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“No…” Gunner looked absolutely gutted. “You deserve to love him. He deserves for you to love him. I didn’t mean to do this. I was angry at Jordan. He’s been popping off…Kru got in the way. I don’t know why he did that. I couldn’t stop.”
“I saw the video. I saw him going for you and the machine starting to fall.”
Gunner just sat there for a bit before he took his phone from his back pocket and pulled something up, then tossed it to her.
She caught it.
“Bet you didn’t see this part.”
She held his gaze, and then in confusion looked down at his phone. It was a text message thread with someone named Jordan, who had sent Gunner a video. She hit the play button.
It was the second part of the video she hadn’t seen. Kru’s saber-toothed tiger was absolutely warring with Gunner’s enormous grizzly. The yarder was tumbling down the hill along with huge logs, and headed straight for the fight. The animals were locked up, not paying attention, and Jordan was yelling for them to watch out.
At the last second, the saber-toothed tiger—Kru—looked up the hill, saw the machine crashing down on them, and latched his teeth around Gunner’s leg and ripped him with all his strength, throwing him out of the way.
She winced her eyes closed as the machine landed on Kru, and put the phone upside down. She could still hear Jordan and another man yelling on the video.
“He saved me.” Gunner’s voice was deep and gravelly. He stood, and she could see it now—the leg of his jeans was soaked in dried blood. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”
Gunner’s limp was so bad, and the angle of his lower leg was off. It was obviously badly broken from Kru ripping his leg sideways.
“Do you remember the story of how Beaston got his limp?” Lucas asked from behind her. The Alpha of the Warlanders was standing in the open doorway, arms crossed as he stared at Gunner.
“No,” Gunner said, pausing at the edge of the halo of porch light.
Cadence remembered.
“Beaston Turned Willa without her permission, and when she wrecked his leg, his Alpha refused to set the break. He made him keep the limp as punishment. This limp will ride, and we will all remember how you got it.”
Gunner struggled to his feet, his eyes harsh on the Alpha. “You think I fight him on purpose?”
“I think you fight everything on purpose,” Lucas said, daggers in his tone as he came to stand on the stair beside Cadence. “We formed this Crew to give you a chance, Gunner, and you’re wrecking that chance. If Kru doesn’t make it? It’s on you. If I have to feel Cadence grieving him through my bond? It’s on you. Every tear the females in this Crew shed over your inability to call your animal off a fight is on you! We are your people, Gunner. You don’t fight your own people. You protect them!”
“Lucas—”
“You will stop trying to kill your own fucking Crew or I will break every bone in your body one by one, and punish anyone who sets them. I will cripple you, Gunner.” Truth. There was absolute truth in his guttural words. “Figure it out.”
Lucas’s animal was so big, and so angry right now, Cadence couldn’t even look up at him as he stood beside her on the porch stair. She could barely breathe. She didn’t recall a time she’d ever seen Lucas so angry. Not since his silverback had matured into an Alpha.
She jumped as Lucas slammed the door behind him. For a few loaded moments, Gunner stared at the door where Lucas had disappeared, his chest heaving. He filled the clearing with something heavy. She could feel his anger roiling off him, but Lucas wasn’t going to take back his boundary. It was the first real rule he’d made since he’d become Alpha.
Gunner’s striking dual-colored eyes lit on her, and she forced herself to hold his gaze. “Beaston never Turned anyone again, just so you know.”
“Why would that matter to me?” Gunner asked in a voice that couldn’t pass for human.
“Because sometimes an Alpha’s order may seem harsh, but it is fair. You can’t just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Gunner snarled his lips back over his teeth, and his face sharpened with whatever he was about to say to her. But he paused and kept the venom tucked away. Instead, he shook his head and turned, then staggered painfully into the dark woods.
Cadence watched him until he disappeared into the shadows of the trees, then squeezed her eyes closed and rested her head on her forearms.
Tonight had lasted one hundred years.
She set Gunner’s phone on the porch stair beside her and forced herself to stand up. She urged her legs to carry her inside.
She laid on the floor beside Kru and tucked herself under the covers with him, then rested her hand on his chest just so she could feel the rise and fall.
“He asked me to tell you something,” Landon said softly from where he sat leaned against the wall by the door.
