The sound of the gunshot split his head open. Louder, the clank of tools hitting the ground. The faint questions of the other guys in the shop as he bolted for the door.
He could still feel the burn of his lungs as he’d raced up the mountainside on foot. The branches had whipped and lashed at his arms and face, but he’d ignored every scratch and line of blood drawn. There hadn’t been time for pain when his heart had been close to exploding.
He’d known even before he reached their little cabin near the top. Curse the Broken and all the gods in the sky, he’d known.
Knowing and seeing were entirely different.
Rhys swallowed back his snarl and tried, again, to stem the flow of memories lashing at him.
The metallic stench of blood had filled his nose even before he found her fifty yards or so from their back porch. Fuck, he’d hardly been able to smell her even when he’d crouched at her side and pressed trembling hands to her wounds.
“Love,” she’d whispered.
A last request, an order for the future, a term of endearment, he didn’t know what she meant. There was no asking when her heart faltered and stopped.
He’d lost his damn mind right then and there.
Once again, strawberry blonde strands turned auburn in his mind. Pale skin changed shades. Bone structures overlapped and blended together until it was Sage’s cheekbones he stared at, not Hannah’s.
Worst of all, the lifeless blue eyes turned to dead green ones.
What came after was a blur of screams and blood. Pain, so much pain, dominated that point in his life. His. Theirs. The revenge he’d taken didn’t bring Hannah back, nor did it soothe any part of his burning rage.
Imagining Sage sharing Hannah’s fate ripped him apart all over again.
Rhys bared his teeth at the carving in his hand and brought the knife to the wood. He stroked lines down the back, across the legs, fixing the scars in place.
The woman on the other side of the door wasn’t as set as him. She still had a spark of hope left. She’d been branded and bent, but she still raised her claws in defiance.
“You don’t need to run,” he told the air and hoped she listened. “That’s what you’re planning, isn’t it? Running doesn’t make anything stop.”
Rhys canted his head. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted, and he sensed more than heard Sage’s approach. He didn’t offer any other words. Hell, he hardly dared to breathe. He didn’t want her to rabbit back into hiding.
His lion sank down to his stomach with a sigh of awe and relief. She’d come out for them.
He’d had a mate.
For three glorious years, they’d lived in a tiny cabin in the hills of a hometown not much bigger than Bearden. Strange to think he’d lived double that without her, but those days were notched into his bones. The lives that had cost him everything, too.
He’d been in mourning for so damned long it’d become a way of life. Drink, brawl, sleep it off, then do it all over again the next day. Six years had gone by as he crept closer to the point of no return and his lion snatching complete control. All until he smelled juniper and midnight rain eight months ago.
Sage… She grabbed at his attention just like Hannah.
Impossible. That alone should have made him go to Trent and beg for death.
No force on Earth could have moved him an inch in that direction.
He had a mate.
Simple, maddening words rang through his head like a fucking gong.
He had a mate. Not in the past, but here, now, in the very real present.
Maybe it was the shock of her father demanding her return or maybe that damn kiss had loosened the binds around his heart. Either way, one truth slapped him hard across the face and stood clear with both man and inner beast.
He couldn’t lose her. Not to the bastards who wanted to make her small and insignificant. Not to her own dread and hopelessness.
Those fuckers wanted to take her? They’d have to go through him.
Keeping Sage safe was a matter of life and death. He’d be just as broken when they made it through. But not her. She’d stand on her own.
Sage wasn’t broken. She was a survivor.
Chapter 15
Sage folded and refolded the shirt in her hands. She stood at the edge of the bathroom, but faced her front door and the man on the other side. Her inner cat wanted her to move. Claws dug into her head, her tail lashed from side to side, but her human half stayed absolutely still.
No, she wasn’t okay. No, she wasn’t safe. She absolutely had to do this on her own. Hadn’t he listened to anything her father threatened? Consequences. Consequences got people killed. She couldn’t force herself to ask for a clean death, but she’d be damned if she sentenced good people to suffer on her behalf.
“I’ll stand with you.”
Sage cocked her head at that. Her lioness, too, ceased her endless pacing. He’d said the words before, charmed her back from the edge of panic, and here he was doing it all over again.
She shouldn’t get closer.
She took one step anyway. Another. Her lioness prowled under her skin, urging her to cross the living room and let him in.
His scent snuck in through the crack under the door and wrapped around her like a comforting blanket. That alone almost calmed the frantic beat of her heart.
She pressed her hands against the wood, but didn’t say a word.
“You don’t need to run,” he repeated. “They won’t force you back.”
“You can’t know that,” she said in a faltering voice. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Buried alive literally, or buried alive under the force of a pride she hated, the end result would be the same slow, suffocating death.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “Doesn’t mean I’ll give up.”
Sage pressed
