The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  When they made it to the bridge, Gemma was facing Marcus. Her eyes had shifted and her claws were out. She was snarling a warning at him. Raven raced across the bridge, letting go of Louise as he charged into the man behind Marcus.

  Louise gripped the rails, watching the onslaught. She was no match for any of them, but shit, she was sure as hell going to try, even if all she did was distract Marcus enough so that Gemma could tear his throat out. She raced across at the same time as a huge grey mass of fur slammed into her leg, knocking her out of the way. Cade. It had to be. He had been the wolf with the tiger. He leapt from the bridge, slamming his head into the side of one of the tigers and rolling with him towards the edge of the ledge.

  Near to her, one of the trees hung overhead and she reached up, yanking down a large enough branch that she could wield. She gripped it tight in her hands as she crossed the bridge, keeping her steps light and her eyes focused on Marcus’s head. As Louise got closer, the other tiger snarled at her, its lips back, canines full and ready to tear her apart. She took a step back, her foot almost at the edge of the bridge. She had to call inside herself. Call for that power. “No,” she said to the tiger, pushing back her own fears for her mortality. She swung the branch, warning the tiger to back up, but the tiger stepped closer, snarling, its heavy paws hitting the ground.

  Louise gripped harder, her knuckles white as she held on. The tiger leapt, claws out, teeth fully bared and she stepped to the side at the last moment, swinging the branch and smashing it into the tiger’s shoulder. The connection tore agony into her arms and shoulder, making her drop the branch as the pain vibrated through her bones. Shit. He was solid. She lunged for the branch and the tiger was back on its feet, growling at her. “Come on,” she taunted. “Come and get me, you fucking shit.”

  The tiger threw back its head at the same time Louise raised the branch, ready to bring it down again on the beast, and it leapt … heading straight for her, but it never hit. Hands, appeared from nowhere grabbed the tiger, arms wrapping around the beast’s stomach as he spun.

  A man faced Louise, the man from the memory stones, his eyes so fixed with hatred; he held the tiger in front of him, and digging his fingers into the animal’s chest, his lip curling back, revealing fangs. He let out his own roar as he dug in deeply, blood oozing down his hands and then he pulled, tearing the animal apart … literally, ripping the rib cage open. The tiger howled, spraying Louise with blood and insides as he threw the tiger’s body over the edge.

  Marcus and Gemma were further back now. She had led him up the side of the hill; she was running out of places to go. Marcus was big, huge against her small frame. Shifter or not, Louise could tell that she would be no match for Marcus, no matter how confident Cade was in Gemma’s abilities.

  Grabbing the branch again, Louise headed toward Gemma. She couldn’t beat him, but she sure as shit could help. Louise climbed over the rocks, and right then, she was thankful for all her working out.

  “Marcus,” Louise called, but the man didn’t turn. Didn’t even acknowledge she was there. Gemma was backed up, almost pinned. She met Louise’s eyes as Louise ran towards them, but the man with the black hair was there, the vampire, he raced ahead, slamming into Marcus and knocking him to the ground.

  Marcus came up shouting, roaring his rage at the man. He raised a clawed, partially shifted hand toward the vampire’s face, but the vampire ducked, making Marcus wobble on his balance and giving Gemma a chance to charge at him herself. She slammed him full on in the face, slashing across his cheek.

  The vampire came around the side and Louise stepped out of their way. His clothes dripped with blood, his hands were slick with it, and he moved with a speed Louise had never seen before as he launched himself in Gemma’s direction, his hand slamming into Marcus’s head.

  Louise braced herself, ready for another to be torn into two, but the vampire didn’t do that. He clutched Marcus, and paused for what felt like hours, but was a mere second to stare at Gemma. His eyes piercing her almost, so protectively fierce.

  Marcus tried to twist, and the vampire ripped him away, and ran, clutching Marcus by the hair, he came towards Louise, and she had to step away as the vampire and Marcus leapt from the edge and down into the valley below, with one, guttural scream from Marcus.

  It was like a horror film when Louise turned back. Raven was covered in blood. On the ground by his feet was the body of the man he had charged for. Cade stood naked, his leg cut up enough that she could swear she could see to the bone. Gemma was panting. Her dress was torn and her face was bruised, but she was alive, un-raped and un-pregnant.

  “Thank you,” she said, coming to Louise. “I owe you.”

  Louise frowned and shook her head. “No. You don’t.” She wasn’t sure what she was meant to say. Her entire body was shaking. Her legs were suddenly jelly as she watched the three of them before her, so calm, so collected. Like this was just an everyday thing.

  She walked over to the ledge. It was too deep. There was no way to see where Marcus had gone. The vampire would live. He’d probably broken a few bones on landing, but shit, he had Marcus to feed off and regenerate himself.

  She stared into the abyss like it might have some answers. How was she supposed to go back to her life now?

  She didn’t flinch when she felt Raven’s hand on her shoulder. “Where are your cats?” he asked.

  “My cats?”

  “Yep. Your grimalkins. They must be hungry, right?”

  She followed Raven’s gaze to the bodies lying close and she knew what he was implying, but Cade came over to them and she braced herself.

  “You have grimalkins?” Cade asked.

  “Yes,” she said, cautiously. “They’re at home. Locked up.”

  “Let them out, then,” he said.

  She waited a moment to really understand what they were saying. She wanted to be sure. She didn’t want to land her ass in DSA confinement because she fucked up. “Don’t you need to report this?”

  He fixed her with a firm glare. “DSA wasn’t here,” he said. “No one was here tonight.”

  The End

  Fractured 1

  In this world, you really can die for love.

  Mason Sabre

  Book Ten

  Chapter 1

  Gemma

  The dry, brittle grass jabbed between the pads of Gemma Davies’ paws. She let out a low growl of annoyance, but her focus was on the tall, slim man in front of her. He was quick and agile, but still just a man, so he had to be either brave or stupid for having followed an Other—a fully shifted tiger at that.

  It had been weeks of this. Everywhere she’d turned, he had seemed to be there. He was definitely following her, and she was about to find out why.

  As they came out onto the clearing of Benbroke Fell—a national park in this part of Northern England—they circled one another, both keeping the other in their predatory sights.

  Gemma stared at him with yellow Tigress eyes, trying to see his face, but he kept it well-hidden beneath the dark hood of his jacket.

  Coward.

  As they moved in a hunting dance, she caught flashes of electric blue eyes. Instinct told her that he wasn’t Human; but he wasn’t shifter, either—she’d have sensed him if he was. Her first thought was that he was vampire, her second was that he was an idiot—she had yet to disprove the latter. He gave nothing away … save for the soft thumping of his heart—

  Wait a minute …

  Vampires did not have heartbeats, she thought in bewilderment.

  She inched forward. The gap between them was small, not more than a few feet; one step and they would be within touching distance. In her shape-shifted form, it would only take a pounce, and she would be on top of him. He would anticipate that, though, and the goal wasn’t to chase him away, but to catch him.

  He mirrored her movements, stepping right when she stepped left, stepping back when she stepped forward.

  She stopped.

  So did he.r />
  Letting out a frustrated growl, she slowly inched forward again, forcing him backward until the back of his muscular thighs were up against the metal barrier standing on the edge of the cliff—the only thing between him and a hundred-foot drop down to the road below.

  She squared her paws in a warning stance. Her message was clear; he wasn’t getting past her. His only choice was to surrender.

  He rested a hand on the top of the barrier and lifted a boot-clad foot to rest on one of the lower bars. Gemma tensed, letting out a commanding hiss for him to stop.

  The fucker simply laughed—a deep laugh which only hitched up her frustration. She bared her teeth, snarling.

  “You’re a vicious little kitten, aren’t you?” he chuckled.

  Little kitten?

  The fur on the back of her neck prickled until it was standing on end. How dare he undermine her fierceness. She was Gemma Davies—a powerful, menacing shifter.

  She unsheathed her claws enough for him to see, but not enough that they would do anything more than superficial damage.

  He winked. “Sorry, kitty cat. Not this time.” She couldn’t quite place his accent. It was English, but not from anywhere she knew. He swung his legs over the barrier… and jumped.

  Gemma leapt forward, instinctively grabbing for him, but her paws slashed through nothingness. Forgetting that she was still in her animal form for a moment, she yelled out a protest, but only managed something between a husky laugh and a yelp of an animal in pain.

  Springing forward, she propped her front paws up on the barrier to peer down, searching the darkness below. Her eyes darted around in desperation, but he was gone. There was nobody there. No crumpled heap at the bottom. Nothing.

  Some part of her had expected—hoped—to see him hanging on by his fingertips. She would have got perverse pleasure from having to rescue him.

  She visually scanned every inch of the woodlands below. There was a road, and beyond that were trees—masses and masses of trees. She followed the route along the trail with her eyes until it reached the main road, which led back to normality. He wasn’t there, either. A movement to the left of the road below suddenly caught her eye.

  There he was. Bold as anything. It took a moment for the impossibility of what she was seeing to register in her mind. How had he survived that jump?

  It was as if he knew exactly when she had seen him, because he waved up at her cheerfully before quickly darting into the woodlands.

  Gemma snarled and watched in disbelief as he disappeared into the forest. She dropped back off the barrier and stood there for a moment, letting her failure settle in her stomach. The clouds were high in the sky, and the breeze was cool against her fur. She inhaled a deep, calming breath. The air smelt of the day’s family picnics and barbeques, burnt meat, ketchup and sun-cream; the air smelt of Humans. She let the scents wash over her to calm the irritation inside. A headache threatened at her temples, one that she would wear like a painful mask around her eyes. If it erupted, she swore that she would kill her follower herself.

  Plonking herself down on the dry grass, Gemma silently cursed herself. He had only been following her for six weeks, which wasn’t long. She knew that. But she was the heir to the pack—the tiger pride—and that meant whether it was six weeks or six hours, it wouldn’t matter to her father. Anything was too long.

  Trying to soothe herself, she licked her paw and brought it up to her face to rub behind her ears; but even that wasn’t working. The man invaded almost every thought. He even invaded her dreams. She had to tell her father soon, but visions of what her father called a safe house crept into her mind. Images of stone walls and silver bars—a prison. Her heart sank a little farther.

  She needed to get closer to this hooded stranger. This time had been the closest yet. He was growing bolder. Earlier in the day, she had been shocked to find him calmly sitting on her garden wall when she had opened her curtains. He had sat there, watching from under his hood. After the initial shock, then annoyance, she had tried to ignore him as the day wore on, but he wouldn’t leave. So she tested him instead.

  She had snuck out the back door and over the neighbour’s wall to the main street and grabbed a taxi. She’d wanted to see to what extent exactly he was watching her. And … he had followed her. Of course.

  She had asked the driver to drop her off at the fell, and then she had hunkered down in the heather to watch her stalker. Perhaps tomorrow she would awake and find him sitting with his long legs resting on her coffee table and a beer in his hand while watching sport on the television.

  As Gemma caught herself in her musings, she shook her head to try to rid her mind of them. Fuck him, she thought. She finished preening herself and peered into the darkness of the trees ahead. Perhaps she could run tonight. She was already at the fell; it was foolish to waste a good shift.

  She licked the fangs that protruded from her top jaw. They itched to sink into something fresh—fresh meant still alive. The mere thought of it sent her tiger heart soaring with delight. She hadn’t realised just how hungry she was.

  Gemma was a shifter. One of the Otherkind, as Humans called them. They had areas permitted to hunt—places like Benbroke, which, by day, Humans used, but at night became the hunting grounds for everything else. They could hunt rabbits and foxes and, sometimes, if there was an infestation, rats. Occasionally, if the Others, like Gemma, were lucky, there would be the odd cattle that the Humans no longer had use for left out purposefully for Others to kill. Gemma never really saw much fun in hunting those, though. They were usually old or sick. Most of them gave up and took away the thrill, which was, of course, the hunt.

  Setting her eyes on the path ahead of her, she ran. The darkness called out to her, like a mother’s warm, welcoming embrace. It urged her to run. She wasn’t going to deny the call of solitary darkness. The soft breeze stroked along her back as she raced, nature’s cool hand quietly calming her. When she had run until she could feel it through every part of her body, she stopped somewhere between the trees, standing in the darkness that not even the light from the moon could permeate. She arched her back up to meet the night once more. Her tiger was free. She loved to run more than anything. She stretched, feeling the pull from her head all the way along her back to her tail. Her claws dug into the earth with languid pleasure.

  A subtle scent in the air suddenly caught her attention. She lifted her nose and inhaled deeply.

  Her heart sank.

  She knew that scent all too well. She would recognise it anywhere.

  Cade.

  Great.

  There was no ignoring him, no wandering off and pretending she didn’t know he was there. Her mind wouldn’t let her, and her tiger heart ached with the knowledge of his presence. Tension thrumming through her and radiating from every pore, she made her way back through the woodlands, across the clearing and towards the car park—slowly.

  Dread was already gnawing in the pit of her stomach. What did he want? Cade never came to the fell to run—not anymore.

  The fell was bittersweet for Gemma. It was the place where she had used to run with her brother, Stephen. It was where all three of them had used to run together.

  Cade had been Stephen’s best friend; friends since they were children. For her, the fell felt like home. It was a comforting place. For Cade, it was a painful reminder that he hadn’t been able to save Stephen. In a way, she had lost both of them that fateful day. She understood how Cade felt, though; so she never pushed him.

  She headed towards the path that led from the car park at the start of the trail. Somewhere along the path lay her clothes in a scattered mess. She had haphazardly pulled them off in her hasty attempt to simultaneously shift and run in order to stalk her follower. But now, she stood staring at an empty path. No clothes to be seen anywhere. The tension she was already feeling hiked up a notch. She scanned the ground, anxiously dashing back and forth. Nothing.

  Wonderful, she thought frustratedly. No doubt this was the work
of her mystery man—either to slow her down or simply annoy her. She loped back along the path and then broke off to the side where the tourist information cabin stood. If all else failed, she would just have to sneak back home in her tiger form, praying not to bump into any cowardly Humans who would shoot first and ask later.

  The cabin was closed at the back and was nothing more than a cladded wall. There was no one to see her. No windows, no CCTV—just a wall and trees to the back. She squared her paws and took the air in slowly, controlling each inhalation. The air flowed through her body, from her lungs, down to her paws and all the way to the tip of her tail and back again. It spread through every last cell in her body. Closing her eyes, woman and tiger met in her mind. The tiger sat with her tail curled around her body, content that she had run. But it was more than that. Cade was there, and something about him called to her—even though they were not the same, Gemma’s tiger found peace in his wolf. It wasn’t even possible, but she couldn’t deny it. Every time he was close enough, the urge to touch his skin grew to fever pitch inside of her. Sometimes, his scent was so intoxicating that she couldn’t stand it. Her tiger ached for that. He was like water, and she was lost in the desert.

  When she finally opened her eyes, her tiger calmed inside and began to fade, the golden fur along her arms receding and her fangs retracting. As her eyes reversed to their usual colour, she saw the world once again through her own eyes. Bones clicked out of place and then realigned and, after a moment, she stood naked, a woman once more.

  She didn’t bother to cover herself; nakedness was a normal thing in the world of Others. Her shoulder length auburn hair wasn’t even long enough to cover her breasts, but this was how it was. She’d been naked most of her life. It came with what she was. She did falter slightly, however, as she made her way to the car park where Cade was leaning against his car. But she still made no attempt to hide herself. Nakedness was a natural part of their world, and there was no shame in it.