by Amira Rain
Wiley. They should have known.
Jonas, too, seemed far from shocked. Enraged, yes; surprised – not so much.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Lion Shifter demanded. Joel – and what was he, Mary-Lou wondered. Something sneaky, cowardly, she would bet – and simply smiled wider.
“You have some unfinished business with my friend here, it seems,” the Shifter Prince purred, “And as you well know, such things must be dealt with if one wants to remain in good standing before the Law.”
“A Law you say you want to overthrow,” Mary-Lou reminded
.
Joel tutted. “Irrelevant, as it still stands. I cannot, in good consciousness, ally myself with a man who is for all apparent purposes a criminal before my Court.”
“So what do you suggest?” Jonas snapped. Wiley, so far silent, stopped grinning long enough to growl, “Finish the Challenge, right here, right now. And no more magic bullshit.” He leered at Mary-Lou, managing to appear both disgusted and grudgingly impressed.
Mary-Lou shivered with anger, felt a wave of warmth and light build in her body. It would be so easy, so terrifyingly simple, to have them slit each other’s throats – to will Wiley to tear Joel’s throat out, have the Prince’s bodyguards converge on the disorientated Wolf.
She shook her head; no. That way laid madness.
“Very well,” she said instead. When three disbelieving sets of eyes focused on her, she let herself smile. “However, we demand the match be held publicly.” Wiley raised his voice, the Prince opened his mouth; Mary-Lou spoke over them, confident in her knowledge, “We have a right to do so. We demand it.”
A brief, angry silence followed. “Fine,” Wiley spit out. The Wolf Shifter turned on a black-booted heel and disappeared the way he had come.
“Very well, my friends!” Joel’s smile was forced, stretched all wrong on his too-pale face. Mary-Lou wondered what else, besides alcohol, the Prince used to chase the demons of his actions from his thoughts. “The Challenge will be held tomorrow, on neutral ground. I will make the announcement, you have my word.”
“Your word, my Prince,” Mary-Lou smiled, “Is a currency of unknown value.”
They were on each other the moment the front door of their apartment closed behind them. Mary-Lou pushed Jonas against the hallway wall – Jonas allowed her to push him, to press against him as if her body could contain, dominate his. She could. She would – if he wanted her to, if she let him want it. He bent his neck and took her lips, groaned to feel her hand press against where he strained, hard and full against his jeans.
“More,” he panted, or did she? Jonas kissed her neck, bit down the soft flesh in gentle nips and pushed large hands up the back of her shirt. Mary-Lou moaned in agreement, lowered the zipper of his pants and pressed inside, pushed aside the fold of his boxers to wrap her hand around him and tug—
A moment of disorientation, of hot nothing. Jonas found himself pinning Mary-Lou against the wall now, pressing sucking kisses against her exposed breasts. He did not remember lifting her blouse, did not remember pushing her dress pants down her long legs. Did not care, as the next moment had him grinding up, into her, both swallowing pleasure-filled cries.
Time sped, slowed after that – a cacophony of sensation, warmth and tightness and mindless lust. Mary-Lou pulled Jonas close to her, wrapped shaking legs around her mate’s hips as he thrust, thrust, thrust into her – each time deeper, sweeter, more intense. An orgasm shivered through; unprepared, Mary-Lou simply hung onto Jonas and felt, air heavy in her chest. Jonas slowed down in response, meaning to gentle her through the fall. Mary-Lou ground down and moaned, long and sweet, and smiled to hear her mate growl – to feel him tighten large hands against the flesh of her ass and pull, his cock still hard and heavy within her. Mary-Lou’s next moan was a scream, and the rhythm, the pleasure, the agonizing rightness build up again.
It was a long time until dawn.
Later, Mary-Lou lay in Jonas’ arms, body wet and supple in the aftermath of pleasure and a slow, shared bath. “We should tell the others we made it back,” she murmured.
“I texted Irma,” Jonas yawned.
“You texted my mother to tell her you are having another match to the death in the morning?” Mary-Lou exclaimed. Jonas’ sheepish yes was lost beneath her giggles.
“Good to hear you call her that,” Jonas offered after a moment. Mary-Lou stilled, mirth dimming as she considered the statement.
“Well, she is,” she sighed, “and you still should not have left her a message like that! I am surprised they haven’t—”
Just at that moment, the high, cheerful tune of her mobile pierced the quiet darkness of their bedroom. Mary-Lou rolled her eyes at Jonas’ shrug and rolled over, grabbing for her phone.
“Hello? Yes, Irma – yeah, I know, he is an ass. Tomorrow, yes,” she paused, eyebrows lowering as she listened to her mother’s words. “Yes. Yes, I-I will tell him. Alright, bye.” She closed the phone, unease tightening her body.
“What is it?” Jonas pressed against her, tucked a strong arm about her middle. Mary-Lou took a breath.
“The fight. It will be held where – where your home was. Yours and Wiley’s.” She grasped Jonas’ hand as her mate stiffened, rubbing a soft palm over the suddenly tight curl of his fingers. “Joel’s family…ah, seems to have bought the land, way back.”
Jonas said nothing in response. Mary-Lou did not know what to do, so she did what she could: She turned in Jonas’ arms and wrapped him in a tight embrace, saying nothing.
It would be a long time until dawn.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mary-Lou woke up with a gasp and the feeling of tight wrongness in her breast.
It happened again. She had dreamed – no, she had seen a nightmare, one that was to happen. Soon.
“Wake up,” Mary-Lou hissed in Jonas’ sleeping face. Her mate snored in response, lips curling in a moue of adorable displeasure. Mary-Lou ignored the gooey feeling that suddenly invaded her mind and shook Jonas’ shoulder as best as she could from her position in the man’s arms. “Jonas! Wake up, now! My God, what if there was an emergency – Jonas!”
“Hmpgh!” Jonas said and rolled over with a start, promptly falling off the bed.
“Jonas!” Mary-Lou shimmied to the edge, holding the covers up over her breasts as she bent to observe her disoriented, buck-naked mate.
“I’m fine,” Jonas mumbled. His blue eyes were barely open; a moment later, he yawned hugely and rubbed a large hand over his face in an attempt to rouse himself. “What happened?”
“I had a dream – a vision. About the fight,” Mary-Lou said. “Wiley is going to cheat! And Joel is in on it, too. He’s going to help him, and if we don’t figure out a way to stop it, you—” Mary-Lou did not realize she had been raising her voice until Jonas placed a gentle hand over her lips, shushing her quietly. “He stabs you through the heart,” Mary-Lou whispered, “With a blade made of silver. You die in horrific pain, suffer for so long, I—”
“We won’t let that happen,” Jonas told her. Mary-Lou took a breath, another, and nodded. She steadied herself, took control over her shivering limbs, and nodded again.
“Yes. We will not.” Green eyes glinted; this was a promise she intended to keep, made in blood.
The pack was silent as Mary-Lou retold the story of their meeting with Joel, Wiley – of the retracted offer of aid and the Challenge. Cara swore up a storm when she heard where the fight was to be held; Sasha looked downright murderous.
“Joel was likely trying to make you retract your demand of a public match,” Irma offered. “He probably thought you would be unwilling to have your family’s home desecrated in this way.”
“A home is where one’s family is,” Jonas said resolutely. “That place has been nothing but burned-up ground for years now.” Irma nodded in understanding.
“That is not all.” Mary-Lou told them of her nightmare, of the deception that was to take place in a few short hours
. Even Jonathon lost his temper at that; the Coyote Shifter’s eyes flashed red and he asked to be excused, following which a number of strange thumps and growls came from the downstairs bathroom. “We will cover the damage,” Irma reassured a baffled Cara. The Fox simply shook her head, understanding the older man’s feelings perfectly. She was herself this close to tearing a certain Wolf’s ears off. With her teeth.
“So, what are we going to do about it?” Jenna asked.
“Not we,” Mary-Lou shook her head, “Just me.” She raised a hand against the resulting chorus of denial. “Only I will be close enough to reach the ring – this will be a formal Challenge, held before a Prince no less,” she spat out the title like the sham that it was,lips e curling in derision. If that was how all royalty behaved, then they very well deserved their crown taken.
Except Sasha. But Sasha had been a Grand Duke, and had given his title up freely. So there.
“Mary-Lou is right.” Irma’s eyes gleamed, something hard shifting in her dark gaze. “Come with me,” she said and Mary-Lou followed the older woman, curiosity building as she waved Jonas and the rest of Mary-Lou’s pack off as they tried to follow.
Irma led Mary-Lou downstairs, outside their house and three streets down – well beyond even Alpha-level hearing. When they reached a small, iron-wrought bench at the side of the road she stopped and motioned Mary-Lou to sit. Mary-Lou did, and Irma lowered herself next to her.
“You know what you will have to do to keep him safe, I presume?” Irma said. Mary-Lou glanced at her mother’s blank face, felt her own cheeks heat up as she nodded. Of course Irma would guess.
“You will need armor,” Irma sighed, “and lots of practice to successfully thwart a practiced blade without weapons of your own. We have neither.”
“I have to do it,” Mary-Lou stood up, unwilling to listen to any discouragement, “I will not let him die!”
“Did I say you will? Now, sit down,” Irma snapped. Bemused, Mary-Lou sat down again. “We will fashion something to protect you – at least your vitals should be covered. Leather will work well, Kevlar is even better. Say, how attached is Sasha to his tires?” Irma blinked questionably at Mary-Lou.
Mary-Lou wondered if she should laugh or cry. Here she was, discussing make-shift armor with her mother hours before what may well be her death.
She settled on quiet resignation instead and muttered, “A bit, I would presume,” thinking of Sasha’s face when he learned about the fate of his spare tire.
They were on the road again – in a rented minivan this time, the space necessary to accommodate their pack. Once again, they were missing two: Katy and Jenna had been sent back to guard Mary-Lou’s human parents – a necessary task, albeit one that left the bonded pair uneasy and frustrated. They wanted to offer their support to Mary-Lou, to Jonas – to be there for their Alphas. Still, their task was one that could not be ignored. Furthermore, they loved Emma and Ronald like their own parents, and did not want them sitting alone with their daughter in such peril.
The rest of them sat quietly in the back of the van, each lost in their own dark thoughts. The mirth, somber joy of earlier, had disappeared over the last hour, quickly substituted by oppressive, chocking dread. Mary-Lou pressed against Jonas, eyes tightly shut as she went over her dream and the plan Irma had helped her come up with over and over again. Jonas, ignorant of the danger his mate would be in soon, pulled her even closer and buried his nose in her throat, willing this entire thing to end and leave his family alone.
The city disappeared around them, houses and yards soon dwindling to a few, then nothing as fields of corn and wheat stretched before them. Jonas did not look out of the window – not as Jonathon guided the car onto a familiar dirt road, not as wealthy fields fell to charred, weed-covered land. When the car stopped, in the middle of hard, empty ground, it took the Lion Shifter long moments to move – to step out into a place he had not visited in over ten years.
“My God.”
Had Jonas been alone, had the task before him not weighed so heavily on his mind, he had no doubts that he would have wept. They had not even bothered to clean the debris – the remnants of his home, his family’s house lay in half-rotted disarray not far in the distance, wooden planks and broken glass and melted piles of plastic. The well was there, too; edges charred, stone half-crumbled with age and wear.
Jonas started forward, unthinking – unknowing of whether he meant to draw closer to the ghostly corpse of his home or run far, far away from the nightmarish sight. He startled when he felt someone (Mary-Lou, his mate) pull him back, pull him into himself again. Jonas took a deep breath, released it in a choked sigh.
“They could not even leave me the memory,” he whispered. He would never, ever be able to think of his childhood home again without overlaying it with the image before him now – an ugly negative of a cherished picture. Mary-Lou pressed against his side, wrapped her arms around him with a murmur of reassurance, of anger on his behalf. Jonas allowed himself that single, warm moment of comfort before he pulled away, turned to face his pack.
Jonas was not a child anymore, and this place was no longer his home. He had someone to protect now, someone to love and cherish and build a future with – he would not give them up for the shadows of his past. Mary-Lou stepped beside him, took his hand in hers with a brave, confident smile.
“Let’s go.”
The rest of the pack filed in behind them – their golden-haired leader, green-eyed Alpha. They would follow them into battle, into death just as readily as into joy and wealth.
This, Jonas decided, was what Wiley will never have.
The arena was easy to spot: It being the only structure in sight for miles on end, and the center of what appeared to be a very large, very rowdy crowd. It was an oval, gray shape that rose up and down like a wave of seats. It could hold four-five hundred people easily, and it was doing so now. The sound of so many people, so many voices and bodies thrumming with energy next to each other – it was deafening even as it rose to a decibel no higher than a normal human shout.
Joel waited for them by the gates. He had opted for a steel-gray suit this morning, perhaps in an attempt to match the monstrous creation looming at his back. Dark sunglasses covered eyes that were likely sunken in bruised sockets, the Prince’s smile a thousand carats and counting.
“I hope you like the little thing I put together for the event?” He questioned Jonas as soon as he was close enough to do so, shamelessly preening in front of a structure that had obviously taken him much longer to construct than the two days that had passed since their first meeting. Mary-Lou felt anger burn through her at the man’s arrogance, imagining striking the smirk right off his smug face.
“It is great,” Jonas offered through grinding teeth, “Just what I had always dreamed of.”
“Well,” Joel fumbled for his watch, discomfited and hiding it behind the pretense of checking the time. “We should get inside! Would not want to keep the crowd waiting, right?” The Prince then turned and stalked off, amiable persona forgotten.
“Jonas,” Sasha hissed at Mary-Lou’s left elbow. “If something happens – and it won’t, I know, but if something happens, I will bite that motherfucker’s head right off.” The Snake Shifter then fell behind, next to a smugly smiling Cara.
“I taught him to swear like that,” the Fox shared with Mary-Lou in passing.
Even with the oncoming match weighting heavily on her mind, Mary-Lou could not contain a startled chuckle.
They would be safe. They had to be.
They were led through a side door and into the underbelly of the metal monster by two silent, blank-faced men. Only four sets of steps echoed along the empty, dimly-lit hallways; the rest of the pack had been redirected to seats in an area high up above the arena some time ago. Mary-Lou clutched at Jonas hand and tried to find an inner peace, to steady her thoughts even as she offered all the comfort she could to her mate.
A final gate stood before them. Sunlight gleam
ed beneath the closed door, beckoned and repelled them in turns. Mary-Lou turned to kiss Jonas as the metal parted open, as light and noise overwhelmed them. Jonas opened his mouth, drew her lips between his for a gentle, eternal moment – then let her go, eyes soft as he watched her watch him.
“Child,” a familiar, gruff voice rumbled from the other side, “It is time.”
Mary-Lou glanced away from Jonas, startled to see Rowfer at the mouth of the metal gates. He beckoned her with a twisted hand, face even older beneath the weight of unhappiness. Mary-Lou wanted to question him, to ask what Joel had done to make him an active participant in this farce.
Yet she held her tongue, knowing that it did not matter – that nothing would, if she was not successful.
If Joel and Wiley were.
She stepped up to Rowfer without a word, let the older man pull her away from Jonas and into the light. The arena quieted with her entrance, previously rowdy voices falling silent at the sight of the somber ancient man and the pale-faced woman walking beside him. They knew who Mary-Lou was. May of them had heard her speak, cheered for her on more than one occasion.
