Warrior Invasion: A Science Fiction Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 10) (26 page)

Keelyn climbed off of Bane, the two off them separating some, making a circle around the fighting cats, Mac, Bane and Keelyn's attentions all on the flying fur and tearing of flesh happening in the center.

Bella watched as something else caught Bane's attention. His gazed flicked into the woods, and then back to the cats as David and Ryker's wolf forms poured out of the trees to finish closing the circle around the cats.

"Why are they fighting each other?" Bella yelled out to Keelyn, the only one not in an animal form and therefore capable of answering her back. "Bane's men said lions attacked the castle. Why are they attacking each other instead of both attacking us?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Bella watched as Keelyn dropped her arrow some, pointing at the ground now instead of at the cats.

Curious as to why, she wiggled under Mac, trying to get a better look around his huge, hairy paw so she could see what was going on.

One cat had the other pinned, teeth buried deep into the other one's neck, yanking and jerking the loser just like the barn cats did, to break the neck and seal the kill.

Bella watched as the one lion flipped the weaker lion over, focusing on its chest, presumably to pierce its heart, which only cemented Bella's conviction that it was no ordinary lion, but a shifter instead.

The outcome now assured, Bella could only assume that the lion that had saved her from the other lion was the winner, since the growls coming from all around her as Mac kept her close seemed more encouraging than threatening to the lion who won the fight.

Mac no longer roared, but he seemed to growl his approval and egg the survivor on.

Once the defeated cat lay still, the other one backed away from its kill.

Bella tensed, not sure what the winning lion was planning. Why take down one of your own? And why were Mac, Bane, David and Ryker all standing around just watching?

She figured if the threat was over, they would shift human and tell her what the hell was happening, but they stayed in their animals, telling Bella that they were still on guard.

"Keelyn, talk to me," Bella managed to yell out from under Mac.

"Hang on, Bell."

The surviving lioness stayed in the center, not trying to attack anyone else, but not trying to slide through a hole in the circle and escape either.

The lioness seemed to look at every surrounding human and animal in turn, before making a decision.

It sat.

The lioness sat down in the center of everything, seeming to say 'your move, guys, but I mean no harm.'

Bella wouldn't have been any more shocked if it lifted a back leg over its head and began to bath in the circle of wolves and bear.

The caution-filled energy seemed to go out of everyone in a relieved sigh, and huge animals shifted to human all around her at once.

Mac still stayed close, but now stood beside her instead of surrounding her.

Once everyone but the surviving lion had shifted, Bella heard Keelyn address the cat.

"You might as well get it over with. There's only one of us here who might take issue with you now," she said, kindly.

The lioness looked from Keelyn to Bella then, and Bella stared back at the cat, more confused than ever.

With what almost looked like a sigh of resignation, the lion got to its feet, still facing Bella. With one quick whip of its thick tail it started to shift.

The huge, graceful cat shrunk, pulling in on itself, and in just seconds Bella found herself staring at her very tiny, very blonde, very naked, sister Ivy.

"Well fuck me running," Bella muttered, right before her legs gave out and her eyes rolled back in her head.

Thankfully Mac was still standing so close, otherwise Bella would have fallen to the ground in a dead faint. Mac caught her mid swoon, scooping her up in his arms and saying to the others over her head, "Well that went well."

Chapter 14

Bella could hear Keelyn's voice above all the others as she started to come to. Her eyes were closed, but she squeezed them tighter, trying to concentrate on what she was hearing, and where she was.

"Ok, now that Bella is safe, and Aunt Patty has left us alone for a few minutes, tell me about this whole Queen Cassandra was a lion shifter thing."

Bella heard Bane's voice respond.

"What about it?"

"Oh, I don't know, start with the fact that I had no idea our Queen was a shifter? Start there. Then you can cover the possibly murdered bit."

"You really didn't know? They didn't exactly keep it hidden. The entire reason for the marriage was to try to unite the lion shifters with the dragons."

"Hold it right there! You're telling me the King is a dragon shifter? Bullshit!"

"How is it bullshit?"

"Because if the king was a shifter of any kind, he never would have let our family pay our rents all these years with money earned from hunting werewolves."

"I'm sure that fact would have bothered him, if he actually knew where your money came from..."

Keelyn cut him off, "He's the King, he knows everything about those who live on his lands and pay him rents. How could he not?"

"It's a big kingdom, and he's a relatively young king. Well, in dragon years he's ancient, but in king years, he's still young. He didn't inherit the throne, remember? He didn't grow up training to be king. It was given to him, back when the old king died with no heirs. He was well respected. He'd fought with the old king, pledging his allegiance. He was the old king's right hand man until the kingdom was handed to him upon the previous king's death.

He's trying to unite everyone, from different shifter races to humans, and so far he's done well. As long as rents are coming in on time, from families that have been here since before he took the throne, I doubt he'd ever get around to seeing where the families get their money as long as things are rolling along as usual. I served under both kings, and as you heard, I was a witness to the new king's betrothal and then marriage. She was an... interesting woman, but this lion pride theory that she was murdered? I'm not sure about that. Her accident
was
odd, though."

"Seriously?" Bella muttered, opening her eyes and looking around. "I pass out, you guys obviously bring me to our cousin's, and the discussion you are having over me is about the
king
being a shifter? Hello? What about
Ivy?
Did I fall off my horse and hit my head or did Ivy really turn into a lion and save me from another lion?"

Keelyn nodded, "She really did."

"And
that's
not the major topic of conversation here?"

"We discussed it, a bit. You've been passed out a long while. Mac carried you all the way here to Aunt Patty's."

Aunt Patty was technically their Great Aunt, as she wasn't their mother's sister, but their grandmother's sister, but they had always called her Aunt Patty all the same.

Since this was where Bella had actually been headed to find out some answers, she was glad they had brought her here instead of taking her back home.

Answers must have been fresh in Keelyn's mind as well, since she continued by stating, "Ivy being a lion shifter does back up mom's claim that shifter blood runs through the family veins."

"But Ivy never said a word!"

"Would you have? If you realized you were a were among were-hunters?"

"I..."

"I don't blame Ivy for not telling us," Keelyn continued. "Look how you reacted over Mac and the rest of them."

"That's different! They hid it from us. If Ivy had told us when she first found out- when did she find out anyway? We could have all figured it out together. She's my sister! Mom would have told us about her parentage sooner. We could have..."

"Could have what? Hunted me? Shunned me?"

Ivy spoke up, letting her presence be known as she entered the room.

"Do you know how confusing it's been? Having these urges? Knowing something was wrong with me, but not being entirely sure?"

"When did you find out? How did you?" Bella asked.

"I wasn't entirely sure, not until well into puberty."

"Ivy, that's been years!"

"Is that why you asked mom what kind of shifter raped grandma?" Keelyn jumped in.

"Yeah. I figured I already knew the answer, since I was a lion and all, but I wanted to hear it. I thought I was the only lion anywhere around here. I've hidden it for years, only shifting when the urge got absolutely irresistible, waiting until I was far away from the house to hunt. I thought I was some kind of freak, but then when mom said what she said, I knew she was speaking the truth. I guess it skipped a generation, but I figured grandma's rapist must have been a lion. It explained sooo much.

Then when Bane's men came, and started talking about lions attacking the castle, that was a sucker punch. Finally I hear about others nearby, others like me, and they are murderers! They're attacking the castle, holding the king in preparation to kill him, and they are hunting Bane and Keelyn, to boot. I just couldn't comprehend it. Then you took off, Bella, before David and Ryker said there were two lions sent out here, hunting Bane and Keelyn, so I knew I had to go with them to find you.

There wasn't time to tell anyone what I was, but when I saw that lion about to rip your throat out-" she stopped, tearing up at the memory.

Keelyn tried to give Ivy a second, changing the subject slightly, "Buttercup is ok. He has some scratches and gouges, and he may always limp, but he came here. He was already here when we got here. Aunt Patty was worried, of course, when he showed up without a rider. She sent the cousins out to look for whoever disappeared off of him, but we ran into them as they were headed out to look."

Bella nodded, glad her horse was ok, but something else was tugging at her attention.

"You said there were two? Two lions sent here after Bane? I only saw one, besides Ivy anyway. Where is the second lion?"

"We're not sure," Bane answered that time.

He'd been giving the girls some space to work things out, but at the mention of the second lion, he spoke up.

"So it could still be out there? Hunting? What if it went to mom's?"

"Then Naythan will protect them. Maybe even Ash as well. Ash is still an infant, in human form, but even a baby wolf has some skills. Distraction if nothing else. He could draw the lion's attention long enough for Naythan to take care of things. They'll be ok. I would like to get back there, though. To be sure. Your aunt and cousins were closer, but now that you're ok..."

"Yes, of course! Let's go."

"It's the middle of the night, Bella. We'll go at first light. How are you feeling? Mac caught you, so you didn't hit your head or anything. You seem fine now. Was it just the shock? Maybe coupled with the pregnancy?"

Bella took stock, now that she thought to. She felt fine, just a bit crooked in her shell from fainting. She tried to remember the last time she'd eaten a full meal. It was right before she'd gone out to meet Mac on the swing, before everything else happened, so not too long, since Aunt Patty's was just a few hours away.

"How long was I out?"

"Just a few hours. You were over halfway here when we caught up to you, Mac carried you here. It was slower going, since he was careful. He didn't want you to fall off his back or anything. You came to pretty quick once we got here. Patty welcomed us, showed us in here to get you laid down. She and the cousins are rounding up some food, since you seem to need to eat constantly right now, with that baby..."

"The baby!" Ivy exclaimed. "Bella, we figured out that it can't be a shifter. Sammy couldn't have been a shifter, so the baby can't be either..."

"Unless it skips two generations," Keelyn teased.

"What?" She grinned as all eyes flew to her. "Ivy is. Maybe Bella isn't and her kid is, even though Sammy wasn't."

"Stop messing around. What are you talking about?" Bella asked. "How do you know Sammy wasn't a shifter?"

"We really should have realized before, once you said it out loud that you were thinking down those lines, but then mom said her stuff and then the guys showed up. It just didn't register, that's all." Bane said.

"What didn't register? How do you know my baby isn't a shifter's baby?"

Bane was the one who answered her.

"Didn't you say Sammy was found hanging?"

"Yes."

"Was there anything piercing his heart as well? Or was he just hung?"

"He was just...oh! I see where you're going."

Keelyn was nodding along with Ivy.

"If he was a shifter, he couldn't have hung himself. Even the shifter Ivy killed, even though it was shifter against shifter, she had to pierce the heart."

"So if Sammy was just human..."

"So is the baby. Minus any shifter blood you yourself bring to the equation, which, another generation away from your grandmother, means that odds are, you aren't carrying a shifter's spawn," Bane said, stone faced.

Bella heard the words spoken without emotion, and knew Bane was keeping himself tightly controlled.

She had never hidden her feelings about shifters, but she was forced to admit that maybe they were... she wasn't entirely sure what word fit here. Premature? Uninformed?

Until tonight she'd had no idea that her own blood carried shifter genes, even if they weren't expressed. She could easily have been born the one who shifted, instead of Ivy.

That seemed to change things, deep in her heart.

She knew her sister well, or thought she did. If Ivy, her sweet if overly protective and dogged sister was a shifter, than maybe she had misjudged shifters as a whole.

Add to that the fact that Keelyn, her tough, ass-kicking sister who had initially shared her beliefs, down to hunting them, but who had given that up after growing to love one of them, and maybe shifters were something she could rethink her feelings about.

"So," she started, letting everyone in the room in on her thoughts. "Sammy, the man who raped me, who I thought was a shifter, wasn't. And Ivy, who is my sister, who I love and adore,
is
a shifter. Keelyn, who used to hunt their kind, has now mated with and agreed to marry one of them. Naythan and Bane, both men I've come to admire and care for, aren't just men after all, but shifters. And Mac..."