by T. S. Joyce
“No such thing,” Rhett murmured. His eye twitched, and he smelled of fur. “See, that was always the problem with you, Kong. You had this moral compass that weakened you. You’re a fucking silverback. You don’t have to tiptoe around ethics. We take what we want,” Rhett gritted out, clenching his fist in front of him. “We do what we want, and you know why? Because everyone else is beneath us. And what did you do? You made friends with bears and falcons and ravens. With humans. You, the Lowlander Silverback, fucking royalty and destined to father the next generation of highborn gorillas, and you befriended bottom feeders.” Rhett spat. “I should’ve been the Kong.”
“If Fiona’s idea of the Kong is a silverback who murders on command, then perhaps you should’ve been. Weak?” Kong shook his head slow. “You do everything she says, no questions asked, at the cost of your soul, and you call me weak.” Kong lifted his chin. “You’re the bottom feeder, Rhett. Begging for scraps, guarding a silverback you hate because Fiona said his dick is important. You’re a glorified cock blocker turned murderer. Tell me, did it make you feel good to kill an innocent old man? Did it make you feel strong to overpower a human on his deathbed?”
“Shut up.”
“Do you feel proud that you’ve done what your master told you to?”
“I said shut up!” Rhett paced the porch. “You’re wrong. Fiona respects me. She trusts me to do the things others are too weak to. I’m her right-hand man.”
Kong huffed a humorless, single laugh. “You stupid, blind fuck. Fiona respects no one.”
“You’re wrong! I pay my dues, and a family group is as good as mine someday.”
“And why would she give you females, Rhett? Why would she give a guard dog her prized possessions?”
Rhett linked his hands behind his head and narrowed his eyes. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get in my head. Trying to get me to betray my own people.”
“No, Rhett. I don’t care about getting in your head, and I don’t care if you betray anyone. Your life is over after tonight. Can you hear your heartbeat pounding in your chest? I can. Enjoy it now because the sound won’t last for long. Listen,” Kong said on a breath. Even over the breeze of the oncoming storm, he could make it out. “Bum-bum, bum-bum. So fast. So scared because you can see it in my eyes. Your death is coming, and I’m the grim fucking reaper.”
Rhett’s smile stretched his face into something feral. “A challenge from the mighty Kong?”
Kong dipped his chin once.
“All over a human. Did you know,” Rhett said, pulling his shirt over his head, “old Mac knew why I was there the second I slipped in his window? He tried to yell for help but I was faster.”
Kong shook his head, warding off the black inky tendrils of rage that were pushing against his insides. “Stop it.”
“He yelled under the pillow. Little. Pathetic. Human sounds. I took a picture for Fiona. She likes to see bodies.”
Kong’s skin exploded with a ripping sound and a volley of cracking bones that echoed across the clearing. He slammed his oversize fists against the ground, shaking the earth. Rhett’s silverback burst from him and charged. Kong beat his chest, the sound popping like a drum before he lowered to all fours and ran for Rhett.
He was going to bleed him, rip him, kill him for hurting his mate. For hurting Mac. They clashed with a force of an eighteen-wheeler head-on collision. This wasn’t posturing like so many gorilla battles were. This wasn’t beating the chest and circling before one decided he was beat on dominance alone and slunk away. This was a rip-roaring, bloodletting, fur-ripping, skin-hacking, body-beating battle to the grave. The woods were filled with the death chants of their roaring.
Kong hacked at him with his long, razor-sharp teeth, beating Rhett with his arms, pummeling him toward the trees. Rhett turned and swung from a low branch to buy time, but Kong was right on him. On the ground or in the trees, it made no difference. Rhett would breathe his last breath tonight for what he’d taken from Layla.
The beast Kong didn’t think, wasn’t careful, didn’t calculate. Rhett had raised the monster within him, and now he’d have to deal with the consequences. No chance for control, he let his gorilla have his mind. Rhett was on the run now. Kong could see fear in his eyes when he looked behind him to see how close Kong was. He swung from branch to branch, higher and higher, but the canopy wouldn’t save him. A thick branch cracked under the force as Kong launched himself toward Rhett. His body crashed into the silverback, who screamed as his fingers brushed and missed his next branch. They tumbled to the forest floor and slammed onto the unforgiving ground. Kong reared up and roared, exposing his long canines so that Rhett could see his end coming, then he slammed his hands down. Rhett went limp under the force of his fists, but movement through the trees said this wasn’t over yet.
He smelled them then, Ivan and Gordon. His own personal nightmares. The silverbacks who had taken such pleasure in carrying out Fiona’s task of breaking him and threatening his mother. They were here for round two.
Ivan was Changed already, but Gordon was still human, and he was smiling in the blue moonlight. “Very good, Kong.”
Kong lifted his lip and charged a few steps. A warning. Back off or you’re next.
“Fiona will be glad to see how far you’ve come.”
Gordon reeked of dominance. The smell raised the short hairs on the back of Kong’s thick neck.
“We’re here to bring you in.” Gordon tossed a look at Rhett’s body, then flicked his attention back to Kong. “Fiona thought Rhett wouldn’t be able to neutralize you by himself, and Kirk is next to worthless. It seems our wise leader was right. Come on, boy. Your destiny awaits.”
“Fuck you,” Kong said in a growly, inhuman voice, a voice that was marred by his animal vocal cords.
Gordon’s eyes tightened as Ivan paced beside him, his clenched fists punching the earth. “Don’t do this again. Remember the last time you fought your title? So much agony. So much blood.”
Slowly, Kong stepped over Rhett’s body and lifted his head, puffing out his chest as he stood ready. His lips twitched with rage as he glared down the shifters who had stolen his freedom.
Whether he liked it or not, this was the moment Kong chose. This wasn’t just about avenging Mac anymore. This was the moment he declared Layla was his and cut himself off from his people completely. There would be no chance at redemption in Fiona’s eyes if he killed her prized enforcers.
This was the moment he took his life back or died trying.
With a quick drum of his chest, Kong charged the silverbacks.
And then there was pain.
Chapter Eleven
Layla carefully crawled over Willa’s sleeping form in the queen-size bed. She and Georgia had stayed late into the night, soothing her heartache, and had fallen asleep beside her. Layla, however, was still wide awake with worry.
Kong should be back by now.
She walked through the small singlewide, her bare feet cold against the cheap laminate wood flooring. There were squishy parts and creaks, but she made it to the living room with its clean, white panel walls. She pulled a thick blanket off the back of the green couch and let herself out the front door as quietly as she could.
The first streaks of dawn ghosted the horizon. She sat in a rocking chair on the sprawling cedar porch off the side of the trailer and huddled into the blanket. The tears on her cheeks had dried in the middle of the night, and now, she felt drained, as if she had nothing left but worry over Kong. She didn’t know how long she sat there waiting. Perhaps it was ten minutes, perhaps an hour. The sky lightened to a soft gray that met dark storm clouds, and still, she kept her eyes trained on the road. He would come back to her. He had to. Fate surely wasn’t so cruel that it would take both of the men from her life in one night.
Movement caught her attention, and she unfolded her legs and padded toward the porch railing. Her shoulders sagged with disappointment. Not Kong. It was Matt, Willa’s mate. His sandy hair
was disheveled as if he hadn’t slept a wink either, and his bright blue eyes swam with worry as he paced near a jacked-up Chevy truck. He muttered, “Come on, Kong,” then hit a button on his phone and lifted it to his ear. “Where are you?” Matt settled with his back to her, staring at the road she’d been watching. He muttered a curse and yanked the phone away from his ear. “You coming or what?” he asked without turning around.
“Y-yes.”
“Get in,” he clipped out, casting her a bright-eyed glance over his shoulder.
Layla draped the blanket over the railing and made her way to his truck as quietly as she could. Then she climbed in through his side and settled onto the passenger’s seat.
“Whatever happens—”
“He’s fine,” she said in a hard voice.
Matt inhaled deeply and nodded his head once. Then he jammed the engine and slammed his foot on the gas, spinning out as he sped off down the road.
“Kong’s your friend,” she whispered numbly as she watched the towering pines blur by the window.
“He’s my best friend. He kept me sane before Willa came along. Kong bought me time until she found me. Layla?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him Mac wasn’t her real father. He felt like it anyway. “Thanks.”
“I don’t remember mine.”
She jerked her gaze to Matt and frowned. “How old were you when he died?”
“He didn’t die. Or maybe he did, I don’t know. I was taken from my parents young. Look, what Rhett did…he didn’t do that because he’s a shifter. He did it because he is a murderous asshole.”
“I know.”
Matt dared a glance at her, then returned his attention back to the road. “I just didn’t want you thinking all shifters are like that.”
She offered him an understanding smile, then sighed and drew her knees up to her chest. Matt turned on the music a few minutes later to drown out the silence of the cab, but not even the soft notes of country love songs could settle the nerves in her stomach. She knew what she could and couldn’t handle, and she was on the brink now. If anything happened to Kong…
She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. Mac was gone, and now Kong was everything good in her life.
And he should’ve been back by now.
The drive stretched on and on, suffocating her slowly until she cracked the window for some fresh air and relief. Matt did the same, and when he looked at her, his eyes were churning light silver. He gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white as he drove down a black asphalt road that looked newly poured. Storm clouds roiled over them, threatening to unleash a shower of pelting rain at any moment. Kong’s car sat at an angle in front of a cabin. Cedar logs and a green roof with a wraparound porch. This place was beautiful. She would’ve dreamed of living here with Kong someday if it weren’t for the blood trailing up the porch stairs and into the front door.
A soft growl came from Matt, and his nostrils flared as he scented the air. “Stay here.”
“No,” she rasped, forcing the word past her tightening throat. “I have to see.”
Matt waited for her to exit the car and took her hand before he led her, angled behind his wide shoulders, toward the cabin. This moment right here was completely surreal. Her legs were floating across the grass and wild flowers. Pink and orange and yellow. And Red. Grass dyed crimson. Burgundy speckles on the delicate petals, and little by little Matt’s grip tightened around her hand until it should’ve hurt. Her bones ground together, but she couldn’t feel anything. There was blood on the toes of her boots, glossy red on matte black.
A man met them at the door, startling her to a stop on the porch, her legs splayed over a dark smear. He was tall and lean. Black hair gone silver at the temples with dark eyes and a young face. He wore dark gray dress pants and a button-up white collared shirt. Red on white. Red on his hands as he wiped them over and over with a ruined washcloth.
“Damon,” Matt said in a choked voice. “Where is he?”
“He needs time.”
“Does he live?”
Damon nodded his chin once. “There were three of them.”
“Fuck.” Matt’s voice shook. “Bodies?”
Damon’s lips turned up in a thin, wry smile. “Gone. Is this her? Mate of the Kong?”
Matt pulled Layla from behind and pushed her in front of him, hands clamped tightly around her shoulders. “This is Layla.”
Damon studied her with black, bottomless eyes that would miss nothing. At last, he placed his hands behind his back and bowed slightly. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is mine,” she whispered. Damon Daye, owner of the mountains, protector of the shifters. The last immortal dragon if rumors were true. And apparently, he’d had a hand in helping Kong. “Can I see him?”
Damon looked troubled, but stepped aside to let her pass. She followed the red to an open door. There was a hand print smeared onto the white paint, and a phone lay on the wooden floor. The screen of the discarded cell phone was covered in sticky fingerprints.
Kong lay on his side in the bed, skin clean but covered in stitches. His chest rose and fell slowly, a soft rattling sound ending each breath. He cracked his eyes open. Green and inhuman. Beautiful. Layla covered her mouth with her hands, and her shoulders shook with the relieved sob that wrenched from her throat. He was alive. Barely, but it counted.
“You stitched him?” Matt asked low.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Damon said. “He’d lost too much blood by the time I got to him, and he wasn’t healing like he should’ve been. He was wide open—”
A long rattling growl sounded from Kong as he blinked and dragged a warning gaze to Damon.
Damon cleared his throat. “Come on, Matt. Let’s give them a moment.”
The sound of scuffling shoes faded away as she approached the bed. Kneeling beside him, she held his hand. “You silly monkey, what have you done?” Her voice was nothing but a wisp of air as she smiled at him through her tears.
“Mac is avenged,” he said hoarsely. “Rhett’s dead.”
“Damon said there were three.”
“Fiona sent the silverbacks that had broken me.”
“Kong,” she whispered in horror, her heart aching for him.
“It’s over now.” He squeezed her hand in a much stronger grip than she’d expected. “I’m not leaving you, Layla. I’m here now, in this. I’ll fight for us. I’m going to keep you safe.”
Layla’s face crumpled as she nuzzled her cheek against his hand. “You scared me last night. I thought…I thought I lost you, too.”
He grunted an inhuman sound and gripped the back of her neck. Pulling gently, he guided her onto the bed next to him. Fists curled in against his chest, she lay her head in the cradle of his arm.
“I have this vision of us now,” he whispered against her ear. “I imagine you holding our firstborn. I imagine you laughing and looking at me just like you were looking at me now. Like I’m everything. You’re all the family I need, Layla.” He let his lips linger on her cheek. “I love you more than my own life. I’m not going anywhere.”
As another tear slipped from the corner of her eye and dampened the pillow underneath, she smiled and relaxed against him. She wouldn’t deal with Mac’s loss alone. Kong would be here until she was strong again.
He’d chosen her.
He loved her.
He’d sacrificed himself for her.
Layla pressed her hand over his heartbeat, thrumming steady and strong—a song that was pivotal to her existence now.
No matter what came after this, they would face it together.
Chapter Twelve
There was a break in the rain just long enough for Mac’s funeral. Layla lifted her eyes to the sunrays coming down on the valley beyond the cemetery and smiled. Maybe that was Mac, telling her that he was with his Gloria again, and that everything would be okay.
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Kong watched her intently as the casket was lowered into the ground. Mac’s service had been touching in the most surprising ways. She thought it would be a small funeral, but half the town had shown up. She wasn’t doing this alone as she’d feared. She had Kong beside her and the Gray Backs in a somber line behind her. Willa stood on her other side, holding her hand and dabbing her eyes. Jake stood across the lowering, glossed mahogany casket with a sympathetic smile. Barney was here, and even Jackson had shown up to pay his respects. The nurses were all here, and beside a tree in the distance, Kirk leaned against the trunk, dressed in a black suit like Kong’s. The Ashe Crew and the Boarlanders had come, too, and this morning when she’d checked her mail, there was a postcard from Mom and Dad saying how sorry they were about Mac passing. She’d put it up on the fridge with the others.
The funeral-goers drifted back to their cars, but Kong and the Gray Backs stayed with her until the casket hit dirt. Mac was buried by his Gloria now, just like he’d always wanted. And in a few days, when they laid sod over his grave, Layla would come out and water the grass and put fresh flowers on their headstones because that’s what made her feel close to them. Cemeteries weren’t for the dead. They were for the living so they could still feel connected to their loved ones somehow.
“You ready to go home?” Kong asked low.
Home. She frowned at the stream of people clad in black who were walking down the hill toward the line of cars below. She hadn’t ever felt at home in her apartment, and Kong’s cabin wasn’t home. 1010 was safe and comfortable, but three days and three nights wasn’t long enough for a place to feel like home. The only home that meant anything was Mac’s house, but that was going to be sold at auction.
Everything felt so different now, off-kilter and strange, as if it wasn’t really her life, but someone else’s. She was mated to Kong, and she’d fallen heart-first into the Gray Back Crew who had been there for her in such unexpected ways over the last few days. In a matter of a week, everything real in her old life had disappeared, and everything else had drawn up into fine focus.
