Chapter 2
Kylian Barrington
Hunched over with my hair loose around my face, I stare at the slew of unanswered text messages from Koran.
Bubbles dance as a new text comes in.
Koran: I don’t need this shit. Kade and Karter will be home any minute and if you’re not here, I’m turning you over to them. I talked to Lana and I know she’s lying but at this point I don’t care where you’ve been, just that you’re here when they arrive.
I hear Lana and Alyssa murmuring as they walk through the vendor booths towards mine near the back, but what they’re saying is unclear.
Unlike the rest of the community, I don’t have supersonic shifter hearing.
I’m just another hapless human like Dinah and Valery, but at least they have their mates to protect them.
Who do I have? Pain in the ass brothers who have no idea who I am or what I need.
“Hellloooooo,” Lana says playfully from behind me.
Of course the two cat shifters found me easily.
They probably followed my scent despite all the fragranced body lotions and candles surrounding me.
Although the trading post is open and Glacier National Park visitors have been walking through our booths for the last three hours, I’ve successfully kept myself hidden behind boxes of packing materials.
“Koran’s looking for you, and apparently your bed wasn’t slept in last night.
Does this mean you and Jimmy John got freaky? ”
Jimmy John is Lana’s pet name for the guy I’ve gone on multiple dates with over the past month. The guy my brothers don’t know about and my friends have never met. He’s my first—well, I guess you could call him boyfriend since I’ve never had one of those either.
He’s the first guy to ask me out.
First to press his lips to mine.
First to tell me I’m beautiful and sexy.
First to show me how badly he wants me to be his.
And last night, after I told him I wasn’t ready for sex, he was the first man to hit me as is evident by the bruise darkening my cheek.
I don’t look up at my friends.
I can’t let my brothers see my face.
I don’t know what to do.
“Hey,” Alyssa says gently as she places her hand on my shoulder. “What’s going on? Why are you hiding back here?”
I shake my head, a rogue tear plopping down on the darkened screen of my cell. “I can’t go home.”
Lana crouches down to where I’m unable to hide my face. Her cat makes a guttural growl as her eyes grow wide. “What happened to your face?”
Shifters don’t bruise easily, at least not like humans.
Which marks last night as another epic failure on the report card of my life.
For years, Karter wouldn’t let me leave Fortune Falls to go to school for fear I’d shift one night and maul my roommate in her sleep.
I guess that’s no longer a concern. If my bear won’t come forward to protect us against an angry man not getting his way, she’s never coming.
Begrudgingly, I lift my head and allow my two female friends an unencumbered view of my face.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Lana hisses.
“Did Jimmy John do this?” Alyssa reaches to touch my cheek and quickly pulls her fingers back like the bruise is a communicable disease or something.
Another rogue tear slides down my cheek, but as always, this one is born of a simmering rage that’s been burning in my belly since I was ten years old. I’ve been angry for a long time but until last winter I hid it behind a bubbly, carefree attitude.
That’s how old I was when our mother abandoned us.
And then, even though he was physically here, our father abandoned us in his own way too.
Kade joined the military so he could send money home to care for his six siblings.
Four years later, Kash followed him. The triplets were only six when our mother left, leaving Karter and me to take on the parental roles.
We did our best to keep them out of trouble but once they shifted in their teenage years—and I still hadn’t—our dynamics changed.
I no longer fit in their world. Karter was strict and boring, and I was too human.
But my anger at our mother, our father, my brothers, and the shifter community at large bubbled to the surface the moment Kade brought his human mate home—one who instantly fascinated my brothers.
All of the sudden being human was more than acceptable, when I’ve always felt lacking without my shifter magick.
“Ky?” Alyssa gently prods. “What happened?”
“He wanted to… He said we’ve been seeing each other long enough…
But I told him I wasn’t ready.” My eyes drift down to my lap.
“He apologized. Swore it was an accident and tried to make me stay with him.” I bring my eyes up to meet theirs, skipping the parts I can’t say out loud.
“I can’t let my brothers see this bruise.
They will lose it and the little freedom I have will become nonexistent. ”
Not that my freedom matters anymore. Karter held on too tightly while the boys barely pay attention to anything other than their social media empire.
But if freedom to choose as a human female means entitled men think they can hit you when they don’t get what they want, I might as well move into a convent.
Not that I’m Catholic or anything.
“Did he?” Lana is so angry she is visibly shaking while trailing her eyes down my body. I suspect she’s fighting her cat from taking over, her desire to maul in my defense calling her primal instincts forward.
“No.” I shake my head. “I pushed him off me. He says he flailed and accidentally backhanded me and didn’t realize it while he ranted but once he saw me holding my cheek he apologized.”
Alyssa’s eyes narrow. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
“No.” I shake my head and cast my eyes down to my phone, closing the chat window with Koran and opening the one from James. He’s been texting me nonstop since I peeled out of his driveway last night. “But he won’t stop messaging.”
11:38pm James: Please, babe, come back. You know I’d never hurt you. I care about you.
11:56pm James: Let me know when you get home.
2:14am James: Seriously, I can’t sleep not knowing you are safe.
5:42am James: You awake?
5:47am James: I need to see you.
5:52am James: Please girl. I think we have something special. Don’t let a misunderstanding ruin a good thing.
“Fates.” Lana rolls her eyes as Alyssa groans.
“We have no experience with human males but a shifter would never hit his mate,” Alyssa offers gently.
“A shifter would never take me as his mate. I’m a misfit. A reject. A —” My phone beeps with another text from Koran, saving us from another of my self-depreciating rants.
Koran: Home.
“Shit. I really need to go. Do either of you have makeup to cover this?”
Lana frowns and exchanges a look with Alyssa. “I might have something but this conversation isn’t over.”
“On pause, I know.” I sigh as she rushes out of my booth while I avoid eye contact with Alyssa.
She places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. We’ve got your back. Always.”
“I know.”
Ten minutes later I’m wearing more eye makeup than I ever have in my life. If the boys paid close attention to me, I’d be worried they’d notice. Of course, it’s not the triplets I need to worry about. It’s the ever-watchful gaze of my big brothers who I hope will be distracted by their mates.
At least they have been since the day they met them.
I pull up our driveway at the same time a big black helicopter lands behind the house.
What the hell? That’s not remotely normal for Fortune Falls.
Jumping out of my truck, I run around the house and stop dead in my tracks as I catch my brothers and a handful of men dressed in military camouflage manhandle a giant cage out of the helicopter.
It takes a minute to sort through the images I’m seeing.
Inside the cage is an unmoving and emaciated brown bear, asleep or worse.
Without a hint of information, I know in my heart it’s Kash.
Tears spring to my eyes as I run forward, pushing through men I don’t know to come face to snout with the sleeping bear.
I can’t stop the sobs from wracking my chest as I grip the metal bars and sink to my knees in front of him, his snout twitching like he’s caught my scent even though his eyes are closed and face remains slack.
“What did you do to him?” I scream at no one and everyone simultaneously.
The boys don’t tell me things. Neither does Kade nor Karter, but Kash and I have a special bond we enjoy on the rare occasions he comes home for a visit.
We’re not the type to talk or text when he’s deployed, but he always spends time with me when he’s here.
Just me and him.
Firm arms wrap around my midsection to pull me off the ground but I refuse to loosen my grip on the bars. Kash’s eyes blink open, a hollow blank stare meeting mine while Karter’s commanding tone breaks through the buzz in my head.
“Fucking hell. Take her to the house,” he barks to someone, although I’m not sure who.
“Let go, Ky,” Kason grumbles in my ear, yanking back hard and turning me away from the cage as soon as I lose my grip.
I flail in his arms, years of thinly veiled rage giving me super human strength.
Somehow I twist in my brother’s hold and catch the side of his head with my elbow.
Surprised, he drops me and stumbles back, cursing under his breath.
I scramble back to the cage and put my face in line with my brother’s. “Kash? Is that you? What’s going on? Why do you look like that? Shift and talk to me!”
Kash lifts his head and sniffs my fingers, his deep brown eyes clearing momentarily like he recognizes me and wants to talk.
Except I can’t speak telepathically like the rest of the family.
Kason is behind me again, wrapping his arms around my waist. This time I let out a guttural scream, preparing to claw, kick, and bite in order to stay.
I don’t know why my momma bear is roaring to life right now but seeing Kash like this—transported like an animal by my own brothers and uniformed strangers—is my breaking point.
My warrior cry upsets Kash’s bear. He lifts his head again and lets out a weak roar, which turns into a raspy cough as Kash morphs from emaciated bear to a sickly naked man lying prone on the bottom of his cage.
“Stop,” he croaks and pants for breath. “Let her go.”
Kason drops me and I slip my arms through the bars, reaching for my brother’s bony hand. “Kash.”
He rests his head on his bicep and stares back at me, his voice barely above a pained whisper. “Hey, Killer.”
“Sweet Fates.” Karter and Kade rush inside the cage and crouch down next to our brother while a lean black man kneels outside of the bars.
I’ve never seen this man before but he’s not dressed in an Army uniform like the others.
Instead, he wears the same black leather vest my brother Kade wears when he rides his motorcycle.
I bring my eyes back to Kash's, who smiles weakly and squeezes my hand before his body goes limp and eyes close again.
“Fuck,” Kade grumbles while the unknown man presses his fingers to our brother’s throat.
“He passed out. Come on, let’s move him to a clean bed.”
I’m still holding onto Kash’s fingers as Karter wraps his hand over ours and gives me a half smile. “You brought him back, Ky.”
“Brought him back?” Shaking my head, I bring my watery eyes up to meet his. “Brought him back from what?”