by T. S. Joyce
“I came here for sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary not granted. Sorry, kitty. Surely you can understand my hesitation. Your pride is after something very important to us. Can’t have a spy traipsing all through Hells Canyon doing God knows what.”
“The child?”
The stranger didn’t answer.
“I don’t care about the child. She’s fine here with Logan and his mate. I care about living, and if you take me back to them, I’ll be broken.”
“Enough,” he growled out. “I can’t trust anything you say, so keep your stories to yourself.”
“My name’s not kitty,” she gritted out, twisting in the chair to glare at him. One look in his eyes and she dropped her gaze like the wuss she was. “I told you, it’s Breshia.” She tried and failed to lift her gaze to his. “What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t be here long enough for it to mean anything to you.”
Chapter Five
Breshia shrugged into the oversized ranger uniform Dillon had borrowed for her. He grimaced at how much it had to hurt, stretching the new bandages he’d put on her like that. His own shoulder was throbbing in rhythm to his heartbeat, and she had twice the injuries.
She’d offered to bandage him up in return, but allowing her to care for him seemed much more dangerous than letting it be. It wasn’t like pain was a new concept to him. Right now, it was a daily part of life. Bron had asked him to challenge for second in the clan when he’d taken over alpha. He didn’t know why Bron though he’d be any good at leading the clan someday, but he’d been one of his best friends since senior year in high school, and he’d do just about anything his alpha asked.
Now, he was fighting the other clan members interested in second, sometimes several times until their bears decided who was dominant. He hadn’t lied when he’d swatted away Ethan’s apology. His skin was littered with scars just like this one would be. And at least this one he’d received saving someone. The others were just from pissing contests that would hopefully pan out someday.
He grimaced again when she flinched. Screw this. He couldn’t just stand here and watch her hurt herself. A wiser man would’ve turned his back and let her be, but his bear wasn’t that type of animal. He never had been. His protective streak ran a mile deep and just as wide, and this woman needed his help.
Awkwardly, he pulled her green cargo pants to her hips so she didn’t have to lean down and stretch her injury.
“Thanks,” she breathed as he snapped her button.
He gave her what he hoped was a comforting pat on the hips, then stepped back to a safe-feeling distance again. She was staring at him with eyes so light green, they looked like river moss. He only got a glimpse of the color before she dropped her gaze again. She’d been doing that for two hours, driving him crazy with her inability to look at him.
She was an anomaly. Every lion he’d ever met was abrasive, dominant, mouthy and didn’t take shit from anyone. But Breshia? Her animal barely dragged a response from his. In fact, his inner bear was basically snoring inside of him.
“Can you stop doing that?” she asked so softly he leaned closer to better hear her.
“Stop what?”
“I don’t think you realize how frightening you are.”
If she was talking about his bear, she was nuts. He wasn’t even paying attention to her. And it’s not like he was snarling or anything like that. Shaking his head, he turned and held open the cabin door and let her pass. Soon enough, the mysteries that surrounded Breshia the Cowardly Lion wouldn’t be his problem anymore.
Dillon’s phone trilled from his back pocket, and he took a long, steadying breath before he accepted Bron’s call.
“I just got an interesting call from Shira,” his alpha said in a voice lower and less human than it probably should’ve been.
“I’m taking her to her car right now. She’s out of gas, but I’m going to refill her tank and she’ll be gone from our territory in half an hour. Forty-five minutes, tops.”
“That woman is a danger to us, Dillon. She’s important to Shira’s pride. She’s got the lions ready to go to war for her.”
“Well, I didn’t invite her, Bron. Don’t get pissed off at me.”
“Dillon, I swear to all that is holy, if you don’t get her out of there right now, I’m going to bleed you.”
Fantastic. “I hear you loud and clear, boss man. We’re getting in my truck now. I’ll call you when she’s gone.” He gritted his teeth and glared at the glowing screen as the call disconnected.
When he looked up, Breshia had gone pale and still. “Shira called?”
“Yeah, seems they want you back.”
“Can you tell me if there is a back way through the mountains, away from Portland?”
“Woman, go face your demons and make things right with your people.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered.
And she was right about that. He didn’t understand, and he didn’t want to. The more she told him, the more he wanted to protect her, and he couldn’t have that. “Bron said you were important to them. Will they kill you?”
Her delicate jaw clenched. “No.”
“Then get in the truck.”
“Please don’t do this,” she begged, grasping his shirt in her fists.
“Lady,” he barked out, then smiled at a woman who walked by with a backpack and jangling keys in her hand. “Lady,” he said again, lower. “I don’t know what it is you did to piss everyone off, but pride politics aren’t our problem. I have orders to take you back to your car, and I’m not defying my alpha for you or anyone else. Now, if you don’t want me picking you up and shoving you in the front seat, I’d suggest you get in the damned truck.”
She swallowed hard and nodded, but glistening tears rimmed her eyes, and he had to turn away before he gave into the urge to comfort her. That would only make this harder. Was he heartless to the woman’s plight? No, but Bron had given him an order and disclosed that she was important to the pride. There weren’t many bears left and there were even less lions. Neither shifter race could afford a war over something that could so easily be avoided.
“Okay, I’ll go,” she said in a trembling voice.
She turned and climbed up into the passenger side of his jacked up, mud-flinging, boulder-squashing, fat-tired truck. The bed rattled with tools, buckets, ladders and the like, but inside, it was clean as a whistle, just how he liked it. She didn’t have to shove over old hamburger wrappers like he had to do in Reese’s truck.
Breshia looked so sad and frail sitting there, waiting for him to take her away.
The gas can sloshed as he picked it up from beside the cabin porch and loaded it in the back. And when he sat behind the wheel and pulled the door closed, he could all but smell her sadness. Dillon threw the truck into drive and hauled out of the clearing toward the road that would lead to the main, where she’d said her car was sitting.
She smelled good. Beyond the smell of blood and sorrow, she smelled like some frilly fruit shampoo members of the more delicate gender tended to use on their hair. But it was more than that. It was this tang, right on the edge of his senses that made his sleeping bear stir, and his cock along with him. What the hell? He’d been with women before, but none of them had his pants tight this quickly. He was usually attracted to the take-no-prisoners types—strong women who could hold their own in a fight and didn’t need him to defend them. The kind who scared him a little in the bedroom and ignored him in public. Safe women who didn’t dig too deeply into what made him tick. Those were the women he took to bed. Not a mousey woman who couldn’t even hold his gaze for more than two seconds.
Maybe his dick was just as crazy as Breshia was.
The silence was too thick for comfort, so he turned the radio on a nineties rock station and drummed nervously on the steering wheel. Breshia dragged her attention away from the passing fauna to frown at his tapping fingers. Snuggling closer to the door, she sighed and lean
ed her face against the glass.
He wanted to ask her why she was here, and where she got her marks. He wanted to know about her life and what the pride was like. If he was honest, he wanted to know everything about her, but didn’t dare ask. A few more minutes and he could go back to his simple life. Back to tiling the bathroom in the ranger tower, and then home to pop the top on a cold beer and relax into his favorite recliner to watch highlights from Sunday’s game.
“Jesus,” he muttered, leaning forward as her car came into view.
A pastel blue Volkswagen beetle sat at an angle on the road, door still open and bumper completely shredded. He dragged a horrified gaze to Breshia, but she was staring at something past her car.
A black SUV sat partially hidden behind her car, and a dark-headed man stood leaning against the driver’s side, arms crossed like he hadn’t a care in the world.
As Dillon came to a stop, the man called out, “Shira sent me to escort her safely back to Portland.”
A thin sheen of sweat had broken out on Breshia’s brow, despite the late winter chill in the air. Instincts were peppering Dillon like gunfire as he studied the man’s empty smile. Damn, he didn’t want to do this. Right here, right now—this was one of those moments that would haunt him. He would always wonder what happened to the girl with the freckles who had spent a day confusing him once.
But Bron had given him an order.
“Come on,” he murmured, hating himself.
Breshia slipped from the vehicle at the same time as him, and when he pulled the gas can from the bed of the truck, he froze as Breshia’s arms went around his waist in an unexpected embrace. Her arms were shaking so badly, he gripped her forearm to him and promised, “It’ll be okay.”
But it wouldn’t. This wasn’t some act the woman was putting on to get close to him. She was scared. He knew without the shadow of a doubt, because he could smell the acrid scent of her fear.
“Thank you for everything you did for me today. I’ll never forget it,” she whispered. When she lifted those green eyes up to him, a tear tracked down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand and tried to smile.
Shit.
He swallowed the bile that threatened to claw its way up the back of his throat and pulled her hand gently behind him. Her car was a mess, but one look under the hood in the back and he figured all it needed was gas. These old cars were made to take a beating.
Doing his best to ignore the sneering asshole by the SUV, he emptied the gas can into her tank and turned to say goodbye. Only, when he did, he caught a glimpse of the battered fender of the stranger’s ride. Slow fury burned him from the inside out. Dillon looked from the front end of the black SUV to the destroyed bumper of Breshia’s tiny car, then back again. This heartless bastard wasn’t here to escort her safely anywhere. He was part of the reason she’d been running like she had nothing in the world to lose.
She’d said they wouldn’t kill her, but as she walked past him to approach the man with tiny, frightened footsteps, Dillon thought perhaps there were worse fates than death.
“Breshia,” he said low, never taking his eyes from the empty expression on the man’s face. “The marks on your back…was he the one who marked you?”
When she turned, she was trying so obviously to keep her sobbing quiet, and it ripped his guts up. Reaching forward, he yanked her back toward him at the same moment the other man stepped toward her.
“Hey, now, friend,” the cagey shifter said in a predatory voice. “She’s mine. She belongs to the Portland pride. Your alpha said she would be returned to us safe and sound, and you’ve done your job. I’ll be sure your alpha knows how well you’ve done.”
“Breshia,” Dillon said, leveling her with a look. “Was it him?”
“Yes,” she squeaked out.
“Why?”
“Because she’s mine!” the man roared, face red and veins at his temples bulging. “She’s mine to breed, mine to claim, and mine to mark. She’s none of your goddamned business.”
“Shut up,” Dillon growled, pulling Breshia behind him.
“You want a worthless lion? One who can’t even do as she’s asked? She’s the least useful lioness in the entire pride, a female in a matriarchal society who is ranked beneath even the males. She’s a hopeless idiot, covered in spots and too ugly to keep on your arm. Give me my mate or so help me, I’ll bring war for her.”
“I said shut the fuck up!” Dillon was backing away now, shaking his head at the inkling of an idea that was plaguing his racing thoughts.
“He’ll do it,” Breshia whispered. “I didn’t think this through, and I didn’t think about the consequences my actions could bring to your people. Hey!” She yanked him to a stop as the shifter stalked closer. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
And right now, that’s all he needed to know about Breshia to set his plans in motion. She cared enough to want to protect him. To want to go with this man—a man who’d hurt her—to protect Dillon and his people.
“Is he your mate?” Dillon asked. Turning his gaze to the man stalking closer, he growled, “Advance another step, friend, and I’ll rip your jugular out.”
The man halted, eyes blazing gold.
“Is he?”
“He was chosen for me,” Breshia murmured, “but I don’t want him.”
“Do you want me instead?”
Breshia shook her head and her delicate nostrils flared. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you want my protection?”
“Y-yes,” she stammered, her elegant eyebrows drawing down as if she were utterly baffled.
“Will you trust me?”
“Yes,” she repeated, sounding stronger this time.
The man lunged for them, but it was already too late. With a smile, Dillon spun Breshia around and sank his elongating teeth into the back of her neck.
“No!” the shifter yelled.
Oh, Dillon knew how claiming went with lions, thanks to his friendship with Logan. It usually happened during sex, but from the way the rangy shifter opened and closed his mouth in anger, this had a similar meaning.
Breshia’s blood ran down the sides of Dillon’s mouth, and he spat crimson onto the asphalt. “Mate,” he rumbled. “Get in the truck.”
Breshia was standing stock still with her and clamped over the back of her neck. Her eyes were so wide.
“Thomas, you should leave now,” she whispered. She dragged her shocked gaze to the man in front of them. “I’ve been claimed.”
She began backing toward the truck, but Thomas lunged for her. Bone shattering fury rippled through Dillon at the thought of his vile hand touching Breshia, and the grizzly who’d been growling his discontent since she’d admitted it was this monster’s claws that had sunk into her back exploded from him.
He roared a challenge and hoped Thomas would change and accept it, just so he could have an excuse to murder the sick son of a bitch. Dillon stood to his full twelve foot height, all fur and mass and teeth. Thomas’s pupils dilated and the gold faded from his eyes until they were nothing but a scared, muddy brown. Spinning, he bolted for his SUV, then peeled away. The black tire tracks that stained the concrete were the only evidence Thomas had ever been here.
Dillon watched the road for a long time as the weight of what he’d just done blanketed him. Slowly, he turned to Breshia, who was heaving breath and staring at him like she’d never seen a bear before.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
With a series of pops and snaps, and a moment of blinding pain, he slipped back into his human skin and plucked his phone off the concrete.
Heart hammering with his adrenaline crash, he punched in Bron’s number and waited the two rings it took for his alpha to pick up.
“Is it done?” Bron asked.
“I can’t.”
The line went quiet. “Dillon—”
“She’s mine now, Bron. The cats can’t have her.”
“Fuck. I’m coming home a
nd you better be at my house when I get there. You know the consequences for disobeying my direct orders, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered stiffly. He was going to be bled by both Cress alphas in one day.
“Bring the lioness, too.”
A dial tone blasted through the ear piece and Dillon clenched the phone against the urge to chuck the damned thing into the woods alongside the road.
Welp, he’d sworn never to tether himself to a woman, and here he was. With an explosive sigh, he ran his hands roughly through his hair.
He’d fought Ethan to save her life, so that he might stop the coming war. And now, as he lowered his chin and looked into Breshia’s impossibly green eyes, he was pretty sure he’d just single-handedly brought the wrath of the lion shifters down on his clan.
“I don’t even know your name,” she murmured.
Giving it to her felt like giving a piece of himself, but to hell with it. He was in it now. “Dillon. My name’s Dillon McCain.”
Chapter Six
What had just happened? Breshia pulled her hand away from her neck as the truck lurched around a pothole so deep there was probably some damned magma in the bottom of it. Her hand was streaked with red and her neck hurt like hellfire to match her messed up back and bruised side. In the last twelve hours, she’d been clawed, chased off the road, hit by a car, and claimed. Claimed?
“Dillon, I didn’t come here to find a mate. I meant what I said. I came here for sanctuary.”
“Why did he mark you like that? And don’t skirt my questions now. We’re in this together whether you want it or not. I need to know what I’ve just got us both into and how to fix this.”
How much was she allowed to tell this stranger? And what was off limits so she could avoid betraying her pride? Were they her pride anymore, or had she just landed ass first into the middle of a clan of bear shifters?
She studied his profile. Straight nose, smile lines of which she had yet to see a single smile, short, touchable hair on the sides with that sexy messy look up top. His teeth were straight and white. She knew because she couldn’t take her eyes from his snarl when he growled. He’d done that a lot since she’d met him.