Behind Claus, three shifters struggled to get up from the ground. The man she’d shot could not shift back to his bear form, but he held a hand over his wounds as he glared at Holly. She had no apologies. He was trying to hurt her mate. She would stop at nothing to protect him.
“After I finish off your boyfriend here, you’re going to lead me back to your family. They’re going to give me Robert, so I can track down my daughter once and for all.”
“Did she leave you?” Holly bought them time. “I can see why she wouldn’t want to live with a murderous bastard like you.”
The bear shifter she’d shot fell back onto his knees. He didn’t have the strength to fight. The wolf was staggering on his feet. His muzzle was covered in blood, Claus’s blood if she had to guess. Beside him, the gorilla shifter was missing an eye. Claus’s claws had left gashes down his face. They were knitting together, but shifter healing could not bring back what was lost. He would forever be without an eye.
“Is that why you want my cousin? Did Robbie do something nice for once?” Holly laughed. It was daring, a show put on to not only vex the man behind her, but to summon a bit of courage for herself. “You managed to be so awful that you made a Carter shifter feel bad. You should be proud of yourself. The Carters are a bunch of assholes.”
“Be quiet, woman, or I will kill you, too.”
“What’s the point in living if you’re going to take away the only good thing that’s ever happened to me?” She met Claus’s gaze. His eyes pleaded with her, filled with sorrow and grief.
No, don’t do whatever you’re about to do. I can’t lose you. I can’t watch you die.
Holly had nothing left to say. She’d found something worth living for, worth dying for, too. She summoned her martial arts training and brought the heel of her foot down on the man’s foot. The arch crunched under the impact. He hissed in pain. She gripped his arm and ducked her shoulder.
His feet left the ground. She heard the dress tearing but didn’t stop. The man’s back hit the asphalt, and she heard the air whoosh from his lungs. To her surprise, none of the other shifters moved. It gave her the time to leap for the dropped gun. She grabbed it before jumping back to her feet, spinning toward the shifters.
They all watched her with a bit of awe. The wolf’s jaw was even slightly agape. The first one to move was Claus. He stepped toward the man she’d dropped to the ground and put his foot on the man’s chest. For a long moment, he stared down at the man.
Holly couldn’t tell where this was going to go. Was he going to kill him? Let him run back home?
Then, the moment passed. Claus put all his weight onto the man’s chest as he reached forward with bear paws. She cringed and looked away. The sound of snapping bones filled the air. When she looked back, the man’s neck was crooked. Claus had made it quick.
He stood tall and looked back at the others. They did not seem inclined to challenge him. There was a reason the now-dead man had brought three giant shifters to fight Claus. Apparently, it had not been enough, either.
She let out a breath, her shoulders dropping. The gorilla gathered the bleeding shifter into his arms, the one she’d shot, and gave Claus a lingering look. It seemed to promise retribution for the lost eye. Then he and the wolf turned to disappear into the darkness.
***
“Damn,” Claus mumbled. His body thrummed with the change. The fight had left his blood pumping, and now that it was slowing, so was he.
The world around him swayed, but one thing steadied him. Holly was a sight to see. Her gold dress fluttered around her bare thighs. She gripped a handgun, aiming it toward the ground as if she’d been taught by a professional. Clearly, she had been trained, if the man moaning on the ground was any indication.
Claus stumbled toward her. She turned her body so that she could catch him with her empty arm, the gun carefully pointed away from him. He tried not to put too much weight on her.
“You threw a mob boss on his ass. I’m so proud of you.” He rested his cheek on her head.
She was fine. She was in one piece. His mate had survived the night. And, so had he.
His mind reeled, suddenly realizing how their future had been blown open. All the things he’d wanted yet told himself he could not have, were now at his fingertips. No, he slowed himself down. He was not yet sure of how she felt. Holly might have saved him, but he did not know if she could forgive him.
When he leaned back to look down at her, she gave him an appraising look. He was fine, but she still worried about him. It gave him hope.
“I, ah…Would you…” He shook himself. “Could you ever…forgive a man like me?”
Silence filled the space between them. Each passing second, his hope sunk lower. He waited for her to turn back to her car and run back to the Carter abode, done with him once and for all. He didn’t deserve what she’d already given him. Forgiveness was asking for too much.
“It’s a lot to work through,” she admitted. “But I think we can take this day by day. Don’t get me wrong, there are going to be a lot of volunteer hours in your future, but I don’t think you’re past redemption.”
He hugged her tight. He didn’t deserve her. This was the marker for a new life, a new direction in which he could become the kind of man that deserved the love of a woman like her. It would be a long journey and there would be hiccups here and there, but he was willing to give it his all.
She tugged him into a kiss until a car drove by and blared its horn at them.
“We should leave before they call the cops,” she whispered once they broke the kiss.
“That’s a good idea. I don’t want to stick around here much longer. How far away is Raleigh? Do you think we could stop at a gas station and buy all their beef jerky?”
Holly laughed, but he was serious. He wanted to go back to the place where she was happiest. That was his new home, he decided. He would call Elise and ask her to have his Challenger towed. He knew, when Holly told him it was a ten-hour drive, that he would have more than enough time to think of a way to blackmail her into helping.
“Let me drive,” he asked. “If you grab beef jerky and some cheap sweats at the next gas station, I’ll let you sleep the whole time.”
“It’s a deal.”
She jumped to kiss the dimple on his cheek before running around the car to the passenger seat. She was careful with the gun, emptying the magazine and clicking the safety before locking it in the glove compartment.
Chapter Fifteen
Holly lounged on her couch. The soft, suede fabric was familiar and comforting. She leaned back and enjoyed the soft glow of the Christmas lights she’d strung the night before. Never before had she been one to celebrate Christmas. It had been almost a dirty word in her life.
Since coming home, she’d made a last-minute trip to the department store and grabbed a small kit to put up her own Christmas tree and lights. They filled the living room of her Raleigh apartment with soft light. She let out a content sigh, sipped her coffee, and leaned her head against her hand.
In the next room, a massive man snored on her bed. He was rightfully exhausted after what they’d gone through. Not only had he survived an ambush, but he’d driven the ten hours back to Raleigh while she’d slept in the passenger seat. There was no way of telling when he would wake, but she was content to wait.
It wasn’t like she had a package to open on that Christmas morning. Fate had given her an early Christmas present. Claus was more than she ever could have asked for. Sure, he wasn’t a perfect man, but no one was perfect. To ask for perfection was to ask for something that would never work.
She hungrily anticipated the grumpy mornings where they would fight over the coffee maker, the late nights where he would try to get her to put a riveting book down, and the long days where they would fall into each other’s arms and know the world was alright after all.
There was a groaning sound in the bedroom. The bed creaked, and Claus appeared. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at t
he tree, at the lights strung around the room. A smirk appeared on the corner of his mouth. He shook his head and stalked toward her, gathering her into his arms after he sat.
“When did you have the time to do all this?”
“While you were snoring,” she answered. “Do you like it?”
There was no gaudy green, red, or gold. Her version of Christmas was a rainbow celebration. It was all cheap and might not last them very long, needing to be replaced in a few years, but she wanted to celebrate the season that gave her a mate. Not the way her parents celebrated, with flashy dinners and extravagant parties, but in her pajamas with the man she loved.
It was strange to think that in only a few days she’d fallen so thoroughly for Claus. She looked down at the ring on her finger, the family heirloom he’d stolen for her. Her coworkers would call her crazy for bringing home a man she met days ago. Some of them would try to talk her out of it.
Holly knew that there was no greater love than the love of a mate. No one in the world would ever convince her otherwise.
“Oh, man. Do you know what would make this even better?”
Claus’s snoring paused as he stirred awake once more. She twisted in his arms to look at him. His eyes were heavy with sleep, but he looked content. Happier than she’d ever seen him despite the bruises that still marred his face.
“We should get a shifter to take our engagement photos, so I can ride you and look like a frost queen.”
He snorted. “You’re crazy, but I can live with that. How do you plan on explaining the photos to your human friends?”
She grinned. “Photo editing software, of course.”
It pleased her to know their life would never look like her family’s. She wasn’t going to have an extravagant Christmas wedding like everyone else. She wasn’t going to wear fancy gowns to late night dinners. This was their messy and complicated life, and she was going to love every second of it.
Even the moments when he snored in her ear.
Thank you!
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