by Anna Lowe
“I wanted a chance to explain this,” he whispered, handing the little lion to Anjali. “To explain me.”
Anjali stared. What was he talking about?
He kissed her knuckles. “I love you. I mean it.”
Her jaw hung open. He was telling her here? Now?
“Dell…” she whispered. She loved him too. Much as she’d been resisting the notion, she was sure now. But at the moment, she just wanted to understand what the heck was going on.
“Trust me,” Dell said.
Then he turned away, resolute. With one sharp flick of his foot, he kicked the stairway away. It rolled out of reach, making their position inaccessible. But instead of backing away or reaching for his phone to call for help, Dell stepped right to the edge of the wing and looked down.
Anjali’s eyes went wide. Was he going to jump? Was he nuts? He couldn’t ward off three men by himself.
“Wait,” she yelped, reaching for him.
The regret in his eyes hurt to see. “I already waited too long.” Then he forced a smile. “Please. Trust me. Trust that.”
She looked at the lion toy, confused, then glanced down. “It’s too high to jump.”
Dell broke into a bittersweet smile. “Trust me. Cats always land on their feet.”
His eyes flicked to Quinn, then slowly hardened as he turned away.
“Dell!” Anjali cried.
But it was too late. He was already jumping.
She watched in horror, fully expecting to hear the crack of breaking bones when he landed against the hangar’s cement floor. But true to his word, Dell landed gracefully as a cat, barely touching down before rolling to absorb the impact. Then he jumped to his feet and faced the three men. They raced up then halted abruptly, eyeing him.
“Now, now. Who do we have here?” Brody sneered.
Dell moved silently from foot to foot, taking up a boxer’s stance.
A second man laughed. “Moira wasn’t kidding. He does look just like his brother.”
Anjali stared. Moira had sent these thugs?
Dell rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles without uttering a word.
The third man laughed. “Are you going to try to play Lancelot too?”
Lancelot. Quentin. Anjali’s head buzzed as she made the connection. Quentin had scared Brody away from Lourdes. That much, she knew. But what did that have to do with Moira?
Dell sneered. “You three need to get out of here while you still have a chance.”
“Not without that baby,” Brody grunted.
“Not your baby,” Dell snapped.
“Not yours either.”
Dell’s face went hard. “She is now.”
Brody cackled. “You should have taken Moira’s offer while you could.”
Anjali already despised Brody, but when the light glinted off the clunky ring on one of his fingers, she hated him even more. Lourdes had a scar from that ring.
“And you found that offer attractive? That figures.” Dell’s voice was full of scorn.
Brody flashed a smile. “I know a good deal when I see one.”
Anjali wanted to scream. What kind of deal would involve threatening an innocent baby?
Dell’s lips curled in disdain. “I bet you do. But the buck stops here, wolf.”
Anjali’s eyes narrowed. Wolf?
Quinn jerked, making the toy lion move. Anjali frowned and touched her own chest, wondering what was poking her there. Some source of friction, rubbing her skin.
Brody laughed. “The buck stops for you, maybe. For me, well, I can’t tell you how satisfying this is. It will be like getting to kill that asshole brother of yours.”
Dell’s cheek twitched. “Sick kind of satisfaction. Preying on innocent women. Hunting down the wrong guy…”
Brody grinned. “Earning a heap of cash. Getting my revenge.”
Anjali nearly cried out. What kind of person took revenge out on babies?
Dell snorted. “Yeah, right. What I don’t get is what Moira wants with the baby.”
Brody shrugged. “The same thing I do. To wipe out every trace of your shithead brother.” He grinned. “Lucky me. I came to the right place. Two for the price of one — you and the kid. Not to mention that chick.” He jerked his thumb toward Anjali. “Boy, did she piss Moira off.”
“She pissed me off,” Anjali muttered.
She looked around, considering the heap of tools left on the scaffolding. Boy, would she love to grab a hammer and hurl it at him.
“Shh,” she whispered when Quinn started the first sniffing breaths of a sob.
Brody looked up with an annoyed expression. “Yeah. Be right with you, sweetheart.”
Anjali shot him the evil eye and went back to looking for some means of defense or escape. There was no way she would let Brody get his hands on Quinn. No matter what it took, she refused to let that happen.
Dell snapped his fingers, pulling Brody’s attention away from Anjali. “Last chance, asshole.”
Anjali glanced toward the door of the hangar, hoping Dell’s friends would miraculously appear. But, damn. Dell hadn’t even been able to properly describe their location. There was no way Connor and the others would turn up anytime soon.
Brody laughed. “You had your chance. Now, I get mine.”
Anjali expected him to jump forward with flying fists, but instead, Brody hunched and fell to all fours. The two men flanking him did the same, and one groaned.
Dell glanced up at her with eyes that begged for forgiveness, though Anjali couldn’t understand why.
I love you, he’d said.
She hugged Quinn and mouthed the words back. I love you.
For one brief, sunny moment, Dell broke into a huge grin. Was that the real Dell coming through? Then Anjali realized Dell was both those men — easygoing and responsible. Happy-go-lucky and earnest to the bone.
His grin faded when he turned back to Brody, and Anjali’s smile did too.
“What?” she gasped, stepping back.
Hair had broken out all over Brody’s back, and he was snarling like a dog. The other two men were on their hands and knees, their shirts splitting down their backs.
Dell took a step forward and glanced up with one final, pained look.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
Anjali shook her head. Whatever Dell was planning, she was scared stiff.
When she looked past him, she gasped. There was a wolf where Brody had been, another wolf in the place of the man on the right, and a striped tiger on the left.
It wasn’t possible. She was seeing things, right?
Dell made a choking sound.
“No,” Anjali gasped. The same awful thing was happening to Dell. His shoulders hunched, his shirt split, and—
“Dell…” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand.
Quinn waved and gurgled, swinging her stuffed animal around. Anjali’s gaze caught on it briefly before jumping back to Dell. His golden beard thickened, covering more and more of his face and neck until it grew into a full mane.
Anjali’s mouth hung open. A mane?
No, not just a mane. He had a tail and four clawed feet, too.
She froze, staring at the lion — at Dell? — trying to understand.
Faintly, the words he’d uttered ghosted through her mind. I wanted a chance to explain this. To explain me.
Her mouth opened and closed. Whoa. No wonder he had struggled to explain. She could hardly grasp what she saw with her own eyes.
The beasts below her circled slowly, snarling. Quinn kicked and cooed, and Anjali knelt beside her.
“Don’t watch, sweetie. Don’t…” Anjali trailed off, staring at Quinn.
The baby was the spitting image of her father, Quentin, and of Dell. Blond hair. Round cheeks. Strong jawline…
She glanced down at Dell, pacing below in lion form, then back at Quinn.
She’s special, Dell had said.
If Anjali hadn’t been standing on the curved wing of an
airplane, she might have crumpled to the ground. As it was, her knees were shaking. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks replayed in her mind in a totally different light.
Dell’s reaction to seeing the lion toy. His reluctance to discuss certain things. Those nights he’d spent prowling around the plantation. Prowling, just like the huge cat below.
Trust me, he’d said. Words she kept coming back to, especially when she was ready to scream or run. Trust that.
That was the lion toy, but Dell hadn’t been talking about toys. He meant to trust him, a lion.
Anjali took a deep breath, telling herself she could have her nervous breakdown later. Right now, she had to take care of Quinn.
A roar exploded from below, followed by a canine snarl. Anjali didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help it when the fight broke out. One wolf against a lion might not seem like a fair fight, but Brody had support from a second wolf and a tiger. They all jumped at the same time, slashing and snapping at Dell. For a moment, everything blurred: the stripes of the tiger, the brown wolf pelts, and Dell’s tawny coat. Then they jumped apart, more furious than before.
Anjali closed her eyes then forced herself to snap them open again. She couldn’t stand around, pretending nothing was happening. She had to do something.
For one heady second, her mind filled with ideas for helping Dell. But then she gulped and looked at the baby. Keeping Quinn safe was her job, not fighting.
And, shit. The second wolf was no longer pacing around the edge of the fight. It was pacing around the wing of the plane, looking up.
Anjali shrank away from those red, murderous eyes.
The wolf paused, focused on the rolling stairs. Anjali’s heart nearly stopped as she tracked the beast’s calculating gaze. God, no.
The beast’s mouth cracked into a grin, and it trotted over to the stairs, jumping to push the structure with its front feet.
“No,” Anjali whispered.
Yes. The wolf licked its lips, pushing the stairs closer, inch by inch.
Dell roared, but there was little he could do to prevent it while Brody and the tiger attacked him.
Anjali ran toward the body of the plane, eyeing the smooth upward curve. There was no way she could scale that with a baby. She turned, hurried down the length of the wing, and then stared down. She turned away with a snort. Cats might land on their feet, but she sure as hell wouldn’t be jumping from that height.
She whirled. The wolf was getting closer all the time. Meanwhile, the fight raged, and one of the cats screamed in pain. Anjali winced. Was that Dell?
Quinn started crying, and it was all Anjali could do to concentrate. The wolf was approaching, and she had nothing to defend Quinn with.
A vague memory washed through her mind, and she dashed back to the toolbox, rummaging through it quickly. There was a huge screwdriver, but the notion of using that as a weapon sickened her.
“Damn it,” she muttered, casting the screwdriver side.
Next, she found a saw, a clamp, and a wrench the size of her lower arm. She paused, holding up the wrench. Would that work?
Dell roared from below. At the same time, the wing jolted, and Anjali crouched, thrown off-balance. The rolling stairs had just bumped the wing, and the wolf was bounding up it, coming for her.
Coming for the baby, her mind screamed.
She stared at the wrench, trying to work up the nerve to use it as a weapon. But all she felt was a gnawing, hopeless fear. That she couldn’t do it. That she wasn’t good enough. That she would fail, and fail big. The wolf would get Quinn and—
Anjali cut off those thoughts, practically baring her teeth. No, it wouldn’t. No way.
She grabbed the wrench and gave it an experimental swipe. The thing was heavy, but yes, it would work.
It damn well better work, a little voice said in her mind.
She whirled, grabbed the baby carrier, and ran toward the far end of the wing. Then she put Quinn down, backtracked two steps, and screamed at the approaching wolf.
“You leave us alone.”
A long line of saliva dripped from the animal’s mouth as it grinned. Not leaving you alone, that grin said. Not until I get what I want.
Anjali shook her head, thinking, Over my dead body. Not actually saying that, though, for fear of giving the wolf ideas.
The beast lowered its head and crept closer. Its eyes darted from Anjali to the baby carrier as it grumbled in warning.
Anjali shook the wrench, giving the wolf a good look at the long, steel shaft. “I’m telling you to leave us alone.”
The wolf snapped as if at a fly, making her want to cringe. Below, the other wolf — Brody — howled in pain, and she nearly cheered for Dell. But a moment later, the lion screamed in pain, backing away from the tiger. Both were bloodied and torn, but Dell’s shoulder was ripped open with a deep, jagged wound.
The wolf snapped at Anjali, taking advantage of the distraction, and it was all she could do to swing the wrench. The wolf skittered away, barking in anger. A moment later, it crouched, getting ready to spring.
And just like that, the immediate future played out in Anjali’s mind. All in slow motion, giving her a good look at her doom. The wolf would tackle her, throwing her to the surface of the wing. When they slammed into the metal, the beast would go for the soft flesh of her neck. The baby carrier would start sliding toward the edge of the wing, and she’d be helpless to stop it. Soon, Quinn would be falling…falling…
A slide show of everything she cared about rushed through her mind. Her parents. Her brothers. But most of all, Quinn and Dell. What stuck out — besides those two — was the fact that none of those I’m about to die images featured her job, her apartment, or plans for her career. On the contrary, her regrets all focused on sunsets she would never see. On missing being able to see Quinn grow up. On Dell and the lifetime she wouldn’t get to spend with him.
Finally, her mind conjured an image of her and Dell at some point in the distant future, sitting side by side on the beach and laughing. They both looked much older but much happier than when they’d first met.
Her mind served all that up, and a second later, it was all wiped away.
She grimaced. Her grandmother would have said that it was all karma and that she would get another chance in the next life. But she didn’t want another life. She wanted this one.
Death might as well have cackled in her ear in reply. You’re about to lose everything. Do you understand?
No, she didn’t understand. Why would she have been entrusted with Quinn only to have it end like this? Why would she have fallen in love with an amazing man only to lose him in a bloody battle? Why would she realize what counted in life only to have it stolen away?
The pearl heated at her neck, and Anjali found herself grimacing. Growling, almost. Shouting to no one in particular. “No!”
It wasn’t a hopeless yelp or a last-second protest. It was a defiant bellow.
“No,” she yelled a second time. Who said things had to end that way?
They don’t, a woman’s voice whispered in her head.
An angry boom echoed in her ears as if fate had heard and taken offense.
Well, tough luck, she nearly muttered. I take offense to your stupid plan.
The booming stopped, and she pictured Death looking down at her, taking stock.
No? Then what exactly do you plan to do? his earthy voice said.
Time had slowed down, but at that exact moment, it ticked forward again, and the wolf sprang into the air. Straight at her, just as she’d seen. She swung the wrench wide, gaining momentum, clenching her teeth.
This, she growled to herself. This is what I plan to do about it.
The wolf was nearly upon her, but she refused to cringe. She focused on those huge jaws and took aim.
And, thump! The wrench connected with the wolf’s muzzle, making the beast howl. It skittered off to one side, coming perilously close to the edge of the wing.
Go
tcha, Anjali nearly cheered.
But the wolf turned, angrier than ever, and leaped again — and again, until Anjali found herself in a fight much like the one taking place below. She smashed at a blur of fur and fangs. Claws ripped down her forearm, making her gasp, but still, she fought on. All she felt was fury, because that wolf wanted Quinn dead.
She swung the wrench at the wolf again and again, feeling the blows connect with power beyond anything she’d ever felt before. She kicked and punched, screaming like a wild woman.
“No,” she shouted, shoving the wolf with all her might.
It fell back, clawing desperately. Its back legs slipped off the wing entirely, and for a split second, the wolf scratched at the smooth metal surface with its front legs. Then, with a yelp, it slipped off entirely and plunged to the ground.
Anjali spun away just before the wolf hit the cement. That spared her the grisly sight, but not the sound of a deadly crunch, nor that of the heavy silence that followed. When she did peek, she gulped. How could it still move after a fall like that?
But the wolf wasn’t moving — just transforming back from wolf to man. A man as lifeless as the wolf he’d been. Anjali stared, feeling sick, then looked over at the tiger, the lion, and the other wolf. All those bloodthirsty beasts.
She turned and grabbed the baby carrier, tempted to take it and run. But when her gaze fell on Quinn’s yellow-brown eyes, she stopped.
Anjali gulped at the feline in those eyes. Eyes so similar to Dell’s.
She pictured him laughing and motioning to the surf. Looking deep into her eyes while he made love to her. Then she pictured him in the early morning hours, whispering to Quinn. Kissing the baby’s forehead, promising he would be there for her.
Anjali’s gaze swung back over the battle below. Dell might be fighting for her life and for Quinn’s, but he wasn’t a bloodthirsty beast. Brody and those other creatures were.
I love you. His words echoed through her mind.
She wanted to cry when the fight kicked back into gear. The tiger kept Dell busy from the front while Brody harried him from behind. Slowly, they were wearing him down. All the enemy needed was one opening, and they would pounce.
The spot on her chest heated, and she covered the pearl with her hand, feeling its heat — and its power.
