Page 110 of Unwilling Wolf

The third wolf was focused on joining Garret’s fight, so he didn’t see her striding forward, pistol aimed.

Boom!

The six-shooter kicked against her tired grasp, but she’d hit him. Screaming in utter rage, she pulled the hammer back again. She had four more bullets after this one.

The wolf was advancing on her, eyes enraged, teeth bared, but he was limping.

These were Jennings’s wolves. She just knew it. They had come for them. They had come for her friends. For her family.

She hated them.

Hated.

Them.

Boom!

The wolf dropped, and she came to stand beside him, cocked the gun once more and aimed it.

It was in this moment, she realized there was a monster in everyone. Herself included.

She would’ve never thought she could take a life, but she’d changed in her weeks out here. She didn’t know if it was for the better or for the worse, but she did know it was for the stronger.

The wolf pushed off the ground and lunged at her in one last effort of attack, but she pulled that trigger on him one last time.

Boom!

The light faded from that wolf’s eyes and Eliza staggered backward, unable to take her eyes off it.

The pistol sagged to her side, and her hands shook badly. She couldn’t take her gaze away from it.

“Eliza!” Garret yelled.

She could hear him coming. Could hear him, but still couldn’t make herself look away.

“Look at me,” Garret ordered. She let out a pained sound and forced herself to turn around.

He was approaching, nary a stitch of clothing on him. He looked bigger, even more muscular. No hat to hide the glowing blue eyes. He had blood all over his chest, and his shoulders were caked with dirt and sweat.

He looked like an avenging angel come to earth.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. He held his hands out like he wanted to calm her down, but she was calm. Just…falling apart on her insides.

“Give me the gun,” he murmured, reaching for the pistol.

The gun? Numbly, she looked at the weapon clutched in her hand, and then back to Garret.

“I killed him.”

“That’s all right. You were defending yourself.”

“Not me,” she whispered, holding the pistol up to look at it. “Lenny. You. Burke. They came for my family.” She lifted her gaze to him, but her vision was blurry now and her eyes burned.

“You done good,” he rumbled in that half-wolf, half-man voice of his.

“Who was he?”

“That don’t matter,” he said, sliding his big hand around the pistol. He gently pulled it from her grasp. “You’ll make a mistake thinking of them as men. Jennings wolves are all outlaws. They’ve all killed, they’ve all stole, they’ve all hurt women. Not a one of them has any value. No families. No one will fuckin’ miss them.”

---