Rhys let the noise of the crowd carry him forward. His lion rippled under his skin. The bloodthirsty beast needed the roars from open mouths, the energy rolling over his flesh, the pounding of his opponent’s heart in his ears. They hunted. Not from the shadows or across a bar, but the fight was just as real. Just as necessary. He was being pushed at from too many points. He needed to pop the release valve to keep madness at bay.
He’d been at this for days now. The days saw him running the territory and trying to track down the fuckers who dared go near Sage. His nights started with arguments with the others to stay on the ranch, and ended with vicious brawls in the ring. He needed the blood. He sure as shit wasn’t finding it in the throats of fucking consortium lions.
He crowded his opponent against the flimsy fencing and threw a hard right, leaving him slack jawed and blinking. His lion roared and swiped through him, wanting more. Needing more. Rhys tapped into that destructive poison and worked off all the shit prodding at him.
Punch.
He imagined Jasper and Roland and all their people. Having their dicks rot off was too good for the fuckers.
Punch.
That was for his asshole father and the judgment he’d passed down. He’d been exiled. Banished. Stripped of his rank in the pride, the home he’d always known, the ties and trust that made him who he’d been. He wanted to pretend it never happened?
Not that it mattered. Not that he cared. Nothing could undo the past.
Punch.
A blow knocked him back again and Rhys sagged against the caged walls. His opponent landed another fist against his ribs. He doubled over with a jab to the gut and narrowly avoided a knee to his nose.
They weren’t enough, but they were a damn good start to the punishment he brought on himself.
What the fuck had he been thinking? From the very fucking beginning, what had he been thinking?
He couldn’t keep a woman like Sage. He didn’t deserve any of her looks, and certainly none of her touches. He’d pushed her before she’d been ready with that first kiss. His blood had been up, her scent had filled his nose. He’d been tipsy on juniper and rain when he crushed her to him the first time, then got drunk on the possibilities when she stripped down in front of him. He’d fucking lost himself when he watched her take herself over the edge.
Another punch, and his head cleared. All those pretty sendings from his hateful animal were impossible dreams.
He hated her father and her supposed mate, as if carving up a woman placed any sort of claim on her. He’d rather inject silver straight into his veins than see her brought down low at their hands, but what did he do? Let them get close, then lost himself in the past. He couldn’t keep past and present straight, couldn’t keep her safe, couldn’t keep her.
No. Pain sliced at him, then poured salt into the wounds. He couldn’t keep a woman like Sage. He’d tried to keep Hannah, and watched her bleed away in his arms.
He couldn’t watch the life drain from Sage’s gorgeous green eyes.
Too many pressure points, all of them pounding away with the singular goal of watching him break.
The bear shifter slipped past him again and fired off more punches to his ribs and head. Rhys raised his hands to protect his face, but the little fucker whipped around, throwing an arm over the back of his neck to grab him in a chokehold.
He slammed an elbow back and twisted out of the hold. Scratches from unsheathed claws dragged at his skin. Rhys snarled at the wetness dripping down his face and slammed a punch of his own into the other man’s side. His lion roared through him, drowning out the noise of the crowd and the rush of blood in his ears. Another punch, another connection, and he found his stride. Teeth bared to the world, he worked over the shifter with all the fury that pumped through his veins.
Fuck his father. Punch.
Fuck the asshole consortium that couldn’t leave well enough alone. Jab.
Fuck him for thinking he could be a normal man with a normal life. He’d lost that chance ages ago and he inched his way toward losing the last of his sanity. His whole world was stained with blood and death, and no amount of scrubbing would wash him clean.
He didn’t even recognize the bear slamming his fist against the side of the cage. Didn’t hear the ref screeching for him to back off, or ordering the bouncers to stream through the gates to haul him off. Didn’t feel the hands dragging him away until his prey was out of sight.
The roar of the crowd sounded hollow and tinny.
Rhys grabbed his shit from the table next to the cage doors and stalked through the crowd, his mood still sour. Drinks. He needed drinks and maybe another round in the ring.
He pulled up short when he spotted Lindley leaning against the door to the small locker room. Arms folded over his chest, he looked every inch the disappointed father catching his cub sneaking back in from a night of partying.
“You here to watch the fights?”
“Nope,” Lindley said with a loud pop. “I’m here to collect a lion gone AWOL.”
Rhys scowled. He was a grown man. He didn’t need the pride’s emotional babysitter tracking him down. He could take care of himself. “You going to let me in, or are you just going to keep talking shit?”
Lindley gave him a blank look, but let the door at his back swing open. Rhys hoped the man would stay outside, but no such luck. Once inside, he leaned against the door and refolded his arms, acting like a damn guard making sure he didn’t slip out of custody.
Rhys grabbed one of the towels off the stack next to the sink and ran the water until it scalded his fingers. Only then did he splash a handful on his face. Pink washed down the drain, taking blood and what was left of his hope and self-respect with it.
This was his life now. Hard. Brutal. Bloody. There wasn’t any room for the softer parts of life. He got those killed.
He met locked eyes with Lindley’s reflection. “You here as the pride’s second or Sage’s brother?”
“Are they mutually exclusive?” Lindley asked with a shrug, then shot back, “Are you here as a pride member or Sage’s mate?”
Rhys scowled and scrubbed his face dry. “Fuck off.”
“Oh, no,” Lindley chuckled. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since you told me to pull my head out of my ass with Kyla.” He waited until Rhys dragged his shirt over his head before clapping him on the shoulder. “C’mon. Let me buy you a drink before I haul you back to the ranch.”
Rhys followed him out into the narrow hall and looked fondly toward the exit. With a grimace deep enough to encourage others to get the hell out of his way, he trudged after Lindley. Better the second’s bullshit pep talk than the alpha’s rage. He could tune out the former, but he didn’t trust his lion to accept the latter without throwing down the gauntlet for a challenge fight.
Lindley signaled for the bartender as soon as they pushed through the crowd looking to slack their thirst between matches. Order placed, he fixed Rhys with a sharp look. “You’re being a dick to Sage.”
“No,” Rhys grinned viciously, “I was a dick. I’m now doing the right thing and staying the fuck away.”
“I’m not sure she’d agree.”
He slashed a glare to the pride’s second and tightened his hand around his drink. Irritation bubbled through him and he growled, “Why the hell do you care so much? I’m no good for her.”
“No one is going to be good enough for her. I’m not good enough of a brother. The Crowleys aren’t good enough of a pride.” Lindley shrugged. “But what I think doesn’t matter. It’s her decision. She’s already had enough stolen from her. I won’t be the one taking her choices away.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing? Taking away her choice?”
“Yes. You idiot. That’s what this whole conversation has been about.” He rolled his eyes. “You asked me once if I hated Kyla so much that I wouldn’t let her choose to let me into her life. So now I’m asking you the same.” Softer, he added, “Look, I don’t know the whole story
—”
“So maybe shove the bullshit advice up your ass?” Rhys snapped.
Lindley shot him a warning glare and continued anyways. Asshole.
“You’re here, though, so I can only assume you made your confession with Trent. Knowing him, he probably growled and snarled, and still let you haul your mangy hide into one of those cabins. Don’t look so surprised; we all went through it to secure our place in the pride. I owe that man my life. I think we all do. So if he thinks you’re worth saving, then I’m going to trust him. You should, too.”
Worth saving? He wasn’t so sure about that. Especially now.
He tightened his grip on his bottle and shoved down the roll of fresh anger. None of it pointed at Lindley for prodding at him, or Trent for not putting him down years ago. Every last ounce latched onto him.
Sage didn’t deserve his bullshit.
“I had a mate,” Rhys said reluctantly. Fucking hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he put those words to air. Oh, they rattled around his head enough, but speaking them? They still didn’t sound right in his ears.
Then there was his lion. Dumb beast roared and slashed at him to make the correction.
He had a mate.
No. No, he fucking didn’t. Rhys kicked his lion to the back of his head and choked off the hateful sendings of blonde hair turning auburn.
He’d been a fool to think he knew how to spark Sage back to life. He was a killer. His lion wasn’t steady. He couldn’t keep a hold on himself in either form.
Back of his neck itching, he glanced to the side and found Lindley staring at him with pity and astonishment. One he didn’t want, and the other needed to be wiped clean from his general vicinity.
He was perfectly fucking aware of how he’d beaten the odds. Survived after the loss. Most shifters who lost the other half of their soul might as well have stripped down and followed their mate into the pyre for all the living they did after.
Revenge was a helluva motivator.
“It’s my fault she’s dead,” he growled. “I hope none of you ever have to experience that loss and guilt. It drives me insane every damn day I’m unlucky enough to wake up. There’s this gaping hole where my heart used to be. Knives slicing me to ribbons wouldn’t hurt half as bad. But Sage—”
He cut himself off with a curse and drank down half his bottle.
“Sage makes that emptiness easy to ignore, doesn’t she?” Lindley pressed ahead when he didn’t answer. “And some part of you is worried about letting her fill it up.”
Rhys slashed a look to the pride’s second. Fucker. Why couldn’t he be as bad at his job as he claimed? Right then, he’d gladly give his left nut for a mouthy, irritable, unobservant second who didn’t give a shit about letting everyone in the pride stew in their heads until they boiled over into a brawl for the ages.
Jaw tight, he ground out, “I’m not a good man, Lin. I can’t be another weight around her neck.”
“Something else you told me,” Lindley said quietly. “Life ain’t worth living without your mate. Don’t spit on the second chance you were given.”
Rhys picked at the label on his bottle. “Part of me feels like it’s a betrayal.”
“You can’t betray the dead. Not in this. All you can do is honor their memory and keep living.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he admitted.
“By making her smile. Giving her a reason to laugh.” Lindley swallowed down some of his drink, then canted his head. “You give her every last thing she wants. And I’m not talking about stuff, but I’m sure you already know that. She wants someone to hold her? That’s you. To listen to her while she rants about her day? You, again. To learn how to be her best self? You’re going to be there at her side every step of the way.”
“I am everything she shouldn’t want,” Rhys objected. “Too angry. Too violent. I’m no good for her.”
She’d grown so much from his first impression of a broken little bird, and it was by his hand that she shrank back again.
He wasn’t any better than the monsters who made her feel small.
“I told you already, no one is good enough for her. And she is the one who decides who she wants. If that’s the crazy fucker who’s been making big moon eyes at her for this last year, then so be it.” Lindley downed the last of his drink, then knocked his knuckles against the plywood bar top. “Come on. We’ll make a stop at a gas station on the way back. You should get some Almond Joys and then go talk to her. She doesn’t like leaving things overnight.”
Rhys pushed to his feet and followed the second out of the warehouse. Candy may have helped him over some minor shit like forgetting to take out the trash, but he’d pushed her away and avoided her for days. He couldn’t fix the fatal flaws running straight through his very being, nor could he expect her to just deal with them.
The alternative? Leaving her behind? That felt like cutting off his own leg.
He’d been through the pain of losing a mate. He’d barely survived.
But Sage?
Sage deserved every ounce of effort he had remaining.
And all the damn candy in the world.
Chapter 23
Sage jerked upright at the quick knock on her door. A glance at the clock put the time at close to midnight—and three days since she’d last spoken to Rhys.
Her heart ached. She was back to sleeping in fits and only when exhaustion forced her lids to close. Everything she forced down her throat tasted like ashes. Even her inner lioness gave over her usual back and forth between spitting anger and wary watchfulness to sink into a new, listless low.
Sage clamped down on the wash of pain that threatened to take her to her knees.
Another knock, and she forced herself to put her feet on the floor and stand. The momentum carried her forward and she cracked open her door.
Rhys stood on the other side. He brushed his hair away from his face, then shoved a blue and white box in her direction. One perforated end had been peeled back, but candy bars were packed together as tightly as the day a store employee set them on the shelf.
“What is this?” she asked, not lifting a hand to take the box.
“Lindley told me to get them for you.”
Sage huffed a laugh, then shook her head. “He’s fucking with you. I’ve never liked Almond Joys, even when we were cubs. Always been a Snickers girl.”
Something close to realization dawned on his face and he shot a glare down the line of dens. When he turned back, one corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk. “He’s definitely fucking with us, but it got me through the door and a laugh out of you, so maybe his plan worked.” When she didn’t answer, his face fell. “I know I fucked up. Can we talk? Please?”
Sage narrowed her eyes and tongued her teeth, but let the door swing wide open.
He took a seat on the couch, arms resting on his thighs and head hanging between his shoulders. Her lioness wanted her to cross the room and go to him, smooth back the mop of hair that hung over his eyes and tell him whatever put agitation in his scent would be just fine, but she hung back. Barely, but she stayed still.
He’d hurt her. Not in the same way as Jasper and her father, of course. He hadn’t unleashed his claws in the slightest. That he didn’t leave a physical mark didn’t make the pain any less real.
He’d made her think there was something between them and that he could help her finally put together her broken pieces. She’d let herself be seduced into believing there was a future that involved more than pain and fear. Most dangerously, he’d given her hope.
And when it finally came down to it, he shoved her away and left her alone. Stand with her? Only on his terms, not when she needed to know he was with her. He left her to face the worries and threats of their enemies alone.
Pain rolled through her. She should have shut the door in his face.
Her idiot lioness was simply happy to have him in the same room again.
“You deserve to know it all,” Rhys started
in a low, pained voice, “so here it is. I had a mate. We were young, but I knew the moment I saw her we were supposed to be together. The stars aligned, the chorus swelled, all the shit that’s supposed to click just… happened.”
Sage’s ears rang. Had? Three letters came together for an ominous, sickening word.
“We had three years together. I’m not going to lie and pretend we were wrong for each other, or we wanted out. We were mates, and it was good.” He slowly pulled his eyes from the ground and roved them up her frame. Dark blue bored into her with serious intensity. “You? You make me feel the exact same way. I’ve been through that loss before, Sage. The other night? I found lions in our territory. Nothing pulled me off. Not Dash or Colette. Not knowing I should be here with you. I saw them, and they turned into pain from the past. Feeling that, not knowing what was real or not, made me lose my shit and push you away.”
Truth. Absolutely honest, ringing truth.
How he was even on his feet, she didn’t know. He wasn’t an uncaring psychopath like her father, capable of murdering his mate and taking another in just a few weeks. He hadn’t given up like Colette’s father, either. He hurt, obviously, but he stubbornly clung to life.
“What happened to her?” she asked her toes.
“Hunters. Assholes had been through our town just a few days before. They asked questions about wildlife when they stopped in the shop to get a patch on their tire. I should have known they weren’t the typical tourists. I should have known they were looking for something more than deer.”
Guilt swirled in his scent and she understood. He’d survived. He lived and breathed and carried on while his other half died.
“You couldn’t have known,” she murmured. Not unless he’d been a mind reader or the assholes blatantly advertised their plans. Even then, what could he have done without exposing himself? His alpha would have been the one to figure out what actions to take, not him. The guilt he bore was entirely undeserved.
Savage Exile: Lion Hearts Book Five Page 15