Lawe's Justice - Lora Leigh [128]
She didn’t have to kill.
With an imperceptible movement of her thumb against the mechanism Diane lowered the power from kill to wound and from wound to disable.
She could get off eight shots, and if she aimed at their kneecaps, she might have a chance.
And so would Liza.
“Poor Malcolm,” she drawled with an edge of laughter as she looked back at him, the only plan she could come up with flashing through her memory.
He scowled as the Coyote with the cigar chuckled wickedly. “Sounds like a challenge to me, little man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Malcolm snapped. “No one asked you.”
Lawe would have missed her by now surely. It had been over an hour. He knew her and he knew her well. Just as she knew him. She had been pushing him, challenging him, now all she had to do was stay alive long enough—
“No one had to ask me.” The Coyote gave another low, amused laugh. “She’s cute as hell, Malcolm.”
“And she can kick Malcolm’s ass to hell and back,” Diane assured them all. Glancing at the Coyote, clearly the dominant alpha, she shot him a mocking sneer. “He knew he would have to face me.” She nodded at Malcolm. “He didn’t come for the girl, he came for me.”
The Coyote turned his head to Malcolm. “That true, Malcolm?”
Malcolm’s lips thinned angrily. “Two birds with one stone, right? She got her uncle, his second-in-command, killed so she and that bastard Thor could take over the team. I told you I wanted blood.”
“That wasn’t the mission,” he was reminded.
Diane chuckled. “Four coyotes.” She sighed. “For little ole me? That scared of me, Malcolm?”
His jaw bunched, his hands clenching the weapon.
“If you want me, come fight me,” she suggested with a laugh. “I dare you.”
Every Coyote there perked up.
“A thousand on the girl,” the leader murmured.
“Shut the fuck up, Dog,” Malcolm raged furiously.
“I got your thousand on the prick there. He has muscle where she doesn’t.” Loki took the bet before turning to the other two. “Mutt, Mongrel? You two in?”
“Thousand on the girl.” Gray Eyes took him up on it.
“Thousand on the prick.” The last one accepted the bet.
Malcolm was shaking with fury.
Diane smiled in anticipation.
“Knives or fists?” she asked, knowing his strengths as well as his weaknesses.
“You fucking whore,” he snarled.
“Take the challenge or walk away,” Dog snapped. “We won’t take her without the fight.”
God love a Coyote’s heart and his love of a challenge or a good bet.
“I win, we walk away,” she demanded as she kept her eyes on Malcolm.
Dog’s smile was clearly anticipatory, but he nodded easily. “Whip his ass and you walk. He whips yours—you run. How’s that?”
Diane gave a sharp, firm nod as she smiled at Malcolm. “It’s a bet.”
•CHAPTER 17•
He was dying!
Lawe could feel the fury burning inside him like a plague wasting away at his body cell by cell as he watched and listened to the Coyotes flirting with his mate.
The only thing saving him, saving them, was the fact that there was no scent of lust swirling from them. Still, his fists were clenched, his lips curled back from the sharp canines at the sides of his mouth, and the growl that would have rumbled in his chest was only barely held back. It was all he could do to hold back a roar of pure feline rage.
“Hey, Lion-o, would you mind letting up the pressure just a little bit here?”
The hoarse, pain-filled request had him lifting his hand completely from Thor’s chest and flicking his fingers to the Breed Enforcer behind them, indicated he should apply pressure to the knife wound Thor had taken.
Lawe moved to rise. He had every intention of rushing to his mate’s side, to protect her flank. To share in the triumph he knew she would experience once Malcolm was taken care of.
Then, Lawe decided, he’d make certain the bastard died.
“What did I tell you?” Thor’s fingers were suddenly clamped around Lawe’s forearm, restraining him before he could surge from their shadowed shelter of heavy pine and rush to the conflict