Dempsey stumbled away about three steps, his hands lifted only a little, and though he was clearly confused, a set of emotions played across his face that had Jolie wondering which one he would settle on. Amusement, rage, or just more confusion.

"Do you even know how to use that thing?" he finally asked, apparently settling on amusement.

Jolie wiped the annoying little smirk off his face when she pulled back on the hammer of the gun. The clicking noise it made created a nice sense of danger that even Dempsey couldn't ignore.

"I know how to use a gun," she said.

She was an omega. It wasn't as if she'd be able to fight properly with just her strength and claws. She barely had those to begin with.

"Liam, please don't kill Red. He's actually not a bad guy."

Liam growled. “Lot’s changed since we last saw each other.”

Liam wouldn't know everyone who had come to the pack since he'd left. Red was one of the people he had known, but he was right. The people he’d known as a child had grown up. People were different, and right now, to him, Red was a threat.

Jolie didn't want anyone to die if she could help it. “Just don’t kill him.”

Liam made another audible growling noise. "Why shouldn't I?"

Jolie really hoped he was asking that to put a sense of fear into the others. He was definitely branding a sense of fear into Red.

“Liam,” Dempsey said, as if he was bored with the entire situation. “How’s my not so favorite stepbrother been doing? Not so well from the looks of it.”

“Doing better than your father.” He held Red tight enough to make a pained whimper squeak out of the man.

Jolie was feeling sympathy pains for Red, and she forced herself to not look at either him or Liam, keeping her focus on Dempsey instead.

At the mention of his father, whom Liam had killed, fur started to sprout on Dempsey’s face, as if he was fighting back a transformation.

“Yeah, I guess this shit hole you keep yourself in is marginally better than where my dad is, but then I comfort myself with the knowledge that, well, since my dad killed your mom, we’re kind of even.”

“Dempsey, shut the fuck up!” Jolie snapped.

That was by far the most horrible thing he could have said. She wasn’t even sure why it shocked her to hear it coming out of his mouth.

“What? You’re going to take his side?” Dempsey snapped, staring at Jolie as though he’d expected her to take his. “After he just made fun of my dead father, you think he has the high ground on anything?”

These two wolves hated each other, they always had and would, but at least when Liam killed Dempsey’s father, it was to try to defend his dying mother, whom Dempsey’s father had attacked one too many times.

“He was trying to save his mother, you know that.”

“Bullshit. She was already dead, and this asshole wasn’t defending shit. He was getting revenge. That’s different.”

“And it was good when he begged me not to kill him,” Liam said, stomping his foot down on Dempsey’s emotionally open wounds. “A fourteen-year-old boy killed that piece of shit, and he died crying like a girl.”

Dempsey sucked back a hard breath, his chest expanding before he finally let it out with a short laugh. “Oh, you are going to fucking pay for that one.”

Jolie barely let herself glance away from Dempsey, but when she did, it was to the sight of Red fighting back tears. He had color back in his face, but it was the same red color as his hair. And the blood that currently bloomed through his leather jacket and slowly dripped a trail down his clothes. There would be a puddle of blood there soon enough if Liam didn't get his claws out of Red's clothes and let him heal.

"Jolie, come on, you're not going to shoot me," Dempsey said, as if he really thought she wouldn’t pull the trigger to defend herself.

It said a lot about what he thought of her.

"I will shoot you if you come near me," she threatened. The problem was she didn't know if she had it in her to kill him. Maybe Dempsey was right to not take her threat so seriously. That wasn't who she was. Jolie wasn't sure if it was the side of her that was an omega, or maybe something about her personality, but even now, her finger felt locked in front of the trigger.

As if she wouldn't be able to pull it even if she tried.

She really didn't want it to come to that. She just wanted this idiot to turn around and walk away, leaving her and Liam alone.

"You need to go home, Dempsey."

He narrowed his eyes at her. His ice cold blue eyes staring into her soul almost, as if he was trying to freeze her from the inside out.

Despite all the times she'd pissed him off over the years, this had to be taking the freaking cake. This was the mother lode, and Jolie might have found the red line that he would rather she hadn't crossed. The ceiling for what she was allowed to get away with when it came down to it.

"Jolie, give me the gun, and tell that wild mutt to let go of Red."

Jolie wanted to laugh at that. "You heard him, he doesn't listen to me, and he's wild."

"You just told him not to kill Red," Dempsey said through gritted teeth.

"That's still up to him," Jolie replied, not taking her eyes away from Dempsey as she addressed Liam. "But please don't kill him anyway."

Liam made a gruff noise that she took to mean he would, reluctantly, do as she asked, but he didn't give it away to Carl, Dempsey, Patrick, or Dustin what the plan was.

Good. That was good.

Except Dempsey was still walking towards her, and Jolie backed into the water.

"Don't come near me," she warned.

"Jolie!" Liam yelled, throwing Red down hard onto the wet rock of the waterfall.

Patrick, Carl, and Dustin got between Liam and Jolie, leaving her alone to deal with Dempsey.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit! She'd thought for sure they had the upper hand, but Liam had only taken out Red. There were still the other three to deal with.

"I said stop moving!" Jolie yelled. Her heart pounded, and her tail was fighting to tuck itself between her legs.

"Uh huh, well I'm going to keep moving," he said, his eyes narrowed on her as he approached, slow and steadily. "You want to stop me then you're going to have to blow my brains out."

Jolie's stomach and lungs seized up within her. For a long, painful second, her heart stopped beating, and she couldn't breathe.

Jolie shook her head.

Dempsey shrugged. "What? Did you think I'd turn around and walk away? What kind of alpha do you think I am?"

"A crazy one?" she squeaked.

From the corner of her eye, she could see the way Liam prowled, trying to get through the other men, but they kept their guns locked on him. Liam roared at them, and for some miraculous reason, none of them shot.

Possibly because Dustin, Carl and Patrick had known Liam before the banishing. They didn't want to do this either.

Jolie definitely didn't want to do this.

"I don't want to be your mate, Dempsey."

He shook his head softly, his gaze never leaving the lock he had on her. "Not your choice, sweetness."

"Uh huh, well what if I told you that I'm Liam's mate? His natural one. I'll never want you the way I want him."

Dempsey's eyes brightened, and once again, that calm, cool exterior broke, and she saw the enraged animal within him.

He never could contain his rage for long before letting it out. It was made even scarier by the fact that he didn't say anything to her about that at all. He just kept walking forward.

"Jolie!" Liam roared.

He was changing into his wolf form. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see it, and it didn't matter if Patrick, Carl and Dustin had known him. They were going to kill him if they thought Liam was a danger to their lives.

Which he absolutely was. He'd said it himself that his animal form was on the wilder side. He didn't have the best control after years and years of living by himself. She needed to do something. She needed to act before someone else did.

Jolie pointed her weapon quickly to Dempsey's shoulder and she pulled the trigger.

A popping noise, and then he screamed and fell back, his hand coming up and clutching at his shoulder, bright red streaming through his clenched fingers as he fell down to his ass.

Liam lunged. More guns fired, but he didn't go after Carl, Dustin or Patrick, he ran through them, knocking both men off their feet and running towards Dempsey just as he started to shift into his own wolf shape.

And Jolie knew exactly what he was going to do.

She stepped in the way, her arms spread. “No!”

Liam’s back paws came down hard. He kicked up rocks as he skidded to a complete halt before he could charge into her by accident. He lifted his muzzle, his lips still pulled back, revealing those long pointed teeth.

Patrick and Dustin no longer had their guns pointed at him. Carl did have his weapon still up, and the way his knees trembled said a lot for how lucky Liam was that he hadn’t been shot after charging through the three men.

In fact, Carl looked very much like he was about to piss himself. The gun in his hand trembled, and any moment, he could squeeze the trigger a little too tightly. His aim probably wouldn’t be right to get a kill shot, but it was still too much of a risk for Jolie to take.

She locked eyes with Liam, searched for any shred of his humanity in there, and fuck. She had no idea if it was there or not.

“Can you recognize me right now, Liam? Can you hear me?”

Those pointed silver and black ears bent backwards. Liam’s head bent, and his hackles raised up high as he growled at her again.

Jolie forced herself to breathe. She glanced back at Dempsey, who was pushing himself to his feet, growling and glaring at both her and Liam.

“You fucking bitch!” he snapped.

“Shut up, Dempsey, I’m keeping you alive.” Jolie absolutely did not feel as confident as she sounded. She was definitely faking this. She had no idea what she was doing, and Liam could go on the warpath at any moment and decide to tear them all to pieces. He might end up killing her by accident, mate or no mate.

Much as she didn’t want Liam to kill any of the men here, she was really concerned with what would happen to herself.

And what Liam would feel if he woke up out of this enraged state and found her in a bloody heap on the ground.

Somehow, that seemed like a worse fate, and she didn’t want that for him. She didn’t want him to come out of this fog he was lost in and find out he’d killed his own mate.

Jolie’s tail was definitely fighting to get between her legs. She forced it not to as she called out to Carl, Patrick, and Dustin, never taking her gaze off of Liam.

“You guys take care of Red. The blood might set him off, make him want to target him. Get him out of here.”

Again, she didn’t feel any of this confidence that was in her voice. She should look into a career as an actress if she made it out of this relatively unscathed.

“Oh, fuck that, just shoot him!” Dempsey called.

Jolie slowly began walking sideways, getting out from between Dempsey and Liam now that Liam didn’t appear all that focused on Dempsey.

Also, it seemed smart to not keep him behind her. If he tried grabbing her, thinking to use her as a human shield, then regardless of whether or not Liam recognized her, the sudden movement might set him off.

From the corner of her eye, she didn’t see Dustin, Carl, and Patrick getting a move on yet, but then they did slowly pull back.

Red breathed as if he only had a single working lung. At least Dustin was helping him to his feet. The three men not injured kept a protective circle around Red. Carl still had his weapon out, and all eyes were a bright shade of yellow.

They were alert, that was a good thing. Better to be alert and calm than enraged and trigger happy.

The problem was when Liam turned back to look at them, his large, black, wet nostrils flaring as he stared at his prey.

“Hey, hey, Liam, look at me, not them.”

Shit, was he smelling Red’s blood? That wasn’t good. That was not good.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Dempsey snapped. “Get back here now!”

“We can come back, we know how to get back,” Dustin said, keeping his attention as much on Liam as he could.

“You’ll come back here right now!” Fur sprouted on Dempsey’s face. His eyes blazed to a bright red.

And now Jolie couldn’t keep her tail from quivering between her legs. An angry alpha was never a good sign for an omega.

And Liam was rumbling. His fur actually rippled as he crouched down just a little lower, as though getting ready to spring.

“Liam, no, don’t do it. Look at me, hey, come on, look at me.” She tried to keep her words as gentle as possible. She didn’t want to scare him.

But when Liam looked at her, she realized that scare was probably the wrong word to think about when it came down to this.

Jolie swallowed hard.

Liam turned away from her, and he put his attention back onto Dempsey. Dempsey stared back at him, a hard expression, but Jolie caught the way his throat worked in a hard swallow, and the flicker in his eyes when he looked to Jolie.

“We could run. We could make it,” he said.

Jolie frowned, and nearly fell back a step. “I’m not going with you.” The fact that he could even still think that was an option was crazy as all hell.

“Now is not the time for you to get stubborn and stupid,” Dempsey said through his teeth. “Look at him, he’ll kill us both!”

Liam stalked towards Dempsey, and in that moment, he really did look like an animal, as if there was nothing remotely human inside his mind.

But Jolie wouldn’t leave him.

“If you go, I can hold him back.”

“What?” Dempsey’s eyes were as wide as golf balls, though he didn’t keep his attention on her for long before he started backing away from the enormous wolf that approached, as if it was getting ready to make an amazing kill.

“I think he can sense you’re an alpha.” Though Jolie didn’t understand how that was happening with the way Dempsey kept backing up. Dempsey didn’t turn his back to Liam, which was good. If he did, he was a dead man, but with every step forward Liam made, Dempsey took a step back, though now he was bending his knees, keeping his hands out. It was as if he was waiting for the moment when Liam sprung on him, so he could attack, or defend.

Probably getting ready to defend.

To Be Continued........

The chapter had to be cut off here because it was too long so I'm going to upload the next very soon. Probably tomorrow. Thank you to everyone for reading, and for those of you who have been leaving tips. I've been posting Thank you's to my other story Arrangement with A Billionaire, but Tapas doesn't show me who tipped on which story, just that people have done it, so if you have left me a tip here, thank you so very much, that is very much appreciated. I know it's not ideal to break up the chapters like this but the next chapter will be posted tomorrow to make up for that. Thank you again, I'm running out of characters. You guys rule :)

Mandy