Another gunshot was heard, but that one had been different.
He had felt it.
Fire was spreading through his side as his shifter body was already trying to heal the wound. This was an impossible situation, but Blaze knew he had to go on fighting. He should have told Astra that he loved her one last time. Without any backup, his chances of survival were quickly dwindling. He incapacitated a second man by taking the large part of his calf, but it wasn’t enough.
Now it was two armed men against one injured wolf. It didn’t matter that he was a shifter with increased speed and agility. Blaze would just have to fight with everything he had and make sure these men didn’t get to Astra.
“Your kind are just as despicable and perverted as the witches!” one of the attackers shouted, aiming his gun.
Blaze knew that if he lunged for the man, he would most definitely eat lead. He decided to go at him at a run and slide onto the smooth floor and go for the legs. It would have worked, but his claws dragged on the ground, slowing his sliding advance. Blaze took the butt of the gun against his head. He shook it off and snap his jaw at the man’s leg, which made the attacker stumble back.
The other one saw an opening and kicked him in the stomach, way too close to his bleeding gun wound. He whelped in pain and took a few steps back, trying to be methodical about his next strike.
He didn’t have time to plan it out.
Out of nowhere, Astra came barreling toward them with a knife in her hands. It was nothing but a small paring knife, and it shouldn’t have been terrifying, but it was such a shock that it took both witch hunters by surprise. Blaze took his chance and vaulted through the air, jaw wide open. This time, he closed it around a throat and he felt the snap of the man’s neck. Now it was down to only one attacker.
The last standing witch hunter was pointing a gun directly at Astra. He had the small paring knife sticking out of his gut, but it hadn’t done much damage.
“You bitch,” the man griped. “You stabbed me.
“You shot at us, you psycho. What did you think we would do? Just stand there and let you kill us?”
The man shouted, a loud echoing wail and he fired.
Blaze tried to go for Astra, but he wasn’t fast enough. The smell of his mate’s blood filled the air and he wanted to destroy everything in his path. He turned to the man and snapped his jaw on a low, murderous growl.
“You don’t scare me,” the witch hunter said.
Blaze barked and jumped up to close his jaw around the barrel of the gun. The two wrestled. The gun fell to the ground and Blaze was vaguely aware that Astra was crawling on her hands and knees to get to it. He wanted to tell her to leave, to go for away from the bar, but his mate was stubbornly kicking away all of the guns from the last living witch hunter.
It was as good a plan as any.
At least, there was hope. Blaze didn’t know what had happened to the wolves who were supposed to guard the bar, but he would worry about that as soon as he had Astra at a safe distance from the last member of the Order of Salem. He snapped at the man’s heels, luring him closer to the back of the bar. Blaze was going to lock the man in the large industrial-sized freezer in the kitchen until the sheriff arrived.
It was a good plan.
And it would have worked.
It would have.
But more three more witch hunters walked through the front door, guns at the ready.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Astra
Astra couldn’t believe it. She knew she'd been shot. It hurt enough for her to be in a fair amount of pain. She had blood on her hands from trying to apply pressure to her wound.
She just couldn’t quite comprehend why this was happening.
How had things gone from quiet to absolute hell in a few seconds? It was making her dizzy to just think about it.
She was kicking the guns away from the last living witch hunter to make sure the man couldn’t get to it. She wasn’t sure what Blaze was doing, snapping at the man’s legs instead of killing him, but she had faith that her man would have a plan for his actions.
At least, the fight was almost over. She would be able to tend to her wound and to check that Blaze hadn’t been injured. She had seen blood all over his fur, but he had bitten two men in half. Some of the thick red goo on him wasn’t actually his own. He had done that in defense of her.
It would all be over soon and she could eat a deep-fried Mars bar and take the longest shower known to man.
The very last thing Astra expected was for the front door to burst open again. She sure didn’t want to see three more witch hunters coming into the bar with guns drawn.
Shit, where were they all coming from, anyway? It was like a bad action movie where bad guys just kept on coming from every direction. Astra eyed the guns she had, but she didn’t know how to fire them. Had they been hand guns, she would have tried her hand at shooting them. As it was, these were shotguns, and she wasn’t even sure if there were still shells in them. Didn’t those only have two shots? Or were they a one shot? How many had been fired during the fight? Three? From which gun?
No, going with the guns as a weapon of a defense was too much of a gamble.
Blaze had told her to keep her magic as a last resort defense. She looked around the bar, and if this didn’t qualify as a last resort, she didn’t know what did. Besides, she had called Carson and he had to be on his way. She would do a bit of magic, save the day, and the other wolves would turn up in the nick of time to help Blaze. It might not have been a good plan, but it was the only thing she had right then.
Astra ducked under a table as the men circled her. She didn’t know why they weren’t shooting, but she couldn’t focus on them. All of her energy had to go into her magic.
She reached down inside of herself and called her magic. She imagined all of her insides were made of fire. Astra could feel the fire coursing through her veins. She talked to the flames, and she asked them for help. She didn’t just need protection, she also needed a weapon.
Typically, she would have needed a spell, but she didn’t know any spell that could do what she needed in that precise moment. She just kept on calling the fire to her. It was like coaxing a terrified animal, so Astra let loose her temper.
My man is in danger, for fuck’s sake. You will help me, fire. You will defend me so I can help him. Now.
The magic inside of her responded by snapping and crackling like a bonfire.
All of a sudden, the magic wasn’t just a small force inside her that she had to coddle. Nope. It had changed into something else, and it was coming at her fast. It was barreling through her like a speeding train about to run off the tracks. She tried to rein in the magic, but it was too late. She couldn’t get a handle on it.
It felt dangerous.
It felt like her skin would melt right off.
It felt like she was going to explode.
No, she pleaded with the flames inside her. It was too much. She had only asked to be defended and to be a defender. She didn’t want pure destruction.
But she knew it was too late for the magic to listen to her. The magic had turned into an inferno that wasn’t paying attention to her commands. The magic had a mind of its own. It was intent on protection, on destruction.
With horror, Astra watched as her pale white skin turned to an angry red. It looked like fire was leaking out of her. She was nothing more than a volcano now. The only difference was that now, she was going to hurt the people she loved. And she did love Blaze.