Bad Blood Panther (Bad Blood Shifters Book 4)

by Anastasia Wilde

  Alton ignored him. “Enter the arena!” he bellowed.

  Fine. If that’s how it was going to be… He shook off the guards and walked into the arena on his own. He scanned the stands, looking once more for Jenny.

  There she was. Over on the right, in the front row, flanked by more guards. He hated for her to have to watch this, but he was glad she was there. Their eyes met, and she gave the tiniest smile, and a little nod.

  He didn’t need any more than that. He could hear the words in his heart. You can do it. I love you.

  He nodded back, rage pulsing through him, but his eyes dry. Forever and always.

  Then he heard a tiny voice from off to the left. “Xan-Daddy!”

  Shit. They’d brought his two-year-old son to see this bloodbath.

  The human in him hated the fuck out of it. The shifter in him wanted to make his son proud.

  He gazed at Brandon, and lifted his fist. Brandon lifted his in imitation.

  Hot rage rose up in Xander. He was going to kill them all.

  Chapter 28

  Problem.

  He wasn’t fighting them one at a time.

  The rope barrier was lifted away at the other side of the arena, and all three panthers flowed into the ring at once.

  Were they fucking kidding him? In what alternate universe was this in any way fair?

  Of course, it was never supposed to be fair. It was supposed to be a bloodthirsty entertainment spectacle that led to his messy, horrific death.

  So that the alpha could take his mate and his child and feel good about it.

  He glanced at Jenny once more. After all he’d been through, she was supposed to be his shot at happiness. It was finally all going to be worthwhile.

  Alton and his minions were trying to take it away. Not even over his dead body was that going to happen.

  The three panthers paced the arena. Huge. Predatory. Deadly.

  But not a damn one of them was as crazy, as stubborn, or as homicidal as Xander Fierro.

  He let his cat take him.

  A bell rang, and the three panthers leaped into action, teeth and claws and snarls.

  Crazy first, Xander thought, going for the one with the bright green eyes. Take out the crazy; he’ll just get crazier as the fight goes on.

  And then they were on him.

  Xander ducked away from the yellow-eyed menace and leaped at the green-eyed monster.

  Jenny watched as the warriors converged on Xander.

  He was tough. She’d seen him take on the whole Bad Blood Crew. But the crew wasn’t trying to kill him.

  It infuriated her that Alton was sending him into the arena against his will, to kill or be killed, all to boost his own ego.

  The tracker Xander had given her felt like it was burning a hole in her pocket. Come on, Flynn, she thought. Come on.

  But it was a slender thread of hope, and she knew it. She didn’t see how Flynn could have mobilized the crew, found a plane and followed them in time to stop this madness.

  And there was no guarantee he could stop it. She knew what her new crew was capable of, but there were only seven of them, not including her and Xander. How could they stand against the whole Broken Hill Clan? And how many people would be killed?

  It was time for her to be the brave, badass panther Xander believed she was. She didn’t know yet what she could possibly do to help, but the first step was to get herself out of the handcuffs they had her in.

  Luckily, a number of the Bad Bloods had suspiciously shady pasts, and they’d taught her a lot in the last few weeks.

  One of those things was how to create a makeshift handcuff key.

  She’d done that, alone in the cabin they’d left her in—broken the tine off a fork and bent the end. She’d hidden it in her pocket, waiting for the right time to get free.

  Now, while everyone’s attention was on the arena, seemed like a damn good time.

  There was a roar from the crowd. Xander charged at the scarred, green-eyed panther, their bodies hitting with a thud and a furious yowl.

  The fight was on.

  Come on, babe, Jenny thought. Kick their furry asses. And don’t fucking die on me.

  Xander fought with everything in him. He let the rage take him as it so often had—the kind of rage where he didn’t feel wounds, didn’t feel his opponents’ dominance.

  Hurt. Bleed. Kill.

  Almost a year of fighting with the Bad Blood Crew had hardened his muscles. Three years of fighting with himself had hardened his will.

  The thud of their bodies colliding nearly knocked the breath out of him. The rage filled his blood— pounding in his heart, hammering at every pulse point. He snarled viciously. It was all so familiar, so welcome. The gasp of air, the flash of claws, the feel of them raking through fur and skin and muscle.

  Hot flesh in his mouth, sharp teeth bearing down. The heat of the blood, and the taste of it.

  They rolled together, blood staining the dirt red.

  His opponent’s teeth snapped down on his right front foreleg, and pain lanced through him. The green-eyed panther gave a great heave, tossing Xander’s body while keeping a hold on his leg. He twisted, and he felt shoulder muscles tear.

  He yowled with pain, and wrenched out of the panther’s grasp.

  He dodged the other two, focusing on the crazy one.

  The other guy was limping worse than Xander, and had more wounds. Even with this shoulder, he should be able to finish him off.

  He heard a woman’s voice from the crowd, cheering the fucker on. But her voice wavered.

  She’s scared, Xander realized. She was the crazy one’s mate, and she knew he was probably going to die. Xander waited for the surge of satisfaction, the rush of blood lust. It didn’t come. He reached inside him for the killer rage.

  It wasn’t there.

  He didn’t want to kill this idiot, he realized. He didn’t want to make his mate feel like her heart was torn in pieces.

  He continued circling, panic rising in him. How would he win without the rage?

  He fought off an attack in a flurry of yowls and slashes, and broke away again.

  Fuck. He felt sorry for them. Their crew was dying. Not today, not next week, but it was dying. Prophecy or no fucking prophecy, their days were numbered.

  When all the warriors were gone, their enemies would prey on the females and children. They’d be killed. Enslaved. Abandoned and tortured and mistreated.

  And he was about to kill three of their prime warriors.

  He couldn’t do it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to die to stoke Alton’s ego.

  In the back of his mind, he heard Brody and Jasmin, undisputed champions of the fighting cage. Make them submit. Make them tap out. Never give up. Brody.

  Keep moving. That was Jasmin’s voice in his head. Especially if you’re smaller. Maneuver them into position.

  So he feinted and snarled, keeping his opponents off-balance.

  Incapacitate them. That was Tank, teaching him and Lissa to fight. Hamstrings. Cut the legs from under them, and they’re not coming after you.

  Without warning, Xander dashed at his opponent. Slash. Rear leg. The other panther gave a yowl. Now one leg was dragging. Xander maneuvered him again. Slash. Foreleg. Same side.

  With a wild snarl, he left the first one lying on the ground. Angry. Crazy. Still crawling, but not able to get to him.

  One down.

  Chapter 29

  Trying to keep her hands concealed, Jenny worked frantically at the lock to her cuffs. The angle made her have to twist her wrists awkwardly, and the tine she’d broken off the fork kept slipping out of the lock.

  She had to do this. Xander was the toughest shifter she knew, and he was holding his own, but he couldn’t fight three giant warriors and then the alpha.

  No one could.

  Flynn, where are you?

  She was so afraid the crew wouldn’t come in time. And if they didn’t, she knew what she had to do.

  She
had to go out there and fight by her mate’s side. She couldn’t let him die alone. They’d take down Alton together.

  And then, she told herself, they’d take their son and go home. Even though, deep down inside, she knew the clan would never let it happen.

  She kept working the lock, trying over and over again to free herself, as her mate fought for his life.

  Xander assessed his injuries. Wrenched shoulder, right foreleg. Hurt like a sonovabitch. Deep gouges in his neck—he could feel them bleeding. Bad enough that his shifter healing was going to have a hell of a time keeping up, especially with his heartrate the way it was.

  The others paced him. It would be harder, now. Three got in each other’s way. Two could double-team him in a bad way.

  He paced them, trying not to show his limp. They were barely scratched.

  The two of them rushed him at once. One knocked him to the side, probably breaking a rib or two. That was gonna hurt. Like, every time he took a breath. The adrenalin helped, but damn. He scrambled to his feet, just barely out of the way of the claws that were heading for his underbelly.

  Fuck you. Not the vital organs. He leaped for the nearest one and chomped into its shoulder, looking for some serious blood vessels. He needed to get them bleeding, or he was going to fucking die.

  The other panther clawed at him, rear paws raking, trying again for the underbelly. Blood flooded Xander’s mouth, and his opponent gave a hideous yowl.

  His buddy dove in, snapping at Xander’s neck, and he let go of the first one. His cat wanted to hang on, wanted to kill this panther, kill the other one, die die die, blood and death and destruction because it was all so hard and scary and—fuck.

  They both hit him at once, and he panicked. Clawed his way out from in between them by sheer instinct, sheer survival, and one of them rolled away. Xander had hit a big vein, and shit, he might not make it.

  But Xander couldn’t worry about that now. They’d started this, and he fucking had to finish it.

  His ribs were definitely broken, and the wrenched shoulder was worse. He could barely put the foot to the ground. The last panther standing, the yellow-eyed one, was bleeding too, one ear torn and limping a little on the back leg.

  But Xander was fucked.

  Yellow eyes lunged at Xander, and he wrapped his front paws around its neck and went with the momentum. He landed underneath, jarring his cracked ribs, and saw stars. With a huge heave of his back legs, he managed to roll them over again, pulling some painful raking wounds from the other panther’s back claws.

  He bore down with his weight and his grip, trying to cut off the other panther’s air. He had the thickest fucking neck on the goddamn planet—in human form he must look like a linebacker.

  His opponent started to heave and thrash when he realized what Xander was doing. He snapped at Xander’s jugular, and Xander barely managed to pull back in time.

  The sounds of the crowd faded with the pounding in his ears. He kept the pressure on, cutting off the other panther’s air, until finally he went limp.

  Xander released him, unable to summon up the energy to even wiggle his left front leg out from under the bastard. Finally, he managed to Change back.

  As he pulled himself free, he saw Yellow Eyes’ side move. Still breathing. That was good, he guessed.

  Xander staggered to his feet, hissing at the pain. Torn rotator cuff. Lost half his blood. Broken ribs—at least those only hurt when he breathed. Or moved.

  The other panthers were still down. Not for long, but it didn’t matter. They were unconscious or incapacitated, and in any challenge, that was what counted.

  Medics and healers rushed onto the field to remove his fallen opponents. They were carried to one of the tents for treatment.

  Must be nice.

  He walked toward the throne as the noise died down. Naked, covered in blood and dirt, he faced the Broken Hill alpha.

  “I won,” he said. “Now come down here and fight me, you fucking coward.”

  Alton rose to his feet. The clan was yelling for blood. He looked slowly around the arena, and then gave a short nod.

  He began taking off his clothes.

  Jenny couldn’t believe Alton was really going to do it. Fight Xander, in his condition, and then pretend it was some huge victory when he killed him.

  “You promised him healing!” she shouted, concealing her handcuff key as everyone looked at her. “It’s dishonorable to fight a weakened opponent.”

  Alton stopped and turned his gaze to her. The hatred in his eyes stabbed straight through her. He turned away.

  “This traitor does not deserve healing,” he said to the crowd. He didn’t even have the guts to say it directly to her. She began working at her cuffs again, while everyone was watching Alton. “He’s a coward, afraid to kill.” The crowd screamed their support.

  Alton kicked out of his pants, his magnificent physique on display. Huge and sleek and muscled, he oozed dominance.

  “The traitor must be put down.” He jumped off the platform and strode into the arena. As he did, Jenny saw another panther streaking out from the crowd, growling, heading for Xander.

  Fucking Cindi.

  The lock on the cuffs sprang free. Jenny threw them aside and Changed, ripping out of her clothes. Before her guards could grab her, she gave two mighty leaps, and she was in the arena.

  She hit Cindi broadside, knocking her away from Xander. The two of them rolled over, clawing and snapping at each other.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alton Change and attack Xander. Then Cindi was on her again. Jenny slammed her into the ground, trying to knock the wind out of her or break ribs. She was hampered because she didn’t want to kill, or go for the lower belly.

  No matter how unlucky Cindi’s unborn cub was to have her for a mother, Jenny wasn’t going to kill it before it had a chance to live. Cindi had no such inhibitions—she went for Jenny’s underbelly, her jugular. She was fighting to kill.

  But Jenny was a Bad Blood, and she’d had fight lessons from the best. And what worked for Xander would work for her.

  Blood streaming down her from half a dozen wounds, she stalked Cindi until she saw an opening. Then she dashed in, taking a bite to the neck, but managing to slash through the tendons on Cindi’s right foreleg, sending her to the ground. She followed with the back leg, and that bitch wasn’t getting up.

  Cindi Changed back to human, the blood from her wounds darkening the ground.

  “I submit,” she whispered.

  Jenny stepped back, growling. Xander and Alton were still fighting, and Xander was holding his own, but just barely. She needed to help him.

  She took one step toward them, and Cindi raised her voice. “Warriors of Broken Hill! As the alpha’s consort, I command you to attack!”

  Immediately, panthers started Changing all over the arena. They flowed out of the bleachers, a terrifying sea of black, heading for her and Xander.

  They were dead.

  Then there was the rattle of machine-gun fire, and a row of bullets hit the ground at the warriors’ feet, sending up clouds of dust, stopping them in their tracks.

  Chapter 30

  The panthers backed and snarled, unable to figure out where the bullets were coming from.

  Xander broke away from Alton. The cavalry had arrived—but it sure as hell wasn’t the way he’d expected.

  Flynn stepped out of a rip in the middle of the air, dressed in full combat gear with ammo belts draped across his chest, machine gun in his hands. He was followed Jasmin, Tank, and Lissa, all fully armed. They fanned out behind him.

  Xander Changed to human, panting. Alton was still cat, and he was pacing, snarling, his eyes full of so much crazy Xander didn’t even know if he could Change back.

  One of the guards drew his gun and aimed at Flynn. A bullet came from a tree at the edge of the valley, knocking it out of his hands.

  “That’s Sloan,” Flynn said. “Former Shifter Special Forces. Sniper.”

 
A shadow drifted overhead, and a giant snowy owl glided over the top of the crowd, a round metallic object clutched in her talons.

  “And that’s Caitlyn,” Flynn added. “With a grenade. And yes, since you ask, she can pull the pin with her talons.”

  Everyone underneath Caitlyn shuffled nervously in their seats. She glided in a slow circle, beating her huge white wings every now and then to keep herself aloft.

  “Now,” Flynn said. “We’re going to turn this into a fair fight.”

  Tank moved to cover Alton, and Flynn walked up to Xander. Xander tried to give him an obnoxious asshole grin, and failed epically.

  “Thanks for the dramatic rescue,” he said. “Can we go home now?”

  Flynn tilted his head slightly. “Depends,” he said. “You want to finish this?”

  He really didn’t. “Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m not feeling as homicidal as you might expect.”

  Flynn held his gaze. “What are your choices?” he asked.

  Xander knew what Flynn was saying.

  He could walk away, and hope that Alton didn’t keep coming after him, and Jenny, and Brandon.

  He could take one of Flynn’s guns and just blow the sucker away, and hope that didn’t turn this into a huge battle.

  Or a war.

  Or he could do the right thing, the humane thing. The shifter thing. Finish the fight, and put this crazy fucker down.

  Xander knew Flynn had put down more than his share of insane shifters—those who were a danger to humans, to themselves, to the shifter community as a whole. Who were so out of control they risked revealing the existence of shifters to the public.

  He didn’t do it because he wanted to. He shouldered the burden because he was an alpha, and he believed it was his responsibility.

  Flynn would put Alton down if Xander asked him to. Maybe put a bullet right in his brain, or maybe go lion and give him an honorable death in battle. He knew that Flynn could kill utterly without remorse, if he felt it was necessary—if he or his people were attacked. But Xander also knew that every broken shifter he put down took a piece of his soul.