by J. Kearston
“He’ll kill me,” I mutter to myself, well aware that no one can hear or protest.
Yet every minute that passes without someone telling me it’s a stupid idea, the more it starts to make a twisted sort of sense in my head. Mason, Stryker, and I are closer than brothers, choosing to form a nest rather than the typical choice of snake shifters to live solitary lives until taking a mate. Before I can talk myself out of the theory, I text it to Mason, waiting with baited breath for his response.
S will slit your throat if you try it.
Three dots appear and disappear several times, and I stare at the screen, transfixed, waiting for him to tear me a new one. When only two words pop up on the screen, I’m relieved enough to manage half a smile.
I’m in.
A few minutes later, Mason appears in the doorway, looking determined, but nervous. I give him a reassuring nod, though it’s transparent as fuck that I’m second guessing myself about the idea now that he’s actually here.
“It can’t hurt anything,” he whispers, alleviating some of my guilty conscience. “Someone that’s already been turned can’t be turned again, so worst comes to worse, she’ll just be in the same position as she is now.”
My fangs have already started to descend while discussing it, so if my instincts are worth anything, it’s a decent theory. Since this woman appeared in our house, there’s been little else I’ve thought about. Just her being here, yet... not. Like there’s something missing, and every answer circles back to her holding the key.
Sitting beside her on the bed, Mason gently wraps an arm around her shoulders, lifting her upright and meeting my eye to search for any sign of wanting to back out. When I don’t utter any protest, slipping from my chair to sit on her other side, he opens his mouth, fangs flashing in the evening light. Matching him, I wrap an arm around her lower back, bringing my lips to the juncture between her shoulder and neck. Striking quickly to lessen the pain, her blood coats my tongue, absolutely intoxicating. I have to shove past the desire to keep pulling from her throat, switching to the venom necessary to pump into her system, binding her to me as much as the others.
Her heartbeat flutters, the pulse tangible on my tongue, and I reluctantly force myself to withdraw my fangs. Closing the wounds with a swipe of my tongue, I wait until blood no longer beads at her neck before Mason and I carefully lay her back on the bed.
Enraptured and breathing heavily, the taste rolling over my tongue as I commit it to memory, my attention is fully focused on her. I scan her face, searching for any sign of change, whether it’s for better or worse. Seconds turn to minutes and all the while, she remains unmoving, unnaturally still. The sire bond begins to click into place, making this as hard on us as it’s been for Stryker to cope with. Sharing a worried look with Mason, he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Give it time, it’s all we can do,” he decrees, though he stares down at her like his heart is already breaking, knowing as well as I do that she might not wake up. “She’ll be okay. She didn’t survive all of that, only to die here.” A flash of pain crosses his face, the only changed one among us and knowing better than anyone what’s in store for her. “Hell, next thing you know, she’ll be kicking our asses for ruining her life.”
Chapter 4
Risa
Mind foggy, I don’t bother attempting to open my eyes, stuck in the state of clinging to a fading dream that I already can’t remember. As reality starts to creep in, chasing away the bliss of unconsciousness, I keep my eyes shut out of pure denial, not ready to face the world.
Because while I can tell I’m lying on a bed, it’s far too comfortable to be one in a hospital. The expected pain hasn’t crept in, so my muddled thoughts are very likely from being drugged. Which means that somehow, that asshole still won despite the car wreck, and I just want to lie here in stubborn ignorance for a little while longer.
Beginning to take stock without giving away that I’m awake, I twitch my toes, finding my shoes gone and a thin blanket covering me. Using that coverage, I subtly skim my fingers over myself, beyond relieved that I’m still in my running clothes. More nervously, I run my hand over my bare stomach, trying to get a sense of how bad the damage is. The metal’s been removed, but there isn’t so much as a bandage, let alone stitches, or even a scar. The drugs might be dulling my senses, but I can still feel the pressure on my fingertips, my skin. Yet I can’t bring myself to risk looking.
Pushing beyond myself, I strain my ears to pick up anything that could help me get a sense of where I’m at or working with. If there’s a highway nearby, then I can try to make a break for it and flag someone down, or maybe at least prepare myself for how many people are here that I’ll have to get through, somehow.
Confused, I remain absolutely silent, but the heartbeat thudding in my ears is far too slow to be mine, which I can feel thrumming in my chest. There’s a twisting in my gut, urging me towards the sound, and the longer that I remain here, unmoving, the more adamant the impulse becomes until it’s almost unbearable to ignore.
Bracing myself with a deep breath, I open my eyes, blinking rapidly as the room swims into focus, everything spinning. As soon as things level out, my gaze automatically swings in the direction of the heartbeat, finding a man sitting in a chair beside the bed. His dark hair is cropped short, the light of his phone reflecting in his unusually golden eyes. Almost like he can sense the fact that I woke up despite not moving to give myself away, his attention snaps to my face, mouth slightly parted.
Recovering quickly, he tucks his phone back into his pocket, leaning forward to rest his arms on his thighs casually. “How are you feeling?”
That twisting in my stomach returns with a vengeance, heart hammering away as I push myself upright. He reaches out a hand in my direction, and I react on instinct. Cold cocking him in the side of the face, the adrenaline flooding my system gives me some extra force behind the punch, sending the chair crashing with him to the ground.
Scrambling free of the blanket, I sprint towards the open doorway, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. I grab the frame, swinging around the corner and into the hallway. A series of closed doors pass by in a blur as I race through the house, following the hall to a set of stairs. Palm sliding over the handrail to steady me, I fly down the steps, launching myself at the front door.
Fumbling with the lock as my heartbeat thunders in my ears, I tear it open, making it all of two steps before slamming into a hard chest. It sends the bags in his hands crashing onto the front porch, groceries spilling out and rolling across the painted wood. Arms wrap around me instantly, shielding me from the worst of the fall as we go tumbling down the stone steps. One arm banded around my lower back, his other follows the length of my spine so that he can cover the back of my head with his hand as we roll, landing on the stone-studded path below.
He ends up pinned beneath me, keeping my face pressed into his throat, tucked beneath his chin. That tug in my stomach turns into an all-out scream that’s impossible to ignore, forcing me to breathe in his earthen scent, hear the blood rushing through his veins as his heart sprints. It all feels... familiar, like a distant memory dancing on the edge of remembrance, triggered by a scent or song you can’t quite place. He feels like the center of the storm, a safe place despite the chaos and destruction that’s far too close for comfort.
“Shit, are you hurt?” he asks, and something about his voice triggers another fraction of a memory, making me realize I’ve seriously gone off the deep end.
I need to run before the other guy catches up to me, and hell, this one is clearly in on it. For fucks’ sake, he was walking into the house when I crashed into him. So there should be no reason that I shouldn’t knee him in the balls and make a break for it before it’s too late. Yet here I am, hiding with my face pressed into his neck like just his scent is enough to keep the world at bay.
I can’t bring myself to answer him, because honestly, I might burst into tears if I try to speak right now. I
should be hurt, never should have been able to run out of that room in the first place. There’s just been too much, too quickly, and though I’m not physically injured, I’m the farthest thing from okay.
“Ssh, it’s okay, you’re safe.” He makes no move to release me, actually tightening his hold. “Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.” Like he knows exactly where my mind is at, the hand at the back of my head starts slowly stroking over my hair. “We pulled you from the wreckage almost a week ago and brought you here to patch you up.”
A week. An entire fucking week?
I take a breath to center myself and try to calm down, roughly croaking, “The driver?”
His hand stills mid stroke. “Dead.” After a hesitant pause, he adds, “We killed him.”
Relief floods my limbs, my breath leaving me in a rush. “Promise?”
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me right now. I don’t know this man; his word means nothing. But the terrified part of me that still feels locked in that trunk, the phantom sensations of that asshole’s hands all over me when he dragged me off of the trail making my skin crawl, needs to hear it. Even if it’s a lie, I need to hear it until I can pretend it’s true, or I’m never going to be able to sleep again.
Almost reluctantly, he relaxes his grip, palming either side of my face and pulling back so that he can look at me. Shaggy black hair sticks up in several spots from the fall, but it’s the bright green eyes that get me, sending a sharp stab through the center of my chest.
“Promise. He’s gone, and never coming back. You’re safe now,” he declares, voice unwavering and easing the knot of tension in my chest.
“Why did you bring me here instead of a hospital, then?”
His gaze softens, thumb brushing over my cheek. “We’ll fill you in on everything. I imagine you’re starving, though, so how about we discuss it over lunch?” When I don’t budge, he sighs. “You ever read any vampire or werewolf romance novels?” At my nod, his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “I turned you rather than let you die. Mason and Bane tried too, after you didn’t wake up, so now... you’re feeling instinctively drawn to me, yeah? Know in your gut that you’re safe with me, even though we’ve never met before?”
Frowning, I realize that I was leaning into his touch while he was talking, yet still don’t want to pull away despite being annoyed at the fact. “Are you trying to say you’re, what, my sire or something?”
His face lights up with his smile. “Exactly. We turned you, so it falls on us to take care of you. The sire bond is a way of helping ease the transition of changed shifters, when everything in their lives is thrown for a loop. Having that instinctual knowledge that you aren’t alone, that someone’s there to protect you while you figure things out? It helps make everything not feel so overwhelming or impossible.”
My face scrunches up and I free my face from his touch, pulling back. “So instead of taking me to a hospital, you abducted me from the accident and brought me back to your house so that you could change me into a werewolf? Do you have any idea how insane this sounds?” I shake my head, sitting back and scoffing, “You’re crazy.”
He rises up on his elbows, giving me a challenging look. “Then why don’t you have so much as a single scar where we pulled all of the shrapnel from you? At least one of your legs was broken, and yet you sprinted out of the house like your ass was on fire. Focus, and you should be able to sense exactly how many people are in the house.”
Biting my tongue, I try to wrap my head around everything he’s saying, to put it in a place that I can deal with. The heightened senses, not having a scratch on me despite how terrible that car accident was? I’ve read way too many books and fallen in love with too many fictional characters over the years to deny that a part of me always wanted to believe it was possible. But those are just the wishful fantasies of someone that wanted to escape her life, not reality.
Yet here I am, sitting on top of this stranger without a blip of fear that he’s a threat despite the ludicrous things coming out of his psychotic mouth. Hell, he outright admitted they killed a guy, but I can’t bring myself to be upset at that claim. People like that bastard deserve to be put down, and I’m not going to lose any sleep over some vigilantes feeling the same way.
So though I feel like an absolute idiot right about now, I close my eyes, trying to calm my racing thoughts and analyze things logically. I can’t deny the heightened senses, but I attributed that to being drugged, which is still a possibility. The longer I sit here though, the more I contemplate the theory that I was just disoriented from sleeping so long, since that head rush I woke up with vanished so quickly. And honestly? I feel better than I have in a long time, though to be fair, that could be adrenaline trying to keep my stupid self alive.
With a deep inhale, warm summer air fills my nostrils, along with the earthen scent of the man beneath me. A bit fainter, the scent of pine and rain is nearly overshadowed by cologne. I can faintly hear both men’s heartbeats, know they’re watching from the doorway without even looking, and neither are trying to haul me back inside. Either they trust that the man beneath me could stop me before I got far, or they aren’t with the sick son of a bitch that abducted me. But that means I either have the worst luck in the universe and was abducted twice in one day, or...
“What did you do to me?” I eventually whisper, sounding ridiculous even to my ears. But there should be no way I can hear other people’s heartbeats this clearly, should honestly be bedridden with stitches and broken bones after the car crash. Drugs can do a hell of a lot, but even the best plastic surgeons leave scars behind.
As he sits up, I’m left straddling his lap, knees digging into the warm stone. “That’s what we’re going to find out.” At my furrowed brow, he elaborates, “Turned shifters are genetic roulette. No matter what bites you, it depends on your blood. The three of us are a subspecies of viper that are only known to the supernatural world. Even though we turned you, you could very well end up a mongoose or a hawk. So we’re going to have to wait for your first shift to see.”
Swallowing, I absentmindedly nod, thoughts whirling a mile a minute and trying to rationalize things away. Maybe I actually died in the accident. This definitely seems like the sort of thing I would dream up to cope with the afterlife.
“You said Mason and Bane, right?”
Glancing over my shoulder, I see the same man that I punched, along with another that has longer black hair, obscuring one of his bright blue eyes. Standing on the porch, they make no attempt to pick up the groceries at their feet, nervously watching us like they know their crazy friend is going to send me running for the hills.
A hand falls on my hip and I startle, attention snapping back down to the man beneath me. “That’s right. And since we’re doing everything out of order, I should probably introduce myself, too. Stryker.”
Questioning my sanity, I get to my feet and glance around. There are several houses, all spaced out with a good bit of distance between them. A heavy forest surrounds the massive clearing, like we’re in a secret haven nestled deep in the woods. If I were to run, I’d likely end up eaten by wolves long before I found my way home. Something is going on, but I don’t feel like I’m about to be murdered or worse.
That’s why serial killers get away with it for so long. They’re charming, so no one suspects them until they find the skin coats and trophy case full of eyeballs in their basements.
Still, even if the shifter stuff is a load of bullshit, I’m walking around unscathed with supercharged senses. That alone warrants sticking around to try and understand, because really... where would I even go if I left?
Extending a hand to help him up, every warning I’ve heard about stranger danger echoes through my mind, combated by the devil on my shoulder whispering they’re the answer to my prayers. “Risa.”
Taking my hand, he rises, but doesn’t immediately let go. “Risa,” he murmurs to himself before bringing the back of my hand to his lips. “I’m sorry Bane sc
ared you. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave you alone since you weren’t waking up, and it’s had us all on edge.”
Bane calls from the porch, “Right hook like that? Shit, not sure what we were even worried about.”
Exhaling a slow breath, I extract my hand from Stryker’s, suddenly feeling incredibly tired despite apparently sleeping for a week. “You said something about lunch? Maybe we hold off on the information dump until after, if that’s okay? I need some time to process before diving deeper into this nonsense if I want to have a hope of absorbing anything.”
Gesturing for me to go ahead of him, I start climbing up the porch stairs. As my foot hits a can and sends it rolling, I cringe, crouching down to pick up the mess, stuffing things back into one of the bags.
Mason gently takes an apple from my hand. “I’ve got this. You go get settled, okay?”
Torn between the ridiculous impulse to please him, the thought of him being mad at me like a lead weight in my stomach, and the fact that I’m seriously entertaining the idea that their claims might have some validity, I shift my attention back to grabbing a box of pasta. Everything’s a chaotic mess that I’m struggling to wade through. Logic is pulling me in one direction, and my instincts the other, screaming to be heard over rational thought.
“It was my fault. Least I can do is help clean up.”
“Risa.” A shiver runs down my spine at the sound of his voice, and I lock on his pleading gaze instantly. “Humor me? It’s been a hell of a long week, and it’s kind of killing me to watch you crawl around apologizing. Fuck, you should take a swing at me and Stryker instead. We might have kept you from dying, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t steal your life away from you at the same time.”
He’s right. They might have had better intentions, but they technically kidnapped me too. I don’t even know anything about them besides names and that they’re supposedly some type of weird snakes. But as his heartbeat quickens along with his nerves, I don’t have the same knee jerk reaction as when I woke up, wanting to flee. It’s clear he’s beating himself up, worried about my response, and that helps alleviate some of my immediate concerns.