Severed Read online

  “Someone should help her,” the red-skinned Denarin said, clearly seeing the trouble I was having.

  “Let her be, Kess,” the woman said. “We don’t know what she might be capable of.”

  “She’s hurt.” Kess reached for me anyway.

  “I’m okay,” I said quickly, putting up a hand to stop him as I finally found the waistband of my leggings and yanked them up. “I’m so sorry, I just—”

  “What’s going on here? What are you doing to my female?”

  Lucian suddenly appeared in my line of sight. When he saw me lying on the floor, wet and helpless with two other males bending over me, his face went rigid with anger.

  “Get away from her!” he hissed. Moving almost faster than my eye could follow, he was suddenly in front of me, putting himself between me and the perceived threat. “Touch my female and you die,” he snarled, facing off the very surprised looking Porgy and Kess. (Their names would have made me giggle if I wasn’t so busy being wet and miserable and humiliated.)

  “Look out—he’s Fang Clan!” the woman shouted.

  “That’s right.” Lucian tore off the blue straw hat he was wearing for camouflage and bared his fangs in a hiss. “Come a step closer and you’ll find out the hard way. Now get back from my female!”

  “How dare you come into my own store and threaten me?” Porgy demanded. “Who the fuck do you think you are, fanger?”

  “Please!” I sat up, holding out a hand, wanting to explain. What a horrible mess—I’d only wanted to pee and instead it looked like I’d started World War Three in the bathroom! If things came to blows and Lucian got seriously hurt, I would never forgive myself. “Please,” I begged again. “This is all just a big misunderstanding!”

  “Listen to the off-worlder female,” Kess urged, frowning at the other two. “I think she’s telling the truth.”

  “She sprayed me full in the face with cleansing solution!” Porgy roared angrily. “That’s no fucking mistake! That’s an insult!”

  “You always were quick to claim insult, older brother.” The new, familiar voice made my head whip around.

  Drace came into view, his broad shoulders stiff with tension. It was really getting crowded in the cramped storeroom. Then my mind finally registered what he’d said—older brother? Did that mean that Porgy—

  “Drace?” The big blue Denarin stared at Drace in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

  I saw a myriad of different emotions cross Drace’s strong features and felt them as they passed through our bond. Anger…dread…worry…and finally, resignation.

  “I’m here because I felt that my bond-mate and our female were in trouble,” he said simply.

  “Bond-mate?” The gray-skinned woman looked at him incredulously. “You claim this fanger as a bond-mate?”

  “I do.” Drace came to stand beside Lucian, who was still standing in front of me protectively. “All right, bond-mate?” he asked Lucian in an undertone.

  Lucian nodded briefly, his eyes never leaving the other two males. “You claim kinship with these two?”

  “Yes.” Drace sighed. “Afraid so.”

  “How can you call him bond-mate? He’s Fang Clan!” Porgy’s nose wrinkled and he inhaled briefly. “And an Alpha! What the fuck, little brother?”

  “He is an Alpha!” The woman’s nose wrinkled too and she looked at us in obvious disgust. “Drace, what will your mother and your fathers say? This is unacceptable!”

  “You think everything is unacceptable, Twyla,” Drace remarked. I could feel his shame through our link—the shame of being bonded to another Alpha and having his family find out about it—but he kept his chin high and his voice steady.

  “It’s only a temporary bond,” I said, as I got shakily to my feet. “We’re trying to separate them. That’s why I’m here—to help.”

  “Oh really?” Twyla eyed me sourly. “And here I thought your sole purpose was to trick honest people into using their facilities and then spray everything they own with cleansing solution.”

  “I lost control of the hose,” I said desperately. “You have to know I didn’t mean to do it!”

  “How should I know what you do for fun, off-worlder?” she snapped.

  “Her name is Rylee,” Drace said, frowning at his sister-in-law, (I assumed that was what she was to him, anyway.) “And I’m certain she didn’t come in here looking to cause any harm or damage.”

  “Drace is right,” I said quickly. “And I really am so sorry! I never would have done any of this on purpose!” I wanted to cry with embarrassment—what a way to meet Drace’s people! Knowing he was related to them made the whole incident about a thousand times more humiliating.

  “It’s all right, baby,” Drace murmured to me and I knew he and Lucian both could feel my misery through our link. “We’ll get this straightened out.”

  “Will we?” Lucian was still staring at Porgy, who had assumed a menacing air, his eyes narrowed and his hands balled into fists.

  “Of course we will.” To my surprise, Kess, the red-skinned male stepped forward, smiling. “Hello, female of my mate’s sibling,” he said to me. “I’m Kess—it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Um…hi.” I wasn’t sure if I should offer to shake hands. In light of the fact that I still hadn’t gotten to wash mine, I decided not to.

  “Well met,” Kess said before turning to Lucian. “Bond-mate of my bond-mate’s sibling, well met.”

  “Well met,” Lucian echoed, looking a little less stiff and ready for a fight.

  “Thank you, Kess.” Drace nodded to him gratefully. “Well met.”

  “Well met indeed, sibling of my bond-mate.” Kess gave him an easy, open smile and I thought he was by far the nicest of the three. Was he the Beta to Porgy’s Alpha? It seemed likely. “So how long have the three of you been together?” he asked Drace.

  “Stop pretending like this isn’t a big deal, Kess,” Porgy snarled, before Drace had a chance to answer. “This is wrong and you know it—my little brother can not be mated to another Alpha—especially not a fanger!”

  “You’ll treat my mate with respect, Porgy.” Drace spoke to his older brother in a low, menacing voice and I felt his anger sizzle through our link. “I wouldn’t disrespect Kess or Twyla.”

  “You don’t have any reason to because we’re in a normal relationship,” Twyla snapped. “Your brother didn’t go off and get himself mated to another Alpha and an off-worlder freak who plays in the personal relief area for fun!”

  “Wow.” I shook my head. “That is just beyond rude.” I wasn’t going to explain again how the whole cleansing-spigot-getting-away-from-me thing had been an accident. I refused to dignify her mean-spirited insult with another word.

  “How dare you speak to our female that way?” Lucian snarled. He turned to Drace. “I think it’s time we were leaving.”

  “I think you’re right.” Drace nodded curtly. “Come on—I have the supplies all ready to go.”

  “Go, then!” Porgy threw at him. “We’ll see what our parents have to say when I tell them what you’ve done! As if it wasn’t bad enough to have a mateless loner in the family, you had to go one better and find yourself these two to get bonded with!”

  Twyla shook her head. “It’s going to break your mother’s poor heart, Drace.”

  “Twyla is right.” Porgy sneered. “Wait until I tell her you’re playing Beta to a fanger and you found some weird off-worlder freak female to tie the two of you together! What do you think she’s going to do?”

  Drace had been in the act of taking a step but now he staggered, as though his brother had physically hit him. I could feel his pain and the worry about how his parents—especially his mother—would grieve when they found out about us. Yet, he refused to reply to his brother’s remark.

  I couldn’t stay silent, though. Swallowing my pride, I turned to the three faces—two angry and disgusted (Porgy and Twyla) and one sad (Kess).

  “Look,” I said, spre