She felt angry, she felt powerful, and she felt the presence of her two mates, though she could not see them anywhere. She looked at Jill, and then at Bonnie. They both wore shocked expressions.
“This should not be possible!” Bonnie exclaimed. She and Jill both took a few steps back, but Charlotte advanced on them with a fury the likes of which she had never felt—fury that wasn’t solely her own.
She pushed Jill away, knocking her to the ground, and before Charlotte knew what she was doing, she had a hand wrapped around Bonnie’s throat with a strength that subdued her and brought her to her knees. She looked down at the woman she once thought to be kind and nurturing and saw her for the bitter, bigoted woman she truly was. She held this woman’s life literally in her hand, and she wanted to take it from her.
Chapter Eleven
Drew and Chris easily caught up to the hunters, but instead of approaching them right away, they followed from a distance to see where they were heading. As they got closer to the main trail, Drew spotted a Jeep parked in the distance, and he and Chris decided to circumvent the two hunters and surprise them at their vehicle. He memorized the license plate to give to the sheriff later, then he and Chris waited.
“What the fuck do you want?” one of them asked while approaching the Jeep.
Drew had no time for this shit. He and Chris were desperate to get back to Charlotte, so they were going to make this quick. In seconds, he and Chris disarmed the two men and had them pinned, face forward against the Jeep, arms behind their backs.
“There’s no hunting allowed in Taika, fucker,” Drew said to the man who was about to go for his gun earlier. “You and your buddy are also drunk. You could have killed someone.”
“S’not loaded,” he heard the other one slur, making Drew wonder if their plan had been to hit their tiger forms over the head with their guns. He could have laughed if he weren’t so pissed.
“What were you doing out there then?” Chris asked the cooperative one he had pinned.
“A lady. She bought us drinks and paid us money and gave us these rifles.”
“She said we got to keep these, too,” Drew’s captive told him.
Drew spun the guy around to face him. “What lady? What did she want you to do out here?”
“I don’t know, man. She said to come out here and be some distraction.”
Drew looked over at Chris with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Charlotte,” they both said in unison.
Chris found the keys to the Jeep in the pocket of the guy he was restraining, and he confiscated them. “Sleep it off,” he told them and then left them there. They’d deal with the drunks later.
They sent their spirit tigers to Charlotte while they raced after them to get to her. Drew’s heart nearly stopped when he heard her piercing scream. “Fuck! Charlotte!” he yelled as he ran.
Finally, their tigers reached her. She was on the ground, writhing in pain, a bruise forming on her cheek, and there was fucking Bonnie, of all people, commanding Jill to kill his mate. He could sense Jill’s reluctance. She may have been a lot of things, but he saw in that moment she was not a killer. Bonnie, on the other hand, apparently had no qualms. He and Chris would be too late to stop her.
All he could think of in that moment was wrapping himself around her, protecting her body with his own, and he felt that same desperate need emanating from his brother. The three of them were forever linked, like one combined soul, and before he could even think about what he was doing, his and Chris’s spirit tigers connected with Charlotte’s soul, healing her from the inside and giving her the strength—their strength—to rise.
As they ran, still some distance away from her, Drew realized what he and Chris had just impossibly done. They both had placed their spirit tigers inside of Charlotte. He could see through her eyes, hear her thoughts, feel her emotions, Chris’s too, and they all wanted blood … Bonnie’s blood. Shoving Jill to the side, Charlotte grabbed Bonnie by the neck and squeezed, bringing the woman to her knees. She may still be human, but with two spirit tigers inside of her, she was a powerful force to be reckoned with.
“Justice,” he heard Charlotte say, though her voice was garbled. “She deserves justice.” And then she let go of her throat, leaving Bonnie gasping for air on the ground.
“Justice is what they will both get.” It was Ash’s voice coming from a distance. Drew heard it before the owner of it came into view.
Moments later, he and Chris finally arrived. Charlotte ran to them and they caught her between them. He saw Ash arch his brow in surprise as his and Chris’s spirit tigers left Charlotte’s body and reunited with theirs.
“Interesting.”
“I take it that doesn’t happen often?” Drew asked him.
“No, it doesn’t, but then again, neither does mating with humans, so perhaps it is an added shield to protect one’s mate.”
That made sense to Drew and allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief to give Charlotte an equal fighting chance against another shifter, maybe even greater with two spirits inside her.
“It’s unnatural,” Bonnie croaked from her position on the floor.
Ash turned to her with anger marring his features. “Who are you to say what’s natural in this world? Are you a god?” Though his voice was even, matter-of-fact, his tone held a sense of authority. He took a knee in front of Bonnie, piercing the woman with his glare. Her jaw dropped when she saw flames dance momentarily across his exposed skin. Drew figured she must have finally realized what he was. “You place yourself above the spirit gods, do you?”
She was stunned speechless, and Drew could see that she was more than a little frightened.
His Charlotte was thankfully unscathed, but he could feel the accelerated beating of her heart as he held her. “You’re okay now, baby,” he cooed. “Chris and I got you.”
Ash stood and turned to face the trio. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you for coming, Ash,” Drew said. He could see the man was tired, burdened with a heavy weight, so he couldn’t help but feel even more grateful for the assist. “If there is anything we can do to help, please let us know.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that.” Turning back to Bonnie, he said, “Come.” He then inclined his head toward Jill to do the same. She acquiesced and walked toward Ash, but not before first glaring at Bonnie, who remained still unmoving on the ground. “You can either follow of your own volition, or I can force you. The choice is yours, of course, but be grateful that you still have one. There will be very few in your near future.”
Bonnie looked terrified at Ash’s words and immediately got up, still babying her throat, and followed Ash with her head bowed. She never once looked back at Charlotte.
“That’s right,” Drew said, knowing even though Bonnie was now out of sight, she could still hear him. “You should be fucking grateful … to Charlotte for your life. It was she who stopped. Chris and I would have killed you.”
He was feeling pretty grateful, too, and for a lot of things—the most important was that he and Chris found a way to help save Charlotte in time. She was shaken, still trembling in his arms, but she was alive and safe. He felt so completely stupid for falling for Bonnie’s deception and for going against his gut to leave Charlotte alone on the trail back to camp, but he had faith in her. She was a brave badass and had she been born a shifter, he was certain she would have had both Bonnie and Jill cowering at her feet all on her own. He was also grateful Charlotte had stopped in time. He had meant it when he said he would have killed Bonnie. When he saw his mate writhing in pain on the ground with a bruise on her cheek, he saw red, and that, on top of the fear that he and Chris wouldn’t make it there in time to save her made his focus to end the threat singular and by any means necessary. They had Bonnie subdued, though, and he would have regretted it later.
“What’s going to happen to them?” Charlotte asked.
“Bonnie tried to take the life of a human, and another shi
fter’s mate, no less,” Chris explained. “Those are crimes that could be punishable by death or life imprisonment, pretty much the same as for human crimes, I guess. They have special cells to hold shifter kind, even dragons.”
“And Jill?”
“Jill would not have harmed you in the end, but she is still culpable for her part,” Drew said. “And she was too afraid of Bonnie to have stopped her from killing you. I don’t think her punishment will be nearly as severe as Bonnie’s, but I highly doubt she’ll ever even think about laying another manicured claw on anyone ever again, especially not a human. That’s a surefire way to get a dragon’s attention.”
“I’d never want to piss off a dragon, I can tell you that. Just his very presence felt so … ominous,” Charlotte said. She looked so tired, Drew thought. He could see that having that much power inside of her after her body had already taken some abuse had spent most of her energy. She entwined her hands with one of each of theirs. “Take me home, please.”
Drew loved hearing the sound of that. It was Charlotte’s home now, too. He and Chris agreed, not caring that it was already nightfall. Shifters could see just as easily in the dark as in light. They went and got their camping gear before heading out. On their way down, Drew put in a call to the sheriff, a fellow tiger shifter, and informed him about what went down with the two drunken hunters. He’d stop by in the morning to deliver the confiscated keys.
An hour and a half later, they arrived back at the cabin. After eating and showering quickly, Drew and Chris tucked Charlotte into bed between them. He thanked the spirit gods for blessing him and his brother with his precious mate, and vowed to keep her safe … forever.
Epilogue
Charlotte reclined against Chris in their large Jacuzzi-style bathtub, his fingertips lazily drawing circles around her breasts. Drew sat in front of her, his hands stroking up and down her calves. They had just taken her together, making somewhat of a mess with the water sloshing over onto the floor. She couldn’t care less in her blissful state. The mess could wait until later.
“Happy, baby?” Drew asked her.
“Mhmm.” How could she not be after the two amazing orgasms they had just given her? But she knew what he had meant, and happy was a complete understatement.
Three months had passed since the camping trip, a little over two since she had officially moved in with them, and one week since Chris and Drew got down on their knees and asked her to marry them. Technically, in the eyes of the spirit gods and shifters, being mated equated to being married, but being that she was human and her own family would be kept in the dark about the real world, a somewhat traditional wedding seemed fitting.
“Shifters often have weddings themselves,” Edna had said to her. “Living amongst humans rubs off on us,” she had added with a wink. Charlotte could tell that her soon-to-be mother-in-law was ecstatic at the prospect of helping to plan a human wedding.
Charlotte’s own parents were also thrilled, not to mention graciously accepting of her unconventional union. Her mother hadn’t even appeared the least bit surprised, having known of Charlotte’s love for both men, and speculating on theirs for her, since they were teenagers. And she had witnessed her daughter’s pain at losing her best friends for ten years. Charlotte knew that her mom was just glad to see her daughter finally happy, and she had always been fond of Chris and Drew as well as their family.
The guys had ended up taking her on another camping trip, eager to replace a bad memory with a good one, and they succeeded. Charlotte had vowed not to let Bonnie and Jill taint any more of her memories with her men. Bonnie was no longer a threat to anyone. The outcome had been as Chris had predicted. She was spared her life, but would never live it freely again. Jill would be spending several years imprisoned as well, though a bit more comfortably and with some helpful guidance on how to improve her life when she got out. Charlotte would never like the girl, but she couldn’t help but be glad about her second chance. She only hoped she’d use it wisely.
The trio had even explored merging their spirit tigers with her again, only one at a time. It gave her a taste each time of what it was like to be a spirit shifter. She wasn’t able to transform, but she could run quickly with them, jump higher, and her senses heightened exponentially. Even without their spirit in her, however, she never felt weak around them as Bonnie had said.
“Humans are not weak,” Drew had said to her when she told him and Chris about all that had transpired before they got there. “They are resilient, strong, and thrive without the added benefits we possess. Humans are made from the spirit gods just like us and are to be treasured, not looked down upon.”
Chris had then chimed in with, “And we couldn’t have asked for a better mate to cherish and love.”
“I could never have asked for two better mates either,” she had said to them. “To cherish and love.”
She smiled at the memory of their words before letting out a yawn, throwing her arms up in the air to stretch her languid body. She then let her hands fall behind her, locking them around Chris’s neck. She sighed contentedly when he planted a kiss on her temple.
“I’d like to see it one day,” she said. “The insignia on the council meeting place, maybe even inside, if they let humans in, that is.”
“You’re mated to spirit shifters,” Chris murmured against her temple. “You go where we go.”
“Good to know. I’ve never been to Russia or any of the Slavic countries, so that would definitely make things more interesting. Do most shifters just live amongst the humans?”
“Pretty much,” Drew answered. “Although there are many hidden places throughout the world, dragon-made, where our kind can live or go for a visit. And you’d be surprised at the number of dragon statues placed out in public around the Baltic with little clues on where to find a council building or a hangout spot.” He squeezed her calf. “We’ll take you there.”
“We’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go, baby,” Chris added. “We have a very long lifetime ahead of us to explore.”
“And I look forward to every minute of it,” she said.
She had thought she was coming back to Taika to say good-bye to her best friends one more time, thought that she would forever be missing pieces of her heart after she had to leave them again, but instead she had come home to live with her whole heart, soul, and spirits as one.
The End
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