by Shea Balik
Gyan gave him a grin that was all teeth. “Let’s just say Edrick isn’t the only computer expert.”
Edrick rolled his eyes. “Please. Gyan is the best hacker I’ve ever known. There isn’t any system this guy hasn’t been able to get in.”
Red seeped into Gyan’s cheeks at the praise. Kellach had to admit to being surprised to see Gyan embarrassed. Still, it was nice to know the giant of a man was human…well, shifter, but same difference.
“Let’s load up,” Edrick called out.
The entire camp scurried to do Edrick’s bidding. Everyone there had a stake in this battle. They had all felt the oppression of Council’s laws. It was time to make a change and return to the old ways.
The battle would be hard and not everyone would survive but it was worth it to gain their freedom back. Kellach just prayed his mate survived for he wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a world without his mate.
CHAPTER 18
“Okay, listen up,” Edrick called out as the team leaders surrounded him.
Trygg was more than ready to go to battle against the Council. He, more than most, knew exactly how corrupt they had become. It had gotten so bad that there were laws currently being enacted to force species to mate with only humans in order to eventually eliminate the human race as the dominant shifter genes always ensures a child born to such a union was a shifter.
“The army is coming from here, here and here,” Edrick said as he pointed with a stick to a map someone had laid on the ground between them. “Scouts are counting nearly a thousand troops.”
Gasps were heard from all around. They hadn’t expected so many. Even Trygg was surprised the Council would send a force that large. The humans were bound to notice. Then again, if their plans went into effect, there wouldn’t be any humans left in just a hundred years. A short time when one considered shifters lived at least five hundred years.
Once the orders had been given out, Trygg pulled his mate to the side. He needed to know Kellach would survive, no matter what. “Please promise me you’ll stay safe.” But even as he said the words, Trygg realized them for the folly they were.
Kellach could no more promise him that than Trygg could. His mate was a fighter through and through. “You know I can’t make that promise,” Kellach told him even as he lifted up his hand to cup Trygg’s cheek. “But I can swear I will do everything in my power to make it back to you.”
Just the thought of never getting to hold this amazing man in his arms again caused his heart to constrict. The need to claim Kellach in some way had him swooping down and taking those soft lush lips in a bruising kiss that left them both breathless.
“The enemy is five minutes out. Everyone get in position,” Edrick called over their earpieces.
Reluctantly, Trygg ended the kiss, but no matter how much he tried, he just couldn’t release the hold he had on Kellach. Pulling him as close as possible, he said what was in his heart. “I love you my pretty kitty. There is nothing I wouldn’t do in this world or the next for you. Please make sure you come back to me.”
His arms tightened even further as he placed his lips on the top of Kellach’s head. “I just don’t think I survive in a world where you don’t exist.”
He felt Kellach’s arm tighten just as strongly around him and knew his mate felt the same way even if he wasn’t ready to say it. Trygg understood. His sweet mate had come so far in such a short time already. Admitting his feelings of love was just too much for him. But Trygg didn’t need to hear them. He felt them all the way to his soul.
Gunfire rang out, splitting them apart in an instant as they both raced to get into position. Trygg just prayed when all this was over, he would once more be able to hold his mate in his arms.
***
Kellach was mentally kicking himself for being a chicken shit and not telling Trygg he loved him when he had the chance. Now they were in the middle of a brutal battle with shifters from both sides dying all around and Kellach was coming to realize there was a good chance one, if not both, of them may not make it out of this alive.
When faced with death, things had become remarkably clear. Kellach’s dad was full of shit about his ideas of what made a man. All that mattered was being true to himself. To stand up for what he believed in. But more important than all of that, to love his mate with everything he had inside of him. Kellach did. He just wished he’d actually said the words.
A bullet whizzed right past his head and Kellach gave himself a mental slap for not paying better attention. He needed to focus or he’d never get his chance to tell Trygg how much he loved him.
“Kellach, behind you,” Lucca’s voice rang out over the sounds of battle all around him.
Kellach didn’t bother to turn around first. He dropped low, the whoosh of a sword could be felt more than heard in the din of the battle. Kellach pivoted on the balls of his feet, his arm thrust forward, his fist slamming into the man groin of the man who had tried to decapitate him. The guy dropped like a stone, screaming as he clutched his family jewels.
Even though his training always taught Kellach to finish the man, he just didn’t have it in him to kill a man who was down and defenseless. It would most likely be a mistake, but it felt too much like murder at that point.
That didn’t mean he was going to leave the man fully armed. In seconds he had the man stripped of gun, sword and two knives he had strapped to his body. At least this way the enemy wouldn’t be able to kill easily.
“Fuck,” Edrick said through the earpiece. “There are at least another five hundred of the Council’s men heading this way from the south.”
Kellach’s heart dropped into his stomach. They were already outnumbered by more than two to one. Worse, the battle had been raging for over an hour and they were starting to become exhausted. If the enemy added fresh fighters into the battle, it would become a massacre.
They had to do something to stop those new soldiers from entering the fight. “Shit,” Hudson yelled from his perch high in a tree out of range of the direct fighting, yet close enough to use his sharpshooting skills. “Kirill, Crash and Trygg are pinned down. If they don’t get help soon, they will all be killed.”
Kellach didn’t think, his mountain lion came out. The shift took seconds and then he was racing in the direction he knew his mate was to be. Fear gripped him when he got the first whiff of his mate’s blood. Even over all the gunpowder, sweat and other men’s blood, he could pick out his mate’s unique scent easily. It called to him.
Zeroing in, he saw his mate, Kirill and Crash all trying to take cover behind an outcropping of trees. But the enemy wasn’t letting up, giving the men little opportunity to return fire. Kellach didn’t think, he just roared at the injustice of his mate’s certain death.
The enemy heard him and turned, aiming their weapons at him. It would be impossible for them to miss as he was out in the open, but Kellach had an advantage. He was small, and fast. Very fast.
Darting to the left, he heard guns ringing out around him, except, as the enemy had turned away from Trygg, Kirill and Crash, they, now, weren’t the only ones firing. The cries of men being shot down were horrifying, but not something Kellach wasn’t used to by this time. He’d had to hear the same thing since the battle started.
That was until one cry reached his ears that had his heart stopping in his chest. Suddenly, Kellach went from dodging bullets to racing right toward the enemy. They must have been startled by his abrupt change of direction, for they stopped shooting for just a moment, but it was plenty of time for Kirill and Crash to finish them off.
When he reached Trygg’s side, the enemy no longer was shooting at them. Not that it would last long as there were still just too many of them left to hope they would be left alone while Kellach checked on his mate.
The sight of blood pooling around Trygg’s body greeted Kellach. Shifting back to his human form, Kellach knelt beside his fallen mate. “Trygg, talk to me.”
Nothing.
Trygg didn’t
even move.
Please be alive.
Kellach reached a shaking hand toward his mate’s chest, praying over and over again his mate was alive. His palm lay flat over Trygg’s heart and Kellach was gasping for much needed air as he felt his mate’s heartbeat.
Hot tears streamed down his cheeks as he thanked the Gods that his mate was still alive. But with all the blood Trygg was losing, he wouldn’t stay that way for long if he didn’t get him help. “I have to get him to Nole,” he said to no one in particular but knew Kirill and Crash heard him. “He can’t die. Not yet.”
It just wouldn’t be fair for him to lose Trygg so quickly. Kellach hadn’t told his mate how much he loved him.
Kirill strode forward and bent down to pick Trygg up like he weighed nothing. Then again, compared to Kirill he probably didn’t. Kirill was just that big.
Not wasting any time, Kellach and Crash made sure to cover the defenseless Kirill until they managed to get behind their own line. Once Kirill had Trygg placed in the bed of truck to be transported to Miracle where Nole was set up to treat the wounded, Kellach jumped into the driver’s seat.
He threw out a thanks through the window before peeling out of the grassy area they had parked the vehicles. He drove like a bat out of hell, praying the whole way that his mate would live. For Kellach just didn’t know how he was supposed to survive in a world without his mate.
CHAPTER 19
“What the fuck do you mean he’s too busy to see Trygg,” Kellach shouted at Jari. “You tell Nole to get out here, now.”
But Jari wasn’t backing down. Kellach was beginning to think Jari finding his spine wasn’t such a good thing. “I told you, he’s in surgery. There’s no way he can stop now.”
There was a part of Kellach that understood what Jari was telling him, but he was beyond caring, beyond reason, beyond anything but saving his mate. “I don’t care,” he told his friend. “Trygg is going to die if Nole doesn’t get out here to help him.”
Jari glanced at all the blood that was dripping from Trygg’s body and onto the bed of the truck. As much as it pained Kellach to admit, he couldn’t even lift his mate into the house where Nole had set up a medical office for times like these.
Shifters normally didn’t require a lot of medical care but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be hurt, or killed. Kellach could attest to that after the carnage he’d just witnessed. Both sides had lost men and if Edrick was right and there was another five hundred soldiers headed their way, that carnage would grow exponentially.
Kellach refused to allow his mate to be one of those casualties. Jumping up into the back of the truck, he leaned down to whisper into his mate’s ear. “Please don’t leave me. I never got the chance to tell you I love you.”
Determined that he would have the opportunity, Kellach went to work ripping the clothes from his mate’s body to find the wound. “Get me water and lots of it,” he ordered Jari. As his friend raced into the house, Kellach yelled after him. “And bandages.”
He had no idea what else he might need but Kellach wasn’t about to lose his mate. “Come on Trygg, stay with me. Don’t you dare leave me or I swear to the Gods I will find your ass in the afterlife and…” Kellach had nothing. The fact was, if he was lucky enough to see his mate in the afterlife, Kellach would drop to his knees and thank the Gods for letting him see his Trygg again.
Jari came running with his biggest pot filled to the brim with water, if the amount of it sloshing out of the top was any indication. Iniko, his arms filled with towels and what Kellach assumed were sealed bandages.
It had taken all of Kellach’s strength but he managed to turn his mate’s dead weight over to find a bullet hole in his back. Since there wasn’t a matching one in the front, Kellach had to assume the bullet was still lodged inside. That wasn’t good. Kellach knew nothing about medicine. He could just as easily kill his mate as save him.
Yet he also knew that bullet had to come out. “Get up here and help me,” he told his friends.
Jari had placed the pot on the tailgate and rushed to climb into the truck. Iniko on the other hand placed his load in the bed of the truck and backed away. “Yeah, thanks but I don’t think so. Blood is just not my thing.”
Kellach glared at him. “I don’t give a rat’s ass. Now get up here and help me.”
Iniko shuddered when he glanced at Trygg but he did as Kellach asked. The three of them managed to clean away most of the blood and staunch the flow so that it just trickled from the wound. He just prayed that would be enough until Nole was able to pull the bullet out.
Until then, all Kellach could do was pray. “Please don’t leave me. I love you with all my heart. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. Please come back to me.” He kept whispering those words over and over again as he lay next to his mate with an arm around him.
Tears streamed down his face, but he refused to give up. When Trygg shuddered as his breathing became more ragged, Kellach was sure he was about to lose him. His gaze found Jari and he pleaded with his friend. “Please tell Nole, Trygg is going to die if he doesn’t hurry.”
Jari nodded and raced off into the house.
“Please, love, fight,” he begged Trygg. “I need you to stay with me. Who else will tell me what an nit wit I’m being for believing the idiotic things my father taught me?” He closed his eyes when Trygg’s breathing stopped for a full thirty seconds before starting again.
Hot tears dripped down Kellach’s face. “Who’s going to love me if you’re not here? Who’s going to hold me at night?” He hadn’t even gotten the chance to experience that because of his stupid pride. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away but you can’t leave me.”
“He won’t if I have anything to say about it,” Nole said as he leapt into the back of the truck with a bag. “In less than a second the bag was opened and Nole was pulling out a scalpel, cutting through the bandages Kellach had painstakingly packed against his mate to stop him from bleeding out.
Kellach was sure it wasn’t more than twenty minutes but it felt like years he waited as Nole opened up Trygg’s wound so he could see the bullet. After pulling it out, he sewed the edges of Trygg’s skin together. Together they turned him so he was lying on his side.
When Nole ordered Kellach to open up his wrist and feed Trygg his blood, he didn’t hesitate. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for this man.
“It will take a time for his body to regenerate the blood he’s lost, but he should be fine. I don’t have anyone here who can help move him. For now, just let him rest here and when someone comes who can help lift him, we’ll take him to your room,” Nole said as he put the few instruments he had used in a plastic bag and jumped down off the truck. “Have someone come get me if you need me.”
Then he was gone, rushing back onto the porch, where men had been laid out in hopes of being patched up. Too many of them would most likely die. As a shifter, only mortal wounds would bring them to Nole, otherwise they would just shift in battle to heal themselves.
Knowing Nole, he would work tirelessly to save as many as he could, but the harsh realities were, if those men were there on the porch, they were nearly dead already.
His hand went to Trygg, once more praying his mate would live. Wanting to be closer, Kellach once more lay down next to Trygg, getting as close as he dared. The warmth of his mate’s breath on his face was comforting as he gazed at Trygg’s rugged features.
His mate was all man. No one would ever mistake him for anything else. The more he was around Trygg, the more Kellach was beginning to question those beliefs he’d always had about what a man was. His mate was about as manly as they come, yet he not only willing bottomed, he enjoyed it.
But it was more than that. Trygg was kind, considerate, compassionate and caring. He never hesitated in admitting his feelings, even when he was scared. There was no way in hell Kellach’s father would have ever done something he would have considered weak. Yet with Trygg, he didn’t make it seem that way.
&
nbsp; If anything, he showed Kellach that being honest about those feelings was the bravest thing anyone could do. He just hoped he’d get the chance to show Trygg that he could be that man.
“I love you, Trygg,” he whispered. Leaning just a bit closer, he gently kissed his mate letting the love he felt for this amazing man flow into the kiss.
“I love you, too, sweet kitty,” Trygg whispered back.
Kellach gasped. His gaze flew to those golden eyes he loved looking at to find them staring right back at him. “You’re alive.”
Trygg’s lips twitched up just a fraction. “I don’t know, you in my arms telling me you love me sounds more like heaven.”
He was sure the smile on his face could be seen miles away at his mate’s sweet words. Life may not have been exactly easy and Kellach doubted it would be smooth sailing from here but that was okay. With Trygg by his side, loving him, Kellach was ready for whatever came their way, just so long as at the end of the day he was lying in Trygg’s arms as they professed their love for each other.
EPILOGUE
“Okay, quiet down,” Brecken called out to the crowd. He stood on Edrick’s front porch, with Edrick, and the other Alpha’s that had come to join in the fight by his side.
The battle had been bloody with too many causalities. After the Council’s overwhelming reinforcements had joined in the fight, Kellach had thought they were doomed. But then again, Kellach had never seen Saber and his men in action. If Kellach thought he and his friends were deadly, Saber and his men were demons from Hell itself.
Death radiated from every cell in their body, forcing all who came near them to tremble in fear. According to Chadwick and Hudson, Saber was like an entire army all on his own. Nothing seemed to touch him. Chadwick said he watched five men attack Saber all at once from different sides, yet in blur too fast for Chadwick to take in, Saber had cut them down without even one of them managing to get close enough to do any damage.
