Happy Bastille Day!!! Another Tuesday is rolling around, and that means we get to find out what happens when Tracker and his boys catch up with Olivia and Kit. But first, a Public Service Announcement:
This weekend I will be sending out the newsletter with the entry forms for the Kindle Fire and other Prizes!
And now back to your regularly scheduled program.
Strength gone, Olivia fell, skidding painfully on her elbows along the rocky ground. She dragged herself up, to stare as two—no, three—wolves launched themselves, snarling viciously, at Kit. They crashed together in the air and went down in a thrashing mass of fur and teeth.
“Dad!” Olivia croaked. “Wait!”
She scrambled to her feet, but before she could go to the fight, another wolf was there, blocking her way and sticking his nose in her crotch. She slapped at him, realizing too late it was her cousin Colby, not one of her brothers.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m not hurt. Let me by.”
Colby growled low in his throat and didn’t move. He was one of the bossiest of her cousins, more Alpha than even his father Taye. She glanced at the furry bodies writhing on the ground, seeing how her dad and brothers were tearing into Kit. They were killing him. It didn’t look like he was even trying to fight back.
“Dad! Stop! Colby, let me by.” Kit was bleeding from multiple lacerations. He didn’t deserve to die. “Dad, I mean it! Let him alone!”
No one was listening to her. They were going to kill Kit. She glared down at Colby’s big gray head and tried to shove him away. “Get out of my way, Cole. The only way you can stop me is if you bite me. You wanna bite me?”
Colby whined, but let her go. He walked so close to her that he nearly pushed her over a couple of times. She clenched her fists as she watched the fight. Except it wasn’t a fight, because Kit only tried to defend himself, not attack. It was three against one, and Kit was losing.
“Dad, he’s not fighting back. Look! You’re going to kill him if you don’t stop.” For the first time in her life, her father ignored her. He ripped into Kit’s leg. “Dad!” she screamed. “He’s not fighting back. Stop!” She didn’t even know she was crying until Kit’s face blurred from her tears. “Kit! Oh, God, you have to fight.”
“No hurt my mate’s pride.”
At least, that’s what she thought he said. His words were distorted and his voice was weak. Desperate, she flung herself at Taylor, the nearest wolf, and grabbed him by the ruff. “Leave him alone,” she ordered. “He never hurt me.”
Colby morphed into a man and grabbed her arm to haul her back. “Are you crazy?”
She twisted away from him. “No. Kit didn’t hurt me. He fought his own people to keep me safe.” She launched herself into the fray and let out a yip when a claw scored through her jeans. Something –the scent of her blood?—turned her father and brothers’ attention from their victim. She immediately launched into a tirade worthy of her cousin Victoria.
“What are you doing? You never even asked if he was a bad guy!” she yelled. “He didn’t hurt me!”
Parker shoved his snout into her crotch to inhale. She slapped at him, but he leaped back and changed to his human form. “I don’t smell him there, Dad.”
“That’s because he didn’t rape me!”
“I smell you all over him,” Parker retorted hotly. “And him on you. He stole you.”
Kit lay on the ground, the moonlight showing his blood as black blotches over his furred body. Taylor and her father crouched over him, snarling. Kit’s eyes looked at her with mute pain. She turned to her father’s wolf and tried to control her voice. “Dad, don’t kill him. He didn’t hurt me. When some others wanted to, he protected me.”
Her father shifted back to human, his face cold and pale in the moonlight. “Was he the one who took you?”
Olivia swallowed. “Yes.”
“Were you running away from him?”
“Yes.”
“But you think we shouldn’t kill him.”
“No.” She tried to sort of her feelings for Kit, but they were too jumbled. “He didn’t hurt me,” she said again.
“Why did he take you?”
Kit answered, and Olivia could tell he was trying hard to speak clearly. “She’s my mate.”
She drew in a shocked breath at the rage that flashed over her father’s face. He never showed much emotion, and this was raw.
“That’s not the way a man treats his mate!”
That was her cousin Colby, harsh and loud, glaring at Kit who still lay at their feet. Taylor, still in wolf form, snarled.
Olivia turned on Colby. “And how did your grandfather claim his mate? Wasn’t he the one that carried her off and held her captive for three years until she accepted him?”
“That was different.” Colby scowled, trying to push her behind him. “He tried to court her first.”
Her father, face once again cool, cut them off with a slashing gesture. He stepped closer to Kit. “My daughter has asked for your life, so I’m gonna let you live.” His voice sunk to a harsh whisper. “But if I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll kill you.”
“My mate—“ Kit began, but all her men folk growled.
Her father leaned over Kit’s battered, bleeding body. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think she is. If I see you sniffing around, you’re dead.”
He turned sharply away, catching Olivia’s arm. “Let’s go.”
As she was marched away, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder. Kit curled in a tight ball on the rocky ground. He lifted his head to watch her leave. She wondered if the gleam on his cheeks were tears on his fur. When her father tapped her chin she faced forward again.
She was rescued. Why didn’t it feel like it?
A KINDLE FIRE!!!
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