by Elle Thorne
Leandra stepped closer to Rory, put her hand on his arm. “Her bloodlust hasn’t been easy to control, even with my help. She has needs that you and I don’t understand. She’s not the first shifter with those. I’ve read the records.”
“Records?” Evie was puzzled.
What records? What is this bloodlust thing? What the hell is going on?
Rory frowned, remaining silent. His gaze on Leandra was fierce and full of anger. Then he turned that same heated stare toward Lézare. “You’re endorsing this? You’re willing to put her life on the line?”
“No fucking way.” A growl escaped with Lézare’s words. His tiger’s fury flashed amber in his eyes.
Valencia turned on Lézare, quicker than he could respond her claws were on his throat. “Brother.” Her voice had an otherworldly tinge to it. “There are things I need to tell you. Things I haven’t. That I should have.”
Next to her Rory nodded.
Valencia swiveled to face Rory. “And things I should tell you.”
Nearby, Leandra nodded sagely, as if none of this was a surprise to her. “It is what must be done. Rory will do this, as your mate.”
“Of course, I’ll do anything for her.” Rory’s tone was baffled. “You know that, don’t you?” He drew Valencia close.
Evie watched them. Their couplebond was obvious. But there was something more, something deeper between her sister and this wolf shifter.
“What happened to you?” Evie whispered, not realizing that she’d spoken out loud until Valencia turned toward her.
Funny, her younger sister, who’d always been her peer, always been like two peas in a pod in so many ways, was different now. Valencia had a poise to her, a self-assuredness that she’d never exhibited before.
She’s like a huntress, was the thought that came to Evie’s mind. But a huntress of what?
Valencia cocked her head, studying Evie, as if measuring.
Measuring what? What she can share with me?
“Valencia, what is it?” Alexa glanced at her sister then surveyed the rest of their group. Was she the only one who didn’t know what the hell was going on here? She looked at Mason. He seemed as confused as she was.
At least I’m not alone in this.
“Vampire,” Valencia started. “I was…” She paused, cleared her throat. Tears filled Valencia’s eyes, making the crimson to black color change look even more odd. Valencia bit her lip, then opened her mouth, revealing fangs.
Not shifter fangs.
Vampire-like fangs!
What the fuck?
“You’re a vampire?”
“A hybrid,” Leandra said. “And she needs to hunt.”
“Scanlon will do for now. But I have to feed this—” A shudder made her body ripple. “—this thing within me.” She turned Evie. “A vampire attacked me. He bloodshared with me. I have bloodlust. I will have to hunt.”
“And you will be with her, always.” Leandra told Rory. It wasn’t a request. “And…” Deep breath, Leandra’s body heaved with the effort to take air in.
Theo put his hand on her back, as though supporting her.
Leandra continued, “The vampire that did this to her is bound to her now. If he dies, Valencia dies. If Valencia dies, he dies.” Her voice was low.
“Shit.” Reese exhaled.
“Exactly.” Rory nodded. “I’ll never leave her side. I can’t agree to this battle with Scanlon. It goes against everything I believe in, everything I hold sacred. There’s no way in hell I’m letting my mate, a woman, get into a cage with the crazed beast that this disorder will turn him into.”
“Rory.” Theo’s tone was patient. “Must I remind you of her fight with the vampires? She did that on her own. She handled that herself.”
Rory shook his head, driving his fist into his palm. “I can’t. No.”
A tight circle formed. Theo, Leandra, Rory, and Lézare—all discussing Valencia’s proposal.
Evie felt the brush of air whooshing past her, but it took her a few seconds to process what had happened.
She looked around. “Where’s Valencia?”
All of their group began to look around. Valencia had vanished. Faster than the blink of an eye, she was gone.
“What the hell!” Rory stormed toward the door blocked by Todd’s shifter henchmen.
Alexa and Reese grabbed him, brought him back.
“Let me go.” Rory’s voice was a low snarl.
“Simmer down for a moment.” Lézare’s voice was low.
Rory settled into a spot between Lézare and Alexa.
Lézare began, “It’s not going to serve us to try to storm these guys. There are more on the other side. We could be easily caught up in a battle while Valencia is out there—doing God knows what.”
Evie had a feeling she knew what—Valencia was going to fight Todd Scanlon.
“This is all your fault,” she hissed at Mason.
His head snapped in her direction. “Mine? You’re the one that…” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Never mind.”
“At least I didn’t take pride in a picture of me with a girl sucking my—”
Lézare raised his hand. “Not the time.”
“Sorry,” Evie mumbled. He was right. And she was a sorry bitch for switching the subject. Just because Valencia thought she could handle the situation didn’t mean she could.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Mason said. “But we’ll finish this later.”
Evie shook her head.
Denial from him. Such bullshit.
What did she expect?
“Let me talk to them,” Alexa indicated the shifters guarding the door. “We have to appear to be willing to go through with this, then when we get there, we’ll figure it out.” Alexa took off for the shifters with a confident stride.
Evie kept her eyes glued on her sister. She’d leap to her defense in a heartbeat, if needed.
Lézare glanced at Theo. “You have men outside?”
“More than enough. But this room’s is blocking my cell phone signal.”
Lézare glanced around. “I’m sure that’s not an accident. As soon as we get out of here, you get your men ready, have them come in. It could get ugly.”
Alexa waved for them to approach.
Evie tapped Lézare and Rory on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mason slipped away from the group and made his way toward the spot he knew his former roommate Todd Scanlon and Valencia would be. Assuming Valencia made it to Scanlon, and assuming he was willing to take her challenge.
He found the room he’d first been held in.
And he found the cage that imprisoned him.
He wondered why Scanlon didn’t put this in the main room. Maybe he doesn’t want the public to witness this? Why not?
Lights shone on the cage while the rest of the room was dim. The cage was so brightly lit, it resembled a theater stage.
And it wasn’t empty.
Valencia was in the cage, and across from her, Scanlon was pacing the fifteen-foot-by-fifteen-foot area. His arms were crossed over his chest. At least two dozen of Scanlon’s shifter staff stood behind the cage, waiting, watching, their eyes wary.
“—if I win…” Scanlon was saying.
Valencia laughed. The note in her tone made a shiver run down Mason’s spine. This wasn’t the Valencia he knew when he and Evie were together. Valencia’s eyes were such a dark crimson color, they appeared almost solid black. “You? Win?”
Scanlon nodded. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
“To the contrary.” Valencia’s voice was hollow, devoid of emotions. “You do not know what you are dealing with.” Her lips curled into a dangerous smile, revealing fangs that didn’t belong on a tigress shifter. “Do you really think your little affliction will give you the power you need to defeat me?”
“You don’t scare me.” Scanlon’s manner was boastful.
&nbs
p; Mason stepped toward the cage. “You can’t do this,” he told Valencia, his voice raised. “This is my battle.”
“I get Evangeline if I win.” Scanlon smirked. “It doesn’t matter to me which one of you is the victim.”
Valencia studied Scanlon, her eyes narrowed to slits.
What makes him think Evie will simply become his if he wins?
Mason wondered if Brahnson’s Touch made Scanlon delusional. Surely he had to know Evie was no pushover. He approached the cage, but was intercepted by his former roommate’s henchmen.
“Let them be,” one of the shifters said.
“If we’re lucky, she wins,” another one mumbled.
A third one nodded in agreement.
Why do they want him to lose? That means he’d be dead. They’d be unemployed.
Valencia glanced out the bars, her eyes meeting Mason’s. “Where are they?”
He knew she meant the rest of her family and her mate.
“Looking for you.”
“How’d you find me so fast?”
“These were Mason’s accommodations,” Scanlon spoke so lightly, as if Mason had been a guest, not a prisoner.
“More or less.” Mason looked at the sparkle in his eyes.
That fucker is dangerous.
That was what the witch had been saying all along.
“Stand guard,” Scanlon instructed his flunkies. “I don’t want any more interruptions.” He pointed to Mason. “He’s our guest. We don’t want him leaving to get the others.”
Fuck. If he kills Valencia…
In the cage, Scanlon grunted, then his bear exploded from within, as if consuming Todd whole.
One minute Scanlon was there, the next minute, the bear. The transformation was immediate.
Mason had never seen anything like it.
Is that what Brahnson’s Touch does? Makes him shift so fucking quickly?
Scanlon stood on his hind legs and roared, his huge paws flailing, more lethal than kitchen knives, his razor-tipped claws raked at the air.
Mason was starting to see what Leandra meant. And now he began to worry. He couldn’t let this happen. If Valencia was hurt…
In Mason’s head, his lion snarled and began a push. Mason didn’t hold his inner beast back. He knew what he had to do. He had to protect Valencia, at all costs.
His lion foolishly took charge, without wondering how in the hell Mason would get into the cage in his lion form.
Fur sprouted from pores, covering him. His face broadened, his jaw hurt where a lion’s canines replaced his human teeth. His bones ached as they stretched, pulling and pushing, transforming him from a man into a full-maned larger than average lion. His tendons burned where they yielded his human body to his lion.
Seconds later, but still much longer than it had taken Scanlon to morph to his ferocious bear, Mason stood in front of the cage, his roar fierce.
A piercing burning sensation struck his hindquarters. Mason swung his mighty lion head back to see what had caused the pain.
Goddammit.
His lion bellowed his anger at the Tranq dart embedded in his muscle. And the same moment, he felt the dizziness begin to strike him.
Any second he knew he’d be knocked out.
Darkness never came though.
Mason collapsed to the concrete floor. He couldn’t move his limbs or his head. All he could do was helplessly watch the scene playing out directly in front of him.
Scanlon circled the cage in his bear form, lumbering in a loose circle.
Valencia stood in the middle, no weapon in her hand, and not shifting into her tigress.
Mason had to help her. He simply had to. He tried to move his leg, but all he could see was one toe twitching for all his efforts.
“Why is he still awake?” one asked, his words a long drawn out southern drawl.
He knew the shifter was talking about him.
“You used the wrong one,” came from a voice behind him.
“I used the one we had preloaded for him,” southern accent said.
“Yeah, because Todd wanted him conscious, but unable to fight.”
“I’ll shoot him with another. Give me your weapon.”
“Fuck no, moron. You give him another dose, you may kill him.”
“That’s not so bad, is it?” he drawled.
“It is if Todd didn’t say to kill him. And he didn’t. So, no. No more Tranqs.”
Mason tuned out the two shifters talking behind him and tried to focus his now blurry vision on the cage and the snarls coming from within.
As if they were in a fog, he watched Valencia’s skull widen, her face took on a mix of tigress and human features, as if frozen in a mid-shift. She snarled, revealing teeth that were definitely vampire-like in a face that remained in that blended feline and human form. Her eyes were blood red. She emitted a low hiss.
Mason blinked his lion eyes, hoping to clear his vision, to better see what the hell she was. She stayed in a human body but wasn’t human.
She leapt toward Scanlon’s bear, did some type of contortion of her body, then was on his back, her fangs buried deeply into his flesh.
She twisted her head, moving it back and forth, ripping his flesh into shreds.
Behind him one of the shifters gasped.
Another one said, “What the fuck.”
“She’s a hybrid,” a voice with an European accent said. French or Austrian, if Mason were taking a guess. “I saw one in Europe. Scanlon doesn’t stand a chance.”
Relief flowed through Mason; hopefully Valencia would prevail. He wanted to step in, to do something. Anything. He didn’t even have enough of his strength to shift back to his human form. How long was this damned Tranq going to last?
Valencia leapt off Scanlon’s bear, her face dripping with blood. She wiped it with her hand, smearing it in scarlet streaks across her unusual hybrid features.
Scanlon’s bear rushed her, knocking her backward. Instead of falling, she rolled, twisted, and leapt to her feet with the ease of a gymnast. Scanlon stood on his rear legs, flailing at her, blood pouring from his shredded flesh.
Valencia sidestepped and landed a kick into his knee. When Scanlon dropped his bear’s head to look at his knee, she took the opportunity and was back on him, this time almost riding him in a bizarre, circus-like maneuver. Her claws were out, long and lethal, deadlier than a tigress’s. She buried them into his shoulder while she latched on to his neck with her teeth.
For what seemed like a second, but could have been an eternity, Mason’s eyelids became too heavy to lift.
* * *
When he opened his eyes again, Scanlon’s bear was deadweight on the floor, the room was brightly lit, a scream was ringing in his ears, and he was in his human form.
Mason raised his head. The screaming stopped, but not before he caught the source of the screams.
Evie!
Behind her, Lézare, a blonde Mason didn’t recognize, Alexa, Reese, Theo, the witch. Rory was sprinting in front of them, running toward the cage.
Mason focused on the cage again.
Valencia was opening the door. Her face was totally human, but streaked with blood, as was her clothing.
Rory wrapped his arms around her. “You’re killing me. Do you know I was worried you were dead?” He licked his thumb and began to clear blood from her cheek.
Behind Theo, shifters were streaming in, all in human form. From their stance, it was clear they were Theo’s men. Scanlon’s men were in a tight group watching the flood of shifters striding in the double doors.
Evie ran toward Mason. She leaned down, balancing on one knee. Her face was tear-streaked. “Are you okay?”
Mason sat up and nodded, not trusting his vocal chords to relay the information without sounding like gibberish.
“You—you—I—we were concerned about you.” She rose. “I need to check on Valencia.” Her voice was choked up, tears barely at bay.
Chapter Nineteen
Ev
ie fidgeted with the bottled water in front of her. She, her siblings, their mates, Theo, Leandra, and of course, Mason, were all assembled at a conference table in the underground facilities of the now dead Todd Scanlon.
Todd’s shifter henchmen were in cages, waiting for the Shifter Supreme Council to send Compliance Enforcers to collect them and to see that they were tried for their roles in abducting shifters for Todd Scanlon’s underground fighting ring.
Valencia had put on clothing that wasn’t bloody, confiscated from Todd’s guest quarters. Rory refused to let her out of his sight, even when she went to change.
Her hands still shook from the stress and adrenaline. She fought looking at Mason, fought the urge to drink in the sight of the handsome lion shifter. Seeing him lying on the floor, not sure if he was alive…
She let out a deep breath, then noticed no one was talking.
They were all staring at her.
She chanced a peek. Even Mason was staring at her.
“What?” She looked from face to face. “What’d I miss?”
“Alexa asked how you were.” Lézare frowned.
“I’m fine. I’m not the one that killed a bear shifter and walked away without a scratch.” Evie looked at Valencia. “And I still don’t understand it.”
Valencia’s smile was tight. “It’s complicated.”
Everything seemed complicated. Lézare was with Natalya. Alexa and Valencia were mated to the Nielsen twins. Theo now had a witch for a mate.
And they wonder why I’m confused?
“I’d like a moment of your time.” Mason’s features were drawn into a frown.
He was still hot, still the man she couldn’t get over.
“Now? Here?”
God. I can’t discuss this shit with him publicly.
“No, it can be in private, when we’re done.”
Valencia cleared her throat. “Before you go…” She bit her lip.
Evie thought of the way her sister had looked when they’d first entered the room, right after she’d killed Todd. Her sister looked nothing like the magnificent tigress or the beautiful curvaceous woman Evie knew. She resembled a creature designed to kill, one designed to petrify.
Valencia had explained that she’d shared blood with a vampire, that it had changed her, made her what Leandra called a hybrid.