"No!" Ashe shouted, and then somehow, in some way, without ever turning to mist or becoming the bumblebee bat, Ashe was on Winkler's deck and gathering Trajan into his mist. Be careful! He shouted mentally to Marco and Trace, who were still running toward the deck. Ashe had arrived in a blink. Three men in sand-colored camouflage were on the deck, assault rifles in their hands. The bullets that now flew through the broken panes of patio doors flew straight through Ashe's mist. One of the assailants went down. Trace, as a huge black wolf, hit another of the attackers viciously, nearly biting through an arm and forcing the man to drop his gun. The other was now aiming at Trace when Marco hit him as a wolf so gray he was nearly black. Only a patch of white at his throat told Ashe it was Marco.
Winkler, bleeding from a shoulder wound and backed up by Gene and Gabe, who'd also been hit in the right arm and left thigh, raised rifles. The remaining attackers were down in seconds after two shots rang out. Ashe dropped Trajan into a rattan chair as carefully as he could.
"You okay?" Ashe waited for Trajan to open his eyes. The wound was on Trajan's right side and blood flowed sluggishly from the injury.
Winkler was cursing and kicking one of their assailants. He also heard the name Nick. Several times.
"What happened?" Ashe grabbed a towel from a stack the housekeeper kept on the deck in a basket, in case anyone wanted to swim in the gulf. Pressing the towel to Trajan's wound, he knelt next to Winkler's Second.
"Betrayal, that's what," Winkler came to examine Trajan's gunshot wound. "Spencer's dead. Marco, see if you can get Shirley Walker on the phone. One of her wolves works as a nurse at the hospital in Corpus. We need him. Pronto."
"Did they just walk in the front door?" Ashe asked, pressing the towel harder against Trajan's side to curb the bleeding. Trajan grunted in pained response.
"Nick did. Spencer didn't know not to let him in," Winkler cursed again. "Two came in with him and killed Spence. These three came around the back and started shooting into the house. Trajan and I got the two in the house; one of us wounded Nick, too. If you hadn't gotten here when you did, Trajan would probably be gone as well. Thank goodness Gene got suspicious and followed Nick when he left Star Cove."
"Marco and Trace got those guys, I just picked up Trajan before they could shoot him again," Ashe was shaky but didn't want to show it.
"They're on the way," Gabe pocketed his cell phone. Ashe watched Gabe. He'd just lost his brother, in addition to being wounded.
"No more questions right now," Trajan opened his eyes and blinked at Ashe. Ashe nodded his understanding. Marco was on the phone, talking with his father when Trajan passed out again.
The werewolf nurse who worked at the hospital showed up half an hour later, but he couldn't get the bullet out of Trajan until Anthony Hancock rose for the evening.
"My surrogate sire is better at this than I am," Tony muttered, forming a long claw on a single finger. "Hold him down," he nodded at Trajan, who was breathing shallow breaths. The nurse had given him something for pain and washed out the wound, but hadn't attempted to remove the bullet. Ashe hadn't been told to stay away, so he watched in frightened awe as Tony Hancock dipped his claw into Trajan's flesh and flipped the bullet out in seconds. It bounced across the tiled floor of Winkler's media room, coming to rest against an expensive, hand-woven rug.
"Now we can fix this," the nurse sighed and went back to work on the wound. Winkler had been patched up, as had Gabe—those bullets had either grazed or gone through. Ashe knew that feeling, having been shot when he was twelve.
"You all right, Son?" Aedan walked in with Marcus.
"Yeah. Dad, I was never in any danger. We went for a run on the beach—Marco, Trace and I. Mr. Winkler got attacked while we were gone. We just came up at the end."
"Is this the end of it? Do you think there are more out there?" Aedan asked.
"No way to tell," Tony Hancock said. "But we'll certainly look into the matter. Would you like to place compulsion on Nick, so we can get answers?"
"Absolutely," Aedan nodded. Winkler, Tony, Marcus and Aedan all left the room.
"Damn," Trajan sighed.
"You're in no shape to go running after them right now," the nurse said, pushing Trajan back onto the sofa when he attempted to rise.
"Ashe," Trace jerked his head toward the back doors, which were still broken, with glass hanging in shards from the frames. Ashe followed Trace to the deck.
"Get me in there, Ashe," Trace whispered. Ashe blinked at Trace before going to mist and hauling the werewolf into Winkler's private office. Nick was cuffed with silver and tied to a chair when they arrived. Gabe stalked around the prisoner, growling even in human form. Ashe, holding Trace within his mist, hovered in a corner of the room.
"Now, you will tell me everything and you will be truthful about it, won't you?" Aedan leaned down, looking Nick in the eye.
"Yes," Nick said, nodding slightly.
"Who sent you?" Aedan asked.
"Dom Pruitt. He knows you have his boys, Winkler. He says you stole his family. He wants you dead. Paying a lot for it, actually. He said to kill you first and then grab the boys."
"No loyalty, Nick?" Winkler growled.
"Offered a lot," Nick winced.
"What do you think I might have paid to have the information brought to me?" Winkler asked angrily.
"What else did he offer you?" Aedan asked. "What did he promise?"
"Home in Mexico. On the water. Anything else I wanted, in exchange for your head." He stared at Winkler.
"Anything else?" Aedan asked.
"That's all I know."
"Gabe, he's yours," Winkler said. When Ashe saw Gabe pull the pistol from his waistband, he flew straight through the ceiling, dumping Trace on the roof before flying over the waters of the gulf.
"Your father wasn't happy that you took off," Winkler was waiting inside the media room when Ashe walked in just after daybreak the following morning. The patio doors had been boarded up and the blood washed from the deck and the floors inside the house.
"Yeah. I figured," Ashe said. "Trajan okay?"
"He's fine. Sleeping it off. He'll be healed up in a couple of days."
"Where's Nick?" Ashe watched Winkler. Would Winkler lie? His dark eyes never wavered from Ashe’s face.
"Sleeping. With the fishes," Winkler replied. "Shirley sent somebody who has a boat."