Page 66 of Cold Foot Croc

“Okay, we can’t take you into town right now,” Sasha explained. “I don’t want you out there while Garret is this worked up, and we can’t leave the safety of Wreck’s territory. They’ll push to be around if you’re in the hospital. I don’t know who the police would back if it came to that.”

“I want to have him here,” she gritted out. “I want the jackals to go away. I don’t want any of his people anywhere near me or my baby.”

There was yelling outside. Wreck? Kade was at the front window, eyes on the scuffle, but Raynah couldn’t read anything from his expression.

“Hey,” Sasha said, cupping her cheeks. “We have work to do, okay? We’re the team in here. You and me, and Timber,and Katrina, okay? Kade will keep everyone else out. Garret and Wreck will handle what is happening out there. They are a team on that, but in here? It’s a big day for you and that baby boy, okay?”

“I was learning to hope,” she whispered raggedly to Katrina. “This one is mine. This one is for me. I’m his mom. I want to keep him safe.”

Katrina’s eyes were full of determination as she nodded. “Keep that hope. Over all of our dead bodies will they get the baby.”

“They are not taking the baby,” Timber uttered. Her eyes were the bright-blue of her polar bear. Truth. She could hear the truth in Timber’s voice. “Not now or ever.”

“Nope,” Sasha murmured, looking her straight in the eye. “Not now or ever.”

“Not now or ever,” Raynah whispered, trying so hard to believe it.

“Are you ready to work?” Sasha asked.

Raynah bit her lip to halt the trembling there.

She nodded as a tear streaked down her cheek.

“I’m ready to work.”

Chapter Fifteen

“You good?” Wreck asked.

Garret sat on the stairs of Raynah’s porch, staring at his clenched fists. The rage hadn’t ebbed.

“Garret?” Wreck tried again.

He swallowed down the growl in his chest, unclenched and clenched his fists again. Blood trickled from the stupid bite marks on his forearms.

Fuckin’ jackals. He would teach Maybe-Billy-Jack to fight better than those assholes.

“I’m fine.” His voice came out sounding like he’d swallowed glass though.

“I would’ve done the same thing, just so you know.” Wreck sat beside him on the stairs and looked out to the woods.

“I should’ve killed them all,” he gritted out.

“No, what you did was better.”

He gave Wreck a sideways glance to see if he was serious.

“You showed them you have control. You left scars on them as reminders. You fought them within an inch of their lives, but let them keep the lesson. You just told that entire Pack that if they ever come for that child, they will have to get through you. And if they did get through you, by some freaking miracle, then they would have to get through the rest of the Crew to get to Raynah, who is scary as hell on her own.” Wreck chuckled. “That was the first time I’ve seen her worked up. I bet she’s a monster when she Changes.”

Some of the fury ebbed inside of him as he thought about the heaviness that had emanated from her when she was locking eyes with those jackals. When she locked onto a target, she was hard to shake, and there was no fear. Harold had played withfire, and then burned alive with it. A strange sense of pride filled Garret’s chest just remembering the prehistoric rumble that had come from her when she’d figured out why those jackals were here.

“I should be in there,” Garret murmured.

“Nope. Those women are on it,” Kade said from where he and Cash were sitting on the porch furniture. “Like a well-oiled machine in there.”

Another sound of pain rang out, and Garret stood, unable to stay still. He slapped his head three times to keep himself from Changing again. He wanted to be here for Raynah.

“You’re doing good,” King rumbled from where he was leaned against the porch railing. The giant gorilla shifter looked back at where the Land Rover had disappeared with the Jackal Pack. “That one guy looked just like him. He must’ve been the Jackal’s twin or something. Psychos.”

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