by T. S. Joyce
She had to sit on Kong’s lap, but that didn’t suck. And as Beaston drove them down an old washed-out road, she laughed along with the others at their easy banter. Oh, the Gray Backs might be notoriously broken bears, but she didn’t see that from the inside. They were the warmest, most accepting batch of people she’d ever met. And they’d taken her right in when Kong had needed them to. She got it now. Kong had admitted that he wished he was a Gray Back, and watching them with their mates, laughing, joking, hugging and including her and Kong—always including them—she understood his desire to be a part of this.
They unloaded at a clearing in the woods. Ancient pines swayed this way and that in the breeze, creaking out Mother Nature’s welcome. Waterlogged moss and vibrant green ferns made the woods look lush and alive. Kong gripped her waist and helped her over the edge of the pickup bed, then he pulled her arms around his neck again and carried her ape-style behind the others along a thin deer trail. She bit the back of his neck gently, then followed it with a soft kiss. The sound of running water and birds up in the canopy was so much more beautiful now that she knew how ugly life could be. This place was washing away the lingering hurt that had darkened her middle. Kong had been right. 1010 was magic, but so was this place.
She gasped as they crested the hill. The river was wide, but not too wide to swim all the way across if she was so inclined. On either side, towering evergreens lined the sandy bank. And up ahead, a huge waterfall was creating an ethereal looking mist as the river above them tumbled down against the water below. “I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said on a stunned breath.
Kong gave her a sideways glance as he followed the others down toward a stretch of sandy bank. “Me either,” he murmured.
Her middle turned warm and fuzzy as she held onto his neck tighter in a little hug that said without words that she adored him. Sweet mate. Mate. The thought still made her stomach do flip flops. It still took her breath away and made her feel like she was glowing. The luckiest.
Beaston and Creed set the giant blue cooler in the sand, and in a matter of seconds, bag chairs were set up and beers were passed out. Kong declined one, though.
“What, are you pregnant?” Willa deadpanned with a frown.
“No,” Kong said. “I just want to keep my head today.”
Creed stared at him with the same slight frown and tight-eyed suspicious look Layla had been shooting at him the past couple of days. Creed noticed it too. Kong was still holding onto something she couldn’t guess at. Secretive mate.
“I’ll drink for the both of us,” she offered, taking the crews’ attention away from Kong.
“Yeah,” Willa drawled, handing her a blue can. “I know you’re not pregnant.”
Not yet. Someday she would give Kong a baby, but not yet.
She raised her beer with the rest of them.
“C-team,” the Gray Backs chanted.
“C-team,” she murmured just a second later, baffled on where the toast came from. They weren’t C-team to her. They were the finest, most caring people she’d ever had the pleasure of spending time with.
The Gray Backs were A-team.
“Last one in is a hairy monkey!” Willa yelled pointing at Kong. She cackled and took off into the river, beer held high and sloshing.
Kong snorted and ran for the waves with the rest of them. All but Beaston and Aviana, who lowered baby Rowan to a blanket they’d spread out.
“You aren’t swimming?” Layla asked the wild-eyed Beaston.
He cradled the baby gently in his lap and rocked back and forth. Never taking his eyes from Rowan’s face, he said, “Creed said I could protect our little dragon today. Don’t want to swim.”
Aviana’s black, shiny hair twitched as she cocked her head at her mate with a tender smile.
“Kong won’t drink. I won’t either. Not today.” Beaston looked up at her with those clear, demon-bright green eyes. “We both have something important to protect. I have a gift for you.” He leaned over and pulled a leather sheath from a canvas satchel beside him. He dipped his gaze back to Rowan, but held the fine leather sheath up to Layla.
“For me?” she asked, baffled. “What for?”
“Because girls like things that match.”
“Oh.” She took the knife and sat down beside Aviana, then unsnapped the clasp that held the blade into place and gripped the smooth wooden handle. When she unsheathed it, her heart stuttered at how fine the knife was. She didn’t know much about them, but this looked to be very high quality, from the tapered edge of the blade to the polished silver that had a soft wave in color she’d never seen before. And etched onto the blade near the hilt was K + L.
Aviana leaned forward and pointed to the inscription. “All of the women in the Gray Backs have one just like it. Easton is very good at making knives. He made this one especially for you.”
“K + L?”
“Kong and Layla,” Beaston murmured, still rocking Rowan. “You’re good to your bones. A good match. A love match. Not like with Kong’s shit people.”
Tears stung her eyes as she looked back down at the gift in her hands. “Thank you,” she whispered. “This is the nicest gift anyone has ever given me.”
Beaston nodded, looking pleased, and Aviana hugged her shoulders as Layla snapped the knife back into the sheath and tried to get her emotions under control. She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry today, but two minutes on the sandy river bank, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
But this wasn’t the sad kind she’d been leaking for Mac.
This was the happy kind, so it didn’t count.
****
Kong sat by the fire, watching his mate laugh and splash around with Willa, Aviana, and Georgia in the middle of the river. The glow of the bonfire collided with the blue, full moonlight that danced across the dark water, illuminating her grinning, beautiful face.
Damn, today had been good for his animal. Watching Layla cut loose had settled some of his uncertainty. He would keep her safe no matter what. He had to. She was too important to this world for him to fail.
“You look like shit, man,” Matt said with a grin, plopping down in the sand beside him and jerking his chin at Kong’s mangled chest.
Kong huffed a laugh and looked pointedly at the crisscrossing scars that formed a spider web across Matt’s entire torso. The scars he’d gotten from a government facility as a kid. “Now we match.”
Matt fist bumped him and leaned back on his locked elbows, his eyes on Willa. “Twinsies,” he muttered.
“Spill it,” Creed said low as he dropped down in the sand on the other side of Kong. “You’ve been jumpy all week, and now you can’t even have a beer? This isn’t over, is it?”
Kong swallowed hard and shook his head, wishing with everything he was that his answer could be different.
“Why is Fiona obsessed with you?” Creed asked as he snapped a twig into small pieces.
“Because she’s bad and needs to be cut down,” Beaston said from Matt’s other side as he watched Gia suckle Rowan at her breast. “Fiona is a bad tree. Rotten. Rotting all the trees around her.” He swung that eerie, knowing gaze to Kong. “She wants to rot you, too.”
Sometimes Beaston made more sense than anyone Kong had ever met.
“Fiona wants offspring from me,” he said low so Layla wouldn’t hear. “She’s ready to breed.”
“Barf,” Matt muttered.
Kong huffed a surprised laugh. He really couldn’t imagine bedding Fiona without his animal convincing him to strangle her.
Creed leaned back on his arms and stretched his legs in the sand. “So what’s our play? Clearly she is going to come for you at some point.”
Kong sifted sand through his hand and shook his head. “Not our play. My play. I can’t put you at risk. This one is on me.”
“And how do you see that working out?” Creed asked. “What is a realistic end result of going to war with your people alone?”
“Death,” Beaston murmured.
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“Death,” Jason agreed from Beaston’s other side.
Matt nodded slowly, eyes on the fire. “Death. For you and for Layla.”
Kong gritted his teeth and inhaled deeply at the image of Layla lying in the field of red-stained wildflowers that had almost been his deathbed. “Creed, you have a family to protect.”
“I do,” he said somberly. Creed swung his dark gaze to Kong. “And you and Layla are a part of that now.” He jerked his chin toward the girls who were bobbing on the waves, talking low and laughing with each other. “What kind of alpha would stand by while your people hurt Layla? Hmm? Losing Layla would hurt the rest of my crew now. And what kind of alpha would I be if I stood by and let you sacrifice yourself for your cause?”
“It’s my cause—”
“Choosing your own mate is a just cause!” Creed barked out in a steely voice. “You don’t belong with Fiona’s people.” He dragged his attention back to the waves, his jaw clenched in the flickering firelight. “You never really did.”
Chapter Fifteen
Today had been an incredible respite from everything that had happened. Waterlogged, full of hot dogs and s’mores, and chilly from the late night breeze, Layla watched the Gray Backs filter into their trailers, chuckling softly and talking low as they disappeared.
She was sitting on the top stair of 1010’s porch, legs splayed on either side of Kong where he sat a couple of stairs down. He was leaning back into her as he chewed languidly on a long piece of wild grass.
Layla wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and pressed her cheek against the back of his head. “You make me so happy.”
Kong chuckled as he threw the grass away from him, then kissed her hand. He turned and opened his mouth to say something, but a limb snapped in the woods, and the words got caught in his throat. Kong jerked his head to the side, listening.
“What is it?” Layla asked, panic clawing through her.
“Go tell Creed they’re here,” he rumbled in an inhuman voice. When he turned, his eyes were hard and churning bright green. “Warn the others, then get inside and stay there.”
“Kong, what’s happening?”
“Fiona’s here.”
Fiona? She didn’t understand. This was over. Over. Why was that horrible woman still after them? And why did Kong look completely unsurprised that she was here?
“What are you going to do?” she asked as he stood to his full height and pulled his shirt over his head.
He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, then murmured, “What I should’ve done a long time ago.”
He sauntered off toward the front of the trailer park, and Layla blasted off the porch and toward Creed and Gia’s trailer. “Creed!”
The alpha was already coming down the steps of his trailer, pulling his shirt off. “I hear them. Matt! Jason!” He was punching something into his cell phone but he stopped to turn and yell, “Beaston!” off toward the tree line.
The Gray Backs trickled out, faces somber and ready. Gia came to stand by Layla with baby Rowan in her arms. “I think we should go inside.”
“You go,” Layla said drawing the knife that Easton had made her from its sheath on her hip. “This is because of me. I can’t just hide and let Kong get hurt for me again.”
A silver sedan pulled slowly up the gravel road. Its windows were tinted too dark to see inside but Layla would bet her life she knew who was driving. After the vehicle stopped, a slim woman in a dark business suit unfolded from the car. She stood ramrod straight, chin held high over a long, graceful neck as she looked down her nose at them in turn. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled so tightly into a curled updo, it looked headache inducing. She looked pale as the moon from the glow of outdoor lights that illuminated the trailer park. Her eyes were so light, they looked white, and were cold as death as she narrowed her inhuman gaze on Kong.
“Fiona,” he greeted in a dead voice.
“You’ve caused us quite a mess of trouble, Kong, breaking your contract for a human whore.” She clenched her fists and smiled thinly. Voice steadier, she continued. “And then you killed my best guards and made us come all the way up here to retrieve you.”
“Us?” Kong gritted out.
Behind Fiona, the trees shook with dark figures, and giant gorillas appeared from behind the tree line on the forest floor, roaring and beating their chests. There had to be a hundred of them, at least.
Layla gasped as they approached closer from the shadows of the trees, the animals illuminated silver in the moonlight. Each was massive and thickly muscled as they exposed bright white canines that looked impossibly long and contrasted starkly against the dark knight.
On shaky legs, Layla weaved through the Gray Backs and stood next to Kong.
“Hi there,” she said, meek as a mouse. Layla gripped the handle of her knife harder and anchored herself in the moment. In a stronger voice, she said, “Human whore here, and I’d just like to say—”
“You don’t speak to me,” Fiona said, eyes livid. “How dare you—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Layla yelled, fury blasting through her like a grenade. Red tinged everything. Red gorillas, red Fiona. “You are so desperate to keep Kong at your beck and call.” She dragged her gaze across the gorillas inching closer out of the trees. “Are any of you happy? Are you? Are you so weak you would put a monster like Fiona on a pedestal and allow her to make all the decisions for your lives? How many of you has she broken? Huh? How many! Are you happy with the family groups she places you in, or do you wish you could choose your own? Do you wish it was about more than just some scientific chart that shoves you together regardless of your feelings? Regardless of your similar interests? Kong chose me. Me! He doesn’t want to be with you, doesn’t want to head a family group. He doesn’t want to breed mindlessly. He’s happy with me. And P.S.,” she snapped at Fiona. “I tainted his seed, like, ten times already.”
Fiona clenched her fists and crossed her arms. Her eyes blazed the color of snow, contrasting eerily with the darkness around her. “Bring her out.”
The back door of her sedan opened, and a man emerged, dragging a shorter woman by the arm.
“Kong!” The woman screamed past a swollen, bloody lip. “Don’t you dare give into them!”
Something powerful blasted through the air an instant before Kong lifted his arms into the air. His skin ripped apart, bones breaking as an enormous gorilla exploded from his skin. He slammed his closed fists onto the ground and shook the earth beneath her feet so hard Layla stumbled backward.
The man shoved the woman, Kong’s mother, to the ground and gripped the back of her hair. A pained sound wrenched from her throat.
Beaston stepped forward beside Layla. “We sure do appreciate you bringing the mother of the Kong so we don’t have to track her down.”
“You’ll watch her die,” Fiona spat out. “Stupid silverback. You’ve just killed all of your little friends. Do you think I give a shit that you’re surrounded by a handful of grizzlies right now? You’re outnumbered a hundred to one!”
Layla panted in horror as she watched Kong’s towering form pace in front of the Gray Backs, eyes on his mom. His massive shoulders flexed with each step he took, and his ebony lips pulled back to expose three inch long canines. He was bigger than the other gorillas by a head at least.
“Oooh, look at those pretty markings,” Willa said as she approached Kong slowly. She jerked her chin. “Look at that gray back. You want to hear something terrifying about the Gray Backs?” Willa asked Fiona through a smile.
A long, prehistoric roar bellowed through the trees and shook the mountains. Birds flew from the evergreen canopy in droves, and the gorillas behind Fiona jumped, screamed, and stumbled backward.
Willa quirked her head. “Gray Backs fall under the protection of the last immortal dragon.” She lifted her voice higher above the rising discord of the screaming, frantic gorillas behind Fiona. “As almost alpha of the Gray Backs—”
Creed sig
hed and corrected, “Second of the Gray Backs—”
“I claim Kong and his chosen family group as honorary members of this crew. So unless you want to be burned into crispy gorilla bacon and devoured by a grumpy dragon, I think you should release Momma Kong and kindly fuck off.”
Fiona had the good sense to at least look nervous as she yelled, “Kill them all,” behind her at the panicking gorillas.
Fiona’s army shook the trees but didn’t advance any closer.
“Perhaps you didn’t understand her,” Creed drawled out. “So I’ll explain it like this. The Ashe Crew and the Boarlanders are charging through the woods right now, boxing you in. You have maybe two minutes before they’re on you, and then the entirety of your fucked up shifter species will be dead. Dead, Fiona. All for a man who doesn’t want you. He isn’t Kong of the Lowlanders anymore. He’s Kong of the Gray Backs.”
The gorillas behind Fiona were melting back into the forest as Fiona screamed at them to, “Hold your ground!”
Now the woods echoed with the roaring of the bears.
“One minute,” Creed said blandly. “What’ll it be?”
An enormous figure flew overhead, blocking out the moon and bending trees under the powerful beat of its wings.
Beaston shook his head sympathetically beside Layla. “Mad dragon. Had to stitch our Kong back together. He’s going to eat you. Chomp.”
“Shut up,” Fiona said, looking at the sky.
“Chomp,” Beaston said again through a feral smile.
“I said shut up!”
The man who held Kong’s mother released her and ran for the car.
“Run, little monkey,” Beaston said.
“Never!” Fiona shrieked as her car backed away behind her. “You’re mine! Mine! Do you hear me? I’ll never rest until you are broken beneath me!”