Her Lion Guard - The Complete Series Box Set (BBW Shifter Romance) (15 page)

He knew that he was going to enjoy her blood a lot more.

***

Mary-Lou was cautiously optimistic.

The pack had spent the week following Rowfer’s visit at the Cabin; more precisely, in the Cabin’s basement, scrutinizing each and every relevant book for potential clues to Mary-Lou’s “condition.” In seven days, they had managed to go through over three hundred written works – including some Folklore volumes written in Chinese, courtesy of Jonathon’s translation skills. Irma and Jonathon had been thrilled at the news of Mary-Lou’s yet unknown abilities. They had thrown themselves into figuring out Mary-Lou’s powers with single-minded enthusiasm, completely disregarding the no-doubt important project that had occupied their time for the last month. Mary-Lou was more grateful than she could explain; she hoped  one day to be able to repay their kindness.

The results of the research were much less gratifying. There was not a lot of information regarding supernatural powers in Shifters – outside of the usual human-to-animal metamorphosis,  that is. The only records of individuals who suffered vivid, predictive dreams were of Seers.

Mary-Lou was quite certain she was not a Seer. For one, she had not actually
predicted
anything up to date. She refused to count the single, blood-curdling nightmare her mind played on loop as any sort of sign to the contrary, given that no such events were in immediate danger of happening. Furthermore, would she not be plagued by a number of visions, not the same disturbing one, if she had the power of Sight?

Seers aside, information regarding extra-special Shifters was suspiciously lacking. There must have been some – Mary-Lou was a living, breathing example of how possible it was – yet the written history they perused remained empty of their presence.

“What if they were all human?” Cara had wondered aloud at some point during day five. Her hands bore smudges, of ink, Mary-Lou remembered – left trails of it down her cheek as she pushed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. She had clamped her mouth shut but seconds after the question slipped her tongue, her face going strangely blank.

“What do you mean?” Mary-Lou had asked. When Cara turned to look at Sasha instead, Mary-Lou narrowed her eyes and insisted, “Cara!”

“Um,” Cara hesitated. When Mary-Lou did not back down she lowered her head in submission, hurriedly whispering out, “They might’ve been hiding their powers.”

“Or were killed before they could fully realize them,” Sasha added. Cara threw him a pointed glare; he shrugged, unapologetic, “It’s likely. A human possessing supernatural powers?” Sasha snorted. “Humans would have believed them devil-followers; Shifters –a threat. Neither would have ended very well for the person in question.”

Mary-Lou had shaken  her head, partly in disbelief, partly in horrified understanding. Jonas drew near, but did not attempt to touch her. Irma and Jonathon remained where they sat surrounded by books, silent.

They remained at the Cabin for two more days. Sasha’s  grim revelation dampened their spirit some, but it also strengthened their resolve. In the end, they had found two volumes of folklore – one Egyptian, the other Japanese – that contained stories and anecdotes pertaining to people with rather familiarly unique powers.

In the present, Mary-Lou laid her hand atop the blue folder containing the scanned pages. She then glanced at Jonas, smiling to find him staring distractedly out of the car window.

“Five minutes tops,” Cara called out from the passenger seat. “You can’t believe how much I missed my bed—
HOLYSHIT
!”

The car lurched sideways, tires screeching shrilly against the cement. Mary-Lou was thrown forward, almost hit the back of Cara’s seat if not for Jonas’ supernatural speed – the Lion Shifter grabbed her and held tight, maintaining his own balance by embedding the claws of his left hand into the upholstery. The back seat will never be the same again; Mary-Lou had a single, delirious moment to consider how much Sasha will bitch (it was an expensive car, and it was
his
), before everything fell still.

“Fucking—!” the rest of Sasha’s angry outburst was lost as the Snake Shifter slammed the driver’s door open and jumped out of the car.

“What happened?” Mary-Lou pushed against Jonas’ solid chest, attempting to free herself enough to see what had enraged their usually mild-mannered friend. When Jonas only growled and held on tighter, she sought Cara’s eyes instead.

“What’s going on?” Mary-Lou demanded. Cara hesitated a moment longer.

“Wiley,” she said, spitting the name out like the very sound of it offended her.

Mary-Lou stilled.

“Let me go,” she told Jonas, voice clear and calm. Jonas held on, seemed as if he wanted to refuse; in the end, he did let her go – reluctantly, and not far. His eyes were electric blue, Mary-Lou noted, his claws fully-extended. He looked as she felt.

Mary-Lou did not slam the car door open, did not scream or curse at the familiar, smug face that leered at her several paces away. She drew to her full height instead, her gait unhurried as she moved to join Sasha and face Wiley and his gang.

“Wiley,” Mary-Lou acknowledged. She felt Jonas stand beside her, saw Cara move to Sasha’s other side; good. Mary-Lou focused cold, glass-green eyes on Wiley, feeling a thrill of satisfaction as something in the man visibly faltered.

Whatever reaction Wiley had been expecting, indifference was not it. Good; keeping one’s opponent imbalanced was the most basic of strategies.

Time to escalate.

“You are trespassing,” Mary-Lou noted. “All of you,” she added, making sure to lock gazes with each and every member of his pack. Most of them bowed their heads or turned their eyes; one glanced at Wiley, briefly, as if to reassure himself that all was fine.

All was not fine. No, not at all.

“My apologies,” Wiley offered after a long, awkward pause. There was no sentiment in his words, their vowels ground between too many teeth.  Mary-Lou narrowed her eyes, tired of the game before it had even begun.

“What do you want?” She asked. The smug smile on Wiley’s face widened, prompting a deep-throated growl from both Jonas and Cara.

“You,” Wiley answered, eyes roving up and down her body.

Mary-Lou stepped in front of Jonas, halting the man just before he had a chance to pounce forward. She could do nothing about the roar he let out, however; a few windows slammed shut, the sidewalk becoming suspiciously empty.

Their neighbors were human, they could not afford—

Mary-Lou winced, understanding dawning. By God, he had gotten them good.

Wiley was not looking for a fight – he had wanted to deliver a message, to extract something without the need to worry about consequences. Slick, cowardly dog – Mary-Lou shook her head and focused, once again, on the smirking Shifter.

“Say what you want and leave,” she told him. Sasha hissed something that Mary-Lou tried very hard not to understand. It sounded like he was threatening to actually
eat
somebody; the two Wolf Shifters who stood nearest to the enraged Snake took a cautious step back.

Wiley was not moved. He was the kind of man who saw hard-headedness as bravery, Mary-Lou thought. A foolish, bumbling brute who understood nothing save violence, if that.

Speak
, she urged,
Speak and leave, before you lose your head
.

“But I did,” Wiley declared, pausing for dramatic effect before finishing with: “I wish to issue a Challenge.”

The three Shifters flanking Mary-Lou froze for all of a moment, before exploding into varying decibels of shouts and angry gestures:

“HOW DARE YOU?” Jonas roared, neatly overlapping Sasha’s “
Over my dead body
.” Cara took a more hands-on approach and flipped the man off, screaming something along the lines of, “You sick fuck!”

Mary-Lou gathered that a Challenge was Not A Good Thing.

“You don’t even know what I said, do you?” Wiley ignored the deadly hostility which faced him, choosing to focus on mocking Mary-Lou instead. That arrogant quirk would bite him in the ass one day, Mary-Lou thought. Still, he was not wrong; she shook her head.

“That matters little,” Wiley grinned, turning to glare challengingly at Jonas. “All I need to know is whether your pet pussy will fight or not.”

Mary-Lou was feeling the urge to hit the dumb man with a stick rather poignantly, herself.

“He won’t,” Mary-Lou answered, just as Jonas snarled a low, “I will.”

“What?” Mary-Lou turned to Jonas, face losing some of its composure. “Jonas, you don’t have to—”

“He does,” Cara interjected. Mary-Lou glanced at her, eyes widening to find the girl sporting fox ears. “Cara, your—” Mary-Lou waved her hand above her own head, frantically scanning their surroundings.

“That’s not important right now!” Cara groaned even as the extra set of ears puffed out of existence. “Mary-Lou, don’t you understand?” she pleaded, “He is trying to
claim
you!”

A numb, cold feeling spread down Mary-Lou’s chest.

“Who?” she asked, needlessly and stupidly.

“Wiley!” Cara barked, more fox than girl. “That ugly fucker, Wiley! He issued a Challenge, which means that he wants to claim you, even though you belong with Jonas – she belongs with Jonas, you sorry ball of fur!” The last was screamed at Wiley, earning nothing but a derisive snort from the man.

“We will see.” Wiley grinned, eyes still on Jonas’ rumbling form. Mary-Lou tightened her grip around her mate’s upper arm, trying to soothe the anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “Two days from now, where I first met Mary-Lou. You don’t show, I come to collect her.” Wiley then turned to his pack, growling out a short command.

They were gone within seconds.

Mary-Lou stared at the empty cement before her, at Jonas’s flushed face. Her mate was trembling against her, his body pained with the need to shift, to chase,
to kill
.

In the end, it took both Mary-Lou and Sasha to ensure Jonas made it to their apartment and
stayed
there. Jonas did not speak a word for the rest of the evening; seemed incapable of it, human voice overtaken by its animal counterpart. Mary-Lou could do nothing but stay by his side, equally silent and sick with worry.

No one slept alone that night: All four of them crammed in Mary-Lou and Jonas’ bed, needing the comfort only physical contact could provide. Mary-Lou pressed against Jonas, hugged Cara close, and tried to ignore the ball of anxiety growing, black and heavy, in the pit of her stomach.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she will ask. Tomorrow, she will know.

Mary-Lou wondered if she would want to, once she did.

C
HAPTER THREE

    The bedroom was dark, silent. Shadows hung from the ceiling, draped over the room and all within it like a shapeless veil. There were only two figures in the spacious bed tonight, the night before it was all to end. They, too, were still and quiet – but not asleep. How could they be, when uncertainty threatened to drown their entire world?

Mary-Lou blinked red-rimmed eyes, trying to keep the blinking digits of the alarm clock in focus. 2:59 AM. She felt her lashes burn where they pressed in the sleep-bruised skin of her eye-sockets, felt tired and too-awake.

For the first night in many weeks, Mary-Lou’s insomnia was not called forth by phantom shadows and bloody dreams. The terror that squeezed her heart was very much warranted, for the danger that loomed over them – over Jonas, over her family – was intolerably real.

Wiley
. Mary-Lou gritted her teeth around a frustrated scream.

What would she give, to have her fears remain locked within her consciousness! When Wiley had first walked toward her – face smug, eyes filled with hate – Mary-Lou had briefly thought him a nightmare: Had believed herself asleep against Jonas in Sasha’s car, safe on her way home. But Wiley had remained stubbornly real; a monster of flesh and blood. And when he had spoken—

Mary-Lou felt Jonas shiver against her, violent and sudden.
Anger
thrummed across their mental bond, hate and passion and fear so potent it shook her to her bones. Hesitantly, Mary-Lou turned to face her lover, gasping to find glassy blue eyes staring hungrily into hers.

Wiley and his disgusting advances had left Mary-Lou shaken, Sasha and Cara – distraught and angry in turns. But Jonas – Jonas had been
enraged
. That first night, it had taken the entire pack and hours of physical contact, of soft words and gentle gestures just to keep Jonas stable. Mary-Lou had felt her mate teeter, felt him pull back from the edge of pure, bloodthirsty insanity more than once. An awful experience for which Wiley, too, was to blame.

“He is going feral,” Cara had whispered sometime in the early morning, face pale and drawn as she regarded her alpha. “Had we not stopped him, he would have chased after them. He would have fought.”

“There were seven of them,” Mary-Lou had gasped out, quickly falling silent as Jonas let out a menacing growl against her neck. She shivered, letting Jonas nuzzle into her and calm himself with her scent.