by Lisa Lace
"Why a month?"
"Their wedding anniversary, Alpha. It was two years before that the lioness married the King, becoming queen, and almost exactly a year later she was..."
"What ransom are they requiring for the King's release?"
"A confession, to start with. They want the Queen's death publically confessed as murder instead of an accident, and, until they get their confession, they are spreading out. If he confesses, they will let him go, alive, days from the castle and told never to return. I don't believe them. I think they will kill him with or without a confession."
"I agree. You said they are spreading out. Spreading out where?"
"To wherever you are, Alpha. They have sworn to hunt you and your new mate down, and kill you both, if they are not appeased. Most of the pride is holding down the fort, but two lionesses have been dispatched here. They won't be far behind us. Some of the castle's occupants escaped, and came to us in warning. We came as fast as we could, but we probably only have hours on them. A day at most, if they stayed til dawn before they departed."
"If they think the lioness was sold to be queen, who do they think sold her? It would have had to be a member of the pride, working with the King, if it was true."
"I'm not sure, Alpha."
"And why do they want me, or Keelyn?"
"You were the witness to the betrothal, they think you also had a hand in selling the lioness. Plus, they think you somehow also took your mate by force."
"What? Why would they think that?"
"They see no other way for a were-huntress to mate a were."
"That makes no sense. If Keelyn was bought and sold, why would they want to kill her? Why not just me, releasing her?"
"They're lions, Alpha. Their fork-in-the-road descendants chase string. Who knows how their minds work?"
Mac had been following the conversation intently. He started to step forward, to offer his assistance in whatever Bane needed, looking to Bella in frustration.
His winning her back, getting her to understand what he'd done, had to wait, and he wasn't sure if absence would help or hinder his cause.
He knew it had to be done though, lives were at stake. He hoped she'd understand, and turned to gauge her reaction to the news thrust upon her, but he didn't see her.
She wasn't there on the swing. Or with her mother or sisters.
"Bella?" He called her, quietly, trying not to interrupt.
Fear shot through him, but he tried to calm himself. She probably ducked into the house, away from all the shifters.
"Ivy, where did Bella go?"
"I don't know, I didn't see her get up."
He looked to Keelyn, who shook her head.
"Bella?" He yelled louder, heading into the house.
He checked every room but she wasn't inside.
He went back outside, practically running Ivy over in the doorway as she started to speak.
"She's not here. And a horse is missing as well. She's gone, Mac."
Chapter 11
Bella quieted the horse as best she could as she aimed him away from the house.
She'd stayed out back with everyone as long as she could, but once the new arrivals came, shifted and started talking about a pride of lions attacking the castle, she was done. She couldn't listen to that any more.
Shifters left nothing but death and destruction in their wake, and she couldn't handle knowing that Mac, Bane and Naythan, three men she thought were, well...men, weren't.
They'd wormed their way into her heart, all of them, and now, to find out that they weren't men at all was too much to handle.
And Keelyn?
Keelyn was the toughest, most bad ass woman she'd ever known, and she'd always been proud to call her were-huntress sister not only a sister, but a friend. But now?
What the hell had Keelyn been thinking, getting engaged to a shifter?
And that poor little Ash. He was cute now, even as a wolf cub, but what would he grow up to be? Nope, she wasn't going to stick around and watch that adorable little baby become a killer. Or a rapist.
Initially Bella had felt paralyzed with shock and anger. But as events unfolded around her, she realized that there was very little she could actually do. And she really felt like she needed to do something, just to keep from going crazy.
She knew she'd never have anything to do with Naythan or Ash, and by extension Sandra. That part was easy, they weren't family.
She'd enjoyed their friendship, but there was no way she was going to nurture it now.
Mac.
Mac was a lot harder to deal with, mentally.
She'd been honest when she'd let it slip that she thought she was falling for him. He had opened up a world for her that she thought had been closed to her forever- someone who would love her, despite what happened to her.
But she felt betrayed.
He knew she hated shifters, and there he was, hiding his bear from her.
A bear of all things!
What the hell?
Did he think his panty-melting kisses were going to be enough to get her to throw away everything she'd always known and felt about shifters?
She knew she had to get away from him, especially since everyone seemed so open about shifting now that the secret was out.
"Come forth in either form. It doesn't matter at this point," Bane had said to the monsters in the woods.
Well, it mattered to her!
With her luck Mac was planning on shifting as well, and showing her his bear.
Oh hell no, she thought. There's no way I could handle seeing him... nope, nope, nope.
She sighed as she let the horse take her further from her home and towards her cousin's.
The biggest betrayal of all though, she thought, was Keelyn.
Really, shifters hiding and manipulating and betraying she could understand. It was their nature. But her big sister? Her sister the were-hunter?
She had no idea how to process that one. Or how she was going to handle dealing with Keelyn. She shoved that aside, as something to be dealt with later.
There was no way she could deal with that now.
No, she had needed something to do. Something physical. She didn't know what to do about everything that had happened, but she did know of one thing she could actually go and do.
She could go see her cousins, and her Aunt Patty, and find out if anything her mother had said was true.
Her mom was an only child, that part was correct. But her grandmother hadn't been. And if anyone knew if her grandmother really had been raped by a shifter, resulting in Enid's birth, her grandmother's sister, Aunt Patty, would know.
Patty was getting older, and the cousins lived with her to help her out, but between them all Bella figured she should be able to get some answers. It was a few hours away, but still. She was determined to find out for herself, since she obviously couldn't trust anyone around here anymore.
Except Ivy, she thought. Poor Ivy, she looked as shocked as I felt. Why did she want to know what kind of shifter had raped their grandmother? I mean, after all, aren't they all the same when you get down to it? The whole warped race is full of liars and rapists, and who knows what else. Maybe I'll just stay with my cousins until everyone leaves, including Keelyn. I wonder if the wedding is even still on? Maybe mom will kick Keelyn out for Bane to deal with, since she's already bitten.
Bella shivered with revulsion and fear just thinking about one of the creatures biting her. Her luck, she'd end up turning into one of them.
Her thoughts drifted back to all the chances Mac had had to bite her, while they were making out every night out on the swing.
She shivered again, telling herself it was also in revulsion, and not lust.
Chapter 12
Mac tore through the woods in his bear form, Ivy holding tight on his back as he ran. Keelyn rode Bane, her bow and arrow snug against her back, as Bane said good bye to David and Ryker with his pack connection, aiming them in a slightly different direct
ion, as all six of them followed Bella's scent.
Mac was shocked at how well Ivy took the news. She seemed a bit dazed, yes, but once everyone realized that Bella had left on horseback, unaware that two lioness shifters were headed this way, she offered to help.
Mac, along with everyone else, tried to dissuade her, since she had no useful skills and would be more in the way than helpful, but she would not allow them to leave her behind. She went as far as to say that if they did leave her behind, she'd only grab a horse of her own and head off alone the minute she was able.
So, to keep from having to find her too, Mac offered his back to her.
He half expected the very thought of having to ride on a bear, one of the very shifters her family hated, that she'd opt to stay behind. But she surprised him when she nodded.
Mac wasn't sure if she wanted to go with them to help or to get away from the house.
As they were pairing off and preparing to leave, Mac overheard Enid speaking to Naythan, who was assigned by Bane to stay behind and protect the house, his wife and infant shifter son, along with Enid.
He heard Enid say that she would allow Naythan to stay, but she had no intention of allowing someone she now knew to be a dirty wolf shifter into her house. Her house that had already seen too much devastation from his kind.
Enid continued, as Mac listened to her address Naythan and Sandra, with glances at a peacefully sleeping Ash, that Sandra was allowed inside, if she wanted to come in, but that Naythan and his half breed son needed to stay out here.
It wasn't spoken but Mac could hear the rest of her unspoken sentence in his head, "where dogs belong."
Mac wanted to confront Enid, to remind her that it was shifters that were going after her daughter, to help protect and save her, but Ivy stopped him with one hand on his arm.
"You can't help those who won't accept it, Mac. There will be time for that later. Right now we need to go. Bella's safety is more important than my mother's ignorance."
The emotion behind the comment stopped Mac cold.
"How can you be OK with this, Ivy? With riding on my back, when Enid and Bella..."
He let his sentence trail off, not sure he could finish it without rude words.
"Let's just say that I understand things a little more now, that's all. Can we go?"
Mac nodded as he heard Sandra refuse Enid's offer to stay in the house with her if her mate and son were forced to stay outside.
She said it nicer than he would have, Mac thought.
The six set off on Bella's fresh scent, David and Ryker splitting off after a while, to be able to cover more and different ground as Mac and Bane carried Ivy and Keelyn deep into the woods after their sister.
* * *
As the miles fell under their paws, Mac couldn't help but worry about Bella.
She seemed to be one tough cookie, but he knew she had to be scared under all that anger.
Not of the woods, so much, since she grew up out here and had no idea lions were headed this way, but of her own judgement.
Surely she thought she'd been duped somehow, by Enid, and Keelyn, and most definitely by him.
When they first headed out, and the shifters picked up her scent, Keelyn mentioned that they had family out this way, so at least Bella wasn't running wildly in some random direction.
As quickly as it seemed she was going, it looked like she was running toward something as much as she was running from everything she'd found out.
"Hey Mac, can I ask you something?"
He almost snorted, with sudden humor.
He was running as fast as he could, his bear trying to keep up over long distances with wolves, and she wanted to converse?
"I mean, I know you can't speak right now, obviously, being a bear and all, but, lions... Are they all bad? They're just big cats, right? So maybe, like cats, their asshole-ness depends on basic personality, as well as how they were raised? You're a bear. Bears can be assholes too, but you're not. At least you don't seem like an asshole, unless you've been hiding that part of you, too. But I don't think so. I think you're sweet. And I think you love my sister.
Plus, there's Bane and Naythan. Wolves can totally be assholes as well, but I've seen Naythan and Sandra together, I've seen how Keelyn looks at Bane, and he at her.
So it stands to reason then, that if you guys aren't like we'd think your animals would be, then maybe all lions aren't either?
Maybe it depends on how the lion was raised?"
Mac wondered where Ivy was going with her thoughts, and wished he could ask her.
Was she hoping that the lions would take it easy on Bella if they found her before they did?
If that was the case, she'd be sorely disappointed.
The lions from the pride David and Ryker were talking about were known to be brutal. They arrived in the area decades before, having come here from Africa, and their bloodline had split soon after they got here. Half of them decided to blend in, to embrace their human sides and move into the cities, using their aggressive natures to amass wealth, in an effort to control things that way.
The other half, the pride stalking Bane and Keelyn, according to David and Ryker, long ago decided to embrace their animal sides and take over that way, one castle attack after another, conquering and taking what they wanted instead of building.
Oh no, if the lions came across Bella out here all alone, they'd have no problem killing her just for fun. And if they found out her connection to Keelyn, and thus to Bane, they'd do far worse to her.
That won't be an issue though, Mac reassured himself. They would find Bella soon, long before anything could happen to her. The lions were interested in Bane, not Bella. Besides, what were the odds the lions would even run across Bella out here when she was headed away from the area they were headed toward?
Although, that did leave Naythan and the house vulnerable.
Hopefully they'd find Bella, and either make sure she reached her cousin's safely, or they'd bring her back to Keelyn's, depending on how far Bella made it, and which house was closer.
Mac watched as Bane's nose perked up as they ran.
He scented her as well, Bella had passed through this way. They were on the right track.
Mac shared a little of the pack-mind Bane had with his pack, but as a bear adopted by wolves, it wasn't as strong as the wolves shared with each other. Even though he could scent her as well, Bane was receiving more information than he was, since he could connect with David and Ryker, too.
He thought back to what they had said earlier, about how the lion pride held Bane accountable as well as the king for the dead queen. They thought that because Bane had been a witness to the betrothal, that Bane had a hand in selling the lioness to the king, making her queen and uniting the kingdoms against her will.
The lioness had accepted willingly, of that Mac was sure. And if she hadn't died so oddly, none of this would even be a factor. She would be ruling alongside the king, and there would be peace, but since that wasn't the case, it seemed the lion pride was hell bent on some warped revenge.
Mac remembered David saying the lions were compounding the reason they were after Bane with lofty sounding claims like that Bane had taken Keelyn by force, which was silly.
It was silly because Bane hadn't, although he did claim her without her knowledge, but for the lion pride to claim that as a reason to hunt and kill in the name of familial revenge was laughable.
The pride was well versed in taking mates that didn't want to be taken, so the fact that they were claiming to be mad about others doing the same was ridiculous.
They were just grasping at any reason to hunt and kill, as usual, Mac thought. It was shifters like the lion pride that gave all shifters a bad name. It was shifters like them who made towns resort to having laws about animal forms in the city limits.
Oh well, he set his thoughts aside and concentrated on finding his mate before she got into trouble.
The thought of her being cornered by two li
onesses, with nothing but a scared horse under her terrified Mac to his very soul.
If she thought shifters were evil, destructive beasts, she'd only have her opinions verified by running into the lions. They'd separate her and her horse in a heartbeat, each lion picking one beating heart to take down and destroy.
He picked up speed, motivated by his thoughts. His sudden change in gait threw his passenger's balance off some, and he felt Ivy's knees grip his ribs harder, and felt her lean down lower over him, her hands fisting tighter in his fur as she made herself as air dynamic as possible.
Her movements, aiding his, only fed his need to find Bella faster. Now.
Chapter 13
Bella relaxed some, giving the horse its head, confident he knew where they were going.
She fingered the knife at her hip absentmindedly, more comfortable with it than the bow and arrows on her back. The bow and arrows were Keelyn's, one of the first sets their father made her. Bella wasn't nearly as proficient with them as her sister was, but she did alright. Everyone in the family had been forced to learn to handle different kinds of weapons, just in case, but the knife was her weapon of choice.
It was usually the only weapon she carried on her, not normally needing more than one in her day to day travels to and from town, or just working outside the house, but after Sammy, and after hearing from wolves about castle-attacking-lions, she figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
She heard a twig snap off in the distance, and her gaze flew that direction, trying to locate what made the noise. She didn't see anything, so she let her thoughts drift back to everything she'd learned a couple of hours ago.
So, her mother was a product of a rape- a shifter of some kind, and a human, she mulled the information over. Just like the baby she carried inside her.
Enid never shifted, so maybe the child she carried would be mostly human, as well?