“We’re in trouble,” Bruce said. Tara laughed like it was a joke, and her voice had a mocking quality to it that encouraged the anger.
“We’re always in danger because of you, these days. Tell me what it is. Is the human pregnant? Are we going to have to deal with half-breeds now?”
Bruce balled his hands into fists.
“No,” he said through clenched jaws.
“He’s right,” Dwayne said, interrupting the argument, slicing through the tension. He turned his head sideways like he was listening, but everyone knew that he was feeling instead.
“They’re coming.”
It didn’t take an explanation to know what Dwayne meant by ‘they’. The realization that it had become life or death hit them all at about the same time. It was the same time that fear, a collective, breathable fear, wrapped around them.
“How did they find us?” Tara asked and her eyes were wide. For the first time since Bruce had joined the Family, he saw terror in them. Her animal was far from reach. Her eyes weren’t flashing white. They were wide and shimmering and very human.
“They’re tracking us,” Bruce spoke up. If Dwayne had wanted to say it, well, Bruce had gotten there first. He was going to just throw it all out there. “They’re using Jenna.”
The words were barely out of Bruce’s mouth when Tara hissed at him. She launched, the humanity of a moment before forgotten, and they both tumbled to the ground. She was on top when they came to a stop, and she pinned Bruce down with a preternatural strength that he couldn’t beat despite the fact that she was a woman.
“You and your disgusting love for those damn humans! I knew it was a mistake to let you get involved. This is the last time I have a turn of mercy. For anyone.”
That was mercy? Bruce didn’t have time to think about her words before she kick-started her change right on top of him. It was close to the full moon now, just days away, and the power in the air was palpable. He could reach up and grab his own change if he wanted to.
But he didn’t want to fight. He had nothing left to defend, not against his own Family. If they fought now, they weren’t going to make it.
“Don’t do this,” he said to Tara as he watched her shift. The sensation of it all happening on top of him was strange. He felt the bones in her legs against his sides where she straddled him. It was rough, scraping and popping. Her skin split open, fur crawled over her body and her long sharp nails were in front of his face before her human face had disappeared completely.
Bruce was aware of a warm liquid that had spilled out of Tara when her skin had split. It soaked through his clothes and he shuddered, disgusted. Nothing about Tara was beautiful and elegant, not in a way that was remotely human.
She was all animal, and it showed more and more.
“Stop it!” someone yelled from the side but Bruce had his hands full trying to keep those claws from scratching his eyes out. It was like Tara was taking out all the fear on him, using him as a scratching post until she could collect herself.
He was all for helping out the Family keep it together for the war that was no doubt to follow, but he wasn’t going to do it at the expense of his own life.
Dammit. Hadn’t he lost enough already?
Someone yanked Tara off Bruce. She hadn’t expected it and that was probably the only reason why it had worked. She was completely leopard now, but a human scream still ripped out of her throat and pierced the night air.
“We have to stand together as a pack!” someone shouted again, and this time, Bruce recognized the voice as Stephen’s. He pushed himself up and noted Stephen and Lori standing behind Tara. They must have worked together to get her off him.
“If the Assassins come and they find us fighting like we are now, it will be an easy kill all round. Hell, Tara, you nearly finished Bruce off for them.”
Tara looked at Bruce and the deadly look in her eyes made his skin crawl. He’d been wrong about the fear. What he saw in her eyes now was pure hatred, there was no trace of fear at all.
She couldn’t speak because she was leopard and with the level of anger vibrating through the air around them, Bruce was sure she wouldn’t be able to change back. Not yet. Her animal was loose and Stephen and Lori weren’t flanking her for the fun of it.
Bruce had a feeling that if it weren’t for them, he would be ripped in pieces by now.
“Tara is angry with Bruce for endangering the pack,” Dwayne said, speaking up for the first time since Bruce had attacked him. After being on the receiving end of all that anger, Bruce felt bad about what he’d done to Dwayne earlier. He looked at Dwayne, opened his mouth to speak, but the psychic shook his head.
Either Dwayne knew that Bruce was remorseful, or he didn’t want to talk about it in the volatile atmosphere. Both were possible.
“She feels that Bruce should be punished, and if it means that lives will be saved through his death and the termination of the bond, then so be it.”
Bruce realized that Dwayne was playing interpreter for the wereleopard that was losing so much of her humanity that it was still hard to refer to her as Tara. He also realized that it was true. As much as he wanted to believe that it wasn’t all his fault, he was to blame for what was happening.
If he’d steered clear of the humans, lived like a true shifter in the mountains, this wouldn’t have happened.
Of all the shifters, Lori was the one that spoke up and her words surprised Bruce.
“We can’t change what’s past. We’re here now and the Assassins are coming.”
She turned her head to Bruce.
“Where are they coming from?” she asked.
“El Verano. It’s about four days south on foot.”
She nodded as if it was all business. “And when did they find out where we were?”
“They hadn’t yet. They were still working on it when I saw Jenna. That was two days ago.”
It was about facts now. Facts that they could build upon to create a war strategy. They had to find a way to survive the attacks. When the Assassins came, there were going to be a lot of them.
“My guess is two days,” Cleveland said and everybody’s heads turned to him. He spoke so seldom.
“That puts us right on full moon,” Rosa said. “We’re stronger then.”
“And capable of losing control,” Lori filled in. “Full moon is the best time for them to attack. So we have to be ready for them. We need to hunt, gain strength, and work as a pack.”
She looked at Tara when she said and the leopard bared teeth at her. Lori was directly challenging the alpha’s authority. But it was about time someone did.
They all understood what that meant. They couldn’t fight among each other. They had to stand together. They were going to forget the past and everything that had gone wrong, forgive, and they were going to have to face the Assassins as a unit if they wanted a chance to survive at all.
After the talks of strategy and war, they fell quiet. The Family didn’t break up and go out hunting like they usually did, even though they’d just agreed they needed the strength. Instead, they stood huddled together, drawing strength and support from each other.
Tara calmed down enough to shift back to human form. When she did she glared at Bruce but she didn’t act on the hatred that was left. Anger had dissipated, replaced by anticipation.
Bruce wasn’t sure which was worse. Both felt out of control.
The sun was rising in the east, with the first silver light of dawn coloring the sky when they hear a twig snap.
They were early. The Assassins must have left almost immediately after Bruce did to find them so soon.
Like one being, they tensed. Every muscle in Bruce’s body was tight, ready to attack, and he knew that all the others felt the same. It wasn’t the kind of knowledge that came with education guessing. It was the kind of knowledge that came with the bond of a pack, they were thinking and reacting as one.
It dawned on Bruce that it may have been his fault that they were u
nder attack, but if this had never happened, they would never have had a reason to pull together as a pack and stand as one.
Family.
The word echoed through each and every one of them as they faced the danger that was coming.
Footsteps echoed into the night, crunched on the mulch. They listened, straining their ears, but Bruce could only find one set of footsteps. He took a deep breath, but there was no sense of danger riding on the wind. Only the smell of a human.
Jenna, he thought the moment she stepped from the trees. It took the rest of the pack a moment to realize it wasn’t danger. They all relaxed. Tara stepped forward, the pack behind her. It was a negotiating format. But Bruce stepped forward too. He wasn’t alpha, but he was Jenna’s mate.
“I came to warn you,” she said in a thin voice. She eyes Tara as if the woman would shift and jump on her right away. Bruce was the one that stepped forward.
“Why are you here?” he asked. He sounded more hostile than he’d planned, but it was out there.
“You were right,” Jenna said and their voice was almost a whisper. “And they’re on their way. I wanted to come and warn you.”
Bruce hesitated. He thought back to her denial in her apartment. Her clear statement that they weren’t together.
“How do I know that we can trust you?” he asked.
Jenna sighed, closed her eyes for a moment and then opened it again. They were the same color as the evergreen trees around her.
“You don’t,” she said.
Chapter 1
“You have to believe me,” Jenna said. She stood in the middle of the pack of shifters. Bruce looked at her, the woman he’d known for five years, the woman he’d decided to marry. And he wasn’t sure he knew her at all.
“Why else would I have come back?” she asked. She was looking at Bruce. He was the one that hadn’t been sure if she could be trusted. When he’d gone looking for her to see if she was alright – following the sense that something was terribly wrong – he’d found out what it was that had been nagging at him. Jenna had gotten involved with an Assassin.
And it wasn’t just a coincidence that the man she was attracted to was Bruce’s arch enemy, the damn Assassin had played it that way. He’d been playing mind games with her since day one.
Bruce had been furious, but he’d wanted to protect her all the same. He loved her, and she was his. She was his mate, his woman, his to protect. And she’d pushed him away, told him she didn’t believe him. Why should he believe that she was back now to help them with the pending war between them and the Assassins if she had been so reluctant before?
It was because of her relationship with that shifter killer that they were on their way in the first place. They’d found the Family’s location in Jenna’s mind, traced her knowledge. This was why Tara had wanted Jenna dead to begin with.
And Bruce was starting to understand what it was all about.
“She’s the enemy now,” Dwayne spoke up. His voice had a creepy feel to it in the darkness. The moon was almost full and cast eerie shadows across the plateau where they met every night. Jenna shot Dwayne a look that was full of warning.
They stood on the plateau, no one saying anything. There was snow on the mountains around them and on the trees, but the plateau was open and snow free. It was like the power in the ground with the moon so close to full couldn’t help but melt. But it was cold. Shifters didn’t feel the weather like humans did, but tonight Jenna wasn’t the only one with a thick coat.
The monochrome surroundings, set off by the evergreen of the pine needles, was the perfect backdrop for the drama that was quickly unfolding.
“We can’t let her live now,” Tara said finally. They knew that the Assassins were on their way. Bruce had warned them. And they knew that it was because of Jenna and her involvement with that one Assassin. Bruce balled his hands in fists. The thought of that man’s lips on his woman turned him murderous. But that wasn’t the issue right now.
As much as he wasn’t sure he could trust Jenna, or what she felt for him now, he knew that he could never just stand by and let her die.
“We’re not killing anyone right now,” Bruce said. His voice sounded loud in the night air and Tara’s eyes flashed white when she turned them on him.
“And what authority do you have to call the shots on this?” she asked.
Bruce took a deep breath.
“Jenna is still my mate and she is still under my protection.” He said the words and at the same time, he just wasn’t sure anymore. But she wasn’t dying on his watch. The Assassins were coming, yes, but they were going to have to find a way to defeat them without getting rid of Jenna. Dwayne had asked Bruce if he was willing to sacrifice the Family for a human.
The words came back to him and he realized that it looked the same. But he had no intention of sacrificing his family or the woman that a very big part of him still loved. He had to find a way to keep both alive.
He just didn’t know how he was going to do it.
“The longer we fight about this, the closer they’re getting,” Stephen said. Rose clutched his hand, squeezing so hard her knuckles were going white. Her eyes were wide and white, rolling around in her eye sockets. She was scared.
Bruce breathed in deeply and he could smell her fear, sour on the wind.
“We’re going to get through this,” he said to her. “We’ll make this work. We have a lot of fight in us and we have something on them – we’re shifters.”
“But we’re not psychics,” Lori spoke up. She looked muscular and manly in the shadows, feet planted wide and arms crossed over her chest.
“No, but we do have one on our side,” Tara spoke up, taking the leadership as the alpha and stepping in. “Dwayne, you were with the Assassins once. You can pick up on their thought processes, right?”
Dwayne shook his head slowly. Tara frowned. Bruce got a sinking feeling his gut that felt a lot like despair. If they didn’t even have Dwayne to help them out, what were they going to do?
“Why not? Tara demanded.
“I left them, and with that left the ability to read minds. It was a sacrifice I had to make. I can pick up on intentions and emotions, but not thoughts. I get visions of the future, but they’re fractured. I don’t have more than that.”
“And how will that help?” Stephen asked. “It’s not like he’ll be able to tell us while we’re fighting what’s going on.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Tara snapped. Bruce knew she was scared too. He couldn’t smell her fear. She hid it from the Family, but her eyes were wider than usual and she looked too human. This was what she would have looked like if she was just a woman or a leopard that had held onto her humanity. Fear reduced Tara to the most human form of herself.
“You’re all bickering among each other, but I’m right here, and I’ve been in contact with one of them. Do none of you see it as a way to gain inside information?” Jenna spoke up. She’d stood in the middle of the circle, between the Family members, and they’d talked over her, forgetting she was there.
They all trained their eyes on her and she shifted from one foot to the other. No matter how human they looked now, having a group of were-animals have their eyes on you was disconcerting, no matter what.
“We haven’t decided if we can trust you yet,” Tara said in a calm voice. Jenna pulled a face.
“Well, ask him then,” she said and gestured toward Dwayne. He looked at her, his eyes deep pits of black. He was looking into her, Bruce realized. His face was pensive and his eyes focused on something else like he was looking at something behind her. She became more uncomfortable. Dwayne was trying to get a handle on her, see what her intentions were.
His face went ashen, his eyes went large and round, like he’d seen a ghost.
“I don’t think we should trust her,” he said and his voice was haunted.
“What!?” Jenna exclaimed. She’d clearly hoped he would vouch for her, but sometimes Dwayne saw more in a person th
an they knew themselves.
“This is ridiculous,” Jenna said and pushed her way through the circle, shoving Bruce out of the way. His weight was more than she was able to move, but he stepped back so that she had a space to leave. She marched away, into the trees, with her back stiff and her head held high. Her anger rose to the Family on the wind and the air was scalding hot.
The pack stood frozen, watching her leave. Her aura was so strong it demotivated the pack from going after her. As much as fear and running encouraged a chase for shapeshifters, the anger and confidence Jenna exuded discouraged it.
Bruce wanted to go after he. He wanted to talk to her, to know what was going on. He missed her. He wanted to know if she still felt anything at all for him. He wanted to know if she was still going to be in his life. She’d come back, surely that meant something? But as much as he wanted her to live, the Family did come first now that they were in danger. He had to make his choice.
“Well?” Tara asked in a hard voice, and when Bruce turned his attention back to her she was looking at him with a hard stare.
“What?” he asked.
“Go after her. Fix this mess,” she said. Bruce hesitated only a moment before he turned and walked after Jenna into the trees. He couldn’t fix this, he knew that. He couldn’t make it all go away, stop the Assassins from coming. But he could talk to Jenna, and that was what he wanted.
He moved through the trees and the night was alive with power. The trees reached up to the sky, the canopy of leaves caught the blanket and snow and the mulch underfoot were frozen but clear. Bruce heard Jenna’s footsteps between the trees, crunching on the icy mulch. She was quite far ahead, but he could catch up with her.
The power in the earth urged him on, allowed him to unlock more of his power as an animal even though he was human. This was what he loved about the full moon, just as much as he hated it bringing out the animal in him.
His life was a love-hate relationship with the moon.
He managed to catch up with Jenna before she’d worked her way too far down the mountain. He noticed that the direction she’d taken was going to take her past Williamsburg. She wasn’t going back to town. That made him wonder where she was going.
BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) Page 98