by Amelia Jade
“You don’t belong here,” the other man snapped.
“Funny,” Gray replied. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”
The other shifter snarled and darted in at him, ducking below Gray’s blows and tackling him to the ground. The speed of it caught him unaware and Gray fell back, slamming his head into the bottom of the stairs. The blow was hard enough to make him see stars. Instinct made him kick out, and he took Jacen in the stomach as the other shifter tried to get into a better position to rain down blows on him.
The move bought him enough time to regain his feet before Jacen came at him again. Gray acted like he was going to strike a blow, his hands up by his face, ready to turn aside any incoming punches. At the last second though, he darted forward, latched onto Jacen’s arm, pivoted on his foot, and yanked hard enough to turn the forward stumble of his enemy into a toss.
Jacen flew forward and slammed into the outer wall of the unit, leaving a six-inch-deep dent in the shape of his body.
“I’m going to kill you,” he promised, and came at Gray again.
This time he stayed on his feet, launching a flurry of fists that spoke of some advanced training, boxing perhaps, or something else. Gray was trained as well, and could hold his own again most military-trained opponents. But Jacen had more than that. His attack was quick, well thought out, and relentless. Gray fell back, taking most of the blows off his upraised arms as he looked for an opening. Jacen didn’t give him one.
Eventually a punch got through, and Jacen’s knuckle opened a cut above his eye. Then another on his opposite cheek. Then he split his lip open. Gray was pushing back and back, over the front lawn, across the gravel roadway, and onto the lawn of the other unit facing Kelly’s.
He thought he saw an opening, and his right fist shot forward, right for Jacen’s head. But the shifter wasn’t there. He bobbed to his left, and then drove a rock-hard fist into Gray’s ribs. Something cracked and pain flashed through him. He stumbled back from the blow, trying to keep up his breathing pattern through the pain.
Definitely a broken rib.
Gray needed to do something and do it soon, or he was going to lose the fight in a bad way. Jacen was much more formidable than he’d thought. Gray had underestimated him. His opponent came on, long hair flying and bouncing around as he avoided Gray’s blows and delivered more of his own.
“I told you I was going to kill you,” Jacen said, the words less of a taunt and more of a promise at that point.
He started to reply, but as he stepped back to avoid another blow, his foot came down on uneven ground. His weight was already shifting, and there was nothing he could do. The ankle and then the knee wrenched painfully and Gray collapsed as his left leg could no longer support his weight.
Jacen came after him almost immediately, like a snake ready to devour its meal, wrapping his limbs around Gray and beginning to tighten an arm around Gray’s neck. It should have been a victory for Jacen. He had his man dead to rights, arm-bar locked in and crushing his windpipe. If it were a formal match, Gray would be forced to tap out, and the referee would stop the fight.
He grinned. But this wasn’t a formal match. Gray reached behind him, grabbed a handful of Jacen’s sensitive parts, and did a combination twist and squeeze.
The scream that ripped from Jacen’s throat made Gray wince. Not from the sound, though it was right next to his ear, but from the sheer primal agony contained within it. He didn’t like what he’d done, but sometimes playing dirty was the only way to win.
Jacen tried to hold on, but Gray just squeezed tighter, until the pressure lessened from around this throat. The instant it was gone he rolled onto his side, pulled his elbow up, and then drove it down into Jacen’s stomach with every ounce of strength he could summon.
The other shifter vomited instantly. Gray scrambled out of the way, brushing a mixture of rainwater and blood from his eyes. Then he hauled back and delivered several savage blows to Jacen, his massive fist raising and descending like a club, battering the other man’s face before he could recover.
Gray looked down, saw that the other shifter was still moving, but not much. He stepped back, struggling visibly to remove the curtain of red that had descended over his vision. Whoever this man was, he meant something to Kelly, and he needed to keep that in mind. Even if she had been cheating on him, it wasn’t Gray’s place to kill the guy she’d been with. His beast wanted it—the animal chained up inside of him clamored for him to end it, to shift into his bear and rip the man’s throat out.
But Gray the human couldn’t do that, no matter how much he wanted to. It was the inner struggle he dealt with. It wasn’t an everyday thing; when his bear was calm, it was fine. But the moment it got worked up, Gray had a hard time shutting down the bloodlust that was unleashed within him. It was a powerful force that beckoned to him with the allure of thousands of years of ingrained desire. The call was always a struggle to ignore, the thrill of the hunt and the pride in a kill.
But he knew better. He knew what came next. The realization, the shock, the horror at what he’d become when he gave in. That wasn’t the person Gray wanted to be, and he’d worked hard to overcome it. Andrew had recognized the demon he dealt with, and had helped him learn to control it even further.
It was still there though, and he’d come perilously close to unleashing it. He stumbled back, taking several deep breaths to calm himself, to slow the flow of blood through his system.
He closed his eyes and wiped his hands over his face to clear away more rain and blood from the beating he’d taken at the start of the fight.
Pain exploded in his knee and he fell to the ground as Jacen lashed out at him.
The red haze descended once more, and Gray went for the kill, his eyes opening with deadly intensity as he prepared to snap Jacen’s neck. Fire sang through his blood as his beast heralded the killing blow, eager to assert its dominance once more.
But by the time he opened his eyes and lunged forward, Jacen had already scrambled backward and was getting to his feet. Gray tried to follow, but the knee must have been more hurt than he thought. It wouldn’t support his weight, and he was forced to stay on the ground, using his good knee to support himself.
“If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you,” Jacen spat, and then he ran off into the night, unwilling to tangle with Gray again, even though he only had one working leg.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” Gray said, speaking through a stream of blood as the rain picked up some more, soaking him and turning his shirt red as it cleaned his face.
He tried to stand on his injured knee.
“Ow.”
Kelly came rushing down the stairs just as he got himself to his feet. Her hands were outstretched as she approached, obviously wanting to help him.
Gray shied away from her touch. “No,” he said, fury still filling him, still guiding him. “Stay away from me. You’ve already done enough damage.”
Kelly wilted at his words, but he didn’t care. Turning, Gray limped off into the night, trying his best to put as little weight as possible down on his injured knee. It would heal in a few hours, but until then he’d be really, really sore.
***
The walk back to the embassy left him nearly in agony, the constant use of his knee preventing it from healing, and in fact making it worse. He shouldered his way in through the front door loud enough to draw attention. Hector was standing duty at the entry desk, but one fierce glare from Gray was enough to get him to back off.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone just then. Not Hector, not Kelly, and definitely not Andrew. But the gryphon shifter came anyway, looking worried for his friend.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, concerned.
“What the fuck does it look like?” Gray snarled back, not in any mood to be razzed or teased. “I got the shit beat out of me.”
Then he pushed past Andrew and headed for the stairs, gratefully sagging some of his weight off his uninjured leg a
s he used the banister to support himself while he hobbled up the stairs toward his room. The embassy was an old motel, and it had two wings of rooms on both the upper and lower floors, leading out to the left and right of the lobby. Gray’s room was one of the closest on the top floor, thanks in large part to his permanent position as a guard in Cloud Lake.
Thus he only had to hobble a dozen steps or so to reach his door. Once there he let himself in, moving right to the bathroom. He doffed his clothing on the ground in a pile, uncaring of how messy it was, and ran the water in the shower as hot as he could stand it.
Then he pulled himself in, sank to the floor, and let the anger, frustration, and sadness of all that had happened that night simply pour out of him as he ignored the rest of the world at large.
It would still be there in the morning. He could deal with it then. With Jacen, whoever he was, with the mystery shifter he’d chased across the park, and with Kelly, who had obviously been lying to him.
That hurt the worst. He’d been convinced this whole time that she was his mate, that she was the one for him, the only woman he’d ever be interested in again. But clearly she hadn’t been feeling the same way for him.
Gray slumped back against the shower wall, and tried his best not to cry.
Chapter Seventeen
Kelly
She couldn’t wait. Everything was crashing down around her, and Kelly couldn’t handle it on her own. She needed her best friend. She called a cab, one of the two or three that worked the night shift in Cloud Lake, and waited half an hour for it to arrive. She told it where to go and sat in the car in utter silence, trying to reconstruct just how her life had spun so suddenly out of control.
That morning she’d been in a great place, everything was fine and dandy. Now she was left with a flaming wreck, courtesy of the massive accident that had been the night. Tears hovered at the edge of her eyes as she sat staring dully at the back of the passenger seat for the entire ride.
Jacen was ready to kill anyone she talked to, and made her scared to be alone with the way he’d reacted to Gray’s presence. She hadn’t realized he was going to get so possessive over her, to the point where he’d try to kill Gray. That level of control was way beyond anything she was interested in. Kelly was glad now that she’d never felt any attraction to him, because she wasn’t sure how she’d deal with repeated attempts to control her like that.
Then there had been Gray. She’d seen him turn into that…that other thing. The change had been obvious. As soon as he’d gotten the upper hand, he’d begun to roar in anger as he slammed his fists into Jacen’s head again and again. It had been so primal, so feral, that she doubted he even realized he’d been doing it. He probably just thought he’d been hitting him, trying to win the fight.
It hadn’t been like that, though. The vigor with which he’d thrown each blow scared her—she couldn’t even term them punches, because he’d just been landing clubbed fists as hard as he could, more interested in hitting Jacen than technique.
Then there was the look he’d shot her. The one of pure hatred and betrayal. She knew what it was for. That part was at least easy to fathom. Gray thought she’d been cheating on him with Jacen. It wasn’t true of course, but he hadn’t given her a chance to explain, simply assuming that the obvious was true and then departing into the night, leaving her there.
The pain in his eyes had almost been worse than the rage it replaced. Kelly could deal with someone being mad at her. That was easy. But the disappointment and hurt that she’d caused him struck deep, wounding her soul. And make no mistake about it, it was her fault. One might argue that Gray shouldn’t have leapt to conclusions, but the truth of it was, he shouldn’t have had to.
Kelly should have spoken up when Jacen first appeared the week before. She should have told Gray all about Jacen, that he was alive and wanted to be a part of her baby’s life. If Kelly had done that, if she’d had the courage to face the issue head on and not delay, then there wouldn’t have been any problem. Gray would have known all about Jacen, and probably would have helped her come to a decision about what to do as well. Now though, her inaction had blown everything to hell and gone, with little hope for fixing it.
Erika answered the door, the irritation vanishing the second she saw Kelly’s distraught face.
“Come on,” she said, opening the door wide and letting her friend in.
No more needed to be said. Erika was smart enough, even half-asleep, to know that Erika wouldn’t have just shown up like this if it wasn’t something serious. They walked past the unfinished entryway and other rooms into the kitchen.
“Tea?” Erika asked.
Kelly could just nod. She wanted to speak up, to say something. To apologize for waking her friend. But the words didn’t come. Nothing did. She just stood there, blinking when necessary as Erika made them both a cup of tea.
“Here. Come now, sit,” Erika said, pushing Kelly into a seat on the couch in the entertainment area that adjoined the kitchen and eating table. It was all open concept, and when it was fully finished it would look stunning she was sure. For now though many of the walls were still open, the ceiling wasn’t finished, and more.
The two women sat in silence sipping at the hot liquid for several seconds. Erika let Kelly take a few more sips, then she took the mug from her hand and set it on the coffee table, made from a plank balanced over two buckets. Temporary, but functional. That was like most of Erika’s house. But the couch worked. It could sit two comfortably. Like Erika and Harden. A pair of lovers, mates, and friends. She envied her friend that.
And just like that, the tears came. Erika pulled her into a hug, holding her tight while she sobbed nasty, ugly, shoulder-shuddering sobs. The noises coming from her mouth sounded like a dying swan. Kelly was not a pretty crier, and she knew it, but just then, none of that mattered. She didn’t care; Erika was the only one around to judge, and she wasn’t exactly a pretty crier herself. It was part of the reason they were such good friends.
After ten minutes or so of that, Erika snagged some tissues from somewhere and helped Kelly clean up.
“Okay, what’s going on?” she asked calmly.
“I fucked up. Bad,” she said, the tears threatening to come back.
“How?” There was no judgment in her friend’s voice, just a desire for more information.
“Jacen is back.”
“WHAT?!” Erika shouted, loud enough that there was the thump of feet from above them as Harden rushed out of bed. “Sorry dear!” she called almost immediately. “Just girl stuff. Go back to sleep, ignore us.”
Harden’s grumbling could be heard from there, but he did as he was told.
“Jacen is alive?” Erika asked in hissed tones once she was sure Harden was back in bed. “Are you sure?”
“Oh. Very. He showed up to my house a week ago. Said he wanted to be a part of the baby’s life.”
“Shit,” was all Erika said.
“Yeah. Maybe not so bad, I don’t know. I told him I’d give it some thought.”
“That’s what you wanted to talk about,” Erika said, putting it all together.
“Yeah, exactly. Except I didn’t get a chance. Everything blew up ahead of time.”
Erika thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Gray,” she said in sudden understanding.”
“Gray,” she confirmed. “Jacen showed up earlier tonight, wanted to know if I had thought about it.” She paused. “He was also under the impression that we were talking about him and I being a thing, so that he could be a part of the baby’s life that way.”
“Oh dear.” Erika shook her head.
“Yeah, exactly. Then, to make matters worse, guess who showed up at my door while Jacen was still there?”
“Oh no,” Erika breathed. “Really? Gray came by at that exact time?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
“They’re shifters. What do you think happened?” she asked dryly. “They tried to beat each o
ther to a pulp in an attempt to impress me.”
Erika frowned. “Gray? Really? Are you sure? He never struck me as that type.”
Kelly shrugged. “I saw it in him when I first met him that night, Erika. He’s a good guy, but he’s got a darkness within him. He just hides it real well. I was…I was worried he was going to kill Jacen.”
“So Gray won?”
“No, not exactly. He had won, but then he stopped, and Jacen took out his knee and ran away.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure either of them won. But Erika, I went to Gray to see if he was okay, and you should have seen the look he gave him. So full of pain and betrayal.”
Tears welled up in her eyes once again. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I never did anything with Jacen. I promise!”
She started crying again.
“I know, Kel, I know,” Erika said, holding her.
This time it was just some tears, and Kelly got herself under control rather quickly.
“What do I do?” she asked bluntly, seeking help, advice, direction, and all of the above.
“About what?”
Kelly thought for a moment. She had two distinct problems in front of her, even if they were related to the same thing.
“About Jacen,” she said carefully. “Once I figure out what to do there, then I can go to Gray and be like, ‘Okay, this is what is going on’ and we can go from there.”
Erika nodded. “Well, you need to ask yourself. Do you want to be in a romantic relationship with him?”
“No,” she said instantly. “I know that, I’m not confused there. I was trying to decide between letting him be a part of my child’s life or not. There was never any thought about getting together with him.”
She rubbed her stomach, lost in thought. “But do I even have the right to keep him out of it? He is the father after all, even if it was conceived under odd and unusual circumstances.”
