The Maverick Pride Tales - Chapter 73: Chapter 73

Gretchen walked through the old church’s lot until she reached the copse of fir trees that seemed to stand guard over the abandoned property.
She needed time away from Reg, and everyone else too. Time to just think.
Between that harpy yapping in her ear, Marion giving her the third degree, and her Tiger growling and hissing at her, she couldn’t stand it another minute.
She’d locked up the salon after she tidied up and decided to go for a walk to clear her mind. First though, she’d had to have it out with Reg over the phone. That had not been fun.
What was she going to do about him? She ducked behind a large shrub and began to remove her clothes. Her Tiger was pacing beneath her skin and wanted out. Gretchen understood the need.
Her she-Cat was strong and powerful, and a hell of a lot more certain of herself than Gretchen was. The animal hissed and spat at her human side for letting Pamela get to her.
She was Reg’s fated mate and no matter what that woman said, she knew in her heart it meant more than just some sexy fun times between the sheets.
Shit.
She’d fucked up. She went and let that beyotch poison her mind. Gretchen hated it when she was wrong, but she was a big girl. She could admit it. And she was so very wrong. She owed Reg an apology.
“I’ll do it, but first let’s run off some of these feelings she-Cat. what do you say?” Gretchen asked her inner kitty in a soft whisper.
A breeze rustled the leaves in the tree above her, and within moments, she felt that familiar hum of magic wrap around her soft curves and brush against her skin. It was like stepping into a tub of warm water.
Slipping into her fur was getting easier, as she’d been assured by her Shifter friends. The more frequently she did it, the more the pain diminished. After less than three minutes, she was shifted, taking a moment to adjust to her new shape.
She relished being in her new form. With her Tiger’s eyes, she scoped out the landscape and sniffed the air. She was no expert, but she could tell she was alone, except for a family of rabbits hiding in a burrow beyond the pines. Her beast salivated for a moment, but Gretchen refused to indulge in a raw diet just yet.
Was she a bloodthirsty Shifter now? Maybe. But she was running this show whether her she-Cat liked it or not and Gretchen put her foot down when it came to eating cute, cotton-tailed bunnies.
Grrr.
Ew. No.
The woods stretched for miles and miles over Burlington County, and she was anxious to get some of that open space under her claws. She’d already explored some of it with Reg by her side.
Christ, she missed him! Wished he was there, even though she’d been the one who’d ordered him to stay away. The man had always been so sweet with her and patient.
Truthfully, staying away from him hurt her more than he ever had. Gretchen wanted to be with him all the time. He was constantly on her mind, in her heart, stamped on her skin, like her tattooed Tiger. She chuffed and ran harder.
That is because he is our mate, her Tiger voiced her opinion in her mind, but it did not fill her with any kind of ease.
Yes, he was her mate. But what did that mean to him? She felt foolish and a little needy, but fucking hell, what did a girl have to do to get a man to declare his feelings and intentions already?
The time she’d asked him for was not for her. It was for him. So, he could figure out how he felt. She knew how she felt already.
Gretchen was in love with him. She’d already admitted it, well, to herself anyway. Not a half-assed love either. This was the once in a lifetime, shooting star, all-encompassing tsunami kind of love that made her heart pound and her pulse race. She’d never felt it before, but she felt it now. For Reg.
She stopped running as she came upon a group of rocks and what looked like the mouth of a cave. There was a small stream nearby and, sniff, was that urine?
Gretchen hissed and swatted her nose. It was as if someone had marked the territory in the most animalistic way. By letting loose with his groove thang and spraying the fuck out of the wooded area with his strong pneumonia-like urine.
Ew. So fucking gross.
Gretchen heard someone coming. Her Tiger crouched, unable to determine the scents she was getting through all that stinky piss smell. She growled when two figures emerged.
“What have we here?” the male said.
Gretchen hissed and spat at him, turning to the female who was familiar. Fuck. Was that Pamela?
“You should have gone after I warned you about what the males here were like. I tried to give you a heads up,” Pamela said in a small voice.
She looked so skinny and fragile, bruised too, and Gretchen turned to the male and hissed at him. Those marks on her were fresh, and the fear in her eyes had been placed there by him, she was sure.
“Well, well, looks like we have another Pride bitch who needs to get mounted to learn her place,” the unfamiliar male growled.
“Leave her alone, Carl,” Pamela said, moving in front of her.
The male barked a sharp sound, like a laugh, blood stained his lips and he raised an arm and struck Pamela viciously with his fist right in her stomach.
She buckled over, and Gretchen snarled, standing in front of the woman. Pamela was gasping in pain. She might not have been the friendliest person to Gretchen, but she did not deserve this treatment.
No one did.
“Come on, whore. I’ll show you what you’re good for,” the angry male said, a strange, high-pitched laughing escaping his lips.
Gretchen backed up, using her furry butt to try to push Pamela back into the tree line. The woman was still struggling to breathe, but she understood, and she was crawling on her hands and knees.
Gretchen spared her a glance, angry at the dozen or more bite marks and scratches she saw marring her skin. Some were old, others new. This was systematic abuse, she thought angrily.
The male approached, and she recognized something off about his smell. She didn’t understand it, but she knew he wasn’t a Tiger. It was something else. He threw his head back and cackled again. That was when it hit her. His scent was different because he was not a Tiger or Bear, like the Shifters she had encountered. He was something else. Something she recognized from countless hours watching the animal channel.
Hyena, her Tiger spat the word.
“No,” Pamela stood up, turning to Gretchen, and mouthing the word run, before she ran at the male.
He turned on her, smacking the skinny woman down with a hard fist. Pamela crumbled to the floor unconscious before Gretchen could even react. The bastard had struck the woman without any warning.
“Come on, bitch, I’ll show you what a real man does to a pussy,” he snarled, and began to stalk her.
Gretchen didn’t know much, but she was bigger than the stranger. At least, she was while in her fur, anyway. She just couldn’t let him change.
Taking a chance, she moved forward, swiping at him with her extended claw. Her plan of attack was thwarted when the bastard revealed a whip hidden in his right hand.
The long metal weapon flew out and the clawed tip caught her on the shoulder. He yanked it back, tearing at her flesh, and Gretchen roared in outrage. The fucker had ripped a chunk of her hide clean off.
Fury enveloped her, and she growled and snarled as her copper-scented blood filled the air. Just as she was about to try for the man again, an ear-splitting roar filled her ears.
“Another fucking cat? Oh, you think your hero will save you? Let’s see how he does against me,” the Hyena cackled, and snapped the metal whip towards Reg who had just arrived.
Gretchen’s heart leapt in her throat as her mate charged. Reg roared, moving quick as lightning across the clearing. He dodged past the boulders that sat on the left of the cave were Pamela and the Hyena had been having they’re whatever the fuck it was.
That bastard unleashed his whip catching Reg in his side, but before Gretchen could react her mate went from standing on four feet to two. Then Gretchen saw something she’d never thought possible.
It was as if Reg was somehow able to keep part of his Tiger form, shifting only his hands to human. With his opposable thumbs he was able to grip the end of the whip, wrapping it around his forearm and engaging in a very uneven tug-of-war with the Hyena.
Gretchen couldn’t move. She was frozen like a deer in headlights. Well, almost. She noticed Pamela stirring and ran over to the woman, never taking her eyes off her mate. As Reg pulled, the Hyena Shifter was forced closer and closer to his deadly jaws.
The man yelled and Gretchen swore he begged as he was dragged closer to those mighty teeth. Her Tiger stilled, watching approvingly as her mate defended her. But the human side of Gretchen couldn’t help but cry out as she switched fur for skin.
“Reg!” she yelled.
He turned his glowing sapphire gaze on her, and he stopped before he could close his jaws over the man’s throat. Last second, Reg clocked him with a wicked left hook and wrapped the man’s own steel whip around the bastard.
He tied him up and dropped him before completing his transformation to human. Gretchen gasped and grateful tears fell from her eyes as Reg ran to her.
He scooped her up in his arms checking her for injury. She clung to him, breathing heavily. Her wound burned but was already closing. Rapid healing being one of the perks of her new furry abilities.
“Shona, are you okay? Did he hurt you anywhere else?”
Pamela stirred, and Reg roared aloud. The woman whimpered and kept her eyes on the floor.
“It’s not her fault, he hurt her too.” Gretchen explained, standing up for a whimpering Pamela.
“Sorry,” he growled, his blue eyes searching over her.
“Reg, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to run into them. They were just here,” she explained, but he just held her tighter, pressing his head to her neck.
“It’s okay. Find her phone and call Elissa. Tell Hunter where we are while I make sure that bastard doesn’t try anything.”
Gretchen nodded, turning to Pamela who was searching through her discarded clothing with trembling hands. She handed her a cell phone and Gretchen dialed, encouraging her to dress.
Turning around, she watched in awe as Reg took command of the situation. There was something intensely hot about a strong male that had both her human and her Tiger halves growling in approval.
Reg made sure the Hyena Shifter was secured while they waited for the Pride Neta, and the rest of the guard to come to the clearing. Luckily, Elissa and Hunter arrived first, bringing them spare sweats and socks.
The natural born Shifters might be comfortable walking around naked, but Gretchen wasn’t. She ignored the Nari’s giggles when she found Gretchen hiding behind a tree.
Reg had simply smiled and blocked Gretchen with his own body as he took the clothes from Elissa. Of course, that meant he was standing there with that lengthy lead pipe he called a cock just waving in the wind in front of another woman!
Grrrrr.
“Hey,” Gretchen growled and jumped in front of her mate. Which made him growl when Hunter walked into their line of vision.
“Okay, you two, stop growling! Get dressed so we can handle this shit show,” he bellowed.
Both Gretchen and Reg stilled at their Neta’s shouted command. Against the tree with her mate beside her she felt a little trapped, but she’d never been so happy in all her life.
“Shona?”
“We’ll talk, Reg, as soon as we are alone,” She promised him.
It took a little more than an hour to collect evidence from the scene and secure the Hyena to be brought towards the Shifter Council for trial. Pamela did not hesitate to confess to Hunter what had been going on.
Gretchen listened, sitting beside Elissa who was crying at the words that flowed from the poor battered female. It seemed Blake had been pimping out the females of the Pride to other local Shifter groups to garner favor.
Naturally, the forced prostitution had made females, like Pamela, distrustful of the males of the Pride, and catty to the females whom they believed allowed and even encouraged the practice.
Of course, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Hunter had roared and snarled in outrage. Elissa had quieted the male, taking Pamela into her arms. She rocked the woman, promising her that she and the other women would be seen by the doctor of their choice, taken to counseling, and that they would all be welcomed into the Pride House until they felt safe and protected.
Elissa asked for one thing in return. The females needed to help her by creating a list of the names of the Shifters who had participated in this atrocity. The list would be presented to the Council so the guilty could be tried for their crimes.
“Really? You would do that?” Pamela had asked, her eyes full of hope and disbelief.
“You’re damn fucking straight,” Elissa replied, taking the woman’s hand in hers.
“And I will help,” Gretchen added.
She had swallowed her own tears at hearing just the periphery of Pamela’s tale and could not imagine the horrors that would be revealed when more of the females came forward. This was going to be painful, but if the Maverick Pride was as strong as Reg said it was, then they could handle it. Together.
Gretchen was glad when they were finally permitted to leave. The events that had unfolded had been harrowing and scary. All she wanted was a hot bath and her mate.
Mate, her Tiger seconded.
“You ready to go, shona? I think we need to talk.”
“I’m ready, Reg,” she replied, knowing the best was yet to come.
Her mate had come after her when she’d turned him away. He had rescued her from the clutches of that warped Hyena, and though, he had probably wanted to rip the guy’s head off, he had deferred to her still human sensibilities, and merely immobilized him.
He might not have said it yet, but Reg cared about her. She knew he did. It was time to stop being a coward. There was no written rule anywhere that said a man had to be the first to confess his love.
Gretchen was a modern woman. She was in love for the first, and last, time of her life. Now, she just had to tell him. Her tiger chuffed and purred at the thought, the beast anxious to get him home, naked, and in her bed.
What better place for her to make her not so secret confession?