The Bid

by Jacquelyn Frank

  But this was Hanna they were speaking of. She was a strong and fit female and Lukan knew that, after having run their House for so long, she was as cunning as the day was long. She would not fall as easy prey to these men who now had her. He just didn’t understand why these males did not trust her as Lukan did. Hanna had been in charge of the family for some time now. Did they really think she couldn’t take care of herself? Did they think this was the worst challenge she had ever met?

  Jhon was yet new to Hanna and did not know her as well, so he could be excused, but Najir should know better. He had been by her side the day she had had to swallow the brutal deaths of their parents. She had had to overcome it all and take charge of all their futures. She would do so again. As far as Lukan was concerned, Asha was as safe as a newborn babe.

  A knock sounded at the door. The men were so surprised by it that they halted their steps across the room and looked at one another. Irritated with the interruption, Najir stormed up to the door and pulled it open to give words to the intruder. No one was allowed on these floors from the household staff. Whoever it was had overstepped himself.

  That was Najir’s last thought before a gun was fired at his chest.

  20

  Najir fell back under the power of the blast, the big man crashing to the floor. Jhon reacted instantly to the sound of gunfire by dropping down and rolling behind a piece of furniture. It did him little good as the arm of the chair exploded under the second blast of the gun, raining debris down on him. Without a weapon he was trapped and there was nothing he could do about it.

  But he realized an instant later that he was thinking like a man. He realized it because a man who did not have that problem used his cat form to launch himself at the attacker. Twice the man’s weight and strength, the huge bellcat male wrenched the guard to the ground and clamped his jaws on his shoulder. Within a second there was a bloodcurdling scream from the victim and Jhon poked up his head carefully just in time to see Lukan shaking the man vigorously between his teeth like some kind of giant chew toy. Then with one toss of his head he sent the body of the guard flying into a nearby wall.

  “Lukan!” Jhon was on his feet and hurrying forward, his call preventing the cat from leaping for the man’s exposed jugular. “Don’t kill him! We need him alive!” Jhon scooped up the weapon the guard had helplessly discarded under Lukan’s overwhelming attack. He pointed it at the heavily bleeding guard. One of his arms was torn nearly off from the rest of his body, the other hand was raised weakly as if to fend off both man and cat.

  “Th-they have m-my family! P-please, if I d-die there will be n-no one to save them!”

  “You expect us to show you compassion and leniency when, instead of coming to us, you try and kill us? All but securing the torture and death of your Master? Do you think she would have done such a thing to you? Didn’t you even once think of coming to her and telling her this? No. You acted like a coward and betrayed her trust!” Jhon knelt as he spoke, touching the gaping blast wound in Najir’s chest. The other man was gasping for breath, proving that the integrity of his lung had been compromised.

  “There’s nothing she can do! She’s never been able to do anything against Majum in all of these years! She even swallowed the death of her own mother for the sake of obeying the law! Even when retribution was deserved!”

  “She lives by the law because she knows it is the only way she can make this city better for it,” Najir gasped. “She fought with every breath for the end to the Feuds; she was not going to be the first to break the sanctions!”

  “Now she has put herself in Majum’s hands to save her sister’s life and if you had succeeded here—!” Jhon had to stop speaking for fear he would inflame himself to a rash action. His finger was already squeezing the trigger too tightly. “So this was Majum’s plan. He isn’t afraid in the least to have her there because he planned for all of her support to be annihilated. He may even be planning to let her and Asha go, just so they could come here to find us dead. And it might have worked if not for Lukan.”

  “Jhon, you and Lukan must go find her now. We cannot afford to wait. I’ll stay here.” Najir struggled to sit up and Jhon quickly reached to help him, leaving Lukan to snarl at their prisoner to keep him well under control. “I’ll be here if she calls.” Najir had to pause to suck in several short breaths.

  “Her call isn’t going to matter. It’s his call that will make the difference.” Jhon pointed to the wounded guard. “If he tells them he succeeded, then Majum will take his time. If he doesn’t tell them we are dead…”

  “There is no telling what he will do,” Najir finished for him.

  “Isn’t that right?” Jhon demanded. “You are supposed to call him, aren’t you?”

  A weak nod was the guard’s only reply. The traitor was losing blood far too fast. If he didn’t make that call for them, if he died first, then all hope might be lost. Jhon moved quickly to Hanna’s desk, yanking a cord free from her supplies on her bench. The material was more stiff than pliable, but it would have to do. Stripping off his tunic he knelt beside the guard and very quickly fashioned a cross between a tourniquet and a pressure bandage. He cared nothing for the other man’s screams. It was bad enough he was forced to give aid to him above Najir, but if this man died without making his call there was every chance he was going to lose his Hanna.

  The very thought of it sickened him. For the first time in a very long time Jhon felt a fear unlike any other. For the first time he wasn’t able to grit through the idea of a loss like any good soldier should. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Hanna had come to mean more to him than anyone else in his whole lifetime. Then, the terrible idea that he might not get the chance to tell her that entered his thoughts and he had to grit his teeth against the nausea that overwhelmed him. Gods, how she had gotten under his skin! Why didn’t he think that was a bad thing? He had lived his entire life thinking that attachments would only slow him down, that they were a poison that could only weaken a man against the things he had to face. Even now it felt like poison as it pulsed through his veins, but it didn’t matter. It would never matter. All that mattered was Hanna. Somehow she had done to him exactly what she always seemed to do to everyone: she had won his unquestioning loyalty and devotion.

  He loved her. More than even Najir could lay claim to, because unlike Najir he would never let her go. He would never willingly turn her into someone else’s hands. Never. He would rather die first. And that was what had felt wrong about this entire situation. He had willingly turned her into Majum’s hands.

  Well, that was a mistake he was going to correct with all due haste.

  “Najir.” He turned to the other man, roughly shucking off his tunic and then pressing it to the gaping and bleeding wound on Najir’s chest. He picked up the other man’s hands and forced him to put pressure on his own wound. “I’ll get you help as soon as he makes this call. Then Lukan and I will go after her.”

  He went to get up but Najir grabbed him by his wrist to stay him. Jhon looked at him with impatient questioning. “Tell Hanna…”

  It was apparently all he had the strength to say, but just the same Jhon nodded. “I know,” he said. “I will tell her. But I think she knew the minute you came home and told her about me, Najir. But you made that choice and she’s mine now. I’ll tell her if something happens to you, but if you survive this…and I think you will survive…you need to look elsewhere. I’ll let you love her like a sister, but I won’t stand for anything else. Not in the same house that we are in. You understand?”

  Najir nodded and it was clear by his expression that he didn’t blame Jhon in the least. Perhaps, if he had it to do all over again, maybe Najir would do it differently, but he was never going to have that chance. Jhon would see to it. He was her mate. He had come together with her on the Otherside and had rebirthed her brother. There was no going back and there would be no getting between them now. Jhon would see to that as well.

  He would see to everything.r />
  “So, I see I underestimated the true depths of your depravity,” Hanna observed as she indicated the helpless and battered youngsters in the room. “And your cowardice. You couldn’t be satisfied with adult slaves, could you? You had to take advantage of the young and helpless creatures I see here, those who can’t even defend themselves. Or was it that way with your adult conquests, too? Did you keep them drugged so they couldn’t put up a fight? Was their helplessness the only way you could get off, Majum?”

  The Baron chuckled, seemingly unfazed by her assumptions. But Hanna’s senses were keener than the average woman’s. She could smell the surge of anger that pulsed through him. He may not want to show it, but she had struck a chord with that blow.

  “Conquests. What a charming word,” he mused instead. “Do you like that, Hyde? Conquests?”

  “I like it very much,” Sozo said as he walked over to the girl who lay in a near comatose state on the table. He smacked her lightly a couple of times, then sighed as if he’d just lost his best friend. “This one’s broken,” he complained. “She’ll be no fun anymore.” He eyed Ashanna. “And this one’s too old for my usual tastes.”

  “Never fear, Hyde. If you help me tame the older one I’ll be happy to get you something young and unused,” Majum assured him. “But first we wait.”

  “You have less than forty minutes,” Hanna warned him. “I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you.”

  No sooner had she finished speaking then the com panel on the far wall let off a tone indicating an incoming call. “Aha!” the Baron exclaimed. “There we go. Not a very long wait after all.”

  Hanna’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as the Baron brought the call in, keeping one eye on her the entire time. “Go ahead,” he greeted the party on the line as if he fully knew what to expect them to say. It was only an instant later before she realized he had put the call on projection so she could hear it. She had a sudden and terrible sinking feeling in her belly to go with the sickly sweet scent of Majum’s spiking excitement.

  “The two slaves are dead, as ordered,” the male on the line said. “I shot them both. Now will you let my family go?”

  Cold, untenable fear dropped down the center of Hanna’s body. Her head whipped around to take in the chained-up children and she suddenly realized exactly what had happened. “No,” she whispered, shock radiating out in her every limb.

  Najir. Jhon. She had left them behind thinking they were somewhere safe, but they hadn’t been. They’d been exactly where Majum had wanted them to be. Had needed them to be.

  “I believe ‘yes’ is the more appropriate term,” the Baron said to her, a devious chuckle filling the room. He was positively in his glory, so she knew it wasn’t an act for her benefit. He wholeheartedly believed what the other person was saying and it was giving him a great deal of pleasure to hear it.

  “No!” Hanna lurched forward, nails crooked outward as she lunged for Majum. She leaped into the air, her body stretching out at the peak of its arc, and with a brilliant wink of light she crossed into the Otherside. The rippling gold of her fur shuddered as she landed on the Baron, his shocked screams meaning nothing to her.

  Najir.

  Jhon.

  Jhon. Not Jhon! Not Jhon and not her family. Not anyone else’s family either! Never again! No more! She was done with it! Done with playing by the rules and playing fair! Done!

  Her claws sank deep and true, the gleaming ivory fangs in her maw as long as Majum’s own face. She wished she could burn the image of his expression into her brain, but all she could see was Jhon dead. All the beautiful life ripped out of him. He was dead. He had died a slave.

  Because of her. All because of her! Now she would never have a chance to fix it! She would never be able to free him from the confines of the life he’d been sold into. Someone else had done it for her. And now he would never know.

  He would never know how deeply, so very deeply, he had embedded himself within her. Deeper than words or lovemaking could ever reach. He was invaluable. Irreplacable. For all he and Najir looked alike, she had never known two men more different. Jhon was so much stronger. So much more powerful!

  Was.

  She cried out, the scream of the cat echoing in the underground room. She heard Sozo shouting, the shock and terror in his voice something she wanted to bathe in. And then she wanted to bathe in his blood. She wanted them both as dead as her beloved men were dead. Worse. Much worse.

  She pinned Majum down beneath her huge paws, her mouth snapping at his throat as he tried to hold her off.

  Just long enough.

  Suddenly a dark light shimmered over Majum, and to her shock fur now rippled over where skin used to be. Before she could realize it, another muzzle was snapping into the fray, equally long fangs gnashing for her face. But this was no bellcat. It was a firewolf. The reddish brown gleam of his fur marked him as such, and as a full-grown male he easily had weight and power over her. Her only advantage came in her position on top, but she wouldn’t keep it long if she allowed herself the time to be shocked by Majum’s transformation.

  Firewolf! How was this possible? Had they not died out with all the rest in the Apocalypse?

  But how could she question it? It stood to reason that if her family could keep its secrets this long, then so could Majum’s.

  Firewolf.

  A vicious lupine scrapper, the firewolf fought best in packs, multiple members taking down prey of all strengths and sizes. They were not meant to fight one on one, but they could if pressed to the point. The bellcat lunged for the wolf’s throat, locking down its puncturing teeth with an iron jaw. Even when the only free humanoid left in the room threw a blade deep into her side, she did not let go. She kept locked on and shook her head with all of the strength in her body. Snarls of fury filled the air, half cat and half wolf, but the fact was she had all of the advantage as long as she had his throat.

  Thick claws tore into her chest and belly as he grappled her with his front paws and rent her with his back paws. Still she did not let go, and she shook him again as she clamped down harder and harder. The wolf cried out with a high-pitched whine as she pulled her paws into the fray and mauled him in savage, wrestling tussles. Wounded or no, she would kill him and be done with him. She would. And when she was done…

  The wolf exhaled once, blood spraying into her mouth as the critical arteries in his neck were fully compromised. Air was now bubbling out of a gaping wound in the throat and burst in bloody tattoos against her tongue. The wolf’s body went suddenly limp, but still she could not make herself let him go. It had been too quick for him. Too easy. He should have suffered more! He should have felt her pain!

  The bellcat felt a heavy weight ramming its side, and she finally let go of her victim to turn on Sozo, who had grabbed the hilt of the blade sunk into her body and was grinding it into her. But he was nothing. A fragile humanoid man who was tossed away with the broad swipe of a single paw.

  He was nothing. He had made these children into nothing. Shells without souls, the life and spirit long since burned out of them. And so she treated him like the insignificant creature that he was. She raked him down his spine with one massive paw, yanking him and the knife free of her body. Then she listened to him scream as she batted him to and fro between her paws like a stuffed doll. She threw him up against the wall again and again, his skull and bones cracking sickly over and over. Soon the screaming stopped and she knew he, too, was dead.

  She stood over her kills, panting hard for breath, blood dripping from her side. They were useless now. Gone. A poison to no one any longer. As the bloodlust of her rage wore off, she heard weeping in the dark, dismal room. She could hear chains rattling as the children shook in fear of her.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Asha kept calling to them. “She won’t hurt you. She would never hurt anyone. They had to die or you would never be free!”

  Worried now for the fragile minds of those who could still comprehend the world around them, Hanna r
olled over and came out of the Otherside. She fell onto the floor on her side, naked and bleeding from the wound in her side and the rending down her front. She panted hard for breath, the pain of her wounds finally being felt now that she was PAN again. She was exhausted, the brief but violent fight having taken everything she had. Still, she was badly wounded and if she took the time to collapse now she might never get another chance to free the children. Without Najir and Jhon to come after her, she was their only hope.

  She staggered to her feet after several tries, then fell over the com panel. She realized it was mostly voice commands that controlled everything in the room, but she had to at least try to override it and free her sister so she could free the others. The equipment in the room was pretty old considering, the chains themselves outfitted with key locks. She changed her plans mid thought and reached down for Majum’s clothing. Feeling around the pockets and all the seams, she finally came up with an old metal key. Making her way shakily over to the nearest child, she had to hush him gently before she could reach for his shackled wrists.

  “Shh. I will not hurt you,” she assured him in gasping breaths of pain. She fitted the key to the lock and in two turns freed the boy. Then she pressed the key into his hands. “Free your family. And then, please, my sister. Find a way. If you can’t…” She collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor. “Get help. I have saved your lives. So now, I beg you, say nothing of the cat. Spare my family. I beg you.”

  Then she passed out.

  Jhon knew he made a terrible sight to see as he raced up the steps of the COM, still covered in the blood of two badly wounded men, but he didn’t have time to bother with niceties like cleaning himself up. He hurried past the outside guards, but he was aware immediately that he had caught their attention in passing. He put on speed, running for the inner chamber where the Masters were holding session. The doors were open, as traditionally they were, and he could hear the voice of a speaker echoing into the hallways. There was also a second set of guards who were already drawing to an alert state; there was no way in hell they were going to let a wild and bloody slave charge past them and into the inner chambers.