by Liza Street
She could guess who it was—Carter. The man was like a pimple, popping up in the worst places.
“Kitty cat.” Carter’s voice rumbled through her, zinging straight between her legs. Nope, she took it back, nothing like a pimple, after all. “Fancy seeing you here again.”
She hadn’t even laid eyes on the man, and yet her whole body lit up in anticipation. She froze in place, hand hovering over the berries.
6
He didn’t know much about Lena, other than her sister had died, she was a cougar shifter, and she smelled so fucking good.
Standing right behind her, in the moment before she turned around—probably ready to deck him—he inhaled. She smelled like mint. Not peppermint, but something softer. Spearmint, maybe. The scent was tinged with metal.
She spun, finally, to face him. He’d been standing so close behind her that she had to tilt her head back to see his face. He liked that. It looked and felt as if she was getting ready to kiss him.
“Back up,” she said, so he did. He wasn’t a total douche.
Then she stomped past him to rejoin her friend, the wolf Carter had fought with at the trailer. Marcus. Carter didn’t like him, didn’t like the possessive way Marcus’s eyes followed Lena. For her part, Lena seemed oblivious to Marcus’s keen attention.
“Shot down?” Jase asked, appearing at Carter’s side.
Carter grimaced. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Here, hand over the ribs and I’ll stick them on Markowicz’s barbecue. Then you can go talk to your mate.”
“My…my what?”
Jase laughed and took the meat Carter held before walking over to where Markowicz, a shaggy brown-haired leopard shifter, stood at an ancient-looking fire hazard with a pair of tongs in his hand.
Carter wandered over to one of the cars—an old Chevy Nova with a slightly crunched hood. His mate, huh? Jase didn’t know what he was talking about. Carter didn’t want or need a mate. Especially not here. What the hell would he do with a mate?
His inner bear perked up and warm feelings moved through Carter’s chest. Love her. Make her happy. Mating. Lots of mating.
A few other shifters had come to the dinner area. Jase greeted them like this was some kind of cocktail party. Carter pictured him at a wet bar in a living room, wearing a suit jacket, smoking a cigar, and mixing gin and tonics.
Stetson, a panther shifter who’d maybe said a total of three words as far as Carter knew, sat next to an old VW Bus, plate balanced in his lap, a book in one hand.
Lena leaned against one of the other cars. Marcus held two cups and handed one to her. Some of Noah Ephraimson’s moonshine, no doubt. Lena lifted the cup to her lips and took a tentative sip. She started coughing immediately and her eyes watered.
“Holy crap,” she said, “that’s strong.”
Noah, a big, blond wolf shifter, waved at her from the hood of a Datsun pick-up. “Sorry about that—still finessing the recipe.”
Carter laughed. “You’re gonna make us all go blind, Ephraimson.”
“Maybe so,” Noah said. “Guess things would be even more interesting in here, in that case.”
Jase spoke up, gesturing at the barbecue and the table laden with dishes. “Well, grab some food, soak up some of the moonshine.”
Hopping up, Carter walked over to the grill. Jase had even stacked up plates—all of them mismatched. Flatware, too. Carter wondered where Jase had found it all. After fixing himself a plate, Carter returned to the Nova’s crumpled hood and got comfortable.
Mathers and the new guys, Fred Barnum and Beau Mollin, appeared. Carter was relieved to see that Alleman wasn’t with them. Maybe he’d fallen from Mathers’s good graces. Maybe he was luckier that way.
Still, the arrival of Mathers and those other two bruisers seemed to bring down the mood of the crowd. Carter didn’t want to fight anyone—he’d promised not to. So he stared at the flickering bonfire in the center, focusing on the food on his plate. The ribs were damn good, as was the corn on the cob. He wondered if he could snag some more.
“Thinking of starting a diner or something, Jase?” Mathers asked, plucking one of the plates from the stack and turning it over in his meaty hands.
“Yeah,” Jase said, swallowing his bite. “Me and Markowicz. The Junkyard Diner, where everyone goes for trashy food.”
Carter finished the last of his meal and looked around. Everyone was staring at Mathers, waiting for him to start some shit. Probably wouldn’t be long now. Lena had scooted closer to Marcus on a car so old and bashed up that Carter couldn’t identify it.
He didn’t want to talk to Marcus, but he also didn’t want to lose a chance to talk to Lena. Sighing, he set down his plate and walked over to them.
“Hey,” he said. Not the smoothest. After several months in the Junkyard, his pick-up game was out of practice.
“Hey,” Lena said.
Marcus didn’t budge from her other side. Carter nodded to him, and Marcus nodded back, and that was probably as friendly as they’d ever get. Carter was okay with that.
“Have you gotten used to the moonshine yet?” Marcus asked.
She took another sip, wrinkled her nose. “Nope. But it’s better than nothing.”
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to her cup.
She passed it over. He lifted the rim to his lips and inhaled. His nostrils burned from the harsh alcohol, but he could also detect a whiff of Lena’s minty scent. He took a sip and smiled, handing the cup back to her.
Marcus snorted and stalked away.
Lena watched him go, then turned back to Carter. “Making friends everywhere you go, aren’t you?”
“It’s a talent,” Carter said.
The corner of her mouth lifted up. Almost a smile. “I’ve heard more about you in the past couple of days. And I’ve heard you fighting.”
“I’m a teddy bear, deep down,” he said.
“Right.” She shook her head. “How come you fight all the time?”
“I like it.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but true enough.
Her brown hair was pulled up in a messy bun, but a tendril escaped. He had to put his hands in fists to keep from reaching up and tucking it behind her ear.
“What?” she asked, sensing his tension.
“You’re very pretty.”
“Right,” she said again.
She’d be able to hear the honesty in his voice, though.
He wished they were anywhere else, alone. On a date somewhere. He would take her out to dinner, or to the movies. He could pack a basket full of food and drive them both into the Sierra foothills for a hike and a picnic, maybe some running through the forest in their animal forms if there weren’t any humans around. He wanted to be somewhere that he could make jokes and watch her laugh at them.
And somewhere private, so he could strip her out of those clothes and show her just how pretty he thought she was.
“I saw you watching me earlier today, kitty cat,” Carter said. “Do you think I’m pretty, too?”
She let out a short laugh. “No. You’re not pretty.”
He agreed with her on that.
“Do you want to do something tonight?” he asked.
“What?” She squinted at him.
“Yeah.” He hadn’t meant to say those words, but now that he had, he realized he wanted nothing more than to spend time with her. Asking her seemed the fastest method to accomplishing that goal. “Do you want to hang out?”
Her look was level, evaluating. “I’m not here to make friends.”
“Neither am I.”
“What about your fighting?” she asked, lifting the moonshine to her lips again and grimacing as she took a sip. “Won’t you miss that if you’re hanging out with me?”
He leaned in close and touched that curl of hair by her cheek, unable to resist. “I won’t miss it at all.”
Before she could answer, Carter caught movement from the corner of his eye. Someone was approaching from the forest. He looked around, wonderi
ng who was missing.
The guy walked forward and Lena waved. “Kyle, hey!”
“Hey, Lena.” Kyle smiled back at her.
Kyle—Lena’s grizzly shifter friend with blond hair. Carter felt mildly irritated that she seemed so delighted to see Kyle, but he didn’t sense that Kyle was any competition. It was the same as with Marcus. These guys were just friends of hers. Lena didn’t watch them like she’d been watching Carter with the ice chests at the dump earlier today.
As Kyle walked past Carter to grab a plate, Carter got another whiff of him. Kyle was a bear, so he smelled faintly of grass as all bear shifters did. But there was something familiar in his scent.
It was going to drive Carter fucking crazy. He opened his mouth to ask Kyle if they knew each other, but Lena said, “Hey, Kyle, we were wondering when we’d see you. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”
“I was just walking around the perimeter,” he said.
It wasn’t Kyle’s words that struck him. It was his voice. Carter had heard it before, delivering the news of Garth’s death. Your brother’s dead. I killed him in a dominance battle. His body’s at the Lupine Pass.
Carter heard that voice in his nightmares. He’d recognize it anywhere.
Carter’s plate cracked. He glanced down, surprised. He’d squeezed it too hard, and now one of his hands was bleeding. The rib bones and chewed-up cob fell to the ground at his feet.
Carter knew Kyle—in the worst way possible.
Kyle had killed his brother.
He sensed everyone’s attention on him, even if they weren’t staring outright.
“Dude, keep it together,” Stetson said quietly from his seat near the Bus. New record of Stetson’s words uttered in Carter’s hearing.
“We all promised not to fight during dinner,” Jase said, a warning in his voice.
Mathers looked delighted. He grabbed a rib straight from the grill and brought it to his mouth.
“Dude, that has to hurt,” someone muttered.
But Mathers just smiled, his eyes on Carter while he ripped meat from the rib. “You wanna have a go, Varrone?”
Fuck yeah, Carter wanted to have a go. But he didn’t want to go after Mathers—he wanted Kyle.
And a fight wouldn’t be good enough. That punk had killed Carter’s brother, and he needed to die.
Carter looked past Mathers, trying to breathe deeply and see past the rage thumping through his mind. Lena’s gaze locked with his, her blue eyes wide. Don’t fight, those blue eyes seemed to say. Keep it together.
With a roar, Carter spun around and walked away.
He fucking hated walking away from a fight. Hated it. But he went.
7
Lena couldn’t believe it. He’d just…walked off. And before that, he’d looked like he wanted to murder Kyle.
One moment, he was touching a curl of Lena’s hair in a way that made her feel like he was touching her in very intimate places. The next moment, he was a rage-beast. She glanced at the shifters assembled around the fire. Had anyone else noticed the rapid switch?
A quiet guy with black hair and model-worthy cheekbones looked back at her. His eyes were as striking as his cheekbones—a brilliant gold that made it look as if his beast was peeking out through his human form.
He was holding a book. He carefully marked his page with a slip of paper, closed the book, and came over to Lena. His dusty scent helped her peg him as a cat of some kind. Not a mountain lion, because there was a difference to his fur-scent. She got the distinct impression of damp rain and shade. Some kind of jungle cat, maybe a jaguar.
“It’s his way,” the man said in a hoarse, sandpapery voice.
“Excuse me?”
“Carter. Right now it’s his way. Doesn’t mean he can’t change, though.”
Without waiting for Lena to respond, the guy kept walking, heading farther into the dump, book tucked under his arm.
Marcus and Kyle were talking, but Lena spotted Jase, who sat alone. “Who was that guy?” she asked, pointing after the man who’d just spoken to her.
“Stetson Krom.”
“He just said…” Lena trailed off. She wasn’t sure what he’d meant, and she’d rather puzzle over it on her own.
“Wait—he said something to you?” Jase asked.
“Well, yeah. Just now.”
Jase whistled. “I’ve barely heard him string four words together. That panther is the quietest guy I’ve ever met.
Panther. So the guy was a jungle cat.
Jase went on, “Tonight’s the most he’s ever talked. Maybe we should do this more often.”
Kyle and Marcus joined her and Jase, and the four of them drank moonshine and talked about anything and nothing. She didn’t bring up Carter, and neither did they.
Disappointment filled her, though. Carter had said he would give up fighting tonight and spend time with her instead. Did he feel the same draw to her that she felt to him? It was irritating, was what it was. She shouldn’t care what he did or where he went. She shouldn’t care that he’d gotten so pissed about nothing at all. What—about Kyle showing up? Was he jealous? That was stupid. She’d been about to tell Carter she wanted to hang out with him.
She would’ve said yes.
She took another sip of the moonshine. The burn going down wasn’t so bad anymore; the stuff just took a little getting used to. Her body felt buoyant and loose, like her muscles and bones were made of warm liquid. Mathers and Barnum sent her the occasional dark look, but she imagined her body was all fluid and the stares went right through her, like bullets into a lake.
She wanted music. She wanted to dance. She wanted freedom.
The reality of her position should have sobered her right up. The Junkyard. An outdoor cage for shifters. But instead, she felt free. Shaw couldn’t get her here. She was safe from him, just like Sarah had wanted.
She added some angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream to her plate, then dug in. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter.
The evening was winding down, though. Markowicz had shut down his barbecue. Jase left their little group of four to collect dishes. Lena was curious where and how he planned on washing them, but next thing she knew, he was gone and she was left with Marcus, Kyle, and a few other guys, including Mathers and Barnum.
“Dinner’s over,” Mathers announced. “Let’s go to the ring. New shifters, you’re coming, too.”
Lena bristled at being told what to do by Mathers. Just, no thanks. She shook her head.
“We should probably check it out,” Kyle said. “You don’t have to, though, Lena.”
Marcus nodded. “I’ll go.”
Well, if her friends were going…
“You in, Lena?” Marcus asked, his gray eyes kind.
She swallowed the last gulp of moonshine from her cup. “Only if we don’t have to fight.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Kyle gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Then let’s go to the ring.”
It wasn’t far away, just a couple hundred yards into the dump. Lena linked arms with Kyle and Marcus as they walked. Ahead of them, Mathers and Barnum hopped over something low to the ground and faced each other.
“Man or beast?” Mathers asked.
Being in the ring didn’t mean being in a cage or anything like she’d feared, but rather within a circular area of dirt outlined in tires.
Lena looked around. Several other shifters were here—more than she’d seen at Jase’s dinner. Chills erupted over her skin. Why hadn’t she met all these guys? Did they only come out for the fights? It made her wonder about Carter. This was the kind of life he liked, by his own admission. He sought out violence.
Shaw did, too. He thought the pride was better when everyone was fighting. “Keeps us on our toes,” he’d once said while two men in the pride smacked the shit out of each other at his urging. Sarah had squeezed Lena’s hand and kept her gaze away—she’d always felt too much, felt others’
pain too easily. Lena had watched that fight, but she’d been disgusted with Shaw the entire time.
Mathers and Barnum decided on fighting in their human forms and they immediately began circling each other in what looked like an ancient dance.
Well, Lena had wished for dancing earlier. Looked like she was getting it.
Mathers and Barnum threw punches, kicks. Mathers was clearly the better fighter, and after a few minutes, Barnum held up a hand. “I’m out.”
“Smart to stop while you can still walk and talk,” Mathers said.
Barnum shrugged. “Maybe I’ll win tomorrow.”
“Doubt it,” Mathers said, “but you sure as fuck are welcome to try.”
Spitting into the dirt, Barnum stalked out of the ring.
“Who’s next?” Mathers asked.
“Me,” Marcus said.
“Oh, shit, no,” Lena said.
“Me and Kyle, over there,” Marcus said. “We’ll fight each other.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Lena said, her voice a hiss.
“It’s a good way to ease in,” Marcus said, looking at Kyle. “Right, man?”
A grim look on his face, Kyle said, “Right.”
Marcus and Kyle stepped into the ring, and Mathers stepped out, a gleeful expression on his sadistic face. The dude was scary, no question.
Marcus and Kyle opted to fight as beasts. They stripped out of their clothes and dropped them at the edge of the ring. A glowing white light surrounded each of them. As soon as it faded, they each stood facing each other—Marcus as a wolf, Kyle as a grizzly.
Lena watched them battle for dominance, not really caring who won, only that they wouldn’t hurt each other too badly. When Kyle emerged victorious, Marcus limped out of the ring, picked his clothes up in his teeth, and carried them out of the dump. Poor guy probably wanted to heal in peace, and Lena didn’t blame him. She’d been in a few fights, herself. She’d won some, and lost others. And losing never felt good—to the body or to the soul.