Page 15 of Forged Alliances
A whiff of an unrecognizable scent caught her nose, and she followed the trail, circling around to the back of the house. She navigated with the stealth afforded to her kind, the silent approach of a wolf. Bypassing the vinyl siding, she reached the edge where the yard sprawled, shared by several properties. Sierra stuck to the shadows, ignoring the way her veins jittered with anticipation of a brawl to focus on the hunt instead.
No one stood watch as she’d expected.
Sierra crept to the back, trying to ignore the shouts and yowls coming from inside. The fresh-cut grass overpowered most of the scents around this place, but a hint of something tinny caught her attention. Her snout trailed along the ground as she soaked in the rich loam of the dirt below, the smells causing her nose to tingle. The urge to fight thrummed through her stronger than ever, but it now warred with a sense of wrong, one she couldn’t quite place.
Feet away, something metallic glinted in the grass.
Sierra padded forward, each step cautious. The closer she approached, the more the scent filled her nose—metal, decay, and something unidentifiable. The moonlight illuminated the object, making her stop still in her path. Pipes bound together with an electric fuse on the end and a timer attached.
This wasn’t a negotiation in the slightest. This classified as either outright annihilation or a trap.
Those bastards had brought pipe bombs.
Rage burned fiercely inside Sierra’s chest, followed by dread. That thing could explode at any moment while Dax and the others were all inside the house. She nudged the timer with her snout to get a glimpse of the numbers, but without hands, she couldn’t move it to the right angle. Somehow she doubted any of Drew’s men waited around in there, not with the literal ticking bomb out back. She shifted into her human form at once, breaking into a run even before she settled on two feet. The grass slipped beneath her bare soles, but she tossed her hands out for balance, not pausing for a moment as she rocketed toward the door.
The couple of steps creaked under her feet as she raced up them before colliding with the door. It gave under her force with no effort, presumably left open by whatever bastard had sneaked out to leave the surprise. Inside, growls lit the air as Dax hunched over in the main room, shifted to two feet as he worked at slicing the bonds of a family who’d been bound, husband, wife, and their three kids. Ally had pitched in, but Sierra’s wolves were nowhere to be found. Chances were, like her, they’d taken inventory of more immediate concerns. More houses marked this stretch.
“Don’t bother untying,” Sierra commanded, her voice filling the room. “Get them as far away from this house as possible. There’s a pipe bomb out back.”
The word itself detonated in the thick air, a serious threat unable to be ignored. Dax’s eyes widened, his nostrils flared, but rather than wasting breath responding, he got straight to work. Sierra rushed up and grabbed one of the girls, who couldn’t have been older than seven. The little guy by her side had already been untied, and his other older sister grabbed his hand.
“Follow me,” Sierra said. The little boy looked up to Dax, who nodded in confirmation as he lifted the mother, carrying her across the threshold of the house as they headed for the door. Ally finished sawing through the cord keeping the father bound. Sierra didn’t look back, already heading for the door with her precious cargo. Ugly burns wound around the skin where the cord touched, and the second it scraped against her skin, the area sizzled where a residue imprinted. Bastards must’ve coated the cord in colloidal silver and bound them while wearing gloves.
Anger ripped through her in a wildfire blaze that they’d threaten this family, that they’d torture and try to kill children. That the cowards would defy the Tribe rules of fighting by the claw and fang. Guns and bombs were human weapons, dishonorable to shifter-kind.
She burst out the front door with the children. Based on the way the pipe bomb pricked her nostrils, the explosive was ready to blow.
“Keep running until you reach the cars,” she urged, giving the oldest kid a push. The girl tugged on her little brother’s hand, guiding him forward to keep running on their own. Sierra’s claws flashed out quick as she snipped the final cords binding the girl in her arms and set the kid down before nodding ahead. Once the patter of feet sounded behind her, she whipped around.
Right in time to see the house explode into flames.