How It Started

by T. S. Joyce

  “I have my boy tonight,” he said. “I don’t get him nearly enough anymore. Trinity has that mongrel helping her raise him.”

  “It’s just me and Divar here, asshole. We don’t care about your sob story, so you can quit pretending you’re father of the year.”

  Archer narrowed his onyx eyes. “He told the Murder something interesting at dinner. He said he has a new friend. Said he has dark eyes. Said he told him he’s a crow, like Tucker.”

  “And?”

  “And that you’re trying to find him a home.”

  “His home is here. You’re dismissed.”

  The man blurred into a cloud of black smoke and appeared right in front of Amos, who slammed his fist across the man’s face with an echoing crack. “Back up, bitchboy.” Amos said. “That’s a warning shot because you’re Tucker’s dad. You’ve got a tentative alliance here. It doesn’t grant you immunity.”

  The man’s jaw was horrifically crooked as he looked up at Amos with a hatred that terrified Leanna. He stood slowly and adjusted his jaw, and the hanging thing repaired itself.

  Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

  “The boy is mine,” Amos said. “He’s mine. Do you understand? He isn’t a part of the Murder, he’s one of this Crew, because. He’s. Mine.”

  Beside her, Trev slipped his little hand into hers. She’d thought he was asleep.

  Archer’s black eyes drifted to Trev. “Your pet dragon has no claim in town. Nor do any of you have claim over Crow Blooded offspring. If you value your peace, you’ll remind him of where his territory is.”

  Amos huffed a laugh. “We don’t need the dragon, Archer. I can kill you just fine myself.”

  “Can we change now?” Divar asked. “Can we kill him?”

  Leanna was out of her element. She was out of the confines of right and wrong here. Murder was bad in the human world. Killing was bad, but as she witnessed the hunger in Archer’s eyes and moved Trev behind her legs protectively, an awful, dark part of her wanted Amos to say yes.

  “Leanna,” Amos murmured.

  And she knew. She knew what he needed. With that little nod of his head. That little exposure of his profile, with his jaw gritted, and fury in his gold eyes, she told him, “Okay.” She and Trev didn’t need to see whatever was going to happen next. She reached for the door handle, and pulled it closed.

  She turned and bent slightly to pick up Trev and hug him up tight, but he disappeared from her grasp.

  With a gasp, she lunged for the boy, who was being yanked backward by a humongous crow. The back door was open, and he was beating his powerful wings, claws latched onto Trev’s thin arms.

  “Leanna!” he screamed, and his eyes ripped her guts out. They were so full of fear.

  She bolted for the crow. “Fight!” She screamed at the boy, and he did. Trev kicked like a wild animal and gripped onto the edge of the door as the crow tried to pull him into the night. That one second Trev bought her was everything. She leapt onto the animal and pulled it down. All she could do was swing. Swing and scream. “Trev, go inside!” she yelled, beating on the flapping creature’s wings as it hit the back stairs. Trev’s arms were cut, and the sight of red filled her head with rage. She didn’t know what she did next. She only knew she had to make this asshole release the boy.

  There was pain. There were more crows. There was chaos. She broke the crow’s leg against the stair with her knee and shoved Trev inside. “Lock the door,” she screamed. Claws slashed across her arm, ripping straight through the jacket she was wearing, and then he was there.

  She could hear the clicks and looked up as Amos came straight over the roof and landed on the two crows near her. The crows were big. Amos’s eagle was a titan. His wingspan had to stretch the length of the trailer, and he held the creatures down with talons that could kill any human easily. With a sob, she scrambled out of the way of that flurry of violence. In horror, she watched Amos rip one of their heads off, and in a blur, he slipped back into his human skin.

  There was death in his voice as he choked the other crow. “You’re free to go back and tell the Murder who will slit every one of their fucking throats if you come for my boy again. You drew blood from my mate. From my boy. You don’t have to fear the dragon. You won’t get that far. Fear me.” He reached forward and ripped one of the crow’s wings off, and tossed it to the massive grizzly bear who was charging around the corner of the trailer.

  The crow’s caw turned to a man’s screech as he shifted back into a broken, bleeding man. Amos picked him up by the throat and threw him into the woods. The shifter scrambled up, his back bleeding from an open gash at his shoulder blade, and stumbled into the woods.

  “Let him go!” he yelled at a charging Divar. It had to Divar, right? He was a massive brown grizzly, disappearing into the woods, black feathers hanging from his blood-soaked teeth.

  Leanna was shaking badly, and her arms hurt.

  Amos knelt down and touched her hand, but she flinched away. “Stop,” she demanded mindlessly. She just needed to…she just needed to…

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his eyes blazing a gold so bright, it hurt to look at him.

  He tried to turn the door handle, but Trev had locked it like she’d asked him to.

  “Boy! Let me in.”

  She didn’t know. Didn’t know anything. Cold. Shaking. There was blood on her arms. Trev?

  She was pulled inside. Amos was talking to someone. On the phone? Krome. “Krome, the crows know about Trev. They just came for him…one dead…two injured and released…Trev is all right…Trev, are you all right?”

  The boy was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. His arms were scratched and he was holding something. A stick? His dark eyes looked strange. Gold tinted. He was panting. Scared. Scared like her.

  “Trev?” she asked. She was breathing too hard. Huge crows and huge eagles and bears and blood, and they’d almost taken Trev and…and…

  “Amos?” Trev squeaked. “I don’t feel good.”

  “It’s okay, buddy,” he said, setting the phone on the ground. He scooted closer to Trev. “You can Change. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  And something happened to Trev. He blurred and stretched and cried out as feathers sprouted from his skin, and in moments, the boy was gone, and only a bird remained.

  A large bird.

  One with solid-colored feathers, and light brown eyes to match them.

  His feathers weren’t black at all.

  Stunned, Leanna dragged her attention to Amos, who knelt there with his hand covering his mouth. She’d never witnessed such shock on a man’s face. His eyes were rimming with tears. In a hoarse voice, he uttered, “Boy, you aren’t a crow.”

  And he wasn’t. Trev’s feathers were chocolate brown, and his beak was yellow and curved. His legs were yellow, too, punctuated with black talons. He didn’t have the white feathers on his head yet…but someday he would.

  Amos wasn’t the only one anymore.

  Trev’s little eagle made the same chirping noise Amos had.

  Never in her life would she forget the look on Amos’s face as he stared at the boy. Never.

  That charged moment ripped her heart wide open in the best way. A sob escaped her and she scooted to the little eagle and picked him up, careful to keep his wings tucked. She rested him on her lap and broke down as Amos pulled them both onto his lap.

  “You’re perfect, Trev,” she whispered, rocking him. Kids should hear that they were okay. That they were important, and safe, and growing just like they should.

  She was shocked at what had happened. Stunned at the animals and the fight, and she would never forget Trev being ripped from her grasp or the fear of what would’ve happened if that crow had made it to the air currents with him.

  But right now?

  None of that mattered.

  All that mattered was Amos hugging them up tight with a promise that they were all right, and the little eagle cuddled in her lap.

&nb
sp; All that mattered was that everything really did feel like it was going to be okay.

  Epilogue

  “You’ve got this,” she repeated to herself for the third time since the church bells started tolling.

  With a huff of breath, she got out of her car and straightened her fitted dress.

  The big day was here. The day she could put all the rumors around town to rest. The day people would stop looking at her with pity because her wedding day had been stolen from her.

  It was the day she moved forward with her life and stopped looking back.

  Amos would be here, offering her the crook of his elbow and charming everyone, and Trev would be their shadow, happy and confident, like he always was now.

  Her sister was there, holding the door to the little church open. Her smile was mushy. She’d always told her to hold her head up high and not get swallowed by the town.

  Leanna climbed the stairs and let off a little huff of breath to steady herself.

  Time to face everyone.

  The church doors opened, and she knew she would find Amos and Trev, her two steadying forces.

  It wasn’t Holly’s big day today. It was hers, and thank goodness, because this life was so much brighter and better than it ever could’ve been with anyone else.

  At the end of the aisle of the tiny mountain church, she could see him—her Amos.

  He’d been talking to Trev, who stood beside him in a tiny, matching suit, but when he saw her, Amos’s smile faded, and then reappeared softer.

  Their friends stood. The Crew was here for them, standing in the pews. Trinity was already crying as Leanna walked past her row, and she reached out and grasped her hand for a moment before she readjusted her grip on the bouquet of white flowers she held in front of her.

  “Whoa! You look pretty, Leanna!” Trev said loud enough to echo through the small church.

  An emotional laugh got all caught up in her throat, and she had to wipe her damp cheeks quickly.

  This wasn’t the big show that Holly and Tyler’s wedding had been.

  It was an intimate gathering of her favorite people, here to share a moment she would cherish all her life with the man she loved.

  Krome had gotten ordained just for this ceremony, and he smiled at her as she took her place next to her Amos. “You sure you don’t want to run now?” he teased quietly.

  She laughed, shook her head, and looked at Amos. He was so damn handsome in his suit, looking back at her like she was everything. Leanna swallowed hard and whispered, “No running. I’m right where I want to be.”

  Amos slipped his strong hand around hers and looked to Krome.

  “We’re ready.”

  And those two words had never formed a bigger truth. She was ready.

  She’d moved her things into Amos’s trailer, and had let the lease to her house run out. She’d settled into the chaos of raising a half-wild little eagle shifter with Amos. Sometimes, neither one of them had the answers, but they always figured it out—together.

  If the town wanted to talk about anything, let it be that she was happy.

  She’d landed right where she was supposed to be, with a protective man who protected her heart, a sweet little boy who gave her purpose, and a Crew of monsters who didn’t feel so monstrous anymore. They just felt like family.

  Amos was looking down at her, a soft smile on his clean-shaven face. As Krome told everyone to take a seat, Amos leaned in next to her ear and told her, “I’ll always open the door for you.”

  Tears of joy streamed down her face as she nuzzled against the kiss he laid on her temple.

  She got it.

  She understood.

  It was his sweet way of letting her know he would always love her.

  And she knew, without the shadow of a doubt, she would always love him, too.

  Up Next from this Author

  Ashbrock Curse

  A Halloween Short Story

  Coming October 2021

  Up Next in the Oath of Bane Series

  Divar gets his story in

  How It Needed to Be

  Coming November 2021

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  For new releases, exclusive sneak peeks, and giveaways, sign up for T. S. Joyce’s Bear Shifter Romance Newsletter HERE.

  More Series from this Author

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  Saw Bears

  Lumberjack Werebear (Book 1)

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  For More from this Author

  Check out her The Official Reading List of T. S. Joyce

  Or visit

  www.tsjoyce.com

  or

  T. S. Joyce’s Amazon US page

  About the Author

  T.S. Joyce is devoted to bringing hot shifter romances to readers. Hungry alpha males are her calling card, and the wilder the men, the more she'll make them pour their hearts out. She lives in the PNW with a mysterious hunkyman, a make-shift family, a herd of awesome kiddos, plenty of farm animals, and devotes her life to writing big stories. Foodie, bear whisperer, chicken-momma, thief of tiny bottles of awesome smelling hotel shampoo, nap connoisseur, romantic comedy fanatic, zombie slayer, and bite-sized cattle rancher.

  Bear Shifters? Check

  Smoldering Alpha Hotness? Double Check

  Sexy Scenes? Fasten up your girdles, ladies and gents, it’s gonna to be a wild ride.

  For more information about T. S. Joyce and her work, visit her website here.

 

 

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