Prince of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  In the brief second it took for understanding to click in, Kendra flushed in outrage even as the start of tears swam in her eyes. “I am not leaving so strangers can take him home to his family,” she corrected with steely quiet.

  Tony shook his head. “Princess, think carefully. If they kill him, what’s the first thing they’ll do?”

  Come after her. Terror jumped into her throat, but she swallowed it down determinedly. “I will not leave him.”

  There was no time for Tony to argue as the combatants entered the arena area. A huge roar went up as Cale moved toward the cage with his aggressive hip-kicking strut, slapping palms with the crowd on his way to the ring. He circled the interior, skipping backward while limbering up with a series of jabs. Then, in an all-business flex of muscle, he stripped out of his shirt. Bouncing lightly, he gestured for the three approaching to join him, his smile coldly promising.

  After the trio entered the cage, the door was closed and chained shut behind them. None would leave until either Cale or his three adversaries were unable to.

  Kendra had seen Cale take on his brothers with the odds tipped vastly in their favor, but that hadn’t been a fight to the death. This challenge, she soon realized, was something totally different and completely foreign to her. The fighting would be done in their natural state.

  Shifter males prided themselves on being able to control their inner beast. Transformations into their primal state were kept for times of war and breeding, not for sport or display. The chance for uncontainable violence was too great—unless killing was the desired result.

  Even at a distance, she could see Cale’s unholy eyes ring with fire as he threw back his head for a fearsome, raging howl. The change was on him almost instantaneously. His torso expanded, his muscle mass increasing at a phenomenal rate. Sleek skin sprouted a thick red-gold pelt, across his shoulders, down his arms, to hands that were suddenly huge and claw-tipped. His features had taken on lupine characteristics of thick brow, elongated snout, tufted ears, one still pierced with that brilliant Terriot diamond, and a row of ferociously sharp teeth. But those blazing eyes were Cale’s.

  The others simply split out of their shirts by morphing into that powerful form that wasn’t pure animal, but neither was it remotely human.

  Kendra stared in astonishment. She’d never seen a fully transformed male, just glimpses of what they might hide within. They were frightening, brutally primitive, guided only by savage instinct. The ability to leash the inner beast may have been touted as a sign of how civilized they’d become as a species, but when it roared and reigned, there was no doubt that evolutionary step was only a small one.

  This was what she’d mate with to seal their genetic bond.

  This primal Shifter prince would be at her back, claiming her, tearing into her with that massive body, sinking those wicked teeth into her flesh to mark his territory, and she knew she wouldn’t enjoy the price she’d have to pay for her safety. While the idea of sex with Cale had become infinitely appealing, this held no allure. She was terrified by the very thought, haunted by brutal memory.

  Anxiously, Kendra studied her potential mate, comparing him to the three others. Cale was smaller, yet sleekly dangerous next to the brutish bulk of his opponents. Her prince. A shiver of pride pushed against that overwhelming alarm. The power of the throne. Hers to command. Hers. For the first time, she began to view the situation differently.

  Hers.

  He’d defied his father, fought his brothers, allowed himself to be humbled and abused, and now was publicly defending her honor. To have her. And if she had to share that fierce devotion with the throne that came with it . . .

  I want to be better. With you beside me, I can be.

  Shutting out the sounds of the crowd around him, Cale fought down the fury clouding his judgment to think carefully of his first move. If it weren’t the right one, it would be his last. In this arena, he wasn’t a prince, he was one against three, and those three were eager for the taste of his still-beating heart. Since that was a gift he had pledged to another, he took the advice he’d given Kip when faced with equal adversity. He struck hard and fast.

  Even if he didn’t have the chance to kill them all, there was one he couldn’t allow to escape him. Cale recalled the sneering mockery as Whitey spoke of his misuse of Kendra. Of touching her bare skin, her sweet body. Hackles rose at his neck. Blackness surged to mask reason. And he sprang.

  The two on either side stared in shock as Cale took Whitey to the mat. Sitting astride the much bigger male, Cale seized the pale hair and drove the head into the floor again and again, snarling thick and low, “You put your hands on what belongs to me. You hurt her. You scared her. You thought you could take her. I’m going to rip you to fucking pieces!”

  Cale struck until the screams stopped. Only then did he bury his face in the blood-soaked fur at the throat to take the other’s life with a violent jerk of his head. When he rocked back on his heels, seething as he wiped the gore from his mouth, the others finally acted, out of self-preservation as much as anger.

  Mule, who was gigantic in his natural state, gripped Cale’s arms, dragging him up and flinging him to the mat with a breath-sapping impact. In that paralyzing second, Slick was on him. Cale managed to wedge a forearm between his own throat and those slashing teeth, holding Slick at bay until his strength returned. Then Cale hammered his way through fur and flesh and bone to seize the heart and tear it from the body even as glassy eyes widened in surprise. He shoved the corpse off him and rolled to his feet, roaring as he sank his teeth into the gruesome trophy, devouring it as the crowd erupted into bloodthirsty cheers. Licking away the last of his victory from his hand, Cale turned—right into Mule’s anvil-sized fist.

  He went down, bells ringing, only vaguely aware of his foot being seized, of the whoosh of air as he was sent airborne into the steel bars of the cage. He dropped to hands and knees, catching movement in his usually dark peripheral soon enough to grab the leg swinging for his ribs. With a hard twist, he took Mule to the canvas with a vibrating thud and was straddling him, a hand about his thick neck, squeezing.

  “Please, my prince,” wheezed the giant. “I never touched her. Ask her! I never put a hand on her. Mercy! I beg you!”

  Cale leaned close, fury shaking through him. “You ran, you coward, and let my brother die!”

  Eyes nearly popping, Mule gasped, “You killed him!”

  Cale took a breath. Yes, he had. And there was no way to shift that guilt to another.

  The hunger for vengeance drained from him. He sat back, slowly releasing his hold. Panting, he glared down at the fallen male and said, “Run now, if you want to save your miserable life. Run and don’t let me ever see you again.”

  Cale rocked to his feet and started for the door of the cage. Seeing his intention, the crowd both cheered and jeered uproariously. Cale didn’t hear them. He was focused, listening for something else. For the faint prickle of warning. For the whisper of treachery rushing up behind him.

  He spun, meeting Mule before he could complete a successful attack. He swung fiercely, claws glinting like sharpened blades, sending Mule’s head flying to bounce off the bars as his body collapsed at Cale’s feet.

  “Fool,” he growled, then continued toward the open door, his form changing as he reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. He started up the aisle, ignoring the shouts and applause from his clan. There was only one thing that meant anything to him now. Returning home to Kendra as quickly as possible, so she’d know she had nothing more to fear.

  He pushed his way up through the packed stairwell, smiling and nodding because it was expected, though he was impatient to be gone. The hallway was even harder to navigate. Everyone wanted to congratulate him, to touch him, to press his hand.

  “Cale!”

  He stopped, stretching on tiptoe to scan the crowd, his expression filling with surprise as his gaze found hers.

  Kendra started toward him, struggling through th
e throng, and then she was running. She took a reckless leap that had him stumbling a step back as he caught her. Her arms and legs tangled about him. Even as her tear-dampened face pressed tight against his, even as she sobbed his name over and over, all he could say was “You’re still here.”

  He cloistered her head with his hands, pulling her back so he could look into her eyes, confused when she gushed, “Are you all right? I was so afraid when you went down—”

  “You saw me? You were watching?” His pulse was banging like crazy, making him light-headed.

  She laughed as if shocked herself. “I couldn’t leave.” Her tone lowered, becoming a liquid caress. “You were amazing.”

  All he could see was the inviting heat burning in her dark stare, sucking him in by the soul. He was kissing her, hard and deep and endlessly. Time to find that room.

  Carrying her while they shared panting breaths and hurried tongue thrusts, he turned them in to the ladies’ restroom. The female at the mirror snatched up her purse, glowering at them on her way out the door as Cale settled Kendra on the edge of the sink. For a long minute, they continued to kiss, unable to find a satisfactory point to stop. Her excitement heightened the potency of her scent, and with each breath he pulled, it swirled about his senses. The adrenaline already sluicing through his system pumped up his primal drive toward an inescapable conclusion. To take her, claim her, make her his.

  No other female enflamed his possessive instincts the way she did. Everything about her was unbearable provocation. The soft, needy sounds she made as he plumbed the sweetness of her mouth, her quick little gasps as he moved against her in a rhythmic prelude, her hands on his body, rubbing up and down his back, stirring his desire into a great, growling insistence.

  To take, to claim, to have. His mate. His queen. She’d waited for him. She wanted him. Nothing would get in his way.

  Gripping her hips, Cale tugged her into the hard grind of his crotch. Her heat . . . an intoxicating attractant. He lowered his face, scrubbing it over the soft swell of her breasts, feeling her heart begin to sprint in response. His hands filled with that tender bounty. His mouth scorched against the silky arch of her throat, hungry for the taste of her that would make them one. Finally one.

  Everything he’d wanted, dreamed of, yearned for was seconds from realization. She pressed against him, his name a soft plea upon her lips. He clutched her tighter, closer, shaking with the violence of his need to have her. Now.

  He spun her around with unintended roughness, pressing her down over the sink with one hand cuffing the back of her neck while the other tore down her pants. The sight of her pale, perfect backside sent shudders of anticipation through him. He pushed her knees apart with the intrusion of his own. His. His to take and hold forever. In a fever of urgency, he shoved up her shirt to expose more sleek, creamy flesh. Had to taste her, feel that softness, while he could still control the primitive demands snarling through him.

  Cale bent to sweep his lips over the curve of her gorgeous ass, leaving that tempting swell to trace up her spine with the drag of his tongue. Every nerve, every inch of him, was on fire. His head pounded, his sex a throbbing rage of impatience. Yet he couldn’t resist this small tactile intimacy. He’d ached for her.

  He came to an obstacle and opened his eyes to stare at the clasp of her utilitarian white cotton bra. A barrier easily breached, but he hesitated. Because he was seeing that humble scrape of pink shielding the last of her modesty, hearing those soft, frantic sounds.

  Hearing them . . . now?

  Startled, shocked, Cale stumbled back as if that desirable flesh had electrified. He blinked to clear his vision, struggling to find a path through the haze of his lust.

  Kendra clung to the edges of the sink bowl with white-knuckled hands. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lashes wet with unshed tears. Those delicate features he loved were scrunched in an agony of defenselessness and dread as her body shivered fitfully, her breaths coming in hurried snatches. She was terrified—of him.

  Cale reeled away, staggering until he bumped the far wall. Pressing his palms and burning brow to the cool tiles, he whispered hoarsely, “I thought you wanted this, wanted me.”

  When she didn’t answer, he doubled over, the frustration and horror of how close he’d come to . . . He fought the need twisting tight inside him, demanding that he take her, even against her will. He breathed hard to keep that restraint in focus while the rest of him howled fiercely for satisfaction.

  “This morning,” he panted, “you were so turned on, if my bike had a backseat, we would have been fucking in it. You can’t tell me you didn’t want me, that some part of you doesn’t want me now! Katy, tell me you want me.”

  He turned to find out the truth, and it nearly killed him.

  She’d pulled up her pants and slumped to the floor, where she sat with arms hugging shaking knees together. Tragic eyes gazed up as she quietly told him, “I’m sorry. Not this way.”

  Cale leaned back against the wall, those words draining everything vital out of him. Because he couldn’t bear her dejected features, he raised his stare to the mirror and got a good look at what she was seeing. A dangerously unstable beast with fresh blood streaking his arms and face, his eyes huge black holes ringed with fire. He whirled away, striking the wall with his palms, shattering the tiles with his fists as that shredding aggression surged once more. “Fuck!”

  He nearly wrenched the door off its hinges as he stalked out into the hall, where a wall of noise sent him swaying. He gulped for breath, shivering for a long minute, before returning to put his hand down to her. He would never, ever leave her behind again. She took it gingerly and let him lift her to her feet and lead her into the crowded hall. There, he passed her to Tony with a firm command that this time he take her home.

  Cale continued into the club’s packed interior without looking back. The second his clan caught sight of him, the sound level rose in a roar as he was surrounded. Males pumped his hands and pounded his back. Females wiggled close to lick the blood from his arms and tried to kiss it from his face. Slowly, the guilt and pain subsided as he was hoisted into the air upon the shoulders of his people while they shouted his name, followed by “Our prince!”

  Ferocious gratification swelled. Cale closed his eyes, drinking in that euphoric rush. He put back his head for a wild screaming yell. As that triumphant echo faded, he heard another cheer rise.

  “Our king!”

  thirteen

  Kendra sat quietly in the backseat of the Escalade. No music was playing as they headed up the mountainside. Tony remained silent, never violating her privacy even when glancing in the rearview. She was completely alone in her misery.

  She’d had every intention of going through with it.

  When she’d seen Cale coming down that hall, pumped with victory, drenched in the fate of those who’d hurt her, her heart had staggered. All she could think was Don’t let this moment pass. The solid feel of him, the always devastating effect of his kisses, and she was ready to cast everything aside to have him. Nothing else mattered. He was her first love, her prince. He would be her first lover. And maybe her only.

  She’d been sure that initial wave of passion could wash away the anxious shivers. That once they made love, all her fear would be vanquished. The tantalizingly male contours she’d explored through his clothing that morning had become an obsession. Wondering what he’d feel like in her hand, inside her body, had her embarrassingly restless all day. Just his scent created unbearable arousal as instinct began to prowl.

  If only he’d dropped his pants first to distract her, instead of taking down hers in such a forceful hurry. Things might have been very different.

  The porcelain sink had made her think of cold cement cutting into her palms and knees. The pressure on the back of her neck, the sense of being startlingly exposed, brought back the memory of those rough, groping hands and the painful invasion of their fingers. Kendra just knew the second Cale touched her, she was going to b
egin a mad shrieking and not be able to stop. The slow, sensuous stroke of his tongue had taken the screaming edge off, making her think she could get through it.

  But they hadn’t gotten that far.

  I thought you wanted this, wanted me.

  She’d seen that stark look on Cale’s face before, when he’d spotted her crouched in her mother’s closet and he had known she would never again view him as anything but a monster.

  She’d done nothing to discourage that opinion.

  When they reached the private lodge, Tony walked her to the door and waited until she was safely inside before wishing her good night. She stood in the dark on that threshold she was too afraid to cross as long minutes crept by.

  What if he didn’t come back to her?

  What if, after a night of celebrating his victory with those females who’d had their hands all over him, Cale withdrew his protection the way she’d withdrawn her agreeability? She had no hold on him. Nothing to bind him to his promises. If he rejected her, she’d be fair and tasty game for his brothers. Her shivering returned.

  Only one brief act stood in her way. Once they got past that, she’d be safe. And tied to Cale and his life here forever. Part of her rebelled against that sacrifice while another whispered, “You know you want him. You’ve always wanted him.”

  Confused and dispirited, Kendra crossed the darkened living room and entered the bedroom. Everything was neat and tidy. All signs of their having shared the bed were gone. She sat on its edge and studied that smooth, unrumpled surface, thinking of Cale’s drugging kisses, hearing the sound of harsh breathing, trying to separate fears of the past from current necessity and desires. What was she going to do?

  Feeling a desperate need to reach out from her suffocating isolation, she dug through her makeup case to find her phone and redialed the number Brigit had called from. Ringing, but no answer, no invitation to voice mail. What message could she have left for her friend and confidante? “Help me. I think I have Stockholm syndrome. I just might be infatuated with my captor”? No, that wasn’t true. It was so much more than that.