Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(38)

“Fuuuuck!” Bryson bellowed. “Fuck! Why?” He gripped his hair and wanted to kill everything. If she didn’t exist…if that angel didn’t exist…what right did anyone else have? “Why?” he asked again raggedly.

“She ain’t gonna die,” Wes said softly, quickening his stride. He was limping deeply, probably on account of the battle they’d fought at the Kaids against the rest of the pack. His leg was hemorrhaging blood from just under his knee. “I won’t let her.”

“You and I both know there ain’t no saving her.”

“I don’t know any such shit!” Wes screamed, his veins in his neck popping, his cheeks red as blood. “And neither do you! She ain’t gonna die.”

And he could see it there in Wes’s eyes. The un-spilled tears. The pain that old wolf had never let him see an ounce of. “If she’s yours, she’s ours.” Wes spat in the dirt and started limping toward the Kaid Brother’s Ranch again.

Chills rippled up his forearms, but maybe it was just the cold wind.

“What can we do for her?” Bryson asked, jogging to catch up. He took her from Wes’s arms, ignoring the pain of all the wolf bites that had ruined his skin. His hurt didn’t matter right now, only Maris’s.

Wes huffed a breath and winced as he struggled to keep up with the new running pace Bryson set. “It’s not what we can do. It’s what Hunter can do for her. My moron brother has been researching how to Turn a female since the day he turned sixteen. He’s a breeder, that one. Has always wanted a mate to take care of, and he wanted to find the safest way to Turn one. I always told him he was a fuckin’ idiot for wasting his time, but he knows a lot about a lot. If anyone can push her through this, it’s her being a strong-ass woman and him with his nerd shit. Problem is, Hunters fuckin’ out. When I left him, he was hurt bad. All I could do was wrap him in a shirt and take off for this place after you. You cut out so damn fast, I figured the other two missing from the pack were fuckin’ with Maris.”

Confused, Bryson said, “You left your brother behind to help me?”

Wes ghosted him a look that Bryson couldn’t read before he said, “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Nope, he didn’t. He didn’t understand anything right now other than the need to get Maris to the ranch. She was his. She’d sealed herself into his heart, and then the heart of his bear tonight before the wolves had come. They were bonded now, and losing her wasn’t an option.

Maris’s body seized and a long, low growl emanated from her chest. Go easy on her, Wolf. The black tendrils of the poison from the wolf bite were stretching past her collar bone and into her shoulder.

Bryson pushed his legs faster when he saw the fence for Kaid territory. Getting close now. “Hold on, Maris,” he murmured, hugging her tighter against his chest.

As long as she was breathing, hope existed.





Chapter Eighteen


“This won’t do,” Mom murmured, moving the rook across the chess board.

“What won’t?” Maris asked, frowning at the board, debating her next move.

“All that howling.”

Maris looked up at Mom and listened hard, but all she could hear was the ticking of the old grandfather clock that sat near the front door. “I don’t hear any howling.”

“I’m going to leave you everything,” Mom said.

Maris huffed a sigh and leaned back in her creaking chair. “I don’t need anything. You’ll be here forever.”

Mom rested her chin on her clasped hands and smiled. There was pride there. It struck Maris as so familiar. A boy was proud of her, too. No…a man. The memory of his face sat right on the edge of her mind. Out the window something massive moved across the yard.

“What’s out there?” Maris asked, standing.

“You know.” It wasn’t her mother’s voice who answered her, though. Sitting where Mom had sat was a man with chin-length hair and blue feline eyes trained on the chessboard. His cowboy hat was pulled low, but she recognized him. Wessssleeeey Kaiiiid.

“You can’t leave him,” he said. “It ain’t fair to us.”

“To who?”

Wes looked up at her with clear blue trouble etched into those too-bright eyes. “The ones who will have to put him back together. You’re the glue. He’ll break in a dozen pieces, and I don’t know how to fix it. Only you do. So you can’t leave him. Can’t leave us.”

She didn’t understand. She looked back out the window, and a monstrous grizzly paced there, right on the edge of the tree line. He was dark brown with paws the size of her head and eyes the color of spun gold. Back and forth, he paced. Back and forth.

When she turned back around, Wes was gone and so was her childhood home. She was in Tap’s, and a slow country song was playing on the jukebox. She was standing alone in the middle of the dancefloor. At the bar sat a man she used to know. One she thought she’d loved, but now she barely felt anything. Dallas. He turned and lifted a beer. He said, “I always knew you were going to be better without me.”

“Do you want to dance?” a man asked softly from behind her.

Maris turned, and there he was. Her heart opened up, and it felt like she was a flower blossoming after a long winter. Butterflies existed inside her because he was smiling down at her with that pride. That pride. She made a person proud to be around her. You are enough.