Page 27 of Sins of the Fathers
Grady couldn’t interpret the strangers’ presence as anything but dangerous. Still, firing on humans without provocation went against everything he believed.
A rifle shot splintered the trunk of a sapling near Dawson’s head. Both men dropped and rolled to avoid presenting an easy target.
“The next one won’t miss,” a man’s voice shouted. “Come on out, and let’s have a little chat.”
Grady knew they could run, only to be hunted through unfamiliar woods. With the Mustang held hostage, they weren’t leaving, and this stretch of isolated road didn’t have houses or towns in sight.
“We can hear you just fine from here,” Dawson shouted back, gun cocked and ready. Neither he nor Grady moved closer to the road. “What’s on your mind?”
Another crack of the rifle, and Grady cried out as a shot grazed his upper arm. He clapped a hand to cover the wound and belly crawled to denser cover as Dawson opened fire on their attackers.
Dawson’s first shot struck the rifleman in the shoulder, putting him out of the game. The men fired back, narrowly missing them. Grady gritted his teeth, glad it was his left arm that was injured. He rose just far enough to see and aimed for the knees. Two went down writhing on the ground and clutching their injured legs.
Grady heard Dawson squeeze off another shot, and the remaining gunman staggered, clutching his right arm as he sagged against the truck. Dawson’s last bullet flattened the front tire of the pickup.
“Toss your guns into the ditch,” Dawson shouted before breaking cover. “All of them. If I see you twitch, I’ll shoot to kill.”
He glanced toward Grady’s hiding place. “You okay?”
Grady could hear the worry in his lover’s voice. “I’ll live.”
Once the weapons were out of the way, Dawson walked toward the road, with Grady close behind him. Warm blood ran down the inside of Grady’s sleeve, and his arm hurt like a son of a bitch. He could still move his hand, and the blood wasn’t flowing fast enough to be a worry, so he figured he’d be okay for a little while longer.
“Cover me,” Dawson told Grady and pulled zip ties from his pocket.
“Face down, hands behind your backs. Play nice, and we’ll call for help before you bleed out. Try something stupid, and we’ll leave you to the coyotes. Got a feeling they have a score to settle with you folks anyhow,” Dawson continued. Grady followed his gaze to the HDF patches on their prisoners’ jackets and remembered the murdered coyote shifters.
Once their attackers were tied at wrists and ankles, Dawson took off his overshirt and wrapped it around his hand before he gathered the guns from the ditch, careful not to touch them with bare skin. He loaded the weapons into the bed of the strangers’ truck and turned back to the men on the ground.
“How’d you know we were here?” Dawson asked, holding his gun on them. Grady kept his Sig Sauer trained on the men, unwilling to take any chances. His arm throbbed.
“We figured Kings would show up, so we had a camera in the trees so we could watch and stay out of sight,” one of the men answered. “And sure enough, there you were.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work out quite how you expected, did it?” Dawson’s voice held barely contained anger, and Grady knew some of that fury came from worry about him.
Without ever turning his back or taking his eyes off the prisoners, Dawson stepped closer to Grady. “How bad?”
“A graze. Maybe stitches. Hurts like a mofo, but I’ve had worse.” Grady jerked his head toward the captives. “What about them?”
Dawson pulled out his phone and thumbed a contact. “Hey, Gibson? We’ve got a present for you, all tied up and ready to go,” he said to the fed. Grady listened as Dawson gave directions and gathered that they’d have backup shortly.
“Local sheriff’s not going to be happy handing these idiots over to the feds,” Grady observed.
“For all we know, the local sheriff’s one of them,” Dawson countered. “Hell, for as little as he’s managed to do about what’s going on, maybe our own sheriff is Supernatural Protection Society.”
A shifter sheriff and deputies might find themselves sympathetic to the SPS, especially with the Human Defense Front stirring up dangerous trouble. While Grady thought Sheriff Rollins was biased about the Kings, he didn’t like the idea of him being corrupt.
“Keep your eyes on them. I’m going to have a look at that arm.” Dawson gently tugged at the rip in Grady’s jacket sleeve where the bullet had torn its way clear.
“You’re right. A graze. Not a through-and-through, so there’s that, but fuck, it looks painful,” Dawson said. He went to the Mustang and grabbed the first aid kit out of the back.
“This’ll help slow the bleeding until I can get you fixed up proper,” Dawson told him, wrapping the wound with gauze. Grady read the worry and protectiveness in his voice for the love it sprang from.
“I’ll be fine. Just don’t let those bastards get the drop on you. I don’t trust them—they’re still breathing.” Grady made his voice loud enough on that last sentence for the downed men to hear him.
“Guess I’d better make sure they don’t bleed out before they can stand trial.” Dawson eyed their prisoners.
“Probably, although they don’t deserve it,” Grady agreed. “I’ve got your back.” He lifted his gun to underscore his comment.
