Unbound: Shifters Forever Worlds(23)

Dane froze.

“Release him now.”

Dane’s jaws slowly pulled apart, blood dripping down Bill’s shoulder.

Dane’s leopard eyes were trained on Basil, as if weighing the option of attacking him instead.

“Don’t,” Glory whispered, knowing that Dane could hear her softly spoken speech with his shifter hearing. “Don’t do it.”

Dane shifted swiftly, his features transforming into the man she loved in a nanosecond.

Broad-shouldered, blue shirt torn and bloody, pants rumpled, his chest heaved with each breath after the exertion he’d been in fighting for her life.

“Untie her,” he demanded of Basil.

“You don’t call the shots here.” Basil moved the blade, digging it deeper into Glory’s flesh.

Glory fought the wince, not wanting Dane to see her in pain and react.

“You had me worried.” Dane took a step in her direction, ignoring Basil’s sneering laugh.

“Sorry.” She swallowed gently, trying to push her nerves away. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“You can’t shift?”

She went to shake her head, and remembered the blade as it dug deeper into her skin. “No. the tranq…” She bit back the sob that wanted to escape. “They killed my family.”

Dane nodded. “They’ll pay.”

“How’s that, wise guy?” Morton stepped forward. “Your odds suck. You’re alone. There are four of us.”

“Not exactly.” The two words, spoken in a deep-timbre male voice hung in the air unchallenged.

From within the bowels of the woods, four huge men strode. Shifters, all four, this much was clear to Glory. Wide-chested, broad-shouldered, with features that were similar enough to cast the men as relatives, if not brothers. Their faces were grim, as though accustomed to dealing in death. Their bearing was that of soldiers.

Dane studied the newcomers, then finally spoke. “Mae sent you.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

“You must be Dane,” came from the one who’d already spoken. “I’m Range. That’s Asa, Jason, Davin.”

The other three shifters nodded their greeting. Mouths set in cruel lines, ready to perform the deeds they were here to handle.

Dane seemed okay with them, so alarms didn’t go off in Glory’s mind, yet she couldn’t help acknowledging that whatever side these men were on was the side she wanted to be on. They wouldn’t be good to have as enemies.

A vibrating sound built to a crescendo, and it took Glory a moment to realize that the sound was coming from Range’s chest. It was a growl, but unlike any she’d heard before. And he was still in his human form.

She recognized this meant that their shifter animal was of such powerful mojo that they couldn’t be pushed down too far into obscurity. She wondered what they were. Her gaze traveled up and down each man individually, looking for an indication.

Range glanced her way. “Wolves.”

She was confused; did he read minds?

His lips curved into a facsimile of a smile that didn’t yield a sign of weakness, then instantly reverted back to straight-lipped, no-nonsense position.

Morton and Bill had begun to inch away from the four new arrivals. Only Basil held his ground, the knife pricking at Glory’s neck.

“Well, gentlemen, what will it be?” Range pinned Morton and Bill with his steely gaze. “Is whatever you’re being paid worth losing your lives over?”

“It’s not just about the money.” Behind her Glory could hear Basil gritting his teeth. “She killed my brother.”

“Your brother was trying to kill me. I stood up for myself.”

“Ivy shifters are not weak. If your brother chose to take her on, he did so at his own peril,” was delivered by the shifter behind and to the left of Range.

“Your family was the one that started this,” Range said, pointing at Basil. “Badgers, right?”

“We don’t have a dog in this hunt,” announced Bill as he leant down to pick up a backpack. “We’re not fighting for badgers and we aren’t getting involved in ivy royalty disputes either.” He yanked on Morton’s sleeve. “You coming or what?”

“Yeah.” Morton nodded. “I’m out, too.”

“You can’t quit now. You’ll never work as rovers again. I’ll ruin your reputation.”

Bill did an abrupt about-face. “The hell you will. I’ll hunt you down if you try to drag us into the quagmire your f*cked up family has created. If you survive today.” He glanced at Range and his men. “I’m thinking you won’t.”





14





A set of roars came from the clearing where Dane and Basil circled each other, eyes wary, in their shifter forms. A magnificent snow leopard and a fierce badger.

Glory and the four men Mae had sent in were seated at the informal circle’s circumference.

To state it more accurately, Glory was biting her nails, chewing on her bottom lip, and pacing, while the wolves sat about in human form, watching the clash between two shifters that was coming to a head shortly.

Dane had told them he wanted to face Basil one on one and put this vendetta to an end once and for all.