Rising Storm (Westin Force #2) - Julie Trettel Page 0,5

out there meant for me. Gorilla shifters were so rare, what were the odds?

I didn’t hear the signal whistle blow. I wasn’t ready when King plowed into me sending me hard into the bars. He looked down, confusion in his eyes. I jumped up, but not before the mysterious man in the first row jumped to his feet.

His friends quickly restrained him, and I growled in protest. It erupted from me before I even knew what was happening.

That definitely caught King’s attention. His head turned just as my mate jumped back up from his seat and started posturing. Of course King recognized the intent. It didn’t matter that he looked like a human, even from the short distance away I could smell his gorilla, and if I could, then King could, too.

I jumped to my feet and tried to show I was ignoring the man. I plowed into King expecting him to jump right back into our routine. That was wishful thinking.

The second the man took another step closer, staring King down, my gorilla friend lost it. Gorillas were extremely protective, especially of their females. I wasn’t King’s female, but we did have a sort of bond and camaraderie. I jumped on his back trying to distract him, but he shook me off. His full focus was on the man.

I got back up and pounded on his back. He instinctively responded hitting me across the head. I went flying backwards and cracked the back of my head against the metal bars. The combination of the two had me laying there seeing stars.

“Get up and fix this, right now,” Frank yelled in my ear, but it sounded far away and echoey. “Fix this, or else,” he hissed.

King climbed to the top of the cage and was hanging there, upside down, pounding his chest while snorting and grunting. He was just trying to protect me. I tried to get up out of fear for what Frank would do, but the room was spinning around me, and I just fell back down to the floor.

Through the haze, I saw the man being led away by two men against his will. And then everything went black.

Painter

Chapter 3

They were pitting my mate against an actual silverback, an animal. I was already seeing red, but something soothed me as she stared back. I was transfixed, and then she was gone.

It took a second to register that the gorilla had plowed into her and knocked her down. She was back on her feet quickly, but so was I. Ben and Grant were on me fast as Taylor tried to talk me down. They forced me to sit back down.

There was no way I was going to be able to just sit there and do nothing. Grant and Ben of all people should be able to understand that, but they didn’t know she was my mate.

The beautiful gorilla grunted angrily when they’d put hands on me. A smile crossed my face as I proudly jumped up ready to get the beast’s attention. It didn’t take much. My posturing and a couple of low grunts got King Kong’s attention.

That’s right big boy. I had him right where I wanted.

A streak of black fur came out of nowhere and tackled the larger gorilla. What was she doing?

I took a step closer and a low growl of warning bubbled out of me.

The gorilla went crazy. He showed every sign of being possessive towards my mate, and my own gorilla and I were not handling it well. She was mine. Mine.

I stared him down. The edges of my vision were already darkening when she charged him again, pounding on his back trying to get his attention away from me. My heart swelled feeling like in some crazy way she was trying to protect me. That wasn’t her job though, my gorilla and I were more than capable of protecting her. I puffed my chest out a little more, trying to restrain from pounding it and drawing the attention of every human in the place.

As if in slow motion I watched as he backhanded her. She flew across the rink and cracked her head loudly on the bars of the cage. That was my breaking point. With a growl I headed for the cage, ready to shift and take this asshole on myself. Let’s see how he’d do against my silverback.

“Shit! Get him out of here right now,” Silas barked.

The others responded in kind. It took Ben, Grant, Taylor, and Tarron to restrain