With an inhuman roar I shifted. The roar changed to an angry howl as I now stood in front of Wilmington on four feet. His eyes went wide as he was suddenly faced with a massive snarling wolf. He started to back away slowly. My wolf stepped forward with each of his steps back, tracking our prey. With a frightened scream Wilmington spun around and ran.
With another howl we gave chase. The fucker was quick, I'd give him that. But we were faster. With a leap we jumped onto his back and took him down. He tried to get back up and we bit down on his leg, tearing through the muscle and rendering that leg useless. He screamed and rolled over, swinging the knife, trying to get free. We dodged the knife and sank our teeth into his wrist. He screamed again and the knife dropped to the floor as our powerful jaws crushed bone.
"Please… please don't kill me. I'm sorry. I won't touch her again. Please. I promise."
We growled and snarled, his blood dripping from our muzzle. He could read his death in our eyes and his face changed to one of insane rage. He surged up and grabbed our head and tried to wrestle us to the ground. It was unexpected and he managed to get us to the floor. Our back claws raked down his torso, ripping him open. He didn't even notice as he was trying to get a grip on our throat to choke us. We kicked out with our back legs and sent his body rolling away from us. Quickly we bounded up and clamped down on his throat and jerked our head back, ripping his throat out. Blood sprayed and with a gurgle, Wilmington died.
We gave a howl of triumph. He was dead and our mate was safe. Suddenly, fire lit up our right shoulder. We whirled and saw another human with a gun. That fucker shot us! We growled and ran at the human, dodging as he tried to shoot at us again. We leaped and sailed through the air and landed on the human, our teeth in his throat, as another bullet ripped through our middle. We were in pain, but one thought kept us going. Protect our mate.
Once the human was dead, we listened for any other humans nearby. The only ones we could hear were the allies we had outside. We could hear our mate screaming for us and we limped to the door. We couldn't leave her in distress. The lot fell silent as we slowly limped out the door, then fell to the ground. We had lost blood and now that the fight was over our injuries were making themselves known.
"Oh my god! Deacon! Oh, please Goddess! Deacon!"
"He's gonna be ok, Zoe. I promise."
"How the fuck do you know, Jericho Williams?! He's covered in blood, and he's wounded. Now let me fucking go so I can go to my mate!"
Zoey screamed at Jer and slammed her head back into his chest and, in the shock of her attack, his grip loosened and she was able to jerk out of his arms. She ran to us and flung herself down to the ground where we had collapsed. Tears cut through the dirt and blood on her face.
"Oh god, Deke. Please be ok." She took our head and laid our muzzle in her lap. Gently she stroked our head with her broken hand. "Please. Please be ok. I need you to be ok so I can tell you how much I love you, how much I need you."
We licked her hand as Ash came close and rested his hands on her shoulders.
"He's gonna be fine, sweetheart."
She was sobbing. "How do you know, Ash? There's so much blood."
"Pack bond, remember? Yeah, he's hurt but he's already healing. He's just tired. We panicked when we heard you were taken, and he hasn't rested since then. He's been on high alert for a while and that takes energy. Now let's get him to the truck so we can get you bandaged up and then we can all go home."
Ash looked at Taylor and his team.
"Torch it, Taylor. Wilmington disappears tonight."
"You got it, Asher. And just for my own piece of mind, I'm gonna hang around the house for a few days. On the outside of course. And Miss Zoey, if you don't mind, I'd like to follow you for a few days when you go out. I just want to make sure Wilmington didn't have any accomplices that may want to take up where he left off."
"Good idea, Taylor. Are you ok with that, sweetheart?"
"Yeah. I appreciate that, Taylor. It makes me feel better knowing someone's watching out for me. Especially when I know who that person is."
"I'll bet. We got this covered here, Asher. Take your family home."
We held still as we felt Jer pick us up and carry us to the truck. Zoey slid in the back seat and Jer gently laid us next to her, our head in her lap. We finally relaxed as our mate was safe and was touching us. With a final lick of her hand, we let the healing darkness wash over us as we passed out.