Pierce

I swear to the nine Hells of Hades.

The words swirled around him, over and over again.

They wrapped around his left wrist and pressed against it slightly, before pulling away. He tried to fight as they went for his neck, but he couldn’t move. To his surprise they didn’t strangle him though. The words just pressed against the side of it for a count of ten, then disappeared.

He thought they were gone, and he sighed in relief.

Then they slapped him on the cheek. Hard.

Pierce’s eyes flew open, his left hand blurring toward his face as he intercepted the hand aiming to strike at him. Planting his right hand on the ground, he used the insanely powerful strength of his shifter heritage to push up, his left arm simultaneously pushing down.

In a heartbeat he had flipped positions with the person attacking him, pinning them to the dirt. As his knees hit the ground he brought his right hand up and around the throat of his attacker.

“Who are you?” he snarled, his face inches away from his attacker.

An attacker who was slowly turning purple and whose eyes were filled with terror. A scent of lilac and lavender wafted into his nostrils. An attacker who was female. A human female at that.

Hastily Pierce yanked his hands away from her and rolled off of her.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly as he watched her hands fly to her throat. He didn’t think he’d been squeezing long enough to leave bruises—no more than a second or two before his senses had kicked back in. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, this time a little more tender.

The woman’s eyes were darting back and forth, but she didn’t try to run. Instead she pulled her hands back from her throat and, to his relief, sucked down a lungful of air.

“I didn’t mean to attack you,” he said. Then frowned. “Well, I guess I did, but I didn’t realize what you were doing at first. I thought you were attacking me, you see. So my instincts took over, and, umm, yeah.” He looked away awkwardly. “Sorry.”

Her fear rolled off her body, overwhelming the pleasant scent he’d noticed first.

“I promise, you’re okay now,” he insisted, though she didn’t seem to completely believe him. “I’m not going to harm you. It was just a mix-up.”

She narrowed her eyes, breathing heavily, but smoothly now. “Really? Do you always attack people who wake you up?”

Pierce opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. What was he going to tell her? That he’d been in a jail, and that some humans had gassed him and shot him full of tranqs? That wouldn’t make her feel any more calm and comfortable around him. Strangely, that actually mattered to Pierce, though he wasn’t sure why. Normally he would have said he didn’t give a fuck what a human thought.

Must be a full moon, he thought, irritated.

“Where am I? What happened” he asked instead, avoiding answering her question for the time being.

He had no idea who she was. Her clothing, a lime green long-sleeve top over a colorful skintight pair of pants, screamed jogger. The footwear pretty much confirmed it to him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was out for my normal jog, and came across you just lying in the middle of the path.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t going to just leave you, so I checked your pulse on your wrist and your neck. When it was present, and I could feel you breathing, I tried slapping you gently to wake you up. Didn’t work, so I was going to try again.” She stopped, rubbing her neck gently. “You know the rest.”

“I see,” he replied. That explained the crazy dream where he was being attacked by words. Damn drugs will make you see some shit. He vowed not to let himself get gassed and then tranqed again at any point in the near future. Pierce would stick with booze from then on.

“There’s nobody else around?” he asked as his wits continued to return to him. He stood up, looking around.

“Maximus?” he called. “Kassian?”

There was no answer as he shouted his brothers’ names.

“Kean! Gavin! Come on guys, this isn’t funny!”

But all he heard was his own voice echoing through the forest.

“Where am I?” he asked again.

“Fingal Woods,” she said promptly.

The name meant nothing to him.

“What’s near here? I need to know where I am.”

“Uh, they’re a big set of woods and cabins and such to the west of Longhorne City,” she replied.

Longhorne. He knew that name. Pierce closed his eyes and pulled up a map of the area surrounding the shifter-only territory of Cadia, his homeland. He thought hard, then opened his eyes. “Longhorne, you guys have the huge set of waterfalls here, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, big tourist city, that whole shebang.”

“Right.”

Okay, step one complete. Pierce knew where he was. Well to the east of Cadia, but still within five to seven days comfortable travel of his bear depending on weather, food, etcetera. So obviously his attackers had fled this way. But how had he ended up here? And where were his brothers?

He called up the image of the leader of the humans who had taken him. Shorter than average, and an indistinguishable voice.

I swear to the nine Hells of Hades.

The thought echoed through his head once more. Pierce pictured his hands wrapped around the man’s throat, strangling him as he tried to repeat that line, over and over again. Satisfaction flowed through his body even as his heart raced.

Pierce was going to kill him, whoever he was.

Now I just need to find out who the fuck it was.

His bear roared its agreement at the idea. It had been a long time since it had been let loose. Nearly a month had passed since he and his brothers had been stuck in those stupid jail cells, all for no good reason. Just because the Green Bearets had deemed gambling to be a bad idea.

Sneering internally, Pierce realized there was one good thing about being where he was. The Cadian bear shifter warrior elite couldn’t touch him out here. The Green Bearets wouldn’t even know where to look! That brought a smile to his face.

“What’s so funny?” the woman asked.

Pierce shook off the question. “Just the situation as a whole,” he muttered.

“I looked for a wallet on you,” she said, volunteering the information. “Anything, just in case you had a medical condition or something I should be aware of. But I couldn’t’ find anything, no ID, nothing.” She paused. “What are you doing out here?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

“What’s your name?”

“Pierce,” he said, sticking out his hand politely. There was nothing to be afraid of with the woman.

“Mila,” she returned.

“Mila,” he repeated, letting the name flow off his lips. “Exotic, I like it. Good name.”

Keeping a hold on her hand, he gently lifted her to her feet from where she’d still been sitting as she recovered from his initial attack.

She smiled demurely. “Thank you.”

Even as her head dipped low, he felt his attention forced into focus on her, as he truly looked at her for the first time.

Mila was small, though he assumed for a human woman that she was probably about average. He didn’t really have anything to base that off of though. Roughly a foot shorter than his six and a half feet, she had thin golden blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail that was now swishing from side to side as she steadied herself on her feet.

Cat-like eyes of a delicious shade of mocha caught and held his attention, eyelids blinking languidly as she returned his frank gaze.

Shyly she gestured back down the path, he guessed in the direction from which she’d come. Not having any better sense of where the hell to go, Pierce nodded, following her. His gaze tracked up and down her figure, outlined perfectly in the form-fitting activewear she had on.

A thick, muscled frame was the first thing he noticed. Obviously she kept herself active, and quite possibly in some sort of power sport. The way her leg muscles bunched and pushed her rear from side to side had him so hypnotized he didn’t see the tree branch she walked under until he slammed his forehead right through it.

“Ow!” he said, cursing out loud as the branch separated from the tree, hit him in the chin, and then landed on his foot as he fell.

Mila spun, the initial look on her face one of concern, but as she took in what had happened to him, the concern was quickly replaced by laughter that she tried vainly to keep contained.

Eventually he took pity on her and gestured at her. “Go on, laugh it up. I can tell you want to.”

Mila snickered several times, but otherwise she kept quiet, shaking her head at him.

“Keep your eyes on where we’re going,” she advised, as if she’d known exactly what he was staring at.

“Where are we going?” he asked curiously, stepping up alongside her and watching ahead of him for any further dangers.

She flashed him a smile that revealed a very lovely set of dimples in her cheeks. “My place for the moment. It’s not far from here.” There was a pause. “If that’s okay with you?”

Pierce couldn’t see any reason to say no, so he nodded. “Sure, that would be great. Lead on.”

Ponytail bouncing from side to side, Mila did just that.