by R. E. Butler
Jilly brought the clothes she’d found in the room with her. She knew they belonged to Micah and Melody. Melody was still in her lion form and would be for several hours as her wound healed. She hadn’t left Micah’s side, even when he went into a bathroom in the hall and showered, trying to scrub the scent of Layla from his skin.
As he dried off and dressed in his shorts and shirt, he looked at Melody as she sat perched on the toilet seat. “I didn’t get hard, baby. I just want you to know that. No matter what she did to me, I refused to betray you like that. What she did was hell, but she’s dead, and it’s over now.”
Melody blinked and then nodded her head, purring softly.
He dropped to his knees and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her furry neck and burying his face in her throat. “I will tell you this when you’re human, sweetheart, but I don’t want to go another second without saying that I love you. We could have died tonight. I don’t want to take your safety for granted again, and I never want you to doubt that I love you, because I do. From the bottom of my heart.”
Melody purred and nuzzled his cheek. Micah knew she loved him, too. And he couldn’t wait to hear it from her human lips.
Chapter 16
Wyked stormed through the house where the females had brought Jilly. He could scent her fear and feel her through their mating connection, but because she’d lived in the house, her scent was everywhere and he couldn’t pinpoint her location. And he couldn’t hear shit because of the commotion in the house. The mountain lion males had finally believed that their clan wasn’t responsible for the destruction inside the shop and the other mountain lion males had shown up and asked for the clan’s help.
Wyked didn’t particularly care what happened to the male and female they were looking for. All he cared about was finding Jilly and getting her to safety. And then she was going to fucking do whatever the hell he said going forward. No ifs, ands, or buts. He’d told her it was a mistake to go into King, and no one had listened to him. He might be only nineteen, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. Now his mate was locked up somewhere and most likely injured. He roared and kicked a door open. It splintered as it broke, and he peered into the bedroom and growled when he found it empty.
“Calm down,” Fate chided him.
“Fuck you.”
Fate sighed. “We’ll find her. She’s here somewhere. But breaking doors randomly isn’t going to do anything but tire you out and possibly hurt her. What if she’d been standing behind the door when your foot went through it?”
Wyked paused and worry slid through him. He hadn’t considered that.
Taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. Focusing on his hearing, he sorted through the sounds of fighting in the main area of the house as the males and females locked in a heated battle for domination. His clan was fighting so he cared enough to know he didn’t want them hurt, but he couldn’t think right until Jilly was in his arms again. In a week, she’d come to mean everything to him, and it burned in a special way that she’d been snatched right in front of him.
He finally heard someone yelling. A female voice. One that made his cat howl in his mind. Jilly. Gnashing his teeth, he raced down the long hall, turning to the right and moving more slowly as her voice grew louder. She was crying, and her voice was raw and growing quieter by the minute.
“Baby?” he shouted. Two doors down on the left, Jilly began to shout and bang her hands on the door.
“Wyked? Fate? I’m locked in!”
He put his hand on the door and felt her inside the room. “Back up, baby. I’m coming in.”
He waited until he heard her step away, and then he took a few steps back and kicked the door. It rattled, but didn’t break apart. An older, solid wood door unlike the newer door he’d destroyed easily. He kicked again. And again. With a frustrated groan, he cracked his neck and bellowed a war cry before slamming his shoulder into the door and breaking through. Wood gouged him as he tumbled into the room, but pain had never been so sweet because Jilly dropped to her knees next to him and began to cry in earnest.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he demanded, wiping blood from his mouth.
“I am now,” she sobbed. Fate joined them, putting an arm around her and kissing her temple.
Wyked groaned at the throb in his shoulder, but ignored it, sitting up and cupping her face. “Next time I say something is dangerous, listen to me, woman.”
She smiled and fresh tears rolled over her cheeks. “I promise.”
She promised now, he thought, but she was independent. He didn’t want to squash that independence, but he wanted her safe no matter what he had to do to achieve it. They’d have to find the right balance.
She was alive and safe now, and at first, that was all that mattered. But then he noticed the bruises on her face, the cut along her eyebrow, and the way her breath hitched when she breathed deeply. Reaching for her shirt, he lifted the hem and saw a deep bruise on her side.
“Who did this to you?”
She leaned heavily on him and sighed. “Tanya. I tried to help Micah and Melody escape, but they found me out and locked me up. I could have escaped and gone for help, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I heard the females plotting about what they were going to do to Micah and Melody and…” She shuddered and started to cry again.
He wished that she’d left when she could have, too, but he wasn’t surprised she had tried to help. She was new to emotional connections since their blood-sharing. She was probably overwhelmed with concern for the couple. Gathering her in his arms, he kissed the top of her head and cuddled her close, ignoring the protests from his shoulder. “I’ll never let you go again, baby.”
“I’m glad.”
* * * * *
Fate carried Jilly out of the house and to his family who stood around the van, waiting. The males had tangled with the female lions in the house, but no one appeared too injured from the fight. He had a feeling a lot of that had to do with the police presence and none of them wanting to get into any serious trouble. He and Wyked sat down on the floor of the van and held Jilly between them. She was tired, probably a remnant of whatever drug she’d been injected with. And now that the rush of the rescue was behind them, she was having trouble staying awake.
“Can we take off?” Wyked asked. “I want to get Jilly in bed so she can rest.”
Their father raised a brow. “Her father and uncle are coming from Indiana and will be here in a few hours. We’re going to King to wait for them.”
“What the fuck for?” Wyked demanded.
“I want to see my dad,” she said softly. “I haven’t seen him since I turned sixteen.”
Wyked calmed considerably. “Sorry, baby, I just want to get you away from this place.”
Fate looked at their mom and said, “Do you think you could find her room and pack up her things? I don’t want to have to come back here ever again.”
Their mom nodded, and Jilly said, “It’s the second room in the main hallway, with the blue curtains. My stuff is against the wall with the windows.”
“I’ll get right on it,” their mom said, and their dad went with her. Fate felt good for having remembered that she had hardly anything to her name when she’d shown up at the campsite the day before.
“Wake me—” Jilly said, her voice slurred and then stopped completely before she finished her sentence. But Fate didn’t need to hear it to know that she wanted to be woken when her family arrived.
Wyked whispered with a snarl, “Her dad better not think he can take her from us.”
Fate cast a side glance at him, but said nothing. On the one hand, he didn’t want Jilly out of his sight. But on the other hand, they wouldn’t be able to officially mate until she was twenty-one, which was three, long years away. She’d started to lose touch with her emotions when she was a toddler. Now that her mountain lion nature had been restored, thanks to their blood-sharing, she had to come to terms with emotions that she’d basically been without f
or a long time. Not to mention that she was feeling some residual guilt over what had passed between her and her dad and younger brother. It wasn’t her fault, of course, but he understood her guilt.
When their mom and dad came back with a large suitcase and a duffel bag, Fate said, “I wonder if Indiana is nice in July?”
Their mom cupped his cheek and smiled, understanding that he was asking for the clan to consider traveling to her dad’s home so she could be with her family and they could still be together.
Wyked snorted softly. “Fucking Indiana. Why couldn’t her family live someplace tropical, like Barbados? I wouldn’t mind trekking there to watch over her for three years until we can mate her.”
“Indiana will be nice,” Fate said. It wouldn’t matter to him if she was from Greenland, because where she was would be home for them, and she needed to be reunited with her family.
“We’re her family now, too,” Wyked said with a pouty tone, as if he had read Fate’s mind.
Their dad said, “And that makes this John fellow your future father-in-law, so don’t be a possessive prick. She promised to stay with you, and she strikes me as the sort of girl who keeps her promises.”
Wyked pressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing, and Fate smiled at his dad. Always the fountain of wisdom.
Their mom said, “I love her already, honey. Your beasts chose well, and we’ll do everything in our power to support you three through your courting and eventual mating.”
Fate felt happy tears sting his eyes, and he blinked them away rapidly, focusing on the light weight of Jilly resting against his side and the warm wash of her breath against his arm as she slept.
* * * * *
Jilly paced in the courtyard behind the Charming B&B. Micah, Tristan, and Melody had been staying at the B&B before they’d been captured, and Micah had been insistent on taking Melody to their room so she could rest. She’d remained in her lion form until they had been ready to head into King, and she shifted and changed into the clothes that had been taken from her.
Jilly slept soundly between Wyked and Fate up until they had arrived at the B&B several hours after the rescue. It was after midnight, and fireworks had already blasted overhead, showering the dark sky with a multitude of colors. As a young child, she remembered hiding in her dad’s arms and covering her ears, but still peeking up to see the pretty colors. The fireworks reminded of her how much she had missed because, of all things, a curse from a goddess that happened who freaking knew how many thousands of years earlier.
She envied Melody, whose father had left with her after she was born. He’d seemed to instinctively know that being around the females would be bad for her. Why hadn’t her father taken her away?
“You’re growling, baby,” Wyked said. He and Fate sat on a low, stone wall that edged a flowerbed full of colorful pansies and bronze statues of butterflies and frogs. Most everyone was inside the B&B, including her mates’ clan, Melody, Tristan, and Micah’s families, and several other male lions. Only she and her mates were outside now.
Jilly sighed. “I can’t get a handle on my emotions. Every time I feel something, I’m reminded of a hundred other times I hadn’t felt that emotion. I feel like I betrayed my dad and brother, but I know it wasn’t my fault.”
Fate held out his arms, and she sat on his lap, snuggling into him. She inhaled, and the spicy scent of him filled her nose and made her cat purr.
Fate chuckled. “Like the way I smell, do you?”
“Yep.”
“What am I, smelly chopped liver?” Wyked groused.
“I like the way you smell, too. I followed it in the woods.”
“We smell like that just for you. Like how we feel connected with our blood-sharing, the mate-scent is just for us.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Has anyone else ever told you that you smell like strawberries and thunderstorms before?”
She blushed. “Uh, no.”
Wyked grinned and his eyes darkened. “Sweet and sultry, maybe a little dangerous.”
She laughed at his playfulness. He certainly earned the name Wyked. Fate twined one hand with hers. “We’ll help you with your emotions, Jilly.”
She opened her mouth to answer him when she heard a very familiar voice in the main room of the B&B.
Dad!
She leapt off Fate’s lap and raced inside, going straight for her dad.
He grabbed her in a tight hug. “Oh, baby, I’m so glad you’re safe.”
Overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, she couldn’t speak. She squeezed her arms around her dad. How she’d missed him.
“I never thought I’d see you again, Jilly.” His voice was thick and rough.
Silence surrounded them, and she realized that everyone had left them alone. She could feel her mates were nearby and watching, but the clan and pride were giving her and her dad time to reconnect.
She blinked and tears spilled over her cheeks. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, baby. I’m so glad you found your mates and they broke the curse.”
She lifted her head from his tear-soaked shirt and looked at him. “You know?”
Nodding, he told her that Tristan had given her dad’s number to Hanai, and he had called John to tell him what he’d learned about the mountain lions. “I can’t believe that all these years there was a way for our people to be together. I wish that I’d known.”
She scrubbed one hand over her eyes, gripping the back of his shirt with her other hand. “Do you think that you and my mother were truemates?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No, but I do think that some of the males over the years did feel the truemate pull to a female, but never did anything about it. I sometimes wish our males were not so weak.”
She looked at her father. The females had always said that the males were weak, but she was beginning to see that the females were weak in their own ways, overcome with jealousy that spawned a curse and affected generations. Now with her memories unclouded by the curse and her emotions returned, she saw things clearly. She didn’t think her father, or any of the males, were weak. Just loving. And there wasn’t really anything weak about love. It was strong and lasting and full of hope.
Her mates approached finally, and she introduced them to her dad. She also reunited with her Uncle James, who hugged her almost as tightly as her dad. Her dad and her mates’ parents discussed the future. She leaned against Wyked while Fate hooked a finger in the belt loop of her jeans and stood next to them. It was strange to hear her dad and her future in-laws discuss their living arrangements and the three years until she would be free to mate with her males.
Wyked brushed his lips over her ear and she shivered. He whispered, “Do you want to go to Indiana and live with the pride?”
“What will you do?”
For a hot, fearful moment, she thought they might leave her behind and go away for the next three years.
“Come with you, of course.” Fate snorted, as if it had been absurd to even suggest they go anywhere without her. “Our people are nomads, but only until we’ve found our mates. You could come with us now, but we’re not so selfish to think that you would want to be away from your family after such a long time without them and hampered from your true emotions. Our parents will bring the clan to Indiana, and we’ll be in constant touch.”
Wyked chuckled. “Touch. I like that.”
Fate leaned forward until she was looking into his pretty green eyes. “We can’t bond with you fully — by which, I mean, make love — until you’re twenty-one. But in every other way, we’ll be together. Think of it as an extended engagement. You can do anything you want — go to college, get a job, live with your family — and we’ll be nearby. For phone calls. Dates. Occasional overnighters of the innocent variety.”
She smirked. “I don’t think there’s anything innocent about either of you.”
Wyked laughed, and the movement jostled her against him. She loved his laugh.
&n
bsp; “Three years won’t be so long, and then we’ll decide where to live. Either you’ll come with us as part of our clan and travel North America, or we’ll stay and join your pride. As long as we’re together, we’ll be happy.”
“Happy,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”
Chapter 17
Melody hadn’t wanted to be around anyone when they were freed from the females’ home and asked him and Micah to stay in their room with her for the night and deal with others in the morning. He hadn’t minded. He wasn’t quite ready to see James and John yet, and Melody and Micah were exhausted, aching, and needed to rest.
Melody showered when they got to the room, and while they were alone, Micah told him what he’d experienced with the females. Tristan felt both sick and furious at what his brother had endured. That the females were thinking of using him to breed children made him want to go to the jail and beat the females to a pulp. Up until now, the children had always been raised by the males, not going to live with the females until they were sixteen. He couldn’t imagine what a male cub raised by females would turn out to be like. Warped and twisted to their purposes, he was sure.
Micah said that he would have gladly endured whatever the females did to him as long as it kept the focus off Melody. They’d been furious that she bore mating marks on her neck. He’d worried that they might try to cut them off her or just kill her outright. Now that they were both free, Tristan could tell that the events of the past day weighed heavily on them. Micah had been touched against his will. Melody had killed a mountain lion. In self-defense, of course, but that didn’t change the outcome.
Melody came out of the bathroom, naked and dripping wet, her eyes red from crying and her lip trembling. In a heartbeat, he and Micah were with her, holding her between them and letting her have whatever time she needed to cry. Micah had cried, too, and Tristan’s eyes burned with tears. He would have given anything to save them from what they’d endured. He wished he could turn back time.
