Tira shook her head, taking a small step closer. “No. I’m not trying to tell you anything.”
The other woman shook her head, her gaze returning to the fight, as if she had nothing at all to fear. “What use could you be to me? You’re not strong enough to fight. You have no practical magic.” The redhead tilted her chin up at Tira’s involuntary start. “Yes, I know about magic. I know that you don’t have enough for what I need.”
“Really? Then you shouldn’t mind this.”
* * * * *
From what seemed like too far away, Duke saw Nic and Kaine pause at a doorway up the hall.
Duke heard the sounds of fighting and knew he wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch Nic before he headed into the fight.
And sure enough, with a snarl, Nic disappeared into the room, Kaine hot on his heels.
Dread hit him in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t have Tira’s Gift for foresight but he didn’t need it to know something was going to go wrong.
Intuition had served Duke well for years. But Nic had long ago forsaken cool rationality for impetuous action.
And Duke was damned if he was going to let it continue. Not now, when it wasn’t just Nic’s life on the line.
Tira was in that room. He could smell her. Whatever she was about to do scared her but she was determined to do it.
Duke poured on speed, not giving a shit if the eteri kept up or not.
Nic and Tira needed him.
Just before he hit the door, Duke stopped and pulled the knife from the concealed sheath in his boot. Then he stuck his head around the corner.
Kyle and Dan had four men pinned down in a corner near the door. They seemed to be holding their own.
Nic and Kaine—
Shit, they were in trouble. A behemoth with a length of chain in his hands stood between the wolves and a woman with red hair and Tira, who had one hand on the other woman’s arm.
Without stopping to think, Duke ran for his partners, knowing he was going to be too late as the man swung the chain.
The heavy weight caught Kaine across the chest, flinging her to the side like she was a rag doll. She hit a metal desk so hard the metal actually dented then she fell to the ground with a whimper and lay there unmoving.
Before Duke could move, the eteri ran for her, putting himself between her and the behemoth. John managed to get an arm up to cover his face before the other man swung the chain again.
The chain caught John on the biceps, making him flinch in pain but he held his position above Kaine.
At the same time, Nic attacked, teeth bared to bite the guy’s leg. Duke knew Nic intended to hamstring the guy but just before his teeth would’ve sunk in, the guy kicked out with his leg and sent Nic sprawling.
Leaving room for Duke to attack.
His fear for Tira lent strength to a roundhouse that should have, at the very least, made the guy take a couple of steps back.
But when Duke’s fist connected with jaw, he felt like he’d hit a block of concrete.
And when the guy hit him back, Duke swore he’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
The guy had power and he wasn’t just talking about strength.
Duke smelled it on him, but it was weird. Perverted.
Duke had a second to think What the fuck? before the guy pulled back and hit him so hard he fell back a couple of steps.
He rotated his jaw, tasted blood and tried to shake his brain back into place.
Shit, this was bad.
And getting worse, because the guy’s second punch knocked Duke into the wall six feet away.
And the world went dark.
* * * * *
Tira never took her eyes off the woman even though she knew Duke, Nic and Kaine were taking a beating behind her.
She had to maintain the connection with this woman, no matter what.
Her vision had made it clear that her life, and Duke’s and Nic’s, depended on this.
She already knew she wasn’t going to like what she saw. Death clung to this woman like a stench. But not one Tira could smell. More like a sensation, an almost tangible force around the woman. Something ate at her internally, something dark.
But Tira was no empath, not like Nica. She didn’t sense any illness in the woman.
What she sensed was…
Run. You need to run. Now.
Blessed Goddess, the absolute certainty that she should get as far away as possible from this woman was almost overwhelming. The muscles in her legs jerked and twitched with the impulse.
No. She planted her feet. No more running.
This woman held answers her people needed. And she’d get them.
She had to.
Keeping their gazes locked, she grasped the woman’s arm more tightly and stared into cold eyes.
The vision hit her almost immediately.
They both sucked in a breath, the woman’s eyes widening in shock as Tira’s Gift flowed into her.
Images burst like flares in Tira’s head while dark emotions slithered through her veins.
Impotent rage. Overwhelming fear. And a deep grief that colored everything in shades of crimson and black.
Tira couldn’t process the information fast enough. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, couldn’t make her brain focus on any one picture.
But even as the vision entangled her brain, her gaze remained locked with the other woman’s.
Tira saw the woman’s realization of what was happening, saw her disbelief and her anger at the violation of her most private thoughts.
It was a violation, one she didn’t make lightly. But this woman had declared war on Tira’s family and friends.
And even though Tira couldn’t make sense of the pictures in her head now, she knew she’d be able to later. She’d be able to sort through them when she went into a meditative state.
The woman’s secrets would be revealed.
Somehow, the redhead knew this. Or suspected.
Either way, she fought to break Tira’s hold on her. She screamed, the high-pitched squeal loud enough to hurt Tira’s ears.
Tira tightened her grip to maintain contact as long as she could, taking in the images as fast as she could.
Only when pain exploded in her temples did she release the woman. And as she crumpled to the ground as the world went dark, she had a millisecond to hope she woke again.
* * * * *
Nic howled as Duke hit the wall so hard it splintered the drywall.
And when Duke didn’t get up, Nic’s first instinct was to attack.
But he knew that wouldn’t work. If he wanted to get them all out of here in one piece, he needed to do more than attack. He needed to think.
Behind him, he heard Kaine huff as she shifted and unsteadily pulled herself to her feet. The eteri remained in front of her, shielding her from another attack, although the amount of power this guy seemed to have defied logic.
He was big, yes, but he shouldn’t have been able to knock out Duke with one hit.
Not without magic. And whatever magic the guy had, it was perverted. That sense of wrongness Nic had felt since entering the building came from this man.
He had unnatural strength so Nic knew he wouldn’t be able to overpower him.
But if he could just …
As if the eteri had read his mind, he stepped in front of Kaine, who was still shaking her head and trying to get to her feet.
“Hey, asshole,” John taunted, “why not pick on someone your own size?”
The eteri drew the guy’s attention away from Nic for a few short seconds, just enough to allow him to attack.
He aimed for the guy’s left hamstring, opening his jaws then biting down, through thick cotton and into skin until he heard a sickening crunch and the metallic taste of blood.
As the man screeched in rage above him, the eteri pulled a knife and went for the throat.
But the guy proved just how strong he really was when he kicked out his leg hard enough to dislodge Nic
, who spun across the floor, and twisted away from the eteri’s knife so only the tip nicked his skin, drawing a thin bead of blood.
The man didn’t stop. He whirled away and headed straight for the woman with Tira. Shaking his head, Nic got to his paws, ignoring his cracked ribs and the ringing in his ears, and pursued the man.
He couldn’t be allowed to touch Tira. He had to stop—
Nic leaped just as the man used his fist to hit Tira in the head. With a howl, Nic watched Tira slump to the ground as the man slung the other woman over his shoulder and began to haul ass out of the building.
The eteri began to give chase but stopped when he came to a long metal box that looked like a coffin. He flung it open but Nic didn’t care what was inside.
He only had eyes for Tira.
Behind him, he heard bones break as Kyle and Dan finished off the remaining men. One short, aborted scream then nothing.
Nic crossed to Tira and nudged her with his snout, letting out a whine of relief when she sighed and her eyes fluttered open.
Pain filled the pretty blue depths but the corners of her mouth tilted up in something approximating a smile.
She didn’t speak but she did lift a shaking hand to pet his fur.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Just give me a minute. Where’s Duke?”
Behind him, he heard Kyle moving then the unmistakable sounds of Dan changing back into his skin.
“Fuck,” Dan said to Kyle, his voice barely above a whisper. “We gotta get Duke and Kaine back to Tam and the Doc. Right now.”
Shit. Nic turned, his eyes widening as he realized Duke still lay on the ground unmoving and Kaine had slumped next to him.
Duke’s skin held a gray tinge Nic knew from personal experience wasn’t good. And Kaine… One of Kaine’s front legs was definitely broken, and probably a back one as well. Her breath came in shallow gasps and even though Kyle was trying to wake her, she wasn’t responding.
Nic forced himself to move away from Tira and shift.
When he’d returned to his own skin, he pulled a woozy Tira into his arms and nearly stumbled to Duke’s side.
“Duke—”
He broke off with a gasp as he caught sight of Duke’s head wound. There was a noticeable dent in Duke’s skull and he didn’t think Duke was breathing.
“No!”
His shout startled Tira, who lifted her head from his shoulder and started to cry when she saw Duke.
Nic didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Duke couldn’t die. It was supposed to be him.
As he struggled to hold on to Tira, who seemed determined to get free, he met Kyle’s gaze then turned to Dan.
But Dan’s attention was snagged on something behind Nic.
Someone brushed by Nic. The eteri, holding another woman in his arms. Long dark hair covered her face as the eteri hugged her close to his chest. Then he said something in her ear and her head nodded. Obviously she was conscious.
The eteri stopped in front of Kyle and didn’t say anything, just stared into Kyle’s eyes and waited until Kyle held out his arms to take the woman.
Then the eteri knelt down to Duke and started chest compressions.
“If we’re gonna get him out of here,” the eteri said, “we need a stretcher. Now. If he doesn’t get help soon, I don’t think…”
He broke off as Tira started to weep, the sound tearing holes in Nic’s gut.
“I’ll call Sal,” Dan said. “See if he can transport Duke to the house.”
“Nic. Nic!”
Nic’s head snapped around to face Kyle, his commanding officer’s face set in hard lines. He wanted to salute, years of ingrained training kicking in, but he wouldn’t release Tira.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get some clothes, go get a car and start loading people into it. The eteri will stay with Duke.”
His arms tightened around Tira but she shook her head, taking a deep breath. “Let me down,” she said. Her voice hoarse with tears but not shattered. “We need to get out of here. Go.”
Knowing she was right, he went.
Chapter Thirteen
“Tira, you need to get some sleep.”
Nica Donato’s soft voice roused Tira from the fugue state she’d been floating in for…well, she didn’t know how long.
Blinking away the grittiness in her eyes, Tira’s gaze lit on Nic in the chair next to hers. Fast asleep, he had his head pillowed on his crossed arms on the side of the bed. Neither she nor Nic had left Duke’s side in the lucani den’s medical ward since Nica had finished healing as much of Duke’s head injury as she could and Tam and the young lucani doctor, Dane Dimitriou, had patched the rest.
That had been yesterday. They were still waiting for Duke to wake.
But… Tira had caught the glances between Nica and Tam, the ones when they thought she wasn’t looking. The ones that held fear that Duke wasn’t going to wake.
Tira didn’t remember much of what had happened after the redhead’s goon had clocked her on the head.
She remembered the eteri John pumping Duke’s chest until Salvatorus had arrived. The powerful salbinelli—his lower body that of a goat, the upper all man—had made John’s eyes widen in shock but he’d never stopped his lifesaving measures until Sal had magically transported Duke back to the den.
She barely remembered their retreat, vaguely knew the eteri and Kyle had had a brief argument about returning to the lucani den with them. She assumed Kyle had won because John and the woman Tira had heard mentioned was his sister were staying in a pair of rooms on the top floor of the den common building.
John had actually come down to visit Duke last night while Kaine had been there. The young lucani tracker hadn’t been able to leave the room fast enough.
And Tira had had her first vision since she’d touched the redhead. Just a short flash of Kaine, her hair slightly longer than it was now and dripping wet, standing outside a window looking in, her eyes dark and shadowed, her face drawn.
Her Gift no longer needed touch to work, a secret she’d told no one.
Not even her mother, who’d arrived only minutes after she, Nic and the rest had stumbled into the den last night. Her mom had grabbed her and hugged her tight, tears in her eyes. But they hadn’t had time to talk about the transfer of power because they hadn’t had two seconds alone together.
Nic had glued himself to her side and neither of them would leave Duke for longer than a bathroom break.
She and her mom would need to have that talk soon. Tira had a shitload of the redhead’s memories to sort through and piece together and no idea how to do it.
And she couldn’t tell if the headache that continued to plague her was due to the woman’s memories or the transfer of power from her mother—
Nica’s warm hand squeezed her shoulder, bringing her out of her thoughts. “You really need to get some rest.”
Tira turned her head to smile up at her best friend, who’d left her mates behind on their honeymoon to rush to Duke’s aid with Sal’s help. Tanner and Jensen were driving back from Florida. “I’ve tried. I just can’t fall asleep. I’m afraid if I do…”
Nica’s hand tightened. “Tam said it’s a good sign that his vitals remain steady and I sense no further internal damage. But I’m worried about you. You’re in so much pain. Let me block some of it.”
“It’s just a headache.”
At least, she hoped it was just a headache and not a precursor to the headaches her mother had dealt with on a daily basis just before the madness had started affecting her daily life. She’d managed to push those thoughts away until now but she didn’t know how long that would last.
“Mamma used to help your mom with hers. Come on, Ti. Let me do my job so you can do yours. The boschetta is meant to be symbiotic, you know that.”
Of course she knew that. It had been drilled into their heads since they were old enough to comprehend language.
The boschetta came first. The s
treghe gave their lives in service to the greater good of the boschetta. All other concerns came second.
Except Tira wasn’t about to put her men second. Like Nica, she was determined to show the old guard of the streghe that she could have a life and keep up with her duties in the boschetta.
With a sigh, Tira let her cheek rest on Nica’s hand for a brief moment. “It’s in my temples, a million tiny jackhammers eating away at my brain.”
“Good,” Nica said. “Now just close your eyes and I’ll pull all their plugs.”
* * * * *
Duke came out of the darkness slowly.
At least, it felt slow, like he’d been fighting his way out of a heavy sleep for days.
His arms and legs felt weighted, his eyes wouldn’t open and he was hungry as all hell.
He took a deep breath, scenting the air around him. Nic and Tira were close. But he wasn’t at home. Another sniff and he smelled something sharp, metallic. Antiseptic.
Ah. The den medical ward.
What the hell—
Images began to flicker through his mind, his brain’s way of bringing him up to speed. When he got to the part where the behemoth with the chain had flung him into the wall, his eyes finally opened.
Only to find more darkness.
Disoriented, he lay on his back and stared straight ahead. After a few minutes, he began to see variations in the shades of black, then outlines and shapes. Finally his vision cleared and he turned his head in the direction he scented Nic and Tira.
And felt a wave of relief so great, he actually felt lightheaded.
Nic sprawled on a recliner next to the bed, his arms wrapped around Tira, curled on his lap. They both appeared to be sound asleep, though Nic’s face was turned away and Tira’s was covered by her hair so he couldn’t tell.
He wanted to wake them and make sure they were both okay, but then he wasn’t sure he didn’t want to go back to sleep himself. His eyelids threatened to close again but his mouth felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton. Blessed Goddess, he’d kill for some water.
On the other side of the room, a door opened, spilling pale light into the room, and Duke’s head swiveled around to see Tam slip through the door, Kyle directly behind her.
Tam wore a relieved smile and Kyle actually looked happy to see him.
Moonlight Menage Page 19
