Ken grabbed the front driver’s tire and forced his body to move. That’s when he spotted Dewi’s gun, where she’d dropped it after being body-slammed by Palmer. It had fallen under the car.
A nine millimeter, like she’d taught him how to use.
When he tried to reach for it, will fled his body. Dewi’s admonishment to never touch a gun unless she was working with him and had given him permission robbed his arm of strength.
Fuck!
He couldn’t call out to her, mentally or verbally, to lift the ban. It would distract her, not that he thought he could pull a yell out of his lungs loud enough for her to hear anyway.
He stared at the gun, willing it to him, unable to reach for it.
That’s when he heard the sickening thud.
Straining his neck, he looked and saw Palmer stalking across toward Dewi, where she’d landed at the base of a pine tree after he’d flung her into it from across the clearing. She struggled to pull herself to her feet, but he could tell her tank ran on fumes.
Palmer licked his lips like he was about to rip into a steak dinner as she limply collapsed to the ground again.“I’m going to enjoy this, Dewi,” he growled. “I’m going to fuck your brains out right in front of your pathetic human mate so he has to watch. Then I’ll kill him before I kill you, so you get to see it. Just like I did to your mother and father before I killed them both. How’s that sound?”
He grabbed her by her hair and started dragging her away from the tree and across the grass. “Too bad you were too young to appreciate it. And I was interrupted before I could finish with you.”
White hot rage washed through Ken.
Fucker’s touching my mate!
Ken’s hand shot out for the gun, his pain suddenly gone as he rolled free of the vehicle and onto his stomach again. Firmly gripping the gun in both hands like she’d shown him, and with his elbows braced on the ground, he flipped the safety off and barked, “Palmer!”
The shifter’s head snapped up. He grinned, showing canines. “Ah, you’re not quite as wimpy as I tho—”
Ken fired, a blast of pain ricocheting from his finger, up his arm, and straight into his brain as he pulled the trigger.
His world went black.
Chapter Nineteen
Ken came to with Badger kneeling over him and gently slapping his cheeks, a worried look on the old shifter’s face, his one blue eye intently gazing down at him. “Eh, boyo. Ye still with us?”
“Didn’t we already do this once before?” He’d meant to make it sound snarky, but he realized he could barely breathe and it came out little more than a whisper. The pain had returned with a vengeance. He licked his lips and tried to make more noise. “Dewi?”
He nodded. “I think she’s all right, lad. Beck’s checking her over.” He glanced at the gun laying near Ken. “Ye shot him?”
Ken nodded. “Please tell me I didn’t hit her.”
Badger laughed. “Hit her? Lad, ye blew the back of his fecking head right the bloody hell off! Ye put it clean through his left eyeball. Couldn’t have done better meself if I’d tried. One shot, too. We heard it and came running.”
He didn’t care how it looked. He laid his head back and sobbed with relief despite the additional pain it caused him.
Then he heard her voice, weak and trembling and calling his name. He opened his eyes and spotted Beck helping her walk with his arm around her, supporting her as she made her way to him.
Unlike with Palmer, Ken felt no rage at the sight of Beck’s hands on his mate. He knew Beck wouldn’t hurt her. Beck loved her, but he would respect her…and him.
“Watch his ribs, lass,” Badger warned. “I think he’s having trouble breathing right. And his right leg’s probably broke.”
She fell to her knees next to him, crying, reaching for him and laying her head on his shoulder.
He managed to put one hand on her and pat her back. “I love you, baby,” he whispered to her. “You did good.”
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry he hurt you.”
He tried to stroke her back, but moving his arm that much hurt. “It’s okay. I got him. I took care of him for you. It’s okay.”
“What?” That was Beck.
Ken realized trying to keep his eyes open hurt too much. He let them fall closed and enjoyed the feel of Dewi’s back under his hand, the comforting scent of her there with him.
Badger spoke. “Yep. He shot the bloody bastard. Heathcliff McKenzie Ethelbert just killed hisself his first Prime Alpha wolf.”
Dewi’s body tensed. “What?” He felt her palm caress his cheek. “You shot him?”
He didn’t open his eyes. “Yeah.” He coughed, then moaned because it hurt like fucking hell. “Right through the eye. Just like you taught me.”
When none of them spoke, he finally forced an eye open again to see why. Dewi looked stunned. “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“How?” she asked. “How did you do it?”
He found her hand and laced his fingers through hers, then brought it to his lips so he could kiss it despite it hurting his ribs to move. “No fucking way was I letting that bastard hurt my mate.”
“But there’s no way in hell you should have been able to touch that gun, much less fire it.”
Beck snorted. “Told you he’s got a serious set of balls on him.”
Ken barked out a soft laugh. “I really wish you’d quit obsessing over my testicles.” Another coughing fit set off pain in his ribs, and before he could recover, the blackness took him.
* * * *
Ken opened his eyes to blackness. For a moment he panicked, afraid maybe he’d died or something. Then he got a lungful of Dewi’s comforting scent somewhere close by and the sound of her breathing. His ribs didn’t hurt so badly, neither did his leg, and he realized he lay naked in a very comfortable bed.
Correction, their bed. He could tell from the scents in the room that it was their bedroom.
He relaxed as he felt the mattress dip next to him and Dewi’s cool hand smoothed his brow. “Baby?” she whispered. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
She snapped a bedside lamp on and he blinked against the sudden light. He shifted position a little and realized without having to lift his head to look that his ribs had been bandaged and his right leg put in a cast while he was passed out. The pain had eased, but from the way his brain felt foggy, he suspected that was due to better living through chemistry.
“What time is it?” He closed his eyes. Ugly bruises had blossomed on Dew’s beautiful cheekbones. He knew within a day or two they’d be gone, but the sight of her injuries made his heart hurt.
A pinchy pull in his right arm made him realize he had an IV. “It’s almost three in the morning. We had our doctor come take care of you. He says your ribs are cracked, and he wants you to take it easy for a week or so. Leg might be in a cast for a few weeks.”
“And the IV?”
“Yeah. We can take it out in the morning. He wanted to make sure you had fluids and antibiotics and painkillers and stuff.”
“No cone?” He cracked an eye open briefly to watch her expression.
She looked at him questioningly for a moment before she got the joke and laughed. “No, no cone of shame for you.”
With his right hand he groped for hers. She reached for him and he pulled her down to him for a kiss. “I love you so much, Dewi. I can’t lose you.”
Her lips pressed against his, and despite his pain he reached across with his left hand and fisted it in her hair, holding on tight and keeping her in place as he ravaged her bruised mouth with his lips. “Mine,” he thought to her. “You’re all mine.” He wanted to be rough, wanted to own her.
Wanted to claim her.
She melted against him as a soft moan escaped her. “Yes!”
With his hand still firmly buried in her hair, he pulled her up so he could nuzzle the crook of her neck, along her left shoulder. She would taste so good, the sa
lty sweetness of her skin, but he wanted more.
He wanted blood.
Her blood.
His teeth grazed her flesh. She practically undulated against him as much as she dared in his injured state. “My mate,” he growled against her flesh.
“Yes!” she gasped.
The urge became too great. Despite the risk he drew his lips back and sank his teeth into her shoulder, hard, immediately feeling her flesh give way and tasting her sweet blood.
She let out a sharp, squealing cry as she clung to him while he licked her flesh, trying to soothe the mark and feeling sanity quickly flooding back to his brain even as he wanted to growl over how good she felt and tasted.
Fuck it. He did growl, almost a purr. And while his body still hurt like hell, his cock throbbed, wishing he could fuck her right then and there.
His growl made her giggle but she didn’t move, waiting until the wound finally sealed as his lips feathered over her flesh.
Belatedly, Ken’s reason returned to him and he released her. “You okay?”
As liquid as syrup, she snuggled against him. He heard the smile in her voice. “I’m fine.” Her tone had taken on an almost little girl quality.
“I won’t get my throat ripped out for that?”
Her fingers appeared on his abs first, lightly stroking up to where the bandage wrapped his torso. “Never.”
“What does this mean?”
Her cheek felt soft against the crook of his shoulder, where she was now firmly nestled under his arm. “You’re a human mate with no shifter blood, as far as we can tell. But you disobeyed a direct command from me, your Prime Alpha mate, when I was in danger. You didn’t just kill another shifter, you killed a Prime Alpha shifter. Palmer should have been able to freeze you in your tracks with a thought when he was beating you, and you defied him, too.”
“What does that have to do with me keeping my larynx?”
“Don’t you understand? For some reason, you’re strong.”
“I’ve got big balls, in Badger-speak.”
“Yeah. Real big. Saturn-sized.”
“The car or the planet?”
She caught his teasing tone and kissed him. “The planet.” Her fingers resumed their comforting strokes along his flesh. “You saved me when I couldn’t protect you. I needed you to…”
“Claim you?”
“Yeah.”
“And this is good?”
“This is very good.” He felt her slip into a relieved sleep next to him. As he lay there stroking her hair, he realized he felt okay being “just” a mate. The subtle pinch to his pride that he’d felt since meeting her, worse than normal, was gone.
He’d saved her. He’d saved his mate.
So what if she normally saved his ass? When the chips were down, he now knew if he had to, he could keep her safe, too.
* * * *
The next morning, Dewi was downstairs on the phone, calling Ken’s work for him to tell them he’d been in an accident. While she was doing that Beck came in carrying a laptop.
“How you feeling?”
Ken nodded. “Like crap warmed over.”
Beck smiled and dragged a chair over to the bed. “Can you figure out how to get into this?”
Ken reached for it. “Forget your password?”
Beck slowly shook his head. “Found it in the fucker’s car. His real name was Walter Endquist. Got that from his wallet.”
“Oh.” He powered it up and a password screen appeared. He tried a few things. “Can you grab my laptop and the case from the office?”
“Sure.” He returned a few minutes later with them. Ken pulled a jump drive from his laptop bag, downloaded a program onto the jump drive, then put the jump drive into Endquist’s laptop and booted it into bios. From there, he was able to get into Windows and reboot the computer.
“Bingo.” He reset the admin password and then handed the laptop back to Beck. “There you go.”
Beck wouldn’t take it. “You’re the computer expert. What can you tell us about him?”
Ken frowned, but started with the easiest, the most recently visited places.
Pictures.
He let out a cry and had to clap a hand to his mouth, as well as close his eyes, as he tried to shove the laptop back at Beck.
Unfortunately, the images of the man and woman…and a young infant—girl, if the pink onesie was a clue—horrified him. The man bound. The woman, bound and stripped from the waist down.
The baby with bruises.
And then the man and woman…dead, their throats slit and eyes wide open and lifelessly staring at the camera.
Ken kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut and prayed Dewi didn’t come upstairs. He felt Beck take the laptop from him and heard the man’s sharp intake of breath, followed by the lid of the laptop being slammed shut.
“What’s the password?” Beck hoarsely asked.
Ken had to swallow back the bile in his throat. “1-2-3-4. I kept it easy.”
“Thanks.”
“Was that—”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.” When he felt he could open his eyes, he looked at Beck. The shifter had gone pale. As Ken looked at Beck’s hands, he saw the shifter trembling. “Don’t tell her. Please. And don’t fucking show her.”
Beck shook his head. “No. She won’t see them. I promise.” He rose and quickly bolted from the room. Ken heard Beck’s bedroom door open, then shut again a moment later. Beck returned, still looking as sick as Ken felt.
“Come on. Let’s get you up,” Beck said.
“Why?”
“Because we need an excuse to tell Dewi when she gets up here in about one minute why you look sick. Pain will make a man look sick.” He helped Ken out of bed and mostly carried him to the bathroom, where he deposited him on the toilet. “Capice?”
Ken nodded as he struggled to yank his shorts down. “Capice.”
* * * *
Later that afternoon, before dinner and while Dewi was working out downstairs, Badger and Beck were Ken-sitting. Ken wanted to talk with the two men. Beck looked only slightly less ill than he had earlier. Badger had gone stone-faced.
Ken sensed lethally deep anger bubbling inside the older shifter.
“You showed him?” Ken asked Beck.
Badger nodded. “Aye. I saw.” He let out a breath. “I wish I could run the bloody bastard through the woodchipper a second time. Alive.”
“Feet first,” Beck added in a growl. “And slowly.”
As much as Ken opposed violence, in this case, he couldn’t agree more. “Only if I got to help.”
Badger let out a snort. “Yer good folk, Ken,” he said. “Right good folk.”
* * * *
Somehow, they kept it from her…or she pretended not to know. Either way, Beck, Ken, and Badger were happy not to have to discuss the pictures with her.
Ken spent the next two days in bed, moving as far as the bathroom, and only then with Dewi’s help. And he decided to email his resignation, much to Dewi’s joy and relief.
When the doctor returned to check on him he proclaimed Ken’s healing well ahead of schedule, probably due to his shifter mate status.
Ken cast a questioning glance at Dewi. “Dr. Collins is one of us,” she explained.
Four days after the showdown, Ken carefully made his way downstairs to the lanai to sit at the table. Dewi left him alone to go make him lunch.
“Hey.” Beck stood at the sliders leading to the living room. “Want some company?”
Ken nodded. “Sure.”
Beck walked over and sat at the table. He’d been scarce the past few days. “Glad to see you up and about.”
Ken wanted this done and over with. “I’m sorry, Beck.”
He looked confused. “For what?”
“I know it’s nature, or fate, or whatever. But I’m still sorry. I feel like I swooped in and shoved you aside.”
Beck smiled. For the first time since the morning they met in the kitchen,
Beck’s expression didn’t look forced or sad. “Let me tell you something.” He glanced at the sliders to make sure Dewi hadn’t returned. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “I don’t know if I could have done half as well as you did out there. Endquist could have easily kicked my ass. I damn sure don’t know if I could have overridden a Prime Alpha mate’s order.” His smile broadened. “In other words, I’m saying that I don’t know if it’d been me there with her instead of you, if I could have saved her.”
Ken didn’t know what to make of that and didn’t know how to respond.
Beck continued. “So believe me when I say despite missing what I had with her, it would hurt me a hell of a lot worse if she’d died. I’ll trade watching her be in love with you over standing beside her coffin every damn time. I’ll always love her, but she’s not my mate.” He tapped the table with a finger. “That means somewhere out there is a woman meant to be my mate.”
Beck extended his hand. “You’re a damn good man, and I’m glad she found you. Even more, I’m glad I can call you my friend. More importantly, I’m proud you’re in my pack.”
Stunned, Ken took his hand and shook. Beck gripped it firmly, but with none of his previous restraint, where he’d deliberately held back to not hurt him.
Beck wasn’t afraid he’d hurt him now.
“I mean,” Beck continued after releasing his hand and sitting back, “I understand in a fair one-on-one against a shifter that you might get your ass kicked. But in all honesty if I had to choose a partner to take into a fight with me? If I couldn’t take Dewi, I’d take you.”
That shocked Ken. “Me? Why me?”
“You’re loyal and have a huge heart. Maybe you’re not the strongest guy or the most skilled fighter. But damn, anyone who can do what you did out there, that’s the kind of person you want watching your back. I trust you with her, and I’d trust you to back me up.” He picked at his fingernails. “I also trust you to keep her safe.” He glanced at Ken.
“I’m the first to admit I get my ass kicked.”
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