by T. S. Joyce
Kirk bit the side of his lip and ducked his gaze to his clasped hands because he’d never heard a better offer than that, nor a better combination of words. You fit.
“Kong won’t want to let me go easy. It’s not his fault. His animal has deep instincts and a small family group. He’ll protect it.”
Harrison inhaled deeply and shifted his weight, kicked the toe of his boot against a loose strip of flooring. “I suppose you’re right. He’ll require his pound of flesh.” The alpha gave him a slow, steady smile. “Good thing I’ve been aching for a brawl.”
“Nah,” Kirk murmured. “This one is my fight.”
Chapter Seventeen
Alison signed her name across another boring report that basically said nothing had happened for yet another day.
People weren’t trying to hurt shifters here, and vice versa. With every day she spent at the post, she realized more that this job was utterly pointless. And apparently Finn felt the same because he was currently standing in front of her cabin throwing rocks at a tree trunk and muttering to himself.
Whatever. If he wasn’t being such a mega-chode all the time, she would’ve cared about going out there and talking him through his pissed-off mood. But truth be told, he’d grown grumpier than Clinton with each passing day, and that was saying something.
This isn’t what she’d imagined having a partner would be like. Undercover, she had to pretend not to know anyone who could be tied to the good side of the law, but when she’d been assigned Finn, she’d stupidly thought it would be like those cop shows on television. The die-hard bond where they would have each other’s backs no matter what. In actuality though, if she was on fire, Finn wouldn’t even bother to piss on her to put her out. Not after she’d thrown her support in for the shifters of Damon’s mountains. He apparently thought her relationship with Kirk was some slight to him, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why. Her falling in love had nothing to do with Finn. Unless…
She stood and opened the door. “Do you have a crush on me?” she asked. It was better to ask direct questions to get a natural reaction.
Finn scrunched up his face and looked honestly disgusted. “Fuck no. You’re too skinny, and you have too many tattoos. You probably have a thousand daddy issues, and I like long-haired brunettes with round asses.” He squared his shoulders to her and hooked his hands on his hips. “Let me put it this way. I would only fuck you if I was blindfolded, so no, I don’t have a crush on you.”
She inhaled deeply, then blew out the breath. She was pretty sure she hated him.
Finn went back to throwing rocks at the tree with more oomph this time.
The sun was setting behind Damon’s mountains, and Alison was struck, as she was a hundred times a day, with the beauty of this place. At least it would’ve been beautiful if Finn wasn’t muttering about her unattractive qualities loud enough to drown out the crickets and the birds.
An old, shiny black Jeep with fat tires and the top lowered blasted down the road from the mountains and skidded to a stop in the gravel right beside Finn, covering him in a cloud of chalky travel dust so thick he disappeared. Alison snorted as he launched into a cussing fit.
Audrey was behind the wheel, and Emerson was riding shotgun.
Harrison’s mate shoved her sunglasses over her straight, dark hair and asked, “Do you want a girls’ night with us?”
Emerson’s strange gold-flecked eyes were bright with excitement as she leaned out the open window. “Say yes. Trust me. You want to go on this adventure.”
“Where are we going?”
Audrey twitched a suspicious glare at Finn and said in a careful tone, “Saratoga. Maybe leave that at home.” She pointed a painted red nail at the badge clipped on Alison’s jeans.
Okay, so maybe they were looking for trouble tonight.
“Kirk will be there,” Emerson said, waggling her eyebrows.
“Great, then she should totally go and get gorilla-fucked in Saratoga,” Finn griped.
“You sound like a jealous ex-boyfriend,” Audrey said, her dark eyebrows arched high.
“Ha!” Alison laughed as she bolted for the cabin. “Give me two minutes.” Inside, she unclipped her badge and set it on the bed. She was officially off-duty now and excited about the prospect of having some fun in Saratoga with Kirk and the Boarlanders. Plus, if she was honest, she was flattered as hell that Audrey and Emerson had invited her to hang out with them. They didn’t have to do that, but over the last week, they’d all become friends. Those two were easy, non-judgmental, and they laughed all the time. It was good for her soul to be around people like them. She couldn’t wait to escape the cloud of melancholy Finn cast over the post.
She peeled off her hoodie and changed into a fitted black T-shirt to cover her healing mark. She slathered on some lip gloss and smoked up her eyes in the mirror real quick, then bolted out the front door, feeling like a teenager sneaking out after curfew.
“Don’t wait up, lover,” she muttered through an empty smile as she jogged past Finn.
“Ooooh, Finn and Ally sitting in a tree,” Emerson called out as Alison scrambled up the fat tire and into the back of the Jeep. “Kirk’s gonna rip you in half for crushin’ on his lady.”
Audrey hit the gas and shouted over her shoulder, “Later Phlegm!”
He waved his hands to clear the dusty air and screamed, “It’s Finn!”
Alison clutched her stomach and giggled as they blasted down the road toward Saratoga. In the front seat, Emerson was holding onto the top of the open frame, her wild curls whipping in the wind. “I don’t know how you put up with him,” she said over her shoulder.
“Girl, me either. I want to kick him in the sack ten times a day. He just told me he would only fuck me if he was blindfolded.”
“Asshole,” Audrey said with a disbelieving shake of her head. “Guess where we’re going.”
“Moosey’s?”
“No, it’s my day off!”
“Uhhh,” Alison drawled. “I’ve only been to Saratoga to get groceries. I don’t know what there is to do there.”
“Your man has made a decision,” Emerson called over the sound of the wind.
Alison gripped the two seats in front of her and pulled herself forward. “He’s picked a crew?”
“Sure did.”
Hurt, she relaxed against the back seat and watched the piney woods blurring by. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Probably because he didn’t want you to worry,” Audrey said with a glance in the rearview mirror at her.
Sure, she wanted him to pick the Boarlanders for selfish reasons, but even if he picked the Lowlanders, she wouldn’t be angry with him. “Why would I worry?”
“Because,” Emerson said, twisting around in her seat. “To pledge to Harrison, Kirk has to fight his way out from under Kong.”
****
By the time they reached a giant barn that Audrey terrifyingly called the “fight house,” it was full dark.
They parked in a field that doubled as a parking lot, then wove through rows of cars and knee-high grass until they reached a massive, dilapidated barn. Light shone from every crack between the wooden planks of the walls, and from inside came the sounds of rock music, cheering, booing, and whistling.
When Alison followed Audrey and Emerson through the open set of double doors, the noise level reached a deafening volume.
“I’m going to get us some beers,” Audrey yelled by Alison’s ear. She held up a couple of ten dollar bills and grinned. “I made a lot of tips today. Emerson, I’ll see if they have water.”
“Okay!” Alison and Emerson both said in unison, then giggled as Audrey disappeared into the crowed toward a hand-painted sign on the back wall that read Booze.
“Come on,” Emerson yelled, tugging her hand toward the more concentrated crowd in front of them. “Audrey will find us. She’s got those tiger senses. Let’s see if we can get a good spot.”
Around a fight ring—or what she assu
med to be the fight ring because she couldn’t see jack—there were wooden planks at different levels, and people were crowded onto them, yelling and waving fistfuls of cash. Finn would poop himself if he set foot in here. He’d probably give every single person a ticket and arrest as many as would fit in the back of his cruiser.
A sharp whistle sounded, and a tiny red-headed woman in a red plaid mini-skirt, black combat boots, and a T-shirt that read Stick it in my wormhole waved, then gestured them up onto one of the highest platforms. Alison grinned and waved back. She’d met Willa a couple times since she’d come to Saratoga. The fact she’d laced Finn’s cookies with laxatives made her like the Gray Back Second even more. Alison helped Emerson scramble up a few platforms until they reached Willa.
“Hey, Tats! I thought you were going to miss it!” Willa called over the noise. “You’re about to get super horny. There is nothing like seeing a shifter fight, and Judge has been working this crowd up all night for the grand finale. Lowlander Silverback versus Boarlander Silverback. This is going to be fucking epic!”
It was in this moment that Alison got her first look at the fighting ring in front of them. There was a row of bystanders in front of the platforms, but the old crates with standing room only were still pretty close. It was a make-shift ring with wooden railing. The floor inside was splattered with dark stains—blood. And circling the ring were two very familiar men.
“Is that Clinton and Mason?” she asked Emerson.
“Yep! They’ve been going at it for weeks up on the jobsite. I guess they decided to go all out here, bare-knuckle boxing. Probably best. Mason is a beast boar with long-ass tusks. Clinton’s a brawler bear with teeth and claws, but Mason could have Clinton’s innards on the ground before he knew what hit him.”
As it was, Clinton and Mason were pounding the shit out of each other’s faces, and their torsos were mottled purple and green from bruises in different stages of healing. Both their jeans were dotted with blood, and their massive torsos rippled with muscle every time they swung. This was a completely different side of the Boarlanders she’d ever witnessed.
“Beer!” Audrey called, scrambling upward from a lower platform. She held four red, plastic cups with the fingers of one hand, and a bottled water in her other hand, so Alison knelt down and helped her up by the arms until she was balanced on the platform with them. “Georgia!” Audrey called, passing a cup across Willa to the Gray Back park ranger with the golden curls.
Willa also got a beer, as well as Alison, and after a quick clunk of their cups in silent cheers, Emerson gulped at the water Audrey had brought right along with them. Mason’s eyes were glowing like a demon now, and Clinton’s looked almost white.
When a heavy-hitting song came on the loud speaker, Willa and Audrey booty-bumped Alison and danced to the beat. And as Alison looked down the platform to the other Gray Backs who were cheering on Mason, and then to a lower level where several of the Ashe Crew were screaming for Clinton, a wave of catching excitement blasted through her. She’d never had a group of friends like this. Being friends with her would’ve put someone in danger, but these people were tough. Resilient. Supernatural. They could handle the grit that came along with her life, and not only that, but they’d been completely accepting from the moment Kirk had declared she was his.
“Ally!” Harrison called from behind them. The Boarlander alpha looked grim, and his eyes were too light as he gestured her down.
“I’ll be right back,” Alison murmured to the girls.
Harrison lifted her down and settled her on her feet, then reached up and took Audrey’s hand, kissed it, and let his lips linger as a look passed between him and his mate that was so intimate, Alison’s cheeks heated for witnessing it.
Harrison pressed his hand on Alison’s back, guiding her toward a set of what looked like old horse stalls in the corner. “Clear a path,” he growled at a rowdy group of onlookers. They parted immediately.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when the masses thinned out.
“You’ll see.”
And the second she rounded one of the huge stalls, she did see. Kirk was pacing along the back like a caged animal, and nearly blocking the door with massively wide shoulders was a giant stranger who slid her a narrow-eyed look. His eyes blazed green, and there was a tattoo that stretched down from the sleeve of his T-shirt to his elbow. It was tribal with bold, dark lines of ink. Kong.
“Who are you?” the man asked in a gruff voice.
“She’s mine,” Kirk gritted out.
“What?” Kong asked.
“Baby,” a pretty blond-haired woman said from against the wall. “If he wants out, you have to give him a way.”
Kong shook his head over and over. The air was chokingly heavy in here. “He’s in my group, Layla. It’s not that simple.” He jerked an angry gaze to Kirk. “You’ll choose the Boarlanders over me? Tell me why. I thought you were happy in my family group, Kirk. If I thought you would cut out, I wouldn’t have ever sent you up there in the first place.”
“Kong,” Harrison murmured.
“You shut the fuck up. He was supposed to help you, and I’ve been down at the sawmill limping along, waiting for him to come back to my crew. You left a fuckin’ hole in my group, man. And what the fuck do you mean she’s yours, Kirk?” Kong was yelling now. “You can’t pick up your damn phone and let me know what’s going on anymore?”
Kirk was growling a low, terrifying noise and pacing, always pacing, glowing gold eyes on Kong. He still had his shirt on, and a dark gray beanie covered his long hair.
“He has trouble saying how he feels,” Alison murmured, neck exposed.
“But not with me!” Kong yelled.
Kirk was to him so fast he blurred, and he slammed Kong against the wall with such force, it splintered behind the Lowlander silverback. “Fucking talk to her like that again, and I’ll kill you.”
“Kirk, be easy on him!” Layla pleaded. “I… Kirk, I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Kirk asked, releasing Kong instantly.
“I’m pregnant.” Layla’s face crumpled, and her eyes filled with tears. “You were supposed to be in our group, helping us raise our child, but you want to leave. Can’t you see? His animal can’t just let you go.”
“Tell me why,” Kong rasped out.
Kirk ran his hand over his beanie, pulled it off, and chucked it at the wall. “Because, Kong! You and Layla will have a baby. Lots of babies if you’re lucky, but I have no shot at a family if I stay under you. I’m not just some blackback in need of your protection. I’m a fucking silverback under a more dominant silverback. You stifle my instincts!” Kirk looked sick. “You always have.”
A wiry man with dark, greasy hair popped his head into the stall. “You two are up next. Five minutes.”
“Thanks, Judge.” Harrison growled to Kirk, “I need to wrap your hands.”
Alison didn’t know what to do, but the air was so thick it felt like mud in her lungs, and she was going to suffocate soon. “I love him.”
Kong and Kirk both jerked their gazes to her.
“What did you say?” Kong asked low.
Alison looked from him to Layla to Harrison to Kirk. Softly, she murmured, “I love you. And I think,” she said, attention back on Kong, “he won’t be able to love me back if you stifle his instincts again.” Her voice dipped to a broken whisper. “And I really want him to love me back.”
Kong stared at her for a loaded few moments, then sighed out the word, “Fuck.” He kissed Layla’s forehead, his hand resting gently on the slight swell of her stomach, and then he pulled his shirt over his head. To Kirk, he said, “I didn’t know it was like that.” He slid a reluctant glance to Harrison and nodded once. “Fight granted.”
Shoulders shaking, Layla hugged Kirk’s shoulders, and then followed Kong out of the stall.
Harrison’s sigh tapered into a growl as he pulled Kirk’s hand away from his side and began to wrap his knuckles with white tape. “Keep him still, wi
ll you?”
Alison looked behind her, but it was just her in here with them now, so she approached Kirk slow.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes on the work Harrison was doing on his hand.
“This is a big deal, Kirk. I should’ve heard about it from you.”
“I have my reasons for not telling you.”
“Because you are worried about me?”
“Yeah, Ally! Yeah. Ignoring that this place isn’t all legal eagle and it could affect your job, you’ve gone through trauma, seen bloodshed. You told me yourself you were diagnosed with PTSD, and I don’t want to make it worse on you. I want to protect you from this.”
“Protect me from part of you? Because that’s what this is, Kirk! It’s a part of you that I wasn’t invited to see. You have to fight. I get it.”
“You don’t.”
“I do! You have a dominant animal side, and deep instincts I can’t even fathom. I’ve already told you, I’m in this.” She rested her forehead on his arm and murmured, “Hiding won’t protect me, mate. It’ll hurt me. You’re choosing the Boarlanders, and we’re in this together.” She lifted her eyes to his. God, she hoped she had the words to make him understand. “You choosing a crew doesn’t just affect you. You’re choosing a crew for me, too.”
Kirk clenched his jaw, and a muscle twitched there, but his voice lost the feral edge. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Other hand,” Harrison demanded over the ripping sound of the tape.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Now go out there, win this fight, and make us Boarlanders.”
He searched her eyes, his long, damp hair hanging in front of his face, his expression fierce, and his features sharp as glass. Kirk leaned down and kissed her hard. He nipped her bottom lip and released her, then rested his forehead on hers and murmured, “I will.”
“All right, I’ve got to get his head on straight,” Harrison said. “Bash is out by the rail. He’ll make room for you.”
She could feel Kirk’s eyes on her as she walked out of the stall, and as she rounded the corner, she paused, took a steadying breath, chugged the beer in her cup, and made her way toward the ring. Did she want to see Kirk fight another dominant silverback? Hell no. But shifters lived by different rules, and she either had to accept all of him, or she had no business reaping the benefits of these friendships. She had to be strong enough to support him no matter the outcome of tonight.
