“Get lost, Jeff,” he said with a bravery he didn’t feel. He glanced at Corey. The smaller boy’s face was pale and pinched with worry, and Tyler’s fear heightened.
“It’ll be okay, honey,” he said under his breath.
“It’ll be okay, honey,” Jeff mimicked in a high-pitched voice. He shook his head with disgust. “Jesus, you two are gross.”
Tyler didn’t reply. He had been schoolmates with Jeff since kindergarten, and he knew from experience the best way to handle him was to ignore his taunts. Although Tyler had never publicly announced he was gay, and had done his best to just quietly blend in, he’d been targeted by Jeff and his oafish friends for most of his life.
“Tyler, let’s go.” Corey tugged on Tyler’s hand, and Jeff glanced at his friends. They spread out in a loose circle around them, and Corey made a quiet moan of fear.
They were too far for anyone to help them. They’d ridden their bikes to the edge of the woods, and he and Corey had walked for nearly an hour into the trees to the long, wide river that wound its way through the trees. Tyler had grown up on the outskirts of the city and spent many happy hours playing in the woods. Now, he lived with his father to an apartment in the heart of the city.
Adrenaline was lighting sparks through his veins. Corey had moved to the city two years ago, and although Tyler was aware of him, had admired the way his lean, lithe body moved when he played soccer, it wasn’t until this final year of high school that he and Corey started dating. Corey, the captain of the school’s soccer team, was failing Spanish, and Tyler was assigned to tutor him. It hadn’t taken long for them to fall in love.
Tyler squeezed Corey’s hand again. They had kept it quiet, in fact many of the girls in their grade regularly swooned over Corey, and he had no idea how Jeff had figured it out.
“Why the fuck you’d want to stick your dick up his ass instead of some girl’s pussy, I’ll never fucking know.” Jeff shook his head again. “Or are you the bottom? You strike me as the kind of guy who likes to take it up the ass, Wagner.”
“You seem to know a lot about the lifestyle, Jeff,” Tyler said. “Are you and your friends a little closer than you want people to know?”
Corey moaned again as Jeff’s face turned bright red. “You’ll pay for that, you fucking faggot.”
“Original. Of course, I can’t really expect someone with your IQ to come up with better insults, can I?”
“Tyler, shut up,” Corey whispered.
Tyler shook his head. The fear on Corey’s face, the way his body trembled, had buried his own fear under a sudden, hot and throbbing pulse of anger, and he embraced the unfamiliar feeling.
“You and your idiot friends should leave, Jeff,” Tyler said.
“Oh, we’re not leaving until we teach you what happens to queers like you. What you’re doing is sick.” Jeff and his friends closed in on them. “We’ll see how you feel about your little boyfriend when you’re in the hospital with a broken -”
He took a step back when Tyler suddenly threw himself at him. He rammed his shoulder into Jeff’s stomach, knocking the bigger boy backwards, as he shouted, “Corey! Run!”
He dropped on Jeff and swung his fist. His hand screamed in agony when it connected with Jeff’s broad jaw, but he ignored it grimly and raised his hand again, smashing his fist into Jeff’s nose.
Jeff howled with anger and threw Tyler to the ground beside him. He pounced on him, wrapping his large arm around his neck and hauling him into a sitting position as his nose gushed blood down Tyler’s shoulder and arm.
He squeezed tightly as Tyler choked and clawed frantically at his arm. He released it enough for Tyler to drag in a whooping gasp of cold air.
“You and your boyfriend are going to burn in hell,” Jeff whispered.
Eyes bulging, Tyler watched as Jeff’s friends knocked Corey to the ground and began to kick him in the ribs and back.
“Corey!” Tyler tried to scream as one of the boys delivered a brutal kick to Corey’s face and his eyes rolled up in his head.
“What the fuck?” Jeff’s hot breath puffed in his ear, and his arm relaxed around his neck.
“Corey?” Tyler whispered. Corey’s limp body was rippling and changing, the clothes tearing away, and the boys watched in fascination as he shifted to a small, orange fox. Blood trickled steadily from the fox’s nostrils as one of the boys reached down and prodded at it with the toe of his sneaker.
“Holy fuck.” He turned to Jeff. “He’s a paranormal.”
Jeff grunted with surprise when Tyler nearly wiggled out of his grip.
“Let me go! He’s hurt!” Tyler shouted.
Jeff tightened his grip until Tyler gagged. “It’s not bad enough that you’re fucking a dude, but he’s a paranormal too? What is wrong with you?”
Tyler, his face going purple from lack of oxygen, reached for Corey. He had to get to him, he had to help him. He clawed again at Jeff’s muscular arm as black roses bloomed in his vision.
“Let him go.”
The voice was soft, but there was a hard steel to its tone. Jeff dropped his arm from Tyler’s neck and stood up. Tyler laid on the ground, gagging and gasping in lungsful of air as Jeff scowled at the woman standing a few feet away.
“Get out of here, bitch. This isn’t any of your business.” Jeff wiped the blood from his nose with the heel of his hand.
“You’re trespassing on my land. That makes it my business,” the woman replied. She was wearing a long dark blue cloak with a hood, and she pushed the hood back to reveal her face as she glanced at the fox lying on the ground.
Tyler stared at the woman. She was tall, he guessed close to six feet, and she had long dark hair with streaks of blue woven throughout it. Her skin was pale and, he squinted at her face, eyes that seemed to glow in the growing dusk.
“Fuck off!” Jeff clenched his ham-like hands into fists. “I’m not into hurting women, but I’m willing to make an exception for you.”
“Lucky me,” the woman replied. She eyed the others before shifting her gaze back to Jeff. “Go on. You and your little friends scurry off like the ugly rodents that you are. I grow tired of you.”
“Bitch! You’ll pay for that,” Jeff huffed again. He glanced at the three other boys and Tyler gave a hoarse shout of warning as Jeff suddenly rushed forward and his friends followed.
The woman sighed loudly, and Tyler watched in stunned silence as she beat the shit out of his classmates.
* * *
The woman, she wasn’t even breathing hard, bent and picked up the unconscious fox. Scattered around her, Jeff and his friends were lying on the ground moaning softly, but she completely ignored them.
Tyler staggered to his feet and lurched after the woman as she walked into the woods.
“Wait!” He grabbed her arm and coughed hoarsely into the crook of his elbow. “He needs to go to the hospital.”
“We can’t take him like this. The hospital won’t treat him until he shifts to his human form, and he’s not going to shift while he’s unconscious,” the woman replied.
“Wh-where are you taking him?” Tyler squeezed her arm.
“To get him help.” The woman frowned as she stared at his hand. The knuckles were bruised and swollen. “Is your hand broken?”
“I don’t know.”
He glanced behind them at Jeff and the others. “What about them?”
“Leave them,” she said dismissively. “They’ll crawl home and lick their wounds.”
She started walking again and, not knowing what else to do, Tyler followed her.
“Who are you?” He panted. The woman was setting a brisk pace and he could barely keep up with her long strides.
“My name is Kaida.”
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Books by Elizabeth Kelly
Tempted Series
Tempted
Twice Tempted
Tempted 3
Breathless
Red Moon Series
Red Moon
Red Moon Rising
Dark Moon
Alpha Moon
Pale Moon
The Recruit Series
The Recruit Book One
The Recruit Book Two
The Recruit Book Three
The Recruit Book Four
The Recruit Book Five
The Shifters Series
Willow and the Wolf (Book One)
Ava and the Bear (Book Two)
Kat and the Bird (Book Three)
Porter’s Mate (Book Four)
Bria and the Tiger (Book Five)
Rosalie Undone (Book Six)
The Draax Series
Reign (Book One)
Individual Books
The Necessary Engagement
Amelia’s Touch
The Rancher’s Daughter
Healing Gabriel
The Contract
A Home for Lily
Saving Charlotte
The Christmas Wife
Shameless
The Fairy Tales Collection
Broken
An Unlikely Seduction
Sordid Games
Rosalie Undone (The Shifters Series Book 6) Page 34
