by T. S. Joyce
“I needed more.” Fuck, her eyes were burning with tears. She cleared her throat and made her voice stronger. “I need more. I know you see mating bonds differently, but I’m not like you. I’m not a crow. I’m just me, and I didn’t like being watched and molded to be first lady of the MC. First lady of the Clan. It’s not me! Ramsey was never my person, and I told all of you that a hundred times, but no one listened to me.” Palms up, Tenlee looked at Momma Crow, , hoping she would understand. “No one listened to me. Not until I found Two Claws.”
“Tenlee,” she whispered, “you can’t stay there.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “You truly can’t. Ramsey is losing his fight. He isn’t steady anymore. He’s slipping because of what you’re doing to his animal. You are one female—”
“One person. One with feelings and wants and desires and who deserves to look for happiness just like everyone else.”
“No, honey.” Momma Crow pulled her sunglasses off, and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “You’re an animal. Because of what you are, you have more responsibilities than rights. You are an Origin first, an animal second, and this”—she gestured to her clothes and hair— “is pretend. Think about it, Tenlee. Are you looking for yourself? Or are you losing yourself. Because I’m looking at someone I don’t even recognize. Someone I love and was very close to, and now there is a disconnect. Do you know what happens when the Alpha of a large Clan goes mad?”
“We all go mad,” Ethan said softly.
“A crow mates for life. You know this. You are Ramsey’s. You belong to him. There is no way around it, no fighting it. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same yet, but you will if you stop this foolishness and come home.”
But the word home from Momma Crow’s lips sent shooting pain through Tenlee’s stomach. She didn’t understand what home for Tenlee was. It was Two Claws Ranch. It was the people there. And most of all, it was Kurt.
“I have a boy there, and I’m gonna help him grow up. I have friends. I have a mate. Kurt. I love him.”
Momma Crow huffed a breath. “That’ll pass when he’s dead.” She gestured with two fingers to Ethan. “Drive on.”
The door lock clicked, and Ethan hit the gas so hard her stomach dipped.
“What?” Tenlee pulled the door handle, but nothing happened, and she couldn’t figure out how to unlock it. She pushed the button to roll the window down. Nothing. Fuck! Panicked, she pulled and pulled on the handle until it broke right off.
She looked out the window. Karis was screaming something so hard at Ava the veins in her neck were bulging. Ava’s face was twisted into something fearsome, her eyes almost white as she sprinted after the Suburban. The roar of motorcycles filled her head, and then there were hands on her, trying to keep her still as she beat her fists on the window. They were hurting her, and her adrenaline spiked. The end of Main Street blurred by, and Ethan aimed straight out of town. He was making a run for crow territory. She couldn’t stop the Change now. It had been too long since she’d been an animal, and every nerve ending in her body screamed as she exploded.
“Oh, shit, Ethan!” Rike yelled. “She’s gonna hit us!”
Tenlee didn’t understand, but she bit down on his wrist so hard she would leave a permanent scar on his bone. Suddenly, there was a huge crash, and the Suburban lurched up on two wheels. Tenlee squeaked as she was blasted sideways, twisting her body in the air and using her tail for balance so she would land on her feet. There was this horrifying moment when time slowed, and she was sure the rig would flip end-over-end. Shards of glass filled the air as the truck went to a forty-five-degree angle. And then she could smell it. Fur and rage. Ava was gonna roll the rig.
The Suburban skidded off the road and slammed into a tree. Momma Crow screamed, the boys cussed, and Genie was flung into the back seat against Rike. And then she went to work with her teeth and claws until someone grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her backward. She was helpless like this, with the skin of her neck stretched so tight all she could do was curl into a fetal position and hate everything.
There was roaring, and it wasn’t just Ava now. It was motorcycles, too. Lots of them. Another bear bellowed loud enough to rattle the car. Then something more—a long cougar scream filled the air so deafeningly she hunched into herself, thinking her eardrums would burst with it. Karis had called in reinforcements.
Feathers exploded in the car as the crows Changed and flew out the broken windows to escape the snow-white she-bear who was currently ripping the back door off the Suburban. Bentley was slapped back into the car by one very big blond grizzly paw. Oh, they’d summoned the Warmaker.
The crows were so fucked.
Right before Bentley tucked his wings and blasted through the broken front window, he grabbed her with steel claws and an unbreakable hold.
She screeched and reached for anything she could grab onto as he flew out the window with her. No, no, no! The ground was getting farther away, and the more she struggled, the harder Bently squeezed onto her body. His talons were digging painfully into her skin. Desperately, she turned and gripped his black, glossy leg and sank her teeth into him.
Bentley dipped and let off a strangled Caw, and then they were hit by a hurricane. At least, that’s what it felt like. She was knocked clean out of his grasp, screeching when his claws raked her back. Pummeling toward earth, Tenlee closed her eyes and braced for impact, but just as she prepared to die, she thudded against something soft. Kurt.
Shocked, in pain, and breathing heavy, she looked over at a pile of feathers and carnage that used to be Bentley. Kurt settled her on the ground and spun, his massive body blocking the war that had broken out in the woods beside the road. The air was full of crows flying away, the Suburban was a mangled mass of metal and jagged glass. There were a dozen toppled motorcycles. And Ava and Colt were stalking closer to a massive crow that sat on a low branch of the tree the rig had crashed into. Momma Crow.
Tenlee would’ve lifted her voice to save her, but Momma Crow had betrayed her. She’d said she wanted to talk but then taken her. She was fine with putting her back in the cage of Red Dead Mayhem even though Tenlee had told her she wasn’t happy there. She’d called Tenlee an animal. She’d broken her heart with her treachery. Tenlee didn’t care about her reasons. Sure, she was trying to save her Clan from what was happening to Ramsey, but she’d made Tenlee feel worthless. Like her only value was to sit there unhappily and keep an Alpha steady.
Trig hadn’t Changed. He was sitting on a Harley, eyes blazing gold as he watched Colt and Ava hunt. His dark hair was mussed, his cheeks were flushed with rage, and he had a white-knuckle grip on the bar of his motorcycle.
Caw! Momma Crow looked right at Tenlee with an expression of rage, as if Tenlee had been the one to betray her. Crows were so fucked up. She lifted into the air the second the bears charged the tree and beat her big, black wings, leaving three of her crows in bloody, feathered piles on the side of the road.
Tenlee clung to the scruff of Kurt’s neck. His body was shredded, bleeding, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the crows or from his old injuries. She hugged him, thankful that he was here. That he’d come for her. The crows scared her even more now. They would never stop coming.
Ramsey’s death oath was one thing, but Two Claws kept besting them. They kept killing them a crow at a time. And the crows still didn’t have what they wanted—Tenlee.
She looked at the still crow bodies that littered the ground.
If there was any chance of stopping the war before, that wasn’t an option now. She’d meant to save Two Claws, but she’d just made the storm even worse. And to make matters even more complicated…she could hear police sirens in the distance.
“Aw, fuck,” Trig said. “Change back!” The order in his voice bent the bears immediately, and their Change was fast, forced, and looked painful.
“Shhhhit, Trigger!” Colt croaked out from where he swayed on his hands a
nd knees in the mud.
“Should I call Karis?” Ava gasped out. “What do we do?”
“She has Gunner. Leave them in town and out of this. Kurt! Change back, man! I see lights.”
Kurt was pacing though, a snarl in his throat as Tenlee clutched onto the fur at his neck. Maybe she was the problem, so she hopped off him and stood on her hind legs, worrying over him and waiting.
“Kurt!” Trigger yelled, popping his kickstand down and settling his Harley. He threw his leg over and strode right for Kurt, but her mate flattened his ears, peeled his lips back from those terrifyingly long teeth, and hissed a warning.
“You ain’t his Alpha, Trig!” Colt called out, staggering to his feet. “Ordering him around won’t get him movin’ any faster. Besides, there’s no way the whole damn town didn’t see Ava turn polar bear on Main Street. You and I both know that’s why the cops are here. We’re fucked whether he changes or not.”
Kurt closed his eyes, hunched into himself, and Changed. Slowly. He bled a lot, and after a few seconds, Tenlee couldn’t watch anymore. And from the looks on the others’ faces before they averted their gazes, it was hard for them to witness his pain, too. When he was done, he stayed shaking on his hands and knees, coughing red onto the grass.
All Tenlee could do was hug his arm and wish she could take his pain.
“Don’t Change back,” he gritted out. “They don’t know about you. Take care of Gunner and Karis until we get out.” He twitched his head toward the trees. “Go on.”
She turned to climb a tree to watch their arrest from a branch, but Kurt said, “Tenlee?”
She turned. Yes, hero?
“If you see any crows, you and Karis shoot first and ask questions later, you hear?”
She nodded once. It’s all she had time for before the three police cruisers were on them. In a rush, she bounded up a tree and watched her mate climb to his feet. All of his old injuries were open. Every one. Killing killed him faster, and he’d just done it for her. Outlaw. Monster. Killer. Alpha. No, not Alpha. He was supposed to be, but he wasn’t, and that was the problem. He hadn’t taken his throne and, look here, it was killing him.
Her heart hurt watching him talk to the police. Watching the officers show the Clan and Kurt video on their phones. Watching the officers yell and reprimand them about ruining the balance between shifters and humans.
The shifters were out. It would have looked like an MC war on Main Street, but Ava had shifted in front of humans, and the officers said there was panic in Darby that would spread like wildfire and reach the world by morning. This was soooo bad.
And it was all her fault.
She’d trusted Momma Crow, but she was a crow, and no crow could ever be trusted. Tenlee had been naïve and put the Two Claws Clan in front of so many crosshairs.
And Kurt…he wasn’t standing right. He was leaning heavily on the police cruiser as he made his statement, his eyes on Bentley’s still body.
Today had started out so wonderful, and now everything had fallen apart.
Because she was selfish.
If she’d just forced herself back into the cage of the crows, the Clan would be safe. She’d put her happiness above everyone that she cared about.
Mother Crow was right.
She was nothing but an animal.
Chapter Nineteen
Done breaking promises to herself, Tenlee pulled her shirt and jeans from the destroyed Suburban. She’d just watched the police take Kurt, Ava, Colt, and Trig away in the cruisers, and a sense of calm had come over her when she realized what she had to do.
The rear door had been ripped off by Ava’s huge claws and was sitting across the road where she’d thrown it, so Tenlee’s clothes had been easy to get to. She’d never wanted to Change back to her human skin so quickly.
She needed to get her affairs in order. Or more specifically, Kurt’s.
She shook off as much broken glass as she could before dressing carefully. Trig, Kurt, and Colt had locked up the forks on their bikes before the police had taken them away so she wasn’t too worried about leaving those here.
Biker code said no one could steal a bike with club colors on them without swift retaliation, but she wasn’t scared of Red Dead Mayhem anymore. With a grunt of effort, Tenlee lifted Daniel’s Harley off the ground where it had skidded to a stop on the side of the road. He was one of the dead crows. He wouldn’t need his anymore. Once upon a time, in a life that felt very far away now, she’d grown tired of riding on the back of Ramsey’s Harley. He rode too fast and she didn’t trust him with her life. Didn’t trust him to have any control, but there had been so much pressure from the crows to be normal. So…she’d learned to ride a sportster that Momma Crow had let her borrow. Learning to ride had been a tiny victory, because she’d gained back a tiny fraction of control when she got to ride her own motorcycle. But even though she’d ridden often, she’d never ridden this one, so it took her a minute to familiarize herself with it. This one was heavier. She turned over the engine and reveled in the throaty rumble and the power under her. She turned it slowly before blasting down the road back toward town.
Karis was waiting on a bench outside the ice cream shop, and Gunner was sitting beside her, eating a double scoop of vanilla in a cone. He got a megawatt grin when he saw her, and waved as she parked the Harley by the curb.
“You ride motorcycles like my dad!” he called in his cute voice.
For as tough as she’d always thought she was, she went to her knees when he bolted for her. She held out her arms and hugged him up tight like she hadn’t seen him in days. So much had happened since this morning, good and bad. Life-changing stuff if the clusters of humans standing around talking to police were anything to go by.
The future of shifters had just changed so rapidly it hadn’t really sunk in yet.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Karis asked.
Tenlee nodded so Gunner wouldn’t hear the worry in her voice. The shifters were out there now, and there was no way to tell how bad this was going to get for them.
Her fault.
“I have to do something before we go home,” she said.
Karis was staring at the chaos in the street but with ghosts in her eyes. She nodded. “Okay. I think I need to call my brothers. One is a lawyer, and they have plans in place for if this ever happened.”
“If what happened?” Gunner asked, clutching his melting ice cream.
No point in lying to him. He was a smart kid. “If shifters ever got found out by humans.”
His chocolate brown eyes went round. “Did we get found out?”
Tenlee tried to make her smile reassuring as she nodded. “Yeah, but everything is going to be okay.” Eventually. She hoped.
She stood and brought Gunner with her, all the way to her hip. She didn’t care that he was six and might not have wanted to be carried all the way to the Gutshot like a toddler. Right now, she just wanted to hold him. Her days like this were numbered, and she would need this feeling of him in her arms to last the rest of her life.
“What happened?” Karis whispered.
As they walked up the sidewalk, Tenlee told her about the fight and the arrests as quietly as possible. And when she stopped in front of the Gutshot and opened the door for Karis, her friend balked. “Oh, we shouldn’t go in there. This place used to be run by the Darby Clan.”
Tenlee opened the door wider, propped it up with her shoe, and adjusted Gunner’s weight on her hip. “There is no more Darby Clan. We killed them all.” So. Much. Killing. It wasn’t the Clan’s fault that the neighboring Clans kept gunning for them, but at some point, it had to stop before everyone destroyed each other. Now wasn’t the time for shifter wars. They were about to fight a much bigger one now that the humans knew about them.
With a frown, Karis made her way into the bar. At the window stood the two people Tenlee was looking for.
Trina and her father, Cooper, the only two left from the Darby Clan, and that was only because they’
d been mostly rogue and disobeyed Alpha orders to attack the Two Claws Clan.
Cooper’s bushy gray eyebrows were lowered with worry, and the pretty blond was worried too, but when she looked at Gunner, she forced a smile and held out her arms. He scrambled down and let Trina scoop him up. Cooper rubbed his back and chuckled. “Long time no see, Boy Cub. We’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Gunner chirped happily.
“Who are you?” Trina asked. “And where’s Kurt?”
“That’s Tenten,” Gunner explained, licking a vanilla drip that was about to escape the bottom of his cone. “She’s a squirrel girl.”
“Ooooh,” Trina murmured, lifting her chin higher. “We’ve heard rumors of an Origin. I’m guessing that’s you.” She looked out the window at the busy street and police lights. “Is this all because of you?”
Tenlee sighed. “In a way. Kurt is in the precinct right now. I don’t know when he’ll get out, but I have a huge favor to ask for when he does.”
Trina huffed a laugh and looked at Cooper. “A stranger asking favors.”
“Not for me.” She gestured to Gunner who had climbed down from Trina and was walking toward the jukebox with Karis. “For him and for Kurt.”
Trina pulled out a chair from the nearest table and sat, then tilted her head toward the chair across from her. “I’m listening.”
Cooper said he was going to make some drinks for them while they talked, so as he walked toward the bar at the back, Tenlee took the seat.
No use beating around the bush. “Kurt’s dying.”
“I know,” Trina uttered without a single second of hesitation.
“How do you know?”
“Because somedays it feels like I’m dying. My dad, too. That’s what broken bonds do. The only reason we’re still standing is because we stayed on the outside of the Darby Clan, but it hasn’t been easy. Everyone’s gone.” Trina huffed a breath and winced. “They’re not just gone. I mean, they don’t exist anymore, and now it’s just me and my dad trying to figure out where we fit in this town. Not with the crows. Not with the bears.” Trina shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “I can’t even imagine what Kurt’s feeling. He was bonded and he won an Alpha Challenge, but then he didn’t take over the Clan. Everyone died instead.”