by Kali Argent
It was clear from the tremor in his voice and the acceleration of his pulse that he cared a great deal about his sister. It was also obvious to Mackenna that something terrible had happened to her.
“Did she die in the Purge?”
Cade blinked several times and wiped a hand roughly over his face. “Uh, yeah, she died in the Purge.”
“Oh, Cade, I’m so sorry.” She wanted to get up, to go to him, but she wasn’t sure if he would be receptive to her comforting him just then.
“I lost her a long time before that, though. Drugs,” he clarified when Mackenna tilted her head again. “She had this new boyfriend who got her hooked. It didn’t matter what I said to her. She wouldn’t leave him.”
“Cade…” She didn’t know what to say, had no words to ease his pain.
“The boyfriend finally left,” he continued, “but she was already addicted at that point. She’d run off, and I’d go find her and bring her home. I’d get her cleaned up, and she’d do okay for a little while.” He dropped his head and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It just never stuck, though. I hadn’t seen her for about a year before the virus hit.”
Mackenna couldn’t take it anymore. Tossing the blanket off her legs, she struggled to sit up.
“Hey, whoa.” Cade jumped up from his chair and hurried over, placing a hand on her shoulder to keep her on the bed. “Easy, Mack. What are you trying to do?”
“I was trying to get up so I could give you a hug.”
“Give me a…” Chuckling under his breath, he rolled his eyes as he scooped her up from the mattress and took her place, repositioning them so that she was settled securely on his lap. “This good?”
“Well, I was supposed to be hugging you.” She snuggled deeper into his arms and buried her nose against the side of his neck. “This works, though. I’m really sorry about your sister.”
“Me, too. I just wish I could have been there. I know I couldn’t have done anything, but I hate that she died alone.”
Mackenna’s heart ached for him. “What about your parents?”
She felt him shake his head. “Dad ran off when I was a kid, and my mom died about ten years before the Purge. It was just me and Maddy.”
“Where were you when it happened? The virus, I mean.”
“I was stationed in Georgia when everything went down. I had a little house a couple of miles off base. I guess it was about three days after everyone started getting sick when I came home and found Maddy on my couch.” He paused and swallowed hard, straining the muscles in his neck. “She was already gone. There wasn’t anything I could do for her.”
She couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like for him, and she hadn’t thought it possible, but the story only got worse from there.
He talked about being held captive briefly by a pack of werewolves in St. Louis, then sold to the Abraxas coven—a name she actually recognized. Thankfully, she’d never had any run-ins with the vampires, but the name alone was enough to elicit fear in even the bravest Gemini.
When he got to the part about being slowly drained for weeks inside an abandoned movie theater, she pressed a hand to her chest, hoping to ease the ache in her heart. It didn’t work.
“Oh, Cade.”
He shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal, but his scent reeked of bitterness. “The Revenant saved me. They got me out and fixed me up, but Abby wasn’t there.”
Understandably, his knowledge of how the female had ended up in an auction and eventually purchased by the Ikande lion shifters was a little fuzzy. “Apparently, they’re this group of albino shifters. Generations of inbreeding isn’t the best way to produce a strong line. So, they started kidnapping females or buying them from these auctions to…uh…breed them.”
Mackenna almost threw up in her mouth. “That’s where you were headed when you found me, isn’t it?”
Cade nodded, his cheek rubbing against the top of her head.
He was still healing from his imprisonment with the Abraxas coven, but he’d still been prepared to risk everything to bring Abby home safely. Instead of going on with the rest of the team, however, he’d stayed behind.
He’d stayed because of her.
Obviously, she hadn’t known any of that, and it wasn’t as if she’d asked him to stay. Even if she hadn’t known about Abby, the Ikandes, or any of the rest of it, she wouldn’t have asked him to stay behind when people needed his help. Still, guilt gnawed at her.
She lifted her head, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry for any trouble I caused you. I can see how much you wanted to be there.”
“What?” Cade shook his head. “No.” Brushing her hair back, he pressed his palm to her cheek and sighed. “No, Mack, it’s not like that. I mean, yes, I wanted to go after Abby. I wanted to do what I could to help all the women being held there. We all did.” Leaning in, he pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “I don’t regret staying, though, not for a minute.”
Whether it was true or not, he clearly believed it.
It was the perfect segue to the conversation they’d been avoiding all day, but that didn’t make her any more apt to start it. “I guess we should talk about that.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “About us.”
There was none of the anger she’d expected. No tension or apprehension. Instead, he nodded a couple of times, then lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles.
“Let me start by saying that up until recently, I had a pretty negative view of the Gemini as a whole. I certainly never thought I would be mated to one.” He slipped a finger under her chin when she lowered her head, encouraging her to meet his eyes again. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you. I’m trying to explain why I’m probably going to be terrible at this.”
“Well, not wanting to be mated to a werewolf will do that.”
Cade shook his head. “You’re not listening. I never said I didn’t want to be mated to you.” He brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I am going to have questions, though, and I’m going to need you to be patient with me.”
As much as she wanted to be offended, she could understand where he was coming from. If her first introduction to humans had been at the hands of Hunters, she’d probably despise the entire race. Before the Purge, Cade hadn’t even known the paranormal world existed. Then, everything had changed, plunging him into a reality where Gemini reigned, and humans were forced to fight each day just to survive.
He’d witness unspeakable violence, experienced firsthand extraordinary depths of brutality. The paranormals he’d encountered didn’t represent the group as a whole, but that wasn’t to say they were the exception, either.
For years, there had been growing discourse among the Gemini, with more and more arguing that they shouldn’t be hiding from humans. They should be ruling them. It wasn’t difficult to see how the sentiment had spread like wildfire given the first opportunity.
“So, what changed your mind?”
Cade paused. Not the way people did when they were buying time because they didn’t want to answer. His hesitation felt more like he was trying to find the right words to explain something he didn’t quite understand. Almost as if he wasn’t sure of the answer himself.
“I didn’t change my mind. Not really. My natural instinct is to distrust the Gemini, but truthfully, I feel the same way about humans.” He stroked her hair as he spoke, an absent gesture that was somehow sweeter because of the lack of awareness. “Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s the world we live in now.”
“But you trust the people here, don’t you?” Her gaze flickered toward the door. “You trust the Revenant?”
He considered her for a moment before nodding. “I do.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she hesitated to push him for more. In the end, though, she couldn’t help herself. “But?”
“Trust is earned. Some have earned my loyalty. Others, I don’t know well enough, and I’m still reserving judgment. Is t
hat fair?” He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s how I feel.”
It hadn’t been the clearest explanation, but Mackenna thought she understood. “You won’t blindly trust someone just because they claim to be Revenant, but you trust your friends.”
His left eye twitched at the word “friends,” but he didn’t dispute it. “That’s basically it.”
“And you automatically distrust everyone from the ARC.” That didn’t really seem fair, but maybe she was missing something.
“Mack, the ARC is what makes these slave auctions possible. They’re the ones who enforce the will of people like the Abraxas coven.”
Tension built in her temples as her eyebrows drew together. “What you described in Trinity Grove didn’t sound bad.”
“Some places are better than others, I’ll give you that. Even in Trinity Grove, humans were seen as commodities, though. They owned humans. Then, of course, there was the little matter of the vampire king sacrificing humans to Ravagers.”
Mackenna jerked back, her eyes going wide. “No.”
“Yes.” He stroked his fingers through her hair as he studied her, his gaze almost pitying. “They don’t react well to human sympathizers, either.”
“But…you’re my mate!” It was the first time she’d actually said the words out loud, and she wished it could have been in a different context. “That’s important. It’s…it…”
“It means nothing,” he stated flatly. “Unions have to be approved now. Mates have about as much protection as a human pet, which is to say, very little.”
“No.” That couldn’t be right. It was the one unwritten rule that all the races agreed on, the one covenant that was never broken. “No, I don’t believe you.”
Even as she said it, she knew in her heart he was telling her the truth. She’d escaped one hell only to be thrust into another.
Overwhelmed with information, frightened by a world she didn’t recognize, Mackenna couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Burying her face against Cade’s shoulder, she wept for all the lives that had been lost. She cried for all the families that had been destroyed. She cried for those still hurting, for every injustice they faced. She cried for herself, for the naïve girl on the side of the highway, and the broken one she was now.
Through it all, Cade just held her, letting her soak the collar of his shirt as he stroked her back and petted her hair. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell her to calm down. He didn’t offer her hollow promises that things would get better, nor did he make meaningless comparisons about how it could be worse.
He sat there until she had no more tears to cry, until exhaustion eventually lulled her into numbness. When her sobs had quieted to occasional sniffles, he pulled the blanket up over her and tucked her head under his chin.
Still, he said nothing.
As the silence stretched on, Mackenna’s pulse steadied, and her breathing slowed as the knot in her chest loosened. Nothing had been solved. Nothing was better. She was just too tired to think about it anymore.
Surrounded by her mate’s warmth and strength, she closed her eyes and prayed for the sweet relief of sleep.
Chapter Seven
Pandemonium.
There was no other word that accurately described the scene unfolding before him. Lynk had fought his share of battles. He’d watched cities burn to the ground. Never had he witnessed anything like what was happening in the camp.
Realistically, they couldn’t have prepared for the entire perimeter of the settlement to be rigged with underground explosives. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel responsible. He should have known. He should have anticipated, if not that exact scenario, something similar. It had just seemed so unlikely, too dangerous, especially with children running around the settlement.
Instead of approaching with caution, they’d charged in blindly, and because of their ignorance, they’d lost two strong fighters.
Two friends.
The first explosion had surprised them all. The loss of Miles had been devastating, but there had been no time to react, let alone grieve. Within seconds, the entire place had been crawling with shifters. Lions darted through the night, their pale coats making them easy to track in the moonlight. But knowing where they were didn’t make them any less deadly.
Outnumbered four to one, they should have retreated. They should have cut their losses and disappeared back into the forest, but that would have meant leaving Abby to her fate. It was a testament to the bonds that had formed between them that no one was willing to save their own ass if it meant leaving one of their own behind.
Those who had been waiting in the forest had rushed forward to join the fray, some with fangs and claws, others with guns and knives. As skills went, his team had the upper hand, but they’d still been quickly overwhelmed by the Ikandes’ sheer numbers.
There was no time for caution, no sense in worrying if their next step might be their last. That was how they’d lost Kellen Fischer. The human had only joined their ranks recently, along with a group of three others who called themselves the Valkyrie. Lynk hadn’t known him well, but he still mourned the loss of life.
The Wardens had retreated to the largest cabin on top of the hill to surround and protect the pride’s alpha and his immediate family. However, that only reduced the horde’s numbers by six. Not even enough to truly notice.
On the plus side, there was no longer a need for stealth, which meant they could simply break down the door to the community building. But first, they had to reach it, and so far, none of them had been successful.
Gunfire echoed through the night. Growls, screeches, and roars rose up on the wind, adding to the violent symphony. Bodies littered the dirt path that stretched between the rows of cabins, both human and lion, their eyes wide and unseeing. Most had been felled by bullets, but a few bore deep teeth and claw marks that bled black in the moonlight.
Thea battled a lioness beyond the front steps of the main building. While the female was larger and had more muscle, Thea was faster, more agile, and honestly, more ruthless. She held her own, keeping the lioness at bay as they snarled and hissed at each other.
Lynk’s heart sank when a second female joined the fight. No matter how skilled, there was no way Thea could take on both of them, and he was too far away to offer her aid. Even as she swiped at one, the other leapt. Thea jackknifed out of the way, avoiding the brunt of the attack, but she screeched when sharp claws embedded in her shoulder and dragged her to the ground.
Lynk sprinted toward her, throwing up clouds of dust behind him as his paws dug into the dirt. Twenty feet away, he was jolted off course, the impact enough to knock the breath out of him. He hit the ground hard and rolled, his claws scrabbling for purchase as he struggled to gain his feet. Disoriented, he whipped around, searching for his attacker, and came face to face with an enormous male lion.
His wild, thick mane marked him out as an older, more experienced member of the pride. In their shifted forms, Lynk had at least two hundred pounds on his opponent, but the male still posed a significant challenge. They circled each other, pawing at the cold earth as they bared their fangs and snarled.
Lynk didn’t want to kill him. There had already been so much needless death, but when the male lunged at him, three-inch claws extended and teeth bared, he didn’t hesitate. Using his head and shoulders, he plowed into the male’s chest, screeching when those lethal fangs pierced the back of his neck. He rose up on his hind legs, using his superior strength to dislodge the lion, then twisted at the hips to flip the male onto his back.
One swipe to his exposed belly was all it took to end the fight.
Turning his attention back to the main building, he searched for Thea, but the puma was gone, and so were the lionesses she’d been fighting. Instead, he found Deidra, cutting a path to the steps of the cabin with a set of daggers. As a she-wolf, she couldn’t shift, but that didn’t make her any less lethal. At first, Lynk thought she was fighting her way into the building. Then, he noticed
the two shadows engaged in a deadly dance on the darkened, covered porch.
Deidra was fast, but not fast enough.
Lynk heard the scream first, followed by a triumphant roar. A body sailed out of the shadows and tumbled down the steps. Izan Wilder, human, and another member of the Valkyrie. He didn’t get up.
Stopping beside him, Deidra bowed her head as if in prayer. Then, her hands flexed around the handles of her blades, her shoulders tensed, and she let out a valiant war cry as she charged up the steps. The lion—another male, though smaller than the one Lynk had dispatched—flew off the porch in a graceful arc, colliding with the she-wolf and knocking them both to the ground.
Daggers forgotten, Deidra grabbed fistfuls of the lion’s mane, using all of her strength to hold the beast at bay. While she was stronger than any human, she was no match for a four-hundred-pound predator. Even as the thought crossed his mind, a streak of black sliced through the night like a bullet to collide with the male.
The two cats tumbled across the ground, clawing and spitting until the panther gained the upper hand. Outmatched, however, his advantage didn’t last long, and he found himself tossed at least four feet into the air.
The lion was dead by the time Deke landed, one of Deidra’s daggers protruding from his chest.
Another explosion rocked the ground, causing a momentary halt in the fighting. Lynk’s chest constricted as he wondered if this loss had been friend or foe. The answer to that mystery became much less important when he noticed the smoke spiraling up from the back of the main building.
He heard the crackle of flames before he saw the first flicker, but it took virtually no time at all for the entire community center to be engulfed by the fire. Orange light illuminated the darkness, creating the illusion of daybreak as the inferno reached epic proportions.
Still, the battle raged. The entire settlement reeked of blood and smoke, and still, the pride fought, unwilling to surrender. So much death and destruction, and it had all been for nothing. They’d failed.
