Page 43

Harper

It was right about now I realised I’d made a very big mistake.

“Mack’s here.”

Dax grinned, all fangs flashing as he shoved me against the wall.

The bruises on my arms now had a headache to keep them company.

I winced and let out a little hiss, which dragged Mr. Fucking Crazy Pant’s attention right back to me.

Dax was like a fucking cat, intent on playing with a mouse until it ‘broke.’ I was just trying to stay alive, because apparently my cavalry wasn’t very effective.

Of course, that was the moment an explosion rocked the den.

Well, wasn’t it reassuring to see rocks dropping from the ceiling to the ground?

“What the fuck was that?”

In my mind, I’d started to call this guy Weasel. A wolf shifter and one of Dax’s associates, but he was the skinniest, mangiest looking dude I’d ever seen. He flinched as the more debris dropped, which I admit I was doing the same. But I wasn’t a supposedly bad ass shifter, was I?

“How about you go and take a look?” Dax snarled, forcing all of his flunkies to go scrambling.

Fine by me. That stopped them from leering every time his back was turned, making clear they were looking forward to their turn.

And I was just as determined that none of them would get within ten feet of me.

I straightened up, ensuring I didn’t make eye contact with Dax, because oh baby, had I underestimated the threat Mack’s brother posed.

We all had.

That made me feel sad, mad, then really, really bad, because that meant Mack had been going through this crap, living with this nutbag and a father that was even worse, only for us to blithely dismiss his concerns.

“So.” Dax’s hand slapped down on the wall above my head, pretty much just to watch me jump. That jagged smile was back in force. “Where were we?”

“Playing Little Red Riding Hood?” Look, when I’m scared, I blather complete bullshit, OK? “Oh, what big teeth you have!”

“Doesn’t that mean I get to?—”

“Dax!”

There was no sound sweeter than Mack’s shout. Hang on, make that Mack’s shout and the snarl of tigers, and the roar of bears, accompanied by the screams of what I assumed were Dax’s associates. Maybe the cavalry had finally arrived.

“Go time,” Dax snapped, grabbing my arm and disregarding my little yelp of pain as he hauled me towards the door. “I’m going to kill my brother and those weaklings you call mates, then fuck you on their still-warm corpses.”

“Didn’t you say that before?”

Shut up, Harper! I told myself. Shut the fuck up!

He didn’t get to answer, because that was the moment he threw the door wide, the two of us emerging out into the sunlight.

Police officers pulled out their guns, aiming them at Dax, but he held me close.

“Nothing says big alpha male like using a woman as a meat shield,” I muttered.

The cops were here, but where the hell were my guys?

A roar caught my attention as a very familiar looking bear emerged from the bushes, tossing a now limp body onto the ground.

A groan made clear that Weasel was still alive, just. I tried to feel sorry for him, I really did, but then I remembered Daria’s bruises.

Maybe Bear Boy needed to tread on Weasel’s head and pop it like a watermelon, accidentally on purpose, of course.

Tor tiger emerged seconds later, several smaller tigers at his side as they threw their victims down.

“Let. Harper. Go.”

Pretty sure Mack holding a rifle, the butt against his shoulder, the muzzle trained on his brother’s head, wasn’t how Dax saw this going. The rumbly snarl in his chest confirmed that.

“You’ve been living amongst the humans for too long, brother.” Dax spat that title out. “Lowering yourself to use their weapons against me.”

“Let Harper go and I’ll fight you with fangs and claws,” Mack replied, his eyes never leaving the rifle sight. “We can scrap this out, finally find out who ends up on top.”

“Me.”

Dax’s grip on me loosened as he went to thump on his chest, and I didn’t need someone to draw a map for me.

My pathetic little human instincts said run, run, run, and so I did.

Dax snarled, ready to lunge after me, but Mack squeezed off a shot, the bullet hitting the ground inches from Dax’s hand.

That and the fact a massive bear and tiger were at my sides in seconds, roaring their defiance, had Daxy boy questioning his life decisions.

You know when people realise they’ve fucked everything up?

Yeah, watching Dax come to grips with the situation he was in was delicious, now I had hundreds of kilos of furry fury by my side.

His face fell, his eyes going wide as he stared at the people I’d managed to gather together.

Mira and Dina emerged from the bushes, freshly dressed and smirking as they tossed empty grenades behind them.

Even Anya and Tor’s grandmother appeared seconds later.

Bears shifted back into Kieran’s dads, but there were far more than just them.

The quarry filled with naked men, leaving the cops somewhat nonplussed.

“Put the gun down!” one of the detectives snapped. “Now!”

The rustle of the other officers redirecting the aim of their guns at Mack had him putting his hands up, then slowly lowering the rifle to the ground. They moved forward to take it from him and arrest the two of them.

But that was never going to be the way this went down.

I saw the futility then. Family was a bond that seemed to be unbreakable, and when it turned dysfunctional, it forced you and everyone else in that family to keep repeating the same shit over and over.

A scream built in my chest as I saw Dax lunge forward, ready to warn Mack, but he knew. This was all so very familiar.

The mental link that formed the moment Mack marked me snapped back into place right now.

Rather than hear his very annoying thoughts, I saw, felt, exactly what he was going through.

Again, that was his gut reaction. The people who were supposed to love him, have his back, were trying to end his existence again.

The scream rattled in my chest, escaping the moment I saw Dax shift into a massive black wolf.

But Mack would never need my warning. He’d prepared his whole life for just this moment.

His transition from man to wolf was so very smooth.

Muzzle pulled back, his fangs flashed as he crashed into Dax, clamping down as they both crashed to the ground.

Wolf Mack shook his head from side to side, as if to break Dax’s neck, but he had his brother’s thick ruff in his jaws, not his throat.

Dax whirled around and lunged at Mack, but Mack wasn’t there.

In a blink, he was in human form, grinning through a mask of red blood, his fingers transformed into claws that he used to rake down his brother’s side, right as the wolf lunged.

Mack was back in fur in a blink, sailing over Dax’s back and then landing neatly on his feet.

“Split shifting…” Tor said, coming back to skin beside me. “I didn’t know he could do that.”

“And we need to leave him to it.” Kieran grabbed my arm, a frown forming when I winced. My sleeve was peeled back, his head shaking as he saw the marks there. “And get you some help.”

“And who’s helping Mack?”

I jerked my arm free and turned in time to see the black wolf slam the grey into the ground. When his jaws lunged forward, ready to snap down on Mack’s bare throat, I was moving. Their shouts, the cops, everyone’s, ignored as I ran across the clearing, collecting up the discarded rifle.

Nanna had lived on the farm she bought with my grandfather for most of her life.

Spending time there on the holiday breaks, I picked up some skills most city girls missed out on.

I was dimly aware of a whole lot of noise coming from behind me, but focussed on aiming the gun instead.

The rifle felt a little weird, but I knew to set the stock against my shoulder, using the bolt action to load a bullet into the chamber.

“Aim true.” I could hear my grandmother’s voice in my ear. “Focus, then shoot.”

Easy when it was just a couple of cans lined up on a fence post. Not so easy when it was two wolves trying to kill each other.

Dax wolf made a muffled snarl of victory, ready to savage Mack, but that turned into a wail when Mack wolf’s claws raked his unprotected belly.

Blood splattered across the ground, Dax whining in obvious pain, but Mack kept on moving.

Head down, muzzle bloodied, his intent was clear.

Mack had insisted that the only way forward for us was when Dax was dead.

Perhaps that’s why he came back to skin right now.

“Looks like living with humans didn’t weaken you like I hoped.” Dax tried for a self-deprecating smile, but that was ruined by him spitting blood onto the ground.

“Tell me we can finish this idiot, Tor.” Mira appeared beside us, a fierce snarl on her face. “My tiger was not satisfied with dispatching his flunkies.”

Tor shook his head slowly.

“This is Mack’s fight.”

I blinked, hoisting the rifle higher, tracking Dax’s every move, especially when Mack came back to skin.

“Are we done?” Mack threw his arms wide, blood smears revealing all the little scars across his body.

“Is this finished?” He glanced around, as if seeing the police for the first time.

“It didn’t have to be this way. The past doesn’t have to be repeated over and over again, getting bloodier and more shit with each iteration. ”

He paced in a circle around the now panting Dax.

“You’re my brother. We shared everything, including a womb.

It should have been me and you out there, trying to find our mate.

” Dax glanced at me, then sneered, but the expression had none of its former ferocity.

“But you… You had to take on Dad’s toxic bullshit.

” Mack looked up at the quarry behind his brother.

“I can’t believe I put my life on hold for you.

Lived in fear of the moment you’d rise up and try to take everything from me.

You’re nothing.” Dax jerked back at that.

“You always were. Picking on those that are weaker than you, living in a hole like a fucking animal.”

“Better than putting on a skin suit, pretending to be something you’re not,” Dax replied. He rose to his feet on shaking legs. “You think you’re the hero of this story.” He scanned the crowd. “You all do. In your minds, he’s saving his pretty mate from the mad, bad shifter, but I know the truth.”

That jagged smile, it still sent a wave of cold fear rushing through me.

“Will Harper whimper when your hand goes around her throat? Will she make that tiny little sound of pain, right before you snap her neck? Maybe in front of the sons you get on her, passing on the legacy.” Dax stood before Mack now, a cruel smile on his lips.

“Let them stare into their mother’s now empty eyes, until the flies come to lay their eggs in them. ”

“You fucking bastard…”

Dax knew Mack was going to punch his claws into him for this insult, but he was already there.

He ducked under Mack’s arm, his own claws ready to stab into his chest. He had to know the only way he was leaving this quarry was in cuffs or a body bag, and he’d made a decision for the both of them.

Joined in death, as they were in the womb.

But Dax hadn’t anticipated me.

Mack was mine. I felt that as surely as the now rapid beat of my heart. Blood coursed through my veins, pushing adrenaline with it that had my aim shifting, his forehead in sight, right before I pulled the trigger.

Dax jerked like a downed stag. One minute he was moving, the next he was lying in a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood.

Mack trembled, pulling his thrust at the last minute, but it wasn’t Dax he attended to, but me.

Closing the gap in seconds, the rifle was yanked from my grip and tossed to the ground, one of the officers rushing forward to take possession of it as his hands went to my shoulders.

“Harper…?”

There was too much to say, too much to ask, but neither of us had the words for it.

Cops were shouting, had been shouting for some time.

So were all the shifters, because they’d formed a wall around us.

I let out a really ugly pig snort, delayed shock, I’m sure, right before Mack swept me into his arms.