Gilbert (16 page)

“Don’t think about it now,”
Jihu urged, because Gilbert’s mind was reeling with the fact that he was latched onto a creature he’d killed. Gilbert released Jin, and blood spewed over his coat. Gilbert stumbled back, heaving and coughing in his feline form.

“Don’t, not now, Gilbert. You had no choice. I don’t even…”
Jihu looked at Kim, saw the wide eyes still, unmoving, staring at nothing. He and Gilbert had both killed tonight, and they might not be done.
“We can’t dwell on this. We had no choice, Gil. Neither of us would have resorted to killing if we could have avoided it. We have to get to Levi and Lyndon.”
Because Jihu cold hear their battle still raging yards away.

Although Gilbert didn’t answer him through their link, he did shake himself and turn, bolting for his cousins. Jihu followed, and saw that Levi and Lyndon’s situation was every bit as dire as theirs had been. Levi and Lyndon were both injured, Lyndon limping badly and Levi trying to protect his mate from three more shifters. Levi’s coat glistened with blood in too many places. Two Amur shifters lay still in the moonlight. Whether they were dead or not, Jihu couldn’t tell.

Without hesitating, Jihu and Gilbert attacked, leaping on two of the three Amurs still upright. Jihu’s slighter frame made it easy for him to alight onto the first Amur’s back. He got a snout full of the scent and knew it was Kwan who he was about to fight.

Except Kwan mewled and dropped onto his belly. He slapped his paws over his head and Jihu had a moment of utter confusion before he realised Kwan didn’t want to fight. Apparently he didn’t like the odds now.

The other Amur took one look at Jihu and Kwan and took off, running so fast he was little more than a blur. Jihu wanted to go after him, but what was the point? Gilbert was fighting the last Amur, until Levi hauled off and knocked the Amur into a burnt tree trunk. Unconscious or dead, it didn’t matter just then. The battle was over, except for Kwan.

Kwan, who was still cowering. Jihu stormed over to the shifter, Gilbert at his side. Levi was with Lyndon, and Jihu hoped the cougar would live. He shifted and kicked Kwan’s paw as Gilbert put his teeth to Kwan’s neck, the threat clear.

“Shift, damn it,” Jihu yelled. “Do it or I’ll rip you to pieces myself!” And he would, he was so furious, the need to protect his loved ones so great.

Kwan mewled and shifted, turning from cowering leopard to crying man in seconds. “S-sorry,” he began but a nip from Gilbert shut him up, except for an alarmed-sounding squeak. The scent of urine hit the air and Jihu snorted the odour back out of his nose.

“Why?” Jihu demanded. “Why did you and the others attack us?”

“Chung-Hee,” Kwan stuttered, sniffling and shivering so hard his teeth clacked. “He saw you coming from his hideout about a half mile that way.” Kwan pointed and Jihu’s blood iced in his veins.

Chung-Hee was holed up somewhere in the area Josiah and the others had headed to. “How did he see us?”

Kwan shrugged his entire torso. “I don’t know. He has things, night-vision stuff. He’s been watching. He wants Bae, he wants you. Chul…Chul isn’t likely to recover from when Chung-Hee shot him, and Chul has been refusing to breed, claiming it’s wrong and that he has a mate, which should exempt him. That’s all I know, Jihu, I swear it.”

Jihu squatted and pressed his hand to Kwan’s throat. “And Ye-sun, who helped me escape? What became of him?”

“I don’t know,” Kwan whispered. “Chung-Hee had him caught, then the fire came, and I don’t know. He—he might not have been able to leave.”

Jihu’s throat constricted, as did his chest, with pain at the idea of Ye-sun being dead. He’d taken a huge risk helping Jihu and Daniel, and why? Was it because it was the right thing to do? Because he was Jihu’s half-brother? What had made Ye-sun do what he’d done?

“If he’s dead, I will kill Chung-Hee myself,” Jihu promised. He stood and looked around for something to bind Kwan with then decided that would be a waste of time. Kwan could just shift and get out of whatever Jihu tried to tie him up with. “You’ll come with us.”

Kwan rolled onto his back. Blood streaked his chest and shoulder. “No, please,” he begged, something very close to terror showing in his expression. “Please, I’ll beg, I’ll do whatever you want. I didn’t fight you because I didn’t want to hurt you, Jihu. I never did. I never said or did one cruel thing to you when you were chained—”

“You didn’t release me,” Jihu pointed out.

Kwan closed his eyes and sobbed. “I couldn’t. They would have killed me. You don’t know what they would do to me anyway, what they made me do—”

Jihu’s stomach cramped as he took in the numerous scars on Kwan’s body. He hadn’t had any reason to notice them before, and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought some of the marks looked like burns from a cigarette or some other similarly shaped object.

“They do, Jihu. And he’s telling the truth, I think. He’s terrified, and he could have fought. We might have lost, if he had.”

Gilbert’s input helped Jihu make up his mind. He stepped back from Kwan. “You stay right here or Gilbert will take you out.” Yes, he kind of felt like a bully, but he wasn’t as sure of Kwan as Gilbert seemed to be. “I’m going to check on Lyndon and Levi.”

Lyndon was on his side, panting heavily. Levi had shifted and was pressing his hands to a nasty wound on his side. Jihu grimaced when he saw the white flash of bone between Levi’s hands. “He needs medical care, now!” Levi snapped.

“He does.” Jihu wouldn’t lie. Lyndon’s injury was bad.

“I can help.”

Gilbert growled and Jihu turned to find Kwan on one knee, his hands held out in front of him. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“I didn’t do that!” Kwan protested. “I didn’t fight! Ask him! Ask! I hung back and tried to act like I was going to attack, but I didn’t want to actually do it!”

Jihu turned to Levi.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? Just help him!” Levi shouted, pain and fear pinching his expression.

“How can you help?” Jihu asked Kwan.

Kwan stood, keeping a nervous eye on Gilbert. “There’s a couple of ATV’s, and I know where the shamans are—”

“No. We can’t trust them.” Jihu glanced at Levi. “We need to get to Bae. He has the medical supplies and the knowledge we need. Where’s the radio?”

Levi shook his head. “I don’t know. What if Bae’s been attacked like we were?”

Jihu suppressed a shudder and started looking for the radio. “Help me,” he snapped at Kwan. “One bad move and Gilbert will neuter you.”

Gilbert made what Jihu was sure was the feline equivalent sound of ‘yuck’ and Kwan went even paler than he already was. In short order they found the radio, and Jihu pressed the button on it and asked for Bae. When Oscar answered, Jihu almost swooned from the relief of finding they hadn’t been attacked. Oscar sounded way too calm for that to have happened.

“Oscar, please let me talk to Bae. We were ambushed by some Amurs and Lyndon is hurt.”

“Fuck,” Oscar snarled. “Bae, hurry up!” Jihu heard nothing for a second or two then Bae came on.

“What happened?” Bae asked. Jihu filled him in and also told him that Chung-Hee was likely nearby Bae and the others. “Well, fuck him. I
want
to run into Chung-Hee!”

“Bae, we need you,” Jihu gritted out, “Lyndon is really hurt, okay? I see… I saw ribs, I think.”

“Give me your coordinates. Oscar, call your mate back. We have to get to Lyndon.”

Jihu gave Bae the coordinates once he figured them out on the satellite GPS in his pack. By the time that was done, several minutes had passed.

Lyndon’s breathing was slower and harsher, and Jihu was terrified of what that meant. “Hurry, Bae. There’s ATV’s somewhere around here. Gilbert, can you go with Kwan and bring them back?”

“Who is Kwan?” Bae demanded. “What the hell is going on?”

“He’s a defector from Chung-Hee’s side,” Jihu settled for, by way of explanation. “He warned us about Chung-Hee’s location, and he said he knows where the shamans are, too. Bae, Chung-Hee wants you back. Kwan said…” Jihu gulped but forced himself to continue. “He said your father—our father—probably isn’t going to survive the gunshot wound from when I escaped.”

“Not without the shamans’ help,” Kwan tossed at him before turning and running off with Gilbert right beside him. “Be back as soon as we can!”

Lyndon groaned, and shuddered violently. “Hurry, Bae,” Jihu pleaded again.

“I am,” Bae said in a grim voice. “Stay on with me. We’re coming. We’ll have to come back for Esau. He took off earlier. I hope he’s okay.”

Jihu closed his eyes and started praying.

Chapter Fourteen

A check of the other guards turned Gilbert’s stomach. He had taken lives tonight, but he wasn’t the only one. Jihu was either resigned to what he had done, or had buried it brilliantly. Gilbert didn’t know how he would handle it later, but for now he couldn’t think on it. If he did, he might not be able to do whatever he needed to.

It seemed like hours before Bae arrived. Meanwhile, they had all got at least pants on, with the exception of Lyndon, Kwan, and Levi, who wasn’t going to bother with such things when he was tending his mate.

Gilbert had made sure Kwan wasn’t up to anything tricky and was relieved to reach two ATV’s hidden under a sooty tarp. He and Kwan had got back to where Jihu, Levi and Lyndon were. Lyndon looked really bad, and Gilbert was afraid he wouldn’t make it. But he also knew that the wound could look awful and not be fatal, just…painful. It certainly looked agonising, and Lyndon’s shortened breaths, now pants, and the hissed moans that he let escape when he couldn’t seem to help it, all served to emphasise just how much he was hurting.

When Bae and the others arrived, Gilbert’s relief was almost as palpable as Jihu’s. “Hurry,” he chided as Bae glared at him.

“I’m trying!”

Gilbert knew that, but damn it, Lyndon was in pain and everyone was scared for him.

“Everyone but Levi and Isaiah, back away.” Bae dropped to his knees and looked at Lyndon’s side, then added, “But don’t go too far. I may need you all to help hold him down.”

“Fuck,” Levi said brokenly. Lyndon didn’t appear to be aware of anything but his own suffering. “I’m here, babe, I’m here,” Levi began repeating.

Gilbert pointed at Kwan. “Come over and get on your knees, hands behind your back.”

Kwan gulped and Gilbert remembered he’d made reference to being abused by other shifters. Gilbert grimaced and stepped back as Kwan approached, looking like he was going to his own hanging.

“I’m not going to touch you.” Jesus, Gilbert’s stomach lurched at the expression of relief that flashed across Kwan’s face. “I just want you right here in case you decide to do something stupid.”

“I won’t,” Kwan said fervently. “I swear. I want to help if I can. The shamans—”

“No,” Jihu interrupted.

“We may need them.”

Gilbert and Jihu, along with Kwan, all looked at Bae. “I’m going to clean the wound as best I can, and I’ll have to stitch him up, too. That’s going to take time, and he’ll need more medicine than I can provide. I have to account for everything I use, and he’ll need some pretty strong meds. The shamans might be able to provide some natural ones.”

“The shaman from my pack can.” Josiah had shifted at some point and he came over to stand by Oscar. “I can take my pack and one of the ATV’s, call as soon as I have signal on my phone. We can fly the shaman out from our private airstrip, have him here probably sooner than we can get Lyndon back to the van.”

“Do it,” Bae ordered. He pointed at Kwan. “I still want to know the whereabouts of the two shamans Chung-Hee is using. They’re fucking dangerous to our species.”

Kwan bobbed his head. “Anything. I know they’re bad. They tried some stuff on me…”

Oh, Gilbert was going to be hard-pressed not to smash the shamans’ heads in, even the old woman’s. Evil didn’t care about gender, and right then, he didn’t either. He wouldn’t really do it, of course, unless he had to. But thinking about it made him feel better. They’d hurt Jihu, too.

“Fate and Karma will return their deeds to them,” Jihu muttered as he watched Bae. Josiah pulled on some pants from a pack then got on an ATV.

“Be careful,” Oscar told him. “I’ll let you know if we move from here.”

“You be careful.” Josiah started the vehicle and took off.

“Chung-Hee probably knows where we are,” Kwan said. “He has those night-vision things and his guards are out. There are at least six more of them out, I’d bet.”

“And they’ve heard the ATV’s.” Gilbert scanned the trees. “Who will you fight for if they show up, Kwan?”

“You won’t hurt me? Ever?”

Gilbert felt the compassion Jihu was beginning to have for Kwan, and it melded with his own. “No, none of us will. We’ll even see if Grandma Marybeth will adopt you. She has a big enough heart for another grandkid.”

Kwan searched his eyes, and the yearning in the Amur’s expression was heart-wrenching. Gilbert was almost afraid to find out what kind of life he’d had with the lepe. One thing was certain, Grandma Marybeth, for all her tough exterior, was really the gentlest soul he knew. If Kwan had been abused, she’d take him in and heal him with kindness.

Kwan must have found what he needed to see because he knelt as Gilbert had told him to. “Okay. I’ll fight for you and your family. For Jihu and his family. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Gilbert blanched when Bae did something that made Lyndon cry out. Levi began whispering to him, rapid-fire promises to make it all better soon.

“I can’t stand seeing him hurt like this. Can’t we do something?” Jihu asked.

Bae cocked his head. “You can come hand me instruments. Isaiah’s going to have to hold his legs. Gilbert, you help with that. Lyndon’s strong and being in pain makes him dangerous since he’s delirious with it.”

Kwan shuffled over on his knees. “I can help. I’ll hold his shoulders or whatever you need me to do.”

It was apparent he didn’t want to be left out. Gilbert looked at Jihu then Bae, who grunted and looked at Levi. “Okay with you?”

Levi didn’t look away from Lyndon. “Yeah, he wouldn’t dare hurt Lyndon.” Even unspoken, the threat was there, and Kwan hurried over, still on his knees, seemingly uncaring of the scrapes and bruises he had to be getting.