“The audacity.” Marvin huffed.

  “You’re back from your vacation. I didn’t know you were in town, Aunt Barbara,” April said meekly, and Gunnar wanted to boot these people out just for how they’d handled the incident with the fire that had endangered her.

  “Of course. We couldn’t reach you. We thought something happened,” Barbara said.

  “I spoke with Uncle Marvin on the day it happened. I was completely fine.”

  “When I tried calling back, hoping to sort this mess out, you never answered,” Marvin said, readjusting a gaudy-looking timepiece on his wrist.

  “Something… happened to my phone,” April replied, looking at the floor.

  Gunnar positioned himself between her and her relatives.

  “Of course it did. Just like you to screw up and make things worse for your family,” Marvin scoffed.

  Gunnar growled, and Marvin went bug-eyed.

  “This isn’t one of those basilisk… things I’ve heard about in town, is it?” he asked with disdain.

  “Those things are dangerous. Only someone with a death wish would fraternize with such monsters,” Barbara said, clutching a literal strand of pearls on her neck as she appraised Gunnar, though she couldn’t hide her lusty interest in her imperious gaze.

  April stepped forward. “This man saved my life. You don’t have a right to say things like that when you know nothing about him.”

  Marvin sneered. “I know everything I need to know just by looking at him. A lowlife brute who talks with his fists instead of his words. The foulest kind of person.”

  On that, Marvin wasn’t technically wrong, Gunnar mused to himself.

  Besides, Gunnar didn’t give a damn about people insulting him.

  But if these windbags were going to keep coming for April, he wasn’t going to stand for it.

  “We’re very disappointed in you, April. The whole town’s in a tizzy, and you’re off playing hooky with a basilisk, of all things. We had to wait all evening for you to just show up,” Barbara said.

  “I’m sorry. Things have just been hectic with… everything,” April replied.

  “I can’t say I expected any better. Not with how you’ve bungled things your whole life already. Letting that fire destroy my bar is just the last thing in a long line of careless mistakes you’ve made, April,” Marvin said.

  Gunnar advanced on Marvin again, and April had to physically pull him away, though Gunnar didn’t back down easily.

  “But I didn’t do anything. Why does everyone keep looking at me like I did?” she asked, still trying to restrain Gunnar.

  “She works eighty-hour weeks for your shitty businesses, you pond scum,” Gunnar said, bristling with rage. “She would have been better by herself than with guardians the likes of you.”

  Barbara wailed at that as if Gunnar had said something so personally insulting that crying was the only option. Marvin consoled her.

  “How dare you come here and talk to my family that way, you criminal?” Marvin said, raising his voice.

  “You say another word about my woman, and you’ll need to buy a new face.” Gunnar jabbed a finger at him, and Marvin shrank back behind his wife.

  He pulled her away, toward the door, while Barbara’s crying turned into furious rants about things like, “After all the things we sacrificed for you!” or, “You’re just like your father,” and, “We should have thrown you out on the street all those years ago,” in an endless train of words.

  Cowering behind her, Marvin pointed at April angrily. “There’s a town hall meeting tomorrow night. You’ll be there to help sort out this mess you caused, or I’ll be sending my lawyers to make you pay for the damage your carelessness caused!”

  “Out!” Gunnar growled one last time, and at that, Marvin and Barbara turned on their heels and fled. A second later, Gunnar could hear a car parked behind the house start up and drive away at a reckless speed, leaving Gunnar and April alone in the quiet.

  He looked over at April and saw that a single tear had fallen down her cheek.

  Gunnar pulled her in close, cradling her against his chest.

  He knew humans could be terrible, even to their own family at times. From the first time they’d tried to call her, Gunnar had had a bad feeling about them, but they’d gone further than even he could have expected.

  “You okay?” he asked, and April sniffled lightly, just hugging him tight.

  She was silent for a minute, quaking slightly, and Gunnar just stood in amazement of her inner strength and determination to have survived people like this for so long.

  When she pulled away from him, her eyes were glossy, and Gunnar wanted to do anything in the world if it meant he could wipe away the sadness he saw there.

  Sometimes the best answer was to just listen.

  “It’s been a lot, you know. The fire. The wolves. The Clawsons. A lot of things have changed in a short period of time, and I’m still adjusting to it all,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “I knew I’d have to confront them sooner or later. I think… I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I guess I hoped they wouldn’t act like this, especially with you around. But it’s not the first time they’ve been this way. It’s not even the hundredth time, and it won’t be the last. Just, now that I have you, it’s harder to see people who treat me bad as loving, even though they tell me they love me.”

  “If love isn’t backed up by action, it isn’t love.”

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, grinning with her lips but still sad. “I’d always thought that too. There just wasn’t anything else to compare it to, you know? I just thought I was lucky to not be dead or living on the street.”

  “Just because they kept you alive doesn’t mean they deserve to treat you wrong.”

  She sighed, already looking more relaxed with each minute that passed. “I guess it just makes my path a little clearer to me now. I’d always wondered if there was something salvageable with my relatives, but with this whole thing, with the fire giving me time to examine my life, I’m not sure there ever was to begin with.”

  “What about the town hall?” he asked.

  “I want to go. If people are still suspecting me, then I need to face them head on, not run. They’ll just be convinced I did it if I don’t show.”

  “You don’t owe this town, or anyone in it, anything.”

  “You’re right, Gunnar. But I want to anyways. I’m not so afraid of everything… when I’m with you.” She looked up at him with admiration, and he wanted to pull her in close and never let go.

  “Then I’m coming along,” he said gruffly.

  She giggled lightly, so adorable when she made the cheery sound that it felt like his rocky heart could thaw for just a moment.

  “I figured you’d say that,” she replied.

  He picked her up into his arms and headed to her bedroom. “Let’s get your stuff and get back to Reno’s. Then we can finish up that last episode of Bridgington.”

  Her cheeks went red as she nestled against him, one finger drawing a circle around his chest sensually. “And maybe we can pause it… to do more stuff like…” She trailed off.

  He chuckled and nuzzled his face into her neck, making her squirm in his arms. “Fuck yeah, babe.”

  Sometimes escaping the past meant living in the present.

  And once they got back, Gunnar was going to make her come so many times she’d forget all about this town, her family, and her troubles.

  15

  After a raucous night of almost nonstop lovemaking, April found even walking straight a little difficult the next morning.

  She’d been pleasured, filled, tortured and had her world rocked in a dozen different ways.

  And Gunnar showed no signs of slowing on his warpath to boot all the bad things out of her life while replacing them with new things so wonderful she didn’t feel like she deserved them.

  They’d had breakfast alone earlier. Then Gunnar had carried her to the back of the house, saying there was something he needed to do with the others before they spent the rest of the day together.

  Though, as she sat in a comfy chair and watched Gunnar, along with the other two basilisks, pulling heavy objects into individual piles at three separate corners in a wide, cleared-out space, April could only gawk in curiosity.

  A minute later, Reno and Dani came out, and Reno laughed to himself as they came over to where April was sitting to join her.

  “Is it that day of the week already?” Reno exclaimed.

  “What day is it?” April asked.

  Dani, who’d taken the seat next to her, just grinned mischievously at the display. “You’ll see in a second.”

  Dani already felt like a new best friend, and April had taken an immediate interest in Dani’s photography, wondering if it was something she could try out in her spare time with Gunnar.

  She tried again to see what Gunnar, Diesel, and Ajax were all up to, but she was plumb out of ideas.

  Each basilisk had amassed a pile of everything ranging from baseball bats and chairs to logs the lengths of cars, car parts that looked like exhausts or pieces from big engines, and even odd-shaped rocks and broken-down appliances.

  “I’m honestly lost here,” April said.

  Dani’s green eyes creased with mirth. “It’s basilisk beatdown day.”

  Her mouth went slack-jawed. “Basi-beatdown-what?”

  Were they really going to go at it with all of that… stuff?

  Reno, who stood off to the side, spoke eagerly with his hands. “It’s something they just do to blow off steam.”

  She looked over at Gunnar, who pulled off his shirt, revealing rippling rows of abs and sculpted pecs, and he winked over at her.

  She got a little wet just seeing him shirtless and cocky like that.

  Meanwhile, the other two men took their shirts off as well, displaying different but similarly intricate tattoo patterns.

  “This looks insane,” she said, waving a hand.

  “It was Gunnar’s idea in the first place,” Dani said matter-of-factly.

  Somehow, that wasn’t surprising at all.

  “Back at Thunderwolf Ranch, we kept the basilisks busy learning and fixing, but they would still break out in fights from time to time. So Gunnar came up with the idea, and over time, the basilisks started using all the leftover junk around the place when they got bored of using their fists.”

  “So they just go at each other?”

  Reno shrugged in assent. “It’s also how they vie for dominance with each other. Know who leads the pack.”

  When she thought about it, it all made sense. In a brutal, primitive sort of way.

  She didn’t know if the whole thing was horrifying, hilarious, exciting, or a little bit hot.

  Though, that was probably just the noonday sun making her warm as Gunnar showed off his ripped, glistening body.

  She looked over jealously at Dani to see if she was watching Gunnar too, but Dani was just talking with Reno about something while the basilisks finally looked content with their individual stockpiles of trash.

  Gunnar stepped into the middle of the ring of dirt that had been packed down, probably thirty feet in diameter. And when he folded his arms, glancing at Diesel and Ajax sternly, April had to fan her face.

  “You know the rules. No eye or groin hits. No powers. No shifting. When you’re done, leave the ring. Everything else goes.” His multicolored irises were commanding as he waited for nods of assent from the other two.

  “I’ll be the apex basilisk this week,” Diesel said, cracking his knuckles eagerly.

  On the other side, Ajax just yawned, though he easily had the biggest stockpile of the three of them, as though he’d been saving things to use for days.

  “Apex?” April whispered to Dani and Reno.

  “The alpha of the group, the very top of the food chain. The apex predator, as Gunnar described it to me,” Reno replied just before his gaze locked onto the eerie silence in the clearing.

  There wasn’t even time to think, not even a horn or a “go” from anyone, before Diesel grabbed an engine block that looked like it belonged to a semitruck, raised it above his head, and hurled it directly at Gunnar.

  CRASH. Pieces of metal and other things flew away as Gunnar dodged to the side, allowing the heavy hunk to roll past him. But Diesel was just getting started, and he picked up a huge log and hefted it like a sword, charging Gunnar at full speed with an unearthly growl.

  Totally calm, Gunnar grabbed a metal baseball bat in one hand and an old oak chair in the other and ran at Diesel.

  With such speed and ferocity it made her palms sweaty to watch, Diesel swung the log like it was made of foam, and Gunnar ducked under it just barely. In range now, Gunnar slammed the bat into Diesel’s face with a clang, bending it completely in half as Diesel’s face flung to the side.

  But as quickly as he’d been knocked back, Diesel retaliated, hefting the log in a wide arc, and it connected with Gunnar’s midsection.

  To her utter shock, the log broke in half as Gunnar blocked it with both arms, sending a heavy mist of wood shards and splinters filling the clearing as Diesel tossed the other half of the log aside. Then Gunnar flung the chair into Diesel, making it break into dozens of pieces as he kicked Diesel back onto his ass.

  The whole thing was as horrible as it was awesome.

  Gunnar advanced on Diesel as the haze of splinters still obscured her view slightly. Then, from behind, a blur leapt at Gunnar, holding a big chrome muffler over his head like a sword.

  “Look out!” she called instinctively. But Gunnar was already whirling on Ajax as he attacked from the back. But he wasn’t quick enough to block the hit as the muffler made contact with Gunnar’s shoulder, knocking him to the side with a heavy metallic thud.

  In the moments his attention had been turned away, Diesel had gotten up and produced a big, rusted folding metal table from his pile and was heading back into the fray.

  Ajax, his face eerily calm in spite of the violence, swung the bent muffler again. But Gunnar blocked it this time, and he grabbed it with both hands and wrenched it away from Ajax just in time to lob it at Diesel. Diesel, who didn’t see it coming, made an oof sound as the heavy thing hit him, though it didn’t stop him in his warpath.

  “That’s not fair,” April said, not liking that they were going two on one at the moment.

  “Rules are rules. Gunnar made them in the first place. In his opinion, if you can’t fight off everyone at once, you don’t deserve to be the apex,” Reno said plainly, though the fighting seemed to make him tense as well.

  She grimaced as she watched. Just because it made a violent sort of sense didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Ajax and Diesel advanced on Gunnar now, and Gunnar grabbed a long metal pipe from his pile behind him, eyes glinting between his two opponents.

  Ajax went first, using only his fists, and Gunnar brought the metal pipe horizontally across Ajax’s midsection, bending it like a straw. Before Ajax could respond, Gunnar twisted the pipe like a pretzel, pinning Ajax’s arms to his sides, and kicked him away just in time to duck Diesel’s table as it whooshed above his head, missing by less than an inch.

  With an upward kick that was more like a blur, Gunnar smashed the table in Diesel’s hand in half before he cocked a fist back and punched Diesel in the jaw, sending him flying backward into his pile of junk, making it explode like a volcano of heavy refuse.

  To the side, Ajax snarled and ripped the twisted pipe off like it was paper, and his red eyes seemed to glow as he raised his hands and rocks came up from the ground and started to fly toward Gunnar.

  Rocks started pelting his face and body at horrible speeds. “Dammit, I said no powers,” he growled, but Ajax didn’t seem to even hear him as even more stones materialized from nothing and started to fly at Gunnar.

  April got off her seat, wanting to intervene, but Reno put out a hand, stopping her. “Just let them work it out.”

  Thankfully, Gunnar seemed to already have a plan, and he pulled a huge iron sheet of metal—the kind you see laid out in the road when construction’s going on—and held it like a shield, deflecting the rocks for a moment. Then he kicked it so hard it flew forward at an unnatural speed like a rocket, and in his obsession to keep hitting Gunnar, Ajax barely saw it coming as the six-by-six metal plate bowled him over.

  Gunnar charged at Ajax this time, growling, and for the next several minutes, fists and blunt objects flew as Gunnar, Diesel, and Ajax fought each other simultaneously while the blazing sun bore down on them.

  Thankfully, for every time two of them would gang up on one (and it wasn’t just the other two fighting Gunnar every time), the tides would turn, resulting in a free-for-all before two of them would focus on another, and the process would repeat all over again.

  April was practically exhausted from all the violence and excitement as, finally, Ajax stopped fighting, stared at Diesel and Gunnar beating the crap out of each other for a minute, shrugged, then walked away like he’d had his fill and was interested in doing something else. He didn’t even wait to see who won, instead walking past Reno without even a nod and strolling back into the mansion.

  From what April saw, he didn’t seem tired, though there was blood and sweat and grime all over him.

  Maybe he just wasn’t interested in being the apex, though there was something intense in his red gaze that made her uneasy.

  In the middle of the clearing, though, it was obvious Diesel wasn’t going to give up.

  The two of them had worked through both of their respective piles, sometimes even using each other’s objects against one another. Around them, pieces of all sorts of refuse lay strewn about, making the place look like a junkyard, though Dani had whispered earlier that the losers would pick everything up and take it to the dump afterward.

  Diesel was furious, his two blue eyes now shimmering red as they blazed with anger at Gunnar.

  On the other side, Gunnar was calm, though his entire body was raked with damage that, even as it healed, looked painful to say the least.