by Selena Scott
But they couldn’t put it off for any longer.
The hardest goodbye for all of them was Ansel. Whose heart was ripped in two. He couldn’t leave his Ruby. But he had to watch his family walk into the unknown, without the biggest bear shifter of them all at their side.
Griff did his best to soothe his brother. “I’ll shift into a bear whenever there’s trouble,” he reassured Ansel.
Ansel laughed, hard as gravel, and tugged Griff into his chest.
And then there was nothing to do but step into Herta.
Matt created the portal and stepped back. The group stepped in, and just as was asked, Matt closed the portal behind them immediately.
The four who stayed behind wiped their eyes and looked at one another.
“Alright,” Matt murmured. “Let’s go get your pregnant feet elevated.”
The women laughed and held each other’s hands as they filed back into the house.
Ansel stared and stared at the place his family had just gone through to another world.
CHAPTER NINE
In the end, it took a year.
After they stepped through the portal, it took them a month to find the rebel shifter group. It took them two weeks after that to gain any trust from them. And it was really Alayna who did that. She went around to each of the fifty rebel shifters, slowly healing and easing their pain. They didn’t have a specific leader, but they were understandably skittish about being led by anyone in particular. Their last leader had enslaved them, after all.
Griff and Alayna did no such thing.
Griff and Alayna led them. They cut doors for any of the shifters who wanted to leave and go back to Earth, and plenty of them did. They fought alongside the ones who wanted to make the hunters pay for what they’d done.
And most importantly, they stormed the countryside, freeing every shifter they met.
None of them were surprised by the ferocity, the honor, the intensity with which the shifters fought for themselves, their own freedom. But they were plenty surprised at the number of ordinary Hertian citizens who fought with them.
More than John Alec or Valentina could ever have predicted. The hunters had wreaked havoc on the countryside. And more than just shifters had felt the impact.
It was with thirty shifters and hundreds of countrymen behind them that their band of six warriors walked into the final battle.
They’d freed hundreds, if not thousands of shifters over the last year, and they were confident that wiping out this final band of hunters would put a firm plug in the enslavement of new shifters.
Griff held the highest branch of the pine tree he’d scaled to view the opposing army. If they could just take down these final several hundred hunters then all they would have left to do is free any of the remaining scattered shifters.
He swung down and practically straight into Alayna’s arms. This was his favorite part. How close she stuck to his side. She’d taken her role extremely seriously, healing and soothing every shifter she came into contact with. But it was Griff who she took the best care of. Every night they wrapped up in one another. Naked and pressing. They’d stopped caring about the close proximity of other campsites. He needed to get inside her every day, one way or another, and neither complained.
In some ways, their love and need for one another had become legendary. It was a symbol for all the other shifters of what a life freely lived could look like. Shifters who’d spent their lives in the dull, pounding pain of Herta, enslaved and downtrodden, got glimpses of this bright-hot love between their two leaders. And they fought harder. Fought for lives where they could have that, too.
But today was a bit different than the other days and they both knew it. There had been countless skirmishes and dust-ups with hunters over the year. They’d made a serious impact on the hunter population. But this was battle. Full on. One line of soldiers advancing on another. Winner take all.
Griff wasn’t worried. And neither was Alayna.
They’d come to kick ass and they wouldn’t leave until they’d kicked ass.
“How close are they?” John Alec called through the trees and Griff and Alayna walked back through the clearing to their troops.
“Quarter of a mile.”
“It’s time then,” Milla said, cracking her neck from one side to the other and checking the blades that were lashed to her hips. They most likely wouldn’t be used, though. With Alayna’s healing powers, all of them found that it was much more possible to shift on Herta these days. They were doing much more fighting in their shifted forms.
Valentina held one extremely sharp blade out to John Alec. “For father.”
John Alec tapped her blade with his. “For father.” He paused. “Don’t go too far away during battle.”
She rolled her eyes at her over-protective brother. They both knew who the better fighter was. And the fact that she would most likely be the one watching over all of them.
“I’ve got her, don’t worry,” Kain said, slinging an arm around her neck. “She is my wife, after all.”
They’d gotten married in a small Hertian ceremony just a few months ago. Valentina and John Alec had shocked them all with the lines of tears that had dripped off their chins.
They were all straightening their weapons and armor, checking one another over when a familiar light and sound opened up behind them. The group stiffened in surprise as a golden portal opened up and quickly closed. Ansel stepped through, large and blond and stern.
“Ansel!” Milla ran to her older brother and tossed her hands around his neck. “You came.”
“I’m not letting my family go into battle without me,” he muttered, touching the locket he wore around his neck. Ruby and Scarlet, his baby girl, were pictured there.
Hugs and backslaps all around and then Griff was feeling especially good. He’d always wanted to fight alongside Ansel. And he’d never been able to until now. “How’s my niece?” he asked, slapping a large hand on his brother-in-law’s back.
“Which one?” Ansel asked. “You’ve got three of ’em.”
Inka and Matt had had another girl, Isabella, about four months ago.
“Any of them!”
“They’re all good,” Ansel told the group. “Everyone’s good. Inka’s pregnant again.”
Milla threw her hands up in the air and paced away from the group. “Holy God, the woman is a machine!”
“I’d say that Matt is the one who’s the machine,” Kain grinned lazily at Valentina but the smile dropped at the serious expression on his wife’s face. “What?”
“I keep forgetting to tell you,” she said, her honey eyes calm and right on his. “I’m pregnant, too.”
Kain’s face didn’t change for five whole seconds. In fact, he looked as if he were frozen in time. Then about fifty different emotions showered over him all at once. He staggered to one side and then the other. Eventually he just kind of slowly melted to the ground. He reached up, grabbed Valentina by the shirt and tugged her down on top of him. “You’re kidding. You’re not kidding. Holy mother flipping God in heaven sweet baby Hertian Jesus on a cracker YOU’RE PREGNANT?!?!?!?”
She nodded solemnly, but laughed into his kiss.
Griff couldn’t help but kiss Alayna, too. Milla and John Alec, arms around one another, grinned too.
“Alright,” Valentina said as she stood and tugged her husband to standing. “Enough of that. Let’s go end this.”
Griff sniffed at the air. The hunters were even closer. It was time.
He grabbed Alayna by the hand and strode over to where their army waited. Shifters and citizens alike, they stood in groups, sharpening knives and tying armor over their chests.
When Griff and Alayna stood in front of them, the group naturally quieted, waiting for words.
Alayna looked at Griff, saw what she had to do and turned to the soldiers. She raised one sharp sword straight into the air.
“No speeches!” she hollered. “Just fighting.”
The gr
oup roared back at her, making her smile that regal little smile of hers. Griff turned, facing in the direction from where the hunters were advancing.
He felt his family beside him. He felt his army behind him. And he felt his woman at his side.
They charged.
The two armies met in a cleared valley, mostly decorated in tall grasses with a creek running down the middle. Griff didn’t wait, he cleared the creek in one huge jump and charged into the line of fierce, bone-faced hunters.
These were the assholes responsible for the shifter slave trade. Responsible for the murders of thousands of shifters. The ones who wanted nothing more than to keep shifters underneath the boot of Hertians.
Griff’s swords took out three with one swipe. He watched Alayna do the same on one side. John Alec shot perfect arrow after perfect arrow, never missing a target. Milla swung a hatchet and did not miss. Kain slid neatly underneath a hunter’s blade and got him through the back on the other side.
But it was Valentina who was putting on the real show. Pregnant or not, she massacred. She was almost dancing through the battlefield. Heads literally flew. She cleared a twenty-foot swath of hunters, running over the pile of them and front-flipping perfectly into the next group.
Still there were more, an endless sea of hunters running toward them.
Ansel charged, in his full, golden bear form and his earthquaking roar rumbled into Griff’s chest cavity. Fifteen feet away, a hunter raised his sword over Milla’s turned back and before he could think twice, Griff was an eagle. He winged across the battle field and flung the sword away with his clawed feet.
He tumbled back into the fray as a tiger, tearing and biting. And then he was a bull, charging and snorting, tossing hunters one way and then the next.
He was a venomous snake around the neck of one hunter and then a gorilla, pounding his chest and tossing another hunter fifteen feet in the air. At his back, a huge golden bear tore through a group of hunters and then two more golden bears were there, too.
And Griff shifted into his favorite form. A Kodiak bear. As grand as the rest of his family. And the four of them made their way through the hunters. Crushing them one by one. As long as he lived, he’d never forget what it felt like, to fight for freedom alongside his family. He’d gone from an orphan to a prisoner to a loner to having a humongous family complete with a woman at his side. He’d never imagined his life could be like this. And now, one of the greatest gifts of all, he got a chance to defend that life. There was no more shifting after that. He stayed in his bear form and fought like an animal. He fought exactly the way he was born to. He never paused and he never stopped.
***
Hours later, Griff and Alayna made their way one by one to every person who’d fought. She was exhausted but still pushing. Taking hand after hand, dissolving pain, healing the worst of the wounds.
Valentina and John Alec were still on the battleground, exterminating any remaining hunters.
It would be almost a week before they could make it home. Hundreds of shifters came with them. There were still more to be rescued. And they wouldn’t stop. But it was time to go home.
All those rescued shifters, of course, caught the eyes and the ears of the world, who hadn’t seen or heard of a single shifter since the 1920s, when the first portals had started opening up and luring shifters to Herta.
Though the Ketos didn’t love the ensuing publicity, they were definitely relieved for the worldwide aid sent their way. There were a lot of shifters to help re-integrate into their new lives on Earth.
It was a month after the battle that the family finally took a breath. They finally, finally all relaxed in Ansel and Ruby’s living room. Lasagna on each plate, a baby in a lot of their arms.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Kain said to no one in particular, one hand stroking his wife’s still-flat belly. He couldn’t believe they were going to have a baby. It was beyond his wildest dreams that he’d have this with Valentina. And that maybe, just maybe, they could raise their child straddled between two worlds. They’d made Herta as safe as possible. And he knew so much of Valentina’s heart was still there.
“Thank God,” Ruby responded to him, brushing the fiery red hair back on her gigantic baby girl. “I’m done sending the people I love into another world at their own peril.”
“Me, too,” Inka and Matt said at the same time. Matt held Isabella in one arm and Carmen in the other. Mateo was in the process of belly crawling across the floor toward Uncle Kain.
“It’s a relief,” Ansel said, in the understatement of the century. He couldn’t stand it anymore and slid his arms under Scarlet’s dense little body, taking her from Ruby, but scooching in on the couch next to her.
“Now we’ll finally have time to get married,” Alayna said to Griff as he placed a glass of wine in one of her hands and sat down on the floor in front of her. He leaned on her legs and dropped his head back to see her.
“Hell, yeah.”
“Have you guys thought about what kind of wedding you want to have?” Ruby asked from across the room.
“A small wedding,” Alayna said. “Just our family.”
“And…” Griff nudged her.
“Oh. Right. But I want it to be extremely formal. Like a wedding for a princess.”
They all laughed, because it was perfectly Alayna. Small and intimate with just the right amount of excessive sparkle thrown in.
Milla surreptitiously scooped up baby Isabella from her brother-in-law’s arms and carried the little fussy bundle over toward the windows looking out on the back lawn.
There were a few shifters still sleeping in the guesthouse. Milla knew the work was far from over. But the danger? The danger had subsided. Without the hunters to drag them off to auction and enslave them, the Hertian citizens would care for any shifters who were lured to Herta. They’d send them back home through the portals. And besides, the government was already talking about how to properly guard the portals to keep that from happening anyways.
“Your hair is getting long, little queen,” John Alec said as he nuzzled into his wife’s neck and traced a hand over the baby’s fuzzy head.
It was true, Milla had let it grow over the last year and her glossy blond tresses were down past her chin. She tossed it back. “Lots of things are changing.”
Her husband banded his arms around her waist and looked out over the dark backyard with her. “You’re not sad the war is over, are you?”
“No! No, not really. Well, maybe a little.”
He laughed. “Me, too. I’m relieved, of course. But I was born a warrior. And now there’s no war. You were born a warrior, too. And a queen.”
She laughed. “We’ll have to figure out something else to do with our time.”
He nodded. “There will still be plenty of work to do here. We’ll have all these displaced shifters to work with and—”
“I want one.” She turned in the circle of his arms and clutched the baby to her chest. “I know we said that we weren’t sure kids were for us. But that was when we were always racing off into battle. And now, she just smells so good and I love you so much and—”
“Thank God,” he murmured, dropping his forehead to hers. Those brown eyes arrowing straight into her green ones. “Me as well. I want one as well.”
“I might not be a very patient or nurturing mother,” she told him.
He didn’t laugh, because it wasn’t the time, but he knew how wrong she was. She saved all her sweetness for him. And he knew she’d save the rest for their child. “That’s alright,” he told her. “Inka and Ruby will be patient and nurturing for our child. You and I will teach him how to fight.”
She nodded, perfectly serious, like it was a perfect plan. “Or her.”
“Or her,” he agreed. Thinking of Milla the Warrior and Valentina the Warrior.
The night was long and luxurious. More than one adult fell asleep with a baby across their chest before the group disbanded. Ruby hugged each person har
d as they stepped out of her house. Especially her brother.
“You’re everybody’s mom, you know,” he whispered in her ear. “Not just mine. Not just Scarlet’s.”
Her eyes filled. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious, Ruby. We wouldn’t be a family like this if it weren’t for you.”
“We all did our part, Griffy. You included.”
“I know.” His part had been to end the war. It was the only gift he could have ever given the Ketos that would have been grand enough to thank them for becoming his family. He was grateful for it. He kissed his sister, and Scarlet’s fuzzy head, slapped Ansel on the back and waved goodbye to the rest.
His hand in Alayna’s swung as they walked back through the woods together toward his house. Their house.
The moon on her skin was too tempting, though, and she laughed when he swooped low, picking her up and pinning her against a tree. A few strategic shifts of clothes and he was inside her, hard and hot and relentless. Like always.
Alayna let her head drop back as he loved her, pushing her to her limits in a way she was so thankful for. She realized, like a cloud pulling back from the sun, that she was also grateful for those years they spent apart. Everything, everything had brought her here. To this moment. Back to Griff. They’d been too young before. Trying to hold onto love with both hands and no skill. Maybe they would have strangled it if they’d kept on holding that tight.
But now, with his gentle-rough hand up under her shirt and his breath panting at her neck, her pleasure spiraling out and making her tense and grip him with everything she had, Alayna knew they were going to make it.
They’d learned how to hold tight and gentle all at once. They’d learned how to love ferocious and sweet. They’d learned how to live.
She stiffened against him, coming again and this time right with him as he sucked at her neck and whispered her name.
He slid her down off the tree and helped straighten her clothes, kissing her silly the entire time.