At this point, he was so pissed about the woman getting away again that he’d kill her for free. His client didn’t need to know that, but he’d be lucky if the client didn’t hire another operative to take out Lyra and Ramon. A hiss slid from his throat.
He froze in place when he saw a dust-covered classic Chevy parked outside the deep, narrow cave he and Benny had been camping out in. They’d found him. Lifting his face to the wind, he caught both of their scents, Lyra and Zander. He let a feral grin peel back his lips. Nice of them to make it so easy for him by coming out into remote territory, where no one would hear the bullets. Or the screams.
There’d be questions about the Leonidas man’s death, but that couldn’t be helped. Collateral damage sometimes happened. Considering who his client was, it might be an added bonus for Zander to die. Anticipation hummed through Ramon as he set aside his rifle and drew the pistol out of the holster at the small of his back.
Finally, the break he needed to finish this.
Zander bared his fangs at Lyra and hissed. She folded her arms and stood her ground against the big leopard. He’d never hurt her, and they both knew it. Her belly trembled at the idea of how much trouble she’d caused him so far. Eventually, he’d decide she was more than he wanted to handle, just like her family had.
This mating thing was insane, and there was no way it could last. She wasn’t worth the kind of trouble she’d already caused him and his family, let alone what would happen when her family found out they’d mated. It was only a matter of time. She wasn’t sure which scared her the most. The thought that he could still get hurt because of her, or the thought of him leaving her when it was over. She swallowed and lifted her chin when Zander hissed again. “We’ll stay here while you check out the rest of the cave, but we are not sitting in the car.”
Tori scooted closer to Lyra’s side and mimicked her pose, jutting her jaw for good measure. “Yeah. What she said.”
A growl vibrated his big body. “Don’t move so much as an inch from this spot.” Lyra opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off. “Is. That. Clear?”
Nodding, Lyra said nothing as he spun on a heel to stalk away, rage broadcasting in his every movement. Oh, yeah. He was definitely going to get tired of the kind of headaches she would give him. She sighed.
A soft scrape of rocks rubbing together made her cock her head. Someone was outside the cave, walking with cat’s feet on the gravel. She could sense it. The hairs lifted on the back of her neck, gooseflesh rippling down her arms. Shooting a glance at Tori, she pushed the younger woman back into the deep shadows as a dark-haired man with cold, world-weary eyes entered.
He leveled a pistol on her, and she lifted her hands. Terror and rage made her fingers shake. She drew in a deep breath to calm herself, but recognition spun through her. Fury beat out the fear. “I know your scent. From that night. You assaulted me, and I don’t even know you.”
“You should be dead already.” His expression didn’t change for even a moment and the gun didn’t waver. Finally, he shook his head, his voice rough. “Stupid wolf. Estranging yourself from the clan is dangerous, made you an easy target. It took them days to even notice you were missing.”
Well, that answered the question of why she was chosen out of all the people in her extended family. She bared her teeth in a smile colder than his eyes. “I wasn’t as easy to kill as you were hoping though, was I?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t mean you won’t die now.” His finger tightened on the trigger, and she snarled, her fangs sliding forward. If she was going to die now, she was taking him with her. The vengeance she’d bottled up since he’d jumped her outside her clinic burst inside her. She exploded forward, tearing from her clothes as she shifted to wolf form midair. The deep roar of a leopard echoed as Zander shot from the recesses of the cave at a dead run, and the assassin’s gaze snapped to him. A bullet rang out, and she heard Tori scream, but she didn’t stop. Leaping forward, Lyra snapped her jaws around the assassin’s wrist, shaking it viciously until the gun went flying. The taste of his blood flooded her tongue as she sank her fangs deep into his flesh.
The wolf’s animal instincts were all that mattered now, kill or be killed. Zander plowed into the gunman, ripping him away from her, and the two men tumbled away until they slammed against the cave wall. She watched Zander rear back and slam his fist into the other man’s nose.
It was then she realized what happened to the one bullet their assailant had managed to squeeze off. Blood streaked down Zander’s ribs, staining his shirt a dark crimson. The assassin’s hand sliced through the air to strike the wound, and all the color rushed out of Zander’s face, a harsh noise bursting from his lips—the sound of a wounded animal.
Horror slammed into Lyra. Years spent in a werekind clinic meant she knew exactly what a bullet wound like that could do to a man. Zander would die, and soon, if she didn’t do something. Spinning on her haunches, she changed back to human form and ran for the gun. She was only a step ahead of Tori as they dropped to their knees and searched the dirt. Rocks dug into bare skin, but she ignored the pain. The light kept shifting as the struggling men moved in front of the cave entrance.
Her breath sobbed out as fear made cold tingles race over her flesh. Grunts and the sounds of fists connecting with bone and sinew echoed through the cave. She glanced back to see her mate get dragged to the ground. Oh, God. Not Zander. Please not Zander.
“Got it!” Tori held up the matte black handgun, and Lyra snatched it out of her hand. She leapt to her feet and strode over to where Zander had the gunman in a chokehold on the dirt floor. Both men wheezed for breath and her mate was ghostly pale, but his jaw was locked and fury burned in his eyes. She looked down at the man who had attacked her and left her for dead.
“Zander, back up.” Her mate opened his mouth to say something. He spared her only a momentary glance until his gaze locked on the gun in her hands. He dropped the other man and leaned back only far enough to give her a clear shot. Not an ounce of remorse flowed through her as she aimed the pistol at his heart and fired twice.
Surprise flickered in the assassin’s gaze as he lowered his head to look at his chest. “It wasn’t…supposed to end like this.”
“Who are you? Who hired you?” Zander pressed a hand to his ribs and got right down in the other man’s face.
A breathless laugh ended in a cough as crimson oozed from the corners of his mouth and out his nose. “I’m…a ghost.”
Zander balled his free hand in the assassin’s shirt and shook him hard, determined rage stamped on his face. “Who hired you?”
Zander’s voice was nothing more than a gasping rasp, and from the sucking noise coming from his chest, Lyra knew the bullet had struck his lung. Oh, Jesus. They were in the middle of nowhere, and she had no good way of treating a pneumothorax.
The dying man hacked up blood, the dark liquid gushing out of his mouth. His lips moved, forming words, but no sound came forth for a moment. “W—wolf.”
“Wolf? Which wolf?” But there was no answer. The assassin was dead. Zander let him go and rolled away to collapse onto his back, coughing. His green eyes were glazed with pain and fatigue.
Lyra dropped the gun, raced forward, and ripped open his shirt, confirming her diagnosis. The bullet had penetrated his chest and punctured his lung, but there was no exit wound, so the bullet was still inside him. Her own breath strangled out, matching his as she struggled not to panic. “I should have left. This never would have happened if I had.”
“I would have…followed you.”
She shook her head, checking the rest of him for any other serious wounds. “No. I’m s-so much trouble. Look what being near me did to you.”
“Worth it. My mate.” A wan smile crossed his handsome face. “You couldn’t cause enough trouble for me…not to keep you.”
Biting her lip, she forced her attention back to treating him. At least the chest wound was on the right side, so it was less likely the bullet had hit his heart
or any other major blood vessels. Her hands shook. The doctor and woman inside her warred for dominance. She loved him. Oh, God. She couldn’t lose him. Please, God. She needed him so much. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’tleaveme.”
“I…won’t.” His big hand brushed lightly over her cheek, wiping away her tears before it dropped back to the floor.
She hadn’t even realized she’d been chanting it out loud until he said something. Or that she was crying. He hacked like a chain smoker, and hope exploded through Lyra. She looked up at the swan-shifter who stood staring down at the dead man. “Tori! Do you have your cigarettes?”
Shaking herself, Tori looked at Zander. She fumbled in her pockets. “Are you seriously going to start smoking right now? Ohmygod, he has a hole in his chest.”
“Just give me the fucking cigarettes.”
Tori thrust a crumpled pack into Lyra’s hand, and Lyra carefully pulled off the cellophane wrapper to slap it over the wound. Zander’s breath wheezed in a bit easier. Relief so powerful it left her weak slid through Lyra, and another tear leaked from the corner of her eye. She positioned the wrapper to form a makeshift flutter valve. Thank God. He just might make it. If they got him back to the clinic so she could dig the bullet out. She met his beautiful green eyes, and he tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Zander, I lo—”
A maniacal, whooping cackle sounded from the entrance of the cave. It made a shiver run down her spine, and her instincts screamed danger. She searched for where she’d dropped the gun as a hyena loped into the cave. He paused, his eyes reflecting eerie yellow points of light in the darkened cave as he took in the scene before him. He licked his lips, that chilling laughter bursting from him as he looked over Lyra’s nude body. Hunching protectively over her mate, she bared her fangs and gave a warning growl, the wolf inside her howling for freedom to attack, but the woman stayed in control and held down the cellophane on Zander’s wound.
“He’s from…the mall.” Zander struggled to rise, and Lyra planted a hand on his chest to keep him down, putting as much of her werewolf strength behind it as she dared.
The hyena shifted in the blink of an eye, snatching up the gun from the dirt and pointing it at her. She could see he sported an erection now that he was in his naked human form, and her stomach turned as her growls grew fiercer. Tori planted herself between the combatants. “Look, asshole—”
The report of gunfire cut across her words, but the bullet sliced through her clothes to embed itself in the cave wall behind Lyra. She watched in stunned silence as Tori’s clothing fell in a heap to the floor while the woman was nowhere to be seen. Then a large lump moved, and a swan emerged from the hem of the shirt to run hissing and flapping its wings at the hyena-shifter. His eyes popped wide in shock as he scrambled back for a moment before he seemed to realize he still held the pistol and raised it to fire.
A man who looked so much like Zander he had to be a Leonidas ghosted into the cave holding a huge, deadly looking handgun. He was the scariest man Lyra had ever seen, including her would-be assassins. He didn’t pause as he aimed it at the hyena. She shouted, “Don’t shoot, damn it. You might hit Tori!”
“Nico,” Zander gasped.
The hyena jerked his gaze away from Tori, and both he and Nico froze for a fraction of a second. Tori struck, stretching her long neck out to snap her hard beak around the hyena’s exposed balls. While he yowled with pain, dropping the gun to grab his injured privates, she shifted to human form, picked up a rock, and slammed it against his temple. The force of the blow caved in the side of the man’s skull, and his eyes rolled back before he sank to the floor. Dead.
Nico’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Tori. A grudging respect filled his gaze.
She grinned. “What? Just because I’m not a predator doesn’t mean I can’t kick a little ass.”
She said it so perkily it almost made Lyra laugh, but she had more important things to focus on. Her gaze locked on Nico, and she snapped out orders in her best emergency room physician’s voice. “We need to get Zander back to the infirmary. I need to get this bullet out of him and get him on a saline drip so he can start healing himself.”
“Painkillers would be…nice too.” Zander drew in a shuddering breath.
Nico’s gaze swept his brother, and he issued a sharp nod. “I called for back-up. They’ll be here soon.”
Lyra watched Tori stuff herself back into her tattered clothing before she addressed Nico again. “How did you find us?”
He prowled the confines of the cave restlessly, a predator thwarted from his kill. After a long moment, he grunted a terse response. “Saw you on the surveillance monitors at the resort and followed you.”
“Oh.” Lyra swallowed when he leveled those cold emerald eyes on her.
Everything about this man said predator, and barely leashed at that. Working in clinics as long as she had, she’d met shifters who were more animal than human, but he was something else. Just pure predator.
Well, she was a predator, too, and she forced herself to meet his gaze. A man like him wouldn’t respect anyone who showed even an ounce of cowardice in front of him, no matter how terrifying he was. She had a feeling he knew exactly how terrifying he was and used it to his advantage. Lifting her chin, she held his gaze long enough for him to arch a brow…and smile. Almost.
She fought a shudder and inched just a bit closer to Zander. There was brave, and there was stupid. No need to go nearer the scary leopard than necessary. Zander hadn’t been lying when he said he was the nicest Leonidas. “I believe you now,” she whispered in his ear.
Startled, he glanced up at her and gave a breathless chuckle. He knew exactly what she was talking about. Weariness pulled at the skin around his eyes, bracketing them with pain. She checked the flutter valve again, but there was little she could do now until Nico’s back-up arrived. She slid her fingers in Zander’s hand and squeezed. “Hang in there, my mate. Don’t leave me.”
“Never.” His lips formed the words, but no words emerged. He swallowed and closed his eyes, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand.
Reaction finally set in, and she began to shake in long racking shudders. She turned her head to wipe her cheek on her shoulder so the tears she couldn’t stop didn’t drip on him as she watched him rest. She wouldn’t draw an easy breath again until he was healed, but with Nico here to guard them, she wasn’t as worried about another attacker showing up.
No, she just had to figure out how to survive now that Zander had taken over the focus of her world in a matter of days. She, who had always stood on her own two feet, couldn’t even imagine a life without him. She closed her eyes and sent a prayer of thanks up to every benevolent deity she knew of that he was still with her. Anything else. She could handle anything else but losing him.
Chapter Seven
Zander lay back against the pillows, his hands folded behind his head. He stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, listening to Lyra’s approaching footsteps. It had been entertaining to watch Lyra duke it out with his brothers for her position in the family pecking order. Damn, but Zander loved the woman. Neither of his brothers was used to any woman speaking to them as though she was an equal. Considering her position in the wolf clan, Lyra was entitled. And it was nice to see a woman go toe to toe with a Leonidas. Celeste had always been softer than Zander expected Jason to want, so she’d never stood up to any of them. She’d been downright terrified of Nico. It would be interesting to see how Lyra fared.
Sighing, he shifted restlessly, the sheet slipping down to ride low on his hips. It had been two weeks since he’d been shot, and as a shifter, he was fully healed. Yet, things were still up in the air. Lyra had been emotionally withdrawn, treating him as she would any recovering patient. He clenched his jaw to bite back a growl.
Except for her tearful pleas for him not to leave her, he’d never have known she had any feelings for him at all. And that meant he didn’t know if she would disappear from his life as suddenly as she had ap
peared. It was intolerable. He’d already lost half his family in the last year. He couldn’t lose someone else he loved. He just…couldn’t let that happen. And the very idea of hunting down his mate pissed him off. He wanted things settled, and it looked as if they were going to have to have it out in order for that to happen. Uncertainty wasn’t an emotion he cared for, especially where it concerned his mate.
“I…spoke to my family.” She stood in the doorway, her arms crossed defensively over her breasts. She blinked rapidly, but he caught a shimmer of tears in her eyes, and his anger died a swift death.
“And?”
“It’s pretty much what I thought would happen. My father disowned me, and my uncle is seriously pissed off, but he’s not kicking me out of the clan. So, my dad and uncle are on the outs. Again. Because of me.” She sighed and tried for an ironic smile, but it wavered and broke before it had a chance to fully form.
“Come here.” He patted the mattress beside his hip, and she hurried forward to curl up next to him. He hugged her close, her back to his front. It soothed him to have her near. He could so easily have lost her. He almost had while he’d lain in that cave, helpless to stop the hyena. If it hadn’t been for Tori’s quick thinking— He cut the thought off, brushed back the silky black hair at Lyra’s temple, and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry about your family, sugar. I know it hurts.”
“Yeah.” A waterlogged chuckle broke from her lips.
His chest tightened at her pain. He’d like to strangle her father, but it wouldn’t help her now, so he focused on the most important thing in his life. Lyra. “I’d make it better if I could.”
“I know you would.” Sniffling, she twined her fingers with his and held on tight. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
“Lyra, I—”
She jerked her face to the side, and she used her free hand to swipe at her cheeks. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Stolen Passions: Forbidden Passions, Book 1 Page 6