Shane yelled, and my blood went cold.
We needed to end this now.
I kipped up, and threw three more vials before reaching in my bag. Claudia met my gaze, her hand raised with her own vials. “Cosette!”
Claudia and I threw our vials in unison.
“My pleasure.” Cosette hooked arms with Van and he launched her into the air. She flew, sword raised and glittering. The blade came down, decapitating it in one glowing strike.
The earth cracked open with a roar and flash, sucking the demon back to hell.
Eerie silence echoed through the church for all of five seconds.
Then a gun cocked.
“SFPD. Drop your weapons. Now.” No less than ten cops swarmed into the sanctuary, guns out. Some of them wore Kevlar vests, others had shotguns instead of handguns, but all of them looked like they weren’t fucking around.
Wolf-Dastien nudged me with his head, and I closed my eyes. This was so not happening.
“On the ground. All of you. Any wolf that makes a move toward us gets a silver bullet right through the eye.”
A gunshot, we could heal. But I wasn’t so sure about silver bullets, let alone a silver bullet to the head. I lifted my arms in the air and got to my knees.
“Everyone. On the ground.”
I spared a glance for the others.
Shit. Me and my cousins were the only ones cooperating. A bead of sweat rolled down the nearest cop’s cheek. All of them reeked of the sickly sweet scent of fear. One wrong move and they’d all snap.
Help me out, Dastien. We have to cooperate. “You guys have to get down,” I said just loud enough for the Weres to hear.
“No,” Donovan growled the word. He must have just shifted back. I peeked at him, off to my right. Even standing there, naked as the day God made him, he looked fierce. Waves of alpha energy rolled off him, and my throat tightened.
This could go bad. Very quickly.
“Yes. You will.”
“They have a gun pointed at my mate. I’ll not be surrendering.” The other wolves growled.
“You should listen to your friend. Down on your knees,” one shotgun carrying cop said as he took one step forward.
“You all will shift back and be nice to these police officers.” I raised my voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “We have to make a choice. We could force our way out of here, but is that the right thing to do?”
“Maybe Donovan has a point,” Shane said. “If we don’t leave, we’ll be tied up with the police, just like Luciana wanted.”
Dastien’s anger rolled through our bond. Even my own mate thought I was being dumb, but I couldn’t give in. A mistake here could destroy the trust between humans and werewolves forever.
I swallowed down my nerves. “I’ll call the FBI, and they’ll help clear this up. We need to show the humans we can work with them or they’ll see us as nothing more than animals. If we don’t go with them now, peacefully, we’ll ruin any chance of them trusting us. Monsters like Luciana will come and go, but the rest of our lives with the humans—we can’t throw that away.”
I cleared my throat. “Officers. The wolves are going to shift now, and they’ll need the clothes from our car. I’m sure you’re already searching it, so if you’d please bring the bags here for them, we’ll happily go with you. We have two injured humans. One badly hurt. I don’t know if she’s still alive. And Shane? You okay?”
“Hurts.” His voice was strained. He just had to hold on. A few minutes more.
None of the cops moved.
“Please. We’re going to need an ambulance.”
“We already called one.”