Code of the Wolf by Susan Krinard Page B

reaching hands and fell on top of Silas’s body, snatching at the fallen man’s revolver. His bullet caught Bonnie full in the chest. Serenity screamed, dropped her rifle and threw herself into the arroyo just as Jacob lifted Leroy and tossed him against the rock wall.
    Then there was silence, broken only by Serenity’s quiet sobs.
    Jacob turned slowly, barbwire coiling in his gut.
    Serenity was holding Bonnie in her arms, rocking her gently and singing some kind of lullaby as she wept. She was no longer aware of Jacob at all.
    Jacob crouched where he was, remembering. Remembering Ruth and how he’d found her body, shattered and abused and shot. He had promised to protect her when he’d made his marriage vows, and he’d failed her. He had made himself responsible for Serenity and Bonnie when he’d gone after Leroy and his gang in the arroyo. He’d failed them, too.
    The almost inaudible crunch of soft footsteps above alerted him to the other woman’s approach. She knelt and looked into the arroyo, black hair falling across her face. Her dark-eyed gaze brushed over Jacob and his naked body, dismissed him, and settled on the women below. She jumped lightly to the ground and knelt beside Serenity.
    Jacob felt the shock of recognition through the dull haze of his despair. Zora had to be half Indian, probably Apache by the looks of her, but she was at least half werewolf, as well. And she recognized the wolf in him, too.
    Right now, though, she wasn’t interested in anything she and Jacob might have in common. She put her arm around Serenity and spoke low in Apache, a murmur of farewell and sorrow.
    The last thing either of them wanted, he knew, was his commiseration. He made sure that Hunsaker and Silas were dead, then crouched beside Leroy to keep an eye on him, averting his face from the women’s suffering.
    After a while the weeping stopped, and Serenity lowered Bonnie’s body gently to the ground. She smoothed the woman’s flyaway red hair from her face, removed her own coat and laid it over Bonnie’s chest to cover the ugly wound.
    â€œWe’ll take her home,” she said. She rose and glanced around the arroyo at Leroy and the dead men, her face expressionless, eyes red-rimmed and empty. She turned to Jacob.
    â€œIs Leroy dead?” she asked
    â€œMiss Campbell,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
    She looked right through him. “Is he dead?”
    â€œNo. But I swear to you—”
    â€œWhy didn’t you kill him?”
    â€œI’m taking him in,” Jacob said. “He’ll suffer a lot more waiting to be hanged than he would if I killed him now.”
    Even to his own ears, the words sounded cold and indifferent.
    Serenity began to shake. “He is not going anywhere,” she whispered.
    â€œI will do it,” Zora said. Her voice was as soft as her tread, but her eyes were hard. She pulled a knife from its sheath at her belt.
    Jacob rose to stand between Leroy and the Apache woman. “I can’t let you do that.”
    â€œHe killed Bonnie,” she said.
    No fire, no hatred. Just simple fact. That was enough for Zora. But Serenity might still be reasoned with.
    â€œHe has to be brought to trial,” he said. “You talked once about women making the West civilized. I aim to keep it that way.”
    Serenity stared at him as if he’d gone loco. “Civilized?” she repeated blankly. “What is civilized about any of this?”
    Nothing. And that made the law even more important. No matter how much he might wish he could kill Leroy here and now, the Code wouldn’t let him. Killing in self-defense and to protect innocents was sometimes necessary, but he’d sworn years ago never to murder a man in cold blood, no matter what the reason. To do any different would make him just like those he hunted.
    One slip would send him plummeting into the pit.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said