by Dianna Love
Yes, his tiger agreed. This is how we win.
Hearing his tiger say “we” stunned Gan.
Gemelo said, We fight together to protect mate.
Yes, Gan confirmed, reinforcing that they would work as a team.
They might just survive if Robert didn’t hit them with magic they couldn’t handle. Gan didn’t know how he’d refused Robert’s orders, but he had a feeling it might be connected to the mark Scarlett had given him.
At the moment, Robert seemed to struggle with his thoughts.
But not for long.
He pointed at the group of cats still kneeling. “You first six cat shifters, stand and attack these wolves and the tiger.”
This time, Robert didn’t give specific targets. That provided the cat shifters a better chance to win the battle because of not being directed at only one target.
Three of them jumped his tiger.
Howls and snarling mixed with claws and fangs, ripping through fur and muscle.
Gemelo knocked the first one down and hammered a paw at the cat’s head over and over until it cracked open.
Jazlyn fought her mountain lion to the ground and turned on one of two jaguars attacking Red Wolf.
Adrian’s wolf spun and twisted to knock a jaguar off that had been clawing his back. He pinned the animal and ripped the throat open.
Cats screeched in agony.
Gan’s tiger clashed with a cheetah that moved like a strike of lightning. That cheetah kept up the fast strikes and jumping back out of Gemelo’s strike zone when his tiger slashed a big paw full of claws at it. He could feel his tiger tiring from all the shifts and battling.
Adrian’s wolf jumped around and banged into Jazlyn who had just torn a leg off the jaguar she’d been fighting. The beaten cat lay in a heap taking its last breaths.
Adrian and Jazlyn’s wolves turned on the panther clawing Gan’s tiger’s hind legs.
With the panther distracted trying to survive two wolves, Gemelo caught the cheetah on his next strike, lunging as the smaller cat leaped away. Gemelo slammed the cheetah’s smaller body to the ground. His tiger used his mighty weight to crush the cat’s chest as his jaws ripped out the throat.
His tiger’s back legs burned and his back felt no better, but he praised his animal. You are best tiger in world.
No words came back, but he sensed how proud and happy that made Gemelo.
With half-dead cats scattered across the ground amidst pieces of the ones no longer breathing, Gan called to Adrian telepathically. You must leave. Take Jazlyn with you. That man is something called Power Baron. You saw. He can control your body.
Adrian sent back, Are you fucking kidding me? A Power Baron. That’s like the worst enemy of our kind in the world.
I do not joke, Gan shouted. Hurry. Leave before worst enemy puts spell on you.
I’m not leaving you, Gan.
You will not stop him, wolf. Find Guardian.
Adrian said, Damn. I hate to abandon you, but you’re right. We need the Guardian to deal with this guy.
Before Adrian took a step to move, Robert lifted his hands and shouted, “Wolves return to human form.”
His power worked on Adrian and Jazlyn, who both made painful noises as their bodies changed so quickly.
Now in human form, Adrian sent Gan a worried glance that said he was convinced.
Too late.
Smiling now that he had control again, Robert asked Jazlyn, “What’s your name?”
She stood up. “Bite. Me. Capital B. Capital M.”
Robert ordered, “Kneel, bitch.”
Her knees hit the ground. She snarled and wrenched, trying to free herself.
Adrian took one look and must have figured he would be next. That meant he had no chance of escaping. He rushed Robert, shifting as he went.
The minute his wolf appeared fully formed in mid-leap, the Power Baron ordered, “Sit.”
Having gone airborne, Adrian dropped in mid-flight and landed hard. He struggled to sit up. His wolf whined.
Gan had never heard that sound from the red wolf.
He told his tiger, I know will hurt and sorry to ask. I need human body to help friends.
Gemelo only groaned, but allowed Gan to make the change and stand on two feet again. The pain of shifting so often had taken a toll. He did not know if he could do this again any time soon.
“I’m here! Stop!”
Gan looked over in horror as Scarlett came running into all of this. He bellowed, “No! Leave!”
She slowed, catching her breath. When she looked up, her eyes held an apology. “Did you think I would not come for you?”
“Go. Please,” Gan begged. “He is bad.”
“I know.” Shifting her gaze to the Power Baron, she said, “Hello, Father.”
Chapter 31
“Hello, Isleen,” the Power Baron replied.
That bastard gloated.
Hearing his voice ran chills up Scarlett’s spine. She still couldn’t believe she’d allowed this to happen. She had guessed at what Gan had done when her phone went missing. The minute she borrowed a phone from the motel manager and Zink confirmed he’d dropped Gan near Lincoln’s property, she hung up, racing to find her tiger shifter.
She could feel Gan and Adrian’s eyes on her back and picked up emotions from both men.
She’d stunned Gan, but Adrian’s fury boiled off him.
Jazlyn knew of Scarlett’s heritage, but even Jazlyn had not known her real name.
The sickening scent of fresh blood and dying animals nauseated her. She should expect no less from her father and Lincoln. Speaking of which, where was that miserable tiger shifter?
It didn’t matter.
She needed to get Gan and her friends out of here. Even the angry red wolf who no doubt saw her as nothing more than the spawn of a Power Baron.
She lifted her voice. “Let them go and I will stay.”
“No!” Gan shouted.
She took one look and knew he could not hold his tiger even though he’d just shifted, which should slow down making another change so quickly. His claws broke through his fingers. His jaw widened.
She pleaded, “Don’t shift, please, Gan.”
“Leave or tiger will not stop.” He visibly struggled to hold his human form.
“Do shut up,” Robert said to no one in particular.
Chica spoke in a trembling voice. He is bad. Scent is sick. You promised we never see him again.
Scarlett hated to drag her cougar into this, but Chica had been just as determined to save their mate. I’m sorry, Chica. I wish you were not with me.
I would not leave you now if I could. You need me.
Scarlett swallowed a lump of emotion. You’re right. I have always needed you. I will protect you from him as much as I can.
Her father started negotiating. “I need more than words spoken in haste, Isleen. I need your vow. You up and ran before ya could be fully bound with our family. Our word to each other is bindin’.”
She hated hearing that Scottish burr. “You’re surprised I ran?” Scarlett realized she had one chance to let Gan know that she was not like her father. That she’d kept her identity and background a secret to avoid what was happening right now.
She didn’t want him to think she had played him.
Raising her voice, she said the words she’d yelled at her father silently for years.
“I may share your blood, but you were never my father. Not a real father. For that, I thank you, because otherwise I might not have realized just how hideous you were until I was about to turn eighteen. You told my mother her part was done, that it was time to take possession of what you’d created. I had been nothing more than a biological experiment.”
“Enough, Isleen. Time to give me yar word and we can leave.”
“No. You want my vow? Then I want the truth known.”
“Who be carin’?” Robert asked with amusement.
She looked to Gan. “I care. I have carried
this secret my entire life to protect those I love.”
A tear ran down Gan’s proud cheek. He shook his head, still begging her not to give in to Robert.
“I will indulge ya this one time, Isleen, then ya will no speak these words again.” One of the cat shifters snarled. Robert snapped his fingers. “Silence ya disgustin’ animal while my daughter is speakin’.”
She hated to be called his daughter, but Gan deserved the truth, all of it. She held his gaze. “My mother came clean and told me the truth and that Robert would return to take me, because he could not compel me until I came into my powers. He needed that connection to first bind me to his blood. Fayth had the good fortune to not carry his blood. I always thought my mother was a doormat, always cowering to Robert, never taking a new boyfriend who could be our father. I didn’t realize yet that he had killed Fayth’s father and placed spells around the house to prevent anyone visiting. I thought other people sensed we were odd and avoided us.”
While she talked, Scarlett took slow steps as if needing the motion to get her thoughts out when in truth, she had a destination.
Poor Fayth had grown up so reclusive and afraid of her own shadow. When she ran with Scarlett then found a man she fell in love with, Scarlett had been glad to see her sister live with a small group of wolves in a remote area. All Fayth had ever wanted was a family, but she couldn’t get pregnant.
If her father ever found out about Fayth’s baby being a cougar shifter, a child of Scarlett’s blood, he’d take the child.
Scarlett would die to stop him from ever touching that baby.
She continued to move three steps one way, turn, and four steps the other way as she spoke. She might appear to go in no particular direction, but she gradually angled closer to Gan. “After Robert killed the wolf who got my mother pregnant with Fayth, she feared he would take Fayth, too, just to control me. That’s when our mother told us to run.”
Her father quirked an eyebrow, questioning her words. “She could no do that.”
“It’s true. Her tongue thickened and she struggled to breathe, but got the words out. Evidently a mother’s love is stronger than whatever spell you placed on her many years back.” She smiled at his consternation. “I knew when I first met you at twelve that you were evil. I just did not know why. I took the head start she gave us and ran with Fayth. I never wanted to be a monster like you.”
He scoffed. “Doona be tellin’ me ya havena used those powers, daughter. Ya couldna have gone all this time without tappin’ ’em. ’Tis in our blood to harness our power, and it only grows stronger by wieldin’ the energy. So doona sound so high and mighty. Fayth woulda been better off with me, too.”
Scarlett’s erratic pacing brought her to stand in front of Gan. He whispered, “Do not do this. I have no freedom. Do not give up yours.”
She squeezed her eyes shut to stem the tears. She would not give her father that satisfaction.
Power boiled inside her. She struggled to not lash out. The energy she’d kept hidden for so long behaved much like Chica, churning to tear out of her and attack Robert.
That might be due to Chica.
Her power from Robert and her shifter gifts could have joined over all this time.
The minute she gave her vow, she would never be free of her father. If she didn’t, Fayth would always be on the run.
She only hoped Adrian heard her truth and that the Guardian had listened to her words so he would not send Gan to live alone in Wyoming.
“I will make you wish you had never done this, Teàrlach,” she said, using his real name. She might never get a chance to do that again.
“I will make ya regret having spoken so foolishly, daughter,” Robert warned in a quiet voice that promised retribution.
He could try to drag her away, but he had no idea of her power until he bound her. He would not make a move that important and risk failure.
Her mother had said to never speak his name or he would find her. She also said using his true name would boost anything said against him.
Scarlett wanted to fist pump over that strike, but didn’t. “Once I had Fayth in a safe place, I returned for mother, but you showed up sooner than she expected. I felt a punch of pain in my gut a quarter mile out. The smell of her death hit me a block from the house.”
“I find that arrivin’ early allows me to catch people tryin’ to betray me,” he quipped.
“You didn’t have to kill her!”
“Ah, Isleen, that’s past history. I didna come here to celebrate old times, but to plan for the future. I’ve indulged ya to have yar say. ’Tis time to leave this disgustin’ mess. Be ya ready to speak yar vow or ... will I be needin’ to inspire ya to make the right decision?”
He threatened harming Gan to get her compliance.
Gan whispered, “Use magic on him. Run.”
She wouldn’t take that risk and have him lash out at everyone here.
If Robert had been sure his magic would work on her, he’d have used it by now, but wielding power unsuccessfully in the world of preternaturals would be a mistake.
She hoped she would be able to hold her own around him once she entered his world. If she thought about what she was about to do too much, she’d lose her nerve. He terrified her.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what to expect by coming here, but all she’d thought about was getting to Gan before something bad happened to him.
Something worse than getting involved with a woman who had deceived him.
He’d called her his mate.
She claimed him as hers.
Now was the time to stand up and protect her tiger shifter, to prove to him she had kept the truth from him only to shield the man who held her heart from harm.
Taking a deep breath, she accepted her only choice, but she had to get the words right.
She spoke clearly. “If you, Teàrlach, allow the two wolf shifters and this tiger shifter present to leave safely, and agree to never harm any of them in the future, plus agree to never harm, contact, or hunt for Fayth or her family in any way in the future, and agree that all the other shifters present will be unbound upon your leaving, you have my word I will go with you voluntarily. Do you agree?”
Gan grabbed her shoulders. “No. No. No.”
She put a hand over his and felt his love pour through her. She whispered, “I’m sorry for all of this.”
Robert scratched his chin. “I really wanted that tiger shifter, but ya are the prize. I, Teàrlach, agree to yar terms.”
Gan made a painful sound followed by his body distorting and changing. He groaned, “No,” but it was lost in his transformation to tiger.
She stepped aside and would do more harm by trying to stop Gan’s shift. But she had to wrap this up while she had the Power Baron ready to contain his deadly hands. She could feel his power rolling around him in a protective veil, pushing out against her.
Reality smacked her between the eyes.
After spending a lifetime hiding from this man, she had just consigned her soul to the devil.
She would do it again to keep Gan safe.
His tiger roared and snarled.
Lifting a hand, she implored, “Please don’t, Gemelo. Keep Gan safe for me. I love you both more than you’ll ever know. Chica loves you, too.”
Fury raged in the tiger’s eyes.
He growled and slapped a big paw on the ground.
Teàrlach called out, “’Tis time to start yar trainin’ now, Isleen. You shall learn the penalty for defyin’ me.”
She turned in shock. “What?”
As Teàrlach raised a finger to point at her, Gan’s tiger blasted past her and leaped at him.
That dangerous finger moved to the tiger. Teàrlach called out a command.
Gan’s tiger kept going.
Teàrlach repeated his command, but added more umph this time.
Gan’s tiger slowed and stopped in midair right in front of Teàrlach who reached up and grabbed the animal’s throat
. “You shall obey me now!”
Scarlett moved the second Gan’s tiger blew past her. She jumped on his back, gripped each side of his massive shoulders, and pushed energy into the animal’s body.
Her hands heated when her power pulsed, joining with his.
His tiger screamed, unable to get away from Teàrlach.
Scarlett called up Chica to help the tiger. Chica’s energy wound up in a frantic rush and flowed through Scarlett’s fingers in a wave of soothing magic.
She’d always known her cougar had her own gifts.
In the next seconds, Gan’s tiger dropped to the ground, standing on all fours. He shook his head as if trying to get his bearings.
She slid off his back, but kept fingers gripped in his coat, allowing her energy to surge to him and take what he sent back.
Teàrlach sidestepped away.
His eyes turned amphibian with dark elongated irises in pools of yellow. “Ya dare defy me?”
“Stop hurting my tiger and I won’t defy you. You gave your word and broke it.” Scarlett relaxed her hand in the thick coat, feeling the warmth. Gan’s tiger angled in front of her and began forcing her back a step at a time, nudging her away from her father.
“I did no break my word. He attacked me and he still lives,” Teàrlach complained. “Ya broke yar word ... but you still stand.”
“You didn’t include attacking you first in the fine print.” She felt the tug when Gan drew energy from her again.
He shifted quickly, but she could tell he was not as strong. Too many shifts and attacks had weakened him.
Still, Gan pushed to his feet. He shouted at Teàrlach, but his words were for Scarlett. “He cannot have you. You are my mate.”
That got Teàrlach’s attention. “Mate? Have ya no respect for the power? Ah, Isleen, ya have made a grave error.”
She hated that name. Her mother had told her that Robert would bind her to him with what he considered Scarlett’s true name. To never use it and risk him tracking her that way.
But Scarlett had given her word to this mad man.
Smiling through tears, she said, “I can’t change what I’ve said, Gan.”
“I will stop him.”
She whispered, “He will kill you now that he has me if I do not keep my word.”
