by Thorne, Elle
Maia remained silent, but, within moments, his shirt had a wet spot on it from heated tears.
Remorse ate at him for making her cry, though she needed to know what her rejection must have meant to her leopard.
The sound of a twig breaking caught his attention. Surely, the two lovers he’d run off hadn’t returned?
He cursed himself for being so involved in their conversation that he hadn’t noticed anyone’s approach.
Chapter Seven
Maia felt Franco’s body tighten around her. She sensed his alertness and his panther’s heightened vigilance.
Then she heard it, definitely a footfall.
It was too late by the time she scented them.
Shifters!
More than one.
And one that she recognized.
Manuel.
She jumped up and out of Franco’s arms, frantically searching the grove’s perimeter for Manuel.
“He’s here,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“He’ll kill me. If I’m lucky.”
She picked up another familiar scent. Then another one.
“Moíses and Katya. They’re here, too.”
Figures stepped out of the shadows.
Manuel, with Katya and Moíses next to him, flanked by four of his henchmen.
Manuel’s eyes gleamed dangerously. She’d pay—his eyes said she’d pay dearly for her transgressions. He was holding a pistol in one hand.
Maia eyed the weapon. It wouldn’t be enough to kill her, unless he got a lucky shot in…
Or was she wrong? Would it kill her? With her leopard gone, had she lost the power to heal? The power to withstand hits that would be lethal to a human?
“You’ve led us around the world, Maia.” His gaze surveyed Franco. “Why are you here?” He looked from one to the other, then his eyes rested back on Franco. “She belongs to me. You should know better than to trespass on my property, Duran.”
Maia heard the hiss of Franco’s sucked in breath. He would get himself killed. He was outnumbered.
She reached for his hand, squeezing it, begging him with each press of her fingers to keep control of his panther and his anger.
“Not coming home wasn’t a very nice thing to do to your little nephew.” Manuel reached for Moíses, who cringed against a tearstained Katya.
He gestured impatiently for Katya to hand him over.
Katya shook her head.
Manuel raised the pistol.
That was all it took. Katya handed Moíses to Manuel.
Manuel put the pistol’s muzzle near Moíses’s neck.
Maia and Katya both gasped. Katya reached for Moíses but was thwarted by one of Manuel’s thugs.
Moíses reached for his mother, his chubby toddler fingers clenching and unclenching.
“You’re coming with us,” Manuel told Maia, his smile deadly.
He’s going to kill me.
She’d never seen a look so dark and foreboding on his face before.
First, he’d going to make sure I suffer. He’s probably going to use my death as a show for Katya. Incentive to be sure she never tries anything.
“No.” Franco’s fingers were bands of titanium around Maia’s wrist. “He’ll kill you. You can’t go.”
Maia’s glance ping-ponged between the two men.
Manuel tipped the pistol the tiniest bit toward Moíses.
Katya squealed then clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, tears flowing.
Maia turned to face Franco, making certain Manuel couldn’t see her face. “I’m going.” Please, she mouthed, begging him to let her go.
He shook his head. “I can’t let you go. Not now.”
“You have to.”
“No.” His teeth ground together so loudly she could hear them.
“I have to. You have to let me go. I have to do what’s right for my family.”
Behind her, Manuel cleared his throat.
She knew that sound. Impatience. Imminent danger if he was made to wait.
Damn.
“Coming, Manuel.” She shoved docility into her voice though it gagged her.
“Wise choice.” He nodded toward his men, then Franco. “You four stay here and take care of Dorian’s help. He doesn’t have to be recognizable. Or breathing.”
His shifter henchmen chuckled and snarled, the sounds intermingling and becoming indiscernible in Maia’s mind.
“Let’s go. Pedro’s waiting.”
Pedro. His driver, another thug. She’d still be outnumbered, and with no leopard to call on.
“That way,” Manuel pointed, his other hand holding a sniffling Moíses, who’d given up reaching for his mother.
She took Katya’s hand, holding it while they led the way out of the grove.
Maia took one look back at Franco. Manuel’s thugs were circling him. He shifted into his panther.
Manuel’s flunkies were shifting into their animals when she turned her eyes away and stared forward. She’d soon have her own problems to deal with.
* * *
“You know where to go,” Manuel told Pedro after they’d settled into one of the two large vehicles idling on the side of the road.
“Where?” she asked, because she really had nothing to lose.
He turned away from her to trace circles in the bruises on Katya’s face Maia hadn’t noticed before.
What had Manuel done to her sister while she’d been gone? Had Katya paid the price for Maia’s departure?
The image of Franco being surrounded by the four shifters replayed in her mind over and over.
Not many moments later, they pulled into a dilapidated abandoned farmhouse.
Pedro opened the door for Manuel then stood aside, his eyes as expressionless as a great white shark’s. Manuel stepped out of the vehicle, a dozing Moíses still in his arms.
He pushed open the door to the building with his shoulder then waited for the sisters to precede him into the building.
“Katya, do you know what your sister’s been doing while she’s been in Rome?”
Katya shook her head slowly, her lip trembling, and pushed her hair away with shaking fingers. The moonlight slipping in one of the windows shone brightly on half her face—the half with a purple-and-yellow bruise on her cheek.
“She’s been stripping. And fucking men in private rooms.”
“Better than being your whore.” Katya’s words were like battery acid.
Maia stared at her sister. Where was meek Katya? Who was this mouthy creature?
Pride blossomed, swelling in her chest.
“Is that right?” Manuel caressed Moíses’s cheek with the pistol.
Katya gasped. “I’m sorry! No, Manuel. Don’t. That’s your son!”
“Are you so sure he is mine? I’m not.”
“Manuel.” Maia fought to keep her voice level, to keep panic from making it shrill and waking the slumbering child. “You know he’s yours. He looks just like you.”
“Take your son, puta.” He held Moíses out to Katya. “Stand right here.” He indicated the spot next to him.
“You.” He pointed at Maia. “Strip. Pretend there’s music and strip. Give me what you gave the men in that place, whore. Then get on your knees.”
“No, Manuel,” Katya protested on Maia’s behalf.
“Shut up, or you’ll get on your knees while she gives me a show. It won’t hurt the boy to learn.”
Maia gasped. He’d become more of an animal than she remembered.
He pulled a switchblade from his pocket. A blade flicked out with a sound Maia was, sadly, too familiar with. He put an arm around Katya and Moíses and tilted his head toward her sister.
It made a morbid family portrait. Dread and hatred coiled in Maia’s stomach like a revolting, undulating serpent. She swallowed back bile.
“Do you hear that?” His smile was menacing. “That’s your song playing, Dulce.”
Maia gagged. He knew her stage name.
Oh God. Is there no escaping this monster?
“Now.”
Katya turned her head, burying it in his shoulder so she wouldn’t have to watch her sister.
“This show is for you, too.” He tilted Katya’s head to watch Maia, his fingers so tight on Katya’s chin her skin turned white around his fingertips.
“No,” Katya whispered.
He placed the glinting blade against Katya’s cheek and pressed.
Katya flinched. A bead of crimson, so dark it was almost black, appeared on her cheek, formed a droplet then left a trail on its downward journey.
“Watch your sister dance. Learn how to be a good little whore. Maybe you can make my men happy while I let my new girlfriend raise the boy.”
“No, no. Don’t do this, Manuel.” Maia burned with fury, her anger palpable.
He drew the knife lower, slicing Katya’s cheek slowly. “You’ll be a matched set. Twins in every way.”
Katya’s tears mingled with the blood, washing the color out, staining her white top the color of rosé wine.
“I’ll do it. Stop hurting her.” Maia stepped forward. If she could get the knife away from him… Even if she couldn’t shift and hurt him, if she could only get the knife, she could try to kill him. Would Katya shift to help her?
It wasn’t fair to expect her sister to do that. She’d have to put the baby down, which would put him in more danger.
Maia stepped closer to him, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt. Only the last two were buttoned, but she couldn’t get her fingers to work. Her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath, hoping she could get rid of her nerves, but they just shook more and more.
Finally, the shirt was unbuttoned. She shucked it off, stood there in her tank top, goose bumps appearing from fear and the night’s chill air.
She shimmied, pretended she was at LaDonna’s, raising the tank top up over her stomach, poised to pull it over her head.
A roar interrupted her. A roar and then a howl outside.
The howl ended with a yelp.
She knew that sound.
It spelled death.
Chapter Eight
Manuel wrapped his fingers in Katya’s hair. “Let’s go.” He motioned toward the door with the knife and, with a nod, indicated for Maia to lead the way. Katya winced and tightened her embrace around the still sleeping Moíses.
Maia pulled the tank down and stepped out, closely followed by Manuel and Katya.
The driveway and the courtyard next to it were empty and bathed in shadows. A fountain she hadn’t noticed before was dry, an eerie reminder of the loneliness and hopelessness of their situation. She searched within, looking for her leopard, calling for her to come to their aid, but was greeted with the same void as earlier.
She fought the emotions threatening to overwhelm and paralyze her. She’d never been in tight spots without her leopard before. They’d always been together and, in one way or another, had trusted and had one another’s backs. And now…
When my leopard was doing what she thought was right, for both of us, I kicked her out.
A roar made Maia flinch and jerk away from Manuel. A form flew through the air, landing on the cobbled ground before them.
Franco, in his leopard, bloody and favoring a rear leg, opened his mighty jaws in a roar.
Awakened, Moíses screamed at the din as Manuel yelled for Pedro.
No Pedro, though.
Franco advanced on Manuel, his countenance grim.
Fear for Franco and joy at his presence battled within Maia. He’d been hurt but had survived Manuel’s four shifter henchmen.
Quicker than she could have done it, Manuel shifted into a massive brown bear. Rising on hind legs, standing over seven feet tall, Manuel’s bear opened a cavernous mouth and released a bellow, advancing on a snarling Franco.
Katya ran inside with the toddler.
Maia eased herself away from Manuel’s fearsome bear, putting distance between them before he could sever her head with a single swipe.
Franco’s panther held her in his gaze, an amber glow in the depths of his eyes reminding her of the man deep inside. A man like no other she’d met before. A man who could be her soul mate.
If I’d let him.
And now, he was here, limping, bloody, and for one reason only.
To save me. Or die trying.
To Franco, she was worth saving. She, who hadn’t been much more than an unwanted orphan, was wanted by this man.
Franco’s panther hunkered lower, his powerful muscles bunched, canines gleaming with his snarl.
Maia’s breath was trapped, her lungs burned in anticipation of the upcoming perfect storm of a battle brewing between the two shifters. She knew Franco meant to take no prisoners and he had no intention of letting Manuel walk away. She recognized the lengths to which he would go in order to protect her. One of these two would not be leaving here alive.
Maybe Franco.
Unless I can intervene.
How could she?
Please, she begged of her absent leopard. Please don’t let him die. Please don’t let the one you love die. I know you love his panther. I know this. Please.
Her voice in her mind was tiny. It was the voice of her former self, when she was a child in the orphanage, parentless, with the older children bullying her and Katya, calling them freaks.
Franco was mid-leap when Manuel’s claws swiped at his exposed underbelly.
Franco twisted his torso to the side, swiveling and readjusting, then sank his teeth into the bear’s shoulder, his claws seeking purchase in the bear’s fur. Manuel wrapped his bear arms around Franco’s panther, squeezing, shaking his body, shredding at his flesh. Freeing himself from the panther, Manuel flung the feline to the side.
Franco righted himself with a swift spiraling move and landed on his feet, immediately springing upward and back toward the bear’s exposed throat.
The bear anticipated his move and turned, swatting, then taking Franco’s shoulder in his massive jaws.
Manuel’s canines were far too close to Franco’s jugular.
Maia’s hand flew to her mouth. She bit her knuckle to keep from screaming.
A burn started in her spine, a fireball exploded in her mind, pushing forward then backward then outward. The pain took her to another plane. She couldn’t focus on the vortex pulling her into a heat that brought to mind a blacksmith’s fire.
She collapsed to the ground.
When she rose to her hands and knees, she realized she was on all fours, her hands and feet replaced with paws. Her teeth had changed, sharp lethal weapons at the ready.
Her leopard was back!
She roared, the sound torn from her lungs, reverberating in her head and in the courtyard. With a leap she couldn’t have thought herself capable of, she catapulted herself onto the bear’s body, her leopard scratching and seeking a hold in his flesh.
She felt a press on her brain and recognized Franco establishing a link.
I want you to go. Save yourself. His voice sounded as if he were in agony.
I won’t leave you. Those shifters injured you.
They aren’t dead. They’ll be here soon, tracking me.
He made a groaning growl as the bear clamped down harder on his flesh.
I’m not abandoning you. She sunk her teeth into the back of Manuel’s neck.
The bear bellowed and shook, dislodging Maia, his claws flailing at her torso, six-inch talons shredding her flesh, digging deep into her body.
Maia’s leopard lost her grip, and the bear tossed her against the wall. She lay, dazed, unable to raise her head, the sounds of snarls and growls surrounding her. She shook her head as her vision came into focus.
Manuel’s four shifter henchmen had arrived on the scene. Bloody and injured but very dangerous, and with one objective gleaming in their eyes—payback.
They surrounded Manuel and Franco, snarling, pacing, circling.
Then, suddenly, the courtyard was silent, exc
ept for the breathing of the two battling shifters.
The four henchmen stood aside and stared at the gated entrance.
Franco and Manuel turned to face the gate.
Chapter Nine
Three white tigers and a black panther entered through the gate, their strides powerful, as if they owned the property
They were flanked by four of the largest wolves Franco had ever seen.
As wounded as he was, he knew exactly who these new arrivals were. The Tieros and their reinforcements. He’d done his homework. He knew who ran this part of Italy.
Giovanni Tiero stood front and center, owning the courtyard. On each side of him stood his brothers—Federico and Tito.
Franco knew the black panther was Niko, the head of their security, mated to Giovanni’s youngest daughter, Sophie.
The four gray wolves flanking them were part of Niko’s specially trained security team. Range, Asa, Jason, Davin. All four brothers, all from Alaska.
Giovanni shifted into his human skin, thick-chested, wide-shouldered. The Tiero alpha regarded Franco and Manuel, still in their shifted forms.
Standing next to Giovanni, Federico and Tito shifted into their human skins as well.
“You’re in Tiero territory.” Giovanni regarded them dispassionately, as if he were telling them the weather forecast.
Franco stepped away from the bear and shifted into his human form.
Manuel shifted into his human skin, as well. “Do you know who I am?”
Giovanni looked upon him with even less interest. “Do you know who I am?” He raised a brow.
It was not going to go well for Manuel if he didn’t shut up, but Franco hoped he would keep talking.
He felt Maia approach, still in her leopard form. She stepped silently next to him, her shoulder leaning against his body. He put his hand on her luxurious fur, sad to find it drenched and matted with blood.
“And you?” Giovanni regarded Franco.
“I should have come to you first,” Franco acknowledged, not foolish enough to challenge a man on his own territory with the kind of backup Giovanni had.
Manuel hawked up and spit on the ground, the gesture dismissive and condescending.