The cuffs disintegrated, falling away from her wrists into nothing but gray powder. The goddess blew the powder off Jess’s wrists and smoothed her hands down Jess’s breasts, waist and hips. “This is a lovely body. You chose well, Lucien.” Jess was horrified to hear her own voice, but know those were not her thoughts. Not her words.
Dear God. No one would know.
Eris could march out among them and they would die to protect her. It was vile, deceitful and utterly brilliant.
I’m so glad you approve. Eris’s voice echoed in her head.
Jess mentally struggled. She wanted to escape that voice that raked like blackberry thorns over her brain. She didn’t approve. Couldn’t approve of anything that would put her brothers and Ty in harm’s way.
That’s the thing about hunting. It never turns out so well for the bait. The goddess laughed. They will finish their battle and never know that I’ll be waiting for them here, learning their secrets and biding my time until I can strike at the heart of the clan and truly begin a world war worthy of me.
You’re one sick bitch, Jess thought.
The goddess gave a contented sigh. I know. Isn’t it wonderful?
* * *
Outside a giant crack was followed by an even louder boom. Lightning touched down in the field, incinerating both clan vampires and the reivers locked in battle with them. The skies opened and the rain poured down, making the muddy ground slick with water, spilled blood and splattered ichor. Unable to see who was who easily, it was utter chaos.
Through the tumult Ty spied a head of golden hair at the mouth of the cave. Jess! He bounded toward her, determined to reach her. Where had she been hiding and why was no one paying her the slightest bit of attention as she moved through the battle unscathed?
Did it matter? No. The only thing that mattered to Ty was reaching her, making sure she was protected at all costs. He reached her and slowed, bowing down with his muzzle between his paws.
“Ty, is that you?”
He rose up and panted, looking into the fathomless blue of her eyes. Her fingers dug into his fur as she hugged around the ruff at his neck.
Ty’s uncertainty grew. With her holding him, it was as though the two of them were surrounded by an invisible bubble. Neither red-eyed reivers nor Thralls even noted their existence, passing by as if they were invisible.
Only the great battle cry of a man cut through the strange haze of the moment as Achilles came barreling toward them, swinging a length of what looked like golden chain. Ty braced his feet apart and growled. He couldn’t communicate in his form to Achilles. What exactly did the vampire think he was doing?
Achilles didn’t even pause in his attack. He punched Ty hard in the face and viciously yanked Jess away from him. She screamed and Ty leaped on Achilles’s back, tearing into him. The vampire pounded him back, wrapping the golden chain tightly around Jess so quickly that it looked as if she was spinning a golden cocoon about herself.
Ty shifted, not giving a damn if he was stark naked. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This isn’t Jess, not wholly, anyway. She’s possessed by Eris.”
“Are you out of your damn mind?” Ty bellowed.
“Look into her eyes!” Achilles yelled over the din of the fight still roiling around them.
Ty looked deeply as Eris locked her malevolent blue gaze on him. Despite the downpour, her perfectly dry hair raised up currents of air, twisting and writhing about her head like vipers. It was Jess’s face, her body, but the essence in those eyes was nothing like her. They glowed. More bolts of lightning shot down from the sky. The battle was cordwood on a bonfire, making the goddess’s powers grow exponentially.
Tyee Grayson, come to me. The words resonated in his head so loudly that his body froze for an instant, his will working against hers. The goddess was powerful when it came to manipulating Weres, but Ty had something she didn’t: a love that blotted out all other influence.
“You aren’t Jess,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
“Oh, but I am,” she crooned, and damn if she didn’t sound just like Jess. “Help me. Please help me. Free me, Ty. This chain is pressing on our babies. If you won’t help me, help your children. Your future.”
Ty resisted with everything in him, forcing his stiff, burning muscles to bend to his will. He locked his gaze on Achilles. “What are you going to do to her?”
“Send her back to the pit from which she was freed.”
“No!” Jess shrieked at the same time Eris did, their voices melding together in a jarring chord.
More lightning came, splitting apart the trees, setting fire to the forest.
Ty focused everything he had on Achilles. “Can you get her out of Jess?”
Achilles put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll do what I can.”
He put his hand on Jess’s chain-bound form and together they vanished in a curl of smoke that was whisked away in an instant by the howling wind.
The battlefield grew oddly quiet. Ty glanced around. The reivers and Thralls stood motionless, as if instantly stopped in freeze-frame motion. He moved to touch one and found him stiff as marble. “What the hell?” he breathed. Only the clan vampires and the Weres remained in motion, and they seemed just as perplexed as he was.
Riley, in the form of a dark brown wolf, padded up to Ty, weaving through the statue-like enemy. What do you make of it?
Maybe Eris was the control of their hive mind. Without her, they can’t function.
A moment later, as if they had been awaiting a cue, the frozen reivers and Thralls went limp and fell to the ground, unconscious. The crackle and heat of the forest fire grew louder. In the field, conflagrations ignited as the reivers spontaneously began to combust. “We have to get out of here!” Ty yelled.
Riley nodded his great fuzzy head and ran off to the other Weres. Donovan appeared beside him. “We need to grab as many of the Thralls as we can and transport them. Achilles wants to see if they can be saved.”
Donovan nodded. “I’m on it.”
Ty transformed himself back into his wolf form and tried to scent out Jess’s brothers among the fallen. He found Paul and Edgar, and eventually Davis, and dragged each of them into the bunker, which was fireproof. Smoke grew thick in the air, acrid and dense, stinging his eyes and nose. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Donovan, I’ve got three more in here to transport.
Be there in a minute.
Without the frenzy of the battle, all Ty could think of was Jess. How long would Achilles take? Could anything be done? He’d seen with his own eyes how the goddess had blown apart the Alpha of his pack when she’d possessed him. The thought of the same happening to Jess and his children was more than he could bear.
A curl of dark particles formed into Donovan beside him. “Where are the transports?”
Ty nodded to Jess’s brothers. They’re all Jess’s siblings. Be careful with them.
Donovan picked up each of the brothers one at a time, disappearing and then returning to collect another.
Ty was surprised when he returned after the last one was gone.
“Your turn, brother.”
Ty shook his massive head. He had nothing to go back to without Jess. No reason to want a pack. No reason to go back to his human form.
“Sorry, brother, orders are orders.” Donovan clamped a hand on Ty’s ruff and transported them away from the burning battleground.
They reappeared back at the Brierly home in Jess’s bedroom. The fit was tight with two vampires and his wolf form. Achilles held the limp form of Jess in his arms. Scratches welted her cheek and great dark bruises marred her skin.
Ty shifted instantly and knelt beside her, wrapping his arms around her. She cupped her hand on his cheek, her eyes saying everything she didn’t have the strength to put into wo
rds. “Take the babies.”
Ty could feel her growing weaker in his arms. “I’m not letting you go. You’re staying right here with me.” Her eyelids fluttered, as if holding them open was just too much effort.
Desperation turned his body rigid. Ty zeroed in on Achilles. “What do I do? Tell me!”
From the pained, sad look on the vampire’s face, Ty knew he was out of options. Achilles placed his hand on Ty’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, she’s too far gone. Eris fought to keep her and wounds from within like that aren’t going to heal. You’ll have to change her.”
“I can’t! I swore to her I wouldn’t.” Ty’s heart thundered hard in his chest and in his ears. There had to be something. Anything that kept her alive without breaking the promise he’d made to her. He locked gazes with Achilles. “What about you? Could you change her?”
“Into a vampire?”
Ty clenched his jaw and nodded.
Achilles frowned. “That would mean she’d live with the clan. She wouldn’t get to see her brothers again. At least with you she’d have a chance of a normal life if she chose.”
Smoke streaked and torn, Ty closed his eyes and fought within himself. It was the one thing Jess had demanded of him. The only thing she’d made him promise. But he couldn’t live without her and she couldn’t live without being bitten.
She might not ever forgive him, but at least she’d live. Anguish thumped inside him, taking the place of his heartbeat, as he allowed his head to change form and he bit deep.
It took only moments for the change to begin. Color returned to her cheeks and the scorched marks from the chain on her skin began to fade.
Ty glanced at Achilles. “What did you do to her?”
“The orchacilum chain was enough to bind Eris, but not to dispel her completely from Jess. I had to dose her with a tonic of hemlock.”
Ty’s fury rose. “That’s toxic!”
“Bringing her close to death was the only option I had. Only then would the goddess have to leave her body or risk being locked in her dying form.”
He shook his head. Jess was looking better and better as the minutes ticked slowly by. As long as she was still alive, he didn’t care what had happened in the past. All he wanted was a future with her.
“Where’s Eris now?”
Achilles frowned. “Back in the cage beneath the Parthenon, where she belongs. We brought her out to restore balance to mankind, but all it did was tip the scales in favor of anarchy, pain and suffering.”
Jess stirred, her eyelashes fluttering. “Where am I?” she croaked, her voice dry and brittle.
“Get her some water,” Ty told Riley, who was now standing on the other side of him, transported there by Donovan. “You’re home, honey,” Ty said as he gently brushed back her hair, now brittle and dull beneath his fingers. Even bruised, scraped and smelling of wood smoke, she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. Mesmer or no Mesmer, Jessica Brierly was the one for him. “It’s all over. Eris is gone. For good.”
She sat up and gratefully took the glass of water Riley offered her, gulping down big slugs of it. Her return of energy made him ecstatic.
Ty gave Riley a glance. Can you get us some privacy? Riley nodded and began to usher everyone out of Jess’s bedroom. Good man. He knew how to follow orders. He was going to make an excellent Beta.
A pucker formed between Jess’s brows as she frowned and set down the glass, her hand straying to her neck, her fingers gingerly pressing against the place where he’d sunk his teeth into her. “You bit me.” He could see the accusation and pain in her eyes.
“Yeah, but, Jess—”
“But nothing.” She shoved away from him. “You promised me, Ty. You promised. And you broke that promise. How am I supposed to trust you?”
“I had to. You were going to die.”
Jess scraped her fingers through her hair. “Don’t you get it? You might have kept me living, but you took away my life. I had a life, a perfectly good one. I had a place in my community. Friends who liked me. A career. That’s all gone, all of it, when they find out I’m a monster. They aren’t going to let me near their kids. The life I had is over, and it’s your fault.”
Ty grabbed her hands and refused to let go when she tried to pull them away. “Jessica Brierly. Open your eyes. This isn’t the end—this is just the beginning.”
She frowned and nibbled her lip. “You know the one thing I kept thinking when Eris took control of me? I wanted to wish this whole thing away. I wanted to go back to being just a normal, boring person.” Jess glanced up at him, her eyes bluer than he’d ever seen them, the kind of endless blue a man could gladly drown in.
“But then I realized something. I realized if everything did go back, I never would have met you. I never would have realized that there are bigger and stranger and scarier things in this world that I could overcome with the right person by my side. And that person, fur, fangs and all, is you.”
In her eyes Ty saw something no one had ever given him. Their acceptance of who he was. All of him, without reserve. Ty gathered her into his arms, and this time Jess didn’t resist.
“In case I haven’t said it lately, I love you,” he said softly into her ear.
She pulled back and gazed at him, adoration in her eyes. “Actually, you’ve never said it.”
Ty frowned. “Really? Never?”
She nodded.
“Huh. Perhaps I was just thinking it all the time.”
Well, that shouldn’t be a problem if I can read your thoughts now. Her voice resonated inside his head and Ty’s eyes widened.
“Wow, you are good.”
Jess grinned at him. You have no idea.
Ty gave a low, husky growl. Well, I’d certainly like to find out, but there’s no reason to rush this. We have all the time in the world. But there is one thing I want to know.
And what’s that?
Ty cupped her face in his hands. Jess, will you marry me?
Her belly gave a jerk and Ty pulled back and bent low, placing his hand on her growing stomach. “Was that the babies?”
Jess’s smile made her glow. “They’re going to be a challenge. I can tell already.”
Ty kissed her, putting everything he was into the kiss. “Already like their mother.”
“How about we make that your wife?”
Somehow in this insane, crazy world, he’d found the one thing that made him complete. He gazed upon the woman who had changed his world just as much as he had changed hers and knew together they could have it all. “Anything you say, honey. Anything you say.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from SENTINELS: LYNX DESTINY by Doranna Durgin
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Chapter 1
You may have driven my mother mad, but you won’t do it to me.
Regan Adler gazed out at the intensely rugged vista of the Sacramento Mountains—vast slopes of ponderosa pine, towering cliffs and deep blue sky, all nearly nine thousand feet high. It should have been inspiring; it should have been invigorating.
Regan scowled out over that beauty. “Don’t you dare talk back to me,” she muttered at it.
The land said noth
ing back. After a moment, her sturdy blue roan gelding snorted impatience, and Regan released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The gelding’s winter hair curled damply under her hand as she patted his neck; he’d shed out in another month or so, but the April noonday sun already beat down hard, and they’d covered only half the generous acreage attached to the Adler family cabin.
For now, Regan Adler focused on getting reacquainted with this place to which she’d vowed she’d never return.
“Yeah,” she said, when the horse snorted again, bobbing his head in suggestion. “It’s not your fault that Dad’s away, is it?” Or that Regan was trapped here, caretaking the place for some unknown length of time while her father recuperated from a back injury with his brother in El Paso. Although he was still a man in his prime, this was no place for a man—or woman—who couldn’t hold his own against winter snow, the woodstove or the long hike off the mountain if the truck didn’t start.
Another shift of her weight, and the horse moved forward again, placing his feet carefully in spite of the spirit in his movement. She’d already come to appreciate this canny little mustang and his responsive nature; his good judgment left her free to hunt the boundary markers on a land that hardly seemed changed since she’d been here last.
The horse snorted again, but it held a different sound; it came with a head raised and small ears pricked forward. Regan sat deliberately still in the saddle, quiet and balanced and waiting.
Plenty of bear up in these parts. Plenty of tree trunks and shadows and juts of land to hide a bear even nearby.
“Shh,” Regan said softly as the horse trembled briefly beneath her. “It’s not exactly safe to go bolting off through the woods, either.”
Neither ear swiveled back to acknowledge her. Not good. “I was thinking admiring thoughts about you a moment ago,” she told the horse, laying one hand on that sweaty neck—feeling the tension there. “I’m trusting you to keep me safe.”
One Night With the Shifter Page 21
