by Amy Star
“It’s not charity if she’s actually interested in you,” Dylan pointed out.
After he and Nadine had had sex three, or possibly four, times the night before, as they were preparing to fall asleep, Dylan had broached the topic of his best friend with the woman once more. Nadine had still been uncertain, but he had managed to get her to admit that she was, in fact, attracted to Matthew.
In Dylan’s mind, it only made sense that he and Matthew would share Nadine—provided they were both attracted to her. If Matthew hadn’t been interested in the one-natured human at all, the point would have been completely moot, and Dylan wouldn’t have had any qualms about having sex with her as much as possible. But knowing that Matthew wanted Nadine as much as he did, Dylan thought sharing the woman—convincing her to become their joint mate—was the best possible solution to a number of problems.
They'd both be getting laid regularly, without having to go out. They’d have a mate without having to deal with all the bullshit that comes along with trying to convince an unaffiliated shifter female to commit. What’s not to like about it? Sharing a mate would make it harder to find a sleuth or clan to join but Dylan had almost decided that there was no point in joining another clan or sleuth after the way their previous clan leader had treated him and Matthew. Objectively, he knew there had to be better leaders in the world—but he didn’t want to bounce from one group to another until he found one.
“You’re sure it wouldn’t get weird between us? I mean it’s one thing to share treats or the spoils of a raid,” Matthew said, shrugging and turning to sniff at something. Dylan waited for his friend to make his evaluation and continued onward. “It’s another thing to share a woman. Bears aren’t known for keeping harems or anything like that.”
Dylan snorted. “Were-lions don’t usually have multiple mates either,” he pointed out. “But think about it, okay? It’s a good idea, I think.” Dylan glanced around, his gaze taking in the same houses they’d seen several times since moving in.
What he wanted—and what he knew Matthew wanted, in spite of the fact that neither of them had talked about it—was to find a good place to transform into his bear form, and run around unfettered for a while. During the full moon, in particular. Dylan tilted his head back and sampled the air, frowning at an unfamiliar scent until his instincts identified it as a dog. One of their neighbors must have gotten a new pet, Dylan decided, continuing on the path with Matthew at his side.
Dylan thought for a moment about how good it would feel to fully shift into his animal form, to give in to the impulses that he had to keep a tight rein on day-to-day. He would have to wait until after he and Matthew had settled the issue of the lions threatening them, because Dylan knew it would be too much for Nadine to deal with, and they couldn’t leave her alone overnight, but once they could… he sighed, glancing at Matthew to see if his friend had noticed the inopportune noise.
“Hold on,” Matthew said, stopping mid-step.
Dylan stopped, too, turning his head one way and then the other, sniffling at the air to try and catch whatever it was that had alerted Matthew. He sorted through the scents on the air carefully, identifying flowers, a few of their neighbors, two dogs, a feral cat, and some rodents, his mind going through each of the scents that painted the air around them.
Matthew turned around, facing the direction they had come from, and frowned. Dylan raised an eyebrow in query, turning as well and peering into the distance, trying to see or smell or hear whatever had piqued his partner’s interest.
“What have you got?” Dylan asked quietly.
“Something,” Matthew said, frowning in faint confusion.
He shook his head, stepping in the direction they had come in, and Dylan heard the sniffling, snuffling noises of Matthew sampling the air. If anyone in the neighborhood was watching them, Dylan knew they’d look strange; but to the best of his knowledge, few of the people living in the houses on the block were ever home during the day. Dylan joined his partner in scenting the air, trying to figure out what had taken Matthew’s notice. He decided after a moment that Matthew was right; there was definitely something in the air that called his attention, that seemed out of place and almost alarming. Dylan just couldn’t identify quite what it was, and the sensation began to bother him as much as it was apparently irritating Matthew. His heart beat a little faster, and Dylan’s instincts—animal-keen—told him to prepare for some kind of fight, though he wasn’t sure what kind it would be.
Dylan felt the hackles beginning to raise on the back of his neck; the next moment, the sound of movement made him turn his head in the direction it had come from.
“That’s them,” someone said—the voice was feminine.
Dylan’s heart began to pound and he took a step away from Matthew, settling his weight on the balls of his feet and preparing for the fight that he was now certain was imminent.
“Grab ‘em fast—we don’t want any witnesses.”
Out of the bushes surrounding one of the houses, Dylan saw a handful of men and women emerge. He glanced for just a moment at Matthew and nodded quickly. From another cluster of overgrown bushes on the other side of the street, another group of men and women emerged. Dylan counted mentally: altogether there were maybe twelve. Did they all come out for this ambush? Or is this just part of that little group? For the moment the question didn’t matter, but Dylan told himself that if he and Matthew managed to hold their own and drive the lions off, he’d make sure to verify it once they got home. We’re going to have to move to a hotel if this isn’t all of them.
The dozen were-lions surrounded him and Matthew quickly, keeping their distance for a moment. Dylan took each one of the members of the group in turn: there were maybe three more men than women in the group, and all of them were dressed for a brawl, wearing leathers and denim, a few of them in jumpsuits or Dockers.
“If you’ve got a problem with Alex being dead, you should talk to the guy who ordered his death,” Matthew said.
“Just because someone ordered it doesn’t mean it has to get done,” one of the women in the group said. “Filthy mercs like the two of you have a choice to take or leave a job.”
“Are you going to jump us or not?” Dylan glanced around the group, mentally evaluating which of the members might be the most dangerous—those were the ones he’d want to take out as quickly as possible. “If we stand around here like this much longer, someone’s apt to see—and if anyone changes, shit’s going to go down.”
“Now!”
Movement erupted all around the circle, and Dylan sprung into action. He launched himself at the most dangerous-seeming of the members of the group, knocking the man down to the ground, ducking under the swing of a knife angled at his shoulder. Dylan let his animal instincts take over, listening only to make sure that Matthew wasn’t signaling any kind of mayday as he growled, punched, and clawed at the man he had taken down. The lion underneath him roared out, kicking and scratching, but Dylan managed to avoid the worst of the attacks, tumbling with the man to dodge the others coming after him while his back was turned.
Everything became a blur as Dylan fought with two or three members of the almost-pride at a time, catching sight of a blur in the corner of his eye and swatting at it. He saw knives; he caught the glint of brass knuckles on fists. Most shifters didn’t like to use guns—the animal nature gave them all a preference for close-quarters fighting—but Dylan kept alert to the possibility that someone in the group, or possibly several people, might have decided to pack heat in light of how dangerous he and Matthew had proved to be.
One after one, Dylan fought the attackers that came into his range, throwing himself into his assault with animal abandon. He didn’t spare even a moment to think about Nadine back at the house—it was more important for him to get out of the current situation and to make sure Matthew did the same than to worry about whatever might be happening to Nadine while they were occupied. Dylan felt the change rippling along his bones and nearly gave
in to it in spite of the risk of being seen transforming in broad daylight; if any of their neighbors were home and watching, Dylan knew that someone would call the cops at any moment.
He lost track of time and count of the attackers he threw himself at, barely even noticing the few slices of a knife that connected with his body, painting stripes of liquid, stinging fire along his arms and legs. Dylan heard the change in the sounds coming from the were-lions that had ambushed them: growls and roars changing into yelps and groans of pain as he attacked mindlessly, reacting from pure instinct.
In a matter of what felt—somehow—as if it had been both hours and mere seconds, Dylan realized that the lions were beginning to retreat. He had killed at least three of them, and from what he had heard, in the back of his mind, Dylan thought Matthew might have taken out three more. The more able-bodied of the group started carrying their dead away, the others limping, and the circle that had surrounded them began to evaporate.
“This isn’t over,” one of the lions said, slinking down the sidewalk and looking over his shoulder at Dylan and Matthew balefully. “You assholes are going down.”
Dylan sagged on the sidewalk, the adrenaline in his system beginning to ebb. He could feel the cuts and scratches and bruises that had come along with the fight; but fortunately, he thought, he didn’t seem to have any truly bad stab wounds. He looked over at Matthew, sprawled on the grass of someone else’s lawn. His best friend had blood—his own and several were-lions’—covering his clothes, making it hard to tell how badly Matthew might have been hurt.
“You able to walk, man?”
“In a minute,” Matthew replied, taking a deep breath and exhaling sharply. “Good fight.”
“Yeah,” Dylan agreed, pulling himself up onto his knees. “Think that was all of them?”
“I don’t think so,” Matthew said. “If it was, they’d have kept fighting until they either all died or they killed us.”
“You’re right about that,” Dylan agreed. “We’re going to have to get to a hotel.”
“We need to make sure they didn’t send a second team to grab Nadine,” Matthew pointed out.
“Yeah,” Dylan said, nodding. It was the same thought that had started to filter through his mind even as he’d fought off his share of the attackers. He wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty that he hadn’t considered it as much as Matthew had, or if he should be worried that his friend—who didn’t seem to want to share the woman that Dylan had already taken—might actually be a sounder investment of her feelings. You’re in the downspin, he told himself, gathering up the last of his energy and rising to his feet. Make sure Matt’s okay, and then both of you haul ass to the house and check on Nadine. Obviously you know that the lions have already found your place. “Let’s get back to her. Are you sure you’re okay to walk?”
“Yeah,” Matthew said, rising more slowly than usual—but with only a little pained cringe to show the extent of his injuries. “Let’s make sure they haven’t snatched your girlfriend and then we can both get cleaned up and see if either of us needs stitches.”
Dylan took a deep breath and looked at Matthew intently for a moment longer as he stood up straight, starting to walk back in the direction they’d come. Hopefully, Dylan thought, none of the neighbors had been in; or if they had, they’d decided to mind their own business and not call the cops.
“We need to move fast,” Dylan said, starting after Matthew and catching up to the other man in a few steps. “If anyone saw what just happened, they’re liable to call some pigs.”
“Shit, you’re right,” Matthew said. Dylan smiled weakly as his best friend cussed under his breath for a full minute. “Okay. We check on Nadine, get cleaned up, and get the hell out of dodge. The cops will take at least twenty minutes to get here, assuming anyone called them.”
“Not a very long or a very good shower,” Dylan said, shrugging as they walked up the sidewalk slowly. “But hopefully, we find us a hotel with a fucking whirlpool.”
“You’re thinking of fucking your girl at a time like this?” Matthew shot a sardonic look at Dylan, shaking his head.
“Hey, it’s natural pain relief,” Dylan countered. “Why, starting to rethink your position on sharing?”
“Fuck,” Matthew muttered, groaning as they made their way further along the sidewalk. “Right about now I could use a hand in the shower. A pair of hands. And maybe a mouth.”
“See if you can convince her,” Dylan suggested. “I’m not going to begrudge you a few nights a week with her.”
“If we share her,” Matthew said, his voice losing some of the tightness of the pain that came with his injuries, “we’re going to have to work out a schedule. And give her a couple of nights a week where she’s not having her brains fucked out.”
“Two nights a week—seems fair,” Dylan agreed. “And then coin toss for day five out of the week?”
“Fair,” Matthew said, nodding. “That’s assuming she agrees to it.”
Dylan patted his longtime friend on the shoulder and picked up his pace, becoming more and more apprehensive about the fact that Nadine might not even be at the house when they returned. None of their agreements about how they would share her would amount to much of anything if the lions had already gotten to her—particularly if the lions decided to kill her in retaliation. He told himself he had no reason to think the ragtag group had done it; but he knew it was only too possible that the not quite pride had split up into two groups in order to divide and conquer.
“They were thinking they’d be able to take us,” Dylan pointed out to Matthew. “Did you notice how none of them had guns? If they’d just wanted to kill us, they could have taken us out that way.”
“Wouldn’t have taken that many of them either,” Matthew agreed.
Dylan looked over at his friend and for a moment they both paused, coming to the same conclusion. There was something more to whatever the rogue group of were-lions was after; they didn’t just want revenge on the two men responsible for killing their friend. They wanted something more. Dylan took a deep breath and exhaled.
“We are definitely getting the hell out of dodge ASAP,” he said after thinking about the situation for a moment longer. “We need to figure out what we can about this group of assholes and take them out completely.”
Dylan had no idea why they would have wanted to take Dylan and Matthew alive, but he was not convinced that anyone in the group had good intentions towards either of them. Whether it was that their de facto leaders wanted to torture them, or they were working for someone else with more money and power, Dylan wanted to find out before another gambit by the group succeeded. He picked up the pace of his steps and Matthew fell in next to him. Though neither of them had the energy to run, they managed to move quickly enough to catch sight of the house within five minutes.
Dylan just hoped that the emptiness around the house was because Nadine was in there undisturbed, and not because the lions had grabbed her and fled already, taking her with them to take the punishment they wanted to mete out to Dylan and Matthew for their wounded and lost friends. Dylan pushed down his worries and found his keys in his pocket.
*
Nadine pushed her laptop away from her on the bed, slumping onto her side with a sigh. She closed her eyes, wondering why—at a time when she was on the run from a group of supernatural creatures—she was even bothering with her work. It’s not like it’s going to make any difference whether I just drop off the face of the planet or not, she thought bitterly. She was sure her boss, Darren, probably wouldn’t see it that way for at least a couple of weeks, not until he’d found and trained her replacement, at least.
But from the moment Matthew and Dylan had stepped into their house, covered in blood and already beginning to tell her that they would all have to leave, Nadine had known the situation had changed. It was no longer a matter of the two men keeping her safe in their house until the situation blew over. It wasn’t even a matter of the two men finding whatever
den the were-lions had taken and just taking them out all in one fell swoop. It had become much more complicated than that.
They’d traveled up from Broward to Palm Beach County; Nadine had insisted on checking on her apartment before they’d left. She shuddered, remembering the sight that had greeted her when they’d arrived there; her entire apartment had been trashed, furniture clawed. Someone had scrawled on the wall in red paint: You’re next!
There had been almost nothing left to salvage. Nadine had counted herself lucky that at least she had managed to get the most important things when they’d stopped at the apartment before. In the end, she had simply decided to call the cops anonymously and report that one of the units had been broken into. She, Dylan, and Matthew had had just enough time to gather what little of her possessions she wanted to hold onto and leave before the police arrived. I wonder if they put any of those trained dogs on the job, she thought, staring through the hotel window as waves of nausea and cold washed through her. Nadine almost laughed at the thought of how trained police dogs would have reacted to the scent of lions and bears in an apartment. The handlers wouldn’t know what to make of the situation at all.
Nadine knew she would eventually have to answer a lot of questions about what had happened at her apartment and what she might know about it, as well as several more about where she had been when the vandalism and theft had taken place. The police didn’t seem to be in any hurry to investigate it—she hadn’t gotten any calls, and whichever cops had arrived on the scene after she, Dylan, and Matthew had left would have been able to get her number from the front office of her complex. Eventually, they would almost certainly get to it, especially if and when people started missing some of the lions that Dylan and Matthew had taken out that same day.
“Really, I might as well just quit my job and try to convince Dylan and Matthew to train me to become some kind of mercenary like them,” Nadine said quietly.
Her eyes prickled and she felt a hot tear rolling down her cheek, thinking of everything she had already lost in her life. It didn’t seem like she would be able to hold onto her job for much longer; she didn’t have her apartment, she didn’t have her routine, and she didn’t have about ninety percent of the things she had owned before everything had happened.