And Jericho Burned: Toke Lobo & The Pack

by MJ Compton

  During their escape, she’d followed his every instruction without question. He was proud of her, and would tell her–as soon as they had some privacy.

  In the mean time, he had to listen to a Restin-rant, when he’d rather dream about how he was going to bite off Butler’s fingers. One by one. And not quickly, either. Slowly, gnawing instead of snapping, prolonging the agony as long as possible.

  Why hadn’t he ever before noticed how dictatorial Restin was, especially in his role of task force alpha?

  Okay, maybe he’d overstepped his bounds too many times now to remain unscathed. His only regret was that everyone would bear the brunt of Restin’s wrath. He couldn’t protect them the way he could protect Lucy.

  “My mate was in danger,” he said, offering not an excuse for his disobedience, but logic, based in their law.

  “I told you to stay away from the compound.”

  Stoker lifted the ice pack from Lucy’s hand then brushed his fingers along her forearm. Deep purple bruises mottled her knuckles and the back of her hand, racing toward her wrist. “Lucy’s safety is the only order I obey.”

  “Our first responsibility is to the pack,” Hank said. “Lucy became part of the pack when Stoker marked her.”

  Restin couldn’t rebut without losing face.

  “Now we have to get Michelle out of there,” Hank continued.

  “She’s married to Butler,” Restin snapped.

  “She was crying.” Hank sounded bewildered. “Besides—”

  “She’s Stoker’s sister-in-law. Family.” Restin’s sarcasm bit deeply.

  Hank seemed to expand. Anger flashed in his eyes. Stoker had never seen his cousin so angry. “She’s my mate.”

  So that’s where he’d gone when he was supposed to be guarding the shed.

  Lucy started. She’d missed Hank’s first go-round.

  Stoker squeezed her waist in warning. This was male business. Her comments and observations would not be welcome.

  Ethan and Luke exchanged a look as they, too, realized that Hank was the one who’d given away their presence.

  “Fine,” Restin snarled. “Lucy is Stoker’s priority. No argument. She’s enough trouble without turning her into Butler’s secret weapon.”

  Stoker smiled. Maybe things would calm down now.

  “I’ll put in a call to the union to hire another keyboardist to lay the tracks,” Restin said.

  Everything inside Stoker lurched then froze.

  “You’re mated, so you’re off the task force.” Restin’s eyes gleamed. “If you’re off the task force, you’re out of the band.”

  He’d wanted off the task force, and he’d wanted off the road, but he’d never wanted out of the band.

  “We’re cutting a CD. I helped Tokarz write the music,” he said.

  “The recording session is the task force cover. You’re off the task force. That’s what you wanted. You’ve got it. But you’re also out of the band.”

  Restin’s smirk infuriated Stoker.

  “My name is on “Full Moon Lady,” he said.

  Tokarz had written the lyrics for Delilah, but Stoker had spent many nights working with Tokarz to perfect the music.

  “And your point is what?”

  “Only Tokarz can kick me out of his band.”

  “He’s not here now, is he?” Restin gloated, and Stoker moved him up to number two on the list of people’s bodies he was going to savage as soon as he had Lucy safely tucked away. Maybe Mr. Fiddle-player would lose a few fingers, too.

  “He’s a phone call away,” Hank said.

  His cousin knew how much his music meant to Stoker. Stoker was practically a prodigy on the piano. He’d taught himself to play at age three.

  Restin turned his glare on Hank. “You could be next. You deliberately disobeyed an alpha’s order.”

  Hank blinked then smiled.

  Stoker realized that Hank wasn’t the mild-mannered werewolf everyone thought. He simply bided his time and chose his battles. There was nothing subservient in his stance as he faced Restin. “Like it or not, this mission has gone far past something we do for sanctuary. There are mates involved.”

  Stoker should have said that. He should have thought of it before Hank did. But he was tired. And aching. Changing right before the new moon was always difficult, and tonight he’d changed so many times, he’d lost count.

  “Why not use what happened tonight to your advantage?” Lucy asked.

  She’d been quiet so long, the others started. Stoker squeezed her waist again, warning her to be silent. She’d followed his commands so well during their escape. Why did she assert herself now, when his pack-mates were present?

  “Randy is going to think wolves got me. He’s going to find the holes into the shed and compound. He’ll write me off as dead, and the others will consider themselves lucky I was the only victim, probably because of my wicked defiance of Randy.”

  Her logic was flawless, and Stoker hated it.

  “Instead of all his paranoia focusing on the government trying to stop his party, he’ll need to focus on the immediate—protecting New Sinai from wolves.”

  “How does distracting them help us?” Restin asked.

  “Randy considers himself a leader of the Biblical ilk.”

  Judging by the expressions on the others’ faces, Stoker wasn’t the only one in the room who had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Today, he told me he was like Jacob, a Biblical patriarch. Therefore, he has the right to marry me, as he’s married to my sister, because Jacob married sisters and went on to found a great nation.”

  If Stoker didn’t ache so badly, he would have leapt from the bed and raced to the compound to finish off Butler piece by piece. Lucy should have told him about the new marriage threat sooner, like when he’d first liberated her from the root cellar, when he could have tracked Butler to his bed and savaged him.

  “You guys howl, right?”

  “Not on the new moon,” Luke muttered.

  “But you do howl?” Lucy persisted.

  “We’ve been known to do a little moon singing.” Restin rolled his eyes.

  “Joshua.” She sounded pleased with herself. “You pull a Joshua on him.”

  No one reacted.

  “The Battle of Jericho?” Lucy tried again. “Rams’ horns?”

  Luke’s delighted expression lit the room. “Random access memory?”

  “The computer geek strikes again,” Ethan muttered.

  Lucy shook her head. “No. Ram, as in sheep.”

  Sheep he knew. Easy prey. Good eating. But what did hunting for food have to do with Butler’s compound?

  “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down,” Lucy sang in a sweet, throaty alto.

  The disappointment on Luke’s face was almost comical.

  “He stormed a fortress with rams’ horns?” Stoker asked. If he were the only one in the dark, he might have been embarrassed, but he wasn’t.

  “Joshua’s army surrounded the walled city of Jericho using rams’ horns as musical instruments. When they blew the horns, the people inside thought the army was much larger than it was. Scared the daylights out of the residents.”

  “Are you suggesting the five of us surround the compound and howl?” Restin asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Why?” Restin asked.

  “Because Randy is basing a lot of his rhetoric on Old Testament symbolism. He’d understand Jericho.”

  “I’m glad somebody does,” Ethan muttered.

  Restin turned to Luke. “Check it out. I want details of the battle plan.”

  Luke nodded then headed back to the room he shared with Ethan and his precious laptop compute
r. If anyone could find a reference to this battle of which none of them had heard Luke would be the one to do it.

  “There’s probably a Bible in the drawer,” Lucy said.

  Stoker checked and retrieved a dark red book. “This?”

  Lucy took it from him. “I don’t know exactly where the account of the battle is,” she said as she leafed through the book, “but not only will Randy understand the significance, but so will his army. His spiel is a mix of Old Testament tyranny, the American Revolution, and Butler insanity.”

  “Butler stole Granny’s ring,” Stoker said to Hank as Lucy flipped pages.

  “The ring was your grandmother’s?” Lucy asked.

  “My great-grandmother’s,” Stoker corrected. He spoke to his cousin again. “He used a rifle butt to get it away from her.” Lucy had shared the details while Parker examined her hand for broken bones.

  “Your great-grandmother had a secret transmitter ring?” Lucy interrupted again.

  Now what is she babbling about? Stoker wondered. “No.”

  Lucy twisted in his lap until she could look him in the eye. “But I thought . . . you said to wear it all the time.” She sounded as confused as he felt.

  “Don’t humans mark their mate with rings?”

  “Uh, yeah. But you said Hank was the ears, and he’d be listening, so I thought the ring was a transmitter. You know, like a secret de-coder ring, only better.”

  Ancient Ones, grant me patience. “Hank is the ears. His hearing is better than anyone else’s is.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “You meant literally.”

  He didn’t talk in circles. He was a plain speaker, without guile and fancy language. Apparently she had yet to learn that about him. “Yeah.”

  She had him so confused.

  Luke was back within fifteen minutes, lugging his computer. His eyes were glazed. “It’s right here.” He sounded amazed that Lucy hadn’t sent him on a phantom sheep chase.

  He plopped the laptop down for Restin to see. “I saved the page to my drive.”

  Only the arch of Restin’s eyebrow indicated his interest.

  Lucy’s scent was starting to get to Stoker again. Why didn’t the others leave to plot their strategy? He was off the team. They didn’t need him.

  He refused to think about being out of the band, especially on this CD.

  “I suppose the harlot in the account is supposed to be your sister,” Restin finally said.

  Lucy went rigid and opened her mouth, but Hank beat her to it. “Michelle isn’t a harlot,” he snapped.

  “She’s the woman who helped Joshua’s spies in exchange for her life. According to this account, she’s a harlot.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Lucy said.

  “But you want us to spare her,” Restin pointed out. “Let’s go with the symbolism for a moment.”

  Lucy glared, but said nothing.

  “This Jericho place sounds like Butler’s compound. Closed up; no one out and no one in,” Restin quoted.

  Stoker was intrigued in spite of himself.

  “Seven priests.” Restin’s lips curled in a grin. “Even if we included Tokarz, who’s not here, and Stoker, who’s no longer on the task force, there are only six of us. And we’re not priests.” He chuckled.

  “What about the guy who gave me the ice bag?” Lucy asked. “Is he one of you?”

  “The roadies,” Luke said, clearly excited now, even though Jericho required the wrong kind of ram.

  But Lucy was right. Between the four remaining task force members and the roadies and drivers, there were more than seven bodies available to do whatever this Jericho thing was.

  “Do you really think we can howl down a stockade fence?”

  Lucy shook her head. “It’s psychological warfare. You and I don’t have to believe it.”

  Stoker caught a glimmer of what she meant, as well as some of Luke’s enthusiasm. “Butler is their alpha. They follow him with unquestioning obedience. If he believes, they will follow.”

  “And the point is what?” Restin asked.

  “Before I mated, I believed and obeyed,” Stoker explained, speaking slowly as he tried to wrap his mind around the thought. “I still believe in our ancient law, and if orders do not contradict our ways or place my mate in peril, I will still obey. We believe the stories and legends of our kind. We still serve, to honor a pact we made with a government so young and new that no one understood what our ancestors promised.”

  “Exactly,” Lucy said. She smiled at him, which nullified every aching protest his body accrued during its abuse on the eve of the new moon. “And if Randy’s followers question him, they die. Bill Danby questioned Randy’s about-face on our marriage, and Randy . . .” She choked then inhaled deeply. “Randy stuck a gun in his face, and . . .”

  She hadn’t wanted to marry the man. Lucy had chosen Stoker over Danby and had made no bones about her feelings. The sadness in her voice made no sense. But then, not much tonight did.

  “I see.” Restin’s expression revealed no hint of his thoughts. “You say Butler is an alpha male?”

  “Yes,” Stoker replied. “His so-called army is like a pack.” He wasn’t comfortable turning the strengths of his kind into exploitable weaknesses.

  “Good observation,” Restin said.

  Three days ago, Stoker might have basked in the praise. Everything had changed since Lucy.

  Restin shifted his gaze from Stoker to Lucy. “What about the rest of the legend? Are you comfortable with that?”

  “I don’t remember the rest of the story,” Lucy admitted.

  Restin smiled.

  Stoker knew that smile. Hated that smile. It was the smile of a werewolf about to trap his prey.

  Restin peered at the computer screen, and read aloud. “And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein.” His smile widened until it was almost a grin. “Sounds a lot like Waco, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 11

  “You lied!” Lucy pummeled Stoker’s shoulder with her good hand: the flicker of a razor-winged butterfly.

  “I can think of better ways to channel your anger than by hitting me,” He lowered his mouth to her neck.

  “Stop it.” She spun away from him.

  They were finally alone. Restin’s observation had shocked Lucy into silence, which had driven away the others. The moment the door closed behind them, her shock turned into an attack on him. “You know how I feel about you guys burning out New Sinai. I won’t let you do it.”

  Stoker settled back on the pillows with a sigh. “I’m not on the task force. You heard Restin say it himself, so don’t include me in your accusations.”

  “Moot!”

  “Okay, how about while I was on the task force, I never heard a word about setting fire to New Sinai? Because I didn’t. You know why? Because we were all trapped in a burning barn a couple of months ago, and let me tell you, it’s no fun. I won’t even go into the fact that you were the one who suggested this Jericho strategy.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes.

  “And Restin never said he planned to burn down the place. You jumped to conclusions. All he did was quote the text then remark on the similarity to Waco. Hey, did you notice they even sound alike? Jericho . . . Waco.”

  Her breasts bobbed as she inhaled and exhaled deeply.

  “Come to bed, Lucy.” His exhaustion was as complete as her agitation.

  She shook her head.

  Stoker sighed again. “I’m tired, and I hurt. Changing on the eve of the new moon takes a lot of energy. I used up all of mine tonight, and then some.”

  That got her attention. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes. “Come to bed. Please.”

  He
heard her flit across the room before her slight weight jostled the mattress.