by T. S. Joyce
Sadey pulled her lips back over her long, curved canines and hissed louder.
Right, don’t mention the other girls. He was definitely going to screw this up. He’d sucked at relationships when he was human, and his maker had broken him the rest of the way. “Look, I should’ve thought it through. I forgot about shifters and claiming marks, but I should’ve remembered. I should’ve stopped us. I tried to stop us!”
Sadey eased up on all fours, her ears flattened back, her muzzle wrinkled up in a snarl. She was stunning. Her thick silver coat was speckled with dark spots. Curved, razor-sharp claws extended from her massive paws and dug into the soil. Her swishing tail was long and thicker than any of the other big cat shifters. It was so strange to see the same light gold eyes he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind on a snow leopard.
Aric had a million questions. How had she come to be? This animal didn’t exist in shifters, yet here she was staring uncertainly at him. He wanted to know every single thing about the mysterious woman who was wrecking the cement walls he’d built around his heart.
Aric sat on his folded legs, hands out, palms up. He was no threat to her. Even though he was stronger, more powerful, even though he had more weapons than she did, he couldn’t defend himself if it meant hurting her. “I tried to stay away from you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Sadey blinked hard, then shook her head. She stared off into the woods. Such a heartbroken sound rattled from her chest. She bunched her muscles as if she would bolt, but instead she sauntered over to him and ran her giant head under his arm, curved her body around his back, and rubbed up his other side. Her snarl changed. It softened. And as Aric carefully ran his hand over her head, it began to sound more like a purr than a growl. She lay across his lap and rolled, swatting him lightly with her paw. One of her claws hooked into the fabric of his T-shirt, but she didn’t move to rip it. She just lay there, looking up at him with those blazing eyes of hers, one side of her mouth curled up in a playful expression as her purr rattled on.
He chuckled and lifted her giant paw to his face, pressed the pink pads against his jaw. With a sigh, he murmured, “Can you Change back yet?”
Now both sides of her mouth curled back, and she let off another unhappy hiss. But after a few seconds, she pushed off him and sauntered back the way he’d come. And when she was past the branch he’d stepped on, she paused and looked at him over her shoulder, her thick tail twitching. The fury had faded from her eyes, and now she seemed to be asking him, “What are you waiting for?”
Aric couldn’t help the smile that stretched his face as he rocked upward. He probably looked like shit—bleeding, tattered clothes, neck clawed to hell, but he didn’t care about any of that now. All he cared about was Sadey, waiting up ahead for him. When he stepped into line with her, he brushed his fingertips down her back, and she moved off again, content to walk beside him back to her house.
And this was the moment. This was the instant that an old, almost-forgotten feeling unfurled in his chest. Everything had been so heavy since he’d been Turned, but out here in Sadey’s woods, a familiar sensation came over him. For a few seconds, he couldn’t put a name to it, but when she looked up at him, filling the night woods with the thick rattle of her content purr, it struck him.
For the first time in a really long time, he felt hope.
Chapter Six
Sadey pulled the long-sleeved sleep shirt over her head in a rush, and then padded into the living room. She sidled around a stack of boxes that stretched up to the ceiling and shoved her feet into a pair of snow boots that had toppled over beside the door. She moved to leave, but on second thought grabbed the card out of her purse before she stepped outside.
Aric was on the front porch, shoving all the papers back into the box she’d shredded after her accidental Change.
She cleared her throat nervously. “It’s been a long time since I Changed unexpectedly like that. I usually have a lot more control.”
“It’s okay. I wanted to lose my shit after you left, too.”
Aric seemed like the quiet type who could go from zero to terrifying vamp in seconds. He also seemed like a man who kept himself in tight control.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Garret called a meeting and told my people what happened.”
“Right, because you’re King of the Winterset Coven.”
Aric huffed a breath and ran his hands through his hair. His eyes were the soft gray of a dove’s breast right now, and much less intimidating than the pitch black they turned when he was riled up. “I’m actually the King of the Asheville Coven. Or…” He frowned. “I was.”
“Are you not staying in Winterset?”
He looked around pointedly at the boxes strewn about. “Are you?”
Oh, he was an evasive, sexy vamp. Fine, if he wanted to answer questions with questions, she would play his game. “What happened at your meeting?”
He shook his head for a long time, gave his attention to the woods beside her house.
“Your coven doesn’t like me much, do they?” she asked.
With an irritated sigh, Aric sat down on the old porch swing and draped his arm over the back, kicked it into a gentle rocking motion with the heel of his boot and stared at her until she gave in and sat beside him. And then he explained. “Choosing you would’ve been different six months ago.”
“How so?”
The creaking of the swing was the only noise for a while, and it occurred to her that Aric was very careful with choosing his words. Maybe he had to be because he was a king, she didn’t know.
“I was barely able to avoid a war with the shifters.”
“Which shifters?”
“All of them.”
Sadey’s eyeballs nearly bugged out of her head. “What happened?”
“My maker, Arabella, was very old and undergoing The Sickening. She was the queen of my coven, losing her mind slowly, and she became cruel. She stalked a shifter—a grizzly. And she badgered and bribed him until he agreed to be her consort.”
“Consort?” Why did that word taste like poison on her tongue?
“Yeah. She fed from him when she wanted and paid him a lot of money. She wanted someone else to hurt. Someone strong who would heal and who could withstand more pain. She wanted something to feed on that wouldn’t die easily. She wanted something to scar on the outside and the inside.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Sadey murmured, feeling nauseous.
“Eventually, the bear tired of being her plaything and rebelled. And on the night Arabella planned to torture him back into submission, his crew began arriving.”
“Who was his crew?”
“The Bloodrunners.”
She bolted upright on the swing. “Holy. Shit.”
“You know of them?”
“Yeah, everyone does. Female fire-breathing dragon shifter as alpha, two grizzlies, and two birds of prey with some of the most dominant lineages in the world running through their veins.”
“That would be them. Only Arabella couldn’t let go of torturing the bear, so she went after the dragon-blooded alpha as revenge and dragged our entire coven along with her for that shit-tastic idea.”
“What happened?”
“Uuuh.” Aric rocked his head backward and rolled his eyes closed. “Arabella, my queen, my maker, was killed. And as her Second, I took the coven and was supposed to avenge her death. I had to appease my coven and keep us from war with the Bloodrunners because it would’ve escalated. It wouldn’t just be the Asheville Coven against the Bloodrunners. The crew threatened to bring in every crew of shifters from every country. Vampires number at two-hundred in the world. We would’ve put up one hell of a fight, but we don’t have the numbers for a war like that. I had to walk a really fine line and make some really hard decisions to save my people.”
“So that’s why your coven isn’t on board with…us.”
Aric brushed his fingertips against her arm. She had gooseflesh from a co
mbination of the cold and his horrifying story about the Bloodrunners. In a blur, he pulled the blanket off the back of the swing and settled it over her legs.
“They aren’t big shifter fans right now, no,” he murmured. “Hell, they aren’t a big fan of me, and I’m their king. The things I had to do… It’s too soon for them to completely trust me again, and now I’ve bonded to someone they see as a threat.”
“Well, they won’t have to worry about me,” she murmured, her voice shaking with emotion. God, just the thought of leaving him now made her chest feel like it was caving in. “I came to your house tonight to say goodbye. And to give you this.” She handed him the card.
Aric searched her eyes for the span of a few breaths before he gently took the crimson red envelope from her hand. He took his time ripping into the flap, then pulled the handmade card out slowly. On the front, she’d drawn a cartoon smiling vampire with a fireman’s hat and a hose in his hand. Aric huffed an amused sound, then opened it up. “You don’t suck,” he read out loud. “Thanks for saving me.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he swallowed hard before he closed up the card and put it back inside the envelope. “Why are you leaving?”
Sadey sighed and relaxed against his side, drew her knees up under the blanket. “It’s a long story.”
Aric stared out over the yard at the dark horizon. “I have about four hours until dawn. I have time for a long story.”
But sharing her secrets was a terrifying thought. It was something she hadn’t shared with anyone. Too much shame, too much fear. Too much vulnerability that would allow the man who was stealing her heart to really see her. She wanted to keep his good opinion of her. “I just can’t stay longer than I already have.”
“Because of Brock?”
“How do you know that name?”
“You reached.”
Shit. A growl vibrated up her throat before she could stop it, but hang it all, she didn’t want to do this. She’d wanted to start over and move on, not dredge up a past she hated. But Aric was bonded to her now, and even if they were about to be separated, he should know something real about her. “When I was in that wreck last week, I didn’t just lose control of the wheel like I told the police. I was forced off the road by an old black Chevy pickup truck.”
“What?” Aric snarled out, and when Sadey looked up, his face had turned terrifying, his eyes as dark as night.
The hairs rose all over her body as power, anger, and dominance pressed against her.
“I never saw the driver’s face, and I didn’t recognize the truck. I tried to convince myself it was just a drunk driver, or someone texting who got too afraid to stop and check on me. I tried to convince myself it had nothing to do with Brock because I wanted so badly to stay here. I like Winterset. I’m happy here. I feel settled for the first time maybe ever. And then there was you, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop wondering why you worked so hard to save me and then covered for me at the hospital. I couldn’t get your face out of my head. I even had a dream about you.” A dirty one with lots of pelvic thrusting that woke her up in a cold sweat, but Aric didn’t have to know that part. Don’t reach! “As much as I want to ignore my instincts, something keeps nagging at me that it wasn’t an accident. That the person behind the wheel was sent here to hurt me.”
“Why would Brock send someone to run you off the road?” Aric asked carefully. He wasn’t fooling her, though. His voice was too deep, and his last word tapered off into a terrifying hiss.
“I’m not supposed to exist. The snow leopard wasn’t a shifter animal until a few generations ago when one popped up randomly. The first was born to a couple of ordinary leopard shifters. Somehow, three other snow leopards were born the next generation, none of them connected by blood, and all to big cat shifter couples. I linked up with a crew of snow leopards all around my same age because it felt like the safe thing to do. Other than myself, there were two females and one male. Brock was my alpha.”
“Was he your mate?”
“He said he was all of our mates. The other girls were fine with the crew how it was. The manipulation happened slowly, so I didn’t even notice how controlling Brock was until I was in deep. There were no bonds, no claiming marks, nothing like that. But I cared for my crew because I wasn’t alone, you know? None of our parents had registered us because you know how it is with the rare shifters. They’re stalked, recruited, studied…killed. We aren’t like the bears. We don’t have the numbers to defend ourselves.” Aric would understand. He’d had to protect his people too. “Brock decided we would be like the gorilla shifters and have multiple mates so we could boost our numbers. It became about procreation and furthering our species. Anna and Violet ate it up. They just…thrived under the attention they could secure from Brock. Violet got pregnant right away, and she was coveted, and Anna got pregnant six months later. But I wasn’t happy, and the idea of being bound to Brock by a child dropped me into a dark place. I wanted more. I wanted someone to love me. I wanted to raise cubs with a man I thought would be a good father for them. I wanted to be someone’s everything, but Brock could barely look at me when we were together. I was at the bottom of the crew, the least important. I was only there because of my animal. I annoyed the others, and they picked on me, Brock especially. And after Violet and Anna’s cubs were born, I was just there as a caretaker for the babies. I told Brock I wanted more out of my life, and that night was the first and only time he hit me. He just…blasted his fist across my jaw. Broke it. He told me if I ever left his crew, he wouldn’t stop until I was dead because I belonged to him. And I believed him. I just knew down to my marrow he would end my life if I left. But then, wasn’t I already dead? I’d let a man put his hands on me. I’d let a man convince me I was worthless. I’d slipped into a life I hated, and I knew if I didn’t run then, I never would, and I would live out the rest of my days in complete darkness.”
Aric wouldn’t meet her eyes anymore, though his arm stayed tight around her shoulders. “How long ago did you leave him?”
“Six months. I literally closed my eyes and put my finger on a map, landed on Winterset, packed a few bags, and then left in the night. Six months here, and I feel like I’m finding the things I used to love about myself. I feel more myself, but I’m always looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to show up. Waiting for him to take everything away.”
“He won’t.”
“But you don’t know that.”
“I do, Sadey,” Aric said, leveling her with those demon-black eyes of his. “I won’t let him hurt you ever. I don’t want you to run anymore.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying stay. Stay and set up your life here. Stay and go out with me and—”
“Aric, we’re strangers.”
“Bullshit. I had to force myself not to come back here night after night because you felt big. I know you’re scared. I know it must be terrifying to go through what you did with that domineering asshole and then be bound to a man you don’t know. I get it. I’m scared, too, but from the second you opened your eyes out by that wreck, you felt important. You felt like you would make things easier, better.”
“Make what easier?”
“Arabella was my Brock. I fell for her before I knew what she was, and when I found out she was a vampire, I tried to break it off. I had this incredible life. Friends, family. I had a great job at a fire station I loved. My life was all lake trips on the weekends, four-wheeling, rock-climbing, camping trips with my friends. I was happy, and she Turned me anyway.”
“Against your will?”
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped there. “I loved the sunlight. I loved my life, and she stole everything from me. I know about wanting to leave. I know about the anger. You were braver than me, Sadey. Stronger. You left the bad behind, while I became the king of my coven.”
And now she could see him. Really see him. He wasn’t one of the heartless vampires she’d been taught to fear. He had
been broken like her but had dug in his heels. He thought she was the strong one, the brave one, but he was the one who took over his coven and cared for his people enough to keep them from war. To keep them from complete annihilation. He cared enough to facilitate change in them. To curb their violent tendencies and bring them around to a softer way of thinking. He’d kept his old job of saving people because he cared in a way that was unnatural for the creature of the dark Arabella had turned him into.
His coven probably didn’t realize it, but Aric was likely the best thing that had ever happened to them.
And now Garret’s murmured words when she’d knocked on Aric’s bedroom door made perfect sense. Take good care of our king. He shoulders a lot.
Aric was possibly the strongest and most admirable man she’d ever known.
No wonder her animal had chosen him.
No wonder she’d allowed Aric’s bite to bond them.
“I like when you make that sound,” he murmured, locking her in his gaze. His eyes had lightened to a dawn gray now. “I like when you’re happy.”
She giggled as her cheeks heated with a blush. “I didn’t realize I was purring.”
The slight smile dipped from his lips when he dropped his gaze to her mouth. Slowly, he leaned down and sipped at her lips. With a helpless noise, Sadey melted into him and slipped her arms around his taut waist. He brushed his tongue against the closed seam of her lips in silent question, and she opened for him. He dragged her closer as he dipped his tongue to hers, and she rested her fingertips on his chiseled jaw just to feel the muscles work there.
This wasn’t the passionate, fire-catching kisses he’d given her earlier. This one convinced her that perhaps this growing bond between them wasn’t a mistake. That maybe it was Fate’s way of making up for Brock’s shortcomings. Maybe she’d needed to go through that awful ordeal with him to fully appreciate when a good man came into her life.
Heaviness evaporated from her shoulders as he held her. It disappeared completely when he brushed his finger down her cheek and rested his touch onto her neck, right where he’d bitten her. Slowly, he pulled her into his lap until she straddled him. Sadey thought he would push for more because she could feel his thick erection pressed between her legs. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave her three, sweet, smacking kisses, then secured the blanket around her shoulders and relaxed back, pulling her with him. And he hugged her. Just rested his chin against her shoulder and held her in a way that cinched up some of her shattered pieces.