Chapter Twenty
Evan could see the stark terror on Lark’s face. He’d already killed one male to get her to safety, but there were more behind him, closing in as he tried to figure out how to get her free from the male’s grip before he broke her arm. Or worse.
The threat lingered: I’ll kill her.
The fuck he would.
Letting out a deep howl of retribution, he opted to confuse the males and shot into the woods. He heard them following behind, growling and cursing, which told him a few had shifted. Swinging in an arc, he darted between the trees and made his way back to the SUV. Clawing his way up a nearby tree, he leaped down on the male holding Lark, digging his claws into his face and shoulder as he took him to the ground.
Lark rolled away with a groan.
The male battered at Evan as he flexed his claws deep into his skin and pulled, ripping muscle and flesh away, blood pouring fast and free.
He barked sharply at Lark, and she glared at him but seemed to know she was in danger out in the open. Holding her arm, she tottered to her feet and limped toward the road.
The male tossed Evan away and began to shift, but Evan stopped him in his tracks by locking his jaws around the male’s throat and biting hard.
As the male’s life bled away, Evan lifted from him and rushed to Lark. She was leaning against the SUV, her skin and clothes torn, the scent of her blood driving him mad. That glare was still there, all hint of affection gone from her gaze.
He turned and faced the males that flooded from the woods. Three, no four, were in their shifts. Two were still human. He lowered his head and growled a warning. He’d never felt so feral.
Touch my mate and die.
* * *
Lark tasted blood.
Trying not to cry, or run away in terror—because seriously, where the hell could she go?—she leaned heavily against the SUV and looked in the broken window to see if she could find her phone. Of course it might not work, since the assholes who ran them off the road had jammed the signals.
She didn’t see her phone or Evan’s. Slumping against the SUV, she inhaled slowly and tried to calm her wild pulse. She’d never faced her own death before.
When her mom died, she’d dealt with feelings of her mortality and wondering at the permanence of life. Or the lack of it. But this situation?
Entirely fucking different.
She’d watched Evan turn into a wolf. She’d been tossed about like a doll by two different men. Chased and terrified. And now she was in some kind of supernatural standoff between her boyfriend—former, lying boyfriend—and these assholes who were after them, and also? They were wolves too. At least some of them.
And what the hell? How had this happened to her? She didn’t have enemies. She’d never had someone try to hurt her like this before.
Fuck.
Fuckity-fuck-fuck.
Evan raced toward the wolves coming for them, clashing in a blur of fur and fangs and claws. The men who were still human skirted around the battle, their eyes on her.
Ah shit.
Something blond and big sailed through the air, tackling the two men with a snarl straight out of a nightmare.
A lion. A...lion?
A man she didn’t know rushed to her and stood defensively in front of her, his back to her, dark claws tipping his fingers.
“I’m Alfie, a friend of Evan’s. Our people are on the way to help. Just stay behind me.”
She flattened herself against the SUV, wondering if she could just run away.
But something kept her rooted in place. Fear mixed with morbid fascination.
The lion seemed to have no trouble with the two human men.
But Wolf Evan was outnumbered. She peered at the mass of fur and tails and legs and wasn’t sure she knew which one he was.
And then she heard a whimper of pain, and it cut right to her heart. She knew it was him and he was hurt.
Hurt trying to protect her.
The lying son of a bitch.
Damn it.
“Alfie, you need to help Evan.”
“I need to keep you safe. You’re his soulmate, and that makes you part of the pack. You can’t fight a wolf, so I’m your defensive line.”
Great, football analogies and a fight to the death. How’d she get so lucky? Hadn’t she just wanted to have a nice, normal relationship with Evan?
“So you’re one of them too?” She was irritated to the core, scared to pieces, and deep down hurt that Evan had lied to her.
More than one lie, judging by the lion who was sitting on top of a human while the other lay unmoving and bleeding a few feet away.
Alfie looked over his shoulder for a brief moment, then turned back to watch the melee. “Yes.”
A sob escaped Lark before she could stop it. She was so not a weep-in-terror sort of girl, but seriously? This stuff was straight out of a nightmare.
The wolves tangling together went down into a pile. A pale-furred one rolled from the group, side split open in a life-ending injury, tongue hanging out. The wolf staggered away, heading for the woods.
Wolf Evan leaped from the pile of prone bodies and went for the one trying to get away.
She was thankful Wolf Evan was alive but still pissed.
“I just want to go home.”
“Let’s let Evan take care of this asshole, and then we’ll talk,” Alfie said.
Several vehicles pulled up, surrounding them. She didn’t bother looking, too focused on Evan’s fight.
He let out a furious growl and dove at the other wolf’s back leg, the bones crunching as he bit down.
The wolf howled in misery and tried to drag itself away, but he didn’t get more than a few steps before Evan was on him, claws raking through fur, blood spilling everywhere.
Evan moved from the wolf with a disgusted snort and stalked toward her and Alfie.
Alfie moved away, but she grabbed his shirt. “Where are you going?”
“Evan’s got you. I’m going to check in with the alpha.”
“I...no. No, no, no. I want to go home. I want to not be here anymore!” She couldn’t stop her voice from rising higher with each word as the terror she’d sort of held at bay crashed over her. Her legs went out, and she landed hard on her butt, a sob wrenching from her and her eyes stinging with fresh tears.
A big guy with salt-and-pepper hair appeared. Evan bared his fangs at the man and growled in a low sort of menacing way. The big guy put his hand up, and Evan’s growl stopped immediately.
“Hi Lark, I’m Joss, Evan’s alpha. You’re injured, and I’d like to get you help. Can you stand on your own?”
“You’ll take me home?” she asked before she accepted the hand he offered.
He didn’t answer her question, just stood there, hand out and a blank look on his face.
Evan made a whining sound and sat, his tail swishing in the grass. He was hurt, his chest heaving as he panted, but he was staring at her as if the only thing in the world that mattered was her. Not his own health and safety, but her alone.
Nope. She was not going to be swayed by any lovey-dovey feelings bubbling up within her about the liar.
She stared at Wolf Evan. “You lied to me. You kept a big secret from me, but you called me your soulmate. I don’t want to see you.”
Taking Joss’s hand, she let him pull her up, groaning at the strain on her injured other arm. Her back ached from the cuts, and she felt like she was bruised from head to toe.
Running for your life sucked.
A lot of people were working to clean things up, putting the bodies of their attackers in the SUV she and Evan had used. “This is my vehicle,” Joss said as someone rushed ahead and opened the door to the second row. “You’re going to come with us so our pack doctor can help you, and then we’re going to have a conversation about what this all means.”
She moved out of Joss’s reach and looked at him. “You’re not letting me go? You’re not taking me to the hospital to get help?”
“No and no. We have professionals to help you. And there are things we need to discuss.”
She could feel Evan drawing close, but she refused to look at him. “I won’t tell anyone about this. I just want to go home and forget I ever came to the park.”
“Get in,” Joss said, tilting his head toward the open SUV.
It was tempting to try to run. But she was surrounded by people who looked like they weren’t going to let her leave.
She pointed in Evan’s direction without looking at him. “I don’t want him near me.”
“Fine,” Joss said, tapping the open door impatiently.
She climbed in and sat, keeping her injured back away from the seat so it didn’t hurt worse than it already did. Someone got behind the wheel as Joss shut her door.
“Hi Lark,” Auden said. “You look like hell, girl.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “How about you run me to the nearest ER, and I forget I ever met you all?”
“Nah,” he said. “But don’t worry, you’re safe. Evan would never let anything happen to you.”
“Oh?” she asked, a bitter laugh bubbling up her throat. “Newsflash, I am hurt.”
He turned on the engine and looked over his shoulder at her. “Newsflash to you, Lark, but your soulmate killed six males to keep you safe. Yeah, you’re beat up a little, but he saved your life and his own. Those males were dangerous as fuck, and it’s just Evan’s sheer determination to keep you safe that made this a relatively happy ending. So get over yourself and suck it up.”
She inhaled sharply at the insult but didn’t say anything.
What the hell could she say anyway? That she was well aware that Evan had been outnumbered and killed for her. That she knew she was alive because of him.
But she couldn’t get over the lies. She’d clearly been in danger because of him.
They’d had sex. They’d pillow-talked about the future. But not once had he trusted her enough to tell her that he was a fucking wolf.
That wasn’t love, it was...well, she didn’t know, but it sure as hell wasn’t love.
Someone else got in the SUV, and Auden drove away.
“Here’s a bottle of water,” the new man said. “My name’s Amadeus. I’m a lion and part of the park’s security team.”
She took the water but didn’t open it. She was afraid if she drank something she’d throw up.
“Thanks.”
“I can answer questions if you have any. Auden can too.”
“Probably,” Auden said, “she wants to know why Evan lied about what he is.”
“Ah,” Amadeus said. “Well, he’ll have to talk to you about that when he changes back into his human form in a couple hours. But what I can tell you is that the secret of shifters is really serious and important. Humans can’t know about us, so we have to keep a lid on who finds out. We only tell our soulmates, and there’s rules about when that can happen. If he’d just come right out and told you what he was, you wouldn’t have been able to leave the park until the alphas were sure you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Lark stared out the window at the passing scenery.
If she looked past her anger at being lied to, she could see their need for secrecy. Humans could be assholes when it came to things that were different, and people who could turn into animals were very, very different.
“You call yourselves shifters?” she asked.
“Yep,” Amadeus said.
It was the craziest thing she’d ever heard in her life. If she hadn’t seen Evan turn into a wolf, she wouldn’t have believed it was possible. And she was still very much mad at Evan, but she could see the shifters’ point of view.
They had to protect their people and their secret at any cost. She was an unknown. A liability.
It didn’t make her feel any better, though.
“I’m mad at Evan. I don’t want to see him. But I understand what you’re saying.” She paused for a moment, and then asked, “If Evan is a wolf, then you are too, Auden?”
“Yep. Jess is an owl shifter.”
“Of course she is,” Lark said. She shook her head. “I really don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“Sure thing,” Amadeus said.
Her eyes stung with fresh tears. She was overwhelmed. She just wanted to go home, but she knew they weren’t going to let her do that. If Evan didn’t trust her enough to tell her his secret, then how could his people trust when she said she wouldn’t tell anyone?
Who the hell would believe her anyway?
Tears slid over her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away. Their date had started out so nicely, and then it had gotten blown to hell.
If she could go back in time, she wished she’d never brought Rayanne to the park.
Well...that wasn’t entirely true. She did care for Evan, but she couldn’t tolerate lying no matter the reason.
So her heart was just going to have to get over it.