“Santini,” Braxas growled pulling the phone away and pressing it onto speaker for those without the benefit of enhanced hearing from their shifter genes. “If you’ve got my second’s phone, then I am guessing you are bleeding. You might want to get to the reason for your call before you pass the fuck out.”
A laugh came from the phone. “Oh, there was bloodshed, I can assure you of that, but your little pussy didn’t cut me as much as we did her.”
Gabe saw a muscle in Braxas’s jaw tick as his dominance began to slowly fill the room. “But she did bleed you,” he persisted, his voice calm despite the rage Gabe could feel rolling off him, “and for that, I will reward her greatly when she is back with the pard. Now, be a good little sociopath and tell me to what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation.”
“So fucking confident,” Nyx spat down the phone, and there was no mistaking the man’s hatred. “You and that fucking dog Alpha think you are superior to the rest of us. Well, we heard about your little fuck triangle with the Fae whore, and figured we’d be rude not to celebrate the occasion with a little get-together of our own.”
Gabe growled low, the room now filling with his own dominance, and from the way his pack and Braxas’s pard all scowled and tilted their heads, the pressure was building exponentially. “Get to the point, prick,” Gabe spat, his voice practically throbbing with rage. “Or simply tell us where to find you and we can come continue this conversation face to face. I have a little something in mind for you as well for daring to disrespect my mate.”
“In my time, dog, not yours,” Nyx growled in response. “Speak again and I will put another bullet in the cat bitch.” Gabe fought the urge to threaten the asshole some more. “Do you want your second back, Braxas? Then come get her. Alone. We see any of your pard or the dog’s pack, then we will skin the bitch alive and leave her for you to find … maybe after some of my men have had a little taste of her first. I will send you the coordinates. Be there at noon tomorrow. Hmmm, how shall we pass the time?”
Just before the phone was disconnected, they heard a woman scream in pain. All color drained from Braxas’s face, and Gabe shot forward with all the speed he could muster and pulled the phone from his hand before Braxas could crush it.
“Calm, brother,” Gabe said as he held Braxas’s gaze, pulling Corrine between them, using the power of their mated triad to calm the man and the cougar within him. “We will get our pack-mate back.” There was a quick inhalation from those in the room as Gabe claimed Katrina and the rest of Braxas’s people in that sentence.
“That we will,” Braxas agreed, the color slowly returning to his skin, but his eyes still blazing with hatred. “Our pard and our pack will never turn their back on family.”
Gabe nodded as Braxas returned the claim.
“We’ll get her back, and we’ll dine on the hearts of the fuckers who dared take her,” Gabe promised. “I have a plan, and as always, it is fucking brilliant.”
Gabe’s grin was bloodthirsty as he turned to point at the two large Fae who stood stoically at the side of the room. “And it involves the two of you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Braxas stepped out of the woods and into a circular clearing—the exact coordinates dictated to him by Nyx. It looked as if a fire had ravaged this barren space, located deep in the thick of the forest.
He heard movement through the trees in front of him before he saw them. Nyx Santini stepped out, flanked by six other shifters, three on each side of him, and he looked every bit as arrogant as Braxas remembered from their last not so pleasant encounter. His light brown, chin length hair now had blond highlights in it, and it appeared that Santini had finally managed to sprout a decent looking beard and gained some heavy artillery in the form of muscles. His unbuttoned shirt revealed it all.
What a douche, Braxas thought to himself. That guy had always been hotheaded and only a little brighter than the dumbest tool in the shed.
The hyena pack Nyx had once belonged to often liked to tangle with Braxas’s pard until he, with Gabe’s help, had put a stop to it years ago. Together, they took out the power hungry Alpha of the pack, who was later replaced by someone a good deal more tolerable. Nyx, who had been their Beta, deserted his people. It was no wonder he had a grudge against both Braxas and Gabe, but Braxas knew there had to be far more to his building an army of Rogues than to start a war with two of the most powerful packs in all of North America. Nyx lacked the Alpha gene, and Braxas remembered that he had made a very poor choice as a Beta. There was no way a large group of shifters would follow him indefinitely.
“You wanted me?” Braxas asked. He then spread out his arms, palms open, like humans envisioned Jesus doing on a cross. “Here I am. Now where is Katrina?”
“You have a choice here today,” replied a familiar voice behind Nyx. In seconds, more shifters emerged through the trees, all but the voice that spoke, and they began to slowly surround him on all sides, some moving behind him, until finally, the male behind the voice he knew so well showed himself.
Braxas sneered as a surge of hatred for this man filled him. He should have known who would be behind all of this. “I’d say it’s good to see you, cousin, but it would be more apt to say I hoped that you’d have been dead by now.”
His cousin, Zayden Beaumont, shook his head as his rogues stared back and forth at them in shock. Apparently, their fearless leader had not been completely forthcoming with them about his familial ties.
Just then, another rogue stepped out from behind the trees and said, “I searched the perimeter. He came alone.”
Satisfied, Zayden turned to Braxas. “Now is that any way to greet your own flesh and blood?” he tsked.
“You never said he was your cousin,” Nyx griped from beside him. He then narrowed his eyes at Zayden in suspicion.
“It’s of no consequence to our arrangement, Nyx,” Zayden said. He turned and faced the hyena and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We have a trust built between us, you and I and our men.” He waited until Nyx nodded and relaxed his features before turning back to Braxas. “Yes, Braxas Beaumont is indeed my cousin,” he announced to his men all the while keeping his gaze firmly locked on Braxas, “but we shall finally discover here today if blood will be enough to lead him down the right path. If he will join our righteous cause or—”
“Righteous cause?” Braxas threw his head back and barked out a sarcastic laugh. “Is this the bullshit you feed these men? I look around at these faces and see some good men, some I have met before, some of whom have lost during battles and have been displaced. Your offer to them is to be ruled under your thumb on your quest for power. I know better than anyone that power is what you have always sought.”
Braxas caught the flicker of Zayden’s composed façade falter. He doubted that anyone else even picked up on it, but then again, none of these men, probably not even Nyx, the man who appeared to be his second, knew him like Braxas did. They had, after all, been close once, especially being that their fathers were brothers. Braxas’s father had been the Alpha of the cougars, Zayden’s, the Beta, and even though it was always known that Braxas would be the one to succeed his father, there never seemed to be any jealousy between the two. Zayden had just always assumed that he would become the Beta, despite being a tiger shifter—his mother’s gene had been the prevalent one from a mixed mating.
The type of shifter Zayden turned out to be had no bearing on his position of becoming Beta. It was his desire to control, his perception of himself as being above others, and his lack of fair judgment that Braxas began to notice as they got older. After the battle that killed both of their fathers, Zayden became relentless in pursuing anyone he deemed a future threat, ruthless even. On the day that Braxas had chosen Katrina to be his second, Zayden challenged him. In the end, wounded, prideful, even though Braxas conceded to allow him to remain with the pack, Zayden walked away, never to be seen or heard from by Braxas until today.
Braxas was actually glad that this da
y had come. Years after Zayden’s departure from the pack, Braxas had discovered that his own cousin had been the one to incite the war that caused the death of their fathers. He had been thirsting for a moment like this, although when he had pictured it, the only casualty had been Zayden himself.
Unfortunately, as he looked at the faces of the rogues dispersed around him, he could tell they would fight for Zayden to the death.
“What I sought,” Zayden began matter-of-factly, “was my rightful place … by your side, I might add. You chose the little pussy over your own blood, and look at where she ended up.”
“With her claw marks still on you,” Braxas said with a snarl. He smiled as he stared at the fresh marks across Zayden’s neck. He could tell from the fact that it wasn’t healed yet that Katrina had delivered them recently, which also meant that she wasn’t too far away. He tilted his head to the side slightly, a signal that would be completely imperceptible to the men who stood in front of him. “She has proven her worth as my second a million times over, cousin. I do not regret my choice, especially seeing what you are trying to do here, and what you did do all those years ago.”
Zayden pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. The rogues stared back and forth between them again. At least they all knew for certain now that the so-called trust Zayden spoke of was only one-sided.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out that the war that killed our fathers was instigated by you?” Braxas spat.
“I did what I thought was nec—”
“You did what you thought was best for you, and it cost us our fathers!” Braxas roared. “Now, you wanted me. I’m here. Release Katrina. Or do you want these men to see that you are not a man of your word?”
All eyes were now on Zayden, and Braxas could see the flare of rage in the man’s eyes at having his word questioned. He knew that the bastard had something up his sleeve, and it didn’t surprise him in the least that this wasn’t going to be as simple as an exchange. Not that he was planning for it to be anyway.
“I have no intention of going back on anything,” Zayden replied, sounding cool and collected once again. “Nyx couldn’t very well give you the specifics over the phone and that would have ruined seeing the surprised look on your face for me, but I fully intend to lay it all out for you now.” Zayden and Nyx took a few steps forward. “As I stated earlier, you have a choice to make. Your little bitch will go free, provided you join us. Swear fealty to me, cousin, and the quarrel between us shall be forgotten.”
Braxas felt his lip curl in disgust. “We have far more than a quarrel between us.”
“There is more to my generous offer,” Zayden continued as if Braxas had not spoken. “I heard you were newly mated, and I offer you my congratulations and my help in getting rid of the dog for you. Why share what you can have all to yourself?”
Braxas curled his hands into fists at his sides. Zayden couldn’t possibly think that he would agree to this, Braxas thought, and he wondered at first if he’d simply brought him out here to kill him. However, as Braxas stared at his demented cousin, he saw a glimmer of hope in the other man’s eyes. Zayden may actually want his fealty after all. It would certainly repair the damage that Braxas had done to his pride, and to have Braxas serve underneath him would be an even bigger ego boost.
The words “Kneel before Zod” rolled through Braxas’s mind as Zayden’s motivation, at least in part, dawned on him. He almost felt sorry for his cousin … almost. Zayden had a lot to answer for, a debt that would take more than one lifetime to pay. His father and uncle’s death, capturing and hurting Katrina, and now threatening to kill one-third of his triad—these sins he would bleed for.
“And my other option is?”
“Death,” Zayden answered simply with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I choose death then,” Braxas snarled as his claws extended. “Yours!”
Braxas’s shirt ripped down the center as he quickly turned a half shift. The rogues surrounding him looked between Zayden and Braxas yet again, uncertain of what to do, it seemed. Zayden stood his ground smugly as did Nyx beside him, until the ground beneath them began to shake. Braxas gave his cousin and Nyx a bloodthirsty smile as their confident demeanor was suddenly replaced with fear. Their fear only grew when Braxas noticed one of the shifters in his right peripheral vision was lifted by an unseen force and thrown hard against a tree. The rest of the rogues looked wildly around for the source, but Braxas only had eyes for his cousin.
With a roar, Braxas charged Zayden, and like a curtain lifted, an army of wolves and cougars appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Just as the rogues had been surrounding Braxas, his entire pack had been surrounding them, the audience to everything that had just played out. The two very talented High Dorum twins had cloaked them, not just from view, but from senses as well. Gabe’s plan had been brilliant.
He also knew that Corrine would not be left out of it, nor would he ask that of her. He had fought beside her in the war against the False King of the Fae and knew how fierce she could be in battle. That’s why he could think of no one better to put his trust in to save his Beta. He had seen Corrine nod her understanding to his signal, as the twins did not shield anything from him, and he had seen her leave with Erica and April in tow.
Based on the arrogance he had witnessed rolling off of the tiger and hyena, he’d hoped that they would not see the need to keep Katrina under heavy guard while they were assembled here with him. In any case, he’d seen firsthand what Erica was capable of with her powers and heard that April, though still in training with a blade, packed a pretty powerful punch with her similar gifts. He had yet to get to know this woman, who was the niece of his beloved, and now his by extension.
Zayden had done a half shift by the time Braxas had collided with him. Braxas tore into his flesh, determined not to simply wound his cousin this time. As he turned to get a swipe in on Nyx, the hyena had no longer been near him. Instead, he found him deep in battle with Gabe. The ground continued to shake underneath them, but Braxas’s footing felt completely steady. He understood now what Gabe had told him about Frederych’s powers, how Gabe and the wolves not only battled the Fae, but Mother Nature as well, only this time, Mother Nature was their ally.
Braxas growled as Zayden sank his sharp claws in his shoulder. His cousin’s skill as a fighter had greatly improved. Perhaps he had underestimated him as well, a mistake Braxas would not repeat. He sharpened his focus on his enemy, both men tearing into each other with ferocity. Braxas retracted the claws from his right hand to punch Zayden repeatedly, and his canines dropped with the urge to draw blood. He went for it, sinking his sharp teeth into the tiger's forearm as he blocked against another strike.
Zayden yelled from pain, and anger overtook his earlier coolness completely due to his pride being once again trampled on. He may have acquired more skills in battle, but Braxas was still the better warrior. As further proof, Braxas struck him again and again, blocking every blow that Zayden threw at him. Just when Zayden’s smugness would return, Braxas would dodge another seemingly unavoidable hit. He flipped backward, kicking Zayden in the face, and before he even had time to regain his senses, Braxas swept his feet out from under him.
He had him. Zayden was his, awaiting the final death strike, one that Braxas would have successfully delivered had it not been for the anguished scream he heard coming from Corrine.
“Gabe!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Corrine had taken the cue from Braxas and snuck away with Erica and April to go and find Katrina, hoping that the guys had been correct in thinking the bulk of the rogue forces would be drawn to the confrontation, giving the girls an opportunity to strike.
When they finally came upon the dark SUV, it was only being guarded by one shifter, whom Erica easily knocked out and left unconscious on the ground. Corrine tried not to look shaken when they opened up the rear hatch and saw Katrina gagged and tied up, dried blood covering her mouth and neck. The shirt she wore was covered as well and
that should have been the most shocking part, but damn, the expression she wore was more than a bit scary. That was one pissed off cat. If looks could kill, then she had no doubt that every one of the rogues would have been six feet under already. When Erica removed the gag, a litany of mumbled curse words Corrine had never even heard before came out of the beautiful blonde woman.
“Fuck,” Kat finally spat out. Her lower split lip still bled profusely, which puzzled Corrine. Even if it had happened fairly recently, the wound should have begun to clot by now. “Where is Braxas? I need to tell him this is a trap by his asshole cousin. He should never have agreed to come for me.”
“We assumed it was a trap,” Erica answered, frowning at the strange metallic cuffs holding Kat’s wrists. “Braxas is fine, and he isn’t alone out there. Don’t move for a second. What are these cuffs? They have Fae writing on them.”
“I don’t know.” Kat scowled down at the metal. “They don’t allow me to shift any part of myself, though, and I was unable to remove them.”
“Where in the hell did the rogues get these from?” Erica fiddled with them some more before finally they popped open and dropped to the ground. She picked them up and stuffed them in her pocket.
“They look like the ones that were used on Jason in the palace dungeons,” April said, her voice angry. She then turned to Katrina. “Are you okay? Is all that blood yours?” Corrine looked concerned as well when she took in the sight of the various bruises and cuts still marring Katrina’s golden skin as well as the rips in her blood-soaked clothing, “Those bastards didn’t … umm…”
Corrine couldn’t blame her niece for having a hard time voicing the words that no doubt they had all been thinking. When Kat shook her head in denial, Corrine let out the breath she’d been holding.
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