Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
KENZO ATALLAH
The Next Day
“Let me get this straight… We were staying in a house that could have killed us so Tiny could get some dick from a cheetah, lion, tiger hybrid?” Cree asked with a straight face.
Tiny cut her eyes at Cree, giving him a look that could kill. “Keep testing me, wolf,” was Tiny’s only reply, which was odd for her. Cree had been talking shit to her about being in a good mood since she reappeared this morning, telling us we had to head home.
Although we weren’t sure what Tiny had been up to, we couldn’t deny she seemed to let more of Cree’s shit talking slide.
Tiny was normally quick to put him in his place, but she’d been ignoring his slick remarks for the last hour or so of us walking.
Halo warned him to chill out, but Cree was relentless.
He was probably still mad about Tiny throwing him into the Sanctuary of Life yesterday.
“I’m just saying, you disappeared all day yesterday. No mystical words of confusion. Just left us. Then you popped back up smiling and kee-keeing,” Cree continued with his foolishness while talking to Tiny.
We shook our heads at him. He was relentless, but it gave us something to laugh at on this walk.
“Are you jealous?” Tiny snickered.
“Cree, shut up. If Tiny wants to get some dick, let her get dick in peace! Don’t be mad because you aren’t getting any because of your mouth.
Learn to control yourself, and you would be smiling and kee-keeing like everyone around us,” Halo blasted Cree, causing him to roll his eyes and give Halo a dirty look.
“How the hell was I supposed to know that shifter was your uncle?” Cree asked while throwing his hands up. “He shouldn’t have walked over hugging you without introducing himself to me first.”
“You big damn dummy, he did! You were too busy stuffing your face,” Halo rebutted while pushing past Cree.
“Keep on testing me, Halo. These woods are vast,” Cree warned before giving Halo hard eyes that she ignored and kept on walking. Cree followed behind her like a sad puppy trying to plead his case, only to threaten her when she wouldn’t budge.
“He’s a mess,” Bellamy laughed in our ear. We were carrying her on our back. She claimed she was too tired to walk since we kept her up late last night.
As we recalled it, she was the one who didn’t want to stop fucking last night.
We fucked all over that bathroom. Neither of us could get enough of each other.
Our scents were going to cover that bathroom for weeks to come.
We couldn’t wait to get back to our cave and cover it with our scents.
It made us want to take down Mateo and the rest of the Council even more.
They were interrupting us being able to make love to our mate in peace.
They had to go asap. We were sure Bellamy wasn’t going to be happy, but we were going to leave her with Cree and Halo while we took care of the Council.
We refused to put her at risk, and knowing them, they’d probably try to use her against us somehow.
Of course, Bellamy didn’t know it yet. We were going to wait until we got back to the Kismet packlands.
Hendrix and Millan stayed back at The Sanctuary of Life. Although Hendrix was still reluctant, he stayed but made us promise to call him if we needed help.
“That’s Cree for you,” we replied. A frown crossed our lips when we noticed how close we were to being back home. “Tiny?”
Tiny stopped, then turned around to acknowledge us. “Yes?”
“It took us damn near two days to get to the Sanctuary of Life. Why is it that we're almost home after almost two hours?”
“I swear I was just about to ask the same shit,” Cree said while standing in front of a black tree. “The Kismet parklands are only like thirty minutes away from this tree. We use it as a marker.”
“Time always moves faster going home than it does going to a new place. However, Fate can be a trickster. Things aren’t always as they seem. Maybe we weren’t gone as long as we thought,” Tiny replied before winking at us.
“Here you go,” Cree replied while shrugging his shoulders, sounding annoyed.
“If we weren’t gone that long, why couldn’t we stay longer? I wanted to spend more time with my dad. It’s crazy because he remembers everything. He even asked about my mom,” Halo said with optimism in her voice.
Exhaling, Tiny looked at her with sympathy. “Unfortunately, evil doesn’t rest for our happiness. In fact, it tries to go out of the way to make us miserable. They’re coming for you.” Tiny looked past us to Bellamy. “The best option is to catch them off guard before they catch us.”
“Why are they after me?” Bellamy questioned, and we could feel her unease.
“You and Kenzo are the next loose ends they are going after. Yves, Delcan and Cree are walking in their destinies; there is no room for the evil to infiltrate,” Tiny answered.
“So, what? We're going to fight them now?” we asked, annoyed and not liking the fact that Bellamy was going to be in danger.
“Pretty much,” Tiny confirmed with a peculiar look on her face. “Kenzo?” she called out to us. We gave Tiny our full attention. “Do not underestimate the power of your mate. She may not remember, but her soul knows.”
We squinted at Tiny, trying to make sense of her words, but then we heard a loud rumble. We snapped our heads in the direction of the noise. Trees began shaking while some of them fell, landing with loud thuds, followed by another loud thunderous roar.
“What the fuck is that?” Cree questioned while pulling Halo behind him as we all looked on in anticipation of what was coming out of the woods.
First, a long, overly muscular brown arm with girthy veins protruding out of it became visible.
It hurt us seeing the arm. It looked as if it was going to explode if we poked it too hard.
Then there was another arm that looked like the first arm, but this arm appeared longer than the first. The two hands attached to the arms didn’t match the size of the arms. The hands were larger than normal hands; however, they were oddly smaller than hands that would belong to the arms. Still, they were strong enough to pull apart the trees blocking their path, allowing several reptile shifters of all kinds to come through the hole.
The collective hissing sound they all made became louder and louder as more of them came through the opening.
Then a dark figure began coming out of the hole.
A small woman with a deformed face that looked like she had been beaten in the face came floating through.
Her skin cracked an unnatural shade of black, and she had beady yellow and red eyes.
Her skinny, elongated fingers were almost as long as her body.
Her aura screamed evil. She smiled malevolently at us as the hulking figure revealed itself, making her appear even smaller than she was.
The deformed figure was half human, half bear.
Unlike the guardians, this beast looked as if he was in pain.
His nose was in a bear snout, one eye was covered in fur, his teeth were that of his bear, and his lips could barely contain them.
The body was huge, uneven, and as deformed as the rest of him.
One arm was longer than the other legs that looked as if they were going to bust. His chest was oversized and poked out like a badly drawn cartoon character.
He let out another roar that made us believe he was in pain. There was no other explanation.
“Sister, you don’t look happy to see me.” The small dark lady’s voice sounded as sinister as she looked.
“You are no sister of mine,” Tiny responded with disdain in her voice.
“Am I not? Because I chose a different path than the pathetic one that was so humbly laid out by Fate?” the sister asked in a sarcastic voice.
“You let evil consume you, Meeny. You killed Teeny, your mate, and countless others. For what? To be turned into a twisted, vile version of yourself,” Tiny spoke with hatred.
“My mate loves me no matter what,” Meeny taunted Tiny with amusement in her evil eyes.
“Kenzoooo.” The way Meeny called our name sent chills up our spine.
Her menacing gaze settled on us. “Are you not going to speak to your fellow council members? Mateo, Darius, and Naheem. They all decided to come together to defeat you and claim the title as the Alpha of the Bear shifters. Then we will have the strength of the bears on our side.” Meeny smiled, showing off her decaying and rotten teeth.
We were in shock at finding out that mess of a being was Mateo and the others, but it didn’t scare us. Together or separate, we’d still fuck them up. “We’re the only True Alpha of the Bears,” we confidently said while staring her right in the eyes.
“Is that a challenge?” Meeny asked deviously. “Mateo, did you hear him challenge you? Are you going to stand for that?”
The amalgamation of the council let out another roar, then took off in a sprint toward us. Surprisingly, he could run faster than we expected. With Bellamy on our back still, we dodged their attack by leaping in the air and landing on a tree branch.
“Stay here,” we told Bellamy before leaping from the tree.
“Looking for us, bitch?” we asked while walking from behind the council amalgamation, who was looking around feverishly, trying to find us.
In a clumsy fashion, they turned around, looking at us.
He roared again, only to be cut off by our own loud roar.
As we charged their big asses headfirst, we began to shift, letting my bear take full control.
I was no fool. My human couldn’t take them on alone.
I felt the hairs taking over my body and my features changing into my bear’s.
Once we were fully shifted, we smashed into their body, knocking us back into a tree in the distance.
We could hear Meeny screaming “attack,” but there wasn’t much we could do besides kill this big bitch.
Picking us up, they threw us off them. Being quick on our feet, we landed on them and used this moment to check on Bellamy.
“Are you okay?” we asked, mindspeaking with Bellamy.
“I am.”
“Call us if you need us,” we mindspoke with Bellamy, wanting her to know if she needed us, we’d be there.
“I will. I feel so helpless watching all of you fight while I hide in a tree. I want to help,” Bellamy replied seconds later, sounding defeated.
“Staying in the tree and staying safe is helping. Don’t move, Bellamy,” we growled while staring at the council members who were trying to catch their breath. It took Bellamy a few minutes to reply.
“Okay,” she sadly replied to our satisfaction.
Now that we knew our mate was safe, we focused back on our fight.
Growling, we bared our canines before charging back at the council amalgamation.
Catching it off guard, we bit a huge chunk from its partially fur-covered chest. He violently shook from side to side, trying to get us loose.
A vile taste seeped into our mouth, causing us to let go.
We flew into a tree a few feet from the council amalgamation, disgusted as we spit out the gunk in our mouths.
What the fuck?
Staring in disbelief, we watched black sludge-like gunk instead of red blood pour out his wound.
They let out a loud wailing sound of pain, and then their eyes started glowing red.
They turned toward us, baring their mangled teeth at us.
Then it charged at us in a clumsy manner like it was just learning to walk.
Easily, we side-stepped their charge before slashing its back, and more of the black gunk came spewing out their back.
They dropped to their knees, roaring in pain with their arms wiggling from side to side.
Figuring now was the best time to go in for the kill, we leapt from our position behind them, going in to swipe our claws across their neck.
To our surprise, they ducked down at the last second, sending us crashing into the ground.
Before we had a chance to get up, they were on top of us, pinning us to the ground.
While growling in our face, they tried to tear into our neck, but we latched onto their muzzle, tearing it off.
Black gunk leaked onto our face. In disgust, we used our claws to slash them across their face, and then we knocked them off us.
Not wasting any time, we stalked back over to their limp body sprawled against a tree. Taking our paw, we slammed into their face, crushing their head on the tree. Their head exploded, sending the black gunk flying everywhere and covering our face to our annoyance, but at least we’d killed them.
We were shaking our head to get as much of the gunk off of us as possible when we heard a scream that sent chills down our spine. It was Bellamy. Immediately, we took off in the direction of where we’d left her while praying Fate protected our mate.