Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,105

stopped the instinctive move of raising the gun. In that moment of distraction, Joshua had closed the distance between them without making a sound.

He might be human, but he’d been raised by the Panthergard and was, in his own way, just as much a predator as the terra indigene. That was something she couldn’t afford to forget.

“Yes, she’s mine,” Jana replied.

He nodded. “She stayed close. Would have died if you hadn’t been a good predator, but she stayed close.” He met Jana’s eyes. “Loves you.”

She swallowed hard. Did his being an Intuit make his certainty more powerful? “Your arm?”

He held up the left arm and gave her a feral smile that made her shiver. From wrist to elbow he wore a quilted sleeve over his shirt. Thick, puffy thing—slimmer than the suits officers wore when training dogs for police work, but it had done the trick.

“Might have bruises,” Joshua said as he considered the arm. Then he shrugged.

A Wolf howled again.

Jana sprang to her feet. Only one Wolf howling—and many terra indigene flying toward the spot where the Wolfgard had fought the dogs.

“Jana!” Barb ran toward her from the direction of the diner, then skidded to a stop when she saw the dogs. “Oh.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh.”

“They were enemies,” Joshua said, his voice hard.

“I know, I know.” Barb wiped the tears off her face, then paled as she stared at the bloody, clawed glove on Joshua’s hand and understood what it meant.

Looking at Barb’s face, Jana understood the dogs weren’t the only thing that had died on the square that morning. She wouldn’t be surprised if the stack of romances about the wild man tamed by love were quietly returned to the book-sorting room.

“Barb,” Jana said softly.

Barb sniffed. “Is Rusty okay?”

“Yeah. Can you take her to the office for me? I need to check on Virgil and Kane.”

“Sure.” Hooking a couple of fingers under Rusty’s collar, Barb led the pup to the sheriff’s office. Joshua watched her go but didn’t follow.

Jana holstered her gun and ran to the other side of the square.

* * *

* * *

With a furious snarl, Virgil tore out the throat of the last enemy. Then he howled.

We are here. A message to the other terra indigene who had joined the fight as well as a message to the Elders. We are here.

The Wolves had needed to meet the enemy pack, so he’d ignored the gunshots coming from the building where the horses lived. And he’d heard another gun being fired in the square. He needed to find the rest of the fighters, but first …

Virgil leaped over the bodies of the dead dogs to reach his brother, who struggled to stand on three legs. Kane’s left hip was ripped and bloody—was still bleeding.

Standing next to Kane so his brother could lean against him, Virgil howled again—this time, a cry for help. In the wild country, the Wolfgard would have licked the wound to clean it, would have found the safest place for a packmate to rest—and if their pack didn’t have a bodywalker who had learned how to set bones and close up wounds, they would have hunted for their wounded, starving themselves if game was scarce.

But here the Wolfgard were too few, and the dogs had been many, despite the Wolves receiving help from the Sanguinati.

“Virgil? Kane?”

Virgil watched Jana as she ran toward them, as Tolya Sanguinati headed toward them.

They were few, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a pack.

Movement coming from the side. Virgil turned his head and snarled.

Tobias Walker, his gun still in his hand, stopped moving. Raising one hand, he carefully holstered his weapon.

“Anyone hurt?” Tobias asked.

“Kane,” Jana said. “Gods, he’s bleeding.”

Her voice sounded … strange. High. Not like the wolverine who challenged him all the time.

“I called the vet for another reason,” Tolya said. “He’ll be at his clinic now.”

“My truck is at the livery stable,” Tobias said. “I’ll throw a couple of blankets in the bed for padding. We’ll get him there.”

“I have the official vehicle,” Jana said.

“Let Tobias Walker drive,” Tolya said.

Something in the Sanguinati’s voice warned that there would be no discussion—and that made Virgil look closer at the wolverine. No blood on her. He hadn’t noticed her having trouble moving. But Tolya recognized there was something not right about her. He couldn’t put a word to what he sensed, but he agreed.

Tobias ran to fetch the truck.

Even using the terra indigene form of communication, Kane sounded weak.