"Too bad, most bears are." His shoulder brushed mine. Accidentally, I was sure.
"Only that stupid detergent one," I retorted.
"Hey! The Snuggle Bear is my hero. He's the only TV representation shifters get."
I snorted. "Talking stuffed animals are not shifter equivalents."
I turned to face him, a skeptical expression on my face. But inside, I was glad I'd asked him to stay. Happy he was here, almost. Banter was better than the bitter thoughts I'd be having by myself.
He grinned and shrugged one of his massive shoulders. "To Hollywood, stuffed animals might as well be shifters for all they get it right."
"What about all those animal movies?" I asked. "Air Bud or whatever?"
"Those were dogs. Not bear shifters."
"Well... they're closer. There are movies with actual shifter characters, too." I point out.
"So help me, if you say Twilight, I will leave and you will not get Pho for a month," Easton threatened.
I burst into laughter, then he laughed, too. I made the mistake of looking up at him. Easton laughing, really laughing, not fake laughing like he had when we’d met at the bar, was just—was just—I couldn't think. I didn't have words for what his laughter was. Pure joy, maybe? Light streaming from a person instead of a bulb? Energy—kinetic, powerful movement that radiated so that the very air around him rippled with mirth.
It was entrancing.
I froze and stared... until the laughter died on his lips and his eyes flickered down to my mouth.
My tongue darted out and wet my lips. That hussy. Stupid tongue.
I wasn't going to kiss my captor.
I wouldn't…
But when Easton leaned forward, I didn't stop him.
My chest lightened, anticipation filled me, and when he leaned down, I tilted my head back.
"WHAT THE FUCK? THAT'S MY MATE!" Bodie thundered behind us.
I whirled around, heart thumping like a rabbit darting away from a predator.
Bodie stalked into my cell, his green eyes poisonous. Fixed on Easton. His eyes morphed to pure gold in front of my eyes and his torso rippled, shirt disappearing and fur sprouting from his back as he started to shift.
"We were just talkin—"
"Bullshit!" Bodie snarled, as his upper body transformed into a giant black werewolf. He grabbed me by the upper arm and hid me behind him. His move put my poor wings too close to the iron bars. One wingtip touched the heathen metal and I shoved forward into Bodie, hissing in pain. He wrapped an arm around my waist, tugging me closer. He didn't stop until my front was plastered to his very taut rear.
"Sorry." His apology was clipped short and he immediately refocused all his attention on Easton, who stood holding his hands up, trying to pacify the growling wolf shifter.
"Look, she was just upset after that announcement," Easton supplied.
"You tried to take advantage of my mate when she was hurting?" Bodie yelled. He took a step closer to Easton.
"No! No! It wasn't..." Easton trailed off.
"I will fucking end you," Bodie growled.
My stomach tightened and I stiffened against him. Oh shit, was Easton gonna try to shift in here to fight back? If Easton shifted, there'd be no room.
"Bodie, stop," I told him, hands going to his shoulders and pulling him back.
"No," the voice that responded was furious. Almost possessed. He yanked away from me and took a swing at his friend.
Easton didn't even try to defend himself. He just took the punch.
Fucking shit. That was the worst thing he could possibly do. I knew, because it was the same thing my asshole father had done to me. Taken the punch when we sparred and acted like it was nothing. It made me feel powerless and my anger worthless. Bodie was gonna explode.
Unless…
I darted through the open doorway of the cell and bolted up the stairs as fast as I could. Not two seconds later, I felt paws on my back. I stumbled and fell onto the stairs, my knees screaming in pain.
Right above my ear, I heard the low, threatening growl of a wolf.
I knew he’d follow me.
I stilled, waiting for Bodie to grow calm. It felt like forever, lying there as the corners of the steps dug into my chest, stomach, and legs. The cold of the stone and the darkness of the stairwell pressed against me just as hard as Bodie's paws.
Eventually, the wolf climbed off my back and I felt hands on my shoulders turning me over. Bodie's yellow-green eyes still didn't have normal human pupils. His wolf was still lingering, just under the surface. He scrubbed a hand down his face. Then he leaned in, nose right next to my neck, and inhaled deeply.
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him to fuck off, when I felt his teeth close over my pulse. Not biting down, but literally holding my life in his jaws. I froze.
I was terrified and fucking turned on more than I'd ever been in my entire life.
Bodie relented and pulled away, staring down at me with a knowing look. "Mate," he growled, pressing down on me, showing me how hard he was.
I shoved him off me.
He let me, we both knew it, and it pissed me off just as much as Easton taking the hit had enraged him earlier.
"No," I denied him, marching down the stairs. He could go fuck himself. I was not listening to some idiotic supernatural hallucination. I was going to choose a fucking life partner myself. And it would not be some hot under the collar junkyard dog.
"I’m gonna make it so that you never wanna leave." Bodie called down after me.
I skirted around Easton, avoiding eye contact, avoiding how Bodie’s words made me feel. Those words inflated my chest like a life raft, they kept me floating when I felt like sinking.
But the practical side of me shook her head. I’d heard words like those before. My ex-fiance had been full of pretty words. They were lies.
And this mate thing?
I could probably thank that asshole Larry for it. Apparently, not all of his magic wore off as quickly as stemming my powers.
If I gave it a little time, this mate bond shit would fade.
The bond in question suddenly tugged at my heart like a little kid tugging on a shirt. It got on its tiptoes and whispered at me, "You know that’s not true." But I shoved it down, not caring when it scraped its knee and cried.
I was alone.
I’d always been alone.
I had deluded myself with the ideas of family and friends and colleagues. But the reality was, at the end of the day, when I became inconvenient for people, they’d shove me aside. My parents had just proven it. Bodie wouldn’t be any different. Neither would Easton. No matter how much I wanted them to be.
My heart gave one painful throb of longing.
My heart was an idiot.
12
Drake
We needed to kill her. It was the best option we had left.
I ran a hand through my black hair and paced through the meeting room, waiting for Bodie to come back upstairs. I’d sent him down to collect Easton, who’d abandoned babysitting duty and let the cubs completely wreck our meeting room.
Idiot.
Thank god Lorena had shown up and hauled the kids off or I would have scared the little shits to death. I turned around and paced in the opposite direction.
The mages hadn’t even responded to the ransom letter we’d sent regarding Aubry.
I mean, she was their fucking princess. She’d been on the news every other goddamned night with announcements about arrests and fucking shifter murders. She was the L.A. figurehead. And they didn’t even care? What the fuck?
After that bullshit press conference her parents held this afternoon, I doubted an offer was ever coming. We’d wanted the mage jewel back—the one that El Fuego had given his life for. But those stick swingers weren’t coming up to bat. Hell, they weren’t even stepping into the box.
So it was up to me to get what we needed in some other way.
And the girl was a distraction.
Bodie h
adn’t been focused since that fake mate bullshit she’d pulled, and we needed our best assassin to stay sharp if we hoped to keep making progress in this war. Even Easton had a soft spot for her, and while he wasn’t as active on the front lines as us, he was still a huge asset behind the scenes due to his skill in armor and weapon making.
Which meant the worthless faerie princess was now a fucking liability—for us.
I shook my head at the goddamned irony.
She was supposed to be a liability for them, the mages. It just went to show, you couldn’t trust a magic user. They only cared about themselves. They had no sense of loyalty or pack whatsoever.
I righted an overturned chair. It had a couple deep claw marks on the seat, but it was salvageable. The same couldn’t be said for the table. I didn’t know what the pint-sized shifters had done to it once Easton had left, but it didn’t have legs anymore, just flattened hunks of twisted metal and splintered wood.
I grabbed the other chair, but they’d somehow managed to make a hole right through the middle of the seat.
Jesus fucking…
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I allowed my eyes to fall shut. I loved Bodie like a brother—he and Easton were literally my three-man pack—but these babysitting escapades needed to stop. We were too busy to watch the cubs and pups. Case in point with Aubry tonight. As per usual, the pretty fae had fucked us over.
I stared around at the disaster. We were not mentally equipped for kids. There had to have been at least a thousand other people more capable than us. But there was nowhere safer than wherever we were, and most shifter parents had shift work and barely an hour to themselves without our help, which is why I’d agreed to let the kids come stay on the weekends.
I was a bleeding fucking heart.
I just hoped everything I was doing was actually going to help. I didn’t think I could live with myself otherwise. All the blood on my hands, and the blood I’d yet to spill, it haunted me. It plagued my thoughts and memories. It woke me in a cold sweat after nightmares where I watched faces screaming as they burned.
If we lost the war, and this was all for nothing…
My legs gave out and I flopped into the only remaining chair, burying my face in my hands. I was going to go to hell for my sins. But as long as the mages went down with me, then so be it.
"Hey, Boss," Bodie said. His tone was clipped and it instantly got my attention.
"You find him?" I asked.
"Yep."
Easton entered the room a moment later, sporting a shiny gray cheekbone and half a swollen eye. He wasn’t smiling, nor was he looking at either of us. He kept his eyes carefully trained on the conference room floor. Though, now that he saw the mess he’d left behind, I’d bet he didn’t want to look there, either.
I held out both arms, willing either of them to give me some sort of explanation. "Well, where was he?"
Fuzzball glared at Goldilocks with the heat of a flaming sun.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Please tell me this doesn’t have anything to do with—
"Making out with Aubry," Bodie accused.
"I was not!" Easton shouted back in defense.
Before it came to blows—AGAIN—I interrupted the argument. "Enough, boys. There will be no more fighting over this fae princess, because, quite frankly, there will be no more fae princess."
Bodie paused and turned toward me. "What did you just say?"
I sighed and gestured to the entire room. "Help me pick up, will ya?"
Easton immediately got to work scooping up wood chips, while Bodie glared at me. I found the magic expandable bag hanging over the TV, so I grabbed it and started chucking shit in—blocks, dolls, controllers, a fucking lost shoe.
I grabbed a snowman toy and sighed, just staring at it.
Come on, Drake. Man up and just do what needs to be done.
"I said…" I shoved the snowman into the bag like the bastard had just insulted me. "The fly—fae—has to go. We tried ransoming her but, obviously, that fell through. We tried questioning her, but she's either an idiot or she's refusing to talk. So now it's time we try to make an example—"
Bodie dropped his entire armful of toys and clenched his fists. "No."
My nostrils flared, and the faint scent of smoke trailed through the air. A warning. "Don’t you tell me no." I let my wings come out and with them, a burst of alpha pheromones. I didn’t like to pull that bullshit, the three of us were friends, not a goddamned dragon valor with ranks and shit, but if I had to…
Bodie swallowed hard, clearly fighting the dueling urges to submit and attack. Among the wolves in his own pack, he was the alpha. Hell, even Easton could have been an alpha if he'd ever returned to his family to tell them where to stick it. But here, right now, in this moment, I was the alpha. If I didn't lead us away from this fucking wasp, then we'd be at each other's throats, constantly fighting for dominance. Those two idiots had already started. The only solution was for me to take the lead and keep it, so I couldn't back down now.
"She's a waste of our resources, Bodie." I tried the soft approach first, trying to reason with him. "The mages have us clawing for scraps. We can't afford to house a prisoner, buy her takeout every day, and allow her to distract two of my main assets to this war—that would be you idiots, by the way. I need you two to stay focused. And as long as that dollface is around, I don't see that happening."
Bodie took a deep breath, regathered the toys at his feet, and dropped them into the bag I was holding. "She's my mate, Drake. You can't just… get rid of her." He couldn’t even say it. He’d killed a hundred-odd people point blank. And he couldn’t say the word.
Apparently, he needed the hard approach.
I took a deep breath and felt my fingers shaking slightly as nervous tingles spread through my entire body.
Buck up, Shadow. Time to channel the heartless asshole again.
I cinched the bag shut and tossed it onto the clawed-up chair. "A public humiliation and assassination is the final play we have left."
I didn't even have a chance to finish my speech before the Fuzzball's fist connected with my jaw. A low growl escaped my throat. I felt the heat of a shift passing over my eyes as they flashed to gold and jet-black scales started crawling up my arms.
"If we show the shifters that we kidnapped her," I continued, trying not to fight or fully shift before I finished my lecture, "and then we kill her right in front of their very eyes, it will give them confidence and determination; it will create the kind of momentum we need in order to win this thing."
His fist flew through the air once more, but I caught it in my steely grasp.
"The shifters need this, Bodie," I pleaded, though it came out as more of a snarl. "It's not about her, or even us, it's about the survival of our kind! If we don't make this last stand, then shifters are as good as extinct."
He bared his teeth at me, his own eyes flashing gold. "If I have to kill my mate in order to prove shifters are worthy of survival, then maybe we're not fucking worthy."
My lip curled and my teeth elongated into razor-sharp points. "She is not your mate! It's a trick! It's bullshit fae magic fucking with your head!"
Fur raced along Bodie’s spine, splitting open his shirt, and claws burst out from beneath his fingernails. "It's not a trick!" he growled, his voice deep and husky. "Larry told me the truth: no magic user—not a fae, not even a mage—no one has the power to fake a mate bond. This connection I have with her, it's fucking real, and you are not going to take her from me!"
He lurched forward, snapping his half-human, half-canine teeth at my throat.
I stumbled back, caught completely off guard by that little Larry-bomb.
The mate bond’s real? How the fuck could that be possible? She isn't even a shifter. There's no way she could be right for him.
He snapped his teeth at me again and swiped a clawed paw at my gut. Luckily, I jerked back before he made contact, but damn it, that was way too fucking close.
Embracing m
y shifter magic, I allowed it to consume me. My bones snapped and popped, lengthening and rearranging into the spine of my dragon. My skin stretched and hardened, thick black scales replacing soft human flesh. It was painful, but familiar, and right then, I relished the agonizing ache as it spread through my body, giving me strength. I was sure to control my shift so that I could fit inside and move around the meeting room but I still ended up with my horns scraping the ceiling.
By the time I was in full-dragon mode, Bodie had completely shifted as well—into a full wolf the size of a horse, not his werewolf—and to my astonishment, so had Easton. His golden bear prowled from side to side in the back of the room, in the tiny space not occupied by me or the furious wolf. Easton was trying to stay out of the fight, but ready to join in at a moment's notice. Usually, he was the middleman, the one who made Bodie and I see sense when we butted heads over stupid shit; but whose side would he take over this?
I thought I knew, but I didn't want to admit it.
This can't be happening. No way in hell is some fae cunt going to waltz in here and break up our pack. It felt like she was a bowling ball and we were a couple of pins teetering at the end of a waxy lane. Fuck no. We weren’t that easy to knock down.
I'd fight for this, for us, because we were more than a pack—we were family.
Bodie leapt at me, but I caught him in my teeth and threw him off to the side, his wolf hair sticking to my tongue. He quickly scrambled to his feet and attacked again, this time coming at me from the side. With a quick flap, I opened my wing to protect me, and his claws raked over my leathery skin like white-hot coals. A screech tore from my throat as I tucked my wing back in and struck at him like a viper.
Easton growled from the back, a threatening warning. I glared at him, watching Bodie from the corner of my eye.
"You'd allow a girl—a fae fly—to come between us?" I snarled.
Easton's scowl dropped right off his face and his golden eyes shined with what looked to be sadness and confusion. Bodie, on the other hand, was not so easily swayed.
"She's my mate!" he cried, launching once more at my wounded side. My wing was just a bit too slow that time, allowing him to sink his canines into the meaty flesh of my shoulder.
Fae Captive (The Mage Shifter War Book 1) Page 12
