by Jeff Hale
Glass shattered suddenly as a fist came through the front driver’s side window, grabbing the driver and pulling him through the open window like some scene from a horror movie. He screamed as glass from the window tore through his clothes, gouging him on the way out, and I heard a muffled grunt as he hit the ground outside. A deep voice yelled, “Get out of here, ya stinking human!”
Dark shapes blocked out the light from either of the door windows in the back, and I saw Darien try to push his door open. Both his door and the driver’s door were pulled open almost simultaneously, followed by both doors in the back.
Two weretigers in Aspect pushed their way into the back seat, preventing both Alex and me from exiting the car. Up front, a huge man with a shaved head and bronzed skin slid into the driver’s seat, hitting the button to lower the privacy glass, while an Aspected shifter of some reptile bent, possibly alligator, pushed Darien toward the middle, sandwiching him between them.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Darien’s voice was loud and furious, but the huge man who was now behind the wheel only put the car in motion so we were moving again.
“What the bloody fucking hell!” Alex yelled, struggling with the Aspected tiger, a female that was pinning him to the back seat. The other one, the male weretiger, had my wrists and was keeping me in place as well, despite my attempts to escape.
I tried to let the cat loose inside of me, to even the playing field, but she was far from my reach, refusing to surface. I had been so used to having to fight her presence that her sudden absence was like someone had poured freezing water over me.
“Darien!” Alex was beginning to panic, bucking wildly to try and free himself from the female weretiger. He seemed to be having the same problem I was. “I can’t shift! What the fuck is happening?”
Darien hadn’t made a move since the big man and the weregator had trapped him in the front, but I could feel the Alpha vibe rolling off of him… and the big guy as well.
“He’s another Alpha, the Alpha of the Vegas pack I’m guessing.” There was strain in Darien’s voice. “We’re in their territory, he can prevent you from shifting, both of you.”
“Oh, he’s a smart one,” the big man now driving the car commented. He laughed as though he had made a hilarious joke. “But not smart enough to not come back after the insult you already dealt me and my pack.”
“You’re going about this the wrong way. You can’t stop me from shifting. What’s to keep me from doing that right now and tearing you apart?” Darien’s form was already starting to ripple as he began to shift, his voice a deep growl.
“Sayuri, Takeo, give him a reason,” the big man ordered, his voice almost cheerful.
The next thing I knew there were claws buried in my side. I heard Alex cry out and guessed that the same thing had been done to him by the female weretiger. Pain lanced through me and a scream escaped my throat. I felt blood pour down my side, smelled the tang of it in the air. And still, my cat was nowhere to be found. I gasped, panting, as he pulled his claws free, and my eyes sought Darien’s over the back of the front seat. He had stopped his shift and was already settling back to human. There was fear in his eyes, fear of what they would do to me.
The big man pounded the steering wheel with his hand, guffawing loudly, and my blood ran cold when I saw the familiar tattoo on his forearm; the fanged and hooded skull. He turned his head towards Darien and I could see tribal style tattooing on the side of his face and the hawk like profile that marked him as Native American. Even more so than Darien.
“Oh, he learns quick!” He spun the wheel, turning the car to the right and I could see the Circus Circus pass us by on the left. “You’ll come along quietly or we’ll fuck your pack up, you stupid fucking half-breed.”
I felt a hand touch mine in the back seat and turned my head. Alex was staring at me, worried, his hand stretched across the seat to grasp mine. The female weretiger, Sayuri I was guessing, was licking his blood from her claws. She saw his hand wrapped around mine on the seat.
“Ah, how touching,” she said, her voice a raspy growl. She stabbed a claw through our joined hands, spearing them to the seat, a snarling laugh emanating from her at my howl of pain and Alex’s gasping intake of breath.
“Tell her to stop!” Darien demanded, shoulders shaking with pent up rage.
“Say please!” the big man countered gleefully, turning the wheel again to pull the car into a lot that housed an old nightclub that had seen better days and was obviously no longer in use as a club.
Darien was silent for the briefest second before I saw his shoulders sag. “Please,” he grated out finally.
“Sayuri!” the big man shouted.
“Yes, Henry,” Sayuri answered, pulling the claw free from Alex and my hands, the look on her face almost blank. I pulled my hand to my chest, cradling it there, while I sobbed with pain. A quick glance at her arm and the arm of the male weretiger confirmed my suspicions; they had the tattoo as well, and I was willing to bet the gator in the front did too. It surprised me, because so far I had only seen that tattoo on vampires and these were shifters. I wondered if they had attacked us because of me, because of Aerick, or for some other yet unrevealed reason.
The car came to a stop and the two weretigers pulled Alex and me out, keeping us close to them with claws ready at our throats. My side was already starting to heal, the bleeding almost stopped, but I wasn’t sure I would survive a torn out throat.
The big Native American, Henry, and the weregator got out of the car, leaving Darien inside. Darien didn’t move, just glared at them through the open doors. Henry gave him a long stare and laughed again, gesturing to the tigers that they should take us inside.
“He’ll follow if he wants them back alive,” Henry said, loud enough to carry to Darien if he had had human ears instead of shifter.
Out of the car, Henry was even bigger, easily taller than Aerick by at least a foot, and broad as a truck. He must have weighed in at close to four hundred pounds, all of it muscle. He had tribal tattooing on both sides of his face, and I could see more tattoos, also tribal art, peaking from under the sleeves of the straining red t-shirt he was wearing. Black denim jeans and heavy work boots finished off his ensemble.
The glass doors to the nightclub had been painted over with black paint to keep prying eyes from seeing inside. Henry pushed the doors open, letting the two weretigers drag us inside, before following himself, the gator behind him. Inside the light was dim, but I could make out a hallway to the left with a bathroom sign above it and a glass door to the right covered with some sort of flimsy peeling paper. The gator pushed by us and opened the door, holding it to let the tigers bring us in. We both stopped struggling, knowing that without the ability to shift, it would do us no good.
The original booth tables and benches were still inside the nightclub, still usable. They had been pulled out some so that a large heavy table could sit in the center, almost like some kind of altar. A metal beam ran the length of the room, crossing the center of the table about four feet above it. Chains hung from it.
The tigers pushed Alex and me into one of the booths nearest to that big table, settling in on either side of us. Henry just strode to the center, near the table, and let out a high, eerie hooting howl that echoed off the walls of the room. The gator took up position on the other side of the table. Up close, I could see what looked like old dried blood on the stained wood.
“See, what’d I tell you!” Henry barked, pointing back toward the way we had come in. I tried to look out around the booth back, but the tiger growled at me, keeping me in my seat.
I needn’t have bothered. Darien came into view a few seconds later, stopping a few feet from Henry. He glanced towards the booth we were in, noting Alex’s stoic silence and what must have been a terrified look on my face.
“Are you okay, Kat?” Darien asked me, his way blocked by Henry as he tried to take a step towards the booth.
“Not really,” I replied.
“She’s yours?” Henry’s gaze suddenly centered in on me, even as mine was on the movement I could see as other bodies entered the main room of the club. More of Henry’s pack, I guessed, that he had called with that howl, although one seemed out of place, and not just in appearance. This one entered from a separate door that might have been an office. While the others filtered towards the booths, he leaned against the far wall on the other side of the large table, his face hidden in the shadow of the brim of a forward tilted dark fedora, his hands in the pockets of a floor length black trench coat.
Henry approached the booth, capturing my full attention as he ran a hand over his shaven head, uncaring that Darien hadn’t answered his question. He glanced over his shoulder at the strange man leaning against the wall, as though looking for a signal, or maybe permission.
The man cocked his head to the side, the fedora still hiding his face. “Fancy that, another one,” he said, his voice carrying across the room and sounding halfway amused. He waved a hand dismissively. “But who am I to deny you your fun. That little flaming bird can take it up with me if he has a problem with it.”
Another one? Flaming bird? Just what the hell was Mr. Dark and Mysterious talking about? But I didn’t get a chance to find out because Henry just nodded and turned to the weretiger who was guarding me. “Takeo,” he said, making the name an order.
The weretiger grabbed my arms, lifting me bodily, ignoring my struggles, and slammed me onto my back on the little table that went with the booth. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that a couple of the other booths now had occupants, three to four at each, in human form, and I could hear them whispering excitedly to each other. I arched my back, trying to kick loose, but he held my legs down with a strong clawed hand.
“Leave her alone!” Darien shouted, starting to move toward me, but stopping again when Takeo’s claws played at my throat.
“Katie.” It was Alex’s voice, a whisper, and when I met his eyes I could see misery in them, as though he saw where this might be leading.
Henry leaned down next to me, pressing his face against mine and inhaling deeply, making me squirm to get away from him. He just laughed low in his throat and repeated the action at various points down the length of my body. He was smelling me.
He straightened, moving over to scent the air next to Darien and then Alex, before turning to give Darien a crafty look. “Are you sure she’s yours? She doesn’t smell like you. She smells like some filthy human… and him.” He indicated Alex with a tilt of his head.
Darien’s eyes moved from me, to Alex, then back to Henry. “She’s mine,” he stated, his voice hard, “and you will not touch her.”
The newly arrived shifters raised their voices at Darien’s implied threat, and Henry turned to face them, hands raised to get their attention. “Quiet, my brothers and sisters, quiet.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands that took in Darien, myself and Alex. “We know that we’ve been dealt a grave insult. They came into our territory unannounced, this half-breed and his pathetic pack, and then rudely ignored etiquette by not introducing themselves to us or stating their intentions. I suppose they could have forgotten, or been distracted, maybe they didn’t see the marks of our pack, but then they left and still hadn’t acknowledged our rule here.” There were noises of dissatisfaction, booing, and jeering, but Henry quieted them again with a gesture. “But here they are, back again, so this time we decided to make it easy for them, meet them on the way in so they wouldn’t overlook us this time, allow them to make reparation for the previous insult.” The voices rose again, cheering this time, hands slapping on the table tops.
“Reparation?” Darien’s voice was clipped and tense. “We don’t owe you any reparation.”
Henry gestured his folk to silence again before turning a calculating look on Darien. “Oh, I think you do. An Alpha and his pack came into my territory uninvited. You made no effort to seek me out, no effort to acknowledge the rule of this territory, as though these boundaries meant nothing to you. You insulted my leadership, my authority, and with it, my pack. I demand reparation. If I’m forced to take it to the Council of Elders, if you refuse me, I could ask for more, and get it, than what I’m willing to take today.”
“I’ll fight you, if that’s what you want,” Darien conceded.
“Oh, no, not at all. You’ve taken honor from my pack, from me. Fighting you might regain my honor, but I’m not as stupid as you seem to think. I know who you are, Darien Torre, with your polluted white mans’ blood. The small chance that I might lose to you is not a risk I’m willing to take, at least not today. No, I’m all for getting my justice in a different way.”
“How?” Darien’s voice was laced with suspicion.
“By breaking something of yours.” Henry’s voice was matter of fact and he jerked his head toward Darien. “Hold him, boys, and make sure he can see.”
Immediately, five other shifters converged on Darien, changing to Aspect as they moved. I saw another cat, and a canine of some sort, two wolves of a lighter color than Darien’s own black, and what looked like it might have been a snake. Darien shifted into Aspect himself as they tackled him, but with that many on him, bolstered by the strength of their Alpha, and coupled with his still unhealed injury from Aerick, they managed to pin him to a booth, although the table in front of it now lay toppled.
“Time for the show!” Henry announced, his voice cackling.
I screeched as his hand wrapped in my hair, pulling me off the booth table so that my butt hit the floor hard, jarring me. He yanked me to my feet by my hair, making me screech again, before lifting me and tossing me onto the large center table.
“Katie!” Alex screamed my name, his voice cutting through the club, while Darien’s howl of rage and frustration bounced off the walls.
Henry gave me a smile that promised that he was going to enjoy what he had planned for me. I rolled to my belly, fingers scrabbling as I got my knees under me and made a lunge for the opposite side of the table, panic and terror sending adrenaline flooding into my system. I tried again to call the cat, to shift, and still found it blocked from me. My eyes found the shadowed form of the man leaning against the wall and he just tipped his head towards me like an Old West cowboy.
A hand locked around my ankle like a vice grip, pulling once and sliding me back towards Henry, the friction of the heavy wood burning my skin. I felt the weight of him as he leapt to the tabletop, and his hand wound in my hair again, pulling back so that my spine bowed, my chest lifting from the table as he sat on my legs.
He kept pulling, so that I thought either my hair would tear from my scalp or my back would break, until a scream rang from my throat, before letting me go so abruptly that I snapped back forward into the table face first. I felt my nose give, tasted blood, and let out another scream of fury, willing the cat to the surface, promising it free rein. But there was nothing, not even a glimmer of rage.
Henry stood then, pulling me up with him by my right arm and turning me to face him. His free hand connected with the side of my face, rocking my head back, while he brought a knee up and drove it into my stomach, forcing all the air from my lungs. I felt ribs crack, felt the blossoming fire of something rupturing in my insides, and then he shoved me forcefully back down to the tabletop, my head slamming into the thick wood hard enough to make my sight dim briefly. I coughed up blood.
“Somebody give me a knife!” Henry yelled, and a few seconds later, there was a soft thud as the blade of a knife buried itself in the table next to my head. Henry wiggled it out of the table, swinging a leg over me at the same time to pin me down. I pushed against the tabletop with my feet, batting at Henry with my hands, but without the cat to back me up, and unsure how to call on any other capabilities I might have, I was as ineffectual as any other hundred and twenty pound girl would be with a gorilla sitting on her.
I shrieked when he brought the knife next to my face and his lips curled in a gleeful smile as though he were having fun. I crie
d out again when I felt the blade cut into the tender skin of my cheek, not once but three times, on each side, and I found myself pleading brokenly with him to stop. I could still hear Alex, now screaming at Henry to stop as well, to take their vengeance out on him instead. There was a high pitched howl coming from Darien’s direction, but I couldn’t see him.
Henry stood again, kicking me in the side as he did so. I slid off the table and onto the floor, sobbing in pain as more ribs shattered. I lay on the floor, trying to breathe, trying not to move, but I felt other hands grab hold of me, lifting me and tossing me back onto their altar.
“Are you enjoying this as much as I am, little cat?” Henry asked me, grabbing a handful of my hair again and lifting me by it so I was eye to eye with him. My feet kicked at the air below them, but all I could do was wriggle in his grasp and make pained groans at him.
I heard chains rattle as he reached out with one hand, and then he was lowering me to my feet, holding me against his body as he wrapped the cold length of metal around my throat, where it rested heavily. Blood ran down my face, and he laughed happily, leaning in to run his tongue along my jaw to taste it. He pulled back, my blood smearing his lips, and blew me a kiss. Then he drove his foot into my knee.
The snap of the bone was audible throughout the room and I felt my leg give, my yelp of pain echoing around us. I felt the chain tighten around my throat as I dropped, and I pushed into the tabletop with my good leg, trying to right myself, my hands tugging frantically at the metal noose.
Henry gave me a wicked grin and a shake of his head, capturing my hands with his, using the other length of chain to bind them behind my back while I wobbled precariously on one foot.
“No, no, no, why?” I begged Henry, my voice breaking on sobs. “Please? We’re sorry!”
