by Amelia Jade
***
He remembered little of the drive out of the city, only panicked moments as he moved from one brother to the next, trying to prevent them from losing control, from shifting in the middle of the city.
If they did, Pierce wasn’t sure he could stop them. One, perhaps. But he was hurt and wounded from the fight, and tired. So very tired. He needed food and sleep, just like the rest of them did.
After nearly an hour of frantic work, and more than one close call, the trees began to outnumber houses, and the buildings fell in size. Clumps of trees began to appear, and then even a farmer’s field.
“We made it,” he gasped, turning around and slumping into his seat as Kassian finally collapsed into sleep with the others.
“That was a little closer than I would have wanted,” Mila said, trying to keep the tone light.
“Agreed. Next time we decide to do this, let’s go with forty-five minutes ago being the closest we ever get to disaster, m’kay?”
Mila stared at him, trying to discover if he was joking or telling the truth.
Her look made him snort.
And again.
She giggled.
And that was it, the dam was broken. The two of them burst into howls of laughter that they desperately tried to keep quiet so as not to wake the others. It was a difficult task, but the exertion of keeping their bears contained meant that they were thoroughly exhausted, and none of them stirred.
“I’m worried about Maximus,” he said as they recovered themselves.
He looked into the back seat. Not once had his eldest brother even stirred during the ride. His body was almost exactly where Pierce had put it, limp except for the slow rise and fall of his chest.
“But he’s alive,” Mila said firmly. “That’s what matters. We’ll make sure he’s okay once we get away from the city.”
Pierce nodded, but that didn’t stop him from constantly looking in the rear view mirror, hoping to see a big head stir and block his view.
“Where are we going, by the way?” he asked.
“The same cabin I took you to,” she said.
Pierce turned to look at her. “Did I ever tell you that you’re a genius, and that I love you?”
Instead of looking happy, Mila simply looked pained. “You don’t have to say that,” she said softly.
“Say what?”
“That you love me. I know you’re just trying to remain on good terms until you can ditch me.”
Pierce stared at her in shock. “Why would I ditch you?”
She frowned. “Pierce…I lied to you. I betrayed you and had you locked up. I was the one who took you from your home in the first place. How can you not want to get away from me the first opportunity you get?”
He frowned, looking forward.
“I’m mad, yes. But I think I understand you now,” he said. “You’ve probably done some other things while working for the Institute that I wouldn’t like.”
Mila flinched, but didn’t respond.
“You’re going to tell me about them, at some point,” he said. “Though they probably run similar to what you did to me and my brothers.”
There was what might have been the barest hint of a nod.
“But eventually, Mila, you came to realize that what you were doing was wrong. Not only did you manage to do that, but you also decided to do something about it. That takes guts. A fair bit of insanity and recklessness too, but guts.”
A ghost of a smile played across her lips at his words.
“My one question to you is this though: The person that I met. The personality, everything I learned about you while you were pretending not to know who I was. Was that all an act designed to get me to trust you?”
“No!” she blurted out, clutching the wheel tightly. “No, Pierce, I swear to you. I didn’t forge a false persona just to befriend you. The…the woman who fell in love with you, that is me. That’s the real me. The strike team leader for the Institute, that was the false person. The one who only existed because I thought she needed to. The person you met, the person you…you think you fell in love with. That person is all me, one hundred percent.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she spoke, her eyes blinking rapidly to help her focus on the road. Pierce could hear the emotion behind her words as she spoke. Raw, unguarded, and real. There were no lies, no curtain between him and Mila. What he was seeing was the real woman, the real Mila Chaire.
He desperately wanted to reach over and pull her to him, to hold her. Kiss her. Stroke her cheek. Instead, he simply raised a hand and brushed away the tears from the side nearest him. Mila tilted her head into his touch, resting her hand against him as she drove.
“That’s what I needed to hear,” he whispered, leaning close until his lips were almost pressed against her ear. “Because I know your intentions were honorable. And although I’m slightly offended you didn’t think I had what it took to be an A-list actor, I can kinda sorta see where you’re coming from. You hurt me, Mila, yes. I won’t lie to you.”
Her shoulders shook as a new round of sobs threatened to overtake her, but he hushed her softly.
“But you’ve more than made up for it. You’ve earned my forgiveness.” He hesitated. “Besides, I haven’t been completely honest with you either, though this was more of just an omission, as opposed to a lie.”
She straightened and glared at him. “If you’re about to tell me that you already have a woman in your life—”
Pierce’s eyes flew open. “What? No no no. Mila, that is not where I’m going with all this!”
“Okay,” she said, relaxing. “Spit it out then, don’t draw it out.”
He smiled. “What I was going to say is that I’m not…” he frowned, stopping. “No, I wasn’t always the gentleman you know now. I’ve…done things. Things I’m not overly proud of.”
She turned her head to regard him for a moment before returning it to the road. “And you don’t think you’re that person anymore?”
Pierce’s answer came easily this time. “I know I’m not that person anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you make me better than that. You make me want to be the person I’ve always been capable of being.”
“Why weren’t you that person before then?” she asked curiously.
“I guess,” he said slowly, “I guess I just never had a reason before. But I do now.”
Mila considered his words and then began to nod slowly. “So that’s why you were in jail when we got you, hmm?”
He sputtered. “How did you…oh, right.” Pierce hung his head as Mila began to laugh at his expense. “Of course you knew all along I wasn’t so good. You busted me out of a damn jail. How the hell did I not put two and two together?”
She snorted. “Don’t hate yourself too much for that one. That’s a male trait.”
Pierce found himself choking on his own saliva for a second time in a few minutes as he tried to act outraged while also attempting not to laugh hysterically.
Things were going to be all right. He could see that now.
Chapter Thirty
Mila
“So what do we do now?”
The six of them were sitting or leaning against the walls in the cabin. As it turned out, the exact cabin she’d rented before had been given to someone else for the week, but another one had been available.
They were all laid out the same, so it didn’t matter. They had privacy, and they were also hours away from the city, firmly ensconced in nature. She eyed the shifters.
Kean and Gavin were leaning against the far wall, looking to their older brothers for support. Neither of them had contributed much to the discussion, deferring mostly to what Kassian and Pierce said.
The two elder brothers, who also happened to be the ringleaders she gathered, were sitting at the two other chairs arrayed around the small table. Neither of them had an immediate answer to her qu
estion.
Pierce did though. She eyed her mate as he spoke—it was still weird to think of him as that, but she couldn’t deny the connection they felt—admiring the way he didn’t back down in the presence of his older brothers, men he had deferred to for much of his life.
It had been two days since their escape from the Institute, and they’d spent most of that time recovering and explaining to the others what had happened during the interval between them being taken, and she and Pierce coming to their rescue. Nobody had spoken much about the next steps. But it was time. Something had to be finalized; they couldn’t stay there forever.
“We should find out more about this Institute. We may not be the only ones they had imprisoned,” Pierce was saying.
“Screw the Institute. Let’s go back to Cadia. This isn’t our fight.” Kassian’s eyes were hard as he looked around at the others, daring anyone to challenge him.
“Considering they involved us, I’d say it is our fight,” Pierce shot back.
“Tell that to your girlfriend,” Kassian spat. “She’s the one who kidnapped us.”
Pierce’s growl filled the room. “Mila was only acting on orders. Orders which she then disobeyed to rescue your dumb ass. So stop being such a dick.”
Kassian looked ready to stand up and fight Pierce, who was lounging against the kitchen counter looking nonplussed about the whole thing.
“We don’t know anything about the Institute,” Gavin said, breaking into the conversation at last with something that neither went against Kassian, nor supported Pierce. “All we know is what Mila could tell us. That they’re powerful, with a lot of fingers in various parts of the government, but not a huge amount of actual personnel or resources. They operate on the backs of others. But that could mean a lot of trouble if we go after them.”
Kean pushed off the wall. Mila watched, fascinated as the younger brothers began to speak, almost as if inspired by Pierce’s mini-rebellion.
“The Institute came after us. Sure, we gave them a bloody nose. But they’re not going to stop. They wanted us to eventually come to like them. To want to work with them. We never found out why, but there has to be a reason for it. Something. They already had those other shifters allied with them.”
“I don’t like the idea of Kronum being allied with the humans,” Pierce put in, referencing the small shifter territory to the east of Longhorne, on the opposite side of the human city as Cadia.
Mila took it all in. “I don’t think Kronum is allied with them. I have no proof, but I’m willing to bet that they just kidnapped a few shifters from there, like they did with you, and eventually turned them into allies.”
Pierce snarled silently at the thought. “They’ll keep trying to take more shifters if we don’t do something about it.”
“What are we going to do, Pierce?” Maximus said at last. “We know where one of their buildings are, and they’re likely to vacate it now that we’ve escaped from the facility. We have nothing to go on, no intelligence, no way to bring them to heel. We can’t kill them, so all we can do is knock ‘em unconscious. That doesn’t stop them.”
Pierce opened his mouth to speak, but Mila whirled as someone else spoke first.
“Perhaps I can help with that.”
The shifters were on their feet in an instant, and Pierce was suddenly between Mila and the speaker. She hadn’t even seen him move.
“Who are you?” her mate said, his voice a deep-throated growl that she’d come to realize meant he was ready to fight.
Something told her that wasn’t the right instinct just then though.
So Mila, against a large portion of logic, gently stepped in front of Pierce, so that she could see the stranger.
“My name is Madison Kerber,” said the blonde woman standing in the doorway.
Mila regarded her and her above-average height, piercing blue eyes. The woman was dressed for efficiency, not fashion. Boots suitable for athletic activity—including combat—came up to just below her knees and were tucked into a pair of dark blue pants made of something sturdier than denim. A dark-brown utility belt was buckled around her waist, barely visible under the long jacket she wore, also obscuring much of the black form-fitting shirt underneath as well.
It was an impressive look, all sharp lines and neat cuts. Nor was it something that she’d just donned either. Mila could see that she wore the clothing comfortably, was used to it, and moved within it like an animal in its own skin.
One of the other shifters made a strangled noise, but Mila tuned him out, focusing on the woman who had managed to sneak up not only on her, but on six alert shifters as well. That was no mean feat.
“Is that name supposed to mean something?” she asked, trying not to sound too snarky.
The woman was keeping her hands away from her sides and standing very still, not exuding any threat warnings at all. She clearly knew she was standing on very slippery water.
“Probably not,” Madison replied. “In fact, you likely know nothing about me or who I work for.”
“Then why should we care?” Pierce asked, speaking before Mila could voice the same question.
“Because I represent a group who wants to take down the Institute just as badly as you do.”
Maximus, who had moved up next to Pierce, snickered lightly. “Lady, you are barking up the wrong tree. We’re not interested in taking on the Institute.”
The blonde eyed Maximus skeptically, and then slowly—very slowly—reached into the left pocket of her jacket, using only two fingers. When she emerged, they held nothing but a piece of paper.
“When you change your mind, call me,” she said. A flick of her wrist sent the card whirling across the room, where Pierce snatched it out of mid-air with contemptuous ease.
“We’ll see,” he said.
Madison smiled knowingly, offered a mild curtsy, and then backed out of the door.
There was nothing but silence for the first few minutes. Then someone breathed deeply.
“Who was she?” Kean asked dreamily.
“Keener Kean is in love again,” Kassian said with a snort. “Though this time I think he’s met his match.”
The other shifters chuckled. Mila just assumed that meant Kean often found himself obsessing over random women who walked into his life, with little to no luck at wooing them.
Pierce was slowly turning the card over in his hand.
“Well, that was interesting,” he said at last.
Mila watched him pocket the card, a thoughtful expression on his face.
***
“So,” she said as they lay in bed later that night, enjoying the peaceful glow that she’d come to expect after their lovemaking.
“So?”
She leaned up onto one side, the covers falling away to expose her breasts to his hungry eyes.
“Not that,” she giggled, making no effort to cover herself.
Pierce’s hand slid up her side, and he began to draw slow circles around her nipple with his thumb.
“What then?” her mate asked mischievously.
“Are we good?” she asked, her voice becoming serious as all playfulness left their mood.
Pierce abruptly stopped touching her, his head coming up to look into her eyes.
“Mila, we’ve always been good,” he said. “Am I curious about what the future holds? Yes. Scared and tentative? Absolutely. I’ve never been in this situation before. It’s all new for me.” He took her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth, where he softly kissed the back of it, his eyes never leaving hers.
“But no matter what,” he continued a moment later, “We have always been good. Your past is in the past. As long as you leave it there, I will as well. Yes, you lied to me about who you were.” His serious tone vanished. “But I think you’ve been doing a pretty good job of making it up to me,” he teased.
The smile vanished. “In all seriousness though Mila, you told me that you would never lie to me
again.”
She nodded. “I won’t, Pierce. You’ll have me. All of me. Every last little dirty bit. Whether you want it or not.”
He smiled, the joy reaching up and into his bright blue eyes, making them sparkle like the ocean on a sunny day.
It was contagious, and her own lips curved upward as joy filled her heart.
“How did I get so lucky?” she asked. “To find someone so willing to forgive and forget?”
Pierce pulled her close, so that his mouth was right next to her ears. “I have my own secrets, my own demons, Mila. But together, together we’re stronger. Together we can do anything.”
She kissed his neck gently, then nipped at his ear.
Pierce growled and pulled on her. Mila didn’t resist as he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. Something hard pressed into her from behind, and she gently rocked her hips back against it.
“So,” she whispered once more, feeling warmth heat her body. “Does that mean you’re going to call the number?”
Pierce grinned as he grabbed her by the hips and lifted her up, lining her up with his hardness.
“No, but Kean did earlier today.”
Mila’s next words were lost as he lowered her down onto him.
***
This concludes Blackjack Bears: Pierce.
Read Blackjack Bears: Kean (Koche Brothers #2) Now
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Want More of These Characters?
Hey!
Thanks for digging in to my back matter for more books to read. I’ve written a number of series now, in three main worlds. All worlds have an easy and convenient to read introduction, with a number of stories in it that will drag you right into the world.
The Outsiders
Ancient Dragons have been awakened to fight a monstrous enemy from out of this world. But they have one condition first: They must be allowed to find their mates.
