Unbound: Shifters Forever Worlds(24)

“I’ve lost my entire family to this bunch. He’s the last of theirs. I’m the last of mine. This will settle it. Whichever way it goes.”

Glory asked him for a private moment. They’d gone into the woods. She’d pushed him, palms flat on his chest, trying to push sense into him.

“You can’t risk your life. I won’t have you doing that.”

“It’s not for you to stop. And after this, I’m going to take care of Perry Moore. That bastard will pay for his role in this.”

“No, Dane. I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t stop me.

That was fifteen minutes ago. Now… now the two were going to end it once and for all.

Basil reared back and struck toward Dane with a massive, razor-tipped claw.

Glory bit her knuckle to keep from screaming out a warning to Dane.

Dane feinted left, Basil missed. Dane then zipped in for a strike of his own, connecting his fist with Basil’s badger jaw. The badger fell back, crashing into a tree, cracking the trunk and sending leaves and tiny twigs flying like confetti, scattering about the shifters heads as if at a morbid party.

Basil pushed off the jagged tree and shook his badger head. Saliva scattered, flying about, almost landing on Glory. She backed out of the way just in the nick of time.

Basil’s beady badger eyes had gone dead, void of any emotion as he studied Dane, taking in his stance, assessing. His breath was coming out in ragged pants, his claws clenching and unclenching as he paced a tight circle in the perimeter of their fighting ring.

In her chest cavity, Glory’s heart beat a fast thrumming tempo. She knew it was Dane’s own pulse that was syncing with hers, pulling her into his breakneck speed. A short burst of roars came from Dane as if ejected forcefully from his lungs.

A second later he leapt high in the air, rising well above her height, headed for the badger’s head. Basil ducked his badger body, and turned sideways, then jumped up. Dane flipped mid-air, swiveled and careened into the badger’s airborne torso.

The badger’s teeth gnashed, while his claws sought purchase. A loud crunching sound signaled that he’d achieved success and buried his canines into Dane’s shoulder.

Dane’s leopard released a howl of pain that forced Glory to her knees while tears sprung to her eyes. She made for the center of the ring, adamant in her desire to save Dane even though she’d lose her life against a badger while she was in human form.

Her path was intercepted as Range wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground.

“Put me down.” She kicked at his legs, punching his arm and back while he toted her like a full sack of potatoes.

“Can’t do that. I told Dane I’d keep you from interfering.”

She wriggled and writhed. “I have to help him. Damn you. Let me go.”

Her ivy responded to her panic. Heaving breaths slipped out from between her lips as her spine rippled from her tailbone upward, fusing toward the nape of her neck. Dark wood melded over her flesh as branches stabbed into her arms and legs. Smaller branches became digits. Leaves formed, covering her, turning her into a towering ivy mass.

She writhed from Range’s grasp and set one leg onto the dirt flooring in the forest.

“Shit. Get her.” Range instructed his men.

The other three shifters rose from their seats and leapt onto her.

She wasn’t sure she could take them all without killing them and she didn’t want to hurt Dane’s allies. She shook one of Range’s men off and had just turned her attention to a second one, picking him up and raising him off the ground when a voice stopped her cold.

“Don’t make me do this.” Range’s tone carried warning.

She glanced at him. He was holding a tranq gun.

She glared at him.

He raised the pistol. “Don’t make me do it.”

She set the other man down and shifted into her human, glancing at the scuffle in the middle of the clearing.

The tide had turned. She’d missed something during her shift and her own scuffle. The badger was on his back, with Dane’s sharp teeth embedded in his throat. Blood splattered to the ground. The badger’s life-giving essence seeped into the ground.

The badger became motionless, its body no longer heaving and struggling for air. His beady eyes sealed shut, the light within already gone.

Dane raised his head, releasing his strong jaws from the badger’s neck. Fur began to recede instantly, bones crunched, the sound of tendons ripping filled the air.

Within seconds, Dane’s transformation was complete and he was in his human self.

Lacerations covered his body. His face was a scratched and bloody mess. Glory ran to him, her heartbeat slowing with his.

He wrapped his arms around her.

“It’s over,” she said.

“Not quite. There’s still Perry.” He glanced at Range.

Range nodded.

“No.” glory tightened her grip around his waist. “I won’t let you go.”

“I have to. For you. For me. For us. As long as you’re alive, you’re in danger from Perry.”

Glory closed her eyes against the pain that threatened to overtake her. “I can’t lose you, Dane. I just can’t lose you again. Not after…”

He tipped her head back with a fingertip on her chin. “After what?”