Lila swept up beside me as the others pulled back. Her jeweled eyes locked on mine. “They are wrong, Zam. You can do this. You’re going to kick his ass so hard, he’s going to feel the imprint of your foot for the rest of his life.”
I laughed, though it was soft and weak, and I knew exactly why Steve challenged me right then. He could smell it on me—I was in a low spot, my body hurting and fatigued from healing.
It would just be that much sweeter when I did exactly what Lila said I would. Everyone pulled back, Pret included. I noticed that Lila flew close to his head, whispering something to him. What was she up to?
I turned to face Steve as Maks called out a warning. Steve wasn’t waiting. He’d rushed me while my back was turned like the cheating fucker he’d always been.
I dropped to the ground and rolled out of his way, only just missing the swing of his hand. There was a sharp whistle through the air and I realized he was using knives. So be it. I jumped up and reached for my kukri blades. One had been left in a gorc, and where the other one went, I wasn’t sure.
They weren’t there.
“You can’t ask for a weapon now, Zam,” Steve snarled as he crouched, and stalked toward me. “You know the rules.”
And there was reason number two he was pushing for the fight now. Without my blades that would cut deeply into him, I was at a serious disadvantage and he knew it. I should have been flattered that he thought so highly of my fighting skills. As it was, pissed off was about all I felt in that moment.
“Come on then.” I beckoned him closer with more confidence than I should have. Despite Lila’s words of belief, the doubts weighed heavily on me.
Steve swung in fast and hard with his left hand holding the knife. I ducked under it and he caught me with a fist from the right. He hit me in the side of the head, ringing my bell with enough force that I went to one knee, swaying as he laughed. He wouldn’t go in for the kill, not fast. No, he was going to play with me first.
Typical cat.
Darcy sucked in a sharp breath. She’d just realized the same thing I had. That this whole challenge was a setup to kill me. It had nothing to do with winning, but getting me out of the way once and for all.
Steve tackled me to the ground in a mockery of the love we’d once shared. His body was on top, pinning me against the hard earth as he put his face in mine, his very obvious hard-on shoved against me. “One last kiss, eh, love?”
He slammed his mouth over top of mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth, trying to make me want him again. I knew his style. I softened, letting him kiss me and I kissed him back. Not because I wanted him. Not for a fucking second. But he was dumb enough to think I would.
He let his guard down as he made a contented noise in the back of his throat. He pulled back a little. “I knew you still wanted me.”
I drove my knee up into his balls as hard as I could, and his eyes rolled back into his head. “Not so much, pig.”
He didn’t get off me, though, and I shoved at him, driving my elbow into the crook of his neck to encourage him to move, but he just lay there, shaking. “Kill him now, Zam!” Darcy screamed. “Do it!”
Kill him.
Shit, I wanted to. He would kill Bryce if he ever got close to him out here, away from the protection of Ish and the Stockyards.
My thoughts took too long. I should have acted instead of hesitating. Steve reared up and slammed his head into mine and bounced it off the rock below me. If I’d thought my head was spinning before, it couldn’t compare to the pain that rocketed through it now.
A knife pressed to my throat and there were gasps around us. I held a hand up. “Do not interfere.”
“You think your friends could stop me?”
I smiled up at him. “Yes. I do.”
He pressed harder. “Then why aren’t you letting them save you?”
“Because I don’t want you dead, Steve. Not today. If you’d not been such a fucker, I would have told you what happened to Kiara.” Maybe it was dirty pool to use her against him in this fight, but I didn’t want to die. And he would kill me.
He frowned. “Kiara is in the Stockyards.”
“No, she came with me to escape Ish’s threat that if you didn’t come back with the jewel, she would take the cub.”
Darcy started to cry. “Oh goddess, no. That is our first cub in twenty years.”
Steve stared hard into my eyes, looking for the lies. “Where is she?”
Maks stepped up. “The Jinn took her. They hit us with a horde of gorcs, covering our path back to Kiara.” Not quite the truth, but close enough.
Steve pressed the knife harder. “You bitch, you did this to kill her!”
“I did not!” I roared. “She’s like my little sister, you piece of shit, and you ruined her! You fucking well told her you loved her when you were fucking around on her and me both! I would have saved her from you if I could have! I would have cut your balls off if she so much as whispered the word rape to me! But you bent her to your will. You took her innocence, you sheep fucker!”
There it was, the truth finally. I cared more for Kiara than I’d ever cared for Steve. He pulled his head back but didn’t move the knife from my throat.
“Goddess, you’re telling me the truth.” He stared down at me, horror flickering on his face.
“You could still catch them,” Maks said. “They won’t have made it to the desert sands yet.”
“How do you know that, human?” Steve turned on him, the knife easing off my neck. I shoved his hand and rolled out from under him and I knew he’d let me go. He could have held me there, but the realization that his mate and cub were in danger had changed something in him.
Maybe this was what Steve needed to become a better man. Maybe he really did love Kiara.
But if we told him the truth about Maks, Steve would try to kill him, and I wasn’t sure who would end up surviving that fight.
“Because he was a slave to the Jinn, idiot. That’s how he knows,” I said.
Steve jerked as if I’d slapped him. “That’s why you ran out of the desert. Why you said you didn’t remember.”
Maks nodded.
Steve got to his feet and just stood there as if. . . as if he didn’t know what to do. He turned slowly to face me. “Swear to me on your brother’s life that you are telling me the truth.”
I locked eyes with him. “On my brother’s life, and the honor of my pride, I swear to you that Kiara was taken by the Jinn.”
He tipped his head back and roared, the guttural noise pulling at something deep in me. I wasn’t sure he ever would have been so upset had I been in Kiara’s shoes, kidnapped and held against my will, when we were together. And it didn’t bother me. There was no bitter regret that he hadn’t loved me better or well enough to want to rescue me.
I didn’t need him, and he knew it.
We were never the right fit, and that was even clearer to me now that I’d found the one I wanted in my life. Even if nothing ever happened between Maks and me, he’d shown me what kind of partner I wanted.
Steve strode to his horse and mounted up. “I’m going after her.”
“I know,” I said. “Darcy, you should go with him. He’s going to need help.”
Her golden eyes were full of sadness. “Zam, what about you?”
I looked at Lila and then Maks. “I’ve got all the help I need here. I’ve got my best friends with me.”
Her eyes closed. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” I tipped my chin up a little, holding the emotions back. I was losing my best friend. Or maybe I’d lost her a long time ago and just hadn’t realized it. “Just go, save Kiara and I’ll save Bryce.”
They didn’t wait for any other directions.
The two shifters tore off, back the way they’d come, heading south before I could warn them about the gorcs, or the possibility of more Jinn coming as Maks had said they would.
Pret gave a funny chuffing sound. “Clever. I see why you are an alpha.”
I glanced up at him. “I was telling the truth.”
“Yes, but not until you had to. Clever.” He bobbed his head. “I’m a shitty guard, Alpha.” He spoke the title to me and I felt it settle over my shoulders. “Which means I regularly let other creatures slip past our boundaries.” He winked one of those big jeweled eyes at me. “That and I’m hoping one day Lila will come back to us.”