Her Lion Guard - The Complete Series Box Set (BBW Shifter Romance) (29 page)

Mary-Lou swept a narrowed green gaze over the Prince’s elegantly-dressed body. Her eyes lingered on his hands, onto the long fingers tapping a soundless tune against empty air.

His left hand. Joel’s right arm was curled into a lazy U, elbow resting comfortably against the padded armrest of the Prince’s seat, but his
left
arm was laid out straight, fingers clenched tightly into a fist.

There; Mary-Lou swallowed, suppressing her nerves. The dagger was there, ready to be withdrawn, to be dropped into the arena for Wiley’s use—

The crowd roared, and Mary-Lou snapped her attention back to the fight before her. Air left her lungs in a gasp as the sight of Jason kneeling, bloody and disoriented in the middle of the arena filled her eyes. The Lion Shifter’s right arm hung at a strange angle, the dislocation high up at the shoulder – near a deep, gruesome wound. Jonas shook his head, trying to dispel dizziness and nausea as he attempted to stagger back to his feet. His blonde hair was slicked close to his head, Mary-Lou noticed dimly, the light strands wet with dirt and dark with dirt. How she wanted to touch him, to shield him – to prop him up and help him finish it all, stop Wiley once and for all.

Wiley
.

The crowd had been caught in Jonas’ struggle, enraptured by his pain and the possibility that he would not get up again. Few were paying attention to his opponent; none at all had eyes for the Prince sitting directly above him. The gleam of a blade, dropped and caught, had been almost lost in the chaos of the fight.

Almost.

“Let me pass,” Mary-Lou told the two large, muscled men who guarded her. They stepped back without a word, kneeled in the dirt and dust as the golden magic of her words washed over them.

Mary-Lou paid them no heed. The human woman vaulted from her seat and over the tall, metal wall that caged her even as the command left her lips, body driven by instinct and fear rather than rational thought. She could not hear the crowd’s roars over the thrum of her own blood, could later not recall crossing the ten or so feet of empty  ground that separated her from her mate. All Mary-Lou had eyes for was Jonas’ bloody body and Wiley, looming over him with a fist raised high.

A single thought chilled Mary-Lou’s body even as she ran, pushed herself to the limit of physical strain and beyond.

I am too late. I am going to be too late
.

She saw the dream again, saw Jonas fall beneath a silver blade and screamed, screamed herself
hoarse
even as she knew that she would not reach him, reach them in time. For Wiley’s hand was raised, and his eyes were dead, and the silver burned bright beneath an unforgiving sun, and Wiley—

Wiley hesitated.

It was but a moment, mere seconds of tense nothing. It was enough.

Mary-Lou slid between the pair just as the blade came down – as she knew it would, as she had seen happen in a nightmare too awful to remember. Instead of Jonas’ golden skin, however, the blade bit into human flesh. Mary-Lou screamed as silver tore through her arm, in pain and victory alike. She had made it. The human woman smiled through the blood, the dusty heat that dried her tongue and stung her eyes and clutched at the dagger with her unharmed hand. Wiley would not get it. Wiley would not get another chance to hurt Jonas, ever again.

Someone, someone was screaming her name. Mary-Lou blinked back exhaustion, stomped down pain and fear, and whispered, “I am here. I am fine.”

Above her, Wiley howled –  enraged, disbelieving, and defeated. Mary-Lou grinned harder, watching as the Wolf was restrained, pulled to his knees and dragged away. It was but just.

She closed her eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

The crowd was silent.

Only moments prior, the stadium had been shaking with noise, vibrating beneath hundreds of excited bodies. The difference was staggering.

Joel could not quite believe the sight before his eyes. How had it  gone so wrong, so fast? Jonas had been as good as dead, the silver dagger moments from his slitting his growling throat, when—

The Prince’s watery eyes sought the human woman, sought the reason for his defeat. Found her: Smiling through a gruesome wound, shielding her mate with a body that was no match for the threat before her. She must have known she was to be harmed, Joel thought; must have realized that her life could have very well been lost protecting Jonas. She had chosen to intervene anyway.

The Prince tried, failed to understand why. Joel’s mind simply could not comprehend the possibility of such a sacrifice. It was not something the Prince would have ever considered doing, expected someone else to do for him outside those charged with his safety.

The crowd must have been equally surprised, Joel thought as he glanced about the suddenly silent arena. Their stillness was terrifying. Men and women, young and old held their breath as the human woman howled in pain. Joel felt a chill go through him as they barred their teeth, joining in her blood-soaked grin of triumph.

The dagger was revealed; there was no way to hide the silver blade, sticking as it was through the human’s arm. Angry whispers filled the air, growls and snarls of outrage breaking the taut silence. Soon, they will fall upon the arena, demand blood for the crime committed.

Joel sighed and stood up. If blood  were what they wanted, he would give it to them: Wiley’s flesh was cheap after all, the Wolf’s life – expendable. None would miss him, and no one would rise to his defense.

Joel opened his lips.

A cold hand clamped around his neck, cutting off his words and air in one strike. Joel grasped at the strong fingers, swerved his head to the side to stare incredulously into a set of mad, mad green eyes.

“I believe,” Sasha hissed, poison bubbling from between scaly lips, “You have some dying to do.”

Joel’s scream was lost beneath many, many others as once-spectators flooded the arena.

Jonas hovered above Mary-Lou’s prone form,  angry, scared, and triumphant all in one. His mate. His beautiful, brave mate. He growled, wrenching his twisted arm away from a well-meaning Healer; no. He would not be distracted, would not give into his own pain when Mary-Lou suffered so greatly.

“Jonas.”

Jonas fell to his knees, ignoring the fire-hot sting that lanced up his injured arm at the motion. Mary-Lou was speaking, Mary-Lou had raised her hand toward him, and—

Smacked him right over the nose.

Jonas’ confused whine cut off at his mate’s glare. “Let them help you,” Mary-Lou commanded, and the Lion Shifter hung his head in acknowledgment. He did not shrug off the Healer’s hands this time, letting the younger man treat him.

Sense returned slowly to Jonas. The fight was over, the Challenge – won, yet the Lion was still restless, still shifted in anger within the confines of Jonas’ mind. Shifting back to his human form took effort, required all of Jonas’ concentration and failing strength. The man concentrated on the pain that lit up his body, on the Healer’s – Erik, Jonas realized dimly, Rowfer’s grandson – hesitant touches. On his mate’s face, pale but determined. Alive. Mary-Lou was alive. Jonas grabbed her uninjured hand in his, lancing their fingers together.

The shift came easier after that. Jonas sighed as the last of his animalistic side receded, blinking sunlight and suddenly familiar faces into existence.

“Thank you, Rowfer,” Jonas croaked once he found his voice. The aged Healer nodded, narrowed eyes not straying from the wound in the human woman’s upper arm. The dagger had been removed, Jonas realized; Rowfer’s wrinkled hands bore the burn of silver, stank of the metal’s poison. The Alpha swallowed back words of caution, of concern, knowing they would not be welcomed. He offered his gratitude again instead, heartfelt and sincere.

“’Tis but fair,” Rowfer grumbled. The Healer had obviously not been supportive of the Challenge, yet had allowed himself to be bullied into participating. Hardly an act of honor, given that Rowfer likely suspected the match to be rotten from the start.

Throwing a glance at the quiet youth tending to his shoulder, Jonas found himself unable to feel anything but sympathy. He would have done much worse, had his family been at stake.

“Useless,” Rowfer snarled. The Healer seemed to be addressing his own hands, the fingers trembling with the poison of the silver. A moment later, he sighed and motioned his grandson closer. “Sew her up,” Rowfer demanded, handing the suddenly-pale man a needle and a spool of black thread. Jonas could not quite stifle a growl as Erik set to doing just that. Thankfully, the young Healer had more guts than he seemed to at first sight: Erik’s hands remained steady and sure as he patched Mary-Lou’s torn skin, his work unaffected by the possessive snarls of the Alpha looming at his back.

Then Rowfer got his hands on Jonas’ dislocated shoulder, and the Lion Shifter had nothing but moans of pain to offer.

Mary-Lou might have smiled, just a little. Jonas grit his teeth as strong fingers pressed his bones back into place, feeling ridiculously close to laughing himself.

Mary-Lou did not see Wiley or Joel again that day.

They were alive – Irma had made sure of it, unwilling to let the mob rule even when its actions were to her family’s gain. Wiley and Joel had been captured rather than torn apart: Bound in chains and dragged through a sneering crowd, to await whatever punishment the Law decreed within the confines of the stadium’s underbelly, under the severest of guards.

The Old Law, of course, decreed their death.

Irma’s actions were not guided by mercy. Instead, she sought to set a precedent – lead by example, so to speak. Joel and Wiley were to face the consequences of their actions before their peers, their punishment seen and heard by all rather than doled out by a few hot-blooded individuals.

Mary-Lou suspected that the irony of having the Wolf and Prince be the last to suffer under the Old Order had been a factor in her mother’s decision to let them live, as well. Mary-Lou did not look forward to the trial, did not wish to see its inevitable end. As her family had been the one affected by the men’s actions, however – as the one meant to change the Old ways and establish a new, kinder Order – Mary-Lou’s presence was more than required.

Mary-Lou thought of that and many other things as she lay in Jonas’ arms, tired and sore and still, yet again unable to sleep. Two days had passed since the match, since she wrestled Death from the hands of Fate and walked away, victorious. Her family had hardly left her side since, seemingly unable to let her or Jonas out of their sights.

It would have been cute, had the constant hovering not also been greatly annoying. The fact that her pack’s worried glances seemed to be reserved for Mary-Lou was particularly grating; yes, human healing was not as speedy or painless as its Shifter equivalent, but she was not a child, damn it!

Throwing random temper tantrums was not exactly supportive of her case.

Still, as Jonas stopped kissing her neck to ask – yet
again
– if she was well, Mary-Lou contemplated indulging in some childish screaming. Just for a bit.

Instead, she tightened her legs about Jonas’ hips, squeezed her mate’s thick cock where it pulsed, hot and eager inside of her, and
moaned
.

“Yes, goddamnit, Jonas, fuck—You can go harder, you stupid – yes, yes!”

Jonas growled in the plump softness of her breasts, movements speeding up as his mate’s voice rose in pleasure.

They were free. Safe. Mary-Lou kissed Jonas’ forehead, trailed hot lips down her mate’s nose. Jonas raised his head and she took his mouth in hers, bit and licked at the plump flesh of his lips.

“Want you,” he moaned, large hands kneading her breasts, trailing to caress her sides – to rest on her stomach. Mary-Lou shivered. “Please.”

“You’ve got me,” Mary-Lou smiled, arced her back in bliss as Jonas’ tempo increased, as the heat within her grew to a breaking point. “I’m yours,” she panted, thrust back against Jonas, clenched about his cock, “Yours, yours, only yours—”