by AJ Merlin
But I’d felt this feeling before. The coldness, the numbing of my limbs and heart were friends of mine that I hadn’t had since I was a child.
And in that moment, I realized something.
Jack Thomas was nowhere near as terrifying as my mother had been.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. A stupid, high pitched giggle poured from my lips at the sight of the man who would probably kill me.
What was wrong with me?
I didn’t want to die. Not at all. But I’d been creating a monster in my brain for a very long time, and nothing still-living would ever come close to the thing I’d feared for so long.
Jack paused, confusion evident even on his feline features.
“That’s fine,” I told him, stepping out of my sneakers and rubbing my palms against my leggings. I let my own shift take hold, still fighting back inappropriately timed giggle while my heart pounded in my throat. “You want to show me what kind of alpha you are? Great.”
Fur flowed along my arms, red ending in black, as my own bones crunched and changed and shifted until I stood in front of him in my tall maned wolf shape.
But he didn’t move. In fact, if I could read his face with more surety, I would say that Jack Thomas looked pleased.
What the hell?
It hit me a second later, nearly knocking me off my paws. Wooziness at first, and I wondered when my stomach had decided to do summersaults in my body. Mist settled around my brain, disallowing me from doing much and pulling my focus off of anything that mattered.
In my haste, I’d forgotten about the drugs that Jack had shot me up with. Drugs that he’d probably measured out for my human form.
But my maned wolf shape was smaller. Leaner.
And the drugs capable of sedating an adult in human shape were definitely way too much for a maned wolf.
I’d really fucked up this time.
For the first time, I was afraid. I was afraid because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could maintain my consciousness, and Jack was stalking towards me in his liger form, one paw placed carefully in front of the other as he ate up the space between us in long, measured steps.
I did the only thing I could.
I attacked first.
He hadn’t been expecting it, but he was still strong and I was still barely conscious. I roared in his face, jaws closing around his shoulder moments before a large paw the size of a Christmas ham slammed into my head.
The same side of my head he’d hit me before.
A wash of red slid over my eyes, pain following after, but I didn’t relent. I bit down harder, intent on keeping his front leg as a damn souvenir even if it had to be buried with me in my coffin.
Jack snarled and hit me again, this time raking his claws in four hot lines down my neck and over my front leg.
Finally he stumbled back, shoulder oozing blood, and circled me, spitting out a hiss when he tried and failed to put weight on the leg I’d savaged.
Good for me, but I was in much worse shape.
The scratches were healing sluggishly, and I was seeing two ligers instead of one in the room with me.
Why was I healing so damn slowly?
He growled again, a warning for me to back down, but I roared in his face and surged forward, hoping to use his unwillingness to mortally wound me to my advantage.
This time he reared up, meeting me in a crash as my jaws found his and my teeth sank into the side of his face before tearing harshly outward.
He screamed, but didn’t back down. Jack bowled me over easily, Biting down into the base of my throat and only missing my jugular by scant inches.
The pain was intense. Hot and sharp, but without the smell of whisky on hot breath I’d been accustomed to the last time someone hurt me so badly.
I pushed it away, trying to remember that deep-dark place in my brain that I always pushed the pain to.
But it had been so long, and it was so hard to think that clearly right now.
And his bite hurt so damn bad. I howled my own frustration and agony, scrabbling at his belly with my paws in a futile attempt to get the liger off of me.
This was what I’d been afraid of. I was faster, when I was smarter, but he was much, much heavier than me. Heavy enough that he could pin me down.
Heavy enough that when he pulled back with rage and finality in his eyes to bear his teeth for the blow that I knew would kill me, there was little I could do apart from snarl in defiance in the face of Jack Thomas.
He might kill me, but he’d never get any kind of surrender from me.
From somewhere nearby, the sound of shattering glass met my ears, though with my vision tunneled to just Jack, I couldn’t tell what in the world was happening.
Distracted, the liger looked away, just as a shape dropped down from the rafters above us, attaching to his back and causing the liger to scream.
It was a panther.
Hades pulled Jack off of me, and a huge canine shape almost the size of the liger himself met the huge feline’s side, pushing him further from where I tried to struggle to my feet.
Hades and Wilder had come, but…
I watched, trembling, as the drug reached for the sides of my mind like long, shadowy fingers. Roman wasn’t here.
Roman wasn’t here to help them, because-
“Hey, take it easy, okay?”
I nearly collapsed at the sound of his voice, whirling around to see the enforcer jump through one of the long-shattered windows and kneel beside me on the concrete that was smeared with my blood.
He looked up at them, then back at me as I struggled to stand.
Roman wasn’t dead. Relief swept through me, nearly taking my paws out from under me once more.
But that didn’t matter, because my alpha wasn’t dead.
“You’re really beat up, Alek,” Roman murmured, kneeling beside me and cupping his hands under my muzzle. He looked pale, I noted, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
But he was alive.
I stepped forward and pressed my face against his chest, breathing in his scent as my body trembled and tried to give out.
Even the sounds of the liger’s death cries faded behind me. They didn’t matter one bit. Not now.
“Alek?” Worry had entered Roman’s voice when I sagged against him, and he moved to hold onto me better. “Alek-are you all right? You’re healing slowly, but…” I looked up at him with parted jaws, panting from something other than heat and exertion.
I was drugged and I’m an idiot, I wanted to tell him.
Instead, I fainted once again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“If you breathe on me any harder, I’ll know what you had for breakfast yesterday,” I murmured, hyper aware of the hot breath on my face as I swam to wakefulness again.
“Oh my god-you’re awake!” Noah yelped, pulling back. “Sorry I just-this isn’t the first time we thought you were waking up, and-“
“We?” I interrupted, forcing my eyes to open.
A white ceiling spun above me, and the beeping of a heart monitor met my ears.
That wasn’t a surprise. Apart from Noah’s breath, I’d woken up to the unpleasant smells of hospital-grade-cleaners and the overwhelming odor of sterile.
Tipping my head up, I looked around the room and saw Noah backing up to stand beside Hayley, who stood at the foot of my bed.
I couldn’t help the way disappointment showed on my face.
I’d hoped my alphas were here.
Not that I wasn’t thrilled to see Noah.
“What happened?” I muttered, my brain still a bit fuzzy.
“You mean, before or after you apparently shifted while your body was full of enough sedative to knock out someone twice your size?” Hayley asked with a soft smile to let me know she was joking.
“After,” I replied after a moment, finding that, while the specifics were blurred at the edges, I remembered the general gist of everything around that particular shift.
“Your boyfriends broug
ht you here,” Noah explained. “And I’d just like to say, if I ever get so much as a hangnail, I expect them to tote me to the nicest hospital in Atlanta too.” He gestured at the room around us and I lifted my head to see that instead of the usual hospital drabness, I was instead in a well lit, nicely painted room with a few paintings spaced around the walls and a large window to my left.
“And Hades’ family is footing the bill,” Noah added as an afterthought. “You know, in case you were worried.”
I hadn’t had time to worry about that too.
“Actually-“
“Is Roman okay?” I interrupted. “I thought I saw him…I did see him, right?” A note of panic entered my voice and Hayley sat on the bed beside me, gripping my hand comfortingly with hers.
“Your alphas are fine,” the blonde said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear gently. “They were here until about an hour ago.”
“Where did they go?”
Noah and Hayley traded a look at my question and my stomach plummeted.
“Hades and Wilder have to give their statements to the enforcers,” Hayley said at last. “For what they did.”
“But Hades is an Ahlleron,” I argued weakly.
“True,” Noah agreed. “However, they made a…spectacle out of that guy.”
“Jack?” What did that mean? What kind of spectacle?
Was he dead?
I wouldn’t say it out loud, but I hoped he was dead.
“They tore him apart for what he did,” Hayley said quietly. “And left him in some very…public places.
What?
They’d really done that?
“Wow,” I only said, unable to think of how else to express my absolute approval of their course of action. “That seems extreme.”
“It was incredibly extreme!” Noah jumped on my words as if he’d been waiting for them. “Are you okay with that? They ripped him apart, Alek!”
“Yeah, okay,” I shrugged, wondering when my shoulders had gotten to be so heavy. “Well, he almost killed Roman and was going to kill me. Are you saying they should’ve let him live?”
Noah’s shoulders fell. “No, I…I’m not sorry he’s dead. I’m not sorry about that, it’s just…” He sighed, and forged onward. “I worry for what you’re signing up for, being with them, if this is how they react now. How do you think they’d react if you’d let them mark you?”
He had a good point, I supposed. But not one I was really willing to entertain.
“You’re ruining my Sleeping Beauty moment,” I grumped, letting my head fall back against the pillow. “I’d hoped to wake up getting kissed. Not with you over my face like some weirdo.” I was getting tired again, and just talking to them seemed to take up too much of my energy, even though it shouldn’t.
“Pffft. Whatever, Alek!” His cautious tone was gone. “Go back to sleep then, and I’ll make sure to impart your wishes to your alphas when they get back.”
“Maybe I will.”
When I did pull myself from medicated dreams again, there was once more something in my face that was decidedly not one of my alphas.
My eyes opened, only to be greeted by red fur incredibly close to them.
“Uhh…” I lifted my hand, finding a purchase on the object and sitting up with it to move the soft thing to my lap.
It was another maned wolf stuffed animal. This one was about ten times the size of the first, however, and filled my lap comfortably.
“Had to get you a better one, to make up for the one that got ruined,” Roman remarked casually, reaching out a hand from where he sat on the side of my bed and running a hand over the soft toy.
“I love it,” I announced, happily surprised to see that I also wore Wilder’s bracelet. “It’ll sleep on my bed, and I’ll take the floor.”
From his spot by the window, Wilder chuckled. “You’ll disappear in your laundry if you do that, love.”
I looked around the room, eyes landing on Hades who leaned against one wall. “Are you feeling better?” The flirty alpha asked.
“I am feeling so much better.” I curled my legs under me, surprised at how much I meant what I said. “I’m ready to leave, actually.”
“Pretty sure the doctors would rather you stay one more night,” he disagreed.
“Pretty sure I’d rather be anywhere else.” I reached out, touching Roman’s side, and let my eyes scan his body as if I might see traces of a wound even over his shirt.
Seeing where my eyes were, Roman smiled and lifted his shirt to show me a fully mended upper body. “I’m fine,” he promised softly.
“How?” My voice came out less steady than I’d hoped for, and I cleared my throat to cover it.
“Noah came home early with Hayley,” he explained. “They found me, got me help, and called those two.” He waved a hand at Hades and Wilder.
I owed Noah and Hayley big time.
Warm relief suffused my entire body, and I couldn’t help but grin stupidly at them.
“I heard what you did to Jack,” I said, not thinking about my words. “From Noah.”
Wilder and Hades traded a look that I couldn’t read.
“And?” The dire wolf prompted.
“And?” I blinked. “And, I’m hoping someone recorded the news reports.”
“You aren’t upset?” It was Hades turn to ask a cautious question.
“Upset?” My eyebrows rose. “Why would I be upset?”
“Because, love. What we did was pretty extreme, according to most sources,” Wilder said tersely. “So if it makes you rethink-“
“It doesn’t make me rethink anything,” I told them plainly. “Nothing. If you still want me after all of this-“
Hades crossed the room in three strides, one hand on my jaw as he crushed his mouth to mine.
Wilder was there as well, at my other side and just as intense while Roman purred and ran his lips along my wrist.
“The only way for you to get us to leave is by telling us you don’t want us,” Hades promised, his eyes the bright spring green of his panther.
Heat surged in my body, both at the sudden ferocity of my feelings towards them and at just how much I loved being the center of their attention.
“That’s never going to happen,” I promised, looking all of them in the eye. “So long as you want me, you’re stuck with me, guys. Though next time, I’d much prefer you let me help dismember anyone who hurts us.”
Wilder laughed at that. “So sorry, love,” he purred. “We would’ve waited, if we didn’t have to rush you to the hospital and all.”
Hades caught me when Wilder pulled away, Roman with him, to go get the car while we waited just outside the glass sliding doors. The sudden action caused me to look up at the panther alpha in surprise and confusion.
“What’s up?” I asked, reaching up to brush my fingers along his face.
I couldn’t keep my hands off him-or any of them-since I’d woken up.
“They don’t want to say it, but…” he trailed off with a light frown.
“But what.”
“They’re worried it’ll scare you off. Alek-“
“Alek what?”
“This isn’t some spontaneous fling for us. Not some summer romance that’ll fade out, or anything else.”
His gaze held mine, and the intensity there was…a lot to take in.
“You can’t scare me off with that,” I promised. “It’s not some casual thing for me, either, Hades.”
The panther shifter watched me, eyes on mine as he took in my response. Finally he grinned, the look full of his usual flirtatious arrogance. “I still haven’t gotten you a proper courting gift, you know,” he said, and indicated the bracelet and the stuffed animal under my arm. “I’m being outdone. Me. An Ahlleron alpha.”
“Uh, I think coffee, porn, and my medical bills are more than enough.”
He drew back, hand over his heart in mock offense. “Never,” he proclaimed. “Just wait, princess. Once I find it, I’ll get you a gift y
ou’ll never see coming.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of gift, Hades?”
“No idea. Still haven’t found it yet.”
I couldn’t help it. I giggled, trying to cover my mouth to stop him from noticing.
Having none of it, Hades pulled my hand away and kissed me sweetly, the sound of a car engine revving barely breaking through my surge of happiness.
“Could you get in the bloody car?” Wilder called, honking the horn. “Otherwise Roman and I will be leaving you here.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Hades shrugged, though he pulled away and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Why don’t you two go get us dinner?”
Roman laughed, while Wilder’s only response was the gesture rudely at Hades.
I smiled, and marveled at the way I felt when I even looked at any of them.
They were mine.
And no matter what, so long as they felt the same, I wouldn’t let anything come between us.
Acknowledgments
Time for the thank yous! First of all, I want to thank my AMAZING team. My betas, my PA, and my fantastic editor. You guys are just perfect. So are you, Gretchen! If I didn’t mention you here to thank you for all your help, I’d be making a huge mistake.
Thank you for the 3 AM questionable videos. I would die without them.
And as always, thank you to my wonderful mother. Literally my favorite person in the world and the most supportive. I love you.
About the Author
AJ merlin is an author, crazy bird lady, and rampant horror movie enthusiast. Born and raised in the midwest United States, AJ is lucky to be right in the middle of people who support her and a menagerie of animals to keep her somewhat sane.
Connect with her on facebook or social media to see updates, giveaways, and be bombarded with dog, cat, and pigeon pictures.
