by Celia Kyle
And luckily for Deuce, Ricker had a special guest instructor for the week: Stone Redd.
The grunts and groans from the grounds reached him. The low sounds spurred him on and he picked up his pace, breaking into an easy, loping jog.
Two hundred feet from the clearing, a familiar scent joined the trees around him.
“Deuce. What brings you here?” As if Ricker didn’t know. The man had heard him ranting and raving for twenty-nine days, six hours, and fifty-four minutes. Damn, he hadn’t seen Elly in a long time.
Had she even thought about him? He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. His lion had been going bat-shit crazy, roaring, snarling, and even pouting while Deuce tried to get information on Elly. And no one was talking. He knew their opinion, knew they believed he’d assaulted her in some way, and not a one of them believed a single word he’d said to the contrary.
Ignoring Ricker’s presence, Deuce didn’t slow. Hell, he increased the pounding tempo of his booted feet hitting the dry leaves littering the forest floor.
“This isn’t going to solve anything, man.” Yeah, Ricker was trying to reason with him. Right.
Deuce rounded the last turn, pulling into a straightaway, and he put on more speed. His lion was more than willing to lend a hand, give him a boost, and sent him practically flying over the ground.
Distantly he heard Ricker, heard the tiger begging and pleading, but all Deuce recognized was rage. Rage at the council. Rage at Stone. The man had been his handler for ten months. Ten. Months. He’d gotten closer to the fucking gorilla than any other. Stone had been the only friendly face in a world of psychopaths and he couldn’t give Deuce the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, the council “forgave” him for all of his actions while he was in Freedom. It was “understandable” and “necessary behavior to ensure his acceptance.”
But they wouldn’t tell him about Elly Martin. His mate. No, she was one of his “forgiven transgressions” and should be allowed to heal in privacy.
It seemed like he’d flown over the land, the heavy thump of his boots against the ground rolling into a single never-ending sound.
The path opened into the clearing and he spotted Stone among three trainees as they sparred.
It’d taken one hundred seventy-three rebuffs to get him to this point. One hundred seventy-three inquiries that had ended without any information about Elly brought him to the clearing.
He was going to beat the information out of Stone.
Deuce didn’t slow, rage spurring his pace, and Stone turned to face him at his approach. The man’s eyes widened slightly as recognition dawned. But the gorilla didn’t have a chance to get out of the way. Not when he leaped at the man, going airborne and putting his size behind his blow. He flew through the air, fist pulled back, and then he brought it forward, his speed, weight, and muscle aiding the strike.
His fist collided with Stone’s jaw, the crack echoing through the area. The gorilla stumbled, tumbling and then rising to one knee as he shook his head. Deuce rolled over the grass and then sprang to his feet, ready to take on the other man. The first strike had been a cheap shot, something to get Stone’s attention. He’d have to fight the man in earnest now.
“Damn it, Deuce.” Ricker skidded to a stop.
“Fuck off.” He shook out his hand, knuckles throbbing. They hurt, but the pain was worth the discomfort. Especially considering Stone had a difficult time standing.
“You can’t just kill my instructors,” the tiger grumbled. Ricker sure had turned into a whiny shit since he’d mated.
“I’ve had enough, Ricker.” The gorilla finally rose and Deuce stepped closer, arms up and hands balled into fists, ready to take on the other man. “Especially when this asshole is standing between me and my mate.”
“Mate?” Ricker’s surprise was evident.
But Deuce was distracted by Stone as black fur slithered from the man’s skin, coating him in the proof of his beast.
“Good hit.” The gorilla wiped a trail of blood from his chin and pushed to standing. “And we’ve discussed your supposed mate. You’ve done enough damage already. You’ve been pardoned for what you did to Elly. Leave it at that and move on, Deuce. If you keep pushing, someone’s gonna push back.”
The lion in him roared. It’d been a bit satisfied after hitting Stone. Yeah, he’d been aching to do that since the gorilla had slammed the butt of his gun into his head during the raid and knocked him out. He’d been trying to tell Stone about Elly, explain the circumstances and that she needed to be protected because she was his mate. All Stone had done was scent the sex surrounding them and sent him into dreamland.
Since then, Stone’s word had been law when it came to the Elly “situation” and no one within the council or at headquarters would give him information.
Enough.
His beast rushed forward, pushing past the barriers Deuce erected and tossing his humanity aside. Fur sprouted in a jarring rush, gold coating his body in a tsunami of pale color. The crack and pop of bone filled his ears, mouth reshaping to a muzzle. His lion’s fangs burst from his gums. He flexed his hands, and fingers shifted to claws, tipped in razor-sharp nails that he ached to dig into the gorilla’s stomach.
He’d torture the man, force him to give Deuce the information he needed. He might even let him live. Maybe.
Stone formed his own set of fangs, just as deadly of the lion’s. Muscles grew and bulged beneath Stone’s midnight fur, giving the man his gorilla’s power. Damn it. He hated Stone’s upper-body strength. Approaching the man hand-to-hand might have been a mistake. He should have shot Stone with a tranquilizer dart and then tied him up, beat information out of him that way.
Stone rushed him, fangs bared, and struck out. Deuce managed to duck the attack and counter with a punch of his own, fist colliding with the other man’s stomach.
It didn’t slow the gorilla. Not when Stone went for Deuce’s jaw and rocked his world.
Fucking gorillas were strong as hell.
His vision blurred, lights dancing before his eyes, but he managed to get a bit of his own back. A return punch to Stone’s face was met with a lovely crunch and blood flowed from the gorilla’s nose.
“Asshole.” Stone took a step and swung, the hit connecting with Deuce’s mouth.
He spit, the copper tang of his blood enraging the cat even more. “Tell me what I need to know and I won’t fuck up more of that pretty face.”
Stone roared, the deep baritone so different from a lion’s sound of rage. “So you can rape her again?”
A haze of red covered Deuce, encircled him in a blanket of molten fury, and suddenly he and his beast were in perfect agreement: Stone wouldn’t walk away. He’d suspected others believed he’d harmed Elly. And he wondered if they thought he’d raped her, but no one had said the words aloud.
The idea he’d harm any woman, let alone his mate, in such a way sent his ire rising to a breaking point.
Closed-fist strikes became open-handed swipes, nails grazing midnight fur and sinking into the flesh lurking beneath. Right, then left and right again. One-two-three, duck, left.
Stone countered, attempting to fight off Deuce’s approach, but a strange wrath-induced calm had overtaken him. There was no pain, no ache or burn of the gorilla’s strikes. No, there was simply red and his lion’s desire to see more and more of the pretty fluid.
Dimly he heard shouts, saw others coming near, but he frightened them off. The kill was his, by right. The gorilla had challenged his honor, had been keeping him from his mate. The lion felt he should die and Deuce readily agreed. The man had held out this long, had reported his opinions to the council. It was Stone’s fault Deuce wasn’t with Elly.
All.
Left.
Stone’s.
Right.
Fault.
Left.
Stone stumbled, falling to the ground, and Deuce saw his chance, saw the opportunity to level the gorilla once and for all. If he was dead, he cou
ldn’t…
The depth of his bloodlust eased, sliding and slipping away until it no longer existed. Colors returned to his vision, the burgundy haze ceasing to overshadow his sight, and the grass became green once again.
Deuce’s lion receded, drawing back with a purr of contentment as the desire for the gorilla’s death drifted away on the breeze. Which left him with a bloodied, near-dying Stone. And guilt.
He shook his head, wondering where this sudden calm came from, and the answer soon eased into his line of sight.
“Maddy.” He barely recognized his voice, the deep timbre now grating against his nerves. Maddy. One of the pride’s Sensitives. The woman held the power to delve into another’s thoughts. And soothe a person’s inner beast.
Another wave of calm overtook him.
“You okay, Deuce?”
He nodded.
“Good. Go ahead and get him to the doc, guys.”
Blurred shapes eased toward Stone, moving as if through water when they went into action. And then he realized he was crying.
Crying.
Tears swam in his vision, blocking the reality of his actions from his gaze, but they couldn’t be washed away. He’d almost killed Stone. And for what? Why? Frustration? He should have tried to talk to the man again, made him understand. Maybe if he’d…
A slap, the strike of a small hand against his cheek, jerked him from his regrets. “Stop it.”
Damn, Maddy could hit for a girl.
“Madison…” Ricker’s growl had him freezing.
Deuce had already tempted fate once that day in his fight with a much stronger gorilla. He wasn’t about to take on a mated tiger.
“Oh, shut it.” Maddy sure had taken the Prima’s badass lessons to heart. “It’s your fault and Stone’s fault and the fucking council’s fault we’re standing here right now.” Maddy growled. “And why?” The lioness lowered her voice, pretending to sound like her much larger mate. “‘Because, Madison, this is council business and it’s nothing to worry your pretty little head about. Get back to taking care of the bun in your oven.’” Then she hissed, baring her teeth at her advancing mate. “Well, fuck and you. Asshat.”
The still-glaring Maddy stood between Deuce and the trainees as if she were a momma protecting her cub.
The others carted Stone away, the man conscious and growling but alive nonetheless. Relief coursed through him. If the gorilla was conscious, he’d probably live.
“Damn it, Madison.” The tiger’s jaw was clenched.
“Fuck you, Ricker.” She said the words in the same tone as her mate’s and Deuce couldn’t hold back his smile. Ricker had bitten off more than he could chew when he mated the sometimes-sweet Sensitive. “It’s my turn to talk and you are going to listen. Then you’re going to tell Deuce what he wants to know or I’ll dig into your head and take it.”
Ricker’s golden eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me, litter boy.”
The blood on Deuce’s body was beginning to dry on his still-present fur, the viscous fluid matting the hair, but he kept his mouth shut. He had too much guilt eating away at him. With Maddy’s gentle touch, the rage at being separated from Elly had lessened and now he was left with the results of his actions. His heart hurt, beating an aching rhythm over what he’d done.
His knees went weak, the knowledge stealing his breath from his lungs, and he ached to go to his friend.
He’d nearly killed Stone.
Maddy turned toward him, smiling wide as she came to his side and clasped his hand, wrapping her dainty fingers around his blood-soaked paw. “You stop it too. It’s as much their fault as it is yours. Albeit you’re a little bloodier in sorting things out.”
He quirked his lip. Yeah, “little” was an interesting way to describe things.
A low growl snared her attention and the tiny lioness bared her fangs, hissing at the big, bad ex-tracker. The man was twice her size, but that didn’t intimidate her.
“You do not get to make a sound, jerkasaurus. I’m going to do what I’ve been begging to do since you told me about Deuce and you aren’t gonna do shit. Wanna know why? Because I am the keeper of the vagina.” Then she turned back to Deuce, smile wider than before. “Now, this won’t hurt a bit. Mostly.”
That was all the warning he received before Maddy used her powers to dig into his mind, and then he was thrust into the past. Thrown into his memories and forced to relive his brief time with Elly.
The card game.
His room.
His mate.
His plan.
His hand.
“Okay, we’ll skip a tiny bit. That’s a little too much information. Congratulations on the equipment, though. Nice size.” Maddy’s low murmur intruded on his internal movie. And her words were followed by a snarl from Ricker.
The alarms.
The rescue.
And then nothing.
Maddy ripped free of his mind and he stumbled, fighting to catch his balance while the small lioness verbally tore into her massive mate. “You men are the biggest, most fucknacious, assholicious jerkazoid fuckheads on the planet!”
“Now, Madison…” Ricker backed away from his raging woman.
The short lioness stomped her foot. “No. You were all wrong. Wrong. And too stupid to ask for help. Instead, you simply believed everyone else—true criminals—instead of your friend. And when I offered to read him to prove you were wrong, you said no because you men couldn’t risk truly being wrong. Well, fuck you very much.” A low, rumbling growl filled the space and Ricker backed away from Maddy. Hell, he did as well. The woman was freakishly scary.
“Madison—”
“Do you know where Elly is?”
“Now, Madison—”
“That means you do. You’ve got two seconds to tell Deuce where he can find his mate—the mate that he cared for and did everything he could to keep safe—or I will take it from you. And I won’t be gentle, Ricker. I’ll make it hurt in a very painful no-hard-on way.” Madison believed him, and the relief made his knees weak.
“Mate?” Deuce didn’t miss the surprise in Ricker’s voice, as if the words were getting through to him.
“One, one thousand.”
“Colwich, West Virginia.”
He knew where she was and for the first time in twenty-nine days, seven hours, and eight minutes, he could breathe.
* * *
It’d been a month since her rescue and Elly still looked for Deuce everywhere she went. It didn’t matter to her that she was in her Podunk of a hometown. Or that the lion would have to be insane to come to the territory of a council member’s family, even if the council member was a squirrel.
She missed him, as fucked as that sounded. They’d spent over an hour together and she ached to be in his presence once again. Her squirrel was beyond pissed when the council had invaded. She’d watched one of the soldiers slam the butt of his assault rifle thingy into the side of Deuce’s skull. Deuce had been demanding that she be taken care of. And for a moment, the man looked as if he was going to reassure Deuce. The stranger had tugged the lion close, mouth open, but quickly shoved the lion away and struck him. It’d been lights out for Deuce and three words from the unknown man had followed.
“You sicken me.”
She’d tried to stick up for him, tried to tell anyone who’d listen that Deuce had taken care of her. Yes, he was part of Freedom, but… But, but, but…
Elly relaxed into the bench, enjoying the gentle wind that carried the park’s scents to her. She ignored the essence of her guards. Her father and uncle had assigned her “protection.” At least until Alistair had been apprehended and “dealt with.” She translated that as until the polar bear had been cut into tiny pieces. But they’d told her he’d be taken care of.
She hoped it was sooner rather than later. She was tired of being followed around, tired of the pity she’d seen on her guards’ faces whenever they looked at her. And damn tired of being afraid.
Her nose. She reached up and traced the crooked line of the bridge, the pad of her finger running over the slight bump indicating the break. It’d never straightened after her shifts and she hadn’t worked up the nerve to voluntarily endure the pain of another break.
It served as a reminder. Not of her time in captivity, but of Deuce. Of his kind eyes, gentle hands, and worry over her comfort. Not to mention his strength, carved muscles, and the arousal that’d thrummed through her in his presence.
She couldn’t get him out of her mind and she wished she’d gotten a hint of his scent instead of only his taste. The embarrassment over her actions burned her cheeks. She’d tasted him, just a little, when he sent her into the bathroom to shift again. She’d brought her fingers to her lips and let her tongue snake out to lap at the evidence of his release. A tiny bit.
The delicious, salty fluid slid over her taste buds and her squirrel had gone crazy inside her, demanding that she go back into the room and ferret out more. It shoved and poked at her, more aggressive than Elly had ever witnessed.
When she’d finally agreed to listen, finally allowed herself to trust in her beast’s instincts, the alarm had sounded.
Elly coveted those memories, the feeling of him resting against her palm, the pleasure that coated his chiseled features, and the heady flavors of his essence.
Memories don’t keep your bed warm or your body hot.
No, they didn’t.
She needed to let the man go.
Maybe after she talked to Stone one more time. Stone Redd had been one of the soldiers who’d busted into the mansion and rescued her. He’d also been the man to knock Deuce out. But other than that, the man had been a friend. Of sorts. Mostly he’d deflected her whenever she’d asked about Deuce. She was gonna corner the man if it was the last thing she did. He could at least tell her if Deuce was alive.