The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  Instead, she rose and grabbed a couple more of the towels they used in the kitchen, running them under the cold tap and wringing them out. His breathing was harsh, his face twisted in agony when she came back to him. It tore at her to see him like this.

  She didn’t bother to get his shirt open, instead she just reached in, grabbed the edges and pulled the fabric until the buttons popped open.

  Cade’s chest was soaked with sweat. She placed one of the towels on the blistering skin of his chest. Growling, he arched his back, his shoulders pressing into the door of the cabinet.

  When he settled back down, she reached behind his back with the other towel threading her arm through his gaping shirt, and then swiped it across his skin. His protest was louder this time, his face going red. He held his breath and slammed his head back hard.

  “Breathe,” she said gently, placing her hands on either side of his ribs … His skin was still on fire. She held onto him as he took in long, deep breaths. “Just breathe.”

  When his body finally seemed to relax, he rasped, “Powder.”

  “Powder?”

  He gave a weak nod. “In … the cabinet … corner ...” He tried to lift a shaky hand to point at it. “There … is … a … packet … at the … back.”

  He met Natalie’s worried gaze with pleading eyes, the whites of them still deep red and almost bulging now. “I’ll get it,” she breathed, springing to her feet and dashing across the room. She yanked open the cabinet and tried not to panic when she found herself staring at a million different lotions and potions in there. Shit. She moved them around, looking for what he wanted. “There’s no packet,” she said desperately when all she saw was bottles.

  Cade tried to open his eyes and move. “I’ll … get it …”

  “No.” There was no way he’d be able to stand, let alone make it all the way to the cabinet to find whatever it was. “Stay there.” She pulled everything out onto the counter, and when she reached the back, she found a zip-locked packet filled with what looked like soil. “Got it.”

  She scrambled back to him, dropping to her knees.

  “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Tip … it.” He tried to lift his arm, but his face twisted with pain. “Fuck,” he swore as he dropped it again.

  Pushing his sleeve up proved to be too hard. Every attempt she made had him gritting his teeth and banging his head back on the wood cabinet.

  “Cut my shirt off,” he ground out, his hand clutching the fabric, trying to tear it away. “I can’t—”

  “Wait,” she said, reaching up to the cutlery drawer and pulling out a pair of scissors. Her hands trembled as she cut, her wolf pacing inside, wanting out. The need to come and tend to her mate flooded her, almost to the point that she thought she would lose it. But she pushed her away, mentally begged for her to stay back.

  When she finally got his shirt off, she tossed it out of the way and grabbed the powder. The smell that came from it as she opened up the packet was acrid and foul, but there was the scent of earth in there, too.

  Cade held his arm out toward her and she clasped his wrist, helping him to keep it steady. She held the bag over his wound and then tipped the powder out slowly. It fizzed and sizzled the moment it hit his skin, and Cade bucked against her, his arm slipping. He shouted out, his head going back and his teeth clenching. His hand found hers, squeezing with an iron grip she was sure would break her hand.

  “More,” he ground out. “Add more.”

  She had to brace herself as she tipped out more of the powder, the pain-filled expression on his face breaking her heart into a thousand pieces. But the wound bubbled, and after a few seconds, a black-like tar spilled out, dripping down his arm.

  She held onto him as pain rocked his body and made him sit right up. He rested his damp head against her shoulder, the intimate contact sending her wolf crazy.

  “I need… to shift,” he forced out. But as he let go of her hand, he slumped weakly to the side. “I need to …. shift ...”

  Chapter 25

  Gemma

  Gemma held down the power button on her phone, holding her breath as she waited for the logo to appear before the damn thing shut off. Three times Cade had called her on the drive to Beacon. Three times she had ignored him, even though her heart begged her to speak to him.

  “Are you sure everything’s okay?” Karl asked after he had walked around to Gemma’s side of the car. “If something has come up, I don’t mind. I can take you back.”

  She took in great lungfuls of fresh, nature-filled air and let it seep down to her soul—her tiger. Her skin literally itched with the need to call Cade … to go to him.

  But he was the habit she desperately needed to break.

  “I’m good. I promise.” She forced a smile to her lips as she met Karl’s worried eyes.

  His eyes were a shade of green lighter than hers. All tigers had green eyes, it was the depth of the colour that changed. It wasn’t a green like Human eyes, either. While their pupils only went to ovals in tiger form, they were never quite fully circular. Stephen had had eyes to die for. He was her brother and she envied him that. Deep green eyes and thick dark lashes. It was no wonder he was able to attract any woman with a simple wink.

  She’d often wondered what colour eyes Connor would have had. Green like hers or the blue of his father …

  Realising her mind had wandered off, she cleared her throat and said, “Are you ready for that run?”

  A smile formed on his lips and he gave a nod, turning to look out at the forest ahead of them. It was thick with tall trees—and darkness … All the right ingredients for a good run.

  To one side there were rocks, most likely from a cliff that had long ago let go of its wares when the earth had given up its strength. Gemma loved to lie on rocks when the sun had beat down on them all day, the warm rays captured and held inside.

  “Which way do you fancy?”

  There were three paths that Gemma could see. One of them led back the way they had driven up, and the other two went left and right. One of them headed to the rocks. “Do you know, I've never been here?” she said. “All this time.” She pointed behind them. “If I came this way, I always went to the fell instead.” She spotted the wooden picnic tables around a patch of grass, rubbish bins and metal grated barbeque pits. There were signs up that this area could be used by Others once the sun went down, but it was still a little too Human for her. Their scent was thick, worse when the days were warm and they came out in droves to taste a piece of nature.

  She’d give them a taste of nature.…

  “Really? Wow. Depends what kind of run you're after?”

  “‘Forget about my shitty problems kind of run?” She said it without even thinking. “Sorry. Whichever is best.”

  “Well … we could go right if you fancied easy run, but I'm thinking … left.” He smiled at her. “It’s a pretty good place to work your shit out.”

  She couldn’t help smiling back at him. “Left it is then.”

  They walked side by side along the path, the welcome ache forming in her calves as they stepped along the incline—a path laden with small rocks, cracks and uneven earth—a good sign that he had picked the right way. She needed that burn.

  She needed to feel something more than her heart withering in her chest.

  Karl kept a good enough distance from her as they walked so as not to invade her personal space, but his scent was strong, calling to her tiger in ways that only one of her kind could do … but it still didn’t reach her as deeply as Cade did.

  “I used to come here when I was a kid,” Karl said. He pointed at a spot across the rocks. “I got my ass kicked for climbing up there.” A wistful smile played on his lips. “My mother said it wasn’t safe. She loved this place, though. Some nights we would come here, and while me and my dad shifted, she would sit and draw.”

  “Your mother drew?”

  “All the time. I think, sometimes, it was like breathing f
or her. Do you remember the wall we had, down at Longton? The one with all the murals on it?”

  Yeah, she remembered. She had hung around there a bit when she was younger. It was a wall … a barrier between Others and Humans. It was still there, although some of it was nothing but ruins. “Your mum …”

  “My mum painted that. She ran it, too ... the youth project that went with it?”

  Some of the murals that were painted on it were nothing short of breath-taking. “That’s some talent she had, then.” She wasn’t so blind that she hadn't realised he talked of his mother in a past tense. She wanted to ask, but then …

  “This way,” he said, and reached out to take hold of her hand and pull her off the path, the contact awakening her tiger and feeling like the most natural thing in the world. He led her to a steep incline—steep was perhaps an understatement. It was practically a straight wall of rocks and grass. “Up for it?”

  She focused on the highest point of the cliff. “That’ll be some view.”

  The grin he gave her was childlike … full of mischievous delight. It was that of one who had not been scathed by life yet.

  He braced one foot against a small rock, ready for the climb.

  Gemma paused.

  This felt like a crossroads for her. And whichever way she chose to go, there was no going back … Panic threatened her, a swirl of unease in her chest making her struggle to breathe. She wanted to tell herself to get a grip. It wasn’t like he was proposing marriage … but up there … alone ...

  A run was intimate. If she went up, she was choosing Karl, down … Cade.

  “We can go the other way if you prefer,” he said gently, taking a step back and hitching a thumb over his shoulder. “I—”

  “It’s just very steep. I’m …” She watched as Karl nodded and took his foot back down, stepping in behind her. “Guys are always suckers,” she laughed before taking off up the incline. “I’ll meet you up there,” she called over her shoulder, smirking at the umph and cussing as he realised he’d been tricked.

  “You little shit …”

  When they were almost at the top, they were both scrabbling and climbing the last part by pulling themselves up by digging their hands into tufts of grass.

  “God, that felt so good,” Gemma panted, pushing herself back. “I can't believe the view up here, though. It’s so beautiful.” From where they stood, they were afforded a view of miles across the towns. Lights glowed in the distance, houses … cars moving along roads. She imagined this is what it felt like to be God looking down at your creation. “It feels like I could leap from here and fly.”

  Karl gave a deep chuckle and sat down on the edge, one leg hanging down, the other bent at the knee so he could rest an arm on it. “I tried once. Not from this height, but high enough.” He rolled up the leg of his jeans. “Broke my leg,” he said, showing her the faint scar on his shin. Gemma’s eyes flicked from his leg to his face. Others didn’t scar so easily. If they did, it was usually because of mental trauma….

  And that was something she definitely wouldn’t ask about if he didn’t offer the information of his own volition.

  “Does your mother still come here?”

  His eyes glazed over at her words, making her regret her question. “Not anymore.” There was sadness in his tone, and Gemma could only guess that she had passed on. “My mother always liked your mother. When she would see her, they would often talk. I’m sure your mother gets sick of all these women coming to her, grabbing her hand, and things?”

  She smiled. “No. My mum thrives on being a social butterfly. Probably talked your mother’s ear off about herbs and shit like that. I think she has the entire family’s social skills. You should see the house when she throws a party. Nightmare.”

  He laughed and slid backwards, unfastening his laces. Time to shift, and God did she need it. He pulled his boots off and set them to one side before standing and offering her his hand. “Race to the North Point?”

  Gemma took his hand and stood with him—not something she would normally do, but something she had to force if she was to make any kind of progress in moving forward. “I have no idea where that is.”

  “Kinda that way,” he said, gesturing behind them. “This could be an easy win for me.”

  Gemma cocked her head to the side, one brow slightly raised. “That could also be classed as cheating?”

  He gave a slight shrug. “Makes it even, then.”

  The area was pretty much clear up there, but there were masses of trees all around. It was like the eye of a storm kind of place, but it had been manually cleared, Gemma guessed by the way there were picnic tables set out here, too. They didn’t look as used, though. Less marks, and the bins seemed empty.

  Karl went to one of the tables and set his boots down on it. Then, he put his back to Gemma and started to unbuckle his jeans. She figured it was more for her privacy than his. When they did pack runs, no one bothered to hide. What was the point? It was just shifting.

  Going to a table in the opposite direction, she kicked off her shoes, happily scrunching her toes into the earth. As she undressed, her tiger made her want to instinctively turn towards the available male in her proximity.

  She peeked over her shoulder.

  He was naked, his slender physique mouth-wateringly inviting. She swallowed hard. She had never desired another man except Cade … she had never allowed herself to look at another man, especially not a tiger. It created butterflies in her stomach and an unfamiliar desire to spike.

  He was slimmer than Cade, but not so much that he didn’t boast well-toned muscle on every part of his body. His skin was a little more tanned, though, and he had a mark across his ribs, like a wound that was in the last stages of healing. He brushed his long, black hair away from his face and tilted his head back, taking in deep breaths.

  Gemma had paused part way through her own undress, and when Karl glanced her way and locked eyes with her, she felt her cheeks redden and her tiger growl in response. He didn’t speak, but there was an intensity in his eyes that did all the talking for him. His gaze stayed on her as he crouched down, hands on the ground in front of him, and Gemma didn’t turn away when she slipped off the rest of her clothes.

  Nothing would ever compare to the sensation of changing from woman to tiger. It hurt … a lot … but it was that kind of pain that walks the line of pleasure. She loved every bone popping moment, and when she had shifted, she stood and let herself revel in her tiger for a moment, squaring her paws, taking the air in deeply and letting it out in the same controlled manner.

  Karl had shifted, too. He was a larger tiger, his stripes thicker and darker than hers, no white around his mouth.

  She braced herself, feeling the corners of her mouth twitching as she tried to fight her smile. Karl shot off in a blur of dark orange fur before she could lift a paw, losing himself into the darkness at one side.

  She ran hard, jumping over anything in her path … branches, rocks … there was even a low stone-built wall just before the trees, which she leapt over with ease. She still had no idea which way the North Point was. She knew where north itself was, and figured she couldn’t go far wrong if she just headed along that way. She didn’t care really. She was running and she was free. Out here, as her tiger, there were no worries in the world … no dead shifters, no broken hearts. No forced mating that would steal her heart and maybe break something inside her …

  It was just her … and Karl.

  She didn’t know how far she had run, nor did she really care. The incline had levelled out a little, but the pressure in her nose told her that they were still climbing. The moon above them wasn’t quite out yet, just peering around the corner of the shadow of the earth.

  She ran toward that as if it were something she could actually catch, her mind focused on it … instead of her surroundings....

  She let out an umph when something hard and solid crashed into her side, knocking the wind out of her and making her roll.

/>   Scrambling back to her feet, she shook her head to clear it, and then glared at Karl. The shit was smiling, and the growl coming from him sounded suspiciously like a laugh. That was how he wanted to play it?

  Okay then …

  She stepped forward, lifting her top lip to bare her teeth at him, a low growl rumbling in her throat.

  A deep sense of nostalgia filled her. Stephen used to take her down like this.…

  Karl was gone as fast as he had come, and this time, Gemma didn’t wait. She charged after him, the message clear: she was hunting tonight, and her target was Karl. She raced harder, faster … pushing herself to close the gap between them.

  She saw it a moment too late—water—a stream ... She jammed her paws into the earth, almost sending herself hurtling into it from the momentum of her run.

  Karl stood staring at her from the edge, where he had stopped. He made a low noise in his throat … more laughter, she was sure. If she had fingers, she might have raised her middle one. He snorted at her, kicking up the earth as he turned and raced off again.

  Gemma was just about to take off after him when the sound of something snapping had her head jerking in that direction.

  Her senses on alert, she lowered herself close to the ground until her fur scraped lightly along the soil. Creeping in the direction of the sound, she kept her eyes on the shadows. And that was when she saw him … standing on the water’s edge, his gaze fastened on her. Gemma paused, then rose and ran toward him. But he was fast … faster than she was, and it took less than five seconds to lose him.

  Henry …

  Without a doubt, it was him. She raced through the trees, every sense alive, searching for him, but he was an emptiness in the darkness. His footsteps were silent, his breathing non-existent, and all she could pick up was the faint beat of a heart … but maybe that was her own?