Joey lifted the rifle and drifted forward, light as the gentle snowflakes that had begun to fall. The sound and scent of the men assaulted her, but their noise masked her approach so thoroughly that she breathed silent gratitude for their blatant disregard.
The last concealing screen of trees fanned across the top of the gentle rise. She pressed herself against the trunk of a grandfather fir, listening, forcing her heart to slow. Adrenaline made her legs tingle, with infinite care she rounded the tree and took in the tableau.
She knew the men at once. She recognized the blond ringleader and shuddered; they were the same roughnecks who had harassed her by the lake. Their attention now was turned to far less defenseless prey. Joey’s heart nearly stopped.
He crouched at bay with his back to a copse of trees, huge and magnificent even as his blood burned steadily into the torn snow at his feet. His ears were laid flat to his skull, his eyes like chips of green ice; Joey stared at Luke and felt each wave of pain and fury as if it were her own. The men had fanned out in a half-circle with Luke at the center, they cursed and snarled at each other like a snapping pack of mangy dogs.
“Just shoot it and be done with it!” Joey knew the voice, though the man’s hair was covered by a knit cap.
She pressed back into the tree and tried to still her trembling .The rifle was a leaden weight that burned through her gloves like frigid fire.
“If you hadn’t ‘a screwed up by missing the first time, it’d be dead already!” another familiar voice snarled.
“If you put more holes in it, the pelt won’t be worth a damn,” a third man complained.
“I don’t give a damn about the pelt.” The others fell silent at the fourth man’s words. “I want this wolf dead, and as many others as we can find. That’s what we came for.”
Joey stared at the leader. He stood closest to Luke, a rifle tucked under his arm, she could smell his hatred and feel the vibrations of it without seeing his face. “Particularly this wolf,” his rough voice growled. “So no more playing around.”
As if in slow motion, Joey watched him shift his rifle and raise it to his shoulder.
“Hold it right there.” She heard her own voice crack the sudden hush. Her feet carried her into the little clearing of their own accord, her rifle trained on the leader’s head. “If any of you move, I’ll kill you.”
The stunned silence that followed echoed Joey’s astonishment at the cold-blooded fury that had overwhelmed her. She walked among them without fear, and they fell back as if from some dire apparition. One of the men shifted, Joey froze and tightened her fingers on the trigger. “I mean it,” she said icily. She watched the leader’s eyes widen as he focused on her, saw him scan the faces of his companions.
Joey stopped a few feet from the leader and met his startled gaze. The chill rage that filled her had swept her mind clean of anything but the matter at hand, she stared into the man’s vicious little eyes until he dropped them. “Put it down,” she commanded as his hands tightened on his rifle. “Put it down now!”
Again the man looked aside, swept his eyes over his friends in indecision. “You’re outnumbered, little lady,” he muttered ominously “If you make one move…”
“If you make one move,” Joey interrupted, “you won’t be around to see what happens next.” She took another step forward, so that the muzzle of her rifle was only inches from his chest. With a soft curse he dropped his weapon into the snow and slowly raised his arms.
“I put it down, see? Now why don’t we talk this over, nice and friendly.” His eyes slid sideways, his face was twisted into the mockery of a smile.
The growl warned her. Before one of the other men could slip up from behind, she had the muzzle of the rifle pressed into the skin at the base of the leader’s neck. Her breath caught with suppressed violence. “You think I won’t do it?” she said very softly. “Tell your friends to back off and put their weapons over there, behind those trees. Now.”