Buried and Shadowed (Branded Packs #3)

He turned his attention back to the two big cats in front of him, his rage at full peak. How dare these lions attack his mates? He roared, his hump rising on his back. His claws slashed out, and he gripped the female by her neck and squeezed. She rasped, clawing at his arm as he shook her, slamming her down to the ground before picking her up and slamming her again.

He did it twice more before he was sure she was dead and then threw her body toward the trees. The resounding thump might have sickened him if these cats hadn’t threatened his mates.

Gibson came to his side, bloody and pale, his opponent dead where she lay. “There’s something off about them,” he groaned. “I can feel it.” He put his fist over his heart. “It’s not over.”

The male lion prowled toward him, and Gibson and Oliver risked a glance at Mandy, who fought the last female lion. Theo lay bloody on the ground in wolf form beside her, and Oliver cursed. He moved toward her to help when she bent, using her shoulder to hit the cat in the gut before rolling to the ground. She kicked out, taking the lion down by the legs and then moved once more to pin the shifter to the ground.

“Don’t you dare fuck with my mates,” Mandy growled out.

Oliver blinked. Well, then. He went to her side, making sure the lion couldn’t move. The shifter had passed out, but he didn’t trust it. He turned then to make sure Gibson was okay since the male lion was still alive and breathing, but he shouldn’t have been worried.

Holden and the other Alphas burst through the trees, their claws out. “What the hell happened?”

Jonah, the Feline Alpha narrowed his eyes at the carnage. “Xavior, shift.” The power in his voice slid over Oliver’s skin and he almost bowed his head. He didn’t know Jonah, but damn, that cat was Alpha for a reason.

Others came out from the trees to help, pinning the other lion down so Oliver could take Mandy into his arms and make their way over to Gibson.

Theo let out a breath beside them, and she went to her knees at the now prone Theo and Gibson at their feet. Oliver fell to his ass at her side, tired and confused as hell. With so many others around them, they were safe for the time being, but he had to make sure his mates were really okay.

“Theo?” she whispered. She ran her hands through his fur, and Oliver didn’t feel any jealousy. This was her best friend, and he had saved her life. Oliver would always be grateful. “He needs a healer.”

As soon as she said it, their doctor came forward, looked between Theo and Gibson, and shook his head. “Damn,” he mumbled and went to work on Theo’s side where Oliver could see rib bones sticking out.

Hell, it was worse than he’d thought.

The bear medic came forward and started to work on Gibson, and Oliver was grateful. They’d fought as one Pack, not three, and now they would heal as one, as well. At least, he hoped.

“Explain yourself, Xavior,” Jonah hissed.

“Fuck you,” Xavior, the now naked male lion hissed.

“They attacked us on the path,” Oliver answered for him. “I don’t know why, but they also have the same muted scent that was on Gibson and Claire. At least they did, I can scent them now.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something is off about this whole thing.”

Xavior spit toward him, and Jonah let out more power. The male lion fell face down on the ground. Cowering. Shaking.

“Answer,” Jonah ordered.

“We should have been in power, should have been the Alphas,” Xavior finally answered, rising up on his knees once again. “The lions are the kings, and yet we let the tigers rule our Packs? It’s an abomination.”

Oliver blinked at the admission. A dominance challenge? All of this for a backwards way of making a play for the Alpha position? Of the three types of shifters, it was the cats that had a different way of choosing who was Alpha. With wolves, since they were mostly all timber wolves, the Alpha was the strongest. With bears, it was always grizzlies because they were the most powerful unless they were far up north near the polars. But cats had multiple species, and that meant each Pack had to have a cat-on-cat battle to find out which kind would be the ruling family. Oliver honestly didn’t know how that battle had been fought, but he thought Cora’s family, the tiger family, was the strongest by far.

And from the way the lion male in front of Jonah cowered, he hadn’t been wrong.

“All of this? For a change in rule?” Jonah shook his head, disgust on his face. “You could never beat me in a fair fight, so you what? Attacked the Foreseer and Omega to prove a point?”

Xavior raised his chin but kept his gaze down. Oliver hugged Mandy close as the doctors worked on Gibson and Theo beside them.

“Answer me,” Jonah ordered.

“If we took out the powers of the other Packs, we would have been able to rule. They would have blamed you and taken you out.”

That didn’t make any sense, and from the way Jonah’s brows rose, he agreed with Oliver.

“Hurt the other Packs and hurt me? I still would have taken you down.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Xavior spat. “Not when we had the power of the Shaman after we killed her.”