The Wolf Marshal's Pack (U.S. Marshal Shifters 3)

Colby crashed back.

He launched himself forward again, biting and snarling.

I can take you both on. Two against one, when my mate is on the line? That’s nothing.

One of them knocked him through the air, and he felt the heavy wood of Aria’s coffee table crack under his weight.

They were wrecking her house, but he couldn’t think about that. Those were human thoughts. They didn’t matter now. This was a fight between wolves.

And I’m the alpha.

He projected the thought at the Hebberts as hard as he possibly could. It would come across in whatever language their wolf bodies instinctively used with each other, in a rush of pheromones and ear twitches. Maybe they wouldn’t get his exact words, but they’d get the spirit of the thing. Wolves had their own way of talking.

And he had no problem forcing them to hear him.

Back down. Back OFF. This is not your territory. They are not your prey. They are not your pack.

You will not hurt them. I won’t allow it, and I’m bigger-stronger-faster-smarter. I’m ALPHA, and you’re going to STAY AWAY FROM MY MATE.

It was impossible to say whether he was winning or not. Their wolf forms were hefty and their teeth were sharp, but he had instinctual, protective fury on his side. His opponents were still capable of feeling pain. Colby was miles beyond that.

He knew, distantly, that one of the wolves had locked his jaws around the scruff of Colby’s neck. He knew one of them had dragged him down to the ground and pinned him for a second or two. He knew he was bleeding.

But he didn’t care. None of it mattered.

He snapped his teeth at one of the brothers, landing a hit.

By now, the house stank of wolf. Neighborhood dogs had caught their scent on the wind, and Colby could hear a distant chorus of howls.

It stirred something in his blood, like they were cheers of the crowd. They would be on his side, if they could understand; everyone knew you had to protect your mate.

He and the Hebberts had become a kind of whirling Tasmanian devil, a hurricane of teeth and fur rolling around the room. The floor and ceiling swapped places almost at random as Colby bit and got bitten.

And then all of a sudden he heard a noise his human mind knew intimately, even if his wolf ears had never heard it before.

It was the gentle click of a gun’s safety being switched off.

“Don’t move.”

Aria’s voice was shaky, but her hands were rock steady as she aimed the gun at the Hebbert brothers.

“Don’t you move a muscle. I have silver bullets.”

Werewolves had a minor silver allergy, but a rash was the least of anyone’s concerns when they’d been shot. Really, silver bullets only hurt werewolves in the same way regular bullets did.

But they didn’t spread that around much. It was handy to have people think that killing you would be really hard and really expensive.

But the fact that Aria had thought to threaten them with silver bullets at all—

She knew. She knew they were werewolves. Everything about Eli Hebbert’s enormous, scary dog had just been a watered-down version of the truth she’d already known.

She had figured it out. She just hadn’t known how to tell him.

And with no more info than that, with knowledge about werewolves gleaned only from this morning, she was still staring down the Hebberts and holding them off. She’d even figured out which wolf was Colby.

She probably thought silver bullets were all that would work, and there was no way she really had any. Not if she’d only gotten dragged into shifter business today. She was bluffing. With her life on the line—with her taking a huge risk for his sake—she was bluffing.

And she looked rock-steady and sure of herself.