Page 56 of Ranger's Justice

He never expected wolves.

I strike first, launching at him like a bullet. My teeth sink into his shoulder, driving him forward and spinning him around. I cut short his scream as I close my jaws around his throat and tear. His body convulses once. Then nothing.

I drop him, turning just as Gideon takes out the next. He moves like a specter, silent, precise. A flash of black fur, the glint of fangs in the light, and then there’s a sickening crunch. The man he was after collapses, his rifle clattering uselessly to the ground.

Gage is a blur of motion, lunging at two at once. The first fires wildly into the dark, but Gage’s already on him, his teeth sinking into the man’s arm, twisting, ripping. The second tries to run. Gage lets him get five steps before he leaps, his weight slamming into the man’s back, sending them both to the ground in a heap of snarling, shrieking terror.

I prowl forward, ears twitching, scanning the chaos. One left.

He’s making a run for it, sprinting toward the last vehicle, fumbling for keys, his hands shaking so bad he drops them in the dirt. He curses, scrambles, and for half a second, I almost let him get inside… almost.

Then I close the distance in one bound, hitting him with enough force to send him crashing into the side of the SUV. He screams, scrambling to get away, but I press my massive paw to his chest, pinning him like an insect beneath my weight.

His eyes widen as he stares up at me. He knows what I am now. Knows this is the last thing he’ll ever see.

He opens his mouth—to beg, to plead, to curse. I don’t let him. My jaws close around his jugular.

It’s over in an instant.

Silence once more reigns. The only sound left is the ragged breathing of the men beside me.

The scent of blood is thick in the air, mingling with the acrid stench of burning rubber and gunpowder. The last cartel bastard is nothing more than a cooling corpse at my feet, his glassy eyes staring into the abyss. The others lie scattered across the rendezvous point, their bodies twisted and broken, their blood staining the sand. There are no survivors.

Good.

I exhale slowly, rolling my shoulders, feeling the residual energy of the shift humming through my body. The adrenaline is still there, still pumping through me in hot waves, keeping my wolf close, keeping me on the razor’s edge between man and beast.

But it’s done.

We did what we came here to do. No survivors. No loose ends. We’ll take the unconscious man back and turn him over to the other authorities. We have finished this part of the war.

I turn, locking eyes with Gideon and Gage. Both of them are watching me, their bodies still humming with the residual energy of the shift, their wolves as sharp and deadly as mine.

I tip my head toward the warehouse. Time to go back. They follow without question until we reach the spot where we’d left our clothing.

As we move to give each other more space, the lightning flickers again, the mist swirling at our feet, the world twisting back to what it was before. Our forms shift, and in the space of a breath, we are men once more.

Gideon exhales, pulls on his clothes and rolls his shoulders. “That was satisfying.”

Gage grins, wiping blood from his jaw as he too redresses. “Damn right it was.”

I say nothing, donning my clothing, already moving, already thinking about what comes next. This isn’t over.

The wind kicks up, sweeping through the carnage, carrying the coppery scent of death away into the desert.

I should be coming down from the high of the hunt, from the satisfaction of wiping out every last one of these bastards—except for one—before they could slither back under whatever rock they crawled out from. But something tugs at the edge of my awareness.

A prickle of knowing.

I lift my head, eyes narrowing, instincts kicking in before I even place the source. Someone is watching. Not here—not physically. But somewhere.

A second later, I find it. A flicker of light in the distance, just a glint off a small lens. The tiny red indicator on a security camera hidden amongst the foliage. The live feed. The realization settles in my gut like a slow-burning fuse.

Cassidy—she’s watching.

I don’t move, don’t breathe, as the weight of it hits me.

She saw everything.

---