Shadow Of A Mate (12 page)

Kyle figured Merrick had finished and turned to walk back to the makeshift camp and the others. It was time to get moving.

“Kyle?”

He looked back over his shoulder and saw Merrick in profile in the darkening swamp. With the sun going down over the horizon there was still enough light to see the faint glimmer of a tear rolling down Merrick’s cheek.

The sight was so shocking, he started to reach out, but stopped himself when he scented the grief and pain coming from the lynx. Merrick wouldn’t thank him for comfort right now. Dominant shifters hated seeming weak.

“Whatever happens, Jay can be your only priority. Not revenge or some convoluted need for vengeance. Jay must be what you want most or everything will be lost.” Merrick’s voice was strong and unwavering in his demand. “Do you understand?”

“I-I understand,” he said, feeling as if he was swearing a solemn oath.

Merrick nodded. “Then we better get back to the others and start moving before Katrianna comes looking for us again.”

“She’ll be more careful next time. Jay nailed Deke good.” Kyle smiled with pride as he said it.

“Yeah, he did,” Merrick said proudly. “Exactly how his father would have done it.”

That pulled him up short. Kyle tipped his head to the side, wanting to hear more about where Jay came from. “Jay’s like his father?”

Nodding, Merrick continued walking, forcing Kyle to follow. “Jay is almost the mirror image of him apart from the eyes and build. I thought when I first met my nephew that there was nothing of my brother in him. But electrocuting someone making a move on his mate? That was pure Devlin. One time a wolf shifter tried to woo Marion when the two of them had only recently gotten together.”

Kyle filed every bit of information away to tell Jay later. “What did he do?”

This time when Merrick smiled it had the hint of mischievousness he recognised as the same smile Jay had when he was thinking something naughty. “Let’s just say the wolf walked with a limp for a while and didn’t make any more moves on Marion.” Merrick shared a feral grin with Kyle before adding, “He also babbled about a ghost cat chasing him.”

Nodding in appreciation, he resolved to try and get Merrick to share stories like that with Jay. He had to believe Jay would be here to hear them.

They reached camp a few minutes later to find Logan and Mack napping on the floor in animal form and Tryst repacking their supplies into the large backpacks. But there was someone missing.

“Where’s Rogo?”

Tryst glanced up from stuffing the metal canteen dishes into the bags. “The lion went to run the perimeter and go hunting for some meat just after you two left. He should be back any second—”

A loud roar split the air.

Merrick and Kyle broke into a run, racing in the direction of the lion’s call. Mack’s leopard pulled up alongside them and edged ahead with Logan’s wolf.

As they jumped over tree roots and ducked under branches Kyle could hear Rogo struggling and something big splashing in the water. It sounded a lot bigger than Deke’s body.

With leopard swiftness and agility, Mack reached the lion first with Kyle and Merrick close behind. He could hear loud splashing, but couldn’t see where it was coming from or what was causing it.

Pulling up short next to Rogo, he helped the big lion up then rolled to the side when Rogo leaped past him and roared at something behind them. He had just enough time to duck before Rogo came flying back over his head and slammed into a heavy tree trunk.

Immediately his senses cast out, searching for the threat.

Alpha energy rushed through his veins like adrenalin at the same time as he turned and saw both with his senses and his eyes, something very large and very dangerous. It looked like a snake and he had no idea how long it was, but it stood a towering twenty feet out of the water and had an enormous spade shaped head with glowing green markings above the eye ridges and smoky white eyes with no pupil.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a swamp anaconda,” Merrick answered breathlessly, edging in front of the wounded lion since Rogo had yet to sit up again after crashing into the tree. “Make no sudden movements.”

The unnerving white eyes of the snake impossibly seemed to follow them as the giant head tilted and swayed as if trying to decide which one of them to eat first.

“Even anacondas aren’t that big,” Tryst argued, slowly coming to stand at Kyle’s side as Mack flanked the other.

Swinging in their direction the snake obviously decided that they looked the tastiest. It opened its mouth wide and displayed two enormous white-coloured fangs. On the very tip of one of the pointed teeth hung a drop of sickly yellow liquid. Venom?

That wasn’t right. There was something more unnatural about this anaconda than its size. Real anacondas weren’t venomous, they were constrictors.

Judging by the way the giant anaconda’s coils slid out of the dark clouded water of the swamp and wrapped around a fallen tree, crushing with ease, Kyle was certain he didn’t want the snake coming near any of them.

“Don’t let it catch you,” he warned, eyes fixing on the broken pieces of wood.

“Stating the obvious.” Merrick widened his eyes in the appearance of innocence when Kyle’s head snapped in that direction. Yep, he was still an asshole.

There was no time to do anything but leap to the side as the enormous snake darted down at them. Mack took the opportunity of having the snake’s head on their level to launch an attack.

Tryst was only a second behind.

Sighing, Kyle rolled his eyes and followed his betas, jumping on to the snake’s body and clinging on for dear life as it tossed and slithered.

Seeing Tryst flung off to the side as the snake reared back and flicked its tail up to dislodge them, Kyle’s heart was in his mouth. When Tryst twisted in mid-air enough so he wouldn’t land on his head, but rather solidly on his feet, crouching to take the impact, relief didn’t begin to cover how Kyle felt. Thank God for them being cats.

Tryst immediately made to jump right back on the rodeo ride from hell. Logan stopped him. Kyle couldn’t see exactly what happened, but one moment Tryst was human and the next there was a wolf and another leopard running around the snake, dividing its attention by snapping and biting at the intimidating curling coils.

Kyle unleashed his larger, stronger alpha claws and dug them into the leathery scaled skin.

The snake hissed in pain and fury, diving dangerously from side to side. Mack hissed back and copied Kyle, gouging the thick hide with leopard claws.

Together, they climbed higher until Mack reached the ridge just above the eye and slashed out at the bulbous white eyes. Instead of blood though, white smoke poured from the wound straight from the eyeball like some sort of horror movie.

The snake darted to and fro, screeching like a wounded bird of prey.

Mack roared as he fell and caught himself by one paw, hanging lower down on the snake’s body. In perfect striking distance to be caught with those lethal fangs that were longer than Kyle was tall.

Digging his claws in deeper, Kyle heaved himself up and swung his legs out, letting go and at just the right time to take him flying upward and right between the snake and Mack. He struck, pushing his body to move faster and be stronger. The fang snapped under his fist and the snake shrieked again. The noise echoed around the clearing and he saw Logan and Tryst pouncing on one of the coils, ripping into the flesh.

“Don’t swallow any blood, it will poison you,” Merrick called out.

A quick glance confirmed his suspicion that the lynx shifter had not strayed far from Rogo who was still unconscious and in lion form.

He caught hold of Mack’s shoulder, fingers gripping the soft fur too firmly in order to pull himself up and earned an angry growl from the leopard.

“Sorry.”

Using Mack as a foothold, he braced and pounced at the snake’s wide, howling mouth. As he had before, he directed all of his strength and power into a punch and the tooth broke in half. The luminous yellow venom splattered toward them and Kyle cursed and brought his feet up to the bottom jaw, pushing away from the snake.

“Get down, Mack!”

Landing with ease, Kyle flipped around and clawed the snake’s other eye as the creature launched at him. More smoke erupted from the burst socket and shot into the air before disappearing. Once the last little wisp of smoke vanished, the snake collapsed to the ground in a towering wave and heaved a great sigh.

There was a beat of silence as they waited to see whether the snake would move or try to strike at them again. When nothing more happened, Kyle crept forward and nudged the snake with his boot. No response.

“I think it’s dead,” he said to the others, looking at the snake’s face.

All the white had vanished, leaving only dull yellow behind in the clawed, scratched out eyes. Kyle didn’t know why, but he felt sad and regretful. Perhaps he should have looked for another way to get rid of the beast. After all, what good was an animal against the toxic magic of a witch?

As he stared, he noticed Logan in human form again sitting next to the great head, patting it as one might pat a pet.

“He used to be such a nice snake. Yet like everything near my mother, it became tainted, I guess.” If Kyle hadn’t been standing next to Logan he wouldn’t have heard the hushed words.

There was such resignation in Logan’s tone, Kyle couldn’t help himself from trying to ease it. “Not everything, Logan.”

The wolf startled and snatched his hand away from the dead snake’s head. Logan definitely looked guilty, hanging his head and hiding behind the thick lock of black hair that fell forward. He wasn’t used to seeing the confident, strong man so...introvert. “It’s my fault this happened. I should never have trusted her.”

Bending down, Kyle took a deep breath and tried to think of how to word what he wanted to say. Jay was much better at talking about things like this. That drew him up short and he smothered a small chuckle at how wrong that was. Jay would stumble and stutter and accidently insult Logan instead of comforting him.

But it was the fact that Jay would try that let him find the right way to say what he needed to. “It wasn’t your fault. From what you and my betas say, Katrianna was always planning on getting to Jay. She just took the perfect opportunity presented to her when you and Jay tried to help my brother. And you did help, Logan. Nikko is alive right now and healing at home with our pack.”

Kyle kept it as close to honesty as he could. There was a small part of him that was angry that Logan didn’t protect Jay from his mother. There was a lot more anger inside him at himself for leaving Jay and not checking he was okay. When you love someone, you check.

The look of shock and sadness on Jay’s face when Kyle had turned and run from their room when Papa told them the news that Nikko was dying still haunted him. And when he’d held Jay’s aged, frail body in his arms with no recognition. He’d never let himself forget.

“That wasn’t anything to do with me,” Logan argued, drawing Kyle back to the conversation.

“It was. Jay would say the same, Logan. Buck up, we have a lot of work to do before we’re through. Just remember who you are. I have a feeling that little voices are whispering things to you, telling you lies that this is all your fault.” He knew his guess was on the mark when Logan’s eyes widened briefly.

The wolf sat back. “That bitch.”

That was far too generous a word for Katrianna in his opinion. Logan was starting to look a little livelier with a stronger energy. Kyle could actually feel Logan’s wolf getting more animated and his jaguar growled in approval.

“Just keep what I said in mind,” he reiterated, standing and leaving Logan to think it over.

Turning back to return to camp and grab their supplies and weapons, his heart dropped to his stomach when he saw a thick wall of black trees and vegetation. They were blocked in with only one way to move. Forward and deeper into Katrianna’s territory.

“Fucking shit. I was hoping she wouldn’t be able to control the forest like this while she was still actively draining Jay. She must have stored her magic somehow.” Logan inspected the still slithering plant life with disgust and resignation.

“That shit ain’t normal,” Mack announced with a shiver, also back in his two-legged form. Tryst seconded the opinion and Kyle nodded. The way the greenery was gradually turning black as if a shadow was passing overhead and how they slithered really freaked him out and set his fur on edge. He wanted to bat at the vines and hiss. If he were in his jaguar skin, he knew his hackles would be raised and his tail twitching from side to side.

A pained whine from his left had him turning. Rogo was just completing the shift from lion to man and even that effort seemed to take all of the energy from him and the large man fell to the side. But he needn’t have worried about him falling, Merrick was there in an instant. Interesting.

Kyle noted the gentle way Merrick made sure to place Rogo near a fallen log to brace himself against. There was something very interesting in the look the two dominant men shared.

Once the lion said that he could take his own weight, Merrick strode over to the thick barrier of black intertwined branches and plants and considered the ground, looking for something. What, Kyle didn’t know.

When the lynx crouched and dove his fist into the ground and started to dig, Kyle wondered if the man had lost his mind. “Looking for a litter tray?”

The words were meant to come off as light-hearted. However, Kyle’s tone was a little too aggressive to pass as a joke.

An arch look from Merrick had Kyle inclining his head in apology in the spirit of co-operation.

Rolling his eyes, the lynx shifter continued to dig in the earth, unconcerned with the dark, thick veining branches snapping and growing closer to him. Kyle was about to call a warning, but Merrick stood with something shining in his hand.

“What—?” He didn’t get his question out.

“Blood crystals. From the colour and feel, I’d say from a young witch, probably male,” Merrick explained whilst examining the dark red glowing rocks. They were only the size of limes. Even from ten feet away, Kyle’s jaguar could feel the power oozing from the crystals like melted cheese from a toasted sandwich.