Chapter 24 Avery #2
Through it all, they pressed suffocating dominance on me, trying to force their will, commanding me to shift, to cower, to obey.
My beast raged. We resisted, but we couldn’t return the favor, or it would blow our cover.
Because I recognized these two assholes.
These wolves were Alex and Jared from Cash’s quad.
The shouts of my quintet rang in my ears. A bear roared. Feet pounded the grass behind me.
“Avery, bail out!”
I followed Heath’s command without question. I whipped my blades like a blender one last time before I dove clear of the wolves.
I hit the ground and flipped to my stomach just in time to witness Heath’s enormous golden wolf burst from his body. He blasted Alex and Jared with so much dominance that both wolves winced and lost focus for the briefest moment.
They shook it off, but the delay was enough for Heath.
He grabbed Alex by the neck and used those truly terrifying wolf muscles to shake him violently, the crack of his spine piercing the air. Heath spat him out, and he dropped to the ground like a discarded sack of trash.
Heath attacked Jared next. The wolves snarled and growled and snapped their jaws, chasing each other in a whirlwind until Heath let loose another wave of dominance so powerful, even my tiger shivered under its force.
Jared yelped, and then Heath’s jaws were in his throat.
In a flash, fur retreated and bones collapsed until Jared the man dropped from Heath’s clutches to the ground, nude and bleeding. “I yield,” he snapped, crawling to his feet.
Wyatt, now a naked man, was in his face in an instant. “What the fuck was that, asshole? Are our trainers attacking students now?”
Jared’s face had reset to its usual bored indifference, no matter the blood pouring from an open gash in his jaw. “It was a surprise final challenge. Cash and Trent are hiding at the Black Team base.”
Aiden stepped to Wyatt’s side and gave Jared a look that said he was two seconds from choking him to death. “You singled out Avery when there are five of us in this group, and you continued to attack her even after she drew blood. There is no chance that was sanctioned by Commander Moss.”
Jared shrugged and answered in his monotone. “The bitch has been told repeatedly that if she can’t handle it, she doesn’t belong in the fucking Guardians.”
Heath’s wolf growled, liquid gold starbursts in his eyes.
Jared clenched his bloody jaw. “Stand down, trainee,” he ordered Heath.
The golden wolf snorted in derision, and we all laughed.
Jared went red in the face. “I’ll have you tossed, Blackwell—”
The air turned frigid. A July blizzard was coming down the mountain and bringing an avalanche with it.
Elijah stalked down the hill. Green-gray scales ghosted along his neck and arms. The glowing eyes and slit pupils of his beast zeroed in on Jared.
“Come anywhere near Avery again, and you will be dead,” he said, his voice a serpentine hiss. “Is that understood?”
Jared blanched but didn’t respond. He stalked away, retrieved some clothes he’d stashed behind a bush, and hastily put them on.
Still not looking at any of us, he marched over to where Alex lay recovering from Heath cracking his spine in half.
He kicked him irritably, and the dark gray wolf got slowly to his feet.
Elijah’s cold fingers caressed the back of my neck, and I shivered.
Alex and Jared trudged away. The five of us, along with four wounded leopards, watched them go.
We’d been walking through the woods for about fifteen minutes, headed back to camp, when I decided I’d stewed enough on today’s events and the conversation in the guys’ cabin and couldn’t take it anymore.
My tiger’s ire leaked from my pores as I grabbed Heath by the shorts—those had survived his unplanned shift—and dragged him to the nearest tree.
“Killer, what—”
I put both hands on his bare chest, right on top of his wolf tattoo, and shoved him against the trunk. “You are not weak, Heath Blackwell,” I growled in his face. “I never want to hear you say that about yourself again. You got that?”
He blinked in shock for exactly one second before he grabbed me by the waist, flipped me around, and pressed his entire body up against me, trapping me between his hot, hard chest and the tree. With a snarl, he grasped my face and slammed his lips against mine.
My tiger’s agitation turned instantly to a pleased purr, and I moaned against his lips.
He held my face in an unyielding grip and took what he wanted. He wasn’t sweet or gentle. He was demanding and firm, like I was his and he was mine and he had every right to press his hard dick between my thighs while he stroked my tongue with his.
Heat pooled in my belly, and lower, and I gasped when he ripped his mouth from mine. “I’ll agree to that, baby,” he said softly, resting his forehead against mine. “I won’t ever say that about myself again, but you have to do something for me in return.”
“What?” I asked breathlessly.
“Tell me what happened before you came to school,” he said, his voice velvet.
“I know you, Killer. You would’ve been happy staying home in the city, slaying wraiths with your family instead of facing all the bullshit of being someone like you at a shifter school and in this program.
” He gripped my chin and tilted my face to ensure I was looking him right in his glowing hazel eyes.
“Tell me what scared you enough that you ran off to join the Guardians?”
I shut my eyes and reveled in the feel of him. I was getting lost. I hadn’t forgiven him, not yet, but I’d decided to stop the constant battle I was waging against them, my beast, and myself.
I wanted to trust Heath. So, I did.
“Right before Christmas last year, a few Rippers and a Giant made it into our neighborhood.”
Heath sucked in a breath. The others were nearby, listening, the pheromones of the jaguar, the bear, and the basilisk mingling in the air around us.
I told them about the wraiths, how they’d surprised me, how I’d gotten torn up enough that I’d had to shift to save my own life, and how a couple of our shifter neighbors had seen my tiger.
“And their names?” Heath asked innocently, peering down at me, our noses almost touching.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can’t kill them. They’re minor shifters who live as humans. They’re harmless.”
“I’m sure they are, baby. But if your dad says they have relatives in the Hills, and if there’s any chance whatsoever that a whisper of a female tiger is going around our community, I want to know about it.”
I relented and gave him the Martins’ names. Heath shot Elijah a pointed glance over his shoulder, and Elijah responded with the barest of nods.
“Okay, Killer, we have a deal,” Heath said, grinning triumphantly at me. He pressed one more slow, sensual kiss to my lips, and then he released me from the tree.
Wyatt and Elijah rose from where they’d been sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, both of them grinning knowingly at me. Aiden stood nearby, his eyes heated as he gave me a chastising sort of look, like I was in trouble for turning him on.
I gathered my bearings, stuffed my lusty tiger back into her cage, and continued the march back to camp. The guys fell in behind me without another word.
A smile crept onto my face.
It had been a good day.