Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate For A Month

by Georgette St. Clair

  The crowd cheered and whooped and called out taunts to the struggling behemoth.

  “Come on, you coward!”

  “Show some spirit, you big freak!”

  “My puppies could do better.”

  Blood splattered the sawdust. Matthew’s big hands were slick with it. It matted the fur and muzzles of the attacking wolves. The air was rich with the thick, coppery smell of it. Matthew doled out punch after punch, grappled with the wolves, his face set in grim lines of determination as he fought to defend his friend.

  But Marcus knew his sacrifice would be for nothing. He’d be back in the ring the next day. And the next, and the next, until one day he was too weak and used-up to fight anymore. And then they’d do to him what they were doing to Matthew.

  He howled his anguish as he saw the massive, bloodied man go down for the last time, driven to the ground by the remorselessly attacking wolves. When he heard the grisly cracking noises as the wolves began to feed, he vomited onto the sawdust, the ringing in his ears almost blotting out the roars of approval from the crowd.

  But then he heard something else. Something sweet and refreshing that called to him over the pain and fear and grief of the dream.

  “Marcus! Marcus… It’s just a dream. Wake up. You’re safe. I’m here.”

  He felt cool, slender fingers on his brow and he opened his eyes, his heart thundering in his chest, to look up into the sweet, drowsy, sleep-soft face of his mate.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chelsea’s cub shower was decorated with sunshine-yellow paper banners. There were dozens of women crowded into Wintergreen’s Bakery, and the gift table was overflowing. The pack’s mates were there, and Joyce was there too, and a bunch of people from town, some of whom Eileen vaguely recognized. The mayors were there; twins, who were serving jointly. The owner of the town newspaper, Barbara Tudor, was there, with a photographer by her side.

  Eileen set down her gift-wrapped package with the rest of the presents. Marcus had just dropped her off and was going to have coffee down the street while the women did their thing. Beacham had been bailed out, along with Marisol and Ambrose, and even though they’d all left town, he was still being overprotective.

  Eileen stifled a grin at the memory of last night. Her whole body ached in the most delicious way. Did she still reek of sex? She hoped not. She and Marcus had bathed, naked, in an ice-cold stream near his cabin before heading out.

  Chelsea waddled over, with Erika by her side. Erika held out a tray of cupcakes, and Eileen took one.

  “Thank you for coming. And don’t you look like the cat who swallowed the canary?” Chelsea said as she handed Eileen a cup of coffee.

  “She swallowed something, all right.” Erika smirked.

  “Erika!” Eileen gasped, blushing and choking on her cupcake.

  “I know, I’m a pig. But am I wrong?”

  “No, you’re not wrong; you are a pig,” Eileen said primly.

  “By the way, I called you like eleventy-leven times last night to let you know that Verity was coming,” Chelsea said. “You never answered.” She exchanged a glance with Erika. “Must have been busy.”

  Eileen snorted. “Yeah, right. Verity. Tell me another one.”

  “No, really.”

  Eileen stared at her. Chelsea looked serious.

  “Come on,” she said with mild exasperation. “I’m on to you. You kept pretending that Verity was coming so that me and Marcus would have to…”

  “Bump uglies?” Erika finished for her helpfully.

  “Yeah, I did that a couple of times,” Chelsea admitted with no apparent shame whatsoever. “And I gather it worked quite well. But last night was real. Roman decided to just let her go and catch you in the act so she’d get the damned message already. Verity went up there, saw you guys having sex in the tent, and then came back to inform Roman that it was obvious you guys really are mated and she’s leaving town.”

  “I…oh…what?” Eileen was torn between mortification that someone had witnessed her having sex and huge relief that Verity was leaving town.

  “She was up there a while. I think Verity’s secretly a voyeur,” Chelsea mused. “Hope she got what she came for. Oh God, I did not just say that. Erika, you’re rubbing off on me.”

  “Go, me.” Erika grinned around a mouthful of frosting.

  “Shut up and gimme another cupcake. I’m eating for two here.”

  “Are you? I thought you were eating for the whole pack,” Erika taunted, then ducked Chelsea’s affectionate smack.

  “Eileen? Is that you?” she heard someone calling her from the front of the bakery.

  “Excuse me, if you two perverts are done dissecting my sex life, someone is calling my name. Thank God,” Eileen said, blushing. She hurried off to find Valerie, who was waving at her and holding a big blue gift-wrapped box.

  “Hey, Eileen! This is from Mr. Rosemont,” she said, handing it to Eileen.

  “No, it isn’t.” Eileen set it down on the table

  “You’re right, it isn’t. It’s from me, and I forged his name on the gift card like I always do,” Valerie said cheerfully. “He’s lucky I’m honest, or I’d embezzle his fortune and leave town.” She let out a sigh. “So tempting. Please tell him I said that. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I heard about what happened last night, and then I heard that you and your mate made up and you were staying. So I figured that you might still want to consider the internship.”

  “You heard all that?” Eileen said, startled. “Already? My God, this is a small town.”

  “Apparently,” Valerie said. “Or maybe it’s a shifter thing. Everyone watches out for everyone else. It must be nice.”

  “You watch out for people,” Eileen said. “You didn’t have to get me that internship. Or stick up for me when your boss was rude to me, for that matter. I appreciate it. And I’d love that internship. I’ll be in first thing Monday morning.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Valerie said, accepting a glass of punch from Joyce, who was moving through the crowd with a tray. “Work for him for a week, and then see if you want to thank me or stab me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eight years earlier

  Marcus listened carefully, waiting for the sound of the guard’s footsteps, coming to drag him to the ring to fight. That wasn’t going to happen. Oh, there was going to be a fight alright, and Marcus knew that this time he was going to die. He was going to die in a pool of blood, and it wouldn’t all be his – but he was never again going to lift a hand against the other poor wretches who were imprisoned with him and forced to tear one another to pieces for rich people’s entertainment.

  Ever since he’d watched Matthew go down fighting desperately to protect him, Marcus had known he was going to kill the guards and get as many of the others out of there as he could.

  It had turned out to be laughably easy to communicate between the cells by tapping on the bars. The guards had either been too stupid to notice or had assumed their semi-feral captives were beating mindlessly at their cages. And now Marcus knew what resources he had at his disposal, and everyone knew what role they would play when he gave the signal.

  In the days since Matthew’s death, the clatter-clang of the bars as the prisoners planned their escape had been Marcus’ only method of communication. He hadn’t spoken a word. He hadn’t eaten. When the guards had come to his cell, he hadn’t moved a muscle or made eye contact. He hadn’t reacted even when they’d thrown him to the floor and kicked him in the ribs and belly. He hadn’t flinched when they’d spit on him. He hadn’t cried out when they’d burned him with cigarettes. They thought his mind had gone. They thought he was helpless.

  He tensed as he heard the guard approaching, crouching ready to spring. Just one set of footsteps. A single guard. They thought he had no fight left in him, and it had made them sloppy. The bolt grated back and the guard with the scarred face opened the door, grinning maliciously at Marcus, and saying, “Come on, you vegetable—�
�

  Marcus hurled himself at the guard, going wolf, tumbling him into the corridor and tearing at his throat with wild, mindless savagery. The guard gurgled through his own blood, spasming beneath Marcus, his heels drumming spastically against the floor until he went still.

  Marcus shifted back into his human form and left him lying on the floor without a second glance except to snatch the ring of keys from his lifeless hand. He unlocked the cell opposite his own, then made his way down the corridor, releasing the captives in ones and twos.

  Most of them immediately dropped to all fours and changed, fur rippling over their scarred and mutilated skin, except for Alex, a skinny, dark-skinned youth who looked too frail to have made for much entertainment as a combatant, and Oliver.

  Marcus gripped the back of Oliver’s neck and looked hard into his eyes. The man looked sullen, but lowered his head submissively.

  “The only reason I’m taking you with us is because you know the way out of here,” he growled. “If I had any other choice, I’d rip out your throat and let you drown in your own blood.”

  Oliver had been one of the guards until he’d been caught skimming money off the top of Senator Coulson’s winnings. He’d picked the wrong guy to fuck with. Senator Coulson was powerful and vengeful. The very same day, Oliver had been thrown into the ring to fight for his life. Marcus didn’t trust him, but he was the only one who could guide them to the exits before the guards could get organized and thwart their escape attempt.

  They headed down the corridor at a run, the three shifters in human form flanked by a phalanx of wolves, and even as the first shouts of alarm began to go up, they burst into a warehouse-like space filled with pallets of the tinned food that had been slopped into tin bowls and thrown into their cells once a day.

  Three guards ran to barricade the doors, but Marcus gave Alex a nod. The kid placed his hands to his temples, squeezing his eyes shut, and there was a deafening percussive noise as the doors – and the guards – disappeared in a hellish fireball. Alex was a firebug, one of the shifters with a mutant strain of psychic power in his makeup. One of the guards staggered from the blaze, his clothing alight, screaming piteously as he was consumed by the flames. Alarms began to wail, and there was an uproar as the people attending that night’s fight began to realize there was something wrong.

  The flaming guard staggered against a pallet loaded with crates of whiskey and gin, and the supernatural flames licked up a supporting beam faster than any natural fire, setting the ceiling ablaze even as the captives rushed towards freedom.

  A massive beam fell, crashing to the ground in front of the prisoners, who, in their wolf forms and half-crazy from their confinement, panicked and ran back in the other direction.

  “No!” Alex shrieked. He darted towards the fallen beam and the terrified wolves, but Marcus grabbed him by the arm and hauled him towards the exit.

  “I’ve killed them!” the boy sobbed. “They’re all going to burn up!” But Marcus was too strong for him, and he pulled him out into the parking lot, where they could hear the approaching sirens of fire engines and police cars.

  * * * * *

  They sat exhausted on the tarmac, watching as the spectators were led away in handcuffs, their furious faces bathed in the pulsating red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. Alex was rocking and murmuring wretchedly to himself. He’d insisted that causing the explosion wouldn’t harm him, even though before today he’d kindled nothing larger than a candle wick. Marcus wondered if the ferocity of the blaze had burned out something in the kid’s mind.

  To Marcus’ other side, one of the prisoners sat in wolf form, letting out a low, steady growl. Marcus wasn’t sure who he was, but it wasn’t Oliver, and he was viciously glad of that. They were the only three who had made it out.

  Senator Coulson pulled up short, glared at them and spat on the ground, his usually polished and aristocratic features distorted by an ugly grimace of bone-deep fury and disgust.

  “You’ll pay for this, you filthy mutts. I could buy you and sell you a hundred times over. I’ll have you hunted down and put down like dogs.”

  Marcus watched silently as the police officer restraining him led him towards a waiting car. His face was impassive, his gaze steady. And inside, he was howling with pain and rage.

  Chapter Twenty

  The pack members stood outside the shell of the house they were building, deep among the fir trees. They glanced at each other uneasily, and then at the two shifters standing by the folding tables and raging at each other.

  “I didn’t steal his fucking lunch box! And I’m getting sick of you accusing me of things I didn’t do!” Casper shouted at Marcus. “He shouldn’t even be in this pack! He’s a cub, not a wolf!”

  They couldn’t even make it to lunchtime on the job site without going nuclear. Marcus was at the end of his rope. He’d felt so calm lying there in Eileen’s arms that morning, and then the minute he’d started driving towards work, he’d felt the anger returning, burning under his skin.

  And the ghosts of the dead fighters had floated in front of him on the road, staring at him accusingly; he’d even jammed on the brakes once to avoid hitting them. Furious honking from the car behind him had yanked him back to reality and left him sweating and shaking.

  And now this. There was no way this was an accident. Casper was somehow doing this on purpose, either to provoke Samuel or Marcus. But did it even matter what was setting Marcus off?

  What was he going to do? He couldn’t expect Eileen to babysit him twenty-four hours a day just so she could keep him from going off the deep end.

  Samuel’s face was as white as a sheet, and he was holding his hands up pleadingly.

  “Casper. Harry’s watching. Calm down,” Damien said, laying his hand on Casper’s arm. Casper furiously shook it off and took a step towards Marcus, and Marcus felt red-hot rage like lava flowing through his veins.

  Several pack members were gathered around them, and Roman was hurrying towards them.

  Marcus’ vision flowed with blood, and for a second he saw the guards from the fighting ring standing in front of him. He partially shifted before he could stop himself, then shook himself hard. There were no guards. These were his packmates. They were the closest things he had to friends. He withdrew his fangs and made his fur melt back into his skin.

  Roman reached the group and glared at the two of them.

  “What now?” he demanded angrily.

  Without answering, Casper grabbed his tool box and stormed off into the woods, screaming out curses and threats.

  Marcus started to speak, but Roman barked, “Enough!”

  He walked over to Marcus. “Leave. Now,” he said firmly. “Harry doesn’t want you to come back, and he’s not too crazy about Casper either at the moment. I’m going to talk to the rest of the crew to find out what just happened here, and when I get back to pack property, you and I need to have a conversation.”

  Marcus didn’t even trust himself to speak. He turned and stalked back to his car, climbed in and drove off, feeling the gazes of his packmates burning into his back.

  Struggling to keep his wolf contained, he pulled over by the side of the road.

  He yanked out his phone and sent Eileen a text. Got fired today. See you at home tonight. He might be coming apart at the seams, but as long as he was holding on to the shreds of his humanity, he’d treat Eileen the way a mate should be treated. That meant communicating with her. She shouldn’t hear about his being fired from someone else.

  He quickly got a text back. Don’t worry about it. I’m coming home early. My boss liked your wooden rose, wants to hire you to make plaques for his spa. She was still looking on the bright side. Still thinking everything would be all right.

  He headed into town and stopped off at a diner, where he ate ten hamburgers and imagined various ways he’d like to eviscerate Casper.

  As he ate, his cell phone rang repeatedly, but it was Roman, so he ignored it. He didn’t trust him
self to have a rational conversation at the moment. People in the diner glanced at him and then quickly looked away. Did they see the monster that was sitting there disguised as a man?

  Finally he headed back to the pack property, where, as soon as he drove past pack headquarters, he was flagged down by a very angry-looking Zeke.

  “Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?” he demanded.

  “What the hell is it to you?” Marcus barked at him, and then saw the look on Zeke’s face. Mingled fury and worry.

  He forced himself to speak calmly. “Sorry. What’s going on?”

  “Do you have any idea where Samuel is?”

  He felt a chill wash over him. Had that bastard Casper hurt the kid? “No, what’s happened?”

  “Casper’s body was found in the woods. Damien went looking for him because he never came back from lunch, and he found him face down in the dirt with a knife sticking out of the back of his neck.” He paused. “The cops are looking for him. Death challenge is okay; ambush is not.”

  Marcus shook his head. “That’s not right,” he said angrily. “That’s bullshit. First of all, Samuel couldn’t take on Casper.”

  “Maybe if he was pissed off enough he could. He could have sneaked up on him.” But there was doubt in Zeke’s voice.

  “No fucking way. Samuel’s not capable of it, even if he wanted to. Casper would have heard him, scented him. And you’re saying that Damien just let Samuel get away? He and Casper were friends.”

  “He said that he tried to revive Casper, and by the time he gave up, Samuel was long gone.”

  “Come on, Zeke. That whole story stinks,” Marcus said, his heart jackhammering against his ribcage.

  Matthew. He’d failed Matthew.

  Samuel was Matthew’s little brother. When Marcus had checked in on him and found out that he was getting into trouble with the law, he’d begged Roman to invite Samuel to join the pack. Roman had hesitated; Samuel was too gentle for their rough-and-tumble pack.