CHAPTER 14
August was going out of his fucking mind.
Talon had surprised him by answering his call to Underworld and saying that he would help him before August had even asked him, that whatever he planned to do, he wanted in on it, for Maya’s sake.
He owed the tiger.
Talon had given him the Altay pride’s location, and details of the nearest airport, and had agreed a time to meet him there.
Without Talon, August wouldn’t have made it this far, stood in a small airport in a remote area of China, close to seeing Maya again.
Gods, he hoped they weren’t too late.
Talon had painted a grim picture of the Altay pride’s alpha.
The thought of his precious Maya being with that male made August’s blood burn. He paced the tiny waiting room of the airport, his eyes constantly locked on the area passengers passed through after clearing customs. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to go ahead without Talon, to follow his instincts to Maya.
He tamped down that urge, aware that if he gave into it, it would take him days to reach her.
Talon knew the way to the Chinese border and had plotted the route they would take through the nature reserve to the Russian side.
To Maya.
Besides, he had the feeling Talon would kill him if he went off without him. The big tiger male wanted to be the one to save his little sister.
It wasn’t going to happen.
August was going to save her, and he was going to kill the bastard who had her.
If they were lucky, they could reach the pride’s village before Grey and Maya even made it there and cut them off. Grey’s last message to Talon three days ago had mentioned continuing on foot from a location within China that was further away from the pride’s village than the one Talon had picked as the border crossing.
Grey was doing his best to delay their arrival, his reluctance to hand Maya over to the Altay alpha showing in his actions, but the tiger thought he was only delaying the inevitable, giving Maya a little more time to enjoy her freedom.
He didn’t know he had been buying August and Talon time too.
Time August was going to use to save her.
A fresh wave of people rolled through the doors and into the waiting area, and August stopped pacing, his eyes running over all of them, searching for one familiar face.
He needn’t have searched so hard.
Talon stood head and shoulders above the other passengers, easy to spot as he sauntered out of the backroom with a pensive expression etched on his face, the black slashes of his eyebrows meeting hard above blazing amber eyes as he stared at his phone.
August’s heart started a hard, painful beat.
He pushed through the people towards the tiger.
Talon lifted his head, and the flicker of fear in his eyes hit August hard.
“What?” He grabbed Talon’s arm and pulled it towards him so he could see the screen.
There was a message on it, dated from yesterday, signed by Byron.
The ceremony was taking place today.
“Fuck,” he growled and shoved Talon’s hand away, the need to shift and run blasting through him as the desire to be with Maya now, before it was too late, exploded inside him. “Fuck!”
Talon clamped a hand down on his shoulder. “There’s still time.”
August unleashed a string of obscenities in response to that, because Talon didn’t sound sure, and that sure as hell wasn’t going to inspire him into believing that they could still reach Maya in time.
“Fuck it,” he barked and stormed towards the exit. “Even if she’s married the bastard… I’m going to kill him.”
He shoved the glass door open and stepped out into the cool afternoon air, his gaze scanning the parked cars and the people coming and going.
His eyes caught on the mountains that rose in the distance.
Maya was there.
She needed him.
He dropped his pack, grabbed his thick red coat, and tugged it over his right shoulder.
Talon stopped him, seizing his wrist before he could remove it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to her,” August snapped and twisted his wrist free of the tiger’s grip. “She needs me.”
“By the time you get there, it’ll be too late.” Talon calmly stooped, picked up August’s bag and slung it over his shoulder with his own pack. “Shift if you want… expose us all to humans… I’ll probably see you at the border when I’m on my way back with Maya.”
The black-haired male pivoted on his heel and walked away from him, swinging a set of car keys around the fingers of his left hand.
Bastard.
August tugged his coat back on and hurried after him, but it was hard to deny his urge to shift, and the pressing need to run. He caught up with Talon beside a silver compact car that looked far too small to fit both of them, and Maya and Grey, in it. Talon opened the driver’s side door and squeezed into it, dumping their packs in the back seat.
It was tiny, but it was a vehicle, and hopefully once they were moving, the need to shift and run would abate.
He yanked the passenger door open and slid into the car as Talon started the engine. The male didn’t hesitate, had pulled the car onto the road before August had even had a chance to put his seatbelt on and slammed his foot down on the gas, pushing the vehicle to its limit.
August gripped the handle on the door with one hand and the dashboard with the other as Talon wove through the cars on the road, veering in and out of the oncoming traffic at high speed.
Son of a bitch knew how to drive.
Or he was a maniac and was going to get them both killed.
Fear of ending up in a mangled mass of metal in a ditch had his need to shift and run shooting to the back of his mind as they sped towards Maya, his focus locked on just making it to the border in one piece.
He could worry about the rest once they got there and his feet were back on solid ground.
It wasn’t long before they hit the end of the road and a dirt track. He grunted as the car bounced and dipped, rumbling over potholes and rocks. Ahead of them, the mountains loomed, swathed in green.
Maya.
He was coming.
“Fucking airport car-hire… place like this needs a good four-wheel drive,” Talon muttered, his amber eyes locked on the road ahead as he manoeuvred the vehicle around a particularly deep pothole.
He could sense the tiger’s frustration, his need to go faster, to reach Maya.
As soon as they hit the end of the track and the car rolled to a stop, August was out of the vehicle and stripping off his clothes, tossing them onto the seat. Talon followed him, his actions hasty and a little rough as he tore at his own clothing, ripping his t-shirt as he wrestled to get it off. The second he was naked, he dropped to all fours and shifted, growling as his body twisted and contorted, and fur rippled over his skin.
Looked like August was locking the car then.
He rounded the silver vehicle, pulled the keys out of the ignition and shut the driver’s side door before locking it. He placed the key beneath the front tyre, and pushed the car, just enough that it rolled back onto the key and hid it.
The huge tiger beside him watched his every move, fascination in his bright gold eyes.
“You can tell me later how awesome I am for coming up with a great way of making sure we can get back into it.” August dropped to his hands and knees.
Talon snorted, a low coughing sound that he figured was meant to be insulting and tell him that wasn’t going to happen.
August closed his eyes and focused on the shift, gritting his teeth as his bones burned and fire swept over his skin. His body was quick to transform, years of practice making it take only a split second to shift from human into his snow leopard form, but it felt like longer, like every bone in his body was breaking as his legs shortened and altered, and his arms followed them, his fingers broadening as they shrank in length, and silver fur spotted with black rings sprouted from his skin and rippled up his arms.
He growled through his fangs as his face morphed, ears rising to the top of his head as his nose flattened and cheeks puffed up, and whiskers grew from them.
When his tail had finished forming, the part he liked least about shifting, he shook his head and let it ripple along his body, so his fur settled.
Talon took off.
August followed him into the woods, his heart and mind fixed on Maya, on the distance between them as it shrank.
He willed her to hold on, to feel that he was coming for her.
He had been a fool to let her go when he should have had the courage to fight for her, to break with tradition and win her over, to make her see that even if they hadn’t been fated, he would have still been the one for her.
She was the only one for him.
It didn’t matter what her pride wanted, or what his expected.
All that mattered was them being together.
Gods, he had been such an idiot to let her go.
He would never make that mistake again.
If the fates could just give him one more chance with her. Just one. He wouldn’t fuck it up this time.
Once he had her back in his arms, he would never let her leave them.
He would hold on to her forever.