by A. K. Koonce
“Kicking it would have been faster,” Aric muses, rubbing at the shadow of scruff on his jaw.
“And more destructive,” Rhys scolds like that makes any fucking difference to us.
“Oftentimes, destruction is better,” my friend murmurs.
She ignores him entirely as she enters. We step inside, and Rhys immediately heads down the hallway for her room.
“This is where you live?” Aric glares around menacingly, and I wonder if he’s having the same thoughts I did.
This shithole is no place for Rhys.
She deserves better. More.
Not that any of us are planning to do any better by her.
Fucking hell.
Literally.
“Yeah. This is home sweet home,” Rhys calls from the vicinity of her room.
I stride down the dark hallway and lean against the doorframe while Aric mumbles about being able to cross the whole damn house in six fucking steps.
I’m pretty sure he’s testing his theory, if the loud clomping is any indication.
The real problem is… there isn’t one picture of the girl who lives in this house. There’s a fine portrait of a rather pretentious-looking woman hanging near the door, but there are no prideful displays of the beautiful and strong woman before me.
“I was right! Fucking six.” Aric grumbles.
I don’t turn to tell him six of his dragon steps equals about twelve human steps. Rhys scurries around her small room, glancing toward the window more than once as if she’s worried the boogeyman is going to leap out and grab her.
Too bad something way more fucked up has already descended into her life. And the two fucked up bastards are now helping her look for a gods damned cat.
When did I get demoted like this?
Ripping open the drawers of her dresser, she shoves some articles of clothing into an emptied out bookbag. Shirts, shorts, jeans, and socks. Lastly, she grabs a handful of undergarments. Hot pink lace spills out of the side of her bag, and I can’t stay still any longer.
I wander over, one silent step at a time, kneeling before her until the tiny scrap of fabric dangles off my fingertips.
“This is what you pack when you’re on the run?”
Rhys’s gaze starts at my chest and slowly caresses my body until she’s staring into my eyes, each of our blue gazes in a battle of wills. Her gaze is like a touch of hot, powerful magic tingling across my flesh.
Warmth works into her cheeks, nearly the same color of the sexy thong. “It’s rude to paw at a woman’s underwear.” She snatches the lace from my finger and shoves it down deep into the little bag.
The hiss of a cat punctuates her words, as do the thudding footsteps of Aric. The asshole isn’t even trying to be quiet with his approach.
“Packing the essentials, I see.” He grins, the smile more feral than a stray cat.
“Almost done,” Rhys tells us before slipping her cellphone into the front pocket of her bag.
“Like fuck.” Aric’s growl bounces off the white walls of the bedroom. Moving into the room, he reaches for the bag and hauls the phone out of it before breaking it in half as if it were a measly twig instead of the metal and glass that rains to the floor in little clatters.
“What the hell, asshole?” Rhys snaps, pushing against Aric’s chest like she’s a god that can move mountains.
I roll my eyes as I watch the shitshow, but Aric’s molten gaze is already spitting hellfire. He loves the challenge.
“Who do you have in this life that you’d call anyway?” he taunts. He’s not wrong.
All he has to do is walk forward, and Rhys stumbles back.
“You’re not going to need a communication device where you’re going,” he promises.
“Bad reception,” I joke, attempting to dilute the thick tension in the air, but it falls on deaf ears as an angry mewling hisses through the room.
The small gray cat Rhys named after my father slinks out from under the bed to weave between her legs, his tail wrapping around one shin. It stands before her like a guardian, and I find a new respect for the tiny creature. It’s loyal, which is one of its only redeeming attributes. Why humans are determined to keep pets, I’ll never understand.
“What do we have here?” Aric stoops and hauls the cat up by its scruff, letting it dangle in front of his face as he studies the feline with drawn brows. “Looks like a snack.”
“Give me back my cat, or there’s no way in hell I’m going with you. You almost had me fooled, but you’re nothing more than a fucking psycho!” Rhys accuses with a hard glare in her eyes, but I see the sliver of fear for Loki in her steadfast gaze. It would take Aric no time to crush the thing. If he shifted, he’s right, the cat would be no more than a tasty morsel for his dragon.
Fuck knows he’s eaten far less savory meals in the pits of Hell.
“You don’t have much of a choice, kitten. Stay here and you die.”
“There’s always the suburbs.” A shiver works through Rhys, and I swear she thinks that’s the more hellish option than coming with us. If only she knew. Suburban housewives have nothing on me.
“Aric!” I scold, needing to shut this shit down and act as the buffer between the two once more. Every minute we spend here is a risk I’m done taking, but that’s all I have time to get out.
Magic tingles in the air and then zaps through it like lightning. Aric’s growl of pain is almost as surprising as the rip of fur and the harsh mewl that crawls down my spine like nails on a chalkboard. Not even Hell’s creatures are immune to that fucking sound.
In fact, it’s one of our more creative punishments for the wicked.
An afterlife of that sound grating on your ears is enough to drive anyone utterly insane. I know, because I’ve withstood that punishment.
Several times.
Where there was once a small gray cat now stands a monstrous feline as large as a lion and twice as fierce. Of course she would have a guardian. I almost kick myself for not realizing it sooner, except watching it attack my friend is worth the entertainment. Razor-sharp teeth sink into Aric’s meaty thigh, and he curses with the force of the strongest tempest as he tries to dislodge its jagged maw.
“This thing better have its fucking rabies shot,” he grits out as it slashes at his arms with razor-sharp claws.
“Loki?” Rhys squeaks in a terror-ridden pitch, her hands white knuckling her bag as she backs up until she hits the wall. Not Kyvain, not the information about taking her to Hell, not even the news I dropped about her mom made her eyes this wide. But watching her tiny cat turn into a guardian from Hell seems to have broken her brain.
“Fucking hellcats!” Aric spews as he fights off the predator determined to slash him to ribbons.
I chuckle. “Here, kitty kitty.” The coo is a melody filled with sarcasm as I watch Aric struggle—until the beast’s slitted eyes lock on me. Then it lunges.
“Fuck!” Flames shoot from my hands in a whirl of magic until I’m holding a fireblade. My arms lift with an arc of power. I lash out, and then swallow when the blade does nothing but swish through the cat’s fiery image without injury. The fire of my weapon is consumed, leaving me defenseless from the snapping jaws. The bones of the hellcat are cast in a shadowy glow as flames illuminate its insides.
I barely have time to whisk away in smoky magic before it shoots fire back at my face, trying to singe off my goddamn eyebrows.
Together, Aric and I work to tame the fucker, or at least that’s what I’m trying to do. I have a feeling Rhys will never forgive us if we kill her beloved cat—hellish guardian or not. I flicker in several times here and there, taunting it away from my friend, but it’s clear Aric doesn’t give a single fuck if the cat lives. With every vicious attack, he’s clearly trying to end its immortal life.
Claw marks tatter the wall in thick lines. The scent of fire is heavy in the air. Drops of blood are flung all over the floor with every lashing move Aric makes.
“Loki,” Rhys says in a stead
y tone, a whisper so quiet I barely hear it.
Big beastly eyes finally look away from us. Then, without warning, the hellcat shifts again, falling to tiny feet that pad happily out of the room and bound out of the open door.
My arms sting from the razor-thin cuts it slashed into my skin, and Aric’s leg is bleeding profusely. Dark blood coats the floor of Rhys’s bedroom, turning it into a more murderous scene than before.
I look up to find her. I expect her to be huddled in the corner, away from the mess we’ve created of her room. My stomach drops instantly. Slowly, my eyes harden to ice as they clash with the angry fire in Aric’s.
“She’s fucking gone!”
Chapter Nine
Four Mates
Rhys
In a matter of minutes, I’m nearing the fence with a small—possibly deadly—cat in my bag. I run so fast I can’t even feel the ground beneath my feet. It’s exhilarating to see how much faster and stronger I am since letting my wolf out into the world.
Loki lets out a low disgruntled meow whenever the bag jostles against my back.
“It’s okay, pretty boy,” I coo, but I have no idea if I’m saying the right thing.
My house cat almost killed a dragon shifter.
And that fucking dragon shifter almost killed my innocent pet.
Would those men kill me too if I became too much of a hassle for them? They led me on with talk of my mother, but they insulted me when they continuously threw it in my face that I have no one and nothing here.
I do have a friend. A bond with someone that’s stronger than family.
Bea’s like a sister to me.
I just hope she still feels that way after everything that happened tonight. I’ll lay low for a while and then try to come back, explain and apologize for attacking her mate… my mate…
Shit. Everything’s a mess.
I shake it all away and just focus on getting the hell away from this pack and my new hellish friends.
At that thought, feet pound over the dirt behind me, and though I’m fast, they match my speed.
Dirt flings in the air as I turn on my boots and face the assholes.
Except… it’s a different asshole.
Kyvain.
And he’s brought friends.
Bea stands wide-eyed behind him, and she’s all I can focus on right now.
“Bea,” I whisper.
She lifts her big green eyes up to me, but a new mark glows white against her neck. Her mating mark. She flinches as it burns brighter before she lowers her gaze and stares at the ground.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” I accuse, looking Kyvain’s arrogant ass in the eyes.
His arm is bandaged tightly, but a dark red stain spreads from his shoulder downward.
Good.
“You planning on leaving? Never coming back?” Kyvain’s lips twist into a cruel smirk, and before I can say anything, he cuts me off. “My mate isn’t going anywhere just yet.”
“I’m not your mate.” My chin lifts, and I’m absolutely right.
Bea wears his mark, a slashing of three lines along her neck. I note a faint white scar branding the back of his hand with a new mark, a moon on fire it seems.
“My mark looks pretty on you. I like the way you wear it,” I whisper to him sweetly, a real fuck you. I want him to understand that he doesn’t own me.
If anything, I own him now.
Calvin and two other men in the shadows shift on their feet.
“We uh… we were all marked, Rhys,” Calvin says to me as if it might be an error of the Dark Moon that I might be able to fix.
“All four of you are marked as mine?” I ask with narrowed eyes, and really, this is getting entirely too fucked up.
They all nod.
Maybe it’s karma. This is what you get when you torment someone all your life.
Now you’re forced to love her for all eternity.
And she’ll never love you back.
Never.
I shake my head slowly and pause on Bea once more.
“I love you, Bea. I’ll find you again someday,” I whisper, knowing now I have to leave for longer than I ever anticipated, and just before I turn toward the fence, her bright eyes smile back at me with a hint of sadness and love shining within.
My fingers dig into cold, snow slicked timber, but just as I lift my leg against it, a hand wraps around my ankle and jerks me back down. I stagger down and strong hands pin me to the fence. Wood bites into my spine while my hands are pulled up high, and Kyvain’s raging blue eyes glare down on me.
“You fucking bit me, you whore!”
My knee comes up hard and fast, and he crumbles to the ground even faster. The three men who surrounded him earlier lunge forward. I never flinch, but the violence I anticipate never comes.
They leap onto my lifelong tormentor, and angry kicks and punches are thrown at him.
“Don’t fucking touch her!” they roar with newfound loyalty.
“Ever.”
But an alpha has more power than three confused mates.
Kyvain thrashes out with a roar of power and all three of them cower back.
One of them peers up, his blond head still down turned but his eyes searing into mine with aggression and confusion as he says, “Alpha Morganson said you’re not coming back. You’re not welcome anymore.”
That’s when it sinks in. They’ve all marked me as their mate. Possibly more than just these four.
And they’re fucking furious about it. Mating with the outcast no one wants apparently wasn’t one of their life goals. They see me as a weakness, and now a threat.
“He’ll make your life hell if you don’t go,” the blond boy urges. “I can’t watch him kill you slowly.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Calvin hisses at me. “Get out. You’re safer if you leave.”
Bea nods, and my heart drops.
I knew I was safer out of the pack. I knew I didn’t belong. It just hurts to hear it spoken out loud.
Kyvain leaps to his feet.
Adrenaline spirals through me. I climb the fence once more. A big hand catches my foot, but I kick him off. When I reach the top, I flip him off one last time, a sweet goodbye to my fated mate. My battered heart soars as I land steadily on two feet on the other side.
I don’t wait. I don’t look back. I hurry away from the edge of the pack’s territory and head toward the mountains I’ve always been warned to stay away from. Apparently, they’re dangerous, but they’re nothing compared to the danger I would face if I stayed.
Once I’m out of sight, I slow down, taking a moment to let everything sink in.
I press my palms to my eyes, and immediately feel a wave of heat in the night that continues to grow colder. Pulling my hands away, the first thing I see are a pair of ashen boots in the snow.
Because of course I’ve been found. I’m just that lucky. Thinking I could get away from men who can randomly materialize was an impossibility I’d only tricked myself into believing.
My gaze drifts up the man’s perfect body, and kind but tormented blue eyes meet mine once more.
“Let me take you to your mother. I promise I won’t harm you.” He nods toward the towering blond giant of a man behind him. “I won’t let Aric or Torben lay a hand on you either.” Latham’s honesty is a vivid thing. I can see it in the sharp features of his face, but I can feel it too.
I believe him.
Mostly because he’s just the lesser of two evils.
“Or Loki,” I add.
He shakes his head and releases a long sigh. “I wish you’d change his name,” he says under his breath and I’m surprised how easily he makes me smile. “I’ll keep the hellcat safe too.”
My smile only grows wider, but it slowly occurs to me that someone’s missing.
“Where is Aric?”
Latham motions toward the fence I left behind just as a roar of fiery rage shakes the ground I stand upon.
“Said he wanted to take
care of something before we go,” Latham explains casually.
Another roar and a masculine scream cries through the night.
And once more I’m surprised by the smile these manic men bring me.
Chapter Ten
The Ice Mountains
Rhys
Torben leads us to the north, and after ten minutes of hiking through the snow, Aric jogs up to our side. I peer at him out of the corner of my eye.
His tawny hair is messy and disheveled. The jeans he wore earlier no longer have tattered tears from where Loki attacked him. He’s changed into clean black jeans and a black tee-shirt. I look at him closer, but I don’t see a single speck of blood anywhere on him.
A gurgling sound rumbles through his chest before a quiet noise escapes him… a burp.
“Excuse me,” he says with a half-hearted smile. His long, tattooed fingers swipe around his mouth like he can still remember the mess that was once there.
I stare at the psychopath.
He smiles at me, happy and jovial after the deathly screams I heard on the other side of the fence.
“The girl’s okay, by the way,” he tells me when he seems to realize I’m not sharing his keen amusement. “Walked her home myself,” he adds.
It does calm my nerves a little to hear that. Everyone else, all four of my apparent mates can go fuck themselves, but it is nice of him to reassure me about Bea.
“Thank you,” I whisper as we walk further up a hill.
A quietness surrounds us, but Aric stays by my side. I wish I could say it’s comforting to have him so concerned over my wellbeing, but really, I’m afraid he might lash out at a deadly fly and accidentally slit my throat with his raging animalistic strength.
Aric has two sides to him it seems. And both are concerning.
An hour slips by with me on edge as I follow the three men of Hell blindly past the pack of mountain wolves who are allies to my—I mean the Dark Moon’s—pack and even further into the unknown. I’ve never been this far from home before. I’ve also never seen snow falling in such big dollops of flakes like this.