Mated to the Warrior Beast

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~ ZEV ~

Zev stood next to a very concerned Lhars and Kyelle, Tarkyn, Gar—the Queen’s brother—Elreth and Aaryn.

He could barely follow what was being said because his head spun so violently, screaming at him to find his mate!

But he was shaking too, struggling to control his wolf because the two Anima informing them were males he hadn’t met, and his body still wanted him to tense. Not to trust. His wolf still wanted to attack. But he knew he couldn’t.

The scents raising among these people were impossible to fake.

Warning. Danger. Rage. Offense.

.....

Terror…

Gar, the largest male Zev had ever seen, quivered with it.

And Zev felt it, because they were in this together now. The male’s mate had been taken and Zev… Zev was still waiting for the moment that would prove to him that Sasha wasn’t the other woman they were talking about.

Please… please let her not be that.

“It has to be the Tigers,” Harth spoke up. Everyone looked at her. She raised her chin under the scrutiny of so many Alphas. “I was telling Tarkyn… none of the Tigers are here. Where are they? Why not? Unless they’re causing trouble again?”

Zev’s pain was complete. “I don’t understand,” he asked quietly. “Why would the Tigers kill creatures?”

But the new male he hadn’t met—named Pegg, apparently—shook his head. “They aren’t. The scent isn’t right. I think… I think it’s bears. I’d never seen one before, so I can’t be sure”

“Fuck.” Gar ran a shaking hand through his hair and his face paled. Every line in the male’s body was tight with tension. He smelled the way Zev felt—on the edge of violence… and the edge of weeping.

“Bears?” Zev asked quickly.

Elreth, standing on the other side of the group, her arms folded, was the one who answered. “The bears are a tribe, but they keep to themselves. We’ve always had some tensions with them. They can be… erratic,” Elreth said with a twist to her lips that suggested she’d understated the issues.

But it was the young male who’d been at her side the day before, Reece, a wind-talker or something like that, who looked grief stricken. “They almost killed my father before, because he was a Protector. They thought… they thought he was possessed by the voices.”

Zev couldn’t follow.

“In order to defeat the humans, we had to close the portals that they used to get into Anima,” Elreth explained, though her eyes were focused in the middle-distance and her face tense. “The voices inhabited the portals and would… possess anyone who gave in to their fear or temptation. They were… pure evil. And we… the Anima… defeated them.”

“My mother defeated them,” Reece hissed through his teeth. “And your mom too. Don’t… don’t forget that.”

Elreth nodded, but didn’t look at the male.

“The Bears used to think that anyone who could pass through the portals safely must have given in to the voices and… they claimed to know things about them the rest of us don’t,” Elreth sighed. “It’s possible they think the Creatures came through that way. That might be why they’d—”

“Why they’d take my human mate who they know? They know her, El!”

Elreth’s look at her brother was in one moment quelling, and filled with sympathy. “I don’t know,” she said. “But if it’s the bears… we’ll handle it, Gar. You know we will. Maybe it’s time… maybe it has to be time. If they’re really the ones doing this.”

“I don’t know for sure if they are,” Pegg said. “I mean, I think so. I would know if I could get close to one and see them… be sure of the scent. But they weren’t alone today. There were two scents. The one type I’ve been running across since I arrived here, though always faintly. I never had a chance to meet the bears, so I didn’t know. And then Rika said that the Chimera were here… but when I followed the trail from the cave—I wanted to show Gar where to look for her—they joined with others.”

Everyone waited, Zev couldn’t even breathe.

The male looked around at them. “I don’t know who it is, but the scent reminds me of the lions… just… not. Some of them joined those who took Rika. I think I got close—the trail was getting stronger. But I knew Gar was over here and I had to decide whether to raise the alarm, or find her… I came here. I hope that was right.” He looked up at Gar, his eyes uneasy.

Zev made himself swallow, made himself think. “Did you… did you catch the scent of the other female?” he asked hoarsely.

Pegg nodded. “She’s human. Through and through. And not one that I’ve scented around the Tree City before.”

Trembling with fear, Zev pulled out the scarf he’d picked up from their cave, desperately telling himself that Sasha was out there and might be cold in the early morning and…

He shoved it at the male. “Is that the scent?”

Pegg took it hesitantly but lifted it to his nose, then met his eyes and nodded.

Zev dropped his face into his hands as the pain of it crashed through him. Sasha. His precious mate… she was alone in the hands of enemies that were killing Creatures… did they want her to lead the Creatures to something? Or were they just…

“Fuckers,” Gar spat.

Zev nodded.

“We still don’t know why—but they’ve moved over to this side of the WildWood you said, Pegg?” Elreth asked carefully.

Pegg nodded. “At least some of them. There’s a lot of movement. I caught more than one cross trail, so I don’t know if they’re all in one place. I left the last trail closer to the Hallowed Grounds than here. If it’s the bears—”

“We don’t know who it is. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. As long as they’re alive, we’ll hunt these fuckers. And we will find them—how many tigers were here? If they’re with the bears, what kind of numbers do they have?”

Zev looked straight at Lhars and Kyelle, who glanced at each other. “Um, about forty, maybe a few more,” Lhars said and Kyelle nodded. “They aren’t as numerous as the wolves, but one on one they’re generally stronger.”

Zev nodded, then he blinked. “And they have our Alpha and your mate,” he said through his teeth to Gar. “We will find them, and we will kill them, and we’ll save our females.”

Everyone stared at him as if they were wary. It took him a moment to realize, then he growled. “Yes, she’s still alive. If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” he snarled. His life was hope, he realized. That was… a very strange kind of relief.

If she was gone, he would be too.