FOR THE HEART OF THE WARMAKER
(OUTLAW SHIFTERS, BOOK 4)
By T. S. JOYCE
Other Books in this Series
For the Love of an Outlaw (Book 1)
A Very Outlaw Christmas (Book 2)
For the Heart of an Outlaw (Book 3)
For the Heart of the Warmaker
Copyright © 2018 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2018, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: January 2018
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Image: Wander Aguiar
Contents
Other Books in this Series
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Sneak Peek
Up Next in this Series
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About the Author
Chapter One
They say animals can sense catastrophic weather events just before they happen. It’s something about a big change that throws waves into the air, or spikes up instincts much more sensitive than humans’. Like an underlying rumble that rattles the soul and draws animals upright. It freezes them as they listen for hell to come.
And then the next instinct is survival—the next instinct is to run.
The hairs on the back of Karis’s neck had been standing on end for an entire day, ever since she and Ava had picked up Colt and Trigger from the Darby Precinct. There was something too quiet and too loud all at once in the air. It was the troubles singing their marching song, and they were coming straight for Two Claws Ranch. The storm had been building for years, and though she’d just come to find her mate here, she was right at the edge of the storm anyway. Her entire Clan was.
Karis felt it, but was powerless to stop whatever was coming for them. She knew it, and her inner polar bear knew it, but the best she could do was lock her legs against the storm and meet it head-on. Because that’s what this life was about, right? She’d fallen in love with Colton Dorset, and this was what she’d signed up for the second she let an outlaw slip a zip-tie ring onto her finger. That was her for-better-or-worse moment, and she knew down to her marrow, the for-worse part was coming before the better.
How could she tell?
From the raven in the tree.
She frowned out the window at the creature, too big to be a wild crow, and then the scratching started. Desperate scratching. The sound was small, and concentrated near the bottom of the front door. Genie. The second Karis opened the door, the little squirrel ran through her legs and bolted up the stairs that led to the loft like her tail was on fire. Genie wasn’t scared of much, but apparently crows topped the little critter’s list.
As Karis stepped onto the front porch, she couldn’t get over how big the crow was. It was closer to the size of a turkey. It sat stock-still on a low branch of a birch tree, face angled to the side, one large brown eye trained on her. It was as sleek as a torpedo, its talons digging into the branch it sat upon. Its feathers were so dark, they had a blue sheen to them. If it had been a wild raven, the scene it set would’ve been quite beautiful—black bird surrounded by snowy woods just on the edge of a clearing.
But this was no wild raven. This one was part of the Red Dead Mayhem Clan that had partnered with the Darby Clan of mountain lions to try to kill her and Turn Ava into a cougar. If she had her mate’s old revolver handy, she wouldn’t have hesitated to lift the barrel and blast that damned War-Bird into its next life. She hated them for the memories they’d given her of that awful night five tiny days ago. For the rest of her days, she would remember Ava lying pale on the floor of the barn, tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes, begging Karis to kill her because the cougar-mauling had hurt her so bad. Karis would remember those crows dive-bombing her body while she tried to protect Ava’s.
Kill it.
The bear rumbled a low growl up her throat. Usually Karis fought the bloodlust, but that crow had helped build the storm that came for Two Claws Clan. For her people.
Oooh, Red Dead Mayhem. She wanted the crow to be red and dead, and she wanted to be the mayhem.
Nonchalantly, Karis took a few test steps off the porch and into the snow.
The Crow turned its head the other way, still watching, but it stayed perched on the branch.
Red.
Dead.
Kill it.
Karis snarled up her lip and gave into the pain—let the bear shred her in one excruciating moment. The bear was a bomb. Her Change was instant, as her older brothers had taught her to do. Embrace the pain and push it. Make it hurt. The more it hurt, the faster it went. One second, and her massive white paws hit the snow at a sprint, long black claws digging into the earth for purchase. She was as fast as a hellhound in this body. She knew exactly what she could do because she’d pushed and tested her limits since she’d been Turned. What was the point of being a beast if she couldn’t embrace the benefits? Speed, power, size, teeth, claws, and a thick hide that was now scarred from what the Darby Clan and Red Dead Mayhem had done.
She bunched her muscles and leapt for the bird. He opened his wings and lifted just inches from her outstretched claws. All she caught was a single feather before she hurdled into the tree. The second she hit the ground, she was off again, chasing after the low-flying crow. He was staying beneath the canopy of evergreen branches and winter trees with their limbs stretched out, as if they were trying to grab the damned thing. Even the woods hated this crow.
Her legs burned as she pushed herself, bolting for the coward crow, winding around trees, her frozen breath hindering her view each time she exhaled.
Come into her territory? Watch her? Scare Genie? Ally with the cougars? Bring war to her mountains? She would end him. Red. Red Dead. Mayhem.
Kill it.
Her nerve endings were burning as she pushed herself faster and faster, her paws barely touching the ground as she brushed by trees. The crow tucked its wings to avoid branches, dipping and climbing as it flew to escape her.
A flash of movement caught her eye. One glance to her right, and she knew she wasn’t alone. Ava’s massive polar bear was cutting toward the bird at a dead run. On Karis’s other side, an enormous blond grizzly barreled toward the fleeing bird, too. Colton was here. That little feathered fucker was doomed if the look in her mate’s gold eyes was anything to go by. God, he was beautiful. Scarred, massive, filled with the explosive power of a grenade. The Warm
aker was here to protect their territory with her.
She looked forward again just in time for a beast of a black horse, ridden by her Alpha, Trigger, to skid to a stop in front of her, cutting off her path to the crow. Shit! Karis locked her legs against the snowy ground and did her best to keep from running into Harley, Trigger’s moody stallion. He was already bucking when she came to a stop, her paws just inches from Harley’s stomping hooves. Beside her, Colt and Ava had slid to a halt, too, and when she looked up into Trigger’s face, his eyes were feral and bright gold.
Move, Alpha! The crow is getting away!
Trigger’s lip snarled up as he lifted a pistol into the air and fired. Boom!
At the sound of the gunshot, just past the fence line, dozens of crows lifted from the thick evergreen branches into the air, blocking out the sunlight with their beating wings.
Harley screamed, the crows cawed, and Colt roared his fury loud enough to shake the ground beneath her feet. On her other side, Ava did the same, and Karis bellowed with her Clan. Red Dead Mayhem had tried to lure her away from the others for a calculated attack. She’d let her rage take over and had fallen for the trap. That crow had been bait, and Trigger had seen it. He’d stopped the hurt before it happened.
But though Hairpin Trigger was being smart about preventing a war they were unprepared to wage, the fiery look he and Colt offered each other said the outlaws wouldn’t let this pass.
As much as Karis knew she owned the heart of the Warmaker…
Revenge owned it, too.
Chapter Two
The crock pot on the front lawn didn’t make any sense. Colt frowned as he looked from it to the shower curtain, to the broken bedroom window, and back to the littered front yard. What the fuck? Beside him, Karis squeezed his hand and gasped out, “Genie,” and then bolted for the front door.
“Genie!” she screamed louder as she disappeared inside.
“Oh my God, let her be okay,” he murmured as he sprinted after his mate.
Inside, their cabin was a disaster. All the kitchen chairs were toppled over and the cushions were ripped off the couch. Nothing stood upright anymore. Not the coatrack, the bar stools, or the fridge. The pictures had been ripped off the walls, the glass shattered on the frames. The coffee table and kitchen table were nothing but splinters, and every door to the kitchen cabinets were open. They were empty. The dishes were nothing but shards of ceramic adorning the old, scuffed wood floors.
Colt was in shock, but Karis was in a frenzy.
“I hear her!” she yelled, scaling the ladder to the loft.
He could hear her, too. Or rather, he could hear her tiny heartbeat drumming ten miles a minute. Bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum.
He didn’t bother with the ladder. He bunched his muscles and leapt for the railing above, latched on with his fingers, and hopped it like he and Trigger used to do when they were kids jumping fences.
His mate was already to her, pulling the terrified squirrel from the hole in the mattress she’d chewed and carved out when she’d hated Karis in the beginning. She used to hide in that hole to leap out and bite Karis, but today, she’d used it to hide from the crows. Good Genie.
His heart banged against his chest as he sat down on the mattress next to Karis and took the little squirrel from her hands. She was frozen, not moving, staring unblinking.
“What’s wrong with her?” Karis asked.
“She’s terrified.”
Colt placed his little wishing squirrel to his chest and cradled her tight like he used to when she was a little baby in need of comfort. I wish you were okay. It took five minutes of cuddling, but she thawed out muscle by muscle until she was relaxed and shaking like a leaf against him.
“I’m gonna kill them,” he murmured with certainty.
“Colt,’ Karis whispered.
“I’m serious, Karis. I don’t know when it will happen, but I am going to kill those fucking crows. They hurt you in the war. They lured you out to hurt you again. They scared Genie. I mean, fuck! What were they even looking for? There ain’t nothing in here worth anything! They destroyed our entire fucking home. Look at your stuff!”
Karis’s silver-eyed gaze dashed over to the small dresser with all its drawers ripped out, her bras and panties and shirts scattered all over the floor. Her strawberry-blond curls were mussed from her Change, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Those had been shredded when she went after that crow.
Bait? Fucking bait? They’d lured his mate out into the snow, lured her into a Change, lured her into defending their territory, and then they’d ransacked their home and scared Genie. He saw red. Red tinted everything. The bear scratched and clawed just under the surface of his skin, roiling inside of him like some tornado gathering power. Every crow shifter in Red Dead Mayhem would pay for what they’d done.
The gravity of their situation hit him like a gale force wind. He could’ve lost Karis. He could’ve really lost the woman who made him okay. Who thought his damage was beautiful. “What if I hadn’t heard your Change?” he murmured, pulling his mate close to his side.
She was so warm. So solid. She fit perfectly there, as if she was made to fit right against his ribs.
“How did you know I was hunting the crow?”
“I was in the barn putting Ranger away, but I had this awful feeling in my chest. Just…so awful my bear ripped out of me and I couldn’t stop him. Ava did the same thing.”
“How did Trigger know those crows were there?”
“Because Trigger don’t get hunted. He’s been the bear all his life. Been targeted all his life, too. The other night when we went into town and the mountain lions came after you and Ava? That was the first time I’ve ever seen him fall for a bait-and-switch. They’re using our rage to steer us, and it needs to stop. Now.”
“Will there ever be peace here?” Karis asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When every shifter here is dead, and we are the only ones left standing.”
Chapter Three
Here was the thing about a storm. It ebbed and flowed, battering walls and then giving moments of peace, only for the wind to roar again and wreak havoc. But even hurricanes ended at some point.
Karis stood in the frosty morning, two cups of coffee in her hands as she stared at the destroyed barn. Half still stood, but the right-hand side was in splinters.
“They’re here,” Ava said softly from behind her.
Karis startled because she’d been lost in thought on how to rebuild the barn, rebuild the demolished herd of cattle they ran, rebuild this ranch… “Hey,” she said with a smile. She handed Ava the mug of coffee.
Colt’s dark-haired sister grinned at the mug and read the print on it aloud. “If you can’t say something nice, come sit by me.” She giggled and shook her head, then took a sip.
“Colt doesn’t have important stuff, like mixing bowls or measuring cups, but he does have an extensive collection of smart-ass coffee mugs.” Karis corrected, “Or he did, before the crows broke most of them.”
Ava’s bear snarled low, and her eyes blazed to an almost white. It was dangerous to get her riled up right now since she was so new to being a shifter.
The soft rumbling of a car engine sounded through the clearing. A family had travelled all they way here for a three-day trail ride, but they were still some distance off. Ava’s hearing was even better than Karis’s. “I can hear them now, too.”
“When will my senses settle down?” Ava asked, worry in her bright silver eyes.
“That I don’t know,” Karis said softly. “It’s different for every newly Turned shifter. It could be a week, could be six months. Your bear is a predator, and dominant, so it could take even longer.”
“It’s just…I can hear everything. Before, I would’ve thought that was a cool superpower, but now I can’t focus. I can hear every leaf hit the ground, every bird in the forest, every mouse scurrying through the snow, every breath from everyone here on the ranch,
every animal sound from the barn…everything. I can’t sleep.”
“I know. Trig talked to Colt about it last night. He’s worried about you.”
“But I don’t want him to worry. I just want to be through this transition where it feels like I’m not in control of my own body. I’m fine. I’m just…”
“Not fine?”
One side of Ava’s mouth turned up in a sad smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s normal. I remember when I Turned, I would wake up every morning panicked over a dream I had of running through the woods. I was running from something, and I would wake up fighting the Change. My animal stayed defensive and scared for a few months before we figured each other out. Your senses will settle down.” Karis sipped her steaming mug of coffee and looked at the Suburban that was crawling out of the woods toward them. “But perhaps let me handle the trail ride customers until you can control your eye color better.”
“Probably best,” she muttered. “I’m going to go hide in the barn.”
Karis giggled and called after her, “I swear this won’t last forever. You are just bored from being cooped up. We’ll do a girl’s night as soon as I think the town is safe from you going polar bear on them and leveling Darby.”
Ava flicked up her hand over her shoulder and called, “Darby deserves it.”
Well, she had a point. The town hadn’t been too kind to the Two Claws Clan.
The charcoal gray SUV parked in the clearing, and a family of three got out. Karis rushed to meet them, her smile ready. “Hi! I’m Karis Dunway, one of the ranch hands here.”
“Leonora Ives!” a cheerful woman said, holding her hand out for a shake. Karis liked her immediately because of her genuine smile. That, and she had a nose piercing and her hair had purple streaks. “This is my husband, Thomas, and my son, Damien,” she said, pointing to a tall stick of a man who was unloading a suitcase out of the back of the ride, and an equally tall boy of sixteen or so who was built like a linebacker.