by Riley Storm
Time to change that number to zero.
He roared a challenge once more, then charged. He wasn’t going to win the fight by being on the defensive. It was time to attack, to show them the true speed and power of a battle-enraged Ursidae. These opponents were old; elders, yes, but unused to combat anymore, and he was banking on them not being ready.
They weren’t.
Closing with blinding speed, Kirell swiped at the slowest moving one. The wolf shifter darted away, but not without a line of red marks along his side. They were still fast, managing to avoid an instantaneous death blow, but it left no doubt that he’d drawn first blood.
Come on, you mangy flea-bitten mongrels. Let’s see what you’ve got.
Kirell didn’t have much energy and fighting in his animal form was going to sap it even faster than normal. He had to end the fight, and soon, or else the wolves would be able to use their numbers against him. Unless I can do something about that.
He spun as one of them darted at his hind legs. Claws sliced through air, barely missing the wolf. Even as he did that, another came in from his blind side. Kirell was ready. In fact, he’d counted on them doing this.
In a move completely unexpected of any bear, he dropped his weight onto his forelegs and did his best to mimic a donkey as he kicked out behind him. The wolf didn’t stand a chance. A paw nearly the size of a manhole cover slammed into the powerful beast’s skull with the force of a moving vehicle.
Bone crunched and the snout collapsed back into the animal’s brain, killing it instantly. Kirell whirled and smacked the creature across what remained of its face, ripping fur and spraying blood everywhere as he reveled in the kill, bellowing his victory to any and all that might hear.
Something clamped down wickedly on his flank, followed moments later by blinding pain as the massive wolf ripped a chunk of flesh from him, darting out of the way of his defensive swipe. The other one came at him from behind, leaping on top of him. It bit down and used the clenched bite to hold itself still as claws ripped through Kirell’s thick fur, opening cuts that drew blood.
He roared in pain and rolled swiftly, dislodging the wolf lest it be crushed by his weight. The canine leapt free, howling in a combination of success and frustration. It had hurt him, but not enough.
A quick glance showed that Natalia was still safe, having moved to the far side of the SUV, keeping it between her and the raging battle. His anger spiking at the danger she was in fueled him on again.
How dare these washed-up never-was pieces of dung threaten his mate? He couldn’t wait to rip the throat from Klebra, assuming his Queen didn’t beat him to the punch. The traitor had not only betrayed his own household, but he’d dared to put a hand on Kirell’s mate. He was going to kill him for that, staring into Klebra’s face as he delivered the fatal blow. Kirell wanted to watch him die, so that he would leave this earth seeing nothing but triumphant victory on his hated rival.
He squared off against the remaining wolves, trying to set them up for a killing blow. Two on one, he would have had the advantage in most situations. But he was weakened, and his energy fading fast. The wounds they’d inflicted were more than the nuisance he would normally classify them as. Kirell just didn’t have that much blood left to lose right now.
This had to end, and soon.
He rushed at one, then the other, backing them up without actually committing—not until the one on the right backed into the wall of the stone mausoleum. The contact with the outer wall surprised the beast, and for a split second it looked behind it, to see what it was.
Too late, the wolf realized it was all a ploy, and that Kirell had tricked him. But it didn’t matter. It was caught between a stone wall and a two-ton bear, its attention focused behind it instead of in front.
Kirell slammed into the beast, practically picking it up and pinning it to the wall. The wolf fought back, snarling and snapping, blood-stained teeth sinking into Kirell’s shoulder at one point, while its claws splashed blood from his exposed chest.
But it didn’t matter. The fight was over for this one. Kirell’s jaws closed around its neck, and with a thunderous display, Kirell literally whipped the huge beast back and forth until its neck snapped and the creature went limp. Then he turned and hurled it at the lone remaining wolf, forcing it to abandon the attack on Kirell’s hind leg that it had been worrying at, trying to force him to release his friend.
Victory was in his grasp, and Kirell turned to the final wolf, eager to finish it off.
Then, the world spun and he was suddenly over on his side.
What the hell?
Angrily he tried to get to his feet, but like before, his back left leg failed him, collapsing under his weight, spilling Kirell to the ground and leaving him exposed.
The wolf darted back in and ripped at his stomach without hesitation. Kirell roared in pain, unable to defend his most vulnerable spot. He tried to strike out with his working leg, but the wolf was too quick, falling back and then darting forward again.
Kirell was in trouble. Bad trouble. Rolling onto his stomach, he protected the most vulnerable area for the time being, but without the use of one of his hind legs he wasn’t going to be able to strike back unless the wolf screwed up.
Kirell deemed that possibility unlikely.
The wolf came back in from the other side, hunched over low, jaws spread wide as it sank its fangs deep into his already disabled leg, ripping more flesh from him.
Natalia!
Worry for his mate spurred him into motion as he rolled away and kicked out with his good leg surprisingly fast. The wolf yipped in pain and darted away, having earned a quintet of slices down its throat for its troubles.
Kirell was starting to fade fast, however, and wasn’t sure how much longer he could handle it.
Behind him, he saw Kaelyn being spun around by a vicious right hook from Klebra.
Was this it? Was this how they were going to die? Just when he’d started to get his life figured out, he was going to have it stolen from him? And what about Natalia, his mate and the woman he loved? She didn’t deserve this. This wasn’t her fight, but now she was going to pay the price for it.
The wolf came closer, this time aiming for a killing blow, he was sure. Its mouth opened wide, showing Kirell’s blood still dripping from its jaws, bits of bear fur stuck to the teeth, evidence of its prior efforts.
“Hey! Here boy! Here boy! Sit! Stay! Play dead, you piece of shit!” Natalia shouted, and a piece of stone the size of a human fist smacked into the wolf’s side.
No! Kirell looked on—horrified—as his mate came out from around the SUV. On its hood was a pile of stone taken from broken tombs. One by one, Natalia picked them up and hurled them at the wolf, taking its attention away from Kirell.
He wanted to tell her to stop. To turn around and run. That she should get as far away from the cemetery as possible before it was too late. But there was something in her eyes. Something he recognized.
It was anger. And fear. For him. As he’d been scared for her safety, she was terrified for his, and she wasn’t about to see him killed in front of her without doing anything. Kirell had never loved her more than in that moment, but he couldn’t let her do this. She couldn’t sacrifice herself for him.
Roaring with pain, he forced himself to his feet, his entire body protesting, even as parts of it shut down from the wounds inflicted upon him.
The wolf heard him, of course, and turned, suddenly unsure of what to do, of which foe to go after.
That hesitation sealed its fate.
Out of the dark, men came slashing into the circle, rifles firing the depleted uranium shells that wreaked havoc with shifter DNA. The wolf shrieked in unholy pain as it took a dozen bullets to its body in the span of two seconds and went down, dead.
The rest closed around Kirell and Natalia while approaching Kaelyn and Klebra as well.
Shunting aside the pain, Kirell forced himself back into his human form, the pain agonizing to the point
of nearly blacking him out as the transformation seemed to go on forever. It still took the normal handful of seconds, but it felt like forever. But then he was back in normal form.
“WAIT!” he hollered, just before the men opened fire on Klebra. “Wait.”
Klaue and the others turned to stare at him with a mixture of horror and surprise. He must have been a hell of a sight, drenched in blood both his own and the wolf’s, naked, and staggering forward.
Reaching down, he snagged a piece of the stone, the first one that Natalia had thrown at the wolf.
“Kirell.” His man Klaue tried to block his path, but Kirell shoved him aside.
In front of him stood the Queen and Klebra, both exhausted, bleeding from a dozen cuts and both now barely on their feet. He eyed the traitor, noting the sheer number of wounds, the broken jaw, the swollen shut eye, and made a mental note never to piss off his Queen again.
“Do you mind?” he asked Kaelyn as he approached.
“Not at all.”
“Mind what?” Klebra asked through his mangled mouth. “What do you mind?”
“This,” he snarled, and slammed the chunk of stone into Klebra’s face.
Kirell fell with the blow, landing on top of the traitor. “This is for kidnapping Natalia. For threatening my MATE!” He finished with a full-throated roar, lifting his exhausted arms above his head and bringing them, and the stone they held, right into Klebra’s face a second time.
His arms rose and fell again. And again. Blood splashed. Something gave way.
Eventually, Kaelyn was there, pulling him back. “It’s over,” she said, forced to shout to get through to him. “Kirell. It’s over! Enough!”
Then she backhanded him and he fell away, blinking in surprise.
“He’s dead, Kirell. He’s dead.”
Staggering to his feet, Kirell approached, looking down at the mangled corpse that had been a traitor to their entire House. “Yeah. He is.”
Then he spat on the body.
42
“Stop it!” Natalia exclaimed as Kirell tried to get out of bed.
“I can do it myself,” he answered.
“What do you need? I’ll get it for you,” she said, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him down.
It showed just how tired her mate was—she would never have called him weak, not after the first time she’d made that mistake after they returned to the Manor. The fight had exhausted him, and after getting him into the shower and cleaned up, the two of them had fallen into a sleep nearly equivalent to a mini-coma.
Upon waking, she’d felt rested and refreshed, but Kirell needed more time to heal. The Priest had visited and pronounced he would live, though he’d nearly killed himself through exhaustion with the fighting.
The prescription was simply bed rest and food, and she intended to see that her stubborn man didn’t leave that bed until he was good and ready.
“You can’t do this one,” he said, speaking in a strangely hoarse voice.
“Alright, fine, you can go to the washroom on your own,” she conceded. She loved him, but there was a line even she wasn’t willing to cross if she could avoid it.
“Thanks,” he said dryly, “but that’s not what I meant.”
He sat up, despite her attempts to push him down again, and the covers slipped away to his waist. Normally she enjoyed looking at his half-naked body, but the numerous lines of fresh skin reminded her too much of how close to losing him she’d come the night before.
“Where do you think you’re going, Mister?” she asked as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I didn’t give you permission to leave.”
“I have a question for you. And I’m not as weak as you think I am.” Trying to prove his point, he got up from the bed, swaying wildly back and forth.
“If you fall, I won’t be able to stop you,” she said, sliding across the bed and getting herself under his arm. “And now you’re going to take me down with you.”
“How convenient for you that I have every intention of going down.”
She frowned. What the heck did that mean? There was another meaning behind it, she was certain of that, but his voice…he hadn’t meant it sexually, she was sure of that. “Pardon?”
He removed his arm from around her, trading it for a gentle grip on her chin and a ghost of a kiss brushing across her lips, so light she was left wondering if it was real.
“I’m just going to my desk. Then I’ll be right back to you.”
To her. Not to the bed, but to her.
“You’re confusing me.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he teased, making it sound like it was easy to confuse her.
“Careful,” she warned, wagging a finger.
“I have a question for you,” he said cryptically, opening a drawer and snatching something from it, the object disappearing into his palm before she could get a glimpse of it.
“Ooo.” Her senses were at full alert now. Something was going on with him, but she couldn’t figure it out. What did he want to know? They’d spent all morning just talking, learning all sorts of things about one another that they hadn’t known. Why did he feel he had to announce a question now?
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, but I’d be an idiot not to.”
“Kirell…”
“Just hear me out.” He stopped in front of her, a few feet away from the bed.
Bracing herself for anything, she gave him a go-ahead nod.
“I want you to know that this isn’t just for appearance’s sake. Nor is it to help you. It’s because I want to do it.”
Her mind was slowly unravelling what he was saying. But he couldn’t be doing what she thought…could he?
“I know it wasn’t meant seriously at first, instead just a way to help you out, but… Natalia Kristoff…” He steeled himself visibly, moving slowly with the stiffened muscles, but Kirell didn’t fall as he sank to one knee.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, starting to shake.
“Will you marry me? For real?”
“This is insane. A week ago, I barely knew you. Now here I am, in love with you, more so than I could ever have imagined. And you’re asking me to marry you?”
“I am. I love you, Natalia. You are my mate. It may have started off as some sort of crazed fake marriage deal between us, but it’s more than that now, and I don’t want to let you go.”
She bit her lip, having made up her mind the moment she clued in to what he was doing, but she had to voice her thoughts anyway. To know how he felt.
“I love you too, Kirell.”
He looked up at her expectantly. “This is where you give me an answer,” he prompted a moment later.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, clamping her hands over her mouth. “Yes! Of course; yes!”
Trying to calm the excited shaking, she held out her hand. “When did you have time to go get a ring made?” she asked as he slipped it on her finger.
“I didn’t. It was my mother’s,” he said softly.
The impact of that statement hit her like a blow to the chest, knocking her back onto the bed, where she sat admiring the diamond-encrusted engagement ring. “Kirell, it’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Her mate. Her love. No, her fiancé, came and sat down next to her a little heavily. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was starting to tire.
“I could watch this forever,” he replied.
She looked up to see him staring at her. Natalia had the good graces to blush over the compliment, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“I love you,” she repeated, not for the first time.
And definitely not the last.
43
“So, what are you more excited for, being able to stay in the country, or marrying this stud?”
She glanced at Kirell, who was pointing a thumb at himself. They were sitting in chairs at the Plymouth Falls country courthouse, waiting to go before a magistrate and sign the papers that would have them
legally married to each other. Meaning she could stay in the country. Forever.
“Is it really that tough a question?” Kirell asked, feigning insult when she didn’t immediately reply.
“I wasn’t the one who forced you to ask a question you didn’t want to hear the answer to,” she told him, fighting to conceal a grin.
Kirell sputtered wildly. “Excuse me?” he finally managed to get out.
“I’m teasing, love.” She leaned against his shoulder tenderly. “It was always going to be more exciting to stay in the country.”
He jerked in surprise.
“Because then I get to stay with you,” she finished.
“Smooth recovery,” he muttered.
“Recovery is when you screw up,” she informed him. “I didn’t screw up.”
“Agree to disagree.”
She squeezed his leg. “You know I’m right.”
“The problem with that, is that when you admit it once, you never get to un-admit it,” Kirell said.
“You don’t have to admit it, for it to be true.”
“I’m not winning this, am I?” he asked, dejected.
“You won me, isn’t that enough?”
Kissing the top of her head, Kirell wrapped his arm around her as well. “With you, it’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“Ursa, party of two.”
They both jerked slightly at the name being called over the speaker. There was an extra jolt in her movements though, because the call had just delivered home to her something Natalia hadn’t thought of until recently.
That name applied to her now as well. Natalia Ursa. She’d not legally changed it yet, but she would soon enough. It was something that had been bouncing around in her mind for the past week, ever since he’d proposed to her the day after the fight; she’d gone back and forth about it at first, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea.
She was starting a new chapter in her life, and a new name seemed like just the thing to help with making it a clean break from her past. Natalia would always remember where she’d come from, and the path she’d taken to get to where she was, but that was in her past. Being an Ursa was part of her future, and she knew it would be unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
