Page 42 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)

~Troy~

Savannah, Kalo and I cut a quiet path through the forest, heading towards the border where the Crimsontooth men would meet us. Although we debated taking a larger force for protection, ultimately discretion seemed more important. The fewer people who knew about our reinforcements, the better.

The sun had almost completely dipped below the mountain by the time we reached the rendezvous spot. More than a full day had passed since Kalo installed the barrier around our border, and during that time, no one had gone in or out. Now, that was about to change.

The sounds of the gathered warriors reached us before we saw them. Even doing their best to keep quiet, seventy-five men were hard to keep entirely silent. Feet shuffled in the dirt, people whispered to each other, and the odd cough punctuated the late-afternoon air.

At last, we broke free of the trees onto the beach where the men would cross over, and there they were: a large group of fit, trained werewolves, ready to join our cause. Ready to protect my Alpha, and my mate, and my heart filled with gratitude at the sight of them.

“Hey, Leo.” Savannah raised a hand in greeting as one of the men at the front of the group stepped forward.

I hadn’t met him before, but from context, I could guess he was the pack Gamma, the leader of the delegation.

He had the height of a ranked wolf but not nearly as much bulk as the other man who followed him out of the group, the one Savannah greeted as Darius.

Savannah quickly made the introductions all around.

“Guys, this is Troy from our border patrol team. The Alpha has given him full clearance on this mission. Troy, this is Leo, the Crimsontooth Gamma, and Darius, the Delta in charge of security.

We all exchanged nods of greeting, unable to shake hands with the barrier still in place between us.

“And this…” Savannah gestured with a flourish to the other man with us, the one who stuck out like a sore thumb among the group of rugged wolves, “is Kalo. He’ll be the one getting you in.”

The genie stepped forward and Darius’ eyes narrowed in instant distrust. He and I were going to get along well, I could tell.

Leo, meanwhile, looked like he’d seen a ghost. His face went pale and he blinked so rapidly, I thought he might be about to pass out.

“Are you alright?” I asked him since nobody else seemed to notice his distress.

A muscle twitched in his jaw before he cleared his throat, seeming to regain his composure. “I’m fine. Just eager to get going. How do we do this?”

“I’ll walk through the barrier to create an opening,” Kalo explained. “It will form around my body only, so you will need to pass quite close to me in order to get through. One at a time. Some of you may need to duck.”

His eyes scanned Leo’s tall frame from head to toe, and the Gamma squirmed beneath his inspection. “Darius, you go first,” he instructed. “If you can fit, the rest of us will.”

The large Delta gamely stepped forward until he ran into the invisible barrier, the air refusing to yield to his bulk.

On our side, Kalo walked to the same spot, roughly ten inches of space between them, and stepped through as if there were nothing in his way.

He paused directly in the barrier’s path, creating a bubble through it, exactly as he predicted.

Necks craned in the back of the large Crimsontooth pack to watch as Darius tried to push through the barrier. Hands in front of him, like a mime pressing against an invisible box, he inched closer to Kalo until, at last, his hand pushed through the air, almost causing him to lose his balance.

If the whole thing weren’t so deadly serious, it would have been ridiculous.

Again as Kalo predicted, the spot where the barrier opened up didn’t leave a lot of space for the werewolf to squeeze through, especially one the size of Darius. After making a couple of awkward attempts, his head blocking him one time and his ass the next, Darius let out a growl.

“Fuck it, this is stupid.”

Before any of us could ask what he meant, he reached down to tug his shirt over his head. Once off, he tossed it through the hole in the barrier. His shoes followed, then his pants and underwear, leaving him naked and ready to shift.

Once wolf-sized, he fit through with much less trouble.

“Why didn’t I think of shifting?” Savannah muttered under her breath, and I shot her a sympathetic smile.

“Didn’t occur to me either but hey, look on the bright side. You get your own 75-man striptease.”

She snorted in amusement. “Don’t let my mate know, he’ll never forgive them.”

I wouldn’t like the idea of Amanda standing there watching six dozen fit men get naked either, so I promised to keep it to myself.

In the interest of efficiency, Leo set up a production line where the men would strip and hand off their clothes to someone else, who passed it through the barrier to someone who had already come through.

By the time the men shifted and crossed the barrier, their clothes were waiting for them.

We were making good time and had managed to get almost three quarters of the men through when my wolf stirred restlessly in my head.

Do you feel that? he asked. Something seems…off.

Now that he mentioned it, the area around us seemed unusually still. The birds had gone silent, the usual rustling of small creatures in the underbrush absent.

I scanned the forest we’d come from, looking for any sign of trouble, when the crack of a branch snapped my attention upward.

“Sniper! Take cover!”

The men immediately scrambled, their training kicking in like instinct.

Leo immediately leapt forward and grabbed Kalo, shoving the genie behind him while they made for the relative safety of the forest. Meanwhile, I went for Savannah, pulling her behind a large log on the beach.

With her lying stomach-down on the sand, I covered her body with mine.

They shouldn’t have much of an angle at us, but I winced anyway when shots rang out.

Amanda would kill me if I got shot again.

“Did you see who it was?” Savannah breathed from beneath me.

“No. I just saw an arm and a gun. A hunting rifle, not one of the pack’s defensive weapons.”

“What does it matter what kind of gun he has?”

A few reasons, actually. It meant the weapon was likely to be a private one, which would be easier to trace if we could recover a bullet or two.

It also meant the person shooting at us probably wasn’t one of the pack’s warriors, and the fewer of those we had to worry about turning against us, the better.

Out loud, though, I stuck to one main reason it mattered: “He’ll run out of ammunition soon.”

In fact, I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when the shooting stopped, and I immediately sprang to my feet.

“Darius?”

The Crimsontooth Delta appeared from behind one of the trees at the edge of the woods, ready for action.

“Follow me.”

I ran full speed towards the tree where I’d spotted the sniper in the first place. Realizing he’d been compromised, the man dropped to the ground and shifted, clothes tearing off him as he bolted. I did the same, Darius close behind me as we took our wolf forms and sprinted off in pursuit.

Being from different packs, we couldn’t mind-link, but our training had been similar enough that when I motioned with my snout to the left, he broke off that way while I took the right.

Whoever the wolf was, chances were he would be smaller than both Darius and me, since few wolves were bigger.

We could catch up with our longer strides and come at him from both sides, making escape all but impossible.

Hunter’s paws pounded on the forest floor, leaving a cloud of dirt and fallen leaves in our wake.

The wolf we were chasing panted hard, obviously running as fast as he could, but we were gaining ground.

It didn’t take long until I came up level on his right, Darius in step with me on the left.

As soon as we both pulled ahead, my wolf let out a sharp bark and we both pounced.

All three wolves tumbled together over the rocks and roots, coming to a sliding halt less than half a mile from the pack house.

Got you, you traitor, Hunter snarled.

I mind-linked Savannah. We got him. Is everyone okay there?

He got one of the men in the leg, we’ll get him to the hospital, she replied. Leo and Kalo are bringing the remaining men through. Can you send Darius back?

Will do.

Clamping down on the neck of the captured wolf, I linked him directly. Shift!

Having no choice, he obeyed, the wolf transforming into a naked man I didn’t recognize. I linked Devon for back-up and a change of clothes as I shifted too, quickly securing the man with his arms behind his back.

“Head back the way we came to help Savannah with the rest,” I instructed Darius. “I’ve got him from here. Thanks for your help.”

His wolf gave me a nod before turning and bounding back towards the lake.

I tightened my grip on the captured man’s wrists, barely resisting the urge to shake him. If this was the bastard who nearly killed me that morning, who wanted to kill my mate, I wanted answers. “Are you working for Chad? How many of you are there?”

Despite his predicament, being restrained and subdued with blood dripping from a cut on his lip, he sneered at me. “There’s more of us than there are of you. You should join us while you still have a chance. No one wants that bitch as Alpha.”

I didn’t remember making the conscious decision to punch him in the face, but the next thing I knew, my knuckles ached and he lay unconscious on the ground.

Once we got him to the cells, that would make one less man who wanted to hurt my mate out there, but we still didn’t know how many others there might be, and we were running out of time to find out.