The next thing Blythe knew, she was flung over Killian’s shoulder, dropping as Killian fell to all fours. She felt snapping and tugging under her, bones breaking and reforming.
A tiger once again appeared in his place, catching her on his back.
Killian ran off, quick as a streak of orange-tinged lightning, expertly dodging trees as he shot through the thickening flora.
Blythe screamed, her hands finding purchase on the fur of his neck as she held on tight.
Did she want to go wherever he was taking her? Absolutely not. But it was either comply with this or be flung back onto the forest floor, probably breaking multiple things in the process considering how fast he was going.
The tiger growled in response, his stride not once stuttering.
“At least slow down!” she begged. “I’m going to be sick!” That wasn’t exactly true, but perhaps that would appeal more to his base thoughts.
It did not.
Instead, the tiger carried on faster.
Every so often, Blythe had to duck as to not get whacked in the face by a stray branch from a tree or bush. Her hands were beginning to ache, losing their strength and grip on his fur. Any second now, she would have to let go.
Blythe watched with widened eyes as his claws, the color of obsidian and razor sharp, dug into the ground again and again for leverage. She swallowed thickly, wondering if those same claws would be tearing through her chest once they got to where they were going.
He maneuvered expertly, loping over and under branches. Her grip on him actually relaxed, the dexterity of each leap lessening her fear he’d drop her.
Too terrified to disobey, Blythe did so. She winced as she put weight on the twisted ankle.
She watched in amazed horror as the tiger in front of her shifted again. Only when she realized that, yes, he really was still naked, did she force herself to look away, instead taking in her surroundings.
The clear area was small and felt claustrophobic.
Killian took one step toward her, and all rational thought fled. Blythe shrieked and bolted.
The ankle buckled, and she went sprawling, ramming her head and shoulder against the trunk of a tall tree.
Everything went black.
The silly twit had knocked herself out.
He couldn’t do his performance now, and she was in no shape to escape the arena. Killian was not sure what lay beyond the wall, but she wasn’t going to be able to navigate it with a concussion.
There was only one thing to do, and he knew it was a bad idea. He knew it, and his human side hated it, but he could see no other option.
The worst part was his tiger was purring with satisfaction about it.
But his tiger had other ideas.
When she opened her eyes, wincing at the pain of the light, what she saw stole her breath. For once, not out of fear.
At first she was confused. The last memory she had was of the small bare area in the canopy, but now she was up high, in the trees.
A well-thought-out camp surrounded her, a complicated and vast canopy of leaves and branches serving as cover from the elements. From up here, she could hear the birds—small, harmless ones—chirping and nesting.
Woozy from her injury, Blythe was aware of Killian standing off to one side, watching her as she tried to orient herself.
As she sat up, she saw that under her were wooden boards, scratched down by hand, Blythe figured, considering the divots of claw marks within them. They fit together like puzzle pieces to create flooring.
Vines that would otherwise have constricted bark were sewn together, tied to the canopy above and used like curtains to separate rooms and serve as walls around the perimeter.
“Don’t try to stand,” Killian said. “You probably have a concussion.”
Blythe breathed in deeply, trying to think despite the pain throbbing behind her eyes. It filled her whole head, leaving little room for thought.
Trying to look like she wasn’t as hurt as badly as she felt, Blythe let her eyes travel over the area some more.
Mercifully, it wasn’t that bright where she sat. Light filtered in through patches, creating intricate patterns along the floor, and she didn’t notice any sort of light source.
No lamps, definitely no place for a fire. Blythe rubbed a hand gingerly over the bump on her head as she considered the implications. She supposed that many of the shifters living here had well-attuned night vision. It wasn’t like a wolf would go prowling the grounds with a flashlight in its mouth.
Of course, wolves didn’t generally live in tree houses, either.
She was sitting in some sort of central area. Her eyes traveled over the many curtains of vines.
This whole arrangement, carved and put together by hand, seemed to span out, covering maybe as many as four to five trees in width.
Mentally, Blythe counted the canopies, hanging like lofts at multiple levels above, that she could see easily. Once again she felt woozy where she sat.
That many shifters, all in one place, most of whom could see perfectly well in the dark, felt like something out of a scary story told to children.
But the ingenuity of it all flabbergasted her. She had no idea shifters could be this resourceful.
And now Blythe was one of the latter.
The panic began to rise in her again, but before it could spur another reckless act, there appeared a man with short dark hair, wearing torn jeans, carrying a bag and moving down one of the vine and board staircases that twisted around the large tree.
“Finally,” Killian said to the man. “Where’s Seth?”
“Out and about,” the man said. He had Asian features and skin darker than Killian’s.
“I’ll take a look at her.”
“Ben...”
“I know I’m not your first choice, Killian, but Seth is probably going to be out there all night.”
Then they just stared at each other without talking.
Blythe couldn’t make sense of it. What were they doing?
Nothing made sense.
How was any of this possible? Had she misunderstood? A shifter was going to give her... medical care? Was she still unconscious and dreaming, maybe?
The one called Ben broke the weird eye contact with Killian and came over to her side, crouching.
“Killian says you panicked and ran into a lupuna tree,” he said as he began gently probing her scalp.
“Ah,” he said as she winced. He’d found the head wound. His fingers came away bloody, and for an instant, Blythe’s heart jumped and raced. Would the sight of blood push him into a frenzy, as it so often did with the shifters on the show?
But Ben just opened the backpack he’d brought and got out gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Blythe hissed as he began to clean the wound. It stung.
“Killian says to check your shoulder and ankle, too?”
“Yeah,” Blythe breathed out, the whole thing too surreal.
Her eyes moved from Ben to Killian, who stood some distance away, arms crossed, watching.
She clasped her shaking hands together.
“Is… Is this your home?” she asked either of them, hoping the stutter in her voice didn’t come off as pathetic as it did in her pounding head.
Killian nodded. She’d almost forgotten he was naked, and now she noticed again. She looked away, studying the construction of the stairs Ben had come down. Was Killian ever going to put on clothes?
Blythe flinched as pain shot through her wounded ankle. Ben was pressing it in different spots, assessing the damage.
Killian frowned but stayed motionless.
“You helped to build this?” Blythe asked, trying to keep her mind off the pain and the strangeness of everything.
Another nod without any other movement. Man of few words was an understatement.
“It’s… beautiful,” she said.
She continued to survey her surroundings, her eyes landing on a large beaten-up cardboard box. There was writing on the side of it, some company’s logo, but she couldn’t quite make it out.
“I nearly forgot. You guys get supplies. They show it when they arrive and everything gets so violent...” She crossed her arms under her chest, her eyebrows knitting together. That earned her a sharp noise of disdain, a grinding of teeth that made Blythe’s skin crawl.
After a breath, she heard his voice rumble out low like gravel in response.
“You talk too much, girl.”
Blythe was taken aback, half by his words and half by the intensity with which he continued to stare at her.
“I...I...” She cleared her throat, chiding herself for her continually meek-sounding voice. “Don’t call me girl. That’s demeaning. If you’re going to call me anything...” She straightened her spine, as if that made her at all intimidating.
“My name is Blythe.”
Killian watched this girl, Blythe, fidget and fumble with both her body and her words with a quiet amusement.
When they realized he was helping them escape, some of them became very friendly, and it helped that the doors were blind spots for the show. Apparently the producers never wanted to reveal any of the girls escaping.
But there would be no such reward with Blythe. He would just have to see her out, and that was that.
His inner tiger growled. This idea was not to his liking at all.
Killian sighed, adjusting his position. Blythe still wasn’t looking at him, instead directing her comments more toward the floor. And it took a minute for Killian to realize what she was so damn bashful about.
Yes, he could smell it on her, the fascination and quiet arousal mixing with the fear. It made his tiger growl, wanting her.
He turned away then, stalking off to his room. He could feel Blythe’s eyes on his back as he left.
“What’s got into him?” Blythe asked Ben, who was finishing up wrapping her ankle.
Ben snorted and shook his head. “That’s typical Killian. There’s a picture of him next to the word ‘broody’ in the dictionary, or so I’m told,” he said.
Blythe smiled. “I don’t see a lot of books around, now that you mention it.”
“We move camp every so often. Books would complicate that.”
“A lot of this,” Ben said with a gesture at their surroundings, “can be taken with us. We made it portable deliberately.”
Blythe was awed.
The staircase made a creaking noise, alerting her to the return of Killian. He was wearing gray shorts.
“Better?” he said to her as he approached. The way he moved was hypnotic, as smooth as his tiger form.
Blythe swallowed and shrugged, tearing her eyes away from him.
She heard him make a scoffing noise. “There’s no satisfying you, is there?” he said.
And for some reason, that made her want to cross her legs. Between the wounded ankle and Ben working on her shoulder, though, she just held still.
At least her head wasn’t hurting as badly now.
“This is not what I expected,” Blythe confessed.
“Oh?” Ben said. “What did you expect?”
Inexplicably, that made Killian growl.
Ben broke the connection, shooting Killian a glare. Blythe was watching them, a look of confusion on her face.
“I guess I expected... to get eaten?” she said slowly, as if unsure anyone was still listening to her. “I mean it’s what I always thought shifters would do to Runners.”
Killian arched his eyebrows. “That is what many of us do, yes.” There was the uptick in her fear pheromones. “But not me.”
The look on her face, the utter confusion, bewilderment, made him want to laugh. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head.
“It’s not me either,” Ben muttered, but he finished the sling he’d rigged for her shoulder and began packing up his stuff.
“Are the things they want you to see,” Killian finished for her.
No one said anything, and the only sound was Ben pulling the bag’s zipper closed.
After another moment, Ben broke the silence.
“Just keep your arm in that sling for a while. Give your shoulder a rest so it can recover. Try not to put too much weight on the ankle. Favor the other leg. And I’d avoid sleeping unless you have someone to watch over you, because of the concussion and all.”
Killian didn’t miss the wistful tone in Ben’s voice, and a low growl built in his chest.
Shooting Killian another glare, Ben stood and left.
The pain of memory rippled through him, but it made it only harder to stop looking at Blythe. She was gorgeous. Emerald eyes gazing up at him through sooty lashes, her thick dark hair pulled back into a charming ponytail.
It wasn’t just her beauty. There were always beautiful girls.
Her fear?
There were always frightened girls.
Her innocence?
Innocent girls were more rare, but not unheard of.
No, there was something else.
She had heart.
Killian gazed at her. Yes, that was the only way to put it. The way she lifted her chin as he stared at her. The way she straightened her back, even though he could see her shivering with fear. She was completely out of her depth, but she had heart.
And just like that, he had to touch her.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Killian blinked, arrested by the question. He could not face the honest answer buried within him. Searching, he lit upon something that appeased his own sense of bewilderment and unease.
“Let me mark you,” he said.
