Movement off to the right caught her attention. She lifted her head a little, expecting to see the rest of the Pack, but instead it was Roscoe Patterson. Something glinted in the glow of a distant airfield light—a gun.
And he was aiming it at Gage.
Without thought, Mac grabbed the pistol from the ground, somehow getting both hands around it on the first try, then instinctively aimed it like Gage had taught her. She squeezed the trigger as smoothly as her thundering heart would allow.
The boom from the thing was deafening, but that was nothing compared to the shockwave that reverberated through her. She’d planned to fire a second shot, but found herself sitting on her ass, the gun somewhere on the ground. She threw a quick glance in Patterson’s direction as she frantically searched for the weapon and was stunned to see him lying on the ground. He wasn’t moving, and in the darkness, she could see the big stain slowly spreading across his chest.
Oh, God. She’d killed him. She’d done it to save Gage’s life, and would do it again if she had to, but still…
Gage ran over to check anyway. He sniffed the body once, then loped back over to her. His eyes searched her face, as if asking, Are you okay? She sank her fingers in the fur around his ears, tugging him closer. Then, she wrapped her arms around his neck again and buried her face in his scruff like before.
She might have cried a little then—she was doing a lot of that these days—but she couldn’t be sure. Gage didn’t seem to mind. He simply rubbed his muzzle against her face and let her hold him. God, she could really get used to doing this.
After a while, Mac realized she couldn’t hear gunshots anymore. That must mean it was all over. She prayed the rest of the Pack was okay.
She pulled back to find Gage appraising her with questioning eyes. She smiled at him.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, but he didn’t look convinced. “They didn’t hurt me.”
That seemed to appease him. He nuzzled her neck with his huge snout and chuffed quietly.
“Yes, I love you, too,” she said with a soft laugh.
If someone had told her that one day she’d be carrying on a one-sided conversation with a werewolf, she would have called them crazy. But as she gazed into Gage’s expressive eyes, she decided that maybe the conversation wasn’t one-sided after all.
She ran her hand over his fur. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
He chuffed again in answer, then jerked his head toward the hangar. It took her a moment to realize he wanted her to follow him. When she nodded, he began walking that way. Now that Gage was here, the pain in her knee didn’t seem as bad as before and she fell into step beside him, admiring how graceful he was for a creature so big. It was like walking with a pony.
They hadn’t reached the hangar yet when she heard the sirens approach. Inside the building, Gage stopped beside a pile of something on the floor. It took Mac a second to figure out what she was looking at, then it struck her.
“I never thought about that. You’re naked under all that fur.”
It probably should have been obvious, but she hadn’t actually thought about it until now.
He chuffed again. Not once, but three times. When his big, red tongue came rolling out, she realized she was hearing the werewolf equivalent of a laugh.
“What? You think that’s funny?” she asked, as she crossed her arms and looked at him. “Wonder how much you’ll be laughing if the cops show up and find you standing here naked after you turn back into a man—I’m assuming you are planning to change back before the cops get here, right?”
Now it was her turn to laugh as she got to see what a werewolf looked like when he blushed.
Chapter 14
“You still working on your story?” Zak asked, gesturing to her laptop as he slowly sat down at the picnic table where she’d been parked for the last fifteen minutes enjoying the unseasonably mild day and the very pleasant view of Gage and his pack playing volleyball with their shirts off.
She was never going to get tired of that.
Mac dragged herself away from all that eye candy to turn her attention to her friend. Zak had been out of the hospital for a full ten days, and he still looked beat-up. The swelling around his eyes and mouth had gone down, but it would take time for the bruises on his face and body to heal completely, and he was going to have to baby those broken ribs of his for weeks. She just thanked God he was up and about. Judging by the pile of food on his plate, his appetite was finally coming back, too. That was a relief. He was tall and lanky at the best of times. She was pretty sure he’d lost at least ten or fifteen pounds since Hardy’s goons had beaten the crap out of him.
“Yeah,” she said in answer to his question. “But I’m having a hard time coming up with a story that won’t get Gage and his men into hot water—or me for that matter.”
Zak glanced up from cutting his burger into small pieces. “I can see why you might have a problem with that. It’s kind of hard explaining how the SWAT team came to your rescue on their own, killing Hardy and most of his men before the rest of the DPD even knew where they were.”
“And don’t forget the part about me shooting Patterson,” she added. “I’m pretty sure that little tidbit doesn’t even show up in the official police report.”
He laughed, then winced.
“Sorry,” she said.
He waved a
