Chapter 5
KOJO
My mate takes one look at me kneeling in the snow and sprints away like I am the threat instead of the man who just saved her life. I watch her disappear around the corner of the ruined gas station, boots slipping on the ice, arms pumping, breath fogging in the freezing air.
I do not understand---I did everything right.
The men with the gun wanted to hurt her, so I stopped them.
The man with the rifle wanted to kill me and would have killed her too, so I eliminated him.
I knelt before her as a guardian should kneel before his queen.
I offered myself to her service, and she ran.
What is happening? My Bouda is frantic, pacing inside my head, clawing at the walls of my mind. Why is she running? We protected her, killed the threat, submitted to her as we were taught. None of this makes sense.
I rise from my knee and turn to the two men on the ground.
The effects of my cackle will wear off in an hour, maybe two, but right now they are frozen where they fell, their eyes tracking me as I walk toward them.
The bigger one, the one who pointed the gun at her face, lies on his back near the gas pump.
Terror has locked every muscle in place, his features frozen mid-scream. He should be afraid.
I crouch beside him and lean close, inhaling deeply through my nose.
His scent floods my lungs: cheap cologne, smoke, the sour bite of fear sweat.
I commit it to memory. Then I stand and drive my bare foot into his ribs with enough force to crack bone.
He cannot scream or even flinch. Just lies there and takes it, eyes bulging, tears cutting tracks down his paralyzed cheeks.
“I am coming back for you.” My voice is calm, almost pleasant. “When your body starts working again, run. Hide. It will not matter. I have your scent now. I will find you wherever you go, and I will make you regret the moment you looked at her.”
I walk to the smaller one, still curled on his side with some kind of chemical residue crusting around his eyes.
I crouch and take his scent too: cigarettes, fast food grease, the sharp burn of whatever she sprayed in his face.
I kick him over to his belly, then drive my foot into his back hard enough to feel the vertebrae shift beneath.
His body jerks from the impact but his gaze stays locked, staring at nothing.
“You too.” I straighten and look between them. “Both of you are going to die.”
The poacher, my Bouda reminds me. With the rifle. Is he dead?
I turn toward the ruined gas station. Her car is embedded in the front of the building, the hood crumpled, the windshield shattered, bricks and glass scattered across the snow.
A heartbeat reaches me from inside, faint and stuttering but present, which means the store owner is barely alive.
I consider going in to finish the job, but my mate is getting farther away with every second I waste, and she matters more than vengeance.
I break into a run. The blizzard fights me, wind and snow battering my skin, but my furnace burns hot and the cold cannot touch me.
My bare feet slam against frozen pavement as I track the trail of her scent slicing through the exhaust and chemical stench of the city.
She turned left at the corner and is heading toward an alley between two boarded-up buildings.
I can hear her boots on the ice, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
She is fast for a human, but I am faster.
I leap, and the jump carries me over a dumpster and a chain-link fence, my body cutting through the falling snow.
I land in a crouch ten feet in front of her, the impact splitting the ice beneath my feet, fractures spreading across the ground like veins.
Steam rises from my shoulders as the snow melts on contact.
I straighten slowly, trying not to frighten her more than I already have.
It makes no difference because she cannot stop in time. She slams into my chest at full speed and bounces off, stumbling backward, arms pinwheeling for balance.
“My queen.” I keep my voice soft and gentle. “Please. You do not need to run from me. I am your guardian, and I will never harm you.”
Her eyes are wild, terrified. She looks at me like I crawled out of a nightmare. My Bouda whines behind my ribs, confused and wounded by her reaction. We are her protector, her servant, and she does not know it. Can she not feel what I feel? The bond that sears through my chest with every breath?
“Stay the fuck away from me!” She pulls a small canister from her pocket and hits me directly with something that burns.
My eyes water, the chemical sharp and acrid, unlike anything I have encountered before.
My nose floods with the stench. But my body filters the irritant within seconds, my furnace burning it off as it burns off everything else.
I blink a few times and shake my head, more confused by the weapon than harmed by it.
She stares at me with the canister still raised, her finger pressing the trigger even though it emptied five seconds ago. Her hand trembles so hard the canister rattles.
“What the fuck are you?”
“I am Bouda,” I say. “Here to guard you.”
She screams. The sound pierces through the howling wind, raw and ragged, and then she turns and runs again.
Her boots hit a patch of black ice and her feet go out from under her before I can reach her.
I lunge but I am not fast enough. She hits the ground hard, her cheek striking the pavement with a crack that makes my Bouda howl.
I am at her side in an instant, dropping to my knees, hands hovering over her body without touching. Blood pools in her mouth, warm and copper-sharp in the cold. Her cheek is already swelling where it hit the concrete, the skin darkening into a bruise that will be purple by morning.
I slide my arms beneath her and lift her to my chest. She is small in my hold, fragile, her body limp and unconscious.
Her head lolls against my shoulder. I pull her tighter, letting my body heat wrap around her, angling my shoulder to shield her from the wind.
The snow melts before it reaches her skin.
She smells like home, my Bouda says quietly. Even now.
I turn and begin walking back through the blizzard, retracing my steps toward the motel.
I walk instead of run, not wanting to jostle her injuries.
My furnace burns high, and her breath fogs on my skin where she is pressed.
Her heartbeat is steady under my palms, strong despite the fall.
She will be fine. The bruise and the cut in her mouth will heal on their own.
But I will never forget that she ran from me. That she was so afraid of what I am that she would rather crack her head on concrete than let me touch her.
What if she never accepts us? my Bouda asks.
I do not have an answer. All I can do is carry her through the storm and hope that when she wakes, she will give me the chance to explain.
The motel appears through the blizzard twenty minutes later, its neon sign flickering in the dark.
I carry her up the stairs and down the hallway to my room.
The door is already open. Kade is standing inside with her arms crossed, grinning wide when she sees me.
The grin falters when her gaze drops to my mate in my arms, to the darkening bruise on her cheek and the blood on her lips.
“Who did you kill?”
I step past her and lay my mate gently on the bed, arranging her head on the pillow, pulling the thin blanket up over her body. Aiden stands by the window with his phone in his hand, confusion heavy on his face.
“No one.” I straighten and look down at my mate on the bed, watching the discoloration spread beneath her brown skin. “I need supplies to care for her. Ice, bandages, and clean water.”
“Whoa, hold on.” Aiden moves closer, hands raised. “Kojo, look at yourself. You’re barefoot in a blizzard, you’ve got blood on your shirt, and there’s a woman unconscious in your bed. You need to explain what happened before we do anything.”
“She is my fated mate.” I do not look away from her face.
“Two men tried to assault her at a gas station. One pointed a gun at her head. A third man, a poacher, came out with a rifle.” My claws extend, piercing through the tips of my fingers.
The pain grounds me, keeps me focused. “They will die for what they did. But not tonight. Tonight, I stay with her.”
Aiden looks at Kade, helpless, silently begging her to make sense of this. She watches me, sharp and knowing.
“That’s the way of the Bouda,” she says, walking over to the bed to study my unconscious mate. “Threaten their queen and the grudge never dies. Once they start hunting, nothing survives and nothing gets left behind.” She glances back at me. “Isn’t that right, Kojo?”
“That is right.” I do not look away from the bed.
“And the poachers who killed your Matriarch?” Kade asks. The question sounds casual, but it is not. She is showing Aiden why I am this way. Why all Bouda are.
“One day I will find them, and I will make what happens to those men look merciful.”
She nods, satisfied, and turns to Aiden, who is staring at both of us like we have lost our minds.
“This is who he is,” she says. “Who his people have always been. The Bouda aren’t like the wolves or the lions. They don’t posture or threaten or hand out second chances. His mate was almost killed tonight. Those men are going to die. Not a question of if, only how much they suffer first.”
Aiden opens his mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. He looks at me, at the claws jutting from my fingertips, at whatever he reads in my eyes, and closes his mouth again.
I retract them and turn back to Kade. “I need supplies. Medicine and food for when she wakes. Things to make her comfortable.”
“Of course, Kojo.” Kade glances toward the window where the snow is still hammering down, and she teleports away.