Suddenly, Jaxson threw himself on top of me, crushing me with his weight. Though I struggled, he wouldn’t budge. He grunted, and then shouting and snarls erupted around us. With my cheek pressed into the dirt, I couldn’t see anything.
“Stay down! We’ll lead them off” Jaxson hissed, and then he launched off me.
I glanced up. Jaxson and Sam were gone in a burst of gunfire.
A man screamed, and the sound of gurgling made me sick. I clamped my palms to my ears, fighting back the vomit in my throat. Then the shooting shifted away from me.
I peeked through the crack beneath the fallen trunk. Blurs moved through the trees on all sides. And then a canister landed ten feet away, spewing smoke.
It was the hotel attack, all over again.
Howls and shouts echoed around me. My lungs clenched, and I coughed as the gas filled the air. My eyes watered, and my skin stung.
Wolfsbane.
A man with a gas mask darted through the forest. The bastard!
I fired off three shots. The man stumbled but regained his footing. With the fog, the darkness, and now the smoke, I could barely see well enough to aim.
Screw this. I scanned the forest ahead and ran forward. I wasn’t waiting for Jaxson.
I shielded my nose with the sleeve of my jacket and wound through the trees. Apart from the occasional gunshots and snarls, the forest was eerily quiet.
Light shone from ahead, and I headed toward it. I ducked behind a bush and peered through the foliage at a rustic cabin. A single bulb illuminated the outside. How the hell this place had electricity all the way out here was a mystery.
Movement in the trees beside the cabin caught my attention. Wolves—and Jaxson. They surged forward, and my heart seized. Something about this felt wrong.
Floodlights flicked on, casting a blinding light in a hundred-foot radius around the cabin.
No!
Machine gun fire peppered the ground. I dropped as bullets flew overhead, lodging in the trunks of trees around me.
Psycho bastard prick.
I glanced through the bushes. Two wolves were down, and I didn’t see Jaxson or Sam. More wolfsbane canisters soared through the air.
We were trapped.
43
Jaxson
A bullet hit Regina in the leg, and she went down.
Fuck.
It was probably silver. The bullet that had lodged in my shoulder screamed every time I moved, and the wound wasn’t healing. At least they weren’t hollow points.
One of Billy’s men skulked through the trees ahead. I surged forward and ripped out his throat with my claws. I tore off his gas mask and tossed it to Sam, who ducked behind a tree beside me. “Put this on.”
She tied her hair back. “I can’t believe he’s using wolfsbane on us!”
They’d used it in the hotel attack, but I’d assumed it had been the sorcerer. The fucking nerve of Billy to use that against me. After how my sister—his mate—had died. My body shook with rage, and my claws felt like they were going to tear out of my hands. The bastard had gone too far.
I was going to rip out his heart.
Stooped low, I charged forward, ducking from tree to tree amidst bursts of gunfire. A scream rang through the forest behind me, and I ground to a halt behind a log while bullets flew around me.