30. Gabriella
Gabriella
I see him at the end of the trail.
Ethan.
For one terrible second, everything inside me forgets how to work.
My lungs. My legs. My fucking heart.
He’s standing there like a ghost from a life I thought I escaped, and suddenly the years between then and now collapse.
Ethan is tall and thin, all sharp angles and narrow shoulders. He isn’t powerful like my Alpha.
Not built like my Rowan.
Rowan is strength given flesh. Broad shoulders. Thick muscle. A body built to carry hoses up burning mountains, swing a Pulaski for hours, and hold me and my son like we are the most precious things he has ever touched.
Ethan has always been different.
Lean. Cold. Cruel.
Nasty.
The kind of male who never needed to be the strongest because he surrounded himself with males willing to hurt people for him.
My heart beats a fierce tattoo inside my chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The matebond burns beneath it.
Rowan.
I can’t see him. I can’t hear him. But he’s there.
I know he is.
That knowledge is the only reason I can make my feet keep moving.
My skin itches with my other nature. She wants out.
Yes, does she want out.
Heat prickles beneath my skin, threatening to erupt through every pore. Something restless unfurls inside my chest, enormous wings stretching against a cage made of flesh.
She remembers Ethan, too. She remembers chains.
Pain.
Fear.
She remembers him threatening our child before Matteo ever took his first breath. She wants to come out. To reclaim her child. To destroy the male who thought he could tame her.
Not yet.
I swallow.
Not yet.
Ethan will get his. But that part isn’t my job.
I’m here for my baby.
I stop twenty feet away. His mouth curls.
“Well, well. You’ve changed.”
My stomach twists.
“Gotten older.”
His eyes crawl down my body.
“Fatter.”
Once, those words would have hurt me. They would have found every insecurity and dug their claws in.
Now? I almost laugh.
Because just last night, I stood naked in front of my mate without a single fucking apology for the body I live in. Rowan worships these curves.
He kisses my soft belly. Grabs my thick thighs. Looks at every stretch mark like it belongs to something precious.
Ethan’s opinion suddenly seems very fucking small.
“Don’t worry, mate. I’ll have you back in shape once I get you home.”
My other nature snarls. So does something far away in the trees. So low I almost think I imagined it.
Almost.
My pulse settles.
Rowan.
I lift my chin.
“Mate?” I spit. “I’m not your mate, Ethan.”
His expression flickers. Good.
“My mate is a better male than you could ever dream of being.”
There. That gets him. His face twists.
I should probably stop provoking the psychopath holding my son hostage.
But fuck him.
“Now, I came here like you asked. Where is my son?”
“You mean our son, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t—”
“MOMMY!”
My heart stops.
I turn.
“Matteo!”
There he is.
My baby.
His dinosaur backpack is still hanging from one shoulder. His little soccer uniform is dirty, and there are tear tracks down his cheeks, but he’s standing.
Alive.
Thank God.
He’s okay.
Then I see who is holding him.
Nando.
My brother has both hands around Matteo’s arms. And he looks like shit.
For one stunned second, I barely recognize him. The plump, laughing boy I remember is gone. His cheeks are hollow. His skin has a grayish cast beneath it, and his clothes hang from his body. His eyes are dull, pupils wrong.
My heart cracks anyway.
“Nando.”
“Mommy!” Matteo struggles against him.
“Baby! Baby, are you okay?”
“I want to go to you, Mommy!”
“I know.” Tears burn my eyes. “Mommy’s here. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
I look at my brother.
“How could you?”
His eyes dart away.
“Sorry, sis. I owed Ethan. He—he was gonna kill me.”
The words hit me harder than Ethan’s insults ever could.
All those payments. All those extra shifts.
Every aching night at Dick’s. Every hundred-dollar tip Rowan left me that I secretly sent to Nando. I thought I was keeping Matteo safe.
Instead, I was feeding the addiction that eventually sold us out.
“Nando.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
My voice breaks.
“You don't get to be sorry. That's my baby.”
“I didn't have a choice.”
“We always have a choice.”
His eyes flicker. For half a second, I see the boy he used to be. Then it’s gone.
Whatever Witch’s brew he’s addicted to has hollowed him out from the inside.
There’s no reaching him.
And that hurts.
But Matteo needs me more. He comes first. And he always will.
“Listen to me!”
Ethan’s voice cracks across the clearing.
“If you want Nando and little Matteo to live, you will be coming home with me.”
His composure is slipping.
“The Wake thinks I’m weak because my mates won’t breed. They think I can't produce strong offspring.”
His eyes burn with something feverish.
“But I bred you.”
My stomach turns.
“And I will again.”
“No.”
“I don't care what kind of freak you are.”
Heat rolls beneath my skin.
“I’ll beat that shit out of the boy if I have to.”
Everything inside me ignites.
“YOU WON’T TOUCH MY SON!”
Ethan’s face contorts.
“Get her!”
Movement explodes around me.
“Chain her! Put her on her fucking knees!”
The forest erupts.
Bearded Vultures drop from the trees.
One second, enormous winged shapes are descending around me. The next, bodies hit the earth.
Human skin.
Men.
Too many of them. Their hands grab at me.
“GET OFF!”
I twist. Kick. Drive my elbow backward and hear somebody grunt.
Metal rattles. Chains.
Oh God. No.
No chains.
Panic detonates inside me.
“STOP!”
Someone catches my arm. Another grabs my hair.
I fight harder. Then Ethan reaches me.
His palm cracks across my face. Pain explodes through my cheek.
My head snaps sideways. For one disorienting second, the forest tilts. My ears ring. I taste blood.
“MOMMY!”
Matteo’s scream cuts through everything.
My baby.
I wrench against the hands holding me.
“DON’T LOOK, MATTEO!”
Then, the forest changes.
Pressure rolls through the clearing.
Pure Alpha dominance.
So much fucking dominance.
My captors feel it too. Bodies stiffen. Heads turn.
Fear suddenly floods the air.
They’re here.
The A-Feral crew is here.
And I can feel all three of them. Justin’s power rolls overhead like an approaching storm.
Ancient. Terrible.
Wreck’s crashes through the forest like the mountain itself has decided to get up and fight.
But Rowan? Monster’s growl is so fierce and low it’s almost like you can’t hear it.
But you can fucking feel it.
And I know the second the Vultures do. I think one of them might have actually pissed himself.
My matebond fucking erupts. Rowan’s fury slams through me.
Protective.
Possessive.
Lethal.
Mate.
Pup.
OURS.
I nearly sob with relief.
“What the fuck?”
Ethan grabs me by my hair and yanks me backward.
“I told you to come alone!”
He hits me again. Pain bursts through my mouth.
But this time? I laugh.
I actually fucking laugh.
Blood runs over my lip as I look at him.
“I did.”
His face changes.
“What?”
“I walked in alone.”
A roar tears through the forest.
Not Bear.
Not Dragon.
Something monstrous.
Something mine.
Ethan’s eyes widen.
“I never said they wouldn't follow me.”
Then all hell breaks loose.
Wreck hits them from the east.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
I have never seen his full hybrid Bear before. But let me tell you, there is nothing cuddly about him now.
He is enormous. Gigantic. Fierce. His mismatched eyes burn from a face that is part man, part beast, and entirely nightmare.
A Vulture Shifter lunges at him.
Bad fucking decision.
Wreck catches the male in one massive paw and throws him into a tree hard enough that I hear bones crack.
Another attacks. Wreck’s claws rip through his chest. Blood sprays across the leaves.
Then Rowan comes from the west.
Not Rowan.
Monster.
My breath catches.
He’s horrifying. He’s beautiful. He moves upright, a massive lupine nightmare of fur, muscle, teeth, and claws.
And he is coming for me.
Three Vultures rush him.
Monster hits the first so hard they go tumbling through the dirt together. Rowan comes up first. His jaws close around the male’s shoulder. Bones crunch. He throws him aside.
The second gets claws across his belly. The third never reaches him. Rowan catches the Shifter by the throat. One violent twist.
Crack.
The body drops.
But there are too many. More Vultures descend from the trees. Then shadows pass over us.
Dozens of them.
Oh fuck.
Ethan brought an entire fucking army. They dive toward Wreck and Rowan. And every single one of them makes the same mistake.
They forget to look higher.
A roar shakes the mountain. The sky fucking catches fire.
It’s Justin. The Dragon dives through the cloud of Vultures like a living missile.
His enormous wings blot out the sun. Fire erupts from his jaws. Not toward the forest though.
Up.
Controlled.
Precise.
A wall of flame cuts across the sky. Vultures scatter.
Some aren't fast enough. Feathers ignite. Screams fill the air. Burning bodies tumble through the smoke.
The smell is horrible.
Feathers.
Blood.
Charred flesh.
The forest becomes chaos.
Ethan coughs. His grip on my hair tightens.
Then something cold presses against my temple. I freeze.
A gun.
“You fucking bitch.”
Of course.
What kind of piece-of-shit Shifter brings a gun to a supernatural fight?
Ethan. Only Ethan.
“Stop them!”
“No.”
He yanks my hair.
“I said stop them!”
“And I said fuck you.”
His gun moves from my temple. Toward Matteo. Everything inside me stops.
“No.”
Across the clearing, Wreck has reached my son. Nando tries to hold on to him. Wreck’s paw moves.
Once.
It’s fast and brutal. Nando’s body hits the ground in two pieces.
I see it. And I know I should feel something.
Horror.
Grief.
Anything.
But I don’t. Not now.
Maybe later.
Right now, Wreck has Matteo. My baby throws his arms around the enormous Bear’s neck. Wreck drops onto all fours.
“Get him out of here!” I scream.
The Bear turns.
Ethan raises the gun.
“NO!”
Time slows.
I see the barrel. See where he’s aiming.
At Matteo.
My baby.
I move. There is no thought. No fear.
Nothing except the knowledge that if that bullet is going toward my child, it is going through me first.
I step in front of it.