Jennifer Ashley - Hard Mated

Three motorcycles hurtled out of the darkness of the highway, heading straight for the truck. Three headlights fixed on it like the eyes of a monster.

Myka, in her half-sitting position, saw them through the truck’s front window, and watched Gavan’s driver tense as they came on.

“Run them down,” Gavan snapped. “What are they going to do?”

The driver stepped on the gas. In an eerie repeat of what had happened with Myka in the smaller pickup, the motorcycle headlights came straight on. The driver hit the accelerator. The motorcycles came faster.

At the last minute, the three bikes split around the truck, and the truck shot past them at high speed. The motorcycles spun around with a squealing of tires and a gunning of engines, and rode hard and fast after the pickup again.

The truck’s back window opened and the barrel of the shotgun came out. Myka hit the bottom of the truck bed, trying to cover her ears as the gun roared.

“Got one!” the shooter announced.

Myka popped up again, craning to see. The bike closest to the back of the truck wobbled around, as though the rider had lost control. The glare of lights showed tatts all over that rider’s bare torso, blood dripping down his chest and arms.

“Spike!” Myka screamed.

Spike shot toward the pickup in a burst of speed, then launched himself from the bike to the back of the truck. His skin changed to the jaguar’s as he made the jump, powerful back legs propelling him. The bike spun out on the road, the other two bikers swerving to miss it.

The gun came out again. Myka rocked onto her back and kicked up with her legs, her feet catching the barrel of the shotgun and knocking it aside.

The shooter didn’t drop the gun, but the waver gave Spike enough time to grab the barrel with his half-shifted hands and haul it out of the pickup’s cab. The shooter came with it, his big body breaking the window.

Spike dragged the Shifter rest of the way out by the neck, his hands right around the man’s Collar. Spike banged the thug’s head hard against the cab then threw him out of the moving truck.

At the same time, Gavan’s driver hit the brakes. Spike dropped to the bed of the truck, landing on Myka, keeping her from being slammed forward as the truck went from ninety to zero in a matter of seconds.

Spike’s hot blood dripped all over Myka as he closed one huge hand around the cuffs and broke the chain from the hook. Then he was gone, leaping over the side of the truck to meet Gavan and his remaining two fighters.

Myka scrambled up, her wrists still encased in the cuffs, but at least they were free of the chain. She climbed over the truck’s tailgate, landing on shaking legs. The other two motorcycles roared up, the bikers ditching their bikes and running to help.

Myka recognized Ellison, minus his cowboy hat, and Dylan, clad only in a pair of jeans, his feet bare. They both joined the fight against Gavan and his two thugs.

Myka ran past them all to the open door of the pickup. Jordan lay curled in the middle of the seat as a jaguar, sleeping soundly, his little body limp. Myka lifted him as gently as she could and cradled him against her shoulder.

She turned back to the struggle. Spike was fighting harder than he ever had in the ring, his Collar sparking wildly in the darkness. So much blood streamed down him, black in the gloom, that it looked as though his tattoos were running together and raining down his body.

Gavan fought him, the two men changing back and forth from man to beast, dust and grass flying as they hit the ground.

“You killed my cub,” she heard Spike saying in a guttural voice. “You killed my cub.”

“No!” Myka shouted. “Spike, he’s okay.”

Spike didn’t hear her. He beat Gavan’s head into the ground, and Gavan, white-eyed, locked his hands around Spike’s throat and started to crush.

“Spike!” Myka yelled. “Eron! Jordan’s all right. I have him.”

Spike heard her shouting through the haze in his brain. Since Liam’s phone call to Ellison that he’d found Jordan, Spike had been running on fear and rage.

Ellison had actually stopped the fight, walking between the two combatants. No one had ever done that before. The refs had started for Ellison, then thought better of it when they found themselves confronting the wall of Dylan instead.

Sean had vanished, no one knew where, and Gavan was no longer in the hay barn. Spike had been out of the ring, grabbing his clothes and running as the refs and spectators complained behind him. Didn’t matter. He had to get Jordan.

The follow-up call Dylan got that Connor had been beaten down and Jordan and Myka taken had unleashed a feral rage Spike had never known.

He’d known Myka was in the back of the truck racing toward them on the highway, feeling her presence as palpably as he felt his own skin. Getting buckshot in the chest was nothing to the pain of knowing Gavan had taken her, had hurt her, would hurt her. And the man had dared touch his cub.

He’d caught a glimpse of Jordan lying limply on the seat, fur covered in blood, and he’d ceased to think.

Now he punched Gavan’s face again and again. “You killed my cub. You killed my cub.”

“Eron!”

No one called him that but his mate. His beautiful mate.

“Jordan’s all right. I have him!”

Spike couldn’t look up to make sure this was true. But Myka said it, his mate, and he heard the relief in her voice, smelled it in her scent.

Gavan’s hold on Spike loosened. Spike kept pounding, the Shifter in him wanting the death of his enemy. He’d rip off the man’s head and drink his blood.

Gavan went limp. Spike went on thumping the man’s head against the asphalt, claws digging into his neck. Spike’s Collar was arcing, had been continually, biting hot fire down his spine, and he’d never felt it.

“You took my son. You took my son!”

Strong hands jerked him back. Spike fought, wild and crazed. He’d kill them all. They’d dared touch his cub, his son, his mate.

Her fragrance cut through his rage like rain on a dry earth. She flowed around him, her warm body, her touch, her voice that wrapped his senses and didn’t let go.

“Eron, it’s all right. Jordan’s fine. I’ve got him.”

Myka had Jordan. She’d found him, wrapped him in her arms, protected him. The mate of his heart had rescued his cub.

Myka’s small, soft hand guided Spike’s to the downy fur of Jordan’s belly. The connection, the three of them together, cleared Spike’s vision. He blinked, finding himself lying on the pavement, one hand on his cub’s sleeping body, Myka kneeling beside him.

“Mate,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m here,” Myka said. She leaned to him, bathing him in her warmth, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m here.”

Pain like Spike had never felt before flooded his body, fire incandescent in his blood and along every nerve. But he kept one hand on his cub, twined his fingers through Myka’s, and knew he’d never felt better in his life.

“Spike’s home for battered warriors,” Myka said, opening the door for Liam and Kim, Kim carrying Katriona. “Welcome.”

They lounged about Spike’s living room—Connor, Ellison, Ella, and Jordan. Spike was stretched out on the kitchen table while Dylan picked tiny pieces of shot out of Spike’s chest and legs. Myka’s cry that they should take him to a hospital was met with quiet stares. Arriving at a hospital with a gunshot wound meant alerting the police, Dylan said, and Spike didn’t need that.

“Shifters heal fast,” Spike had croaked as he’d staggered into the house, supported by Myka and Ellison. Dylan had at least given him a shot of local anesthetic before he started.