Shit.
In a minute, they’d start spraying the place with bullets. He and Mackenzie would never survive that much firepower in this small barn.
Gage pushed himself up to his knees and took aim around the support post he was using for cover. Both gunmen had taken up defensive positions similar to his, which didn’t leave Gage with much of a target. But he had to shoot. Every second he wasted gave the bad guys more time to shoot at them.
He leveled his Sig and squeezed the trigger. He was pretty sure he grazed the guy, but he didn’t have time to check. The moment he fired, the second shooter immediately emptied a full magazine in his direction.
Gage felt a bullet hit his right shoulder, then another clip his left leg. He ignored the white-hot flash of pain and adjusted his sights on the second gunman. He caught the guy just as he was reloading, putting two rounds in his chest. Then he turned his attention back to the first guy to find him lining Gage up for the kill shot.
Gage squeezed off a round in the man’s general direction, praying it found its target. Unfortunately, it was about half a foot above the shooter’s head. It made the man flinch and jump out from his hiding place, though. That was all the opening Gage needed. He put the gunman down with a shot dead through the center of his chest.
Gage waited for the four men outside to rush in, guns blazing. Maybe they’d figured things hadn’t gone according to plan. They probably thought Gage had killed their buddies and was waiting for the rest of them to come in so he could do the same to them.
They had no way of knowing Gage had been hit twice, but neither shot was life-threatening for a werewolf. Right now, he was more concerned with the fact that he only had two rounds left in his Sig—and four gunmen still waiting outside.
“Oh, God. Gage, you’re bleeding!” Mackenzie cried.
She caught his arm, trying to pull him down with her. He resisted, keeping his gaze trained on the door. If the bad guys came at them now, he wasn’t going to have many options. But he’d protect Mackenzie, no matter what.
“Gage,” she said. “You’ve been shot.”
If he thought her heart had been beating fast before, that didn’t compare to how it was racing now.
He glanced at her. “I’m okay. It’s just a graze wound.”
“Let me see,” she insisted.
“Not now. The rest of those assholes could come in here any second and I’m almost out of ammo.”
That got her attention. “You’re not carrying another magazine?”
He shook his head. God, what he wouldn’t give to get his hands on those two machine guns lying on the ground on the far side of the barn.
It’d be crazy to try it, though. The men outside knew those weapons were there, too. Going for them would require him to step directly into their line of sight. In his human form, he wouldn’t be fast enough to pull that off without getting hit a lot. And contrary to pop culture, you didn’t need a silver bullet to kill a werewolf. A good old-fashioned lead one would do the job just fine.
But what choice did he have? If he could have shifted, it would have drastically improved his odds, but with Mackenzie here, he couldn’t do that.
Gage tensed, ready to sprint across the barn, when he smelled smoke. “What the hell?”
The men had set fire to the barn. If they couldn’t come in, they were going to burn him and Mackenzie out.
Shit.
He jerked around to see flames creeping along the walls behind them.
“Gage, the barn’s on fire.”
Mackenzie’s voice was much calmer than it should have been in a situation like this. She was even filming again. No doubt about it—she was crazy.
Or maybe she didn’t realize how screwed they really were. The men had started the fire to drive their prey out of the barn. They were standing out there with every weapon pointed at the entryway and the weapons lying on the floor in the opening. When Gage made a move for them, they’d take him out before he even had a chance to pick them up.
And then they’d come for Mackenzie.
But if they stayed where they were, they’d roast. And Mackenzie would still be dead.
His mind raced at a thousand miles an hour as Mackenzie began to cough. There was a third option. A way to take out the men, or at least distract them long enough for Mackenzie to escape.
He was going to have to shift. He might still not survive the hit he was going to take from their automatic weapons, but Mackenzie would be safe. And that was what mattered.
But if he did this, everything would change—no matter how it turned out.
Gage took the camera out of Mackenzie’s grasp to let it hang by its cord from her wrist, then he gently pushed his pistol into her hand. “I have to get rid of those guys before this whole place goes up in flames, and there’s only one way to do it. And it’s going to the scare the hell out of you.”
She tried to push the gun back into his hand. “Gage, what are you talking about? How can you get those men without a weapon? It’s…”
He didn’t know if she had been about to say it was crazy, or stupid, or impossible because she started to cough from the thick smoke rolling off the back wall.
He wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip and curled her index finger in the trigger guard. “This is going to be hard on you, but you have to do it, no matter how scared you are. I need you to count to five, then follow me outside. You only have two rounds. If there’s anyone left out there when I’m done, you need to make those two rounds count. Do you understand?”
She coughed again, tears running down her
