet. My teeth sink into his shoulder, driving him forward and spinning him around. I cut short his scream as I close my jaws around his throat and tear. His body convulses once. Then nothing.

I drop him, turning just as Gideon takes out the next. He moves like a specter, silent, precise. A flash of black fur, the glint of fangs in the light, and then there’s a sickening crunch. The man he was after collapses, his rifle clattering uselessly to the ground.

Gage is a blur of motion, lunging at two at once. The first fires wildly into the dark, but Gage’s already on him, his teeth sinking into the man’s arm, twisting, ripping. The second tries to run. Gage lets him get five steps before he leaps, his weight slamming into the man’s back, sending them both to the ground in a heap of snarling, shrieking terror.

I prowl forward, ears twitching, scanning the chaos. One left.

He’s making a run for it, sprinting toward the last vehicle, fumbling for keys, his hands shaking so bad he drops them in the dirt. He curses, scrambles, and for half a second, I almost let him get inside… almost.

Then I close the distance in one bound, hitting him with enough force to send him crashing into the side of the SUV. He screams, scrambling to get away, but I press my massive paw to his chest, pinning him like an insect beneath my weight.

His eyes widen as he stares up at me. He knows what I am now. Knows this is the last thing he’ll ever see.

He opens his mouth—to beg, to plead, to curse. I don’t let him. My jaws close around his jugular.

It’s over in an instant.

Silence once more reigns. The only sound left is the ragged breathing of the men beside me.

The scent of blood is thick in the air, mingling with the acrid stench of burning rubber and gunpowder. The last cartel bastard is nothing more than a cooling corpse at my feet, his glassy eyes staring into the abyss. The others lie scattered across the rendezvous point, their bodies twisted and broken, their blood staining the sand. There are no survivors.

Good.

I exhale slowly, rolling my shoulders, feeling the residual energy of the shift humming through my body. The adrenaline is still there, still pumping through me in hot waves, keeping my wolf close, keeping me on the razor’s edge between man and beast.

But it’s done.

We did what we came here to do. No survivors. No loose ends. We’ll take the unconscious man back and turn him over to the other authorities. We have finished this part of the war.

I turn, locking eyes with Gideon and Gage. Both of them are watching me, their bodies still humming with the residual energy of the shift, their wolves as sharp and deadly as mine.

I tip my head toward the warehouse. Time to go back. They follow without question until we reach the spot where we’d left our clothing.

As we move to give each other more space, the lightning flickers again, the mist swirling at our feet, the world twisting back to what it was before. Our forms shift, and in the space of a breath, we are men once more.

Gideon exhales, pulls on his clothes and rolls his shoulders. “That was satisfying.”

Gage grins, wiping blood from his jaw as he too redresses. “Damn right it was.”

I say nothing, donning my clothing, already moving, already thinking about what comes next. This isn’t over.

The wind kicks up, sweeping through the carnage, carrying the coppery scent of death away into the desert.

I should be coming down from the high of the hunt, from the satisfaction of wiping out every last one of these bastards—except for one—before they could slither back under whatever rock they crawled out from. But something tugs at the edge of my awareness.

A prickle of knowing.

I lift my head, eyes narrowing, instincts kicking in before I even place the source. Someone is watching. Not here—not physically. But somewhere.

A second later, I find it. A flicker of light in the distance, just a glint off a small lens. The tiny red indicator on a security camera hidden amongst the foliage. The live feed. The realization settles in my gut like a slow-burning fuse.

Cassidy—she’s watching.

I don’t move, don’t breathe, as the weight of it hits me.

She saw everything.