The grizzly in front of me grabbed me, tugging me close. I expected the claws to cut, the teeth to tear, but they didn’t. Suddenly I realized that I wasn’t facing Logan—this was Everett, and he was giving me a literal bear hug. He was enormous and towered over me. The thick, coarse hair of his coat was rough on my bare skin, but his embrace was gentle and reassuring.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” I wrapped my arms around him, as far as I could reach across his expansive chest, and squeezed.
He rumbled a contented sound.
“I was at the funeral when I saw Zak knocked out on the ground,” I said. Pain filled my chest just as it had when I’d seen him lying there, unmoving. “He’s okay, right?”
My vision had suggested he was. And I knew that Zak had shifter healing on his side. Still, I wanted to hear it.
Everett made a soft growl, one I took for a yes.
“Logan’s out there,” I said. “All of this was him. He’s been working for Charlize Geard the whole time.”
His giant bear head lifted and his grip eased. I turned and followed his gaze. I couldn’t see anything but dark forest.
I looked back at Everett. He let me go and went down on all fours, his eyes glittering in the moonlight. He stepped beside me, curving his body around me like a wall of furry protection, before taking off into the night.
“Everett,” I called after him. “Wait!”
Wolf howls echoed through the trees, sending a shiver down my spine. There were two of them calling out from different directions. It was the kind of call that promised bloodshed, one I recognized from growing up on the compound. But somehow I knew, I could feel it deep down, that they were my wolves—Drake and Roman.
I needed to see Zak with my own eyes. I needed to know he was okay, that they were all okay. I wouldn’t be left behind.
So I ran after Everett. Thorns tore the ugly-ass fabric that covered my torso, and my feet grew numb.
Movement. Something waited between the trees in my periphery. I froze.
My heart raced faster than my feet had, with a strength that threatened to beat its way out of my chest. With wide eyes, I strained to see who was there. I was the rabbit caught in the bear’s den.
Golden slits of light flickered in the darkness. I took a step back.
Smooth silent steps. The shape was too small to be a grizzly. It was too low to the ground, too agile.
“Zak?” I reached out a hand and stepped forward. “Is that you?”
From the shadows stepped a large cat, as tall and thick as an alpha wolf. His fur was sleek and tawny in the pale light from the moon. It was him. It was Zak.
My shoulders sagged with relief. He was all right, and he was here with me.
From behind him approached another shadow, this one much larger than the last.
“He’s okay,” I said to Everett with a smile of relief.
Everett glowered at me, looking even more menacing than before.
“Really,” I said, reaching out to him. “He’s going to be all right.”
The grizzly rose to his back legs, and Zak used his muscular shoulder to shove me back, away from Everett. I stumbled, confused.
My brain was filled with fog as I watched two wolves appear from nowhere, one on each side of the grizzly. One gray, one black. They bounded in unison at the larger form, jumping and tearing into his sides with their teeth.
The scream I should have let out was caught in my throat. Shock morphed to understanding.
This grizzly wasn’t the same one I’d just been hugging. It wasn’t Everett—it was Logan.
I scrambled backward. The air was forced from my lungs as my back hit a wall. Rough bark scraped my skin where the thin fabric of my dress had torn. I hardly felt it, with the whole world growing as numb as my feet. The fight before me held me stunned in place.
Claws and fangs flailed in a mass of fur. The limbs and forms blended together in the darkness. They were here for me, fighting Logan, putting their lives at risk for mine.
The sounds of tearing flesh and the coppery scent of spilled blood pulled me from my stupor.
I searched the ground for a rock, for anything I could use to help.
A pain-filled yelp shook me to my core. I looked up, eyes darting in fear.
There on the ground was the gray wolf—Roman or Drake. The grizzly stood over him, ignoring the second wolf and the lion’s assaults.
Fury coursed through my veins, and the sound that bellowed from my chest was feral. I grabbed a thick branch from the ground with both hands and ran for Logan. I was going to fucking kill him.
Thick claws tore down into the fallen wolf. I raised the branch over my head, closing the distance between me and the fight.
Zak’s jaw clamped down on the bear’s leg, stopping the assault on the fallen wolf. Logan growled, his teeth clamping down on Zak’s shoulder.
My stick shattered on impact, crashing down on the grizzly’s forehead. Dark hazel eyes met mine, and a new shot of panic flooded my veins.
Logan dove forward, past Zak, his huge claw crashing down on my shoulder. I fell to my knees. The gouges on my shoulder burned like the hate I felt for Logan.
I scrambled for my stick, for my last hope of survival, expecting the beast’s jaws, his claws, my end.
The final blow never came.
I grabbed my splintered branch and looked up just as a dark mass plowed into Logan’s side. Everett.
Logan’s body slammed into a thick tree. Everett rose onto his hind legs, pinning the bastard in place.
Zak moved in front of me, the mountain lion keeping himself between me and the fight. I rose to my feet, stick still in hand.
The black wolf tore into Logan’s neck. The scent of blood filled the air.
It was over.
Zak shifted back to human form as the wolf and Everett continued their assault on Logan. Part of me wanted to beat the fallen grizzly a few more times just to be sure it was really over. But concern for the injured wolf won.
I collapsed by the fallen wolf’s side. His chest rose and fell, and he blinked open his blue eyes. It was Roman, and he was alive. Relief washed over me as tears streamed down my face. Tears of joy.
Zak crouched beside me. “He’ll be okay.”
Evidence of that very truth was happening already, the deep gashes on Roman’s belly filled with threaded flesh, stopping the bleeding.
A long howl sounded behind me—it was Drake, calling our victory in the dark night.
“A beacon call,” Zak said, his fingers brushing softly through my fallen hair. His eyes lingered on my injured shoulder, concern sparkling in the green depth.
I opened my mouth to ask what the hell he was talking about, but before I could speak, I got my answer.
Howls answered Drake’s call. First one, then another. Dozens of wolves in the distance, a circle in the dark forest closing in. Had I been a normal girl with a normal life, I probably would have been scared shitless.
But I wasn’t a normal girl. The sound was a reassurance, the call of my pack. My family.
Chapter Seventeen
The drive back was quiet. I wasn’t crazy about riding back with my parents instead of the guys, but once I was assured that Roman was really okay, I’d finally done the unimaginable and listened to my parents.
David and my mother didn’t say much in the front seat until we reached the compound, and then my mother turned around. “Do you want to stay in the manor tonight?”
I shook my head. “No. But, thank you.”
“I just thought you wouldn’t want to be alone.” Her voice held a trace amount of pain. “Can I not comfort you anymore? I’m your mother, after all. But I feel like I failed you.”
I said, “It’s not that—”
David interrupted. “She’s met her mates, Morgan.”
Instead of driving to my cottage, David kept driving around to the back of the compound. He stopped in front of the guys’ bunkhouse.
My mom spun around to lo
ok at me. “You have? And—mates, plural?”
I nodded. I didn’t understand it, and I couldn’t explain it, but David was right.
David turned around in his seat. He put one hand comfortingly on my mom’s shoulder and held out the other to me. I took it, feeling confused but accepted.
The guys pulled up in an orange Jeep behind us, and their headlights illuminated David’s Land Rover.
In a serious voice, David said, “It’s not very common, but sometimes a woman takes several mates, not just one.”
My mom smiled at me. “You’ve found your mate—mates. I’m happy for you, baby.”
“I think Sparrow’s ready to strike out on her own,” David added. “Didn’t Wren have a vision about this?”
Mom gasped. “She said, when Sparrow finds her mate.”
David nodded. “I think you have. And I think you’ve been ready to leave this place for a long time?”
“Are you kicking me out?” I tried to tug my hand from his, but he wouldn’t let go.
Mom reached out and grabbed my other hand.
“No, we’re not kicking you out,” David said. “Never. You always have a home here, when you want it. But I know you’re ready to leave. And if you’re leaving with four protective and loving mates, well, as your father I couldn’t be happier and more secure with the idea of you leaving the protection of the pack.”
My eyes filled with tears—not in sadness, but because my heart felt so happy and full. I’d been denying David’s claim on me as his daughter, but he was showing me time and time again that he was here for me.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
David’s phone, set in the cup holder, started buzzing rapidly. He glanced down. “Oh, shit. I need to look at this.”
Picking it up, he scanned the screen and immediately started crying.
“The DNA results are in on the girl we just buried. It wasn’t Wren,” he said. “It wasn’t Wren.”
Tears of joy ran down my mother’s cheeks. “You were right.”
Three little words I’d never thought I’d hear out of my mother’s mouth. And hearing them meant more than I’d ever thought they could.
“She’s still out there,” I said. “I know she is.”
The sound of car doors and footsteps sounded behind us, and David and Mom released my hands. I leaned forward and hugged them awkwardly through the front seats.
Mom kissed my cheek. “Where do you think you’ll go?”
“I’m gonna find Wren.”
“Of course you are.” She smiled softly. “We’ll be looking, too. Promise you’ll call if you find anything, anything at all.”
“Or if you need anything,” David said.
“I promise.”
“Before I can let you go, you’re going to have to let me help you.”
“Help me with what?” I narrowed my eyes.
She looked down at my scratched-up wrists. In everything that had happened, I’d nearly forgotten about my injuries.
“Okay,” I said.
I held out my wrists and she laid her hands on them. Her eyes fluttered shut and her lips moved in a whisper I couldn’t make out. It was her gift—healing.
The red indentations faded from my skin like I’d never been bound, like it had never happened.
She fixed the bruises on my legs, the cuts and scrapes all over my feet.
“Thank you,” I said, pulling away.
“What about that one?” Mom asked, pointing to the cut on my shoulder where Logan’s claws had scraped against my skin.
“Leave it,” I said.
“It’ll scar.” She moved to hover her hands over it, ready to do more of her witchy humming.
I pulled away. “No, I want it. I want a reminder of tonight.”
She looked puzzled, but dropped her hands.
I wasn’t sure how to word it, exactly, but I wanted a reminder not of everything horrible, but of how I’d overcome it. Logan had hurt me, but I wasn’t going to remain a victim. This scar was a sign that I’d found my way out and that he’d been defeated. Love won in the end. To emerge from all that fighting without a flaw didn’t work for me this time. I wanted the reminder. Maybe someday I’d get a tattoo next to the scar. Something with my guys’ initials and a tangle of flowered vines.
I stepped out of the car and turned around. Zak, Everett, Roman, and Drake all stood before me. David and Mom drove off, leaving us in darkness.
“So?” Drake said, a bit of attitude in his voice.
Laughing, I marched over and kissed him. His lips were soft but firm as he took the kiss deeper. By the time he let go of me, I was breathless.
Once I finally composed myself, I said, “You guys up for an adventure?”
“Yes, how soon can you get naked?” Roman asked.
The others snickered.
“I meant...moving away,” I said. “I want to find Wren. She’s out there somewhere, and I’m gonna get her back.”
“Oh, well, that too,” Roman said with a smirk. His smile faded. “In all seriousness, I’m in. We’re all in. Down for whatever you want.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Zak took my hand in his. “Sparrow, I love you and I’ll go wherever you go.”
“I love you, too,” Drake said. “Always.”
“I love you,” Everett said. “We all do.”
“It’s true,” Roman added. “I love you, Sparrow.”
Blinking back more tears, I nodded. “I love you, Roman. And I love you, Zak. I love you, Everett. Drake, I love you, too.”
Tugging on my hand that he still held, Zak pulled me into a hug so tight, I lost my breath. “We were so worried about you. Let’s get you inside...and naked.”
I laughed as he lifted me up and carried me into the bunkhouse, bride-style.
Once inside, Zak set me down and I watched the other three guys follow us in. They faced me, but they didn’t make any moves.
“Uh, guys? I thought we had all kinds of plans. Was that just talk?”
Everett ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Just wanna make sure you really want this.”
I looked at them, suddenly wondering. I’d never been with four guys before. Two, yeah. And I’d loved it. But four guys at once was kind of extreme. Why hadn’t I thought this through?
Drake stepped forward and cupped my cheek. “Hey, no pressure, cariña. Whatever you’re comfortable with. If that’s nothing, that’s fine, too.”
Leaning into his hand, I closed my eyes and let all my defenses down to just experience the love flowing through us. “I definitely want this—I want all of you tonight. I’m just not...this is so weird. I’m not sure what to do first.”
Drake stepped back and pulled off his shirt. “I think we should start by getting naked.”
I looked down at the shredded black dress I was still wearing and began yanking at the zipper on the side. “I’m so down for that.”
The zipper, however, wouldn’t cooperate.
“Dammit,” I said. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate this dress more.
Everett had pulled off his shirt, too, and he stepped forward. “May I?”
“Sure.” I turned to the side so he could reach the zipper.
He ignored the zipper and gripped my dress by the collar. Eyes twinkling, he tore it straight down, leaving me in my red lacy bra and panties.
I laughed. “Well, that works.”
“I’ll buy you a new one if you want,” he said.
“No, thank you—I hated that dress.”
Roman gave me a big smile. “This look suits you so much better.”
He slowly pulled his shirt up and over his head. His ab muscles rippled with his movements. While I stared, transfixed by his perfect torso, he came closer to my side and nuzzled my neck.
“You smell so good,” he whispered. “I’ve been captivated by your scent for days, Sparrow, and I can’t wait to lick you where you smell the best.”
Shivers coursed up and down my sp
ine. He traced the shoulder strap of my bra with one of his calloused fingertips, then lifted it and let it go so it fell along my arm.
He stopped touching me and gasped before moving back a couple of steps. “What the hell happened here? If he wasn’t dead, I’d be killing him right now.”
“Babe,” Zak whispered, stepping forward. “Are you okay? That cut looks like it hurts.”
I glanced down at my shoulder, at the cut I hadn’t wanted Mom to heal. “It hurts, but it’s okay.”
“Where else did he hurt you?” Everett had an angry growl in his voice, but he sat back on the couch. Wearing only his jeans, he looked sexy and utterly fuckable.
I shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about that now. My mom fixed it up, though.”
“I don’t want us to hurt you, that’s the only reason I asked,” he said.
His thoughtfulness would be my undoing. I lowered myself to the couch, one knee on either side of his thighs to straddle him, then leaned forward and kissed him softly. After I pulled away, he gripped the back of my neck with one of his large hands and hauled me in for another kiss.
And there was nothing soft or sweet about this kiss. His tongue stroked expertly between my lips, delving inside my mouth and exploring me. He brought his hands up to my ribcage, stroking me, getting closer and closer to my breasts. I moaned into his mouth and grinded my pelvis against his.
Another set of hands soon joined his—Roman’s sagey scent filled my nose, so I knew it had to be his hands that had come around from behind me to cup my breasts. I closed my eyes and broke out of Everett’s kiss so I could lean my head back. I hit Roman’s chest. He bent his head down to kiss my cheek, then gently turned my neck a little more so we could kiss.
The noise of zippers filled the room, mixing with our heavy breathing. I’d never heard a sexier sound in my life.
“I gotta get my pants off, too,” Everett said.
The room spun as Zak picked me up off of Everett. He set me on my feet and I wrapped my arms around his neck, standing on my tiptoes so I could kiss his lips, feel the stubble of his chin against my face. He threaded his hands in my hair, tugging me closer.
Moisture gathered between my thighs. Roman groaned and fell to his knees beside me.
Shifters Gone Wild: A Shifter Romance Collection Page 67