A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(2)

He laughed. “Aye, I do. But the only moves I’m showing you here, pet, are the ones that might keep you alive if the Daemons return. Come now,” he said, crouching low and beginning to circle her. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Fifteen minutes later, he took a break, letting one of his subordinates lead the training as he grabbed his towel and wiped the sweat from his brow and the back of his neck. Jill, one of his lieutenants, joined him, her long legs encased in black fighting pants, her smile as warm and inviting as an Irish pub on a cold winter’s night as she handed him a cup of water.

“I’ve never seen so many female Therians wanting to learn to fight,” she murmured. “Most of them have no business here.”

Kieran shrugged. “They want to learn how to defend themselves.”

Jill snorted. “What they want is a chance at your bed. You’re a legend, you know.”

Aye, he did, though he was well used to it.

He glanced around the room and found nearly two-thirds of the class paying more attention to his movements than to their opponents’. No coincidence, two-thirds of the class was female. He’d been blessed or cursed—he often couldn’t decide which—with the ability to draw females like bees to honey whether he wanted to or not. They watched him with eyes full of invitation, the bolder ones offering themselves freely.

“When the call went out to the Therian enclaves to get their people in fighting shape, every female in the British Isles chose our group to train with. I wonder why,” Jill added dryly.

Kieran took a long swig of the cool water and smiled. “You jealous, pet?”

Her expression turned serious. “I could be, Kieran. If I thought I could ever truly win your heart.”

Inside, he squirmed. This was the discussion he loathed, for he truly hated the thought of hurting her. Of hurting any of them.

“I’ve no heart to give you, Jill,” he said quietly, regretfully.

“So you’ve told me many a time, but you’re wrong, Kieran. You’ve a big heart in that finely hewn chest. You just haven’t met the right female, yet. And as much as I wish otherwise, I’m not the one.”

No, she wasn’t. No woman was, as he tried to tell them all. He’d watched one woman whom he’d loved more than his own life die. It didn’t matter that she’d been his sister, not his lover. Over the centuries, he’d watched good friends take mates in a ritual that bound one to the other body and soul, and watched as one died and the one left behind suffered untold agony, unable to fully live again. Mating bonds between the immortals was far more than a simple promise to love and cherish. They could not be severed. No, he would never take a mate. If losing his sister could hurt so much, how much more would losing a wife? He’d long ago decided that love of any kind led to heartache and nothing more. He was better off without it.

He hooked his arm around Jill’s neck and placed a kiss on her cheek. “You’re a fine thing, pet. And I love you in my way, you know that.”

“Aye, I know it, Kieran. I know it.”

Releasing Jill, he turned his attention back to the class, ignoring the females, too many of whom were still paying him more mind than they were their opponents. Two of the males caught his attention, one of the smaller men whom Kieran had already pegged as a future leader, and a beefy Welshman with a look in his eye that Kieran didn’t like—a hard gleam Kieran suspected revealed a mean streak. Either the attitude or the male were going to have to go.

As Kieran watched, the Welshman’s opponent, quick and tough, managed to throw the bigger man. A flash caught Kieran’s eye, light reflecting on metal, as the Welshman, still on his arse, swung out. A knife, dammit. The blade sliced through the smaller man’s thigh in a spray of blood.

Feck.

Kieran reached him in a dozen angry strides, slammed his fist through the wanker’s face as he ripped the knife from his hand, then threw the blade hard, burying it deep in one of the wood ceiling beams.

“What did I tell you on the first day of training?” he shouted. “No knives! No. Knives.”

The Welshman leaped to his feet, fury in his eyes. And suddenly those eyes began to change to animal eyes as only a true shifter’s ever would.

Bloody hell.

As Kieran stared, fangs dropped from the blackguard’s mouth, and the wanker began to laugh. Though he’d yet to shift, and wouldn’t until he’d been brought into his animal during a ritual performed by the rest of the Feral Warriors, it was clear the fox shifter had been chosen. Even the newly marked could pull fangs and claws—what the shifters called going feral.

He stared at the wanker. The finest in the fox shifter line? Well, bloody fecking hell.

The new Feral Warrior swung, for once catching Kieran off guard. Too late, Kieran realized that the hand coming for him was now filled with sharp claws. He felt those claws rip down his face, from temple to jaw, removing skin and muscle, showering him in his own warm blood.

Pain burned through his face as he healed. Fury roared through his mind at the fact that this ass**le had been chosen to defend the race. Over him.

With a growl, Kieran threw a punch, intending to show the bastard he could still take him, but his hand didn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . close and he wound up scratching the Welshman instead. No, not scratching . . . clawing. He stared at the flesh now hanging from the man’s shocked face. And at the bloody claws where a moment ago his own fingernails had been.