by T. S. Joyce
She could fix him, and in return, he would keep her safe for always. Beast would be damned if he let Justin or his pride mess with what he and Kiera were building.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
The to-go waitress at Wally-Pancakes leaned out of the kitchen and told him, “I’ll have it out for you in two minutes.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, wishing it was ready now. He’d hated seeing Kiera ill. He wanted to take care of her, and all of his instincts were screaming to go back to her now.
His phone buzzed again. It was a call, not a text, so he pulled it out. Worst Friend flashed across the caller ID. Mother fucker. “What, Dustin?” he answered.
“I think you lost something, Beasty Boy.” The sound of Dustin’s car engine was loud in the phone, and he could hear him shifting gears. Emma sounded frantic in the background, directing Dustin where to go.
“What are you talking about?”
“Justin has Kiera!”
Dread froze Beast into an immovable statue. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“They came for her the second you left, Beast. Now get in your truck and haul ass. No one is ready yet, and I can’t do this alone. We’re on I-40 headed away from Bryson City. I’m giving you to Emma so I can drive. Beast…move.”
“Shit,” Beast blurted, forcing his body to react. He bolted for the door and didn’t even try to hide his speed as he sprinted to the hotel parking lot.
No time to wait on the tired looking valet, Beast muscled past him and yanked the key compartment open, scanned for his key, grabbed it, and bolted for the parking lot behind the hotel. He made black tire marks peeling out, and barely stopped to check traffic before he was heading for the highway.
Dustin and Emma were here. Kiera was kidnapped? Justin better not lay a finger on her. Fuck, Beast was going to gut him.
He jammed the speaker button on his phone and shoved it in a cup holder. He could hear Emma directing Dustin in a muffled voice over the phone. Beast’s Raptor was built to move, and thank God for that blessing right now because he needed all the speed he could get to catch up with Kiera. The engine roared when he asked his ride for more as he jerked it around a puttering car in the slow lane. No cops, no cops, no cops right now!
Cars honked as he blazed by, but fuck it, they didn’t know. His whole world was in danger.
“Beast!” Emma yelled on the speaker phone. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here. Where are you?”
She spouted off the exit sign they were passing. Ten miles ahead. “We’re hitting more traffic and a little bit of ice, so we’re slowing down a little with dodging. Beast, there’s a mountain range ahead. We’re gonna cut right through it. This is where it needs to go down.”
Oh, he got it. They needed to stop Justin in the woods and hope for less human eyes on them.
“Beast, what do you want us to do?” Emma asked. “We’re right on them, but traffic is making it hard to stick close.”
“Shit, shit, shit. What exit now?”
Emma told him. Eight miles ahead. Beast was panicked. He had no control over any of this.
“Beast,” Dustin growled into the phone. “If they get away, we won’t be getting her back, do you understand? They’ve got eight men and her.”
“Eight?” Eight men. Eight men. Fuck, what did that mean? Justin didn’t have his pride. Were they bachelors? No way. Bachelor lions wouldn’t have anything to do with Justin after he took over a pride. He was other to them now. He wouldn’t be able to control them. So where the fuck did he get this kind of muscle?
“Yeah, they have a full frickin’ Yukon, man,” Dustin said. “Gold eyes, all of them.”
It hit him like an avalanche. Beast couldn’t help the roar that bellowed from him. He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Justin brought in the fucking council. Dustin was right. If they got away, Beast would never get her back again. Not if the council was backing this kidnapping. It would be him versus the entirety of the lion shifter race to get her back.
“Clip them,” he ground out.
“I’m sorry, clip them?” Dustin enunciated carefully over the noise of him shifting gears. “Beast, this is my car. My baby.”
“This is Kiera, Dustin! My mate. My cub. Blackwing through and through. We’re crew, now fucking clip them. Stop them in the mountains. Don’t get out of the car after. I’ll take care of it.”
“Tighten your seatbelt,” Dustin growled in a muffled voice.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked over the roar of the engine.
“Beast, before I fuck up my car, you have to say it.”
Beast growled.
“Say it!” Dustin yelled.
“Aw fuck, Dustin! You’re my best friend!”
The line went dead, and Beast’s heart leapt into his throat. God, let them all be okay. Let Kiera be wearing a seatbelt. Let the Yukon stay on all four wheels. Let them not roll. Let Dustin and Emma keep control. Let me get there in time.
The road had gone down to two lanes surrounded by woods. Traffic was too thick here, so he zoomed off road and blasted up the side, spewing dirt and rocks and plumes of dust behind him. Too close to the trees, he pulled onto the shoulder, and just in time for the road to drop off the side. Ahead, the brake lights were flashing and people were slowing down. Smoke billowed up ahead.
Please God, let them be okay.
So close.
Beast maneuvered over both lanes and onto the other shoulder of the mountainside. It was such a tight fit against a cliff wall, his side view mirror got scraped off, but screw it. All he could think about was Kiera, the baby, and his crew.
And then Emma was there in the middle of the road, ushering traffic to the side, creating a lane for him. She looked terrified, and her nose was bleeding. She waved frantically for him.
Beast rolled down his window and slowed.
Emma tumbled over her words in a rush. “They’re all alive, ran into the woods with her. Beast! Dustin went after them!”
Fuck. “I’ll take care of him!” he yelled as he gassed it toward the wreck.
Dustin had rolled his car, but the Yukon was upright, slammed into a tree, thick gray smoke billowing from under the smashed hood. The windows were cracked, but not broken. No one had been ejected.
Beast slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, left the car on and ripped out of his seatbelt. And then he was running. He could smell them. The scent of dominant, brawler, male lions saturated every molecule.
A long howl sounded. It was the cry of a lone wolf on the hunt. Ease off, Dustin.
Beast ripped off his shirt and kicked out of his shoes as he sprinted through the snowy woods. The buckle of his belt sounded as he ducked a low hanging limb, and with a few clumsy steps, he was free of his pants, too. He could smell Kiera now, and that spurred the urge to Change. Beast sprinted, leapt, and as he sailed through the air, his lion shredded him instantly on the way down. He landed on all four paws but didn’t slow in the new body. He could hear them now. Another howl. Back the fuck off, Dustin! Pushing the lions would get the wolf killed, and Emma needed her mate.
The challenging roar of a lion sounded long and loud, tapered, then started up again. Beast knew that sound. It was the same challenge that had filled his heart with hatred for the past two years. It was Justin’s voice that taunted him. He’d taken everything from him, and Beast would be damned if he did it again.
Justin had signed his ticket to hell the second he’d touched Kiera.
Beast threw his head back and bellowed his response.
Challenge accepted.
Chapter Seventeen
Kiera’s neck hurt, and her head was throbbing. The air was too cold, and the woods too fragrant. Justin’s grip was too tight on her arm, and she snarled at him as he pushed her toward a cliff face that jutted straight up. Dumbass had gotten himself cornered. She would’ve laughed if she wasn’t in so much danger.
Justin jammed his finger at Kiera. “Wa
tch her.” She wanted to rip his throat out.
“You can’t lose this, or it sets a bad precedence,” Silver Beard murmured.
“I fucking know, Lucian! Why do you think I tried to avoid this? I can feel him coming for her.” Justin gripped the back of his neck and paced. He was red-faced with blazing eyes, and a vein throbbed at his temple. He looked insane.
“You should be scared,” she murmured.
“Of who, bitch? Huh?” he yelled. “Of Beast? Tell me, how do you stomach fucking him when his face is disfigured because of me. I’ve beat him once—”
“With an entire group of bachelors, you overconfident asshole!”
“What is she talking about?” Lucian asked, his gold eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Nothing. I challenged Beast, he lost, and obviously he’s lying to this stupid bitch about what really happened.”
Oooh, so the council was unaware that Justin was involved in the murder of Beast’s pride. She couldn’t have been the only one to catch all the false notes in Justin’s voice as he’d spewed excuses.
“If she joins the Blackwing Crew, what do you think will happen to any female unhappy with pride life?” one of the other council members asked. He was removing his shirt. “They’ll be flooding away from prides to join crews! Our entire species will be tainted. Our entire way of life will be destroyed.” The man spat near Kiera’s feet. “Rogue just like your mother. Trouble just like her.”
“He won’t take her from me,” Justin snarled, kicking out of his shoes.
It was snowing again in big flurries, and the wind was frigid, but that wasn’t the reason for the gooseflesh on Kiera’s arms. It was the long, lone wolf howl that filled the air. She rested her back against the rock face and cradled her belly protectively.
“Kill the wolf,” Lucian ordered a pair of the council-members. The jacked-up behemoths Changed into massive lions and side-by-side trotted off toward the tree line.
“Run, Dustin!” she screamed.
Justin was on her so fast it stole her breath away. He was in her face, fist raised, eyes wild. He didn’t blast her, though. Her cowering against the rock seemed to pacify him. Justin liked having that kind of control. He huffed an empty laugh. She hated everything about him.
“You’ll want me again after this,” he promised her, stripping off his shirt. “I remember the old you, Kiera. The desperate one. The one who needed the bite. The one who liked to be fucked. It was so fucking beautiful how badly you needed me. You’ll feel that again when he is dead. I promise. I’ll bond your lion to me if it takes me your entire life, however short or long that may be.” He snarled up his lip and gave her his back as if she was no threat at all. And he was right. She couldn’t call her lion and keep the pregnancy, so she was stuck. This was the worst feeling in the world, being trapped with monsters. The real kind.
Justin’s lion was hideous. Oh, she’d heard his pride talk about him, so proud to have a striking male like him. Cream colored fur, a black mane, and muscular anatomy. His battle scars were light, like thin silver spider webs on his body. Perhaps she was biased. Maybe Kiera just knew what he looked like on the inside, and therefore it tainted his outsides to her.
He arched his neck back and roared.
With a gasp, Kiera covered her ears. And almost immediately, his challenge was answered with a roar that was so terrifyingly loud it chilled her blood.
When she saw Beast, a slow, proud smile stretched her lips. He came out of the trees unrushed, gait graceful, eyes on Justin, then to her, then back to Justin. The side of his scarred lip curled up, exposing the longest canines she’d ever seen. Justin was big for a lion, but Beast was beast. He had fifty pounds of muscle on his rival, at least. His chestnut colored mane was full, and his ears were flattened. His eyes flashed with the promise of death.
Even from here, in her human form, she could feel Beast’s fury. It was like a mountain on her shoulders and poison in her lungs. She could almost taste his rage on the air currents.
“Ooooh, he’s gonna kill youuu,” she sang softly. “Bye, Justin.”
Justin flashed her a hate-filled glance over his shoulder, but she was ready for him with two middle fingers and a smile.
Justin kicked into a trot, and across the field, Beast did the same, two titans on a collision course. There would only be one survivor in this challenge. There was too much bad blood, too many evil deeds done, too much hatred for Beast to let him live.
Lucian bumped her shoulder, but she winced away. “What did you mean about the bachelors?”
“You backed the last of the monsters that killed Beast’s pride, Lucian. Poor choice.”
The lions were running now, kicking up snow behind them as they charged, tails up. There was no hesitation or circling. There was no sizing each other up first. They clashed with the force of an earthquake and went immediately to war in a frenzy of violence that made her want to look away but made it impossible to give her attention to anything else. Beast was in control from minute one with his long-reach clawing and piercing teeth. Snarling and the echo of resounding slaps filled the clearing. They locked up, and Justin was slammed to the ground. Crimson stained Justin’s leg, and when he spun away, she caught a glimpse of his ruined face. Beast had gotten his teeth into his muzzle. Justin hunched defensively, but Beast was back on him in an instant. They were attached by teeth, ripping and piercing, spinning and rolling. The snow was making it harder to see, and around her, the council-members were Changing.
“What are you doing?” she asked, panicking.
“Doesn’t matter who we backed,” Lucian murmured hollowly. “We can’t lose a pregnant lioness to the dragons. Can’t lose you to a crew. Can’t have a lion cub registered to the Blackwings. All you had to do was stick with the pride.” He gave her a dead-eyed look. “Beast’s death is on you.”
She didn’t understand. In the clearing, Beast had his jaws locked onto Justin’s throat, and the black-maned lion wasn’t moving anymore. But around her, the enormous lions were stalking toward the finished battle. Stalking toward her mate.
“No!” she cried, pulling one of their tails hard.
It snarled and spun on her, swatted, but she was ready. She ducked out of the way.
“Beast!” she screamed in warning.
He stood slowly over his kill, eyes roiling with hatred as the five remaining council members trotted toward him. The hunters fanned out, and Beast’s attention was pulled this way and that, as if deciding who to attack first. It wasn’t fair.
The fight with Justin was right. It was one-on-one the way a challenge was supposed to be, but this was the council of a race of shifters putting down one of their own for no good reason.
To them, Beast was the obstacle to bringing Kiera back into line, but to her, this man was everything. And what could she do? She was stuck in her human skin.
Frantically, she searched for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing but dirt and grass around her.
The sound of roaring was deafening, and then they were running at him. Beast didn’t move to escape. His posture hummed with fury. He didn’t even look surprised. Fucking council. Fucking lions.
Two of the council leapt onto him, and in the flurry of battle, the other three joined. Beast was fighting for his life, and she couldn’t just stand here and watch him die. Inside of her, the lion was roaring for blood, pounding the need for violence through her veins with every pump of her heart, and before she knew what she was doing, she was sprinting for them.
She screamed as she reached them, but just as she leapt onto the pile of razor sharp claws and curved canines, something wrenched her upward by the arms. Kiera gasped. She looked up at the underbelly of a giant snowy owl. Overhead, two dragons circled, one green, one gray, and over the mountains, toward the wreck, there was a line of billowing smoke, as though one of the dragons had burned a line there. Maybe they were trying to keep the humans back.
She knew who this enormous, white feathered owl was, fl
ying her away from the battle, away from her love. Air Ryder Croy was here, which meant so was the Bloodrunner Crew. Below her, Logan’s massive grizzly bowled into the battle, flanked by three other monstrous brown bears. Winter’s panther was there, tearing into one of the lions Lucian had sent after Dustin. Dustin and Emma were brawling with the other, who was already on the defensive, slinking off between the wolves ripping his hide. Ravens circled like omens.
The crews of Kane’s Mountains and Harper’s Mountains had come for them.
Ryder dipped so fast her stomach dropped to the ground. He set her on the edge of the woods and circled back to the battle.
Dark Kane’s terrifying dragon blotted out the sun as he stretched his black, tattered gargoyle wings and landed on the cliff above. His long, curved claws dislodged boulders, and when he roared, lava and fire spewed from his mouth.
There was utter chaos, and then the shock of complete silence. The snow was coming down so thick, Kiera couldn’t see much. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she cradled her belly and searched frantically through the falling snow, her entire body trembling from shock and cold and fear. Please, please, please let him be alive.
A shadow appeared through the white, and a scar-faced lion limped toward her, eyes blazing, crimson dripping from him in a dozen different places. His chestnut mane was dotted with snowflakes, and his tail twitched behind him with every powerful step. He was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
A sob wrenched from her throat as she bolted for him. “Beast, Beast, Beast,” she chanted mindlessly.
He shifted into his human skin, but it looked painful, and he went straight down to his knees. He looked utterly exhausted, but there was a crooked smile on his lips as he covered his bleeding ribs with one arm and held out the other. He grunted when he caught her, gripped the back of her neck as she buried her face against his throat.
“I thought I lost you.” She could barely get the words past her tightening vocal chords.