Page 26 of Passion & Betrayal

He strides to me and hugs me close to his body. “Mate, I will be back. Stay here with Sypher. This is the safest room in the club. Sypher, bar the door, man.”

“I will come back to you.” He presses his lips against mine before leaving the room. I want to yell for him to stay, but I know he has to be involved in the fight because he’s not only the president of the club but also the son of the man who’s trying to destroy our world.

After putting the thick bar across the door, I hear my other mate on his phone ordering his own men.

I walk back to Kristy and sit on the side of her bed. “I’m so sorry I got you involved in this mess.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s the bastard’s fault.”

I lift her hand. “We’ll get you through this, and you can decide to stay here, or we can set you up somewhere else.” I clear my throat, emotion threatening to strangle me. “There is something I have to tell you about our families.” God, this is hard for me to talk about with a human. “We are shifters.”

Kristy looks confused. “What’s that?”

“Have you ever heard of people that can turn into animals?”

Kristy nods. “Yes, in fairy-tale books I read as a child.”

“We’re not a fairy tale. We exist.” I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but it’s not the time to show her. “I will prove it later. But know at no time will we ever hurt you.”

“What about the bad guys like Cian’s father?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “We’ll deal with them, and I’ll introduce you to the ones you can trust, but later.”

“What kind of animal are you?” Kristy asks me.

“I am a lynx, and Sypher is a tiger, and my other mate is a panther.” I see her eyes get bigger and bigger, and I squeeze her hand. I hate to see fear in her eyes, but she has to know because she’ll probably see a lot of shifting while she’s here. “We won’t hurt you. I swear.”

“Why can’t you turn into your … animal and fight like that?” Kristy asks, her curiosity beating her fear.

“Because the majority of our people are shifters, and we’re no match against guns and bombs.”

We both cringe when another explosion hits the other side of the building. I hear the rat-tat of the guns going off and pray with everything in me that my mate will come back to me, to us.

“Come here, Mate,” Sypher says.

I walk to him, and he pulls me down onto his lap. He kisses the side of my head. “Everything is going to be all right. My men are headed here now.”

I exhale a bit and lay my head against his shoulder. The fighting has dwindled, but I can still hear guns go off occasionally.

I can see the guns Sypher piled in the room from the closet that stored them. This truly was a safe room. It was built with heavy-duty metal. The closet was huge and held not only weapons but food and water that could last us a week at least. There was the big bed that Kristy was lying on, but also the sofa that turned into one.

The room holds everything we could need to survive a siege.

Another round of gunshots went off, but these came from the street.

“Those are my men.”

I blink my eyes to hold back the tears in relief, but I won’t feel secure until Cian gets back.

One other thought that creeps into my mind is the fact that Dom and Aryanna have moved to their new house, where it’s safe. It was one less thing to worry about.

I can’t imagine how Cian is feeling about his father’s betrayal and the fact that some of his men have turned on him. Only time would tell how it would all work out. I just prayed it was in our favor.

Chapter Seven

Sypher

My tiger pushes at the corners of my mind, begging to be set free to protect our mate and a man who has become integral to our relationship, but I hold him back. There is no need to scare the injured human, although I heard my mate explain the truth of our existence to Kristy.

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