by T. S. Joyce
“Don’t!” Trigger yelled, rounding on him, but the man fell to the floor, and his body just…exploded. It morphed into something new. Something terrifying. A massive mountain lion lay crouched, all its muscles tensed, just feet away from where Ava stood frozen.
“M-m-m-m…” she stuttered, her heartbeat pounding double-time in her ears. Her skin tingled with the urge to run, but she couldn’t move. “Trigger,” she whispered, but he was being dragged away by five men, and Colton was screaming something she didn’t understand.
“Ava!” Trigger yelled.
“No, no, no! Trigger, don’t Change!” her brother roared. And that’s what it was, a roar, but the importance of that came secondary to what the mountain lion did next.
It bunched its muscles and rocketed off the floor, right at her, with such speed and agility, she couldn’t step out of the way fast enough. A scream caught in her throat as time slowed again. Impact was like an avalanche. Her breath was knocked clean out of her as she slammed back onto the floor, and then there was excruciating pain. A ripping ache like she’d never endured. Not when she’d cut her neck on a barbed wire fence when she was seven in an ATV accident. Not when she’d broken her arm falling out of a tire swing. Not even when her heart had broken in two when her dad left. This was pain that she would never forget.
It was the scratch of claws so deep they etched into her collar bone, and in desperation, she yelled out Trigger’s name one last time as the lion’s jaws opened and those impossibly long canines came for her throat.
Through the air, an old Colt Single Action Army, her dad’s old Peacemaker, sailed end over end in a big arch and landed in Trigger’s hand. Eyes blazing with fury, he swung that old pistol quick, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The cat’s teeth barely touched her neck before he was blasted sideways, and he scrambled off her with a scream of pain.
The click of Trig pulling the hammer back echoed in the new silence that had descended on the bar. Ava clutched her bleeding shoulder, wincing at the burn of the claw marks. Everyone had stopped fighting at the sound of the weapon.
“Whoa, you shot him in the ass,” Eric said from behind the bar where he was holding a bat like he was ready to hit a homerun.
“That was on purpose,” Trig snarled. His voice couldn’t even pass for human anymore. “The next one goes between the eyes, Chase. I don’t care who the fuck you think you are. Alpha? Bottom of the Clan? Don’t matter. You were gonna bite her…weren’t you, you sick fuck? You were gonna make her Clan. Claim her as your cougar? Fuck that. You could’ve killed her. You get that, right? And even with a bite, she’d be at my ranch in my clan. Don’t matter her animal, so you best get that dumbshit idea out of your head real quick. Change her like that, and I’ll let the devil out of me and bury your entire Clan. Every last one. I fuckin’ dare you to underestimate me.” The seven-inch barrel of the peacemaker was steady as he kept it aimed at the mountain lion. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you’re not,” an officer said from the doorway.
“Self-defense and we have witnesses,” Colton said from behind Trigger. He jerked his chin at Ava, who was struggling to her feet. “My sister’s got claw marks on her neck, and I’m pretty sure this town don’t need no more attention on the supernatural shit that’s been going on here. She’s human, and she’s mouthy as hell, and she don’t back down an inch. That comes along with being a Dorset. You want to piss her off and let her find her voice?” Colton nodded and dared him, “Lock us up then.”
The dark-haired officer clenched his jaw so hard a muscle twitched there. He cast one hard look to the back door and gritted out, “Get on, then, and don’t come back to the GutShot again.”
Trigger snarled up his lips in a terrifying grimace before he eased the hammer down and handed the old pistol back to Colton. “Lead on, Ava.”
He didn’t ask if she was okay or anything. He really was telling her to walk herself out of here, but she figured out why real quick. Trig and Colton flanked her, covered her back as she made her way to the exit of the GutShot. She felt like she was a newborn filly on unsteady legs as she bounced this way and that.
“It’s the adrenaline,” Trigger said low as he held the door open for her.
Her shoulder hurt so bad, and there was warmth trickling down her fingers. “Babe?” Why did she call him babe? She’d never called a man that. The world was spinning like a top. “I don’t feel so good.”
Her legs buckled, but Trigger’s hands were already scooping her up. He brought her flush to his chest, held her tight. He was warm, and she felt safe, but at the same time, this was awful. How embarrassing to fall apart in front of her brother and Trigger. She wasn’t that girl. She was tough, but here she was, going to pieces on the small, snow-covered back porch of the GutShot, the wind stinging her cheeks and freezing the water that was welling up in her eyes. She angled her face away from Trigger in shame.
“This don’t make you weak, Ava. It’s a lot,” Trigger murmured, like he knew the exact thoughts she was wrestling with right now. “You’re doing good.”
Just that tiny bit of sympathy, that tiny bit of support, meant so much, and she turned and slid her uninjured arm up his neck and squeezed as she buried her face against him. His gait was smooth as he walked them down the porch stairs and toward his truck. Was that his lips against the top of her head? There was a soft growling sound in his chest, and besides the pain, that small terrifying sound was part of the problem.
“Are you like them?”
“I’m nothing like them,” he murmured.
“I mean are you a…a…”
“Mountain lion?”
Her voice barely came out a whisper since she was shaking so bad. “Yes.”
“No.”
“But you’re something more, right? More than human.”
“I’m not a big cat shifter. I’m something much worse.” He sounded sick saying that.
“It ain’t worse,” Colton said, sounding pissed. “It ain’t.”
Steeling herself, she pulled her face away from Trigger’s warm chest and faced the biting wind so she could look her brother in the eyes when she asked, “Are you like Trigger?”
The color of his eyes said yes. They were gold like the sun instead of blue like Dad’s eyes. His cheeks were tinted red, but from anger, the winter wind, or from shame, she couldn’t tell. He spat red in the snow, thanks to a split lip, and he nodded as he reached for the passenger’s side door handle of Trigger’s old Ford. “I am. Chase was almost your maker tonight. Trigger’s my maker. That’s all I’ll ever say about it.” He opened the creaking door and then turned and walked away, his boots making deep prints in the new fallen snow. She and Trigger watched him go. He looked so alone with the evening clouds churning above him, his set of boot prints by themselves in the snow, his shoulders hunched against the whipping wind. He didn’t look back.
“I’ll never forgive myself for that,” Trigger said, and there was a ghost in his voice. “He wanted to come see you, Ava. He would’ve moved where you were just to keep a relationship. But I messed up, and I tethered him to this place. I hurt a lot of people. I ruined lives. I ruined your brother’s the most. You should know that before you start calling me ‘babe.’ That hole you feel in your family? I did that.”
Ava’s face crumpled as Trigger set her gingerly on the seat. She shook her head over and over and wished away the last ten years. She’d made mistakes, Colton had made mistakes, and Trigger had made mistakes to get them all here. But somehow, they’d all ended up in Darby to make things right or go to hell together.
A part of her wanted to get back in that little prop plane and leave this place. Pretend mountain lion men didn’t exist. Pretend she hadn’t watched her brother’s face get bloodied or clawed, or watched Trigger stand over her and pull a trigger to protect her. Part of her wished she could go back and have her world righted again. Go back to her simple, safe life and never worry about the people she
cared about here. But a bigger part of her…the part that had grown loyal over the last couple of days…was relieved she finally knew. Scared, but relieved.
There was a soft ripping sound as Trigger pulled open her clawed-up jacket to look at her shoulder. It hurt so bad she just wanted to go to sleep and not feel anything.
Trig sighed and murmured a curse, then he leaned forward, popped open the glove box, pulled out flask, and told her, “Drink half.”
“This is full,” she argued, shaking it to hear the sloshing sound. “Plus, I don’t think you’re supposed to have booze in your truck like this.”
“Woman, I’ve done way worse shit than carry a flask of whiskey in my truck. Drink it. Trust me, you want to.”
“Okay.” She got brave and chugged the burning liquor. As it seared its way down into her belly, warming her as it went, Trigger opened her jacket wider and dumped the rest on her claw marks without warning.
She screamed, but cut off the sound so she could feel brave. Slamming her head back on the head rest, she closed her eyes and dislodged twin tears to her frozen cheeks. Her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering as he poured the last couple drops on her cuts, and she had to clench her hands to keep them from shaking.
“You did so good, babe,” he murmured, a slight smile at the corners of his lips.
“You called me ‘babe,’” she said, feeling too drained to care whether it was dangerous to fall a little more for Trig. He’d kept her safe tonight. He’d shot a cougar for her. He’d fought for her honor. He was helping her now. Bad boy, good man.
“I’ll give you a choice,” he said, leaning over her to turn the truck on. As he turned up the heat, he reached under the seat with his other hand and pulled out a first-aid kit. “When I was a kid, I was rough on my body. A tree climber and always falling out. Always getting scraped up. Playing with knives and cutting myself on accident because I wasn’t a careful kid. My dad gave me choices when I was hurt bad enough. Keep the scars or he could fix them so they were faint. He would tell me, ‘Boy, our life is made for scars.’ He was an animal like me. A monster. A good dad, but a monster. He would always tell me by the time I grew up, I would be all scarred up like him. He was covered because he was a rogue. Always fighting. He had to so he could keep his territory.”
“Like you?”
“Like me, and like Colton. He said my body would be a canvas that told my story. But I had options. Some cuts he could sew up, patch up, and make into small silver scars that I wouldn’t even notice eventually. Those were the embarrassing ones. The ones where I fell out of a tree but didn’t learn a lesson. Or wasn’t careful enough and cut myself washing dishes. But some he would encourage me to keep. My first fight with a mountain lion.” Trigger pulled the top three buttons apart on his plaid shirt and exposed his taut chest. Under the tattoo ink there were four long, shiny scars.
Ava ran a light touch down them, tracing each one. “He didn’t sew these up, did he?”
“No. I didn’t start that fight, but I ended it, and he wanted me to remember it. I’m good at stitches. Your cuts are clean and short, and they won’t bleed much more. I can stitch you up and make them tiny silver scars that you will hardly notice in two years’ time. Or…you can let them heal like this, own what happened to you tonight, never forget the danger of the Clan, but also never forget how brave you were, because I saw you, Ava Dorset. You had fire in your eyes and cracked a pool stick over the alpha of the Darby Clan just to protect the back of my neck. You were a beautiful badass. I’m good with whatever you choose. Neither makes you weak.”
Ava sat there, aching arm cradled to her stomach, searching his beautiful, flame-gold eyes. She lifted her hand and hesitated just before she touched his dark beard, then found her bravery and brushed her fingertips down his jaw. Trigger rolled his eyes closed and sighed as though it felt good. As though he’d never been touched his whole life. And in this moment, she knew it was going to be very, very hard when she left Darby to go back to her old life.
Now…everything had changed.
She leaned up and sipped his lips. Just tasted them, and his hand went soft when he cupped her cheek. That same hand had pummeled men’s faces to protect her and Colton tonight, but for her, it was as soft as a butterfly’s wings. Gentle giant for now, but she knew there was something big and dangerous sleeping inside of this man. She knew she should be afraid, but fear didn’t exist inside of her right now—only the certainty that she’d never felt this strongly for a man.
His tongue made gentle strokes just past her lips, and time went on and on. She hurt less. Maybe it was the whiskey, or the cold, or maybe it was the drugged sensation she got when his lips were on hers—she didn’t know. All she knew was inside that bar, she’d never been so scared, but out here, in Trigger’s care, she’d never felt safer.
“Trig?” she murmured against his lips.
“Yeah, Ava?”
She ran her knuckles down his beard and whispered, “I think I need the scars so I don’t ever forget tonight.”
A slow smile stretched his face. “Good girl.”
Chapter Eleven
Ava fingered Trig’s jacket he’d laid over her lap in his truck. “We can’t go to the hospital because they would ask too many questions about where I got a claw mark like this, right?”
“That’s right,” Trig rumbled, eyes straight ahead on the road back to the ranch, hand draped over the steering wheel like a professional snow-driver.
It had been a long time since she’d driven in weather conditions this bad.
“And that was Chase…the…alpha? The one who turned into a mountain lion?”
“Alpha of the Darby clan, yes. They’re close-knit, like a family.”
“And animal-men are called…”
“Shifters. Most shifters group up. It’s safety in numbers because we’re territorial. Whole clans can get annihilated if they’re not careful.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice on that last part.
“Are you going to go after them?”
“He hurt you,” Trig said simply.
“So that’s a yes?”
He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring with it, and slid his big, strong hand under the edge of his jacket and over her thigh. Her body’s reaction was instant. Warmth dumped into her middle, and her back arched against the seat. She sidled closer until his fingertips brushed the inside seam of her jeans. He squeezed her hard. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to let her know he could take charge on a second’s notice. Holy moly, he was sexy.
“You’ll have questions, and I don’t mind answering most of them, but on some things, I’m going to stay quiet so you can’t get in trouble.”
“Like when you go after the clan.”
“Yes. Like then.”
He was keeping her out of trouble, so if the cops asked her what happened, she wouldn’t be lying when she said she didn’t know anything.
As much as she wanted to be Bonnie and Clyde right now, she did appreciate him taking care of her in a small way like this. He was going to quietly defend her, and maybe she didn’t want to know what kind of revenge he was probably planning in his head right now. But it meant the world that he was going to avenge the hurt she’d endured tonight.
“You’re making me loyal. You know that, right?”
He massaged her leg and then dragged her closer until her hip hit the seatbelt and stopped her progress. “Explain.”
“My dad couldn’t even stick around for his kids. Couldn’t stick around for me. I hated men. He was supposed to take care of me, and he didn’t. So, I grew up swearing—swearing—to never care about someone so deeply again. Especially not a man, because men were leavers.”
“Colton never left.”
“No, but he was checked out. Nineteen-year-old kid raising his little sister? I ruined his youth. It was clear, and I felt like a burden. Sometimes I thought he worked extra shifts just to get away from me.”
“Nah, he was having trouble keeping the heat o
n. I picked up a part-time job just to help him. He was overwhelmed, but never checked out. You’re his family.”
Feeling brave, she slid her fingers over his on her thigh and squeezed his hand. “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me that. I spent my last few years here thinking he hated me for making him grow up too fast.”
“It wasn’t that, Ava. You had trouble with some of your classes in school. Trouble making the grades. Colton was making it as easy on you as possible to focus on school and get the life you always talked about wanting. His focus was on keeping you in the house you grew up in so nothing else changed for you. But he was a kid, and all of a sudden, he had guardianship and big bills, and he did have to grow up immediately. And he did. For you. He was busting his ass trying to keep life as steady as possible for you.”
“And you were, too?”
Trig huffed a laugh and nodded. “Hell yeah. I was breaking up sheetrock for a construction company and laying tile to help y’all out.”
“Why?” she asked, baffled why a nineteen-year-old kid would give his money away so selflessly like that.
“Because you were Colton’s family, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you both felt like mine to take care of, too.”
She was taken aback. This overwhelming urge to cry and hug him took over her. “I was wrong about so much.”
“Nah, everything happened the way it was supposed to happen. Regrets are pointless. Look what you did with your anger and disappointment. You went out and became a dragon. You run your own business and don’t take no shit from nobody. You know how many women I’ve seen buckle under your kind of start in life? Not you, though. Never you. I never had a single worry about how you would turn out, Ava. Little spitfire, and stubborn as a hair in a biscuit. I fucking love that about you.”
Butterflies flapped around in her stomach at his mention of the L-word, and feeling even bolder, she unbuckled her seatbelt, scooted all the way over on the bench seat of his truck until their shoulders touched, and then she re-buckled herself into the middle seat.