by T. S. Joyce
The food arrived, along with two more shots of tequila with limes, and when she followed Jathan’s gaze to the bar, she waved her thanks to the giant gorilla shifter behind the register. Kong nodded his chin and mouthed, Welcome back.
Something warm and fuzzy and annoying unfurled in Lynn’s chest. She wasn’t doing very well at being invisible here.
The first song from the Beck Brothers rang out, a country crooner, and she poured extra gravy all over her fried steak. Feeling reckless as a hellion, she said, “I moved to the Red Havoc Crew for a boy. Brody. I found him online, and he was perfect on paper. A panther like me, and charismatic, and funny, and attentive, and rebellious. When I got up the courage to contact him, he responded like I was the only girl in the world worth knowing. He worked me relentlessly. Persued me. I was so lonely at the time, I got addicted to his attention. He had just joined the Red Havoc Crew and he said I should join to, so we could be together. So I did join. I packed up my entire life and moved far away from everything I’d known. For him.”
The sound of Jathan’s silverware hitting the plate as he set them down was louder than the music. Carefully, he cracked his knuckles and clenched his hands in front of his mouth. “And?”
“And, you know.”
“I know what my brother told me.”
As she looked him in the eyes, Lynn tried to smile and look strong, but her lips trembled. “And for a while it was perfect, and we were dating, and then Brody fell in love with another girl in the crew. A girl who had become my friend. Her name is Winter. She didn’t know how much I cared for him when they bonded, because Brody had always stressed the importance of us being secretive and quiet about us so we wouldn’t feel pressure from other people about the pace of our relationship. But with Winter, he came right out with his feelings and let the entire crew know she was his. I felt broken everyday watching them, and then one day, it changed. Brody gave me attention again, and it got easier. It was everything I’d dreamed of it being. Even better than it had been before, and this time he was open with our relationship. I felt wanted, and important to him. I’d waited for him to come back, and then he was telling me he’d made a mistake with Winter, that he’d broken off their bond, that he was leaving her to be with me, and everything got really complicated. Everything but my heart, which belonged to Brody.” The lights above were dimming, and she wouldn’t be able to stay this time. Couldn’t. So she rushed on so that Jathan could see how horrible a person she was before she went vacant again. “He bonded to me while he was still bonded to Winter. He lied to us both, but it’s my fault. I wanted it so bad. Wanted someone to love me because my parents had thrown me away when I was seven, Jathan. They had raised me for seven years before they put me up for adoption. I couldn’t get them to love me, and then I had to try so hard to get my foster parents to keep me. I felt like no one would ever care about someone like me. Like I was born a disappointment. So when Brody, the man I’d wanted for so long, offered me what I thought was love…I betrayed Winter, my friend, for him. And I’ll never, ever forgive myself for that first big sin.”
Blink. Time was lost.
Chapter Five
Heart banging against his sternum, hands clasped in front of his face, chest heaving with his shaking breath, Jathan watched the light fade from Lynn’s pretty brown eyes. She’d just leveled him to nothing with her admission.
Oh, he’d known she’d broken up Brody and Winter, now of the Blackwing Crew, but he hadn’t realized she’d been there first. He hadn’t realized she’d loved Brody before Winter was in the picture, and he sure as shit hadn’t realized she was carrying that guilt. He’d done his research on her starting the day he brought her back to Damon’s Mountains because he’d wanted to know what made a tough-girl panther shifter like Lynn go all pathetic.
He’d been so. Fucking. Wrong.
She wasn’t pathetic at all. He knew some of her story, knew it had gotten worse for her, but he’d blamed her for making bad decisions. Blamed her for being weak. And sure, she had made bad decisions, but not because she was a bad person. She’d had reasons he couldn’t have guessed at until now. She had drowned in this idea of belonging, being wanted, and feeling loved. And instead of getting angry at Brody for what he’d done, Lynn blamed herself.
A broken mating bond hadn’t killed the old Lynn…
Guilt had.
Jathan cast a quick glance around, but nobody was paying attention to them. His food was getting cold, but screw it. He couldn’t stomach eating while she sat here staring vacantly ahead, smelling like fur and sadness. He slid to the other side of the booth and sat right next to her. And then he gave two middle fingers to the coward inside of him because she would never remember what he was about to do. He pulled her against his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head. And rocking gently, he just held her.
Lynn would hate this if she was awake. She balked against tenderness and wanted only rough so she could pretend she didn’t have feelings. It was a coping mechanism so she could keep calm in the last six days.
Well, fuck six days, and fuck keeping it easy for her to leave.
She was going to live, even if he had to fight every single alpha who tried to put her down.
With her admission, she’d changed the game. She wasn’t Crazy Lynn to him anymore.
She was Broken Lynn who needed one person to really believe in her. One person to stand up for her. One person to be patient with her. One person to get her fighting again.
And she could fight. He knew she could. Why? Because tonight, she’d played, wanted touch, and tried to stay present with him. She’d flirted, told jokes, and agreed to come to a crowded bar just to live a little. If she didn’t care about life, she would’ve checked out and still have been sitting vacantly up in that treehouse, etching another mark onto her wall when she came to.
Fuck six days.
He was going to give her thousands.
Chapter Six
Lynn blinked hard as the blurry edges of her vision slowly came into focus.
Where the hell was she?
Some kind of bathroom. Looked familiar. Sterile looking, white tiles covered the walls, beige tiles covered the floor, and there was the same mirror that was in the women’s restroom at…Sammy’s Bar. On the counter sat a tiny redheaded woman in a red plaid mini-skirt, knitting an oddly-shaped blanket. Her legs were crossed, and she looked comfortable enough. She shoved her glossy, black horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and went back to knitting. Why was she even wearing glasses? Shifters had impeccable vision. And on further inspection, Willa’s glasses didn’t have any lenses in them.
Baffled, Lynn looked down at her lap. She was sitting in a chair with a warm, purple-pomegranate beer in one hand and a penis straw in the other. What the hell?
“I thought you would be thirsty, and sometimes fruity beers taste better with a straw. Look.” Willa Barns lifted up the blanket she was knitting. “It’s a dick rug. I’m making it for Jathan’s house. He will hate it, and I will laugh and laugh.”
Indeed, it looked like a pink erect penis and balls.
“W-where is Jathan?”
“Outside bleeding that wanker, Nox. They’re playing punchy punchy face face, and I figured you wouldn’t want everyone staring at you so I brought you in here. Plus, my son said he would poison my red wigglers—those are worms—if I didn’t watch after you while he took Nox out back to bleed him. And he would, too. We’re in the middle of a prank war, and my boy doesn’t play fair. He’s a total dick.” Willa gave a Grinch-like smile. “I love him.”
“Cool. Why is he fighting Nox?” Yep, she was concerned. Nox, aka the son of the Cursed Bear, aka Clinton’s son, aka total psychopath, was a beast. She knew. She’d fought him for just that reason.
“Oh, he and Nox fight every few days. They hate each other.”
There was a knock on the bathroom door, which was apparently locked.
“Who is it?” Willa yelled at an uncomfortable volume.
&nb
sp; “Uuuuh, Julie?”
Willa sighed and mouthed, So human. “Entry denied. Go use the boy’s bathroom please and thank you!”
“Um, why do Jathan and Nox hate each other?”
“Because who doesn’t hate Nox? He got one-hundred-unfortunate-percent of his father’s DNA and pisses everyone off on purpose. He came in here looking for a fight, so Jathan is giving him one.”
Another knock sounded.
“Not today, Julie!”
“Ma, let me in.”
It was Jathan’s growly voice on the other side, and suddenly a trill of excitement ran through Lynn at the prospect of seeing him. Uh oh. Well, that wasn’t good. She couldn’t afford to get attached now. She needed to lock her feelings down, and quick.
She mentally prepared herself to look nonchalant as Willa scrambled to unlock the door and let in her son, but when Jathan ducked under the doorframe and locked eyes with her, Lynn’s heart rate kicked up double-time. He had a cut under his eye, crimson streamed down one cheek, and his knuckles were battered, cut, and bloody. He was bruising already.
“Aw, don’t look at me like that, Lynn. You should see the other guy.”
“Is he alive?” Willa asked, studying Jathan’s torn-up knuckles.
“Unfortunately. Ma, stop fussin’.” He eased his hand from Willa’s and ran it under the tap water. It was cute watching tiny Willa worrying over her giant, behemoth, badass son. And it was really sweet the way he let her rest her cheek on his shoulder. After a couple of seconds, he relaxed and pressed his cheek on top of her bright red hair. Willa huffed suddenly, tossed her dick rug over her shoulder, pocketed the knitting needles, and said, “Try harder to kill him next time. He’s getting on everyone’s damn nerves. Good night, you two.” She headed for the door while she was talking. “Lynn, it’s good to see you again, ya little nut job. Make bad decisions tonight.”
As the door closed behind the petite Almost Alpha of the Gray Backs, Lynn stood and set her fruity beer on the sink along with the penis straw. “Let me see,” she murmured, ripping a handful of paper towels from the dispenser.
“I’m fine.” He winced away from her touch on his cheek. “Lynn, I’m serious, it’s fine.”
She put water on the towels and persisted though. He wasn’t the only one who had a stubborn streak.
With a snarl in his chest, he settled his butt against the counter and glared at the wall behind her with lightened, bright green eyes. But as she cleaned the drying blood from his face, he relaxed little by little, and more than once, she caught him looking down at her. As soon as he was busted though, he would give his attention to the wall again. “I have a theory,” he finally murmured.
“Uh oh,” she murmured. “Let’s hear it.”
“I think you carry too much guilt.” He punched a number into his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Easing it.”
A ring sounded over the speaker phone, and she pulled the soaking paper towel away from his face. “Jathan! What are you doing?” she asked again, panicking. Something bad was happening.
“Hello?” Winter Donovan, Lynn’s old friend, answered.
“Oh my God,” Lynn whispered, tears instantly burning her eyes. She arched her gaze to Jathan. “Why would you do this?” She was so hurt by his betrayal. The bathroom was getting darker already. She’d just woken up, and he was putting her back to sleep.
Blink.
Jathan gripped her hair and forced her to look up at him. “Not yet. Fix this.”
Bossy, bossy, bad bear. “You’re bad,” she said through the tears streaking down her face.
Jathan shrugged like he gave zero shits about that.
“Hello?” Winter asked again.
“Winter? It’s Lynn,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Lynn? Are you okay?”
“No.” God, she felt gutted admitting that out loud. It was her first time admitting she wasn’t okay.
The panther in her middle writhed, scratching at her skin. She didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to do this. With a sob for the pain at fighting the Change, Lynn gripped the edge of the counter and went down. She knelt on the tile floor, curled over the ache. “Winter, I’m so sorry.”
Jathan sat on the dirty bathroom floor, one big, strong hand on her thigh, the phone held close to her face with the other.
“Winter, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I mean with Brody. I loved him before you came to Red Havoc and fell for him. I moved to Ben’s crew for him because I thought he was it for me.”
“Ooooh, honey,” Winter murmured. “I forgave you for everything a long time ago. Do you want to know why?”
Lynn clasped her hand over her mouth to keep her sobs in her throat. She nodded like Winter could see her.
“You taking Brody was the best thing to happen to me. It didn’t feel like it at the time. I felt betrayed and hurt, but I hadn’t really bonded to him. You forced me to make big changes in my life, and now I’m happier than I’ve ever been…with Logan. He’s my match, my mate, the other half of me. I’m gonna have a baby, Lynn. A cub. Three more months. The doctor says we’re having a little boy.”
Lynn broke down. Shoulders shaking, she pitched forward, and rested her forehead on Jathan because it’s all she could do. Winter was pregnant, happy, and had found her other half. Lynn could go knowing she’d turned out okay despite what she’d done to her.
“I heard what Brody did to you.” Winter sniffed. “I’m the one whose sorry, Lynn. We both got hurt and lied to by that man. I know things can never be the same with us, but you’re still my friend. And you’ll always be a part of my story. The apology wasn’t needed, but it means the world that you gave it.”
All Lynn could do was cover her face with her hands and try her best not to break apart. She didn’t know what this feeling was in her middle. The pain of a Change? Was she disappearing again? No…it was something she hadn’t felt in so long.
This feeling was relief.
“Thank you for forgiving me,” she rasped out.
“Of course. Come visit me someday, Lynn. Come see where I ended up. My hope is that you end up in the same place.”
Lynn clutched onto Jathan’s shirt as he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her into his lap. This was the tragic part. The part where an old friend wished her a good life without knowing Lynn was at the end of what she could manage. She didn’t want to do goodbyes yet though, so she let Winter keep that charitable thought.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again someday,” Lynn murmured. “Goodnight, Winter.”
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
But nothing happened. She stayed right where she was, in Jathan’s lap, all hugged up in his strong arms, barely able to breathe from his embrace, tears streaming down her face as part of the impossible weight lifted from her shoulders.
There was no beauty in breaking. This man was witnessing the ugliest side of her.
But despite a peek at her damage…Jathan was still here.
Blink.
And so was she.
Chapter Seven
Two hours of sleep on a rock in the woods wasn’t going to cut it today. Already, Creed had been on his case about how slow he was hooking the cables to the logs that littered the side of the mountain, but it was either take it slow and easy or make a mistake that could get one of the crew hurt. The parts of his mind that weren’t totally exhausted were trained on Lynn. Sexy cat. She’d let him slide his hand up her thigh in the truck on the way home. She’d hinted she wanted him to come up to the tree house but, apparently deciding to be a gentleman for the first time in his whole stupid life, he declined.
When she’d gone vacant, he’d carried her up the stairs, tucked her into bed, and then like an idiot, sat outside her treehouse, on a rock, freezing his balls off. Why? Because he couldn’t stay and be strong enough to tell her no a second time if she asked when she came to. But he couldn’t leave her either. Not
while she was checked out and all alone up there. Sleeping on a rock because he thought she wasn’t ready for sex. What the fuck was wrong with him? He shouldn’t care like this. It was terrifying.
“Jathan Daniel Barns!” Dad yelled from up on the landing. “Get your head out of your ass, son, or I’m gonna come down there and remove it for you! For fuck’s sake, you are slowing literally everyone down. Tie up the logs and quit staring off into space!”
When Jason of the Gray Backs and his son Shane chuckled beside him, he wanted to stick his middle fingers and middle toes up at them. “Thanks a lot, Dad,” he muttered.
“What did you say?” Dad barked from above.
“I said I’m about three milliseconds from quitting if you don’t quit riding my ass. We’re on pace for numbers, I’m keeping us steady, and no one has died today, so give me a fucking break!”
Dad lowered his chin to his chest and arched his eyebrows. “Boy, do you want to go?” He took off his work gloves and held out his hands, palms up. “I’m ready when you are. Just because you’re grown, don’t mean you’re grown!”
“What?” Shane asked, a smile in his voice. “That doesn’t even make any fucking sense.”
“I always make sense!” Dad yelled.
Jathan made a tick sound behind his teeth, lifted his middle finger high, and hopped off the massive log he was standing on. Muttering about quitting any minute now like he did every day that ended with a Y, he yanked the cable around the log, fastened the hook to secure it, and turned to find Shane and Jason already had their logs done. Apparently, everyone had downed an entire pot of coffee this morning because both of them were smiling like cheerful little pecker-faces, and Jathan wanted to punch their stupid teeth out.
“You look like hell, man,” Shane said as they hopped across logs like nimble mountain goats.
“Thanks a lot,” Jathan muttered as he gestured for Creed to haul the trio of logs up to the landing so Dad could reach them with the processor. “I can’t freaking wait to get done with this hill so I can get in a tree feller, turn up the music, and not have to talk to you dipshits anymore. You’re exhausting.”
