I’d seen Marcus hulk-out into his King Kong alter ego before, but it never ceased to amaze and excite me.
His shirt was gone the moment he jumped off the stool, just as he yanked off his jeans and pulled off his boots. His fit, golden-brown body was sculpted like a Roman statue, and muscles bulged on his naked frame.
Hot damn. How could I have forgotten how splendid he was naked?
But I didn’t have time to marvel at his nakedness.
He went down on all fours, and I heard a horrible tearing sound along with the breaking of bones as his face and skin rippled and stretched until his body tripled in size. His jaw elongated, revealing carnivore teeth the size of my kitchen knives. And then, instead of a man, was a four-hundred-pound silverback gorilla.
He was glorious and frightening all at once. It is weird that I got turned on?
Marcus the gorilla stood on all fours, his front hands resting on his knuckles. The muscles on his chest flexed, and the gorilla roared as he pounded his great big fists on the ground, sending tremors through the inn. I felt the trembling along the bar.
And then he was moving.
On all fours, the gorilla leaped away and dashed out the front door with the stranger running behind him.
“Looks like I won’t be going home anytime soon.” I jumped off my stool and ran after them. No way was I going to miss whatever was happening. Even if it did sound dangerous.
I rushed through the front door and leaped off the landing—
And walked into a gorilla fight.
A large ring of both gorilla and humanoid wereapes circled two massive gorillas who were using tree trunks as clubs.
“Holy crap,” I muttered.
Both were silverback gorillas, both huge, with mouths full of teeth. The closer I got, I could see that one had a lot more gray fur along his back, head, and forearms while the other was nearly covered in black fur. I guessed the one with the gray fur was the older alpha male, Stan, fighting this new one who wanted to take his place.
It was hard to see which of the two was bigger, and it was even harder to see which of the two was strongest.
Stan, the older gorilla advanced, flexing and hefting his tree trunk. He smashed it against the side of the younger gorilla.
The younger gorilla fell to the side, but he was up in almost the same moment, smashing his tree trunk against Stan, who tumbled to the side. An ugly grimace skewed the younger gorilla’s face as he dropped his tree and charged.
He hit Stan like a freight train hitting a cement wall, and the two fell to the ground in a blur of fists hitting flesh, snarls, hissing, teeth, and dark fur. Each gorilla pummeled themselves with their fists, breaking into a rabid frenzy of blows. The ground beneath my feet shuddered and quaked. Each crushing punch sent bile rising up my throat.
The air smelled of blood and sweat and animal.
It was the most brutal and primal fight I’d ever witnessed. Around me the crowd roared, enthused by the prospect of one of the gorillas’ death. Some were in their beast form, but some remained in their human forms.
“This has been going on for too long,” said a male wereape.
“Stan has to submit,” said a female wereape next to him with long black hair and matching eyes. “He’s been the alpha for eighty years. It’s time for Fredrik.”
“Tell that to Stan,” said the other male wereape.
“Stan, Stan, he’s our man. If he can’t do it, no one can,” I sang, realizing too late that my thoughts came out in verbal vomit from my mouth.
The female wereape turned around and glared at me, her eyes telling me this wasn’t my place, and she wanted to pound my head in with her girly gorilla fists.
I raised my hands. “I’m leaving soon. Promise,” I told her, and she turned her attention back on the fight.
Yes, I was leaving. But not without Marcus.
Marcus in his gorilla form walked slowly around the fighting wereapes like he was the referee in a boxing match, waiting to call the winner or to pull them apart if things got ugly.
Would the gorillas fight to the death? Was that what this was? If so, I didn’t exactly feel like watching.
But I couldn’t pull myself away either.
I was a witch, so I didn’t know much about wereapes or werewolves or any of the were species for that matter. And I knew even less about how their alpha structures worked. And yet, I knew I was witnessing something extraordinary we witches weren’t usually privy to see.
I was getting a glimpse into a world most paranormals could only dream of.
I could appreciate how easily they could destroy trees and houses with that amount of brutal strength. And Marcus was here to make sure they didn’t kill each other, to make sure they both stayed alive, no matter the outcome.
Marcus had never ghosted me. He was just trying to keep his kin from tearing out each other’s jugulars. Because that’s just the kind of man, wereape, and chief he was.
Stan dodged the younger alpha’s next attack, but the edge of a clawed hand caught his thigh. Blood drenched the frost-covered ground in spatters of red. Stan spun, and shock slapped his beast’s face. Clearly, Fredrik was faster.
Fredrik crouched, his eyes on Stan’s bloodied thigh.
Stan’s face rippled in anger as his eyebrows came together. A wild light danced in his deep eyes.
“Here it comes,” I muttered, and again the same female wereape turned around, surprising me when she flipped me off.
O-o-o-okay. Time to keep my mouth shut. I pulled my jacket tightly around me as I watched, half freaking, half amazed at what was happening.
With a terrible bellow, Stan threw himself at the younger gorilla, arms swinging.
Without a pause, Fredrik charged.
They hit with a terrible ferocity, and I took a step back, though I didn’t need to.
The younger gorilla twisted and kicked Stan to the ground. With his face deranged, he locked his hands into enormous fists and brought them down onto Stan’s skull like a hammer. Bones crunched.
Yikes. I stood there, horrified as Fredrik kept pounding on poor old Stan.
“This isn’t right,” I said, my voice loud. But no one seemed to hear me, their attention on the fight.
And just when I thought the hammering would never end until Stan’s head looked like a smashed cherry pie, Marcus roared and crashed his fist on the ground with surprising strength. In flash, Marcus loomed over the younger alpha and stood on his two feet, his arms thrashing to his side.
Fredrik stopped pounding.
To my surprise, Marcus’s beast form was larger than this younger one. He had at least a hundred pounds more muscle, and it was obvious if Marcus wanted he could pulverize both. Clearly, he could be their alpha if he wanted, but Marcus was chief of Hollow Cove. He was our alpha.
It made sense to me then why Marcus was here. He was the only one who could defeat both their stupid monkey asses.
The younger alpha grabbed Stan by the throat and jerked him to his feet.
That got everyone’s attention in a hurry, given that all he had to do was squeeze and they’d have their new alpha.
But Marcus growled, staring down at the younger alpha with his gray eyes that screamed he’d be toast if he didn’t let Stan go.
Finally, Fredrik relented, and with a thud, Stand fell back to the ground. Angry eyes stared up at the younger alpha, but then, very slowly, Stan lowered his eyes and bowed in submission to the new alpha.
And just like that, it was over.
“Looks like we’d got our new alpha,” said the female.
Excited, I started clapping and only realized my mistake at the looks of horror and anger from the surrounding clan members.
“My bad,” I said and shoved my hands in my coat pockets.
The gorillas and wereapes talked amongst themselves as they dispersed from the fight, their faces happy and relieved. Guess this was a long time coming.
“Tessa.”
I looked up to find Marcus in his human form heading my way, which was awesome, except for the naked part. Not that it wasn’t awesome to see him naked—because it was all kinds of awesome—I just didn’t want it to be with a group of wereapes as an audience.
Coils of steam rose around him from his sweat in the cold air, like he’d just stepped out of a hot, steaming shower.
It was hard not to look at perfection, it truly was—and a little annoying when the perfection was staring back at you with a lazy smile because he knew you liked what you saw—but I managed to avert my eyes just as the same big dude I’d seen in the inn handed Marcus a pair of sweats.
“Sorry about that. What were you saying about Ruth?”
I turned back around, glad and maybe even a little disappointed that he was wearing the sweats. “She’s in trouble.” I started to feel the cold air seep through my jacket. “Bernard’s dead.”
“The baker?”
“Yup. And Ruth’s being blamed for it. She actually confessed.”
“What?” A brief flash of panic crossed his face as he looked at me.
I let out a breath, and it came out in rolls of white mist. “She made a potion for him. And it was found at the scene. I don’t know what it was—gingerweed, maybe—but she thinks it killed him.”
Marcus was silent for a long time, and I could see the regret and frustration on his face. “Okay. I’ll have a talk with Ruth, and I’m sure we can clear all this up.”
“Not if Adira can help it.”
“Adira? Why does that name sound familiar?”
“’Cause she’s the new chief.”
Marcus cursed. “Of course. The office would have sent in a replacement while I was gone.”
I stared at him. “You didn’t know? She said she spoke to you.” That’s the precise moment I remembered he’d said there were no phones here. The bitch vamp had lied to me.
“I never got a call from Adira, and I never called her.”
“That lying coffin-loving whore.”
“Coffin-loving?”
“She’s a vampire.”
Marcus met my gaze. “I’m never leaving Hollow Cove ever again.”
I smiled. “So, are you coming back?”
“How did you get here, Tessa.” Marcus looked around me. “Did you drive here?”
“I jumped a ley line.”
“Right.” Marcus smiled. “I’d love to show you around, but I think I better get back to Hollow Cove as soon as possible.” He was silent and then, “Can you take the same ley line home?”
“Not the same,” I answered. “I need the one going east, but I know where it is. It’s not far from here.”
Marcus nodded. “Good. Okay, then. See you tomorrow morning,” he said, and then he was jogging toward his Jeep, barefoot and half-naked as though the cold December air didn’t affect him.
“Tomorrow morning?” I called after him. “But Hollow Cove’s miles away.” I knew it was a ten-hour drive from here to Hollow Cove, and that’s if he drove really fast without stopping.
“I’ll drive all night if I have to,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll be there in the morning. See you tomorrow, Tessa.”
I grinned. “See you tomorrow.”