Blaze held out his hands defensively to the four armed men. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
The spitter laughed and cocked his shotgun. He fired a shot straight up in the air like a lunatic in a bad action movie. Seriously. Had the Order of Salem just taken all of their cues from bad action movies made in the nineties? Plaster fell from the ceiling, landing around the gathered witch hunters. One of them coughed. What had he thought would happen? That there would be no repercussions for shooting straight up above his head.
The man didn’t seem to realize how ludicrous he looked. He pumped his gun again, this time aiming directly toward Blaze. Astra bristled, but she knew that if she made a single move, the shot would get her. So far, the Order of Salem had no idea she was hiding behind the bar, and she knew she had to keep it that way to keep the element of surprise on her side.
All she had to defend herself with was the fact that no one knew she was there, her tiny paring knife and her magic, which really wasn’t all that impressive in a fight. She had trained to attack, but without any real gusto. There was very little need to learn offensive magic anymore. The Bishops and all of the other witches focused more on learning magic that made life better for those around them.
If the Order of Salem knew that, would they still be attacking?
Astra couldn’t know for sure, but she was pretty certain this wasn’t even about the existence of magic and witches and shifters anymore. These men were hiding their own obsession with killing and blood behind the self-righteous mask of trying to protect the world from people different than them.
It made Astra mad.
The shifters and the witches alike kept to themselves. They didn’t hurt humans. For fuck’s sake, Astra had even tried to heal Mrs. Gellar of all of her aches and pains with Reiki. Hadn’t the old woman felt better after her sessions?
“Don’t fuck with me, freak,” the spitter said. “We all know that witches are real. You have one of them hiding somewhere here, we know. And we know that a bunch of you are wolves. You creatures all chose to align yourselves together. We’re going to wipe you out of existence before you can try to take over the world.”
Blaze shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m a bar owner. That is clearly not the life plan of a man who wants to take over the world.”
The shot rang out, but it didn’t cover the man’s loud, frustrated grunt.
“Don’t be giving me attitude,” the spitter warned.
From her vantage point, Astra had seen the shotgun pellets just narrowly miss Blaze as he ducked out of the way. Thank fuck the man had wolf senses, or he would have been lying on the ground, bleeding out before the fight even began.
“Look,” Blaze said. His hands were still up. “You really don’t want to do this right now.”
The men laughed in response to Blaze’s words.
“But we do,” one answered.
And there it was.
The proof that Astra was right. These were just killers who held on to whatever cause they could to give into their bloodlust. They were the real monsters. Not the witches, and not the shifters.
Astra watched in fascination as Blaze shifted into his wolf. The fur was a beautiful gray, and for a second, she wondered if that’s why the bar was called Gray Wolf, because that was the kind of wolf the family was. There was no time to ponder about it more.
Blaze launched himself onto one of the men, the spitter. His jowl was wide open and his features set in a terrifying look. He landed straight on the man’s chest and took a good chunk of the spitter’s shoulder clear off. The smell of blood was intense, but not as upsetting as the man’s painful cry.
The other three aimed their guns at their fallen buddy, but there was no way they could shoot. If they missed, they would get the injured man. Blaze seemed to have caught on to that, because he remained firmly planted on the fallen man’s body.
“Shoot,” the black-haired man yelled. “If you get Bobby, it’s too bad. We knew dying was a possibility.”
“You do it,” the bald one gripped.
“Pussies,” the third one, a roly-poly looking mother fucker. He pointed his gun at the wolf and fired.
It all happened so fast that Astra wasn’t able to see if it actually caught Blaze or not. There didn’t seem to be any blood on his fur, but it was hard to tell.
“Take care of the beast,” the doughy one instructed as he walked farther into the bar.
Astra gripped the knife and took a deep breath. She had literally brought a knife to a gun fight. Blaze had told her to keep the magic as a last resort, and this felt like a last resort sort of situation.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Blaze
Fuck.
What the hell was going on?
Blaze had ordered that four wolves keep guard over the bar’s perimeter. Where were they? He’d definitely heard a gunshot and he was positive he had heard a wolf howl. It wasn’t possible that a bunch of crazy humans with guns would have managed to kill his four wolves. Fuck. Those men had families and people who loved them. If they had been killed, Blaze would feel guilty until the day he died.
There was no time to call for backup as he watched the men coming for the bar. He gave Astra his phone and gave her strict orders to get the hell out of there to call Carson. He didn’t like giving his mate actual commands, but it was all in the name of her safety. She would have to deal with it. He’d apologize to her later, if they survived.
The four men barged into the bar like they owned the place.
Inside of him, his wolf was howling, tearing at his skin, desperate to take control of the situation. Blaze tried to soothe the animal with the promise of a fight. First, he had to see what the men knew. If they had attacked his wolves, it was entirely possible they knew about the existence of shifters.
One of the witch hunters shot his gun into the ceiling. Blaze had the wild thought that he should kill that one first. He didn’t want to do that in front of Astra, and he wasn’t sure if she had actually left the bar.
“Look,” he managed to say through gritted teeth, “you really don’t want to do this right now.”
But, of course, these men absolutely wanted a fight.
Blaze had no choice. He would have to take on four armed men and see if he could best them. It took put a few seconds to shift into his wolf form and launch himself at the shooter. His wolf was vicious in his attack. His jaw closed around the man’s shoulder and his mouth filled with the nasty taste of blood. Blaze knew his wolf had taken a huge chunk of the man, and his death would be quick as he bled out from the artery in his neck.
The man beneath him wouldn’t make it, that was for sure. Blaze could only hope that if he kept himself on the body, the other witch hunters would hold off on shooting.
But that wasn’t at all what they decided to do. These men had no sense of loyalty toward each other. They were disposable, and that made Blaze and his wolf furious.
A bullet missed him, but only by a few inches. Blaze pounced on the shooter, knowing full well that the other two men could decide to open fire at any time. His wolf was completely in control his action, and he didn’t even have time to think about how he could potentially lose the life he had always wanted merely because he was outnumbered.