by T. S. Joyce
TARIAN PROTECTOR
(NEW TARIAN PRIDE, BOOK 4)
By T. S. JOYCE
Tarian Protector
Copyright © 2019 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2019, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: April 2019
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Photographer: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Jonny James
Editor: Corinne DeMaagd
Contents
Tarian Protector
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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Chapter One
Good luck to the splinter that was trying to penetrate Ford Owen’s steel skin.
Not much could hurt him anymore. In his old life, if he had tried to drag a big-ass log up to the cabin, he would’ve needed a tractor. And when he chopped it into firewood, work gloves and safety glasses. Now, he was outside on the tail end of a brutal Wyoming winter, in jeans and no shirt, no gloves, dragging a tree no man should ever have the strength to drag—easily.
His cell phone vibrated in his back pocket, but he didn’t know anyone anymore, so he ignored it like always. Probably a telemarketer. Really, he didn’t know why he kept the damn cell phone on him. He supposed it was one of the only links to his old life, so was sentimental. Maybe he carried it because it was the last thread of normalcy he possessed.
He hadn’t even cut off the branches of the sturdy oak. Why? Because he didn’t fuckin’ have to. Not until he was ready to chop it. He could cut the trunk and branches right in his front yard if he wanted to. Don’t get it twisted, though, he wasn’t living some life of luxury. He had a small cabin with a wood-burning fireplace smack dab in the middle of twenty acres of wilderness. And a serious chip on his shoulder.
This wasn’t the life most people would choose.
Hell, he hadn’t chosen it either.
This life had chosen him.
His phone rang again, and he snarled his impatience. Ford dropped the tree near the splitter and pulled out the small contraption that still kept him somewhat linked to the outside world.
The name on the caller ID shocked him into stillness.
Orion Burge.
Orion, one of the dominant male lions of the Deadlies Pride. Orion, brother and protector of Sora—the love of Ford’s life. Or she had been, a lifetime ago. She was the one who got away. The unreachable. The unattainable. Unclaimable. She was the reason he was this…this…monster.
He shouldn’t answer. He had a good life. Well…he had a reasonable life. Food and shelter and his health and all that. He’d eked out an existence here in the wilderness. Some days, he even felt steady-ish. Some days he even pretended he was happy. Some days he smiled into the mirror and made believe it really was a smile and not a snarl.
Opening up the old Orion saga had the potential to set him into a downward spiral to Hell again.
Gritting his teeth, he declined the call. Whatever was happening with Orion, his old friend needed to take care of it himself.
A text came through. Pick up the phone, you fucking fuck. It’s about Sora.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit.
The phone vibrated in his hand, the phone glowing Orion’s name. This was one of those moments—a fork in the road—take the path he’d been on and keep trying for some semblance of a survivable life, or open this Pandora’s box and see what Hell awaited him.
Aw, who was he kidding. He thrived in Hell.
He connected the call and lifted the phone to his ear slowly.
“She Turned a woman,” Orion said simply.
“So?” Ford’s voice was gruff, unused, inhuman. He hated it.
“So the Tarians will kill her for it.”
“Where’s her mate?” Ford gritted out, the ache spreading in his chest. Her mate, her mate, her fucking mate. He wanted to kill her entire Pride for selling her for some goddamn alliance.
“Sora’s alone.”
Ford clenched his fist so hard his blunt nails dug into his palm. Trying to keep his voice steady, he growled, “What happened?”
“That’s her story to tell.”
“Orion, I’m not what I used to be—”
“You don’t think I know that, Ford? You think I can’t hear that growl rattling through the phone? You think I don’t recognize the devil in your voice? You did it. You got yourself Turned, and now you’re a psychopath, right? You think I didn’t check up on you? You’re wrong. You were my best friend before everything fell apart.”
“I’m…” Ford exhaled and caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the cabin window. His eyes were always gold. “You don’t know me anymore.” He looked like a demon, sounded like a demon… He was a demon. No one knew him anymore. “What happened?”
“Ford—”
“Tell me what the fuck happened!” he roared. “Because if I’m going to put everyone at risk to come help her, I need a damn-good reason!”
“Jesus, okay,” Orion murmured. Ford could hear him swallow hard over the line, but so what? Everyone was scared of him. It was best if Orion knew what he was really asking. He was going to draw the devil out of Hell, and it wouldn’t go the way Orion thought it would.
Orion sighed. “Cassius ruined her.”
“Ruined how?” Blood was dripping from his fist now where his nails cut into his skin.
“You say I don’t know you anymore,” Orion murmured. “Well…welcome to the club. You won’t know Sora either. She broke during that pairing. I couldn’t stop it, and I can’t fix it. And I’m about to go to war with the entire New Tarian Pride because she won’t leave. She won’t run.”
“Why not?”
There was a long pause, and then Orion said, “Because she wants them to kill her. I’ve never asked for help in my entire life, Ford. Never asked anyone for anything. You know that. I wouldn’t bring you out of the woods if I had any other choice. You’re a psychopath now? Good. That’s what I need. That’s what Sora needs. She needs a weapon. A guardian. Someone who remembers enough of the good in her to care. I can’t watch her be put down, man. She’s my sister. She’s the only family that matters.�
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Nostrils flaring with his heaving breath, Ford opened his eyes and glared at the golden-eyed monster that looked back at him through the damn window. This was going to get a lot of people killed. Himself included. But…it was Sora. His Sora. Or what was left of her.
“When?” he asked low.
“Her trial is tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be there.” Sick to his stomach at the blood he was about to take, Ford hung up the phone.
Sora was going to hate the thing he’d become. She would see what he was capable of now, what he craved. She would see the killer in him. This wasn’t part of the plan. He’d never wanted to see the disgusted look on her face when she realized what he’d done.
A vision flashed across his mind of her balancing barefoot on the railing of an old bridge, laughing that tinkling-bell sound that had been more important than breathing a few years ago. Her white-blond hair was down and long and loose, lifting slightly in the wind, and she was smiling down at him like he meant something. Her eyes were gold and dancing. But the smile faded away, and her eyes went hollow in moments. A tear stained her cheek as she whispered, “Help me.”
The pain was instant. Any heightened emotion drew out the shadows inside of him. It drew out the dark. He fell to his knees and gripped his hair, wishing to God he could keep the ugliness inside. It never worked though—fighting. It just made it hurt worse. His hands slammed to the ground, and monstrous paws with three-inch-long, curved claws ripped from his skin.
Help me.
Sora, Sora, Sora. She’d been his once, but now he didn’t belong to anyone but the darkness.
Help her? Ford’s own screaming roared through his ears.
He couldn’t even help himself.
Chapter Two
540.
If Sora’s calculations were correct, she had about 540 breaths left, give or take.
Very soon, she would sit in front of the New Tarian Pride and accept the consequences for Turning someone against their will.
She knew Tarian Law like the back of her hand. Cassius, her mate, had beat it into her head. Literally. Turning unworthy humans into Tarians broke all the rules. Turning them without permission of the Alpha? More broken rules. Turning one who was running away, terrified, screaming for her life? Rules, rules, rules…all broken, just like Sora.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Ronin, the Tarian Alpha, asked from across the room.
Sora sat on the bed with her back to him, hugging the antique white metal post of the bed. She stared at the bars on the window. This had been her prison for the last few days.
504 breaths left.
“Sora,” Ronin growled.
The hairs lifted on the back of her neck. He had a massive, dominant presence, and her lioness didn’t like having her back to him. What did it matter, though? What did anything matter?
Ronin’s exhale sounded defeated. So did his muttered curse. “Shit. Can you at least show remorse in front of the Pride so I can find a less severe punishment for you?”
“Fair Alpha,” she murmured through cotton mouth and a scratchy throat. She hadn’t talked in a while. “You’re good for this Pride. You’re going to do great things with the lions here. But you can’t show weakness to a new Pride with a faltering ranking system, and I can’t lie. I’m not sorry. I hear them—Kannon and Katy. I hear them laughing.” Sora’s lips crooked into a smile. She couldn’t help herself. She’d had that laughter once. Laughter and the purple bond, and that’s what she’d given to Katy. “If I had to do it over a hundred times, I would kill her every time. No hesitation. There is no remorse, and even if I said I was sorry, everyone in the Pride would hear the lie in my voice. So you see, Fair Alpha, you’re stuck with a little blood on your hands. Welcome to the throne.”
430-ish. Her calculations were getting muddy now that she was talking.
Ronin’s boots clunked hollowly across the wood floors toward her. He hesitated beside her, heaving a sigh that tapered into a snarl. On instinct, she drew farther away from him. She did that with all males. She didn’t like men anymore. Would never let another one touch her, but that wasn’t such a tragedy. After all, she only had 398 breaths left. And if she was perfectly honest, she’d only liked one man touching her. Ford. He had been gentle with her. Fragile almost. So human. She’d had to be so careful even kissing him. No bites. Nuh uh uuuuh. She’d liked that about him. That he was normal, safe, and strong in his own right.
God, she hoped he was happy. Thoughts of him had tortured her. She just wanted to imagine him happy, like he used to be. With her.
Ronin strode toward the window, his hands clasped stiffly behind his back. He stood there, staring out the bars of her window to the woods beyond the yard. And then he gripped the bars and yanked them off the window, splintering the frame as he did. With an echoing clang, the black metal bars hit the floor, and Ronin turned toward her, eyes blazing the gold of his animal. “Run,” he said. “Orion will be waiting for you near the road. I’ll keep the Pride busy, but they won’t really be looking for you. No one wants to do this. Don’t you get that, Sora? We don’t want to do this.”
Only a thin pane of window glass stood between her and freedom. Ronin was offering her safe passage, but what good would that do her? “You don’t understand,” she whispered thickly, dropping her gaze to her clasped hands in her lap.
“Then help me understand,” he demanded, kneeling in front of her.
Her face crumpled as she lifted her eyes to his. “I hurt.”
“Where?” he asked, his expression baffled.
She pointed to her head and then dropped her fingertip to her heart. “In all the places you can’t fix in a shifter.”
“Please go,” he pleaded.
But Sora only shook her head, her heart breaking for what he would have to do. Today would stick with Ronin and his lion for a very long time. That was the burden of Alphas. “I’m sorry.”
Ronin looked like he wanted to retch, but then red crept up his neck and he stood in a rush. “Where did your fight go?”
“Break a purple bond, and then tell me how easy it is to find your fight, Ronin.”
“I don’t even know what that fuckin’ means,” he ground out as his boot steps echoed toward the door. “You’re about to start a war with your selfishness. Like we haven’t been through enough. Like we haven’t lost enough! You’re gonna dig in and make everything worse for everyone here because you’re a coward.”
That made her blood boil, and she stood and rounded on him. “I’m a coward? Do your fucking job, Ronin. I didn’t ask you to come in here. I didn’t ask for an escape. I’m fine with whatever punishment is coming my way. I’m ready. If I was a coward, I would’ve broken the window and slunk off into the forest like some criminal and ran away with my brother.”
“There it is,” Ronin gritted through his clenched teeth, lifting his chin higher.
“There’s what?” she demanded, the heat in her cheeks reaching her ears.
He jammed his finger at her. “There’s your fight. Whatever happens today is on you. We both deserve better than what you’re doing.”
Ronin turned on his heel and left. He slammed the door so hard behind him, she jumped. Her heart was hammering against her sternum like a scared jackrabbit running for its life. Slowly, she sat back on the bed and hugged the cold metal post again. A part of her hated Ronin for putting a kink in her determination right at the end. For making her second guess, for tempting her to run like she was some yellow-bellied chicken and not a goddamn lioness.
Suddenly angry at the world, she screamed, “I knew what I was getting into the second I sank my teeth into Katy’s leg!” Her sacrifice meant someone else got to have their purple bond. She was ruined for bonds, so what was the fucking point of trudging through life selfishly when she’d had that gift she could give Katy and Kannon? The gift of a lion. Of a future together. Her sacrifice was worth it, and Ronin was messing with her head.
“Asshole,” she
muttered, wiping stupid tears from her stupid eyes.
The door creaked open, and Sora jumped. Weak. That’s what Cassius had done to her. Everything scared her now. Scared her and her lion so much she got to march through each minute of her life terrified of men, touch, loud noises, and people getting too close to her.
Kannon was here. Great.
“I’m here to take you out there,” he murmured.
“The security sucks here.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his dark eyebrows raising.
“I know you don’t want them to put me down. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me. That pity and regret. Everything is fine. Let’s just get this over with.” She couldn’t even hold his damn gaze for more than a few seconds. “Please,” she muttered belatedly.
“I told you once that if you ever needed a big favor, I’m your guy.”
“Polite decline.”
“Yeah, well, it’ll be different when you actually have a Pride of lions ripping your limbs from your body.”
Fuck. She squeezed her eyes closed and imagined Ford, smiling up at her from that swimming hole where they’d spent an entire summer skinny-dipping. That was much better to think about than what was about to happen.
“Say the word, and I’ll help.”
Stupid boys. Why were they making this so hard? This was how it was supposed to be; everything was fine. Everything was okay. Everything was happening the way it should.
“Thank you, but no thank you,” she murmured as she walked past him and out into the hallway. It took all she had not to cringe away when she got too close to Kannon. Going from being a strong, independent lioness to being broken into a submissive was the worst. She didn’t even know herself anymore.
150.
It would all be over soon.
Kannon was plastered to the doorframe, face averted, giving her as much space as he could. Favor number two. She didn’t do well with crowding anymore. She made her own way out of the small cabin and outside. The entire New Tarian Pride was there, milling around, murmuring quietly amongst themselves. There were fifteen lions here, at least. Sora didn’t know all of them. She hadn’t bothered to get to know any of the males. She knew Orion, Kannon, and Ronin, but the rest were a blur she didn’t care to look at.