by T. S. Joyce
Ten’s shoulders were shaking now and her little red painted nails were digging into his skin as she held onto him. God, he loved her. Loved. Her. Everything about her. The feral side and the human side. Tough, sweet, beautiful, caring, loyal little badass.
She’d really done it. She’d granted a wish he’d made while thinking there was no way he could be saved. From this moment on, he would never question what Ten could do.
He hadn’t wanted to be Alpha after what had happened to Laney, but he was different now. Older and wiser with more life-experience under his belt. He wasn’t the power-hungry animal he’d been back then. Now he was just grateful to the people who’d saved him. And now they had his life, his fealty, his dedication, his loyalty. He owed them effort.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he murmured. “And Gunner, Trina, Cooper… I can’t promise I’ll be good at this, but I won’t stop trying.”
When Ten looked up at him, her eyes were swimming with raw pride. “You were always meant for this, Kurt. You’re going to be an amazing Alpha. A great leader. Great protector. Your life got a restart, and I know you. I know what you’re capable of.”
He cupped her damp cheek and sipped her lips as a silent I love you. As a silent thank you, and when he eased back, his mate offered him the sweetest smile.
“What are you smiling like that for, pretty girl?”
And Ten, his Ten, nuzzled her face against his chest. “Your legend starts now, and I’m here for the very beginning of it. I’m lucky.”
But she didn’t see. Didn’t realize how beautiful and special she was. She was an Origin, and her legend had begun the day she was born. But above what she was, who she was mattered most. She was full of light, love, and fierce devotion, and she’d chosen him. She’d come in and changed the course of his whole life, and Gunner’s, too. She’d created a new Clan just to make him stronger, and she would never ask for anything in return. That wasn’t her style.
Ten found her joy in making others happy.
He was the lucky one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Last week, Kurt had planned a perfect day for her. And yeah, it had ended up with her being kidnapped and everyone going to jail, but it was the effort that meant a lot to her. So…today, on her very last day with him, she wanted to do the same—give him a perfect day. In fact, she wanted to give the entire Two Claws Clan and The New Darby Clan a perfect day. One to remember her by. She wouldn’t think about tomorrow. She just wanted to live in this moment with her mate, her Gunner Boy, and her friends today.
Tomorrow, she had to turn herself into the crows and stop this war, but today…today she was going to be happy.
The day was gray and cloudy, but she’d checked the weather, and it wasn’t supposed to rain, so that was good. It smelled like smoke from the bonfire she’d made and liquor from the concoction she was putting together in the bright purple cooler.
“So,” Colt drawled out, “is this like a Yay Kurt Lived Party?”
“Sure!” Ten said, stirring the fruit and juice and alcohol together with a machete.
“And is that trashcan punch?” Ava asked, her legs splayed as she watched Ten work. She had Norman draped over her shoulders like a feather boa, but the reindeer looked perfectly content.
“Trashcan punch, yep!”
“It’s only noon,” Trig said from where he was pouring water into a massive boiler.
Trina and Cooper were cutting up corn and sausage on a long plastic table nearby for a shrimp boil.
“Is there a rule against drinking punch at noon?” Ten asked, concerned.
“Not for this ranch,” Colt said as he set up red plastic cups on another table. “There ain’t no start time on beer pong, so why should there be for your girly drink?”
“Drinks, plural,” Trina said, drawing a bowl of corn on the cob to her hip and making her way to Trig. “Ten made enough to get a small country sloshed.”
Ten tapped the machete-spoon off on the side of the cooler and closed the lid. “I want today to be the best day ever. I have a list of all-day party stuff. I found it on the internet. I know how to use it now.”
Colt chuckled as he set down another row of plastic cups. “Let’s hear it.”
Ten wiped her machete on her pant leg and pulled the list out of her back pocket. She held onto one corner and flung it open. “One, trashcan punch, and I added beer pong for you, Colt, because you are my best friend.”
“Oh, God,” he muttered, but he looked flattered instead of mad.
“Three, s’mores because they are Gunner’s favorite. And the shrimp boil, and also I got us ice cream sandwiches—”
“Sounds like a belly ache,” Cooper muttered, but she ignored him and kept going.
“And then, sit around the fire talking about childhood memories for one to three hours, depending on how entertaining Colt is.”
“She means annoying, not entertaining,” Ava said, twisting Norman side-to-side.
“You’re a D minus sister,” Colt muttered.
“And next,” Ten continued, “we get on the horses and ATVs and go fast around the ranch. Maybe float the river, but I didn’t have money for innertubes so I got five packs of waterwings for your arms if you want them instead—”
“What colors?” Trina asked through a big grin.
“Pink ones.”
“The river water is still freezing,” Trig pointed out.
Ten shrugged and folded up the list, replaced it in her pocket. “You’re a big, tough, grizzly shifter outlaw cowboy Alpha. You’ll survive.”
Colt threw a practice shot with a ping pong ball into a cup across the table. He missed. “I can’t wait to see that big, tough, grizzly shifter outlaw cowboy Alpha wearing pink waterwings. I’m gonna take, like, four hundred pictures.”
“I got you a matching pair,” Ten said happily.
Colt said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Mother fucker,” but she couldn’t be certain because Karis, Trina, and Ava were laughing so loud.
“And after that, hamburgers and hot dogs tonight. You boys are grilling—”
“Ten,” Trigger said, “I love all this, but do you have it on your list to actually work the ranch today?”
She snorted. “No.” She wasn’t spending her last day here scraping horse crap out of stalls.
“And then we tell each other our hopes and dreams, and then we hug some, and then—”
“Now the trashcan punch makes sense,” Trina said. “Because none of that would happen if we were all sober.”
Rude.
“How come Gunner gets blue floaties?” Colt asked, pointing to the little boy sitting on a log, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt that said Lil Outlaw, goggles, and blue waterwings already in position on his upper arms.
Gunner slurped the rest of his juice box and said, “Because when Tenten was just Genie the Squirrel, she spied on me and you, Mister Colt.”
“Yeah? And what did she learn from her spying?”
“You asked what my favorite color was, and I said blue like the sky, and Tenten remembered this whole time.”
Kurt came up behind Ten and slid his arms around her middle, rested his chin on her shoulder. “You’re real good at paying attention to little details and making a person feel special.”
She rubbed her cheek against his whiskers and sighed. “You’re really good at giving me compliments and making me feel like I do things right, not wrong.”
He squeezed her ass and murmured against her neck in a wicked voice, “You everything right.”
“Ew, get a room,” Colt said.
“They have one,” Gunner chirped up, “in the barn.”
Kurt’s laugh matched Ten’s, and she had a moment. Sometimes, it was like taking a picture in her mind. Both Clans were talking, joking, and laughing. Gunner was so cute in his little waterwings and goggles, a big ol’ smile on his face. Everything was turning green on the ranch. The cattle were bawling in the distance, Harley was k
icking on his stall as usual, and Kurt’s arms were strong and steady around her.
Tomorrow, she would go to hell. But right now, she was safe and happy.
Truly happy.
She turned in Kurt’s arms and looked up at him. “I don’t know much about people, but I have this feeling that this is special. That maybe some people search their whole lives and never find this, what we have here.”
“You’re right,” he answered in that deep, sexy timbre. He leaned in and sipped her lips. “I love you, Ten,” he murmured against her mouth, and she smiled and let off a soft, happy sound.
Flip-flap.
Ten frowned, and eased back, stared at the movement over Kurt’s shoulder. Couldn’t be.
There was the crow with the white diamond on his chest. Ramsey was sitting on the branch of the tree Kurt had tied a rope swing for Gunner.
And in the distance, there was something so much worse.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted as she saw the cloud of black descending on Two Claws woods.
“What the hell?” Trig murmured behind her.
“Caw,” Ramsey called.
“Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw,” the flock of black crows answered as they blocked out the sky.
“No!” she screamed. “I have another day!”
“What?” Kurt asked. “What does that mean?”
“I negotiated. I was going to come willing if they let you live. I was turning myself in tomorrow!”
Kurt’s face morphed from concern to grim acceptance in a matter of moments. “You should’ve known better, Ten. Never trust a crow. And I wouldn’t have given you up anyway.” His voice was grit and gravel now, and his eyes flashed silver. Face twisting into something feral, he ground out, “Gunner, you go on with Karis now. Don’t you come out of that house either. Karis, anything that ain’t Clan comes through the door, you pull the trigger on the Peacemaker.”
Karis ripped her gaze away from the crows landing in the trees and nodded once, then held out our hand for Gunner. “Come on, boy. Your daddy has work to do.”
Trina Changed first. Her mountain lion was massive, sleek like a bullet, and her teeth were impossibly long. She had black stripes down her face like war paint. Cooper’s cougar ripped from him with a scream that hurt Ten’s ears. Ava, Trig, and Colt stood staring at the branches, heavy and drooping with crows. There had to be hundreds.
This couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. Ten was supposed to fix this. She was supposed to stop the bleeding. Stop the killing. She’d had a plan, but Ramsey had ruined it, and for what? Vengeance? Bloodlust?
Kurt’s eyes were locked on Ramsey and held their own death oath, as serious as any animal shape the crows could burn into the ground.
Colt had told her once that she’d chosen a monster in Kurt. But he’d been injured from that Alpha Challenge up until now, so she hadn’t understood what he’d meant. Not fully. But as she watched Kurt pull his shirt off his scarred body, sauntering toward those hundreds of crows without an ounce of fear, she started to get it. And as he took off running, so fast, with long, powerful strides, his cougar exploded from him. The animal hit the ground sprinting toward Ramsey, and now she really understood monster. He wasn’t injured anymore. And his animal was huge, every muscle rippling as he ran, his tail stretched back for balance. He was a bullet, aimed straight for the heart of Red Dead Mayhem and, holy fuck, he was so fast he blurred with his speed. Ramsey spread his wings and beat them to escape just as the other crows lifted off their branches to attack.
Kurt went straight up the tree, and as Ramsey flew away, he pushed off the trunk, twisted his powerful body in the air, and sailed toward the crow, claws extended. The second his claws connected with Ramsey’s back, the cloud of crows covered them completely.
The sound of breaking bones echoed like gun fire, and then there was another sound that shattered the ugly crow song—the bears were roaring. Two mountain lions, two massive, scarred grizzlies, and a polar bear with death written all over their faces charged past Ten, shaking the earth with their massive paws.
The cloud of crows changed shape, and the war birds dove for her people. She still couldn’t see Kurt in the chaos, and what could she do? She was one squirrel to hundreds of crows.
There would be losses on both sides. This war would cripple the Clans forever, and for what? Her. She couldn’t live with that. Couldn’t live….couldn’t…
Tenlee looked down at the machete in her hand and had another moment. One that changed a life. One that would end this one. It was the realization of exactly what she had to do to stop this.
The only option to stop the bleeding of others was to bleed herself.
Chest heaving, Ten strode toward the war, blade in hand.
Be brave.
Be selfless.
Save them all.
She was going to miss everything. She wouldn’t be able to watch Kurt and Gunner from afar. She wouldn’t be here. How had Kurt dealt with his own mortality for all this time? She only had seconds left, but it was torture. Her strong mate. He’d shouldered so much more than she’d realized.
Tears streaming down her face, she reached the edge of war and fell to her knees.
Ten positioned the long, sharp blade over her heart, right between two ribs so it would go straight through. And then at the top of her lungs, she screamed, “Stoooooop!”
There was a change in the rhythm of the war, and the crows on the outskirts stopped their attack. Some flittered to the ground to watch her, and some went to the trees.
“Ramsey!” she shrieked. “You win!” A sob escaped her. “You win.”
She could see the bears now, see the mountain lions. See Kurt, all clawed up and bleeding.
He turned, along with Ramsey, and whatever they saw, it had an immediate impact on them both.
Kurt’s Change was instant. On hands and knees, he reached out his hand toward her. “Ten, no!”
“I’m sorry,” she wailed. “It’s the only way.”
“Tenlee, stop!” Ramsey said, now human on his knees, eyes wide and black as tar. She’d never seen him look scared before now.
Colt’s blond grizzly charged toward her, but she pushed the blade in by millimeters. God, it hurt. This was going to be an awful end. Warmth spread from the tip of the blade, and Colt skidded to a stop.
“You’ll never stop,” she called out, voice thick with her heartbreak. “You will war and war and war, and everyone will bleed, die, and lose, all because you can’t give me up. Ramsey,” she addressed him formally. “I found something good here, and you can’t let me keep it, can you? Happiness means nothing to you unless it’s your own. Kurt loves me. He’s my mate. He’ll never let you keep me, and so the war will go on and on. But not if there is nothing to fight over.” Her face crumpled and she hunched into herself as she readied to shove the blade through her heart.
“The fight is off!” Ramsey yelled. “Leave us! Leave us!” There was power and order in his voice, and the cloud of crows lifted into the air and filtered out of the Two Claws woods.
Kurt was approaching, palms up. “Please, Ten. Please don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I wish you don’t leave me. I won’t be okay. I can’t see you do this and be okay.”
“But you’ll be alive, Kurt,” she cried. “Can’t you see? The beating of your heart matters more than the beating of mine!”
“It doesn’t, baby. It doesn’t matter more. Please.” Kurt fell to his knees. “Don’t do this.”
“I love you,” she whispered, and then she gripped the handle and gritted her teeth as she pushed the blade into her chest.
****
Kurt could tell the moment she was going to end her life. He could tell from the fear in her eyes and the set to her mouth like she was bracing for pain. He could tell, so he was already in motion when she gripped the handle harder.
And Ramsey was, too. Kurt heard the crow’s wings and felt the powerful wind from them on the side of his face as he lurched toward
Ten. And just as Kurt reached her, a pair of black talons gripped that machete and ripped it out of Ten’s hands with such force, she fell forward with a grunt and hit Kurt in the chest. He caught her and squeezed her against him tight, his heart pounding to match hers.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured mindlessly as he rocked her sobbing body.
Her warm tears were falling on his skin, and she was limp in his arms as if totally defeated. Kurt jammed a finger at Ramsey. “Change back.”
The Alpha of Red Dead Mayhem didn’t even fight Kurt’s demand. He Changed to his human form, machete still clutched in his hand. He leaned back on his bent knees, his chin tilted back, black eyes trained on Ten. He looked gutted.
“This is what we’re doing to her. Really look at her, Ramsey. You’ve put a fucking phoenix on her knees with a knife to her heart. She was prepared to end her life to stop us. You care about her? Your crow chose her? Then put her first. She didn’t choose you back. A mate isn’t something your head chooses. It’s a choice the heart makes, and her heart landed on me.”
Ramsey’s eyes were rimmed with emotion, and his voice was hoarse and defeated as he murmured, “You win, Ten.”
And then he exploded into the air and flew away, leaving behind a single feather that floated down, down and landed on the blade of the blood-tipped machete before the breeze took it away.
And just like that, the war was through and the woods were quiet. Ten was still crying, and she wouldn’t look at him, so all Kurt could do was hold her and make silent wishes she would be okay.
Around him, the others Changed back one by one, and Karis and Gunner came out of the house. It was Gunner who touched her back first. Kurt could tell his son didn’t understand what was wrong with Ten, but his sweet boy knew that touch was healing for her. And as the others knelt down and laid their hands on her too, Kurt adjusted her in his lap until she could reach out and hug them. And she did. She hugged them all up and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She even gave a relieved laugh when Colt said, “Don’t ever do that again. I can’t lose my friend.”
“Best friend,” she corrected him with an emotional smile.