CHAPTER TWENTY
Nothing could've prepared me for the fury of the big gray wolf, who moments ago was pacing quietly beside me, exploding out of the forest.
Jackson doesn't give the ten or more wolves in front of the Merrick house a chance to retreat, to fight back, to do anything but die under his powerful jaws. And Jeremy? He's no lightweight either.
But me? I freeze, stunned by their speed and their violence.
On the edge of the front porch is Loren and another shifter, who I'm guessing is another Merrick because they're the only ones who haven't shifted. In their hands are rifles, and it takes no stretch of the imagination for me to guess what they've loaded the guns with.
Tranquilizer darts.
They not only knew we were coming, but they'd prepared for us.
Looks like Jackson was right about them not trusting him.
All I can do is stare as they fire dart after dart at Jackson and Jeremy, and the Stone brothers just… keep on fighting as if they're being bothered by flies.
Loren's face twists in disgust before she flings her rifle away and stalks inside.
That's the thing with tranquilizer darts. It's hit and miss. Although it's more likely to work on us in our wolf shape, there's no guarantee it'll work at all. And when it does work, it's hard to know how it'll affect us.
Sickness is a known side effect, but there are other, more serious ones, like a sudden heart attack.
Luckily, I seem to have got away with a milder reaction than some, and most definitely than Talis. Maybe it's because Loren hadn't dosed me up to the extent Glynn Merrick did to her, or maybe my body just handles it better, I can't say.
As far as I can tell, the darts don't seem to have any effect on Jackson and Jeremy, and it looks like Loren's plan to end the fight with a rifle from a nice safe place has just gone out the window.
She should've learned from Glynn Merrick that there's no such thing as an easy win. Not when you're dealing with shifters. If she wants the Stone brothers dead, it looks like she's going to have to get her hands dirty.
Now, with the rifles rendered useless, the other shifter tosses his gun aside and shrugs out of his shirt to shift, and that's my sign to join the fray.
How Jeremy and Jackson knew about the Merrick packs fondness for tranquilizer darts is another mystery Jeremy hasn't revealed, but, before we shifted, they made me promise to stay back until they were out of play.
While I'd like to think that Jackson saw the rifles or one of the shifters let on they had them, I have a feeling they knew about the rifles in the same way they knew about our fight with the Merrick pack. Namely, that they've been in Dawley much longer than a few days or weeks. That or they've been speaking with Dayne.
Even though I know I should've joined the fight by now, I don't move, because I'm realizing that Jeremy was right. My being here wasn't a good idea. At all.
I'm in way over my head.
This is… too much. Way too much.
The blood, the death, the snarls, the pain, all overwhelm me.
In my wolf shape, I back up a step.
Jackson uses his larger body to force a snarling gray-brown wolf to the ground before he lowers his head and tears out his throat.
My heart labors as I stare at the pool of blood forming under the dead shifter, and I think of all the blood under Angel's door.
From several feet away, a wolf snarls. It's a sound that's familiar to me, even though it's one I've only heard coming from a man's mouth.
I jerk my head to the side and see Jeremy, a less hulking version of Jackson with hazel eyes, standing over the body of a dead wolf, eyes fixed on mine, and there's a question in his eyes.
He wants to know if I'm okay.
A wolf takes advantage of his distraction and lunges at him. When they go down, my eyes are drawn back to the blood.
In it, I see my nightmares. I see death. I feel something evil, and I know it's coming for me.
That's when I hear him. Owen.
He's found where I've been hiding.
Blood, still fresh, covers his face and that's all I can focus on as he crouches in front of me with a smile I don't trust. "Time to shift now, Savannah. Angel couldn't be what I needed, but you can. But first I need you to shift."
Even though it's the last thing I want-the absolute last thing-he's my alpha, and I'm afraid. So, I nod, and I shift.
An enraged growl drags me from my memories, and I blink at the sight of Jackson fighting off three wolves at once. But that's not all that's happening in front of me.
Jeremy takes a wolf down and shoots me a look loaded with meaning.
And then I realize what I've done.
In the middle of a fight, I've shifted to human, and Jeremy isn't the only one who's noticed.
Two wolves turn away from Jeremy and toward me, their mouths gaping open in a wolfy grin. But their eyes…
I see the darkness in their eyes, and that's when I know what Jeremy was telling me to do.
Run.
I sprint through the forest, dodging trees, running as if my life depends on it, because right now? You can bet your ass that it does.
All I need is two minutes. Two minutes to calm my frantic heartbeat, and to silence my fear long enough to shift back.
I need to buy myself some time.
On the heels of my thought, a solid weight hits me in the back and I go down, cracking my head on the ground hard enough to stun me.
But just as I'm preparing to meet my maker, the weight is suddenly gone, and I hear the vicious growls of a fight happening somewhere behind me.
Jeremy.
He came after me.
As I'm getting my feet under me, someone grabs my hair and jerks me forward.
I cry out and reach up to tear the hands free, but the grip is merciless.
Never have I hated having long hair so fucking much as I do this minute, so much so, I have serious thoughts about cutting it off if I manage to survive this.
But right now, I'm blinded by my own hair, and whoever has hold of me is strong enough to make the grip unbreakable.
He drags me across the forest floor and away from Jeremy, who sounds like he's in a fight against more than just the wolf who tackled me.
Which means I'm on my own.
I don't beg for my life or scream or cry because I can see two ways this is going to go, and both versions end up with me dead.
Finally, when he's dragged me a few feet away, he stops and flings me so hard against a tree that the blow makes everything go black.
I lay in a crumpled heap at the base of the tree as I try to stop myself from passing out.
Now is not the time to be helpless and unconscious, Savannah.
"You with me yet?" The male voice is distant as if I'm at a bottom of a well. One that echoes.
I shake my head to focus on it, but I keep wanting to close my eyes.
A harsh voice penetrates my daze at the same moment I feel something poking me in the same place the shifter stabbed me. Right under my rib.
"Not even a scar. I can't say I'm not a little disappointed. I'd hoped to leave you with something to remember me by."
My alarm turns into icy dread because I know who this shifter is.
I remember his smile as he stabbed me in the hotel foyer.
I struggle to get up.
The shifter grabs a handful of my hair and smashes my head against the tree. Hard. I slump back to the ground with a moan of pain.
And then, randomly, I remember… Jeremy.
A vision flashes in front of my eyes.
It's Jeremy, holding me in his arms, his lips pressed against my brow as I moan in pain. He grabs a towel and presses it to my chest, only seconds later it's soaked with blood, and he replaces it with another, and then another.
Why would I be thinking about Jeremy now?
The shifter is speaking, but his words are merging with Jeremy's and it's hard to focus on one.
"Baby, I need you to wake up. I need you to be okay," Jeremy is saying.
I turn to his voice because I don't want to hear what this shifter with the cold eyes plans to do with me. He's like Abel. Like Owen. A predator.
Instead, I turn to Jeremy's voice.
"I fell in love with you the moment you walked into the bar."
I go still at hearing his murmur against my hair.
He said he told me about all the things he'd do to the shifter who stabbed me, not that he loved me.
"You were this vision from my dream. This mass of sunlight hair, those big stormy blue eyes filled with shadows. You didn't belong there. You didn't belong anywhere near someone like me. But somehow, you were mine."
Someone like him?
"I knew I wouldn't let you go. I knew I'd do everything I could to keep you. And when you said all you wanted was a one-night stand, I knew that was impossible because you belonged with me. Forever."
I grunt at a sharp pain in my side. I guess the shifter wants to have a bit of fun with me before he puts me out of my misery.
"You left before I could tell you how I felt. Before I could show you that you were already in my heart, and I was already in yours, from that first night."
Jeremy's words don't make any sense, and I fight to remember that first night in his apartment as another kick leaves me gasping in agony.
That first night.
The first night we fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, so close there wasn't a bit of space between us. We breathed the same air. We were… a perfect fit. Meant to be.
A flutter deep inside me makes me catch my breath.
Mate.
Our mate bond was forming-had formed even before he bit me. He was my mate. Right from the start.
My fated mate.
Impossible.
It's so rare, it almost never happens. I don't know anyone with a fated mate. I don't know anyone who even knows anyone with a fated mate.
Only now I do. Me and Jeremy.
The blows keep coming, but I don't feel them anymore.
I reach for Jeremy because he should be there, inside my heart, in that place reserved for your mate. And I find him. Right there, buried among all my pain, all my guilt, all the darkest parts of me, where I try never to look.
But all those places are in my heart. Right where the piece of Jeremy lives. I see his light, his love, his… bond with me.
I know it's always been there. No, not know, I feel it.
He's always been there, but I never thought to look.
No wonder he always knew me. No wonder he could always tell when I was holding things back.
"No, sweet. That's not the bond. I just know you. Now, before you kill me. Use some of that strength you reserve for fighting me and put this guy out of his misery."
I still at the sound of Jeremy's voice. Except this is no memory, but him. Right here, with me.
Mentally, I shake my head. He's wrong about me, and I try to tell him.
"I don't have any strength, I don't have-"
Jeremy shoves so many memories at me, I struggle to see them all at once.
He shows me all the times I refused to back down, all the times I argued back, all the times I stared him down, shoved back, broke Jackson's nose, refused to give in, came to Dawley to rescue Talis, stayed to fight because stopping these shifters was important. So important, I was willing to risk my life to do it.
He shows me more strength than I thought I had.
"There's more. But I wouldn't want you getting a big head. Now get up, sweet. And fight." Jeremy's voice is tinged with amusement, but anger too.
He knows what the shifter's doing to me, and I'm just lying here and taking it.
Anger stirs.
No. This isn't anger stirring, this is rage.
There's an ocean of it reserved for people like him. People like this shifter. Predators who think they can do whatever they want-hurt whomever they want-and be able to get up and walk away. They leave behind a trail of devastation. Broken people. Shattered hearts.
Dayne put three down, and it's about time I did the same.
"Hey!" I choke out.
The shifter stops kicking me, and I feel him move closer.
I open my eyes and find him crouched in front of me, excitement stirring in the dark depths of his gaze.
"Have you decided to fight? I hoped you would. It always makes things more interesting. I'll give you a minute to get up if you want or-"
My hand lashes out and locks tight around his throat. I squeeze and he chokes. And then I shove with all my rage, all my fury.
I am not weak, and I am not something for him to toy with. I might not have been strong enough to stop Owen, but I can stop this guy. No problem.
The shifter goes flying.
I get to my feet, ignoring all my aches and all my pains, never taking my eyes off him.
He slowly sits up with a smile of anticipation on his face, and my vision changes as my wolf studies him with disgust, mired with fury.
No mercy.
My wolf and I are in perfect agreement.
I launch myself at him, forcing myself into the fastest change of my life.
Only an alpha can shift on the move in seconds, and this guy made a big mistake staying human. A mistake that's going to cost him his life, because he's no alpha.
I see the moment of realization dawning in his eyes as he scrambles back, his hand going to protect his throat.
A second later, I'm landing on him as a wolf and I'm tearing out his throat.
"Well, I'll be. Pretty, and deadly. I do like her, Jer."
I turn from the dead shifter beneath my jaws to find Jackson leaning against a tree, his arms folded over his chest.
But he isn't my focus. Jeremy, still in his wolf shape, looking as if he were rushing to get to the shifter, only I beat him to it, is.
I watch him shift, quickly, easily, not as fast as my shift but fast all the same.
Once he's human, it's my turn, and I take a second to wipe the dead shifter's blood from my face. Since I can't do anything about the taste of his blood in my mouth, I don't bother.
"Hey, sweet," Jeremy says, his eyes unreadable.
"Hey."
We regard each other in silence.
"That was some shift," he says.
I see it so clearly in his eyes then, the knowledge that he's mine, that he's my fated mate, and I don't know how I missed it all this time.
"You're an ass," I snap.
He blinks at me.
Jackson snorts. "Yep."
"What did I do to deserve that?" Jeremy asks.
"For not telling me. That's what. You're the biggest ass in the world because-" My eyes fill with tears, and his expression turns to horror as he rushes over to me.
"Hey, don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry." He gathers me in his arms and spins me so I've got my back to Jackson.
"Stop shooting panicked glances at Jackson. I'm not acting hysterical," I snarl against his chest.
Jackson laughs, and I hear him walking away. "I'll leave you to it, brother."
I pull away so I can glare at Jeremy. "Why didn't you tell me? I never would've left if you'd just… told me." I can't hold the tears back and they start flowing again.
Jeremy folds me into his arms and presses his lips against my hair. "I'm sorry, sweet."
"You'd better be." I burrow my face against his neck. "And, we need to talk to each other, because Jeremy, we need to talk."
Jeremy presses his lips against my brow. "We will."
"And I'll kill you if you hide something that big from me again."
"I know."
"I'm being serious. I will. I'll toss you from the balcony or I'll drown you in the bath."
He eases back and tilts my head up to his. "I know you will." His eyes are smiling.
"And I love you."
The smile in his eyes touches his lips, and he bends them to mine. "I know that too."
"And do you-"
"Sweet, don't even think about asking me such a stupid question. I know you're a model but-"
I grab his hair and pull his face down. Because I have to kiss him. No, because I need to.
Jeremy wraps his arms around me and kisses me back.
It's heaven, or it would be if we weren't both covered in blood and sharing a space with a dead body. But otherwise, it's perfect.