Kean

His mind was elsewhere as he jogged down the steps, the wooden boards creaking under his weight. Despite his massive bulk, the set of stairs that led from the cabin down to the forest floor was designed to hold much more weight.

Which was a good thing, because they were getting used heavily by Kean and his brothers lately. Anything of lesser construction would have fallen apart already. It was lucky that whoever had built the raised cabins and the five-stair-high walkway into them had known what they were doing.

He walked across the small area around the cabin that they’d claimed as their own, and into the forest itself. The woods reached down to envelop him in their embrace, and almost at once he felt himself relax. Inside of him his other half did the same, settling right down.

Which was necessary after the latest argument with his oldest brother. Kean wasn’t sure what had set him off this time, but it was getting worse and worse.

The sing-song chirps of the birds rose into tune once more as the forest realized he wasn’t there to harm them. A pair of squirrels chased each other across the branches in front of him. Big, bushy black tails flicked left and right as they chittered at one another, reaching the trunk and circling round and round as they went higher and higher into the canopy above.

A rabbit emerged from a particularly dense clump of bushes ahead, its mouth working frantically as it tried to swallow its prize. It stopped in its tracks when it saw him, but Kean simply smiled and allowed himself to exude peaceful tranquility. The rabbit’s nose twitched several times, then it—still cautiously—hopped on by, disappearing into the forest a few seconds later.

Overhead, somewhere above the boughs and leaves, the branches and trunks, a bird of prey screamed in frustration as its quarry evaded it for the time being. Kean inhaled deep, his shoulders rising and stretching the thin white cotton of his shirt. His muscles swelled and he held his breath for several moments before letting it out in one big whoosh.

“Another one?”

He spun at the voice, having thought he’d gone far enough into the forest to be left alone.

His younger brother—and the youngest of the five of them—Pierce stood there, looking just as frustrated as Kean felt.

“Yeah,” he said unhappily, turning back around and continuing his walk.

He was taking a circuitous path out and around the cabin, to allow both himself and the others to breathe. They would need that if they didn’t want to tear each other’s throats out. Family they might be, but they were getting dangerously close to that point now.

“How long’s it been?” Pierce asked, falling in step next to him.

“I’m assuming you mean since I called the number?”

“Yeah.”

“Six days.”

Pierce whistled.

“What?”

“That’s just a long time to go without any sort of response,” Pierce said, shrugging his shoulders under the same white T-shirt that they all wore.

“We can’t go much longer,” Kean agreed. “Maximus is going to lose it soon I’m afraid, and just take off back for Cadia.”

Pierce snorted. “Fat lot of good that will do him. They’ll just throw him back in jail as soon as he gets there.”

“Yeah,” Kean agreed. “Why doesn’t he understand that we’re not all exactly eager to follow him back into prison?”

“Because he wants us to follow him,” Pierce said softly. “He’s not used to us doing our own thing.”

Kean laughed sarcastically. “Only you are doing your own thing, Pierce. Don’t get me wrong, I’m envious of you, but this whole ‘we’ thing is an exaggeration.”

His younger brother stared over at him. “Are you sure about that? If you were following him you’d already have headed back home.”

Home. Cadia, the largest of the shifter territories carved out from the lands of humans, private strongholds where humans weren’t allowed and shifters could roam free.

Except for Kean and his brothers. They’d broken the law and gotten caught, ending up in jail. Then of course some crazies had broken them out of jail, only to throw them into their own jail. It was still mildly confusing.

“Maybe,” Kean agreed. “But what’s to stop the Institute from sending more people after us? They kidnapped us from within Cadia once, they could probably do it again.”

“Perhaps,” Pierce echoed. “But without Mila leading their strike teams anymore, I think they’re in a bit of disarray at the moment when it comes to that kind of thing.”

Mila was Pierce’s mate, and a former employee of the mysterious Institute who had turned on them when she got the chance, having finally had enough of their activities and the harm it was bringing to others.

“What’s Gavin saying?” he asked his younger brother, who had somehow become the de facto leader of the opposition to Maximus’s rule.

“Nothing, like usual.”

Kean answered the knowing smile with a nod. Gavin was the middle brother, and he rarely took sides. Often content to follow their eldest, Maximus, he was also unafraid to simply go off and do his own thing if he felt like it. Neither Maximus nor Kassian, the second brother, wanted to deal with an angry Gavin, so they often simply let him do his thing, as long as it didn’t interfere with their own plans.

“Great.”

Their long meandering path had begun to circle back around, bringing them back toward the cabin that served as their home base for the time being.

“Ugh, do we have to go back?” he asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go make the peace,” Pierce said, splitting off from Kean and taking a closer approach so that he’d arrive before Kean.

Taking the brunt of Maximus’s rage for me. Thank you, Pierce.

Kean had no idea where his little brother had gotten the courage and desire to stand up to Maximus—though he was 99 percent sure it was Mila, he just had no proof. Not once had the human woman spoken up during one of the arguments, except to state that she was human and to please let her leave so they didn’t accidentally kill her if things got ugly. Not that things had degenerated into physical violence.

Yet. It was only a matter of time as far as Kean was concerned. The tensions were just too thick. Maximus wanted to go back home to Cadia, even if that meant jail time. Pierce and Kean wanted to stay, to talk to their mysterious contact about the Institute.

Somehow the Koche brothers needed to prove their worth to Cadia before they could go back home. They just weren’t sure how yet. But Kean had an idea. That’s why he’d called the number of the mysterious blonde who had showed up a week ago, saying that she could help with the Institute, acting like she was part of a group that was already fighting them.

Kean didn’t know any more than that, but that was why he wanted to find out. That was why he’d called the number on the card she’d left. One hundred percent. It had precisely nothing to do with the fact that he’d—

“Keeny Keaner, back already?” Kassian taunted as he emerged from the forest into the cleared area around the cabin.

“Fuck off, Kassian,” he replied. “Go back to sucking up to Maximus. It’s what you’re best at.”

The second-eldest Koche brother slowly turned to face Kean. “What did you just say, boy?”

“Boy?” he laughed, suddenly no longer giving a fuck. Kassian was barely bigger than he was. Perhaps an inch at best. He just acted like he was a lot bigger and stronger because he was years older. “Kassian, I’m twenty-seven. I’m no longer the wide-eyed teenager. So take your attitude and fuck right off with it.”

His brother snarled.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Kean sighed, even as Pierce watched the interaction from nearby.

Maximus was still inside, he figured, and Gavin…who the hell knew where Gavin was.

“Well, I don’t think you have much of a choice,” Kassian sneered as he stalked over, his huge feet snapping twigs and grinding leaves into dust.

Okay, so maybe it’s coming to physical violence sooner rather than later.

“You know this isn’t going to end well,” he protested halfheartedly, knowing it was already too late.

Kassian’s face was red with rage, his fingers balled into fists even as the knuckles on them turned white. Kean had a moment to contemplate why his brother was so damn mad before Pierce’s voice reached out to them.

“Don’t do it, Kassian.”

“If you don’t shut your mouth, you’re next, Pipsqueak,” Kassian snarled, using the derogatory term he’d come up with for Pierce, despite him being roughly the same size as the rest of them. The only ones who were larger were Gavin and Maximus, and even then, at their size, an extra two inches and twenty pounds didn’t make or break a fight.

“Just don’t act like I didn’t warn you,” Pierce replied calmly.

Kassian slowed, glancing over his shoulder. “What, you really think Keener Kay over here can take me?”

“Actually, yes,” Pierce replied laconically, “But it wasn’t him I was warning you about.”

Kean frowned, wondering just what the hell his brother was talking about. He could take Kassian. His brother might be pissed, he might hurt him badly, but he’d never kill him.

And that’s assuming I don’t win, which could just as easily happen.

“Fuck you, Pipsque—”

Kassian never got the chance to reply. Even as he pulled back a fist and came at Kean, a shadow descended over him. Kean glanced up just in time to see Gavin land atop Kassian, driving his brother to the ground. Something popped under the impact and Kassian groaned. Gavin just sort of bounced off, leaning against the wood railing of the stairs as he regarded Kassian coldly.

“I told you,” Pierce drawled.

“Don’t pick on family,” Gavin said icily, then pushed off the railing and headed past the stairs toward the firepit.

He never made it.

A ball of pure rage shot from within the cabin and took Gavin in the side. Kean watched as Maximus and Gavin bounced and rolled across the campsite, trading angry blows. Although he knew Gavin would just as easily have dropped him as Kassian if he’d been the one taunting, Kean felt a need to go to the middle brother’s defense.

“Fuck,” he growled and took off across the clearing.

A hand darted out and snared his foot. Kean tumbled to the ground as Kassian rose up.

“Just you and me now, little brother,” he said.

A loud growl, much louder than anything the brothers had uttered thus far sounded, and Kean whipped around to see Maximus hurl Gavin clear of him, and then initiate his shift.

“Are we seriously doing this?” Pierce complained aloud, and then from his so-far untouched vantage point he unleashed his bear as well.

Kean snapped back in time to see Kassian do the same.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered, belatedly forcing his own shift.

Kassian bellowed angrily and swatted Kean aside as he finished shifting. The half-human half-beast that was his current form went flying across the clearing until he hit a trunk and slid to the ground. Shaking his head, Kean got to all fours, the change complete. He saw Pierce take Kassian in the side just before he hit Gavin, who was circling on Maximus. The two went down in a pile.

Kean charged, heading for Maximus’s side.

“ENOUGH!”

The sharp crack of the female voice whipped through the combatants, but it was too late. Their bears were engaged. Kean was halfway to Maximus when he felt a sharp prick in his side. Glancing at his flank as his reactions began to slow, Kean saw the last two inches of what he knew to be a six-inch metal rod sticking from his side.

His eyes trailed up to see Mila, Pierce’s mate, standing at the top of the stairs, a tranquilizer rifle in hand. She took aim again and hit Kassian even as he watched.

Something hard struck Pierce in the jaw and he went whipping across the clearing once more. Then he heard Maximus roar as he too was hit.

Kean closed his eyes and initiated the shift back to his human form even as he tumbled. The instant his hand was formed enough into fingers he ripped the dart from his side. Given that he wasn’t already unconscious, Mila must be using partial-strength tranqs.

How kind of her, he thought fuzzily, his balance wavering even as he tried to prop himself up on one elbow.

This isn’t going to work.

Kean flopped backward onto the carpet of leaves, his eyes gazing upward—

Right into a pair of the most startling baby-blue eyes he’d ever seen. They seemed to pierce him with their look, even as he belatedly recognized the blonde hair and porcelain skin.

I’ve seen those eyes before, his drug-addled brain told him at last.

They were the same eyes that belonged to…

Oh shit. They belonged to the mysterious and yet strikingly beautiful woman who’d approached them when Pierce and Mila had first broken them free of the Institute’s jail in the human city of Longhorne.

“You’re so pretty,” he said dreamily, unable to stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

No. No no no. Please. Don’t fuck this up any more, brain. I beg of you!

“I want to kiss you.”

Thanks.

The woman sniffed disdainfully and then walked over him and toward Mila. Kean watched her go with a dazed smile on his face, the tranquilizer preventing his brain from responding to his thoughts.

Great. Good job. You ruined any shot you may have had with her, no matter how small, because you had to go and get into a fight.

But it hadn’t been his fault. It was Kassian’s fault for coming after him. It was Maximus’s fault for starting the stupid argument in the first place!

Anger raced through Kean at those thoughts, the rush of it burning off the tranquilizer enough that he could gain some control of his body. Even as he sat up, looking once more at the blonde, he was reminded of the first time he’d laid eyes upon her, six days earlier.

He hadn’t said a word to her. In fact, Kean was fairly positive he’d been all but invisible. She’d only looked at and talked to Pierce, as if he were the one in charge. But it had been Kean who’d seen nothing but the glowing beauty of an angel within her.

Now she was back. She’d answered his phone call. His phone call. She had come back because he’d asked her to.

And he’d gone and told her he wanted to kiss her.

With an embarrassed groan Kean fell back over.

Could this go any worse?