by Lynn Hagen
And Jesse defended his family.
* * * *
Bailey had been fine when Walker left him in the kitchen with Corky. But he scented his mate’s agitation as he walked down the hallway. When everyone left, Bailey had gone to their bedroom and hadn’t come out since.
Walker stepped into the room to find Bailey standing by the windows, staring off into the darkness.
“How are you feeling?” Walker asked.
Bailey turned to look at Walker, his expression was solemn. “Imagine being dropped into a world where nothing makes sense and the things you thought…no, because I never even thought about animals changing into men, or men becoming pregnant, or things that lurk in the dark woods, ready to tear a person apart. None of that ever crossed my mind. But now I’m not only mated to an animal, I’m carrying his baby. How would you feel, Walker? Honestly?”
“Look”—Walker took a step toward Bailey—“I know—”
Bailey shook his head. “Don’t you dare stand there and tell me that you know this is a lot to take in. It’s more than that. A lot to take in is finding out a family member died or that you have cancer. This”—Bailey waved his hand around—“is beyond the realm of coming to terms with something that has happened to you.
“You bit me, preparing my body for conception without me even knowing what you were doing. Yes, you’ve told me that your bear took over, but…I have a freaking baby inside of me. I have a right to freak the fuck out, to question life, to be so scared that I want to run screaming from this place.”
When Bailey’s tears began to flow, Walker’s bear snarled, ready to go to its mate. But Walker didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe. His gut told him this was a pivotal point in their relationship, a make-or-break moment, and he didn’t know which fork in the road to take, which one would ruin them and which one would save the life he wanted so badly with Bailey.
“Everyone around here acts as if this is okay, that what you did is normal. It isn’t. It’s not normal to bite someone and impregnate them!”
Walker closed the distance and tried to pull Bailey into his arms, but his mate shoved him away. “Don’t touch me!”
Walker backed up, feeling as if his heart were being ripped out. His mate wanted nothing to do with him, and Walker had no clue how to fix this.
From what he’d seen, the way Bailey had acted, Walker had thought…but he’d thought wrong. Bailey was human and understood nothing about Walker’s world.
“I’m not letting you go,” Walker murmured. “I can’t.” Bailey was carrying his child, and Walker would rather die than let him leave, taking Walker’s child with him—taking the one man fate had handpicked for Walker. If Bailey left, he would be taking Walker’s soul with him.
Bailey walked past him.
“Where’re you going?”
“To sleep in the guest bedroom,” Bailey said. “I have too much to think about right now, and I need to do that alone.”
Walker had never felt so helpless in his life. He didn’t know what to say or do to rectify the situation. Things were different for his kind. Shifters had an animal heart, and their animal ruled them. Walker could no more have stopped himself from biting Bailey than he could have stopped his very own heart from beating. But Bailey didn’t want to hear that.
“I can help you through this.” Walker grabbed his mate’s arm, stopping Bailey from leaving the room. “We can get past this. You have me, my family, and—”
“I don’t need a family. Family fucks you over.” Bailey yanked his arm free.
Walker didn’t stop him this time when Bailey headed for the bedroom door. Maybe he would cool off and they could work things out. He wouldn’t be the first mate to freak out about being pregnant. And just like the other mates had, Bailey would settle into his new life and the two of them would be happy.
Walker hoped. He cursed under his breath as he went to the living room and called Bobby Ray. “Can you come over?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” He needed his brother to tell him that everything would be all right, that his world wasn’t actually falling apart, and that Bailey didn’t truly hate him.
“On my way,” Bobby Ray said before he hung up.
Walker dropped onto the sofa and waited for him to get there.
* * * *
Lazarus Russo moved with stealth through the forest, Riley, Kieran, and Rogan at his flanks as he followed the scent of death. He’d tracked the odor for miles now, the smell growing stronger as they made their way south into bear territory.
So far Lazarus had yet to meet one face-to-face, but he knew what he was tracking. Jesse and Clint had described the feeders’ scent to him, and his instincts told him there was more than one.
There had to be. The stench was too damn strong to belong to just one creature. Lazarus slowed when another scent wafted toward him.
Wolf.
He shifted into his human form when he stepped onto a path. Seconds later, Jesse and two of his wolves appeared from the woods.
“How many do you think there are?” Lazarus asked.
Jesse shifted, but his wolves, along with Lazarus’s leopards, stayed in their true forms. “More than one.” With a clenched jaw, Jesse gazed around. “The closer we get to Rising territory, the more I want to vomit. Those fucking things stink.”
“And no one has located their nest yet,” Lazarus said.
“We’re talking about over 500,000 acres,” Jesse said. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Lazarus didn’t need the reminder. He and his leap had combed hundreds of caves, but had still come up empty-handed. And there was no telling how many feeders there were or if there was only one nest. “We’re wasting time just standing here,” Jesse said.
Although the different shifters on the mountains kept to themselves and weren’t on the best terms with each other, the bears had mates and cubs, and any shifter knew how precious that was. Besides, this fight belonged to them all. Feeders threatened their way of life, and Lazarus would die to defend not only his territory, but their existence.
“Then we join together and hunt these things down.” They’d been joining forces over the past few months, working in tandem to locate those things. Lazarus still couldn’t believe the stories about them were true, still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact, but since they truly did exist, he would make sure every last one was eradicated.
They shifted back into their true forms and moved side by side, racing to get to the bears before it was too late.
Chapter Seven
As soon as Bailey’s feet hit the ground outside the bedroom window, doubt gripped him. As angry as he’d been, he didn’t want to leave Walker.
“I know that look,” Corky whispered as Bailey slid the window closed. “You’re having second thoughts.”
“No, I’m not,” Bailey lied.
“Dude, if you want to stay, then stay. Whatever you want to do, I’ll back you up. You know that. But make your decision, ’cause I’m freezing my balls off.”
Bailey thought about how Walker had looked at him during sex, as if Bailey were his entire world. Walker had been nothing but sweet to him, and even though Bailey had yelled at Walker, had said some pretty harsh things, Walker had stood there silently while Bailey had gotten all of that off his chest. He’d never once lashed out or said anything to hurt Bailey’s feelings.
He pressed his hand to his stomach and bit his lower lip. Corky had said they’d take care of the problem growing in his belly, but one, Bailey didn’t consider his unborn child a problem. And two, he’d probably end up in a lab somewhere if any human found out that he was pregnant.
Tears welled up as he shook his head. “I can’t leave him, Corky.” He wiped at his eyes. “As messed up as this is, I just can’t…”
Corky blew out a breath. “Thank fuck. To be honest, I really didn’t want to leave. I’ve grown fond of the Russells.”
Baily craved Walker with every breath he too
k. He just wanted to curl into the man’s arms and feel safe from the world around him.
They ducked when they heard approaching steps. Bailey peeked around the corner to see one of the brothers heading toward the living room doors. If he remembered correctly, the guy was Bobby Ray.
“I need to get back inside,” Bailey whispered. He gave Corky a quick hug. “Thank you for being there for me.”
“I’ll always have your back,” Corky said. “Even when you make boneheaded decisions.”
Bailey frowned. “You were the one who said we needed to get out of here.”
“You were the one who looked like you were about to have a nervous breakdown,” Corky countered. “I was just trying to be supportive. You know I make the worst decisions ever. Why the hell would you listen to me?”
“You could’ve just given me a hug and told me everything was gonna be okay.”
Corky rolled his eyes. “First, I’m not really the hugging type. You know that. Second, I thought I was telling you what you wanted to hear.”
Bailey held up his hand when a noxious smell wafted toward him. “You smell that?”
Corky covered his nose with his hand. “What the fuck is that? It’s like rotten meat and boiled cabbage.” He made a gagging noise. “It smells like my mom’s cooking.”
A lump of fear clogged Bailey’s throat as he thought about the creature Clint and Walker had torn to pieces. Could there be more than one? God, he didn’t want to think so, but he got the same creepy vibe he’d gotten on the night when that thing appeared.
Bailey hurried back to the window and tried to open it, but it was stuck. He jerked when he heard dry twigs snapping, and the foul odor became stronger.
“Come on.” Corky grabbed his hand and hurried them around the side of the house. “Help!” he screamed as Bailey saw something rush by him. It had moved so fast that he hadn’t been able to see what it was.
Howls erupted. Bailey felt like he’d piss himself when three wolves emerged from the clearing, heading their way. They were pretty damn big, and Bailey suspected they were shifters instead of wild animals.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Corky shouted. “Wolves? Are those really wolves?”
Then yowls echoed close by before—what kind of cats were those? Bailey squinted at what looked like leopards racing their way and running past the wolves. Their coats of fur were white with black dots, and their eyes were a vibrant, almost glowing blue.
“This is a damn zoo,” Bailey screeched.
“Oh my God,” Corky snapped, as if more angry than scared. “We’re gonna die and I’m not even high.”
Bailey wished he could be drunk while he was torn apart. Too bad he couldn’t have one last cigarette. Better yet, too bad he wasn’t still in the house. This was a flipping nightmare.
Bailey spun when one of the leopards rushed past him and tackled something behind him. Bailey hadn’t even seen the creatures approaching, but there was more than one. They seemed to be pouring out of the woods, their clothes tattered, their bodies so thin that they looked like walking skeletons.
Corky’s eyes grew round. “Holy shit! Live zombies! Someone give me a gun!”
Walker and his brother burst from the living room, the door slamming so hard behind them that it snapped on its hinges and hung there as they shifted into bears. More bears raced across the yard.
Bailey grabbed Corky’s hand and pulled him toward the house. “We gotta get inside. This is one brawl I don’t wanna watch.”
“It’s like Clash of the Titans versus World War Z,” Corky said as he ran alongside Bailey. “Only with animals and…tell me those aren’t really zombies.”
“I seriously doubt it, but I’m not stopping long enough to ask,” Bailey said.
Before they could get safely inside, one of the creatures plowed into Bailey, sending him crashing against the double pane windows. Bailey hit the ground, his entire right side exploding with pain.
Corky screamed. Bailey shook his head and tried to get up, but the pain forced him back down. He tried again and managed to get to his unsteady feet.
Bailey looked around for Corky, but didn’t see him anywhere. The yard had become one big battlefield. Bailey couldn’t even tell which bear was Walker. His instincts told him to get inside the house, but he wasn’t going anywhere until he found Corky.
Then Bailey spotted him. Corky was on the ground, lying flat on his stomach as a wolf stood over him. The wolf snarled as one of those things circled it.
“Corky!” Bailey raced across the yard, but a bear barreled toward him and blocked his path. He tried to dodge around it, but the bear butted its head into Bailey, coaxing him toward the house.
“No, I need to get to Corky,” Bailey cried. He raced left, getting around the bear and took off. That was when he spotted the blood on Corky’s shirt. He’d been wounded. “Corky!”
Corky looked his way, and Bailey saw the raw terror in his friend’s hazel eyes as he tried to scramble from under the wolf, but the wolf moved every time Corky did, keeping him pinned.
“Get me the fuck out of here!” Corky shouted.
The bear caught up to Bailey and tackled him, placing him under five hundred pounds of fur. He struggled to get free, but the bear wasn’t budging. Bailey could only guess that this was Walker.
“I have to help him,” he begged. “You have to let me help Corky.”
But the bear wouldn’t move. Then Walker shifted and pulled him from the ground. “Jesse has him,” Walker said. “He won’t let any feeders hurt him.”
Was that what they were called? Feeders? Bailey felt like he would be sick.
“But he’s bleeding,” Bailey shouted. He slapped at Walker’s hand, trying to get free. “Let me go!”
Walker jerked Bailey to his feet, and his gray eyes filled with anger. “My only concern is you. I have to get you out of here. Corky will be taken care of.”
“You bastard.” Baily tried to punch him, but Walker dodged his flying fist, his grip on Bailey’s arm never lessening. “Let me go!”
Walker stood there glaring at Bailey one second, and the next he flew backward, taking Bailey with him. They tumbled over each other as a feeder jumped onto Bailey’s chest, its jaws close to his throat.
“No!” Walker shouted as Bailey shoved his hand against the creature’s bony jaw, trying his best to keep those sharp teeth from sinking into his flesh.
Walker shifted and used his weight to knock the feeder off Bailey. This was a complete nightmare! Bailey got to his feet and looked around. He spotted Corky, who was still trapped under the wolf. Then Bailey looked at Walker and the creature fighting.
He was torn. He couldn’t defeat one of those powerful creatures, and the massive bear was winning anyway. Bailey didn’t want to rush across the yard again, because one of those things might get to him, and with Walker occupied, Bailey wouldn’t stand a chance.
He dropped to all fours and threw up when Walker tore the thing apart. Bones crunched and flesh flew as Walker annihilated the thing.
No, no, no. Bailey couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t. This world was too insane to stay in. He looked around the yard and saw that the fighting was slowing, that most of the creatures were either fleeing, or pieces of them were lying around. The wolves and leopards gave chase. All except the wolf who still stood over Corky.
Bailey wiped at his mouth as he sobbed. As badly as he wanted to get away from this madness, he couldn’t leave Walker. He’d tried and failed. His heart wouldn’t let him simply walk away.
Walker pulled him up and curled his arms around Bailey. He ignored the fact that Walker smelled like those foul things and that he’d just seen Walker tear one of them apart. He sank into the man, weeping as Walker shushed him.
“I have you, Bailey. It’s okay. It’s okay, Shorty.”
But it didn’t feel like it would be okay. His universe had flipped upside down, and Bailey was fighting to hold on with both hands.
“Get away
from me, you sick fuck.”
Bailey turned to see Corky on his feet, backing away from the wolf. Then the wolf changed into a man. A very naked and handsome man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes.
“Don’t you dare run from me,” the man growled. Hadn’t Walker called this guy Jesse?
Corky threw up his fists and glowered at Jesse. “Try to bite me again and I’ll kick you in your doggy nuts.”
“What the hell?” Bailey whispered. He looked at Walker. “What’s going on?”
Walker’s eyes were wide as he stared at the pair. “If Jesse is trying to bite your friend, then the two must be—”
“No,” Bailey said. “Corky is Jesse’s mate?”
“It looks like it,” Walker said. “Either that or Corky pissed the alpha off.”
“Alpha?” Bailey swallowed. This was not good.
Corky took off across the yard with Jesse giving chase. Bailey tried to pull away from Walker so he could help his best friend, but Walker refused to let him go. “Let them work this out.”
“No.” Bailey shoved at Walker’s chest. “I know what’ll happen if Jesse bites him, and Corky deserves an option.”
Walker grabbed Bailey’s arm before he could race after them. “You think there’re options? Jesse might be in human form, but his wolf is in control right now. It’s nature, our nature. A mate is our only chance to have children, our only chance at happiness. I’m sorry you’re pissed that you had no options, but this is who we are, how we’ve lived since the beginning of time, and if you stopped fighting against this, you would see how happy I could make you.”
“But Corky deserves to know what he’s getting into.”
“I’m pretty sure you explained everything to him,” Walker said. “I heard part of your conversation in the kitchen. You told him you were pregnant. He knows about the mating heat, about what happens when a mate is bitten.”
Bailey hadn’t known Walker had been listening. Had he heard them hatch a plan to escape? If he did, why hadn’t he tried to stop Bailey? “Only part of the conversation?”