by Natalie Grey
Both children nodded. Arisha gripped their hands, stood up, and sprinted for the outskirts of town, resolutely not looking back to where Stoyan’s pack was covering their escape.
—
She hadn’t transformed. Jennifer settled into a crouch, gun drawn. Precise shots picked off her enemies with silver bullets, and she kept count under her breath. Each life was one Hugo Marcari owed her. Each was one she would never forgive.
>>Jennifer, is something wrong?<<
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jennifer murmured under her breath. She still didn’t have the hang of talking to ADAM the way Stephen and Bethany Anne did, and she didn’t want Stephen to notice her.
She watched as he jumped over two wolves and slammed down on a third that was trying to leap for him. The wolf, used to being faster than its opponents, made the fatal error of assuming that Stephen would stay in the same place. Instead, Stephen met him in midair with a punch that broke through the wolf’s chest cavity. It howled in pain, and the light died from its eyes a moment later.
Its body was limp on the concrete, pathetic and empty. Jennifer saw the furious look in Stephen’s eyes as he turned to take on his newest opponents. He, too, was never going to forget or forgive.
>>The helicopter is getting ready to leave.<<
“Fuck!” She had meant what she told Stephen.
They had come here to help the prisoners escape and get the data. Hell, if they killed Hugo before they knew everything, parts of this enterprise might just keep going. She knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Still, hearing that he was ready to escape, after all she’d seen downstairs, after all of the innocent lives she’d had to take, she was filled with fury.
She had an idea.
“ADAM! Can you feed me enough information that I could pretend to be one of their scientists?”
>>Almost certainly.<<
“Yes or no, ADAM!” Jennifer picked off a wolf that was trying to sneak up on Stephen, and spared a glance for Nathan, who was holding his own against four of the experiments.
>>I’m an AI. The probability is good, but I can’t guarantee anything. Why?<<
“Let’s just say I have a plan.”
>>I have a bad feeling about this.<<
“Did you just quote Star Wars? Never mind, no time. Stephen!”
Stephen bashed a hand sideways across an attacker’s jaw and threw him onto the ground. His head came up. “What?”
“I have a plan! I got this. I’m going to get the information from Hugo.”
He looked confused for a moment, “Wait—what plan?”
“Just….” Jennifer shook her head. “Trust me, and I’m sorry!”
“Huh? Sorry about what?”
There was no other way to say it. He was going to kill her for this. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, even knowing that he might not hear it. “I love you.”
He would see her lips shape the words.
She hid her last gun as well as she could under her shirt and dashed around the edge of the elevator block and onto the open helipad as the chopper started to rise into the air.
While those in the helicopter would think she was running to get on the elevator, she was really trying to outrun her Vampire boyfriend who was going to be really, really pissed.
—
A sorrowful yip, and one of the last wolves slumped to the ground. The light died from its eyes, showing a flicker of sentience as the Wechselbalg passed away.
There was not enough pain in the world for Hugo Marcari. Nathan swung his head to look around himself, drenched in blood, his clawed hands dripping. For a moment, he did not see Jennifer at all, and his heart squeezed with fear.
And then he saw her running, getting close to the helicopter. Then, Nathan caught Stephen exploding out from behind her.
—
“Form a line!” Stoyan’s voice was a roar. “Petar, Radomir, flank right, Vasil and Ilia, to the left!”
He said a pained goodbye to his clothes. There was no time to put them on with the guards approaching. What had happened to most of them, Stoyan wasn’t sure. But a dozen or so remained, and they had the glint in their eyes of people who’d been hired because they liked fighting.
Well, they were in for a surprise. Because Stoyan liked fighting, too—when it was people who’d imprisoned and tortured his family. And the Wechselbalg these bastards were facing down now weren’t in cages or in manacles.
They were free, they were pissed, and they were protecting children.
The guards had no idea what they were getting into. Stoyan didn’t give them time to think about it, either. He leapt as soon as he had shifted, snickering when they raised their guns.
A single bullet wound was not going to stop a shifter. He realized only in midair that these guns were likely to have silver in the bullets, and twisted away desperately as one of the guards raised his gun and fired.
A line of agony scored across Stoyan’s shoulder.
He cursed himself for his stupidity. He wasn’t going to dwell on his mistakes, though. Trusting that the rest had noticed his unusual pain at the bullet, Stoyan continued the fight without pause.
His claws raked down the man’s side and Stoyan’s teeth clamped around his arm. He ripped the man limb from limb as the rest of the guards looked on in terror.
You should never have taken the job here. Stoyan curled his lip in a snarl. In his peripheral vision, he saw Radomir and Petar take down one of the guards and rip him apart with snarls.
The rest of the guards broke and ran, and the Wechselbalg followed. Stoyan leapt, easily, and tumbled over and over with one of them until the man flopped to the ground, neck broken, blood streaming from his wounds.
Another man died fumbling for his gun, and the last one stumbled and screamed for mercy.
No mercy. Not for the jailors. Stoyan crouched over his body, eyes narrowed, and ended the man’s life with a snap of his jaws.
—
“And you’re sure she knows enough?” Hugo snapped. He was not pleased. Gerard had defied his orders and brought a woman whose story was almost certainly false. “How did you subdue the shifter you brought from Bulgaria, and why go on foot?”
“Drugs keep them … not conscious,” the woman explained. Her Spanish was not as good as her Bulgarian. “I had the gun with the bullets made of silver.” She stumbled over the construction of her sentences. “I kept away from places with people, in case she shifted. No one could see.”
It hung together, and certainly, the administrator of this facility had been a coward who had hidden part of his research from Hugo. He sat back in the chair with a scowl. The facility was in chaos, and the odds of getting to the server room were slim to none.
“Fine. Take us up.”
“Wait! Wait!” A young woman was sprinting across the helipad, pursued by one of TQB’s attackers. A bloodstained lab coat flapped open to reveal a slim, strong body, and Hugo raised his eyebrows. He was used to scientists who were small and mousy, but this woman was a knockout. She looked over her shoulder at where the experiments were keeping TQB’s attackers at bay. “Please wait! They’re killing the scientists!”
She jumped as the helicopter rose. How she made it, Hugo did not know. He stared down at the figure on the floor, and saw that his bodyguards had their guns out. The girl shivered, held her hands up. She looked at Hugo and Gerard appealingly. Behind her, the man was yelling as the chopper rose, and the woman squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
“I’m so sorry. Please. I know I don’t deserve to be here—I just don’t want to die!”
“You’re a scientist here?” Gerard asked quizzically. “What’s your name?”
Jennifer gave the first name that popped into her head. “Irina Yordan.” She’d have to hope they didn’t know the names of their prisoners, but she would be shocked if they did.
“So you’re the new researcher,” a Chinese woman said.
Both men looked at her.
Of course, Jennifer realize
d. This was Hsu—and she was covering for Jennifer. She knew Irina. She knew that Jennifer was a friend.
“Yeah,” she said awkwardly. “Administrator Fedotov spoke very highly of you, Mr. Marcari.”
The men exchanged a glance, and then Hugo saw the TQB operative back up and start sprinting for the ‘copter again, getting ready to make a wild jump for it.
“Cuffs on her,” he ordered. “And take us up higher, dammit!”
—
“NO!”
But the helicopter banked away and picked up speed as Stephen decided to stop pretending… fuck it. Trust or no trust, he was going to go for it. He backed up quickly, eyeing the helicopter.
He readied himself for the jump out into nothing, to grasp the bars and haul himself into the interior—and found himself slammed down onto the concrete. Nathan’s eyes making sure Stephen knew it was a friend. He stood up, offering Stephen a hand.
“Why—”
“You could never have made that jump.” Nathan looked at the chopper as it soared away. “She must have a plan, Stephen. And we’re tracking her. We’ll know where she goes.”
Stephen sank his face into his hands. He’d become intimately familiar with despair over his centuries, but he had never felt fear like this.
>>Stephen. We will get her back. We need that information, and she has a plan.<<
Are you trying to comfort me?
>>I do not want you to be afraid.<<
Stephen let his breath out slowly. His shoulders slumped and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “We’ll get her back,” he agreed quietly. He looked up to watch the receding shape of the helicopter. “We’ll get her back.”
Stephen wiped his sleeves down as he watched the helicopter recede into the distance. He could have jumped in a pod and chased her easily enough, but he needed to learn to trust.
He turned away from the helicopter and headed towards the stairs, “We’ll get her back,” he said one last time as he started down the stairs, “then I’m going to reprimand the fuck out of her for her stupid-ass plan,” he promised.
FINIS
Author Notes - Natalie Grey
Written March 1, 2017
There are so many people to thank that I honestly don’t even know where to start. The response to BELLATRIX blew me away. This is truly one of the best groups of readers ever. You’re all so passionate and so welcoming.
Thank you!
A huge thank you also to Michael, who invited me into the Kurtherian Gambit world and who has been an invaluable resource and mentor since then – including introducing me to an amazing team! Stephen, Andrew, the DDs (you ladies are wonderful!), Steve, and all of the readers who have helped me make RISK BE DAMNED a worthy entry into this universe.
Last, but certainly not least, a thank you to my husband for putting up with all the authorly weirdness!
-Natalie
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Written March 1, 2017
Once more I sit down to say, with humility, ‘thank you’ for reading these notes!
The ability of fans to connect, to encourage, to edify and to promote authors cannot be over-emphasized. Natalie’s journey is going to be ‘one for the ages’ I think.
I mentioned before, that Natalie is a pen-name (and by the way, Natalie is hella eaiser to pronounce than her real first name, which I finally found out…Although her last name is simple) for my collaborator.
Getting attention, any attention, can be so difficult for artists and especially authors. Many of us don’t have the ability nor the personality to put ourselves out there, to trust that what we have might be enjoyed by others that we are timid at best, and refuse to put it up due to fear at worst.
For Natalie, she ‘knows’ that her writing is worthwhile, because other authors pay to have her write books for them. It is a situation that, in a way, is just like any other job. You get up, you write for pay, you go to sleep.
And someone else gets the credit.
You never get to reap the rewards of your talent because no one ‘knows you’ if you are a ghost writer. But then, how do you break out? If you aren’t writing the next book for pay, you are trying to cook dinner maybe, or finish that last project for work.
And then you do more of the writing, but you don’t have time to work on the marketing.
Natalie Grey is my personal effort to help … uh… Natalie … break out. I’m showing her the “power” of her writing (I keep saying that piece in Darth Vader’s voice in my head - Natalie, you need to feel the POWER of the WRITING…).
The power of her writing joined with an audience willing to interact with her (that would be you, by the way). I’m sharing the information about the stories income with her so that one day, she might look at it all and say…
“Yeah, I want to do that with you… “
On that day, you and I together will have made a small note in the history of Indie Publishing, and I’ll be throwing my Kindle up in the air in celebration.
Then, my eyes will go wide as I watch my precious Kindle start to fall back to earth, my arms outstretched to catch it as I yell, “Oh Fuck!”
What the hell was I thinking throwing a Kindle up in the air?
I appreciate the patience you, the fans, have had with everything. We have this book up without the final Jennifer and Stephen on the cover…
But, remember, you said it was ok if we had no cover ;-)
Thanks to Andrew Dobell and Jeff Brown for making a cover in 24 hours. Thanks Guys!
Thanks to Natalie for putting up with our crazy methodology to write inside the Kurtherian Gambit Universe.
But most of all, thanks to you for reading these stories we put out, and cheering us on as we do it.
Best Regards from The Queen Bitch ;-)
Oh, and The Author, as well.
Michael Anderle
Kurtherian Gambit Series Titles Include:
First Arc
Death Becomes Her (01) - Queen Bitch (02) - Love Lost (03) - Bite This (04)
Never Forsaken (05) - Under My Heel (06) Kneel Or Die (07)
Second Arc
We Will Build (08) - It’s Hell To Choose (09) - Release The Dogs of War (10)
Sued For Peace (11) - We Have Contact (12) - My Ride is a Bitch (13)
Don’t Cross This Line (14)
Third Arc (Due 2017)
Never Submit (15) - Never Surrender (16) - Forever Defend (17)
Might Makes Right (18) - Ahead Full (19) - Capture Death (20)
Life Goes On (21)
**New Series**
The Second Dark Ages
The Dark Messiah (01)
(Michael’s Return)
12.25.2016
The Boris Chronicles
* With Paul C. Middleton *
Evacuation
Retaliation
Revelation
Restitution 2017
Reclaiming Honor
* With JUSTIN SLOAN *
Justice Is Calling (01)
Claimed By Honor (02)
Judgement Has Fallen (03) Feb 2017
The Etheric Academy
* With TS PAUL *
ALPHA CLASS (01) Dec 2016
ALPHA CLASS (02) Mar 2017
ALPHA CLASS (03) May 2017
Terry Henry “TH” Walton Chronicles
* With CRAIG MARTELLE *
Nomad Found (01)
Nomad Redeemed (02)
Nomad Unleashed (03)
Nomad Supreme (04) (Mar 17)
Trials and Tribulations
* With Natalie Grey *
Risk Be Damned (01)
Damned to Hell (02) coming soon
Hell’s Worst Nightmare (03) coming soon
SHORT STORIES
Frank Kurns Stories of the Unknownworld 01 (7.5)
You Don’t Mess with John’s Cousin
Frank Kurns Stories of the Unknownworld 02 (9.5)
Bitch’s Night Out
Frank Kurns Stories of the Unknownwo
rld 02 (13.25)
With Natalie Grey
Bellatrix
AudioBooks
