Love Her Better (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 4) Page 10

  “Are you sad?” he asked, frowning at the tears that were streaming down her cheeks.

  “No. I’m really really happy.”

  He looked horrified. “Tears happen when you’re happy, too?”

  She laughed thickly. “Come on.” She tugged his hand and led him up the short hill toward her dad’s grave marker. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

  She blabbed on and on with her introduction, but Sam stayed quiet. He stood there, looking down at the grave, his hands clasped formally behind his back. And when it was time to go, he simply said, “I’ll take care of her.”

  Dad would’ve loved it.

  Sam was a man of few words, but the words he did speak were important.

  Dad, wherever he was, didn’t have to worry what became of his daughter.

  Everything had turned out okay.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wake up.

  The wolf’s whisper tickled his head.

  Someone’s…someone’s…someone’s…

  The words echoed and overlapped, and Sam struggled against opening his eyes.

  Wake up, Sam.

  Wake up. Wake up…wake up, Sam.

  Sam startled awake, his eyes adjusting to Cassidy’s dark room in an instant.

  Someone’s in our woods…

  Sam lurched up and placed his hand on Cassidy’s hip. She was safe. Warm. Alive. Breathing deep. “Sam?” she asked sleepily.

  “Everything’s okay,” he lied.

  I smell blood.

  He picked up his phone, and it lit up with the time. Two-thirty in the morning. The scent of blood was getting stronger. A slow boiling rage took him.

  Someone’s in our woods…

  Stifling a snarl, Sam stood and strode out of the room, down the hall, and out to the front porch. He scented the air. Fur. Predator. He knew this predator.

  Narrowing his eyes, he checked through the house to make sure the back door was locked. Not that it made a difference with this monster. He would walk through a wall if he wanted inside bad enough.

  No more free passes. Sam was going to kill him this time.

  He locked the door handle from the inside and shut it behind him. He loped down the stairs and toward the smell.

  Chaos screamed. No, no, no.

  Sam bolted for the barn and whipped around the corner prepared to find a massacre, because that’s what animals like this one did. Chaos was kicking and bucking, eyes rolling as a wolf streaked across the pasture behind his corral. It wasn’t Chaos who was hurt. The horses in the pasture were running full speed, but one was hanging back. Limping bad. Hurt. It was Cassidy’s favorite horse, an old bay named Trinity. She had a chunk taken out of her hind end, and blood was streaming down her back leg. The smell of it filled his head.

  He smiled as he broke, welcoming the pain of the Change. He kept his head, though. He wanted to know why.

  Why had Diesel come here?

  Why was he hurting the animals? For revenge on him? Why? He’d let him go. Sam had set him free from Leif’s control years ago.

  Half-wolf, half-man, full monster, Sam bolted for the fence, cleared it, and hit the ground running on all fours. Diesel had been a good enforcer for Leif, but not as good as Sam. He knew by the way the Wichita had respected him. By the way they spoke about him. Bragged on him as their protection. Their own personal guard dog. Sam had kept them safe from any injury for three straight years, and they had been in countless wars.

  Fucking Diesel.

  Someone’s in our woods…

  I know, Bones. I know.

  He could see Leif’s old enforcer at the edge of the pasture in the trees. The horses were fleeing, scared. They were sticking together. Six of them surrounding Trinity. Good babies.

  Those are ours. Ours to protect. Cassidy loves them so we love them. We love what is hers. We love…we love…

  We love her…

  Diesel would suffer.

  Sam ran through the first layer of trees toward the fluttering movement and skidded to a stop when he realized he’d been tricked. It wasn’t Diesel, but his clothes tied to a branch, dancing in the wind.

  Sam turned and slashed out his claws as the beast barreled into him. Sam threw him off, and the monster slammed into a tree and landed on all fours, his red eyes narrowed at Sam with such hatred. Diesel was half man, half wolf, too, just like Sam, but nearly snow white. Black scars covered his body. He looked just as Sam remembered him.

  Diesel had pegged him with a bite. He was so fast, and he’d planned this. Baited him here and got a good bite in before Sam wised up. The meat of his shoulder was gone, and warmth streamed down his arm. Hurt like hell, but he would be damned if he showed that devil his weakness.

  A snarl in his throat, he stood to his full seven-foot height, his hackles raised and tingling in a mohawk down his spine. “Why?” he asked in a demon’s voice. “Why have you come here? Why have you hurt the horses?”

  “Because that’s what I do.” Diesel’s voice was just as low and gravelly as it had been years ago. “All I know how to do is kill. Kill. Kill. The world smells wrong if it isn’t coated with blood.” Sadness flashed through his eyes before he stood up straight, held out his hands. “It’s all I know.”

  “What do you want?” Sam’s voice echoed through the pastures. “I freed you, Diesel. You were free!”

  “And what is freedom to monsters like you and me? I didn’t have a job anymore. I didn’t have a boss. I didn’t have an alpha. No one told me what to kill anymore. You were Leif’s enforcer for three years. I was his blade for six. There’s no normal civilian life after that. I can’t…” The monster’s red eyes pleaded for understanding. “I can’t stop killing.”

  “Why did you come find me?” Sam asked.

  “I wanted to see if the rumors were true.”

  “What rumors?” he roared, tired of this game.

  Diesel’s pink lips curled back, exposing blood-stained teeth. “That you were redeemable.” He shifted his weight and stepped closer. “That you found your brothers. That you remembered your life before Leif destroyed you. That you found a woman who saw past the devil in you. Did you?”

  Sam backed up a few steps. He didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to feel pity. He had a mission.

  Someone’s in our woods…

  “Did you?” Diesel asked softer. A soft voice from a monster’s lips.

  “I don’t remember much from before. I mostly remember the bad things I did. The blood. The killing. My brothers found me, but I don’t feel enough for them. I did find a woman.”

  Diesel’s shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back against the tree. A monster’s smile took his face, and he looked up at the sky. “If I had been saved earlier, then maybe I could’ve found a woman. Maybe I could’ve had something that kept me good.”

  “You still can,” Sam murmured.

  Those red eyes leveled him. “I’ve killed every woman who has tried to see past the evil.”

  There was truth in his voice, and Sam’s stomach dropped.

  Sam had been redeemable, only by the grace of his brothers and Cassidy.

  Diesel hadn’t stood a chance. There was too much damage.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Death.”

  “Fuck, Diesel. Killing you will drag me backward.”

  “You owe me.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting me live.” He looked down his elongated snout covered in white fur and blood. “I’m asking for mercy. Save me, Sam. Save them. Killing me will save others. In return? I’ve kept what you have here safe.”

  Sam growled. “What do you mean?”

  “I killed the rest of the Wichita Pack. The ones you and your brothers didn’t end were dragging in allies. Planning to end you and your brothers. And Cassidy. That’s her name, right?”

  Horror filled his chest. Horror. It was the first time he’d ever felt fear that he could recall. A vision of Cassidy staring wit
h empty eyes at the stars rippled across his mind. A vision of his brothers, bleeding out in the woods the night Leif had turned them assaulted his senses. No. No. It wasn’t acceptable. If they weren’t okay, he wasn’t okay.

  “I killed them all,” Diesel said simply. “Took them all on and their allies. I kept you safe. I kept your redemption safe. I wished for what you had, and it felt like I was keeping me safe. Maybe you could’ve taken them all, but I didn’t want any more loss for you. You tried to give me a chance to be okay. You freed me from Leif. I didn’t want even one of your people to be hurt, so I killed them. What are a few more black marks on my soul? The only thing I ask for in return? You’re the only one who has ever been able to best me. Kill me, Sam. Put me down. End this. Let me rest.”

  Fuck. Sam’s chest hollowed out. It felt like Diesel had ripped out his heart and held it in front of him. What was this feeling? Empathy? His chest hurt worse than his shoulder. He hated it.

  Diesel smiled. “You’re saying yes. I can see it in your face. My wolf will fight. He wants to live. I’ll hurt you.”

  Sam swayed to the side, testing his weight on his feet. “I wouldn’t expect any less. Earn an honorable death, Diesel.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chaos was screaming.

  Something was wrong…

  Cassidy frowned down at the locked door. Sam was gone, and he’d locked the door behind him?

  And Chaos was screaming.

  She grabbed Dad’s old trusty 9 mm from the table by the door and checked the load. It was loaded. Three shots. She checked the safety and shoved it in the back of her jeans she’d haphazardly pulled on in the dark of her room.

  Something was wrong…

  She ran out onto the porch but couldn’t see anything in the middle of the night out here. She listened but didn’t hear anything that would’ve caused Chaos’s screams.

  She bolted down the stairs and jogged for the corral, her handgun up. Usually she brought rifles out for predators, but this felt different.

  She couldn’t see her other horses. Usually they posted up right next to the fence in the pasture closest to Chaos’s corral. Her mares had a crush on the bad boy. But tonight? They weren’t anywhere to be seen.

  Sam, where are you?

  A howl lifted on the breeze, followed by another, and her blood went cold.

  Two wolves? There was only one who dwelled here, and it was Sam.

  Something’s wrong…

  Another howl lifted on the breeze behind her from farther away. And another. And another. That must be the Kaid boys and a couple of their mates. She bet Bryson’s grizzly was charging this way, too. They were south of her property.

  Fuck, something was so wrong, and Sam’s backup wasn’t here yet.

  Chaos was pissed, she could tell. He was aggressive and angry and wouldn’t stop pacing the corral fence closest to the barren pasture. Those were his ladies.

  Okay.

  Okay! Cassidy bolted for the corral, unfastened the clip on the gate, and flung it open. Chaos screamed again, but he wasn’t pissed at Cassidy. Not at Cassidy. She could tell. Something was clicking between them—some kind of an understanding.

  Something was wrong…

  Someone had come in and hurt their safe place.

  Cassidy wasn’t careful. Not now when Sam was in danger. She grabbed Chaos’s mane and hopped up, slung her leg over his bare back, and held on for dear life because the second she was on his back, he took off like a shot straight out of the gate.

  “Take me to him,” she yelled, holding on as tight as she could to his flowing mane and praying to God she didn’t fall off.

  God damn, he was fast. Chaos was power and speed and a sure-footedness in the dark that matched Sam’s.

  She understood this horse. The anger. The focus. He cared about the mares. He cared about Sam, and she trusted him to take her there.

  “Hyah!” she yelled. She squeezed his sides with her thighs and held onto his mane tighter as Chaos lengthened his stride. He snorted every time he hit the ground. And in between his hooves meeting the earth? He fuckin’ flew.

  Lightning struck in the distance, lighting up the pasture, but Chaos didn’t flinch. He ran faster.

  The small cluster of trees in this pasture was straight ahead, and Chaos was headed for them. Down the fence line, her mares were bolting, but he wasn’t headed for them. He was headed for movement in the trees.

  It took a few seconds for her brain to make sense of the scene before her. There were two wolves, half-turned from man to beast, engaged in such violence it turned her stomach. One was white and scarred. And one was Sam. They were latched onto each other, teeth dug in, claws dug in.

  The Kaids were howling, but they were too far away.

  Chaos skidded to a stop near the war, his hooves sliding through the dirt. He snorted, and she could feel the tension in his body. Chaos was done. He’d gotten as close as he dared, and she slid off fast, fell into the grass.

  “Go!” she yelled at him. If she’d been close enough to slap his flank, she would’ve.

  He didn’t even stop completely, just turned and bolted for the fleeing mares. Good horse. Good boy. Keep our girls safe.

  Cassidy had twisted her ankle when she’d landed, but that wasn’t important now. She stood and pulled her handgun from the back of her jeans, aimed it at the white-furred monster. He was blurring as he and Sam fought. The sound of snarling was the only thing she could hear. “Leave him alone!” she screamed.

  The half-wolf monster with the red eyes disengaged and faced her on all four clawed feet, his terrifying gaze trapping her. And then he launched himself at Cassidy.

  She fired off a shot, and then another, the sound echoing through the ranch.

  “Sam, run!” she screamed.

  Time slowed. The half-changed werewolf’s body twitched with every step as he ran for her. Sam’s half-turned wolf twisted around, and then his claws dug into the ground as he aimed for the stranger.

  She fired off her last shot that hit him in the chest. A tiny explosion of red, but he didn’t slow. His eyes were intent on her. Hungry. Murderous.

  She turned to run, but it would be too late. Too late for her. He was so strong, so fast.

  She tripped, and as she went down, she covered her head with her hands.

  But nothing came for her.

  When she was finally brave enough to look up, Sam’s half-turned wolf stood over the white wolf, who stared at her with dead, red eyes. His throat was gone.

  Sam dragged his eyes from the dead werewolf to her. In a monstrous voice, he snarled, “It’s done. It’s all done.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What in the farfignewton is happening here?” Wes demanded.

  Sam shrugged. “Werewolf fight. What are you doing here?”

  Wes was dressed in nothing. Not a goddamn stich of clothing, not even a fig leaf covering his salami as he rested his hands on his hips. “And you didn’t think to call us? For help?”

  “You showed up, didn’t you?” Sam asked as he stood over the werewolf he’d just killed.

  “You killed someone,” Cassidy pointed out in shock.

  Wes yelled, “There’s no ‘I’ in team, dipshit!”

  “But there’s a ‘me,’” Sam pointed out.

  Wes looked pissed. “As your alpha—”

  “You aren’t my alpha,” Sam reminded him calmly.

  “As your brother!” Wes amended, “I demand you tell us when you are under attack so we can have your back! Jesus! I was scared to death!”

  “You sound like our mother,” Hunter muttered, picking at his thumbnail.

  “You’re all really fast,” Bryson complimented them. “Which is cool! But It’s really hard for a grizzly shifter to keep up with a wolf shifter. Just saying.”

  “I could go for a pepperoni pizza right about now,” Sam enlightened them.

  “You killed someone,” Cassidy murmured again.

  “Yeah, but he wanted to be
killed. He asked me to mercifully put him down.”

  “But…you were biting each other. And your shoulder is bleeding a lot. And he came after me,” she said.

  “That’s why the fight ended early,” Sam said. “Maybe extra cheese on the pizza? Wes? You like extra cheese?”

  Wes was looking at him like he was a psycho. “I don’t even think Pizza Hut is open at three in the morning. Why do you always get hungry when you kill people?”

  “Again,” Sam barked out, “he asked me to kill him.”

  “I have frozen pizzas,” Cassidy murmured, staring at the dead werewolf. “Meat lovers with stuffed crust.”

  Sam gestured to Cassidy. “That right there is why I’m here. She doesn’t bring me problems like you, Wes. She brings me solutions.”

  “I don’t think that’s how love is supposed to be,” Hunter murmured, frowning at the bloody carcass.

  “I meeeean…” Cassidy drawled. “I’m okay with it. But there’s a body on my property.”

  “Oh, we have a supernatural cleaner service. They will fix it by dawn,” Wes mumbled. He looked at Sam. “He’s a half-turn, like you. Is that the other enforcer from the Wichita Pack you banished?”

  “Yup,” Sam said.

  “Huh,” Wes muttered.

  “Huh,” Hunter muttered.

  “Huh,” Bryson muttered.

  “Well, I think it was a great fight. You were very…violent,” Cassidy complimented him, because positive reinforcement.

  “This probably won’t be the last time we have something stupid come up,” Sam assured her.

  “Awesome,” Cassidy said, still staring. “Can we go home now? I think I need to sleep for three days.”

  Wes canted his head at her and narrowed his eyes. “Sam, I have a theory.”

  “Oh, I can’t fuckin’ wait to hear it,” Sam uttered.

  “I think Cassidy will fit in just fine with our pack.”

  Epilogue

  Cassidy placed her hand on Trinity’s neck and eased her backward out of the trailer.