Lowlander Silverback (Gray Back Bears #5)(29)

“He’s my best friend. He kept me sane before Willa came along. Kong bought me time until she found me. Layla?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him Mac wasn’t her real father. He felt like it anyway. “Thanks.”

“I don’t remember mine.”

She jerked her gaze to Matt and frowned. “How old were you when he died?”

“He didn’t die. Or maybe he did, I don’t know. I was taken from my parents young. Look, what Rhett did…he didn’t do that because he’s a shifter. He did it because he is a murderous *.”

“I know.”

Matt dared a glance at her, then returned his attention back to the road. “I just didn’t want you thinking all shifters are like that.”

She offered him an understanding smile, then sighed and drew her knees up to her chest. Matt turned on the music a few minutes later to drown out the silence of the cab, but not even the soft notes of country love songs could settle the nerves in her stomach. She knew what she could and couldn’t handle, and she was on the brink now. If anything happened to Kong…

She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. Mac was gone, and now Kong was everything good in her life.

And he should’ve been back by now.

The drive stretched on and on, suffocating her slowly until she cracked the window for some fresh air and relief. Matt did the same, and when he looked at her, his eyes were churning light silver. He gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white as he drove down a black asphalt road that looked newly poured. Storm clouds roiled over them, threatening to unleash a shower of pelting rain at any moment. Kong’s car sat at an angle in front of a cabin. Cedar logs and a green roof with a wraparound porch. This place was beautiful. She would’ve dreamed of living here with Kong someday if it weren’t for the blood trailing up the porch stairs and into the front door.

A soft growl came from Matt, and his nostrils flared as he scented the air. “Stay here.”

“No,” she rasped, forcing the word past her tightening throat. “I have to see.”

Matt waited for her to exit the car and took her hand before he led her, angled behind his wide shoulders, toward the cabin. This moment right here was completely surreal. Her legs were floating across the grass and wild flowers. Pink and orange and yellow. And Red. Grass dyed crimson. Burgundy speckles on the delicate petals, and little by little Matt’s grip tightened around her hand until it should’ve hurt. Her bones ground together, but she couldn’t feel anything. There was blood on the toes of her boots, glossy red on matte black.

A man met them at the door, startling her to a stop on the porch, her legs splayed over a dark smear. He was tall and lean. Black hair gone silver at the temples with dark eyes and a young face. He wore dark gray dress pants and a button-up white collared shirt. Red on white. Red on his hands as he wiped them over and over with a ruined washcloth.

“Damon,” Matt said in a choked voice. “Where is he?”

“He needs time.”

“Does he live?”

Damon nodded his chin once. “There were three of them.”

“Fuck.” Matt’s voice shook. “Bodies?”

Damon’s lips turned up in a thin, wry smile. “Gone. Is this her? Mate of the Kong?”

Matt pulled Layla from behind and pushed her in front of him, hands clamped tightly around her shoulders. “This is Layla.”

Damon studied her with black, bottomless eyes that would miss nothing. At last, he placed his hands behind his back and bowed slightly. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is mine,” she whispered. Damon Daye, owner of the mountains, protector of the shifters. The last immortal dragon if rumors were true. And apparently, he’d had a hand in helping Kong. “Can I see him?”

Damon looked troubled, but stepped aside to let her pass. She followed the red to an open door. There was a hand print smeared onto the white paint, and a phone lay on the wooden floor. The screen of the discarded cell phone was covered in sticky fingerprints.

Kong lay on his side in the bed, skin clean but covered in stitches. His chest rose and fell slowly, a soft rattling sound ending each breath. He cracked his eyes open. Green and inhuman. Beautiful. Layla covered her mouth with her hands, and her shoulders shook with the relieved sob that wrenched from her throat. He was alive. Barely, but it counted.

“You stitched him?” Matt asked low.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Damon said. “He’d lost too much blood by the time I got to him, and he wasn’t healing like he should’ve been. He was wide open—”

A long rattling growl sounded from Kong as he blinked and dragged a warning gaze to Damon.

Damon cleared his throat. “Come on, Matt. Let’s give them a moment.”

The sound of scuffling shoes faded away as she approached the bed. Kneeling beside him, she held his hand. “You silly monkey, what have you done?” Her voice was nothing but a wisp of air as she smiled at him through her tears.

“Mac is avenged,” he said hoarsely. “Rhett’s dead.”

“Damon said there were three.”

“Fiona sent the silverbacks that had broken me.”

“Kong,” she whispered in horror, her heart aching for him.