by T. S. Joyce
“Reckless how?” Alana asked, but the boys had gone still and silent, watching grimly as the white diesel pickup truck bumped and bounced up the road toward them. Harper parked in the yard by Weston’s truck, then got out slowly.
Her arm was covered in streams of red, but she didn’t seem to favor it as she slammed the door. And when Harper swung her gaze to Alana, both of her eyes were glowing blue with elongated pupils. Alana hunched inward instinctively and clutched Sammy Scrotum’s cage tightly to her stomach. Right now, something about Harper amped up her instinct to flee.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Wyatt asked, horror and fury tainting his voice as he brushed his finger down his mate’s arm. The blood was dry.
“It’s healed, let it be. Crew meeting.”
Alana squeezed Aaron’s hand and moved to excuse herself.
“Alana, you stay. You’re part of this now.” Harper approached slowly, lifted her chin, and then with a slow blink, looked at the bite Alana had made on Aaron’s neck. “Aaron, the vamps won’t come after your mate again.”
Aaron swallowed hard, his face angled away as he exposed his throat to his dragon-blooded alpha. “What did you do?”
“I went to Aric’s house, and then I ripped the boards off his basement windows and let the sunlight in.”
“Is he dead?” Aaron asked in a hard voice.
Harper sighed, but the breath was punctuated by a soft prehistoric rumble that lifted the fine hairs all over Alana’s body. “No, he isn’t dead. Singed yes, but not to ashes. There is still a part of me that wants to avoid a war with the vamps. I have a feeling we would lose lives on both sides, and I can’t stomach the thought that I could’ve avoided that. This is his last warning, though. I recited the names and addresses of every member of the Asheville Coven to him and warned him that I will drag every fucking one of his vamps from their beds and into the sunlight if any one of us is harmed again.”
“I had it handled,” Aaron gritted out.
“It isn’t your responsibility to handle it alone, Aaron. Look at your neck. Look at Wyatt’s.” Harper jammed a finger at the thick scarring on her mate’s neck. “Mine.” She gestured to faint scars on her own throat. “And now Alana’s? Too many people in my crew have been bitten, and Aric’s attack last night proved they aren’t finished with their destruction. I’m fucking done giving those bloodsuckers chances to kill us. Things are changing as of now. We’re shifters, born of some of the most powerful bloodlines in the world, and we’ve been rolling over trying to tiptoe down lines other supernaturals have drawn. This is where we draw our own line.”
“How did you find their addresses?” Wyatt asked in a careful tone.
“I began tracking them the night after you killed the queen.”
“Whoa,” Ryder said, sounding impressed. “Damon Junior.”
Harper’s eyes flashed with anger. “My grandfather isn’t here, and he has nothing to do with what happens to us. I’m not Damon Junior. I’m Harper of the Bloodrunners, and my patience in this matter is done. Any slight done to you by the vampires, you bring it to me. That’s an order.” Her voice shook with barely checked rage. “If a single…hair…is harmed on one of your heads, I will burn the Asheville Coven to nothing and devour their ashes.”
Harper looked at each of them dead in the eye, then pushed past Weston and strode up the road toward the other cabins.
Weston and Wyatt’s slow smiles matched as they watched her leave.
“Ooooh, she’s gonna get ’em,” Ryder said excitedly.
Alana expected to look up and find a troubled expression on Aaron’s face at the reminder of a war with the coven, but there was another story written into his features. His chin held high, pride for his cousin sparked in his clear blue eyes.
Baffled, Alana whispered, “What just happened?”
“Harper’s been tiptoeing around being alpha since she took on the crew,” Weston murmured.
“Not anymore,” Aaron said. “She just owned it.”
Wyatt swung his bright-eyed gaze to Aaron and crossed his arms over his chest. Something significant passed between them in an instant, and Aaron nodded. “I guess it’s time to decide who is Harper’s Second. We owe it to her so she can feel settled.”
“She doesn’t care if it’s you or me, man,” Wyatt said low. “She just wants it done. Hell, I do, too. My bear is struggling with the pecking order here. I just want to know where I stand, but you’ve been half-assing the fights and nothing gets solved.”
Aaron scratched the back of his head and let off an irritated growl. “Wyatt, it wasn’t like I was trying to make this harder. I just got you back, man. I don’t want things to change between us. The Breck Crew doesn’t do this. Rank was already established by the time I came into it. I wasn’t raised in the Ashe Crew, or the Boarlanders, or the Gray Backs. I’m not used to fighting a friend just to say my animal is more dominant.”
Weston took his camouflage baseball cap off, then slid it over his dark hair backward. “Aaron, just get this shit done. Don’t think. Just let your bear do the work so Wyatt can let go, too. Harper’s owning alpha. One of you two needs to own Second so she doesn’t feel alone at the top. If I had a bear, I would wreck you motherfuckers without a single thought about it. I don’t, so I can’t. Stop drawing this out. This isn’t the Breck Crew or any other crew so stop comparing them. We’re the Bloodrunners, and this shit needs to be hashed out before we can grow. Stop stunting us.”
A muscle right under Aaron’s eye jumped just before he pulled his sweater over his head. Alana was stunned at his rippling torso as he moved. Sure, she’d felt his rigid muscles last night in the dark, but seeing his bare torso in broad daylight had her ovaries doing a fireworks show. His pecs were chiseled, each abdominal muscle defined, and he had more tattoos over his ribs. His hair was mussed from undressing, and without meeting her eyes, he kicked out of his shoes as Wyatt stripped off his shirt.
“Come on inside with me, second best friend,” Ryder said. “This ain’t gonna be pretty.”
“No,” Aaron cut in. “She stays here.” His eyes were that inhuman green-gold when he cast a quick glance her way. “Coddling you won’t protect you, Alana. If you choose to be a part of this crew, you’ll see all of it.”
“It’s okay,” she murmured, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. “I’ve watched boxing before.”
“This’ll be a little different than that,” Ryder said.
“What do you mean diff—”
A monstrous blond grizzly bear exploded from Aaron. He landed so hard on all fours, the ground tremored under her feet like an earthquake.
Alana had never seen an animal so massive. He had long, muscular legs and paws bigger than her head. Long, white claws curved out from the pads of his feet, and above his shoulders was a muscular hump that towered feet above her. When he curled his lips back, long, razor-sharp teeth gnashed at the chestnut bruin that had burst from Wyatt across the yard.
Wyatt paced, eyes full of fury locked on Aaron, but the blond bear didn’t have his head in the fight. That much was clear from the slight flaring of his nose and the way he swung his attention directly to Alana.
“No, no, no,” Weston murmured, stepping in front of her.
Ryder cut off her view of Aaron’s terrifying bear and pushed her backward slowly. “Aaron…Bear…she isn’t yours to mark yet. Not like this.”
But she could hear him now, a growl that deepened with every step he took toward them.
Wyatt was pacing closer, his feral eyes swinging from her to Aaron and back, as though his bear didn’t know who to charge. Shit, shit, shit!
“Weston, should I run?”
“No, don’t give him your back,” Ryder said in a hard voice.
She remembered now. Aaron had given her the same warning when they were together last night. She hadn’t understood it at the time, but he’d been telling her not to run from his animal. Not to give him her vulnerable side, or he wouldn’t be able to he
lp himself.
Weston was begging Aaron to leave her alone, and Ryder’s hand was tight on her waist as he backed them toward the corner of the house. A deafening roar made her hunch her shoulders against the terrifying noise.
Weston barked out, “Ryder!”
Time slowed to a crawl as Ryder jumped gracefully, arching his back like he would flip, but his clothes slipped away and his form blurred into a white streak. Ryder’s talons dug into her arm just as she saw him—Aaron. A massive raven ripped out of Weston in an instant, leaving her wide open to Aaron’s charging bear. Bear, they’d called him, as though the animal was separate from Aaron. Alana opened her mouth and screamed as the monster bruin bore down on her with a speed that didn’t make any sense. His golden eyes blazed with the promise of pain, and as she was launched upward, he reached her. Horrified, she jerked her legs up just as his mouth clamped around the air. The resounding clack of his powerful jaws vibrated through her skin as she went airborne. Ryder and Weston pumped their wings against the air, their claws digging through her sweater to the tender undersides of her arms.
Her stomach still felt as if it was on the ground, and she had the acute sensation of falling backward. She couldn’t catch her breath as she rose higher and higher. Below, Wyatt charged Aaron, who was staring up at her through narrowed, determined eyes. Wyatt T-boned him, and the flurry of violence that ensued shocked the air back into her lungs. Alana gasped as the roaring of bears filled Harper’s mountains. Wyatt was on top of Aaron, slashing and biting, hurting him. And then in a flash, it was Wyatt on defense as Aaron barreled him backward. The resounding slaps of their claws made it feel like it went on for hours instead of seconds.
The rattling roar of a dragon blasted through the mountains, like some T-rex from ancient times. And then Harper was there. She was massive, her deep green wings spreading across the clearing as she circled around the grizzly fight. She had long, ivory horns arching from the back of her head, spikes down her back and tail, and her eyes looked like they belonged in a snake. When she opened her mouth, Alana expected a roar, but all she heard instead was a distinctive clicking sound.
The bears were getting too close to 1010, battling and brawling so violently that the old cabin wouldn’t be able to sustain a blow. Harper heaved a breath and blew a line of fire so hot Alana could feel the heat from up here above the canopy.
The flames burned blindingly bright for an instant, then shrank to nothing but a scorch mark in the yard. But it had been enough to draw the bears out of the fight and for them to take stock of where they were, because Aaron locked his legs against his backward movement as Wyatt went on the attack. The second Aaron’s back legs hit that scorch mark, he roared and countered, spinning out of the way as though it had burned him. Wyatt’s reaction was slower, and as he righted himself and turned, Aaron was right there, mouth clamped on his neck, throwing his head back and forth, ripping at the chestnut bear.
She was high in the air now. Though she wasn’t afraid of heights, her life rested in the grip strength of an owl and a raven. If they dropped her from here, there would be no surviving the fall.
Aaron slammed Wyatt to the ground, then froze over him, teeth on his throat, and Harper rattled the woods with another roar. In an instant, Aaron slipped back into his human form and dropped to the dirt on his knees. And right before Alana was flown too far away from him, right before the thick winter woods swallowed up the clearing, Aaron looked up into the sky at her, clenched his fists on his thighs, opened his mouth, and bellowed a feral sound that was tainted with pain and regret.
Chapter Fifteen
Alana couldn’t get the vision of Aaron bellowing that scream of frustration out of her head. The heartbreak in his voice rattled around in her mind and wouldn’t leave her. She’d gone back to talk to him about what he’d almost done to her, but by the time she and Ryder and Weston had returned to the yard of 1010, Aaron was in the wind. Harper had hugged her shoulders and told her he just needed some time, but Alana had seen the worry in the Bloodrunner alpha’s eyes.
And now Alana was sitting here in her sister’s house, hands around a cup of hot coffee, staring out the window at the raindrops streaming down the glass, and feeling like Aaron was out there somewhere convincing himself to pull away from her.
Down to her bones, she knew he wouldn’t forgive himself for what he’d almost done to her.
She hated this. She’d always been a woman to tackle problems right away, not let them fester.
But maybe he was right to take some time. He was letting her wrap her head around all of this. Now was her time to decide for certain to commit to this strong, loyal, complicated shifter who wielded an out-of-control monster inside of him. Would it always be like this? Today, Aaron hadn’t been stronger than Bear. He hadn’t been able to protect her from himself. It had been so damn close she could still feel the ghost of his warm breath on her leg as he’d tried to rip into it.
Was he just desperate to satisfy his instinct to claim her? To Turn her and make her his completely? Or was he trying to hurt her? Would he have stopped after one bite, or would he have killed her if Weston and Ryder hadn’t been there to pull her out of his reach?
She could still run from this. She could still give up her lease on the coffee shop, give up her lease on her apartment, pack her things, and move anywhere. But the thought of leaving Aaron behind, giving up those moments that had been so potently joyous, dumped a sinking feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.
She was in too deep now to just pick up and leave without ripping an important piece of her heart out.
“Where are you today?” Lissa asked from where she stood scrubbing dishes in the sink.
She’d always asked that when Alana was daydreaming, so she answered as she had growing up. “A million miles away from here.” Alana frowned at the front door. “Where’s Todd tonight? He’s usually home from work by now.”
Lissa looked a lot like Alana but a few inches taller, twenty pounds thinner, and with nary a scar on her pretty face. But today, her eyes were clouded with sadness. “He’s probably just running late. I think he’s taking me to that new Italian restaurant tonight.”
Lissa’s three little girls came blasting around the corner of the living room, through the kitchen and to the dining room, screaming and laughing as the oldest, Harley, chased the other two with a plastic snake.
Lissa told them to, “Stay outta my kitchen until I’m done cleaning it!”
And after they yelled, “Okay, mommy,” from the other room where they were making destructive sounds, Lissa smiled at the plate she was scrubbing.
“Little monsters, but I don’t know what I would do without them.” She cast Alana a strange look, as if she was considering a question, then shook her head and went back to washing.
“What?”
Lissa blew a dark curl out of her face and said, “Remember when we were about to graduate college, Todd and I were about to get married, we were planning the wedding, and you’d organized that bridal luncheon?”
“Yeah, I was the best maid of honor you could’ve ever asked for.”
Lissa snorted and nodded. “Truth. But remember when we were all sitting around the table and the girls were asking me when Todd and I would start having babies, and then they talked about how many they wanted, and you got real quiet?”
Alana ducked her gaze and spun her coffee mug slowly in her hands. “I didn’t get totally quiet. I answered.”
“You said you didn’t ever want babies, and the others teased you and didn’t take you seriously, but I knew you meant it. And I knew why.”
Alana bit her bottom lip to punish herself for the emotional burning in her eyes. Lissa never allowed conversations like this. Not real ones. Not anymore, and damn it felt good to just connect with her again. But this was painful. “I didn’t want babies because the cleft palate is genetic. Mom had it really bad, so did I, and I didn’t like myself very much at the time we were talking about it. I was about to mes
s up all your wedding photos. I didn’t want my babies to feel like that ever. I remember every time you got 3D ultrasounds when you were pregnant with the girls, I would just kind of dread it and hold my breath through your pregnancy until their faces came back perfect. I just didn’t want them going through the surgeries like I had and still look like this.” Alana gestured to the deep scar on her lip—the one people still stared at.
“Do you still feel the same about having children?” Lissa asked carefully.
Alana thought about it for a minute, then patted the other side of the table. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something bad?” Lissa asked.
“No. Just something I need my sister on.”
Lissa wiped her hands on a dish towel, poured herself a cup from the steaming coffee pot, and sat across from Alana. “Lay it on me.”
“I met a guy.”
Lissa’s perfectly shaped eyebrows raised. “Wow. Okay, do I know him? Does he live in Bryson City, or is he one of the guys you met online?”
“Uhhh, he’s new to the area, a fire fighter for the Bryson City Fire Department.”
“So he’s the guy you mentioned the other day on the phone? Not the online one, but the other one?”
“Yes, but there’s more. You remember how I had that huge crush on one of the shifter cubs when they first came out to the public?”
Lissa laughed and nodded once. “How could I forget? You were so annoying about him. It was all you would talk about at dinner, what he’d been photographed doing, what the paper said about him. You spent all your allowance on those teeny-bopper magazines that featured his pictures. Adrien or Allen…”
“Aaron Keller.”
“Yeah, that was him.”
Alana pursed her lips and waited for Lissa to put it all together.
Her sister’s face went comically blank. “Wait, you’re dating Aaron Keller?”
Alana giggled at the shocked tone in Lissa’s voice. “I am. And I really like him, but his life is…complicated.”