AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Holy. Shit,” Jenna whispered shakily. She’d been quiet up until now.
“Wait, what?” Cadence asked in a small voice.
“Do you know what it was like watching the two of you kick the dead horse of your relationship for all those years? Anyone around you could tell you weren’t right for each other. You weren’t bonding like you were supposed to.” Gunner approached slow and jammed a finger at Lucas. “You! You dragged your animal through that relationship because you were stubborn and didn’t want to quit, didn’t want anyone else to have a shot, didn’t want anyone to have her if you couldn’t. I watched it for years, while my animal knew exactly what he wanted. I was patient. I waited for you to figure it out, and you did. You cut her loose, and she came to me a few nights later. She wanted me to help her go numb, and that’s what I did! And it felt good, and it felt right, and I don’t have any regrets.”
“You don’t have regrets?” Lucas asked, his rage simmering through his veins.
“I regret nothing!”
“You were my friend!”
“I never claimed to be a good friend! I am what I am! I take what I want, I do what I want, but you know what happened in the end? You. Won.”
Lucas shook his head. That made no damn sense. “I left the mountains. I left my home. I had to put distance between me and every memory I made here. I had to completely start over and pretend I didn’t have this huge hole inside of me named Damon’s Mountains. You got a shot at what you had always wanted. You had a shot at bonding to the woman you wanted. You got to keep the mountains. You got to keep home!”
“Tell him,” Gunner growled at Cadence.
Cadence was staring at the ground, and from here, Lucas could see a tear fall to the marble floor.
“Tell him!” Gunner yelled.
“My animal didn’t choose Gunner back.” Cadence swallowed hard, and then whispered, “I was no better than you, Lucas.”
Gunner’s eyes were vibrant silver and green, and the air was thick with his dominance. “The only one who bonded here…was me. And while Damon gave you an escape, my animal set up territory near his mate, who didn’t want him back, and I got stuck. You got to leave the memories behind and blame me because it felt better to do that than to call yourself out. And I was here, living my unhappily ever after without a mate, knowing you hated me when I was suffering and ripping a bond from my soul. No one hates you as much as me, Lucas. Not even you. This Crew will be mine. I challenge you for it.”
“I don’t think we should do this,” Cadence whispered.
“I challenge you,” Gunner said, sauntering away. He removed his shirt as he went, exposing the scars Lucas had made on him all those years ago. Memories of the awful rage that had consumed him all those years ago washed over him.
“I don’t want either of you!” Cadence said, her voice echoing against the tall walls.
Gunner pulled a face. “No one wants you either.” Truth. Oh, he had succeeded in pulling that bond, and now it was becoming clear the cost to him. Gunner was sick. He was a shifter Damon would’ve sent Lucas to visit if he wasn’t a son of the mountains.
“Gunner, this is a bad idea,” Jenna murmured, following after him a few steps. “I think we need to take some time and decompress.”
Gunner turned and bellowed to Lucas, “I challenge you!”
“I don’t want the Crew!” Lucas roared back.
“Good. They don’t want you either. I challenge you.” Gunner paced in the echoing space between the table and the door.
Fury had been pounding through him with every beat of his heart. Lucas knew what he had to do. He’d dreamed of this moment, but things were different now. Now he understood things differently. He’d been given a glimpse of the other side.
Damon had been right—he’d been clinging to his wounds.
So had Gunner.
Sometimes the only way to heal was to get through the hurt.
This wasn’t for the Crew, or for territory. This was to settle the score once and for all.
“Challenge accepted.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lucas peeled his shirt over his head, and a massive gorilla shredded out of his body and slammed two fists against the floor, cracking the marble tiles in dual lines that ended right at where Gunner’s massive grizzly was ripping out of him.
“Damon, do something!” Jenna yelled.
