by LeAnn Mason
Rory padded through the opening, surveying the greenery before him, looking remarkably like the stone statues lining the railings on either side of where he perused all that lay before him. When those amber eyes found and locked on me, he lowered his massive head and stalked slowly forward, a low huffing chuff leaving his exposed maw.
Holy Hell, those teeth were huge. I’d been staring down another set of leonine jaws a short time ago. Those fangs now looked more like the tools of a cub as I stared at the up-and-coming king. I’d never truly been afraid of Rory… until now.
Frozen, my limbs refused to move though my heart jackhammered in my chest and into my throat. I couldn’t believe the untamable, feral side of Rory that I’d seemed to calm, now called for my blood. “Rory.” The word jerked from my throat as if physically pulled from deep within. So much anguish wrenched from me with just one word.
His ear twitched backward before flicking to pin me in place, then in the combined, smooth moves of a predator, he ran straight for me. Self-preservation apparently not being one of my strong suits, I barely had time to take a step to the rear before he was on me.
A wild scream tore from my throat as I tilted backward, his ton-heavy body hitting me and enfolding me in a cocoon of heated fur. I was wrapped so completely that I saw no light, and while the air whooshed from my lungs as we hit the ground, I didn’t feel the greeting of cold. hard stone. I felt several pricks of pain as my weight pushed into an almost cushioned surface. Somehow I wasn’t crushed underneath his immense weight.
My mind focused on those facts. One, I hadn’t hit the ground. Two, he was obviously keeping his full weight from my body. And thirdly… I wasn’t dead yet.
“Rory,” I ventured timidly, my hands tentatively reaching out as far as they could, given my heavy blanket, I pressed my palms through his long, rough mane and to his skin. Or at least as close as I could get.
In response, his heavy head came to rest across my own, the weight pushing me further into the legs banded beneath my back. A deep, vibrating rumble answered my plea, but he made no move to get off of me. His mouth opened, expelling warm breath arcing across my ear and neck as he panted, sniffing at my skin.
He hadn’t mauled me to death, but my heart still didn’t think I was safe, and my mind agreed. Something had set Rory off, and his lion was confused about what to do.
That made two of us.
Tears streamed steadily from my eyes as the lion’s weight continued to push down on me, leaving my mind grappling to find a way to bring him back, to me.
“What the hell are you doing, Rory?”
Oh no… no, no, no!
Rory lifted his head at Allya's incredulous demand, producing a menacing pulsing roar that vibrated through him and into me as I lay pinned and immobile. His body tensed, raising slightly with the coiling of immense muscles. The new position allowed more breath into my lungs and for me to crane my neck and see something other than choking tawny fur.
Rory gave another short roar. A warning for Allya to retreat. I couldn't quite see her, but I was positive she hadn't left.
“Al.”
My plea had been for her to leave, but the sound brought Rory's attention back to me and away from Allya.
That's when she sprang.
CHAPTER 25
Quicker than should have been possible, I watched a dark shape with a trailing streak of bright red leap atop Rory's back, grabbing onto a hunk of blond hairs to use like a rein. A flash of silver glinted at the feline's throat as Allya bent over his neck, her legs wrapped tightly against his flanks.
The girl was crazy, riding a lion as if it were a horse. “Let her go, Rory. Don't make me draw blood from another Leone.” Threatening said lion was even stupider.
“Allya, no.”
Too late. Rory had obviously understood what she meant. She had injured his father. His father, the king, had been Rory's emotional anchor, and his condition was the catalyst sending Rory's animal side into overdrive. And my best friend had just informed him that she had a part in it.
Rory roared, the sound shaking me to the bone. He twisted in an attempt to reach one of Allya's legs. If he caught her, she'd be torn apart. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't lose either of them. Allya rode him like a bull, determined not to let him unseat her with his giant body undulating in different directions. The bucking had kept Allya from slicing his throat, forcing her to ditch the blade in favor of a better grip and more maneuverability.
Their battle moved Rory off of my prone body, closer to the destroyed terrace where this whole debacle had begun. The unbelievable scene gave me a new appreciation for my friend, making me understand just why she was so often referred to as the "Scarlet Huntress.” I couldn’t imagine a more badass girl and, despite the tense situation, found myself extremely proud of how she’d blossomed.
I scooted backward, further from the melee, in a move born of self-preservation. Clear of the fight, I pushed shakily to a stand, only to realize my glasses had been knocked off at some point during the encounter and I couldn't make out more than colors and shapes in the near distance. More thunderous calls emitted from Rory's enraged maw, but not a peep escaped Allya that I could hear. Maybe I just couldn't hear them over the animal sounds.
It looked like the lion wore a cape.
“Allya, please stop! Rory… please calm down!” I tried to be the voice of reason, to be heard at all. My hands fluttered in an impotent display of nervous energy.
The red jumped away from the lion to land a few feet away on the path next to the trampled and broken rose bushes, the vibrant flowers now a macabre display of what the encounter would likely end in, bloodshed.
On steady footing, Allya once again brandished her weapon. I only figured because something glinted in the sunlight. But, free of the giant beast, she didn't attack. In fact, her posture was almost relaxed.
“That's better. Now, stop being a dick and talk out your problems like a normal person.” Then, she thought about her statement and amended, “semi-normal Shifter.”
His answering chuffs weren’t as overtly aggressive as his previous actions, but neither the Scarlet Huntress nor I moved our focus from the formerly rampaging beast. Annoyed, he slapped at the ground with a front paw, mock charging as he chuffed again.
Warnings.
“Fine. If you don’t want to come back to humanity, let me at least get Mae out of here. You want that, don’t you? You don’t really want to hurt her, do you?” She tried again to bring the man to the surface of his more base nature. Sitting much like a dog, he conceded, allowing Allya to move past him and further along the path to where I stood. “Where did those… ah! Here are your instruments of sight, my friend,” she chirped brightly as if she hadn’t just had a bronc ride on the back of a lion. Bending over at the waist, she scooped up something from the path as her cloak fell to the side, the resulting pile looking like a bloody heap.
The thought made my stomach lurch. I couldn’t fathom the thought of Allya being injured like she had been the night I’d been brought to Grimm Hollow. The night my entire life was flipped on its head. That night was also when Rory lost hold of his humanity. Unbidden, the scene from the room upstairs flooded my vision. I feared I suddenly knew why Rory was unable to return from this form.
“I’m so sorry, Rory.”
“Sorry for what? What are you apologizing for?” Allya asked, ready to tell me that whatever it was, it wasn’t my fault. I could see it in her eyes, in the pinch of her lips.
But it was.
“I’m so sorry that I’m the reason your father got hurt.”
Lion Rory cocked his head, a keening chuff escaping his whiskered maw in lament.
“What? No. You are not taking the blame for what happened, Mae. It wasn’t your fault. It was Seth’s and, by that extension, mine. You were only there for him to hurt me,” Allya pleaded angrily with me, roughly shaking my arm, her eyes glowing. The golden color became almost hard to look at as my friend visibly struggl
ed to stay calm.
“You shot my husband, the king, distracting him long enough that a Witch could hit him with a mortem spell. It is only his sheer strength and vitality, the very things that make him an alpha, a king, that are keeping him from losing this battle.” A vitriolic feminine voice hissed from back toward the terrace. There, the queen stood, straight and tall, looking down her proud nose on the scene in the destroyed garden area before her.
If I thought the woman hated me before, I was quite sure of it now. It was stamped over every inch of her regal features. Fists once again curled, and I watched as blood dripped steadily from within. Her blazing eyes spoke of the violence she’d attempted upstairs where Rory had intervened. Minutes later, he’d become incensed toward me.
“You told him I was the reason his father is unwell.” Statement. I knew it to be true.
A haughty laugh preceded the woman’s scathing retort. “Of course I did. I couldn’t stand the sight of him choosing to protect you, the vehicle of Ryan’s condition, as you lorded over your handiwork.”
“What the hell? It wasn’t her fault! You know that though, don’t you, Queen Leone? You just don’t like your precious son getting close to a lowly human,” Allya sneered. The girl didn’t know when to shut it. This woman could end things for her here in Grimm Hollow, if not more permanently.
I grabbed Allya’s arm in a futile attempt to draw her attention. We didn’t need to be here right now. There was no swaying the queen, and she had too much power and influence to spar with. “Let’s just go. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“No.”
“No?” The word stopped my attempts to sway Allya, distracting me from my goal. What does she mean, no? “Rory has made great strides, I think he’s almost ready to take on his regency. We even had a day among others in th—”
“You will not come near my son again, human. It was a mistake to invite you into my home. My son is no better off now than the moment he went feral. Look at him!” the woman screamed, all attempts at composure now gone.
A yowl escaped Rory, his massive head swiveling between where his mother spat and the opposite wall where Allya and I stood frozen in disbelief.
“I want both of you gone. Now. Don’t bother coming back. You are no good. For Rory, or anyone else in Grimm Hollow. Either of you. Come, Rory, let’s get inside before we draw more eyes.” Pretty sure it was too late for that. People might not have seen what was going on behind these walls, but there was no subtlety involved. Someone had heard. The news surely wouldn’t take long to circulate around the town.
“He’s not a dog,” I barked. My hand flying to cover my traitorous mouth. The thing seemed determined to get me killed today. My glasses again firmly affixed to my face, I could make out just how close the matriarch was to shifting and tearing into me just as she’d wanted to since the day she’d proposed this farce of a tutoring job. Allya decided it was high time to skedaddle although maybe being attacked by the ruling body of the Shifter community would have more repercussions for her… most likely not.
People with power ruled the world.
I had none.
“Human.” I had lost the status of having a name. It burned, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking back as she called, taking one last peek at Rory. I wanted to believe his large yellow eyes were trained on me in longing. “You can consider my protection revoked.”
I locked gazes with smoldering chocolate irises, no longer hidden behind his beast. Rory stood tall, proud, and human. Not to mention fully nude and without a pinch of shyness or embarrassment. “Mother. I believe you are being harsh. Mae has been instrumental in my… recovery.”
“Please, you are no better than you were. Still unable to control yourself,” she dismissed.
“I think he knows what works for him. Also, the fact that he is able to question you as a human should tell you something,” Allya interjected with her normal snark while she pulled me away. One last parting shot for them to chew on. I looked back again, I couldn’t help it, and even though Rory was gloriously bared, I couldn’t tear my eyes from his. I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew now that I couldn’t stay.
His mother would find a way to kill me.
Every step I took away from Rory tore at my heart. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge just how deeply he’d burrowed under my skin, but as the distance between our bodies widened, I felt a chasm open up within me. One I wasn’t sure I could pull myself out of. The new hole was deeper, wider, more craggy than the original. As if this loss formed the crack that allowed the world to swallow me whole. He’d helped fill the void left by the losses of my family and home. I’d felt alive and in the moment. Every moment with him had been an assault on my senses, a patch to my wounded soul.
I felt like I’d just been taken off of life support and I couldn’t breathe on my own. The life that I had been building since my arrival in this hidden, magical, and overly wondrous town had just shattered like the frail visage it was. A mirage easily seen through once the light fled.
“C’mon, Mae, let’s go get some shakes at the diner. I’ll bet Bianca is there, and if there’s one thing that girl is good at, it’s finding a bright side and shoving that brightness in your face.”
With the mental fortitude of a freaking Special Forces operative, I clamped down on the wave of bleakness that threatened to engulf me. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time until we were out of the garden, standing on the sidewalk along the street of the Archives.
Somehow, the autumn weather affected me more on this side of the wall than it ever did within the garden, and I shivered as the cold seeped through my clothes to douse my bones with a fresh wave of misery. Allya took the lead, pulling me along by my elbow as she moved further from what I’d come to think of as my safe space, my sanctuary.
One sound followed me down the street, and in my imagination, the birdsong was mournful as the lark echoed my loss.
CHAPTER 26
“Girl, shake it off. No biggie. Now you can spend your days at the Archives with Marie. All day spent among books and dust, you’ll be living your dream.” Allya was all about cheering me up. Just like she’d said, we were at the diner with a plate of fries and a milkshake each.
As usual, she knew how to do comfort food right. I dragged in a mouthful of the thick, sweet beverage that was more like trying to drink mud. At least, it tasted better even if visually unappealing due to the resemblance. I pulled in another heavy drag of the chocolatey goodness. I was realizing that chocolate really did seem to have some kind of healing properties as I didn’t feel quite as lost as I had before sucking on the straw like I was a vacuum.
I was almost positive that Allya had told Jason to stay away, that we needed some girl time because I was in the dumps.
Okay, that’s exactly what she’d said. I’d peeked at the text she’d shot him as we sat down. Still, she was texting every few minutes, her phone chiming with incoming messages. She didn’t even see how smitten she was. I envied her. She had a good thing going here in Grimm Hollow. She thrived, let the world see the strong-willed and caring girl I’d always known she hid.
I hated that it made me jealous.
I couldn’t succeed. Not as a human in the world of supernaturals. I’d forever be weak, easily intimidated and pushed around among the magical beings here. I’d been a pawn. Used and easily discarded. At least I’d been able to leave relatively whole. I’d been sure I was going to be eaten by one lion or another this day. I guessed there was still time. The day wasn’t over yet, and Lorraine Leone had very vocally rescinded her “protection” of me. A protection I didn’t believe ever existed.
“So I was thinking, maybe we should go have some kind of girls’ night, maybe a bonfire or at least s’mores in the backyard,” Bianca said, flouncing up to our table and stealing a fry from my stash. She obviously knew better than to steal anything off of Allya’s plate. She'd hoarded food even before she shared her body with a predator.
“Oh, man, I
’m so game.” Allya grinned as she bit at a bunch of fries pinched in her grasp. It reminded me of a hilarious movie where a very uncouth FBI agent had to be molded into someone to compete in beauty pageants. An unladylike snort escaped me as the scene played out in my mind.
“Yeah, sure.” Maybe some girl time was exactly what I needed. I needed to rally. Find my purpose again. I didn’t need to be Rory Leone’s tutor to have a place here. I had plenty to contribute. I didn’t need to be supernatural to find my role. Marie seemed to want me, thought I could be useful in the depths of the Archives. There, I’d get my fill of supernatural entities, hopefully without pissing any off and becoming kitty chow.
Maybe I’d even figure out how to waken a certain Vampire princess. They’d have to respect me then, wouldn’t they?
I’d just have to put the Shifter prince out of my mind. It’s not like he was ever mine. I hadn’t lost him today because I’d never had him. I needed to remember that. Childish girly fantasies aside, Rory and I had never had any sort of relationship. One kiss didn’t a couple make.
A shadow loomed briefly at the edge of our booth before I was squeezed uncomfortably into the wall as someone pushed their way onto the bench beside me. My surprise burned into annoyance as I took in the perfectly groomed visage of a blonde teenager I’d love to never lay eyes on again.
“What do you want, Risa?” Allya barked, face still stuffed with potato goodness. She was not about to let the harpy destroy the mood she was trying to create.
“Just wanted to repeat my original… speech. Stay away from Rory. You are now officially fair game,” the girl uttered with a saccharine smile and golden eyes. “I could gut you without a second thought, and absolutely no one would care. Ouch!” The fake smile disappeared to be replaced by a savage grimace, elongated canines on full display as Risa stared amber daggers at my best friend. “Do it again. I dare you,” the blonde seethed.