Last Wolf Standing (32 page)

“I love you, Torrance. Whatever happens, don’t forget that,” he said in a low rasp, and before she could respond, he turned back around, trusting his partner to watch over her. Taking a deep breath, Mason bowed his head, then stepped within the circle, ready for the battle to begin.

Chapter 13

W ith her heart in her throat, Torrance watched the man she loved and the murderer who’d made their lives a living hell face off against each other. Her breath caught, a hard, painful knot churning in her chest…because she knew what was coming.

Oh, God…oh, God…oh, God.

His mother grabbed her right hand, holding it tightly, his father flanking Olivia’s other side. Jeremy stood at her left, and Brody moved into place beside him, while Cian stood beside Robert. It was a show of support, for both her and Mason, as well as a sign of strength.

If Mason died, they weren’t going to let Simmons have her without a fight.

Oh, God, please. Please don’t let him die.

Torrance forced herself to take a deep breath, then another, the sound whistling past her compressed lips as she watched both men throw back their heads, arms held out at their sides, feet braced firmly against the damp, fetid ground of the cave.

And then it began.

Like an earthquake riding under the earth’s crust, Mason’s wolf rolled beneath the surface of his skin. His muscles flexed, skin dark and damp with sweat, the air humid and sharp with animal musk—and it broke through. One second he was her lover, her mate, the man who possessed her heart—and then he wasn’t.

He became something she didn’t know, didn’t recognize, foreign and unfamiliar. Thick, chestnut fur covered the upper half of his body, his hard musculature expanding, bulging with power and strength. Gnarled, deadly claws formed at the end of his powerful arms, while his head took on the hulking shape of a wolf. Only his lower half remained unchanged, the fur tapering, blending into golden skin at his waist.

Ohmygod, she thought, knowing that she should be terrified, but she wasn’t. His massive head turned, glowing golden eyes finding her, holding her with the intensity of his gaze, and a smooth, melting warmth poured through her. She’d been wrong. This was no stranger. It was Mason, and he was beautiful, no matter what form he wore. She could see the traces of the man in those mesmerizing eyes, the worry and fear that she would reject this side of him. She wanted to run to him and hold him, tell him what a fool he was for thinking she could ever think of him as anything less than perfect. She tried to express her emotions with a warm, tender smile of love, her breath catching when the heat in that golden stare blazed, fiery and bright.

Time held, silent and heavy, and then he slowly turned back toward Simmons, and in the next breath they exploded into action. They came together with a harsh, meaty sound, their bodies slamming into one another with preternatural power, snarling and gnashing at each other with white, gleaming fangs. Torrance pumped her fist in the air when Mason knocked Simmons onto his back, then winced as the black wolf countered with a roundhouse that whipped Mason’s head to the side, blood spurting from his nose.

The two combatants moved apart, dancing on the balls of their feet the same way she’d seen boxers do, their movements light despite the muscular, bulky forms of their wolves.

“Finish him quickly, Mase!” Jeremy called out, his deep voice guttural and raw.

“Yeah,” Cian rasped around the cigarette wedged between his lips. “Kick his ugly ass and make it hurt. The pathetic bastard deserves the pain.”

They went at each other again in a volley of slashes and kicks, the choreography of their movements oddly beautiful, at the same time it horrified her with its violence. Biting and sharp, their rage radiated through the moist, firelit cave like a noxious vapor that coated the skin. Torrance rubbed her chilled palms against her arms, as if she could rub off that thick, cloying film of hatred, but it was too strong.

She’d never truly understood how powerful the vile emotion could be until now. And it made her admire Mason all the more, for the fact that he could face such evil and survive without the encounter blackening his soul.

The fight escalated, and she watched as Mason landed a powerful side kick that made Simmons stumble, but the rogue countered with a slash of his claws that ripped across her lover’s chest, making him snarl with pain. “Come on, Mase,” she whispered beneath her breath, but Simmons kept coming. Harder. Faster. Like something impossible to take down.

And her fear nearly choked her.

Simmons landed another powerful roundhouse, and Mason’s head spun, the edges of his vision going dark, and in that stark, vivid moment, he realized the rogue was almost too powerful to beat.

Almost…but Mason had something the rogue didn’t have.

Torrance.

He had the promise of a future with the most amazing woman who wanted to share her life with him. Who would grow old with him; give him a family and a lifetime of love and laughter and smiles.

Simmons’s claws slashed at his left shoulder, ripping through skin in a scalding flash of pain, the rush the rogue had gained from killing Marly making him too fast, too powerful. When another kick came at the right side of his head, he went down, his knees slamming into the ground with a bone-jarring impact. Sweat and blood streamed into his eyes, while relentless waves of pain rolled through him, threatening to take him under, sucking him down into that crushing state of darkness.

“Get up, you ass,” he snarled at himself, and he could hear Simmons circling him, feel the suffocating blackness of the rogue’s hatred and rage lashing against him.

He shook his head, struggling to gain his feet, when a sweet, perfect sound broke through the disorienting haze of pain that surrounded him. It seemed so far away, like someone shouting at him through water, and he couldn’t make out the words. Then it came at him again, louder this time, battering against his consciousness with a blinding urgency—and suddenly he heard Torrance calling out to him, the sound of her voice making his blood surge. “Kick him back, Mason! Damn it, don’t you dare die on me! You have to fight. You have to, because I love you, Mason! I love you!”

“Torrance!” he hissed, blinking his eyes as he tried to find her through that blanketing fog of pain. He lifted his head, searching through the faces at the edge of the circle, and the moment their gazes connected—her eyes tear-drenched and so full of love—an intense, explosive energy surged through him, charging him up, revitalizing him, hitting him like an emotional shock to his system. Mason drew on it, on the love and life that he wanted to share with her, feeling the magnificence of it pour through his body.

God, he’d been such a fool. All the time he’d wasted thinking he’d be sucking wind, incapacitated by fear if he gave in to this emotion, when he couldn’t have been more wrong. It wasn’t fear that filled him; it was love—its power more potent than anything he’d ever known. Loving her didn’t make him vulnerable. That’s what Dean had been trying to tell him. It made him strong, and hearing her say she loved him only intensified that power until it was rushing through his veins like a life-giving force, making him all but invincible.

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” Simmons growled at his back, the garbled words dripping with satisfaction, and he thought, Finish it, Dillinger. Finish it now.

Swiftly twisting to his feet, Mason turned and immediately went on the attack, his claws striking, ripping through fur and skin and muscle, and he watched as the rogue’s eyes went wide with fear. With a roaring battle cry, Mason kept advancing, swiping at Simmons’s head with one set of claws, slashing at his furred gut with the other, landing blow after blow, while the rogue tried to retreat. But Mason was too fast, too strong. With a husky, bellowing shout, he swung his right leg into a powerful roundhouse that slammed into the side of Simmons’s skull, breaking his upper jaw and sending him crashing to the floor of the cave.

The Lycan lay facedown in the dirt, until Mason nudged him over onto his back with one booted foot.

Simmons was still alive…but not for long. Blood bubbled on the rogue’s black lips, even as he motioned Mason closer. “You can’t stop it, Dillinger.” Mason stared down at him, and the rogue smiled, his teeth smeared with streaks of crimson. “You’re going to find more bodies. Like the redhead. Like the pretty little blondes your friends keep finding. It’s never going to end.”

“It’ll end,” he grunted. “Just like this.”

“Won’t matter.” The rogue laughed, sputtering as blood filled his mouth. “You’ll see. There’ll be…more killings. More rogues. There are so many pieces of this puzzle that you don’t even know about. But it was fun making that kill. I knew it would screw with your head, seeing all that pretty red hair.” Simmons’s mouth twisted, eyes red with the glittering burn of hate. “You can’t win.”

“I already did,” Mason rasped, his chest heaving. “I’m the last wolf standing, you miserable son of a bitch, and you’re out of time.”

“My death is only the beginning,” Simmons gasped. “You have no idea what you’re up against. When they make their move, you will die, Dillinger. All of you will.”

“Not if they die first.” And bending down beside the body, he took Simmons’s head into his claws, and ended the Challenge once and for all.

Mason had no so sooner turned away from Simmons’s body than he found Torrance launching herself into his arms. With a choking sob, she buried her nose in his thick fur, clutching at him, her body shaking with a fine tremor of relief, and something vibrant exploded in his chest, the searing emotion nearly bringing him to his knees.

Though he was more wolf than man, she embraced him. Accepted him. And she’d told him that she loved him.

Oh, God, please. Let it be true.

Drawing a deep breath into his lungs, he allowed his wolf to pull back into his body, the change spilling over him like a warm, smooth wave of water, and he lifted her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. Catching Jeremy’s eye, he said, “I’ll buy you a whole case of Lagavulin if you’ll take Elliot home with you tonight.”

His partner gave him a two-fingered salute and a smile. “Not a problem, man.”

Nodding a goodbye toward his parents and friends, Mason walked out of the cave, heading into the autumn night, carrying his mate into the dense forest, driven by the need to get her home before he lost the tenuous hold on his control.

“Mason,” she said quietly, her voice still husky from the tears she’d cried. “Are you sure you’re okay to carry me? I know you must be in pain.” Her head rested on his uninjured shoulder as she gently brushed her fingertips over the pounding of his heart, carefully avoiding the angry-looking wounds left from Simmons’s claws.

He pressed a kiss to her temple, urging his legs to move faster. “I don’t feel a thing,” he told her, and it was true. Though his body should have been steeped in agony, he felt amazingly good, riding an emotional high that blocked out any discomfort from his injuries. And for the first time in years his heart was at peace. The wind blew through the trees, shaking the fall leaves from their branches until they fell gently to the ground, crunching beneath the soles of his boots as he navigated his way through the moonlit woods. After the evil they’d survived, it felt so good, so right, to be surrounded by the peaceful sounds of the forest, holding the woman he loved in his arms.

“I meant every word, Mason. I do love you, and I’m so proud of you,” she told him in an aching whisper, lifting her head from his shoulder. With her raised hand, she brushed his damp hair back from his temple in a tender gesture of caring. His arms trembled, holding her tighter, and she grinned, a spark of wicked excitement burning in her eyes. “Now that it’s over, where are you taking me?”

“Home,” he grunted, wincing at the primitive hunger roughening the edges of his speech. “Then I’m taking your sweet little backside straight to bed, and I’m not letting you out of it for at least a week.”

“I’m good with that.” Her gaze lowered, following the movement of her fingers as they stroked against the warm skin of his throat. “Are you going to make a bond with me?” she asked.

Hanging on the verge of something feral and violent—something beyond his control—his gaze dropped to her mouth. “You believe that I won’t hurt you, Tor?”

It made Mason’s heart do some weird skipping thing, the way her tender smile bloomed like a promise—something fragile and sweet and beautiful. When she lifted her gaze, her eyes glistened with breathtaking emotion. “I believe you’re the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. Of course you won’t hurt me.”

“Torrance, I’m sorry for being such a blind jackass these past few days,” he muttered in a rough, breathless rush of words, his heart pounding in his chest to a violent, thudding rhythm. “I just couldn’t let go of the fear, sweetheart, like it was locked up inside of me. And then, when I thought I’d lost you, everything broke open. I…I knew then that I loved you, that I’d been falling in love with you from the moment I found you, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it.”

“I wanted you to make the bond in the cave,” she admitted, her voice velvet-soft as it stroked his senses. “I still do.”

Mason closed his eyes as the hunger swept through him like a hot wind, bringing with it the piercing eagerness for what was to come. “I need it, Tor. I need that connection to you.”

She pressed her mouth to the corner of his jaw, the touch of her lips so innocent and yet wildly evocative. “I need it, too, Mason.” Then she shifted in his arms, tilting her head to the side, away from his body, and with trembling fingers she pulled the long waves of her hair over her shoulder, exposing the delicate line of her throat.