by Elle Thorne
Perry nodded and indicated Sara with a flip of his wrist.
“He’s using you,” Glory warned Sara.
“No he’s not. He’s not using me, are you?”
“Of course not, dearest.” Perry put his arm around Sara. “Let’s get you away from this damp forest. I can’t have my lovely bride catching a cold.” He gave the shifters a pointed glance. “Take care of her,” indicating Glory with a nod.
He turned away from Glory and guided Sara into the woods.
“Surely you’re not okay with this!” Glory yelled toward Sara’s departing back.
Her shifter hearing picked up Sara’s question. “You’re not going to let them kill Glory, right?”
“Right.” Perry glanced back at Glory, then looked at the shifters once more.
Glory was certain Sara couldn’t see Perry’s eye roll.
Chapter Thirteen
Basil approached Glory, a menacing look on his face, features drawn down in a scowl, yellow teeth bared. His badger was very definitely beginning to make an appearance.
“You killed Abel. You’ll pay.”
“It’s not like you planned to let me live, anyway.” Glory fidgeted with the binds fighting to release herself, calling for her ivy to come forward, but to no avail.
Her ivy remained absent.
Was it the Tranq that had rendered her unable to shift?
“We can’t let Basil have all the fun,” the shifter called Morton said. “Come on, Bill.”
Bill let out a laugh that reminded Glory of a hyena. His eyes traveled over Glory in a way that made shivers run over her spine. She couldn’t hide the shudder that racked her body.
Catching her response, Bill released his scavenger giggle again. “Aw, don’t worry little ivy shifter, we won’t hurt you.” He winked. “Too much. How do you like the way that Tranq takes your shifting abilities away? Did the same thing to your sister.”
Fury plunged Glory into an abyss of anger. “Let me loose, you bastard.” She had no idea what she could do to them without her shifter powers, but she’d try to kill them with her bare human hands for hurting her family.”
More of Bill’s laughter, then the other shifters joined in his mirth.
A roar shook the forest, silencing the laughing thuggish shifters.
Glory’s pulse began a beat, synchronizing to another heartbeat nearby, one she was familiar with. One she’d synched with many times in years prior.
Dane.
That was Dane’s roar. Dane’s heartbeat.
She looked around, hoping her shifter eyes could find his mottled camouflaged colors amongst the forest’s shadows, but had no luck. Wherever he was, he was managing to keep his location secret.
“Who’s out there?” Bill said, a tremor vibrating his voice.
“You’re dead now,” Glory told them, keeping her volume low and calm, not letting her concern for Dane show in her tone. Dane against these three wasn’t the odds she’d wanted him to face. And Dane had no idea she couldn’t shift to help him.
She called for her ivy, though she knew her requests were futile, her ivy couldn’t respond, couldn’t help her, and couldn’t shift.
Another roar. She concentrated on the sound, picked up a general location but didn’t look in that direction because Basil’s eyes were glued on her, watching for her reaction, probably.
She closed her eyes to slits, and sent a silent prayer that Dane would not be harmed. The roar stopped abruptly and out of the forest leapt a large silhouette, landing with a soft sound on the wet leaves and yielding dirt, then bounding upward and crashing into Bill.
Dane’s snow leopard jaws locked on Bill’s shoulder, massive canines gleaming before sinking into flesh.
Bill screeched, the sound almost inhuman, then bones began to crunch as he tried to shift into his animal. Bristled fur poked through human skin. Bill’s face elongated, a hyena’s snout forming.
That explains the laugh.
His eyes darkened to black, then morphed to a beady shape, gleaming with feral anger and pain from Dane’s bite.
Basil rushed toward Glory, pulling a knife from his pocket and releasing the blade with a flip. A measure of gleaming steel was a mere inches away from Glory’s face when he yelled, “I’ll kill her right now. Release him.”
Dane didn’t.
Instead, he shook his head, throwing Bill into a screaming frenzy, making his shifting freeze in a mid-state, looking like a genetic experiment gone very badly. A hyena’s skull with a hyena’s snout, but human cheekbones and chin. His arms had remained human though his paws had shifted.
Basil placed the knife against Glory’s’ throat, piercing skin with the tip of the blade.
“I’ll cut her. She can’t shift to heal.”
Dane froze.
“Release him now.”
Dane’s jaws slowly pulled apart, blood dripping down Bill’s shoulder.
Dane’s leopard eyes were trained on Basil, as if weighing the option of attacking him instead.
“Don’t,” Glory whispered, knowing that Dane could hear her softly spoken speech with his shifter hearing. “Don’t do it.”
Dane shifted swiftly, his features transforming into the man she loved in a nanosecond.
Broad-shouldered, blue shirt torn and bloody, pants rumpled, his chest heaved with each breath after the exertion he’d been in fighting for her life.
“Untie her,” he demanded of Basil.
“You don’t call the shots here.” Basil moved the blade, digging it deeper into Glory’s flesh.
Glory fought the wince, not wanting Dane to see her in pain and react.
“You had me worried.” Dane took a step in her direction, ignoring Basil’s sneering laugh.
“Sorry.” She swallowed gently, trying to push her nerves away. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You can’t shift?”
She went to shake her head, and remembered the blade as it dug deeper into her skin. “No. The Tranq…” She bit back the sob that wanted to escape. “They killed my family.”
Dane nodded. “They’ll pay.”
“How’s that, wise guy?” Morton stepped forward. “Your odds suck. You’re alone. There are four of us.”
“Not exactly.” The two words, spoken in a deep timbre, hung in the air, unchallenged.
From within the bowels of the woods, four huge men strode. Shifters, all four, this much was clear to Glory. Wide-chested, broad-shouldered, with features that were similar enough to cast the men as relatives, if not brothers. Their faces were grim, as though accustomed to dealing in death. Their bearing was that of soldiers.
Dane studied the newcomers, then finally spoke. “Mae sent you.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.
“You must be Dane,” came from the one who’d already spoken. “I’m Range. That’s Asa, Jason, Davin.”
The other three shifters nodded their greeting. Mouths set in cruel lines, ready to perform the deeds they were here to handle.
Dane seemed okay with them, so alarms didn’t go off in Glory’s mind, yet she couldn’t help acknowledging that whatever side these men were on was the side she wanted to be on. They wouldn’t be good to have as enemies.
A vibrating sound built to a crescendo, and it took Glory a moment to realize that the sound was coming from Range’s chest. It was a growl, but unlike any she’d heard before. And he was still in his human form.
She recognized this meant that their shifter animal was of such powerful mojo that they couldn’t be pushed down too far into obscurity. She wondered what they were. Her gaze traveled up and down each man individually, looking for an indication.
Range glanced her way. “Wolves.”
She was confused; did he read minds?
His lips curved into a facsimile of a smile that didn’t yield a sign of weakness, then instantly reverted back to straight-lipped, no-nonsense position.
Morton and Bill had begun to inch away from the four new arrivals. Only Basil held his ground, the knife pricki
ng at Glory’s neck.
“Well, gentlemen, what will it be?” Range pinned Morton and Bill with his steely gaze. “Is whatever you’re being paid worth losing your lives over?”
“It’s not just about the money.” Behind her Glory could hear Basil gritting his teeth. “She killed my brother.”
“Your brother was trying to kill me. I stood up for myself.”
“Ivy shifters are not weak. If your brother chose to take her on, he did so at his own peril.” This was delivered by the shifter behind and to the left of Range.
“Your family was the one that started this,” Range said, pointing at Basil. “Badgers, right?”
“We don’t have a dog in this hunt,” announced Bill as he leant down to pick up a backpack. “We’re not fighting for badgers and we aren’t getting involved in ivy royalty disputes either.” He yanked on Morton’s sleeve. “You coming or what?”
“Yeah.” Morton nodded. “I’m out, too.”
“You can’t quit now. You’ll never work as rovers again. I’ll ruin your reputation.”
Bill did an abrupt about-face. “The hell you will. I’ll hunt you down if you try to drag us into the quagmire your fucked up family has created. If you survive today, that is.” He glanced at Range and his men. “I’m thinking you won’t.”
Chapter Fourteen
A set of roars came from the clearing where Dane and Basil circled each other, eyes wary, in their shifter forms. A magnificent snow leopard and a fierce badger.
Glory and the four men Mae had sent in were seated at the informal circle’s circumference.
To state it more accurately, Glory was biting her nails, chewing on her bottom lip, and pacing, while the wolves sat about in human form, watching the clash between two shifters that was coming to a head shortly.
Dane had told them he wanted to face Basil one on one and put this vendetta to an end once and for all.
“I’ve lost my entire family to this bunch. He’s the last of theirs. I’m the last of mine. This will settle it. Whichever way it goes.”
Glory asked him for a private moment. They’d gone into the woods. She’d pushed him, palms flat on his chest, trying to push sense into him.
“You can’t risk your life. I won’t have you doing that.”
“It’s not for you to stop. And after this, I’m going to take care of Perry Moore. That bastard will pay for his role in this.”
“No, Dane. I can’t let you do that.”
“You can’t stop me.”
That was fifteen minutes ago. Now… now the two were going to end it once and for all.
Basil reared back and struck toward Dane with a massive, razor-tipped claw.
Glory bit her knuckle to keep from screaming out a warning to Dane.
Dane feinted left, Basil missed. Dane then zipped in for a strike of his own, connecting his fist with Basil’s badger jaw. The badger fell back, crashing into a tree, cracking the trunk and sending leaves and tiny twigs flying like confetti, scattering about the shifters heads as if at a morbid party.
Basil pushed off the jagged tree and shook his badger head. Saliva scattered, flying about, almost landing on Glory. She backed out of the way just in the nick of time.
Basil’s beady badger eyes had gone dead, void of any emotion as he studied Dane, taking in his stance, assessing. His breath was coming out in ragged pants, his claws clenching and unclenching as he paced a tight circle in the perimeter of their fighting ring.
In her chest cavity, Glory’s heart beat a fast thrumming tempo. She knew it was her own pulse that was syncing with Dane’s, pulling her into his breakneck speed. A short burst of roars came from Dane as if ejected forcefully from his lungs.
A second later, he leapt high in the air, rising well above her height, headed for the badger’s head. Basil ducked his badger body, and turned sideways, then jumped up. Dane flipped mid-air, swiveled and careened into the badger’s airborne torso.
The badger’s teeth gnashed, while his claws sought purchase. A loud crunching sound signaled that he’d achieved success and buried his canines into Dane’s shoulder.
Dane’s leopard released a howl of pain that forced Glory to her knees while tears sprung to her eyes. She made for the center of the ring, adamant in her desire to save Dane even though she’d lose her life against a badger while she was in human form.
Her path was intercepted as Range wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground.
“Put me down.” She kicked at his legs, punching his arm and back while he toted her like a full sack of potatoes.
“Can’t do that. I told Dane I’d keep you from interfering.”
She wriggled and writhed. “I have to help him. Damn you. Let me go.”
Her ivy responded to her panic. Heaving breaths slipped out from between her lips as her spine rippled from her tailbone upward, fusing toward the nape of her neck. Dark wood melded over her flesh as branches stabbed into her arms and legs. Smaller branches became digits. Leaves formed, covering her, turning her into a towering ivy mass.
She writhed from Range’s grasp and set one leg onto the dirt flooring in the forest.
“Shit. Get her.” Range instructed his men.
The other three shifters rose from their seats and leapt onto her.
She wasn’t sure she could take them all without killing them and she didn’t want to hurt Dane’s allies. She shook one of Range’s men off and had just turned her attention to a second one, picking him up and raising him off the ground when a voice stopped her cold.
“Don’t make me do this.” Range’s tone carried warning.
She glanced at him. He was holding a Tranq gun.
She glared at him.
He raised the pistol. “Don’t make me do it.”
She set the other man down and shifted into her human, glancing at the scuffle in the middle of the clearing.
The tide had turned. She’d missed something during her shift and her own scuffle. The badger was on his back, with Dane’s sharp teeth embedded in his throat. Blood splattered to the ground. The badger’s life-giving essence seeped into the ground.
The badger became motionless, its body no longer heaving and struggling for air. His beady eyes sealed shut, the light within already gone.
Dane raised his head, releasing his strong jaws from the badger’s neck. Fur began to recede instantly, bones crunched, the sound of tendons ripping filled the air.
Within seconds, Dane’s transformation was complete and he was in his human self.
Lacerations covered his body. His face was a scratched and bloody mess. Glory ran to him, her heartbeat slowing with his.
He wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s over,” she said.
“Not quite. There’s still Perry.” He glanced at Range.
Range nodded.
“No.” Glory tightened her grip around his waist. “I won’t let you go.”
“I have to. For you. For me. For us. As long as you’re alive, you’re in danger from Perry.”
Glory closed her eyes against the pain that threatened to overtake her. “I can’t lose you, Dane. I just can’t lose you again. Not after…”
He tipped her head back with a fingertip on her chin. “After what?”
Glory shook her head. She couldn’t tell him. Not when he was contemplating doing battle again. And this time against Perry, an ivy shifter who could potentially kill him far more easily that he might kill Perry. So she lied. “After losing you before.”
“Let’s go.” Dane indicated the forest with a nod of his head. “I want to get this settled and get on with my life.”
Glory saddened. His life. A life without her.
What did I expect, really? That we’d go back to the old days? Just because?
Glory, Dane, Range and his men came upon Perry’s body ten minutes after they’d started following his scent.
Glory knew before she saw him that something had happened. The air was rich with the scent
of blood. So much blood could only mean one thing.
Death.
Dane barreled forward. Glory struggled to keep up with his long legs, and within seconds she’d been passed by Range and his men.
The men were gathered in a tight circle, studying the ground in front of them. She slipped between them.
Perry.
Very definitely dead.
Morton and Bill stood by a tree, looking like they were concerned they’d be attacked by Dane and Range.
“He wouldn’t back off,” Morton said.
“He kept insisting we didn’t do our job and…” Bill shrugged.
“You saved me some time.”
“He wasn’t easy.” Bill wiped the blood that was dripping down from a cut on his forehead.
“He’s an ivy.” Range nodded. “Dane, you go ahead. We’ll take care of this body and the badger’s body. Go on home. We’ll be on our way as soon as that’s done. Our work here is complete.”
“Tell my aunt thank you.”
“Will do.”
“It’s over,” Glory said.
“It’s very over.” Dane pulled her into his arms. This time when he tipped her head back, she saw the question in his eyes.
“You still have something to tell me,” he said.
“I can show you.” She owed him. She watched the wounds on his face begin a slow healing. “Do you need to hibernate so you can heal quickly?”
“I’m not in a hurry. I’ll hibernate later. You’ll be there, right?”
Forever.
She couldn’t say that. He wasn’t asking her to be with him. He was asking her to stand by and watch over him while he heal-hibernated.
“I’ll be there.”
He pulled her close, the storm in his eyes piercing hers. A soft growl rumbled in his chest.
He leaned down, his lips taking hers, bruising them, claiming, and owning her soul and her ivy. His fingers cupped her cheeks then moved to her jawline. Tongue parting her lips, he pressed her resistance away, making her lips his as surely as he’d made her heart his.
His mouth seared to hers the same way his snow leopard reached out to her ivy, sending the shifter within her the message that human ears would never be able to hear.
