by Liza Street
Both in equal measure, probably.
She stopped at the front of the trailer to admire the paintings. The mountain lion was beautiful, a swirl of browns and golds with black highlights. The ferocity in its gaze made Lena feel powerful, like she could do anything, overcome whatever obstacle might get in her way.
Footsteps behind her made her whirl around. A man stood there, on the other side of the gravel line. He had light blond hair and green eyes, and he smelled like a mountain lion. Did he work for Shaw? Lena backed up.
“Don’t worry, I’m not coming over there,” he said, stopping a few feet from the gravel line.
“What do you want, then?” Lena asked.
“I was wondering if you liked the paintings.”
“Hmm? Oh. On the trailer? They’re nice.” She took a closer look at the man. His shirt and jeans bore colorful stains, as did his hands. “Did you paint them?”
“Yep. The name’s Grant Lewiston. I live here with my mate, Caitlyn.”
“Is she a lion, too?”
“No, she’s human.”
Lena nodded. Human-shifter pairings weren’t common in her old pride because Shaw wouldn’t allow them, but she knew they occurred.
“You must be new in there,” Grant said.
“I am. I’m Lena Berry. And I guess you’re…friends with Carter?”
Grant gave her something that was kind of a smile, kind of a grimace. “Probably the closest thing he has to a friend.”
“I’m surprised he has anything close to a friend,” Lena said.
“He’s not all bad.”
“Did he pay you to say that?” she asked.
Grant laughed. “With what currency? His sparkling personality?”
She couldn’t help it, she laughed, too.
“I’m sorry you’re in there,” Grant said, sobering. “I know it isn’t easy. But if there’s something you need, you can holler at me and Caitlyn and we’ll try to help, okay?”
“Got it,” Lena said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. See you, Lena.” He turned to go.
“Bye, Grant.”
Not knowing what else to do, Lena went into the trailer. It was fairly clean, still. Marcus and Kyle were great at picking up after themselves. Lena less so. She spent a few minutes folding up her clean clothes and bundling dirty ones. It was probably time for a trip to the lake to wash things.
The birdsong outside halted, and Lena paused in the middle of folding a pair of jeans. She listened carefully. Someone was coming, but their footsteps were uneven and halting.
Carefully, she eased one of the trailer’s curtains aside and peered out the window. Marcus was coming through the trees, carrying—
“Kyle!” Lena shouted. She bolted from the trailer to meet them, her heart pounding. Kyle’s head lolled at an uncomfortable-looking angle, and his form was completely limp. “Is he alive?”
“Yeah, he’ll live. He just looks terrible,” Marcus said.
She helped carry Kyle to the trailer. Marcus was swearing under his breath. Kyle was quiet, but he opened one eye and focused on Lena.
“Hey,” she said to him. “Let’s get you comfortable so you can rest. Or would it be better to shift?”
“Shift,” Kyle said weakly.
It was sometimes hard to shift when this injured. His face was a bloody pulp. She could only imagine the pain he was feeling all over, and bruises this bad would remain for days. Luckily, as a shifter, his broken bones would heal quickly.
Lena pulled at Kyle’s shirt. Marcus held him upright so she could get it off. Next she worked at his jeans.
“Gotta admit, I was hoping to do this under different circumstances,” Kyle said.
Marcus shook his head, and Lena filed that tidbit away for later. She wasn’t attracted to Kyle. There was one guy here who made her heart speed up. And…and she was smelling him everywhere right now. How was that possible?
“Wait a second,” she said, yanking off Kyle’s jeans and boxers. “Who did this?”
It was Marcus who answered her. “Carter.”
No, that couldn’t be right. Carter wouldn’t do this to someone. But Lena looked up and read the truth in Marcus’s gray eyes.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he said. “I saw him doing it.”
“Kyle?” she said.
Kyle coughed and nodded. “It was Carter.”
Without saying another word, Kyle fell forward to all fours. A white light surrounded him. Lena watched for danger in the trees beyond, wanting to make sure nobody else would come after him in his vulnerable state.
Carter.
He wouldn’t. Only a monster would’ve beat someone like that. A true beast, inside and out.
After a few long seconds, Kyle stood before them as a bear. He sat down heavily. The poor man was probably wiped of all energy. Marcus put a hand on Lena’s shoulder. It didn’t feel possessive as it had last time, so she let it be.
“I know you don’t want to believe it, that you like Carter,” Marcus started.
“Then you don’t know anything,” Lena said. “I don’t like him. I don’t want to be around him. Ever. Any man who could do this to another man…well, I’ve had my share of violent men in my life. Last thing I need is another one.”
She fell to her knees next to Kyle and leaned against his furry form. His muzzle looked tender, but the blood was gone. He was going to be just fine.
“Do you think Carter will come back for him?” Lena wondered aloud.
“No idea,” Marcus said.
Lena settled more firmly against Kyle. She wasn’t going to leave his side, not for anything. If Carter came back, he’d have an epic fight on his hands. Which would probably make the bastard happy. All he seemed to want to do was fight.
“I’ll fix you some dinner,” Marcus said, going into the trailer. They’d stacked most of their food in the refrigerator inside. There was no electricity, but they’d added in the ice from the coolers, and everything was staying nice and chilled so far.
Lena’s stomach rumbled at the thought of food.
Something else rumbled in the forest. It wasn’t audible, exactly. It was more like a very low growl, beneath the abilities of human hearing. Lena could hear it because she was a shifter.
The birds had quit singing when Marcus arrived with Kyle.
They hadn’t resumed their song.
Something wasn’t right. Lena sat up. Kyle made a low moan of protest. No time to reassure him.
“Marcus,” Lena hissed. She yanked off her shirt and stood up, shoving down her pants, too. She let her cougar take over. If there was going to be a fight, she was going to be prepared.
She peered out to the trees. The narrow trunks wouldn’t hide a hulking animal close by, but further in, darkness swallowed all the shapes. Anyone could be waiting. All was quiet, but there was nothing peaceful about this silence.
The door to the trailer swung open at the same time something heavy landed on her from above.
Lena yowled and spun, inhaling the scent of another big cat. She should’ve looked up. Classic mistake. The attack was a signal, and a few other animals raced forward, murder in their eyes.
Had Carter formed a battalion of shifters to come after Kyle? What the hell was his problem?
But Carter wasn’t among these guys. There was a bear, but it had lighter fur than Carter’s. It smelled like something sour—Mathers. There was also a wolf and a mountain lion. Plus the leopard on her back, who carried the scent of mud and wet stone—Barnum. Four against three. Four against two, really, as Kyle wasn’t in fighting shape. Marcus was yanking off his clothes and shifting, but he wouldn’t get into his wolf form in time to fend off the first attack.
She was on her own. And she wasn’t strong enough for this.
The leopard bit down, its teeth clamping to the back of her neck. It dug its claws into Lena’s front legs. She screamed in pain and tried to whirl around and dislodge the leopard. No good—it only put her back to the approaching wol
f. Snarling, the wolf gripped one of her hind legs and yanked. Lena fell with another scream of pain.
Marcus was in his wolf form now, and he leaped into the fray. Fur and blood flew, but Lena felt herself weakening. She swiped her opponents with her sharp claws, but her strength was quickly fading. Too much blood loss. The wound in her neck was numb now—she felt nothing. Bad sign in a fight.
Kyle was up and struggling to fight the other bear, but he seemed disoriented and although he occasionally got some good hits in, he was taking just as many.
Marcus fought the wolf. That left Lena facing the two big cats—leopard and mountain lion. Marcus tried to bring one of the big cats into his fight with the bear, but they seemed intent on Lena, refusing to respond to his goading.
All she wanted to do was lie down, show them her neck and let them be the bosses. Demonstrate submission, and the pain will stop. That’s how it was supposed to work, right?
She flopped to her side. From the corner of her fading vision, she saw another bear approach. With a roar, it flung itself into the melee.
Lena knew that bear. It was Carter. He rushed toward her and stood over her prone form, smacking a large paw against the snout of the leopard. The leopard went flying backward. He reached for the mountain lion next.
White light obliterated the next few seconds of the fight. Lena’s body was shifting against her will, back to human. Her injuries must be bad if her body was taking over like that. She couldn’t find it in her to care too much about being so badly injured, not when Carter fought just in front of her, his grizzly form coming into view as the light faded and Lena lay as a human. Carter battled with the kind of majesty she wouldn’t have thought possible from a giant, lumbering bear.
The mountain lion went down and didn’t get up again. Its coat was stained with blood.
Carter turned to Lena then, still in his bear form, and reached down to lift her.
She shook her head. “My friends,” she whispered.
He growled and lifted her shoulders, his nails scraping gently on her skin.
“No,” she said, batting away his furry arms. “Help my friends.”
He growled again and looked like he would continue picking her up, but then he huffed and returned to the fighting. The bear battling with Kyle went down next, and then it was only the wolf against Marcus. Just as Carter reached them, the wolf seemed to take a look around and realize his buddies had all fallen. He whined and hurried away.
Carter roared after him, one long, furious exclamation. Then he returned to his human form, swallowed in a bright light that seemed rather dim to Lena. She’d lost too much blood, she realized. Everything seemed darker than it should have been.
“Lena,” Carter said, returning to her side. “Hey.”
He found Marcus’s shirt, discarded on the ground, and pressed it against her neck.
Well, that hurt. All the numbness she’d been enjoying flared into burning pain.
“No, quit it,” she said.
“The bleeding won’t stop,” he said, pressing harder.
“Fuck you, let me go.”
“No.”
She wanted to squirm out of his grasp, but he was picking her up and carrying her somewhere.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting help.”
“I’m fine.” But she couldn’t be sure those words actually left her mouth, because her vision was going gray, and then black, and then the world around her was no more.
She came to awareness on the ground. Evening had fallen. Carter was next to her, wearing a pair of pants, and she was lying stomach-down on a blanket while something tugged at her shoulder.
“Hey, don’t move, okay?” Carter said.
“What?”
“There you go,” a woman’s voice said. “Tug it up until it’s taut, then come back around again.”
“Is she going to have scars?”
“Probably. This is your first set of stitches. Then again, since you’re shifters, I really have no idea.”
Lena turned her head to see who was talking.
“Lena, seriously, don’t move.” Carter sounded nervous.
The woman was on the other side of the gravel line marking the Junkyard’s boundary. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her brown eyes were scrunched in concentration. A small black bag sat on the ground next to her, open on its side to reveal what looked like medical supplies—gauze, a bottle of what was probably rubbing alcohol, and packets of bandages.
She felt the tugging in her shoulder again. So, Carter was giving her stitches. He had shown up and rescued her from that attack.
He’d rescued her friends, too. Even Kyle, who he’d beat to a pulp only hours earlier.
She didn’t understand this guy. Closing her eyes, she decided not to worry about figuring it out at the moment.
“Do you know why they attacked us?” Marcus asked.
Carter grunted. “No idea.”
“I got the impression they didn’t really care about me or Kyle,” Marcus went on.
“They were after Lena,” Carter said. “No question.”
“Why, though?” Marcus asked.
She felt Carter’s warm hand smooth over an uninjured part of her back. “I don’t know.”
Her tongue was too heavy, so she couldn’t say what she wanted to say. She knew why they’d come after her. Shaw. He’d found Sarah’s letter—the one Lena had dropped. He knew that she knew, and he didn’t want her to be able to talk.
12
Carter stared out at the serene water of Cougar Lake. His bobber hadn’t budged the slightest bit. The fish weren’t interested in eating today, it seemed. That was fine. Being out here alone was calming him, for some crazy reason.
He wasn’t thinking about the battle two nights ago, when Mathers, Barnum, Buenevista, and Alleman had come after Lena. He wasn’t thinking about finding Garth dead in the forest, with Kyle’s scent all around him. He wasn’t thinking about fighting again, putting that asshole Alleman back in his place. Stupid cougar shifter kept thinking he could get the drop on Carter, but no fucking way. Last night they’d fought again, with the same result as always—Carter winning, Alleman lower in the dominance hierarchy.
What he was thinking of was Lena. He’d stitched her up under Caitlyn’s direction, and she was doing all right, as far as he knew. He hadn’t gone seeking her out, and she’d stayed out of his way.
He knew she was pissed at him because he’d attacked Kyle.
He deserved her anger.
Which was why it was so surprising when he saw her in the forest, picking her way carefully along the rocky ground leading toward the lake shore.
She was alone, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved blue t-shirt that matched her eyes.
Carter cleared his throat. Maybe she hadn’t noticed him.
She looked up and met his gaze. “Hi.”
“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.
“It’s fine. Completely healed.” She came the rest of the way over and sat next to him on his rock. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“Was that really your first time giving someone stitches?”
“Yeah.” He stared out at the bobber on the water, willing it to move. He wasn’t sure why she was here. Was she going to tell him off again? He deserved it, but he really didn’t feel like talking about how he’d attacked Kyle.
She was sitting close to him, her arms wrapped around her bent knees. He could smell her mint and metal scent. Fresh. Luminous. He wanted to lean closer, inhale more of that.
Pointing to the flask next to him, she said, “Drinking already?”
“It’s always moonshine o’clock in the Junkyard,” he said, adding a wink.
She shook her head, but she was smiling. “May I?”
“Help yourself.”
She uncapped the flask and took a swig. Immediately, she started coughing. “Still have to get used to this stuff, I guess.”
“No time like the present.”
“I guess not.” She took another drink. “So what are you doing out here? I see no fish and you look comfortable, like you’ve been here at least a couple of hours. Why not give up?”
“I guess I don’t know what else to do,” he said. “Fishing, fighting, or fucking, seems like they're the only things that keep my beast calm.”
She frowned out at the water, like she blamed it for the problems of the world. “Your beast needs that, huh?”
“Yep.”
He waited for the inevitable question—why—but it didn’t come. Thank fuck. He didn’t want to talk about Garth, not when it would mean accusing Kyle of killing him. Lena would probably see that as another attack on her friend, and he was enjoying her presence at his side too much to screw it up.
“Thanks,” she said after a moment.
“For…?”
“For stitching up my shoulder. Helping us out. I don’t understand you, but…I don’t hate you as much as I thought I did.”
He laughed. “Thanks, I think.”
Lena toed off her shoes and rolled up her jeans, then waded into the lake.
“You’re gonna scare all the fish,” Carter protested.
“Scare them from what? Maybe I’ll scare them into biting your lure. Besides, I came down here for a swim.”
He was pretty sure she didn’t have a bathing suit, so he shot her a lascivious smile. “Don’t let me keep you from that.”
“Shut up.” She bent down and splashed water at him.
“Hey, cut that out.” He wasn’t afraid of a little water, but this was just rude.
Laughing, she splashed him again.
He glowered at her.
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “No more splashing.”