Page 69 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
Although it would have been satisfying, Jace had no intention of truly hurting him. It would have gotten Hollyand her dad in trouble, for one thing. Still, scaring the absolute living hell out of Rob was a different matter entirely. Jace opened his jaws, drooling a little, and carefully set his mouth over Rob’s face, so that Rob could feel the pressure of his flesh-tearing teeth, not hard enough to break the skin or even bruise.
Then he drew back. Rob was flat on his back, half out of his mind with terror. In fact, it looked like he might have fainted.
Jace growled a small growl of satisfaction. He turned his head at the sound of Holly’s voice telling Rocket to shut up. A moment later, Holly appeared in the open doorway of the shed with a flashlight in one hand and a bundle of Jace’s clothes tucked under her arm.
“Is that—” She stopped. She was staring at Jace in wonder and awe.
Jace moved carefully off Rob, who showed no signs of trying to get up. He hesitated. For so long, he had struggled to control his wolf around Holly. Now hewasthe wolf.
But Holly came to him.
She approached him with wonder in her eyes. Transferring the flashlight to her other hand, she put a careful hand on his head and then ran her hand down his neck and buried her fingers deep in his fur.
He was a wolf. He was in full control. And Holly was petting him.
So this was what being a wolf was meant to feel like.
“I’ll handle things here,” she told him. “Dad’s right behind me, and Noelle is calling the sheriff. You, uh—you better—go get—you know.”
She stepped back and placed the bundle of clothes in the bed of the wagon. It was pulled to the side of the shed, out of sight from within. Jace climbed up in the back and shifted instantly, easily. He could tell just fromthe way that his body felt that he was completely human again.
It was only as he began pulling on his pants that he realized he’d felt no instinctive fear of the fire. His human side wasn’t afraid of it, after all. And the human had been in control, the wolf and the man working in perfect union.
“Good job,” Holly said. She reached a hand down to brush his fully human fingers.
When the sheriff arrived, Holly, Jace, and her dad had been taking turns keeping an eye on Rob in the shed. He hadn’t tried to escape, though as soon as the sheriff was there, he began babbling about crazy people and their crazy dogs.
“Settle down,” the sheriff said. “You all better have a good reason for calling me away from my Christmas Eve with the wife and grandkids. Your daughter said there was an intruder up to no good?” he asked the Colonel.
Holly was the one who spoke. “This man tried to burn down our tree farm. You’ll find a lighter on him, and some burnt hay in the shed.”
“Their dog attacked me!” Rob retorted. “That huge black dog. It’s a menace. It should be locked up.”
Sheriff Farrell looked down at Rocket, panting and gazing up at him with soulful eyes. “This dog?” he asked doubtfully. Like most people who had been to the tree farm, he already had met Rocket, and had been on the receiving end of her effusive greetings.
“No! Theirotherdog.”
“Their .... other dog?”
Holly covered her mouth with her hand. “Cupcake?” she squeaked out.
As the sheriff turned to look at the two of them, Jacemade a hand motion, holding his hands about a foot apart to indicate Cupcake’s size.
Rob looked like he was about to start frothing at the mouth.
“No! They have this freaking huge monster of a black dog and it came at me like a monster! I was afraid it was going to rip my throat out.”
“If our farm dogs threatened you, it’s because they could tell you were a threat to the farm,” Holly said tartly. “They didn’t hurt you, did they? Show me where they bit you or laid a single paw on you. Sheriff, you know our dogs. You know how friendly they are. We’ve never kept dangerous dogs around the farm.”
“That monster dog knocked me down and was about to bite me!”
As much fun as it was to let Rob keep digging his own hole, Jace decided they needed to get their own side of the story out there, before Rob recognized too much of the truth or got the harmless farm dogs in trouble. “I saw most of it, sir,” he said. “He’s exaggerating. The dogs ran after him when they saw what he was doing, and Rocket did jump on him, but he was completely unharmed and she left him alone as soon as Holly told her to.”
“It wasn’tthatdog,” Rob said, but he was starting to look doubtful. Good.
“Every dog looks bigger and scarier when it’s running at you barking,” Holly said. Jace made a mental note to bark a little next time to improve his doglike attitude, although in the moment, he’d been too preoccupied with stopping Rob before any harm was done. “They’re used to defending the farm. It’s their job, and they know that. There’s no dog as protective as a sheepdog that thinks someone is after its herd.”
While Rob was still looking unsure, Jace said quietly toHolly, “I understand if you don’t want to, but I’ll back you up if you want to tell the sheriff about the ... other things he did.”
