by T. S. Joyce
“He forced you?” Ford asked in a terrifyingly low, snarly voice.
One nod was all she could do. “He was becoming the new Alpha of the most volatile and most feared Pride of lions in the world, and he wanted to secure his rank. He had his hand in all the politics that surrounded resurrecting the council after the last one had been killed. He was getting a vote in every member. He was turning the rulers of the lion shifters into his pets. They were all in his pocket, would do whatever he wanted them to if he succeeded in reinstating them. To make sure he kept his new position at the top, he fought, he killed a lot, he fed his lion evil until that’s all he knew how to eat. And he started collecting mates, ones with important alliances to other powerful Prides that would support his rise to becoming king. Like my father. And to secure those alliances, he needed to pair up with us, claim us, and get us with cubs as fast as he could.” She turned and tilted her head, exposing an awful bite mark scar on the meat of her shoulder. “He gave me that within the first half hour of meeting me. Romantic, huh? I’d always dreamed of being claimed, but in a human ceremony by y—” Sora dropped her head into her arms and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. Her chest felt like someone was stepping on it. “I’d known love, and that day, I learned hate.”
“He beat on you?” Ford growled.
Sora nodded.
“He force you in bed?”
“With the blessing of his entire Pride. We had no rights. We were worthless outside of the alliance we could provide. I didn’t have a voice for all those months. At first, I was angry and wanted to fight, but that only made it worse. So I got quieter and quieter, and one day I just stopped fighting at all. I would just…go through my day feeling nothing and get into bed at night and not even remember what I’d done all day. My lioness went away little by little. She got quiet, too. No more purring, no more happiness. She didn’t even want to come out when I needed to Change. She just died a little bit at a time. And now she’s barely even there.” Sora rolled her face onto her arm and smiled at him. “You turned into the strong lion, and I turned into the human. We switched places.”
Ford was staring at the wall in front of him, shaking his head, his jaw clenched so hard his muscles were rigid there. “She’s still there. I can feel her.”
“That makes one of us,” Sora said. “I killed him, you know. Cassius. That was the only time I could control when the lioness came out. When Emerald came to the Old Tarians as Cassius’s final mate, she rebelled. She shook everything up. Watching her be strong made me feel like I had a backbone for a minute. And when the Tarian War started, I told my lioness she could kill Cassius. I’d never given her permission for violence like that before. I blacked out, or maybe I got pushed out of my own head, I don’t know. The lioness took over, and when I woke up, my teeth were on Cassius’s throat and my mouth was full of blood and he wasn’t moving. The other girls in the Pride had helped bring him down, but I finished him. They let me. They eased back and let me have the kill. They let me kill my mate. And then my lioness went back into hiding like her job was done. But for a few moments, I’d felt strong again.” Sora swallowed hard and said, “Ask me if I regret it. Ask me if I regret killing my own mate.”
Ford shook his head slowly, his devil-bright eyes so yellow they were hard to look at. “I don’t have to. I already know the answer.”
He stood and walked away, but she didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. Not until he saw the full picture of what she was. Of how she’d become this weak thing. “Want to know what I do regret?”
Ford froze in the doorway for a three count, his tensed back to her. She could hear his racing heartbeat—bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum. She didn’t need him to look her in the face when she said this, though, so she told him, “The biggest regret was not being brave enough to meet you in that parking lot before all of this happened. I had a plan. I was going to run away with you, get braver, and bite you. I was going to finally do it. I was going to give you what you’d been asking for because I knew your reasons. You only wanted the lion to keep me safe, not for power. I’d told you no for so long because I didn’t want to hurt you or ruin your life. I didn’t want to turn you into…”
“Into this?” he finished for her, turning slowly. Those eyes. God, those terrifying eyes…
Ford sat back on the edge of the bathtub and cupped the back of her head again. This time she leaned into it. It felt so damn good to be touched and not be terrified of the touch.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Into this.” She inhaled as deep as her lungs could go. “I tried to meet you, but my dad caught me. The suitcase gave me away. He’d already signed the contract with Cassius and with the future council, too. So, he locked me up, and not even Orion could get me out. I know because I could hear him outside the house fighting everyone. I never lied to you. I tried to meet you, but failed to get there. They rushed the pairing process to Cassius after that, and I was in his possession within three days. He was with another big Pride at the time, and I was his first queen. He dragged me along in his rise to power of the Old Tarians. I fought everything at first, waiting for the perfect opportunity to escape and come find you. Orion came after me immediately and didn’t stop pestering the Old Tarians until he had a job as the queens’ guard. I know he wanted to protect me, but he couldn’t do much. Not with the Old Tarians watching every move he made. And then one day, Orion showed me the newspaper article. You were getting married.” She tried to smile. “I understood. I was paired up, and you couldn’t wait forever. And you deserved a nice, normal life. Not one where you were running from my dad’s Pride or from Cassius’s people or navigating lion politics. You deserved to be safe.” She leaned into his hand. “So, I stopped trying to escape, and I let you be safe.”
Ford gripped the back of her wet hair. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, shaking his head as he stared at her. “Well, your plan worked perfectly. I’m really fuckin’ safe.”
Sora snorted and then coughed out a laugh that shocked her. A laugh. She had actually laughed.
Ford had the evilest smile on his face that would probably make mothers shield their babies and grown men cross the street to get away from him.
Sora bit back a grin.
Ford’s hand fell away from the back of her head, and he chuckled.
And that made Sora laugh because, yeah, he was about as safe as safe could be. No one in their right mind would ever engage in a fight with someone the size of a barn who looked like a living, breathing nightmare.
And now she was doubled over laughing so hard that her ribs were hurting, and Ford’s shoulders were shaking from his laughter.
“Your… your…smile looks so terrifying,” she choked out through her giggles.
“Woman, it doesn’t even look like you remember how to smile at all.”
She belted out another laugh. Maybe she was delirious or in shock or something. “And your laugh sounds like you might be the devil himself.”
“I mean…it’s crossed my mind that I might be,” Ford said, wiping the heel of his giant hand across his eye.
Slowly but surely, Sora calmed and the giggles faded away, and that’s when she realized she was bare-ass naked. It had been a long time since Ford had seen her like this, and she’d been all pure and unscarred and had taken care of herself better back then. Clearing her throat, she wrapped her arms over her tits and drew her knees up higher to cover her hoo-ha. Ford might be completely at ease with his nudity now, but Sora had only grown more modest over the past two years.
Without a word, Ford stood and yanked the towel off the rack so hard the metal bar crashed to the ground with a deafening clang. “Shit,” he murmured, handing her the towel and averting his gaze. “I’m still not used to being…me.”
“You have a lot more muscles and tattoos now,” she observed as she stood and wrapped herself in the towel like a burrito.
“You have a lot more scars,” he said quietly.
That hurt. A vain part of her had hoped he wouldn’
t have noticed those. “Feels like forever since that night.”
He nodded once. “I’ll let you get ready. I’ll be outside.” But before he left, he frowned and cast her a quick glance. “You’re still beautiful.” He held her gaze a few seconds more and then left. The slamming of the door didn’t even make her jump this time. That was just Ford now. Big, powerful, lumbering, dangerous man who didn’t give a shit about the feelings of inanimate objects. She just stood on the bath mat, frozen like an iceberg, staring at the closed door, wondering what the hell had just happened. Scream, cry, laugh, get a compliment from a demon. Well, if today didn’t beat all. She could’ve come up with a million scenarios for a day, and never in her wildest dreams would she have been creative enough to imagine this.
You’re still beautiful.
She’d never thought she would ever hear something that touched her soul again. Dark Ford was different from the man she’d known before, but he was still capable of kindness.
He was many things now. Terrifying. Powerful. Aggressive. Protective in a way she didn’t understand yet. Dangerous. Feral.
“Beautiful soul” had been a description for the quiet, watchful Human Ford, but beautiful wasn’t a word that could ever describe Dark Ford.
When she looked down, the fog that reached for the door wasn’t quite so thick or dark and didn’t smell quite so sick.
No, Dark Ford wasn’t beautiful by any means, but he was holding her attention now.
He wasn’t hurting her quite so much anymore.
Chapter Five
Ford had followed the scent of oil and rusted metal to a shed. Someone had worked on cars in this old ghost town.
His senses were heightened and alert like they always were, and he could hear Sora rustling around in the house as he pushed his motorcycle toward the old shed. He’d pulled it out of the bed of Orion’s truck and found a trail through the ravine, pushing it the entire way here as it clinked and clanged and groaned, thanks to him laying it down when he’d gone after the New Tarians. One side of it was pretty banged up, and it was leaking oil. He could fix it with the right tools and a couple of parts, though.
Sora wasn’t singing. He remembered their time together in such vivid detail. That was probably thanks to the lion. It had given him some kind of hyper-focused, photographic memory. He remembered her always humming to herself, but now, she just moved about the house quietly, putting away the groceries Orion had brought and left near the truck. He didn’t know why Orion had left them in the back of the truck, or why he’d left a note instead of talking to Sora, but maybe it was better this way. Ford didn’t do well around other males. Maybe Orion was a smart one and had figured that out. But then again, how smart could a man be if he left his sister in the care of a monster?
He wouldn’t hurt her, but Orion didn’t know that.
Ford heeled down the kickstand and settled the Harley in the mouth of the shed, and then hands on his hips, he stared at the house. He watched her move across the window. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and she wore a black tank top. She used to hate black. She’d been more of a pink and sparkles kind of girl.
Why was she so quiet now? She wasn’t even playing music on the little radio he’d seen in the kitchen. She was fine just drowning in silence.
Good on Sora for killing the man who’d broken her. If Cassius was still alive, Ford would’ve hunted him down like a dog and tortured him for a month before he finally let him die. And his tainted soul wouldn’t have even felt the kill. He wouldn’t have lost an ounce of sleep. Cassius was lucky Sora had gotten to him first.
His anger at Sora’s admissions wasn’t fading at all. As every minute ticked by, he became more and more furious, darkness filling him until he was choking on his rage. He rifled through a toolbox, metal clanging as he tossed the ones he didn’t want onto the workbench. He just needed to focus on fixing the motorcycle. Everything was fine.
Kill everything.
Everything was fine.
Except he couldn’t find the right tools. Whoever had this shed didn’t know how to organize a damn thing.
Nope, nope, nope, clang, clang, clang. He just needed to focus on the bike.
Sora was so quiet. No voice. Her voice had been stolen. Her happiness, stolen. Her life, stolen. Fuckin’ lions and their fuckin’ politics.
He was throwing the tools harder now, rushing from one box to another as he searched for anything he could use. Clang, clang, clang. Kill everything.
So quiet. Sora barely even made a noise when she put away the groceries. She’d learned to be invisible. His beautiful girl, invisible. Clang, clang.
Everything was fine. Fine. Fine. Everything was— “Aaaaah!” he bellowed. “Who the fuck taught you to be invisible?”
****
It was the destruction that drew her. She’d been looking for an excuse to go outside and be near him, but the cowardly lion in her kept her pacing the house. To the kitchen, to the door, back to the kitchen, staring at the door…everything was hard. Every decision, she second-guessed now. She hated it.
But then the banging and clanging had begun. One look out the window, and she could see the Ford’s motorcycle propped up in the doorway of the old work shed. When a wrench went sailing out the open door, she made her move. She ran to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. A cold beer could fix any foul mood. She could help.
Sora padded through the house and onto the porch, down the stairs, careful to miss every rickety floorboard that she’d memorized from her time in this place. Barefoot, she tiptoed quickly to the shed and, just as she reached it, a roar stopped her in her tracks. “Who the fuck taught you to be invisible?” The last word echoed on and on through the mountains.
Heart hammering, she peeked her head around the corner, and there he stood, looking even bigger than she remembered from just an hour ago. Massive shoulders flexed, arms locked on a counter piled with tools, chest heaving. The thick muscles of his back were easy to see through the thin material of his T-shirt. He straightened up in a blur and chucked a car part at the wall so hard, it blasted a cannonball-sized hole right through it. Sunlight streamed through the damage and shone right on Ford. He linked his hands behind his head and whispered it again, “Who would make you invisible?” as the orange afternoon sunlight illuminated the curves of his muscles. Dust motes swirled around lazily, his backdrop an old wooden wall with a pegboard of rusty tools.
She could almost imagine he was the old Ford with his back turned to her and his eyes hidden.
She wished she could take a picture of him, just like this.
He heaved a sigh, turned, and startled hard, a snarl in his throat the moment he saw her. She shrunk back with a little squeak. Some lioness she was. More like a frightened mouse.
“I won’t hurt you,” he assured her.
And she believed him. His tone was steel on each of those words. He’d spoken the truth. He wouldn’t hurt her.
Sora poked her head back around the corner and held out one of the beers, condensation dripping from the cold bottle. “I thought this might help.”
His blazing eyes locked on her, he strode for her with the grace of a predator and took the beer from her hand. Light gray smoke billowed from her and absorbed into him the second his finger brushed hers. When sparks shot from where their skin touched, like a welding flame hitting metal, she yelped and jumped back.
Ford jerked back, too, and frowned down at his fingertips.
“Did you see that?” she whispered.
He closed his fist slowly and inhaled deeply as he dragged his gaze back to hers. “You’re doing something bad to me.”
“I…” Sora frowned and canted her head. What did he mean? “I’m not doing anything bad on purpose.”
Ford took a step back, flicked off the cap of his beer with his thumb like it was nothing, and then chugged it in one draw. Okay, that was the coolest party trick in the world, but she couldn’t conjure a single word to compliment his beer-chugging skills. All
she could do was stand there, watching him down it as the smoke billowed out of her.
“You’re doing something bad to me, too,” she blurted. Oh, real nice, Sora. You don’t deserve to ever get dick again.
“You need things.” Ford cleared his throat, but his voice didn’t sound any less growly when he continued. “Clothes, shampoo, your phone, and shoes and stuff. Girl shit. You need your girl shit.”
“Oh. Well that’s back at the New Tarian territory, so…” She shrugged. “All lost.”
Ford’s eyes sparked with intensity before he said softly, “Nothing’s lost, Sora.”
She tried to smile. “Everything that matters is gone.”
His lips curled back in a terrifying snarl as he closed the distance between them and grabbed her waist in a steel grasp. He threw his empty bottle to the floor at the same time her full one fell from her fingertips. Ford yanked her against his stone chest, leaned down, and crushed his lips to hers. And for a split second, she forgot where she was. For a tiny moment, the kiss was nice. But as the familiar sensation of panic settled over her, she stopped breathing and froze, and then like a rubber band being drawn back and released, she reacted. With a growl, she jerked out of the kiss and slapped Ford straight across the face, her fingers clawed. He didn’t even flinch when she drew blood across his jaw. His eyes were open and yellow, frightening, but he was smiling as she scurried backward. Her shoulders slammed into the wall, and her chest heaved with her frantic breath.
“There she is,” he growled, backing away from her a step at a time.
“W-what?”
“There’s that little spitfire I used to know. I wish you could see your face right now. You look feral. I won’t force a kiss again unless you earn it. Stop talking about being lost. Ain’t nothing lost. You’re just at the bottom, and now you have to claw your way back up. I don’t care how long it takes, Sora. You’re going to claw your way back up, or I will drag your ass every step of the way.”