Mate's Call

by Lola Gabriel

  “So, what are you thinking?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “Everything,” he replied. “Your profession. Your life. What’s the plan for Red Shadow?”

  “Red Shadow doesn’t know,” she admitted. “I know I’ll give up being a Slayer, but I just don’t think I can stay here.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not going to follow you and commit my life to you after a couple hours of knowing you.”

  He pursed his lips. “I understand, but I want to you know that you don’t have to commit to me forever by agreeing to stay. Get to know me and see where it goes from there. You will always be free to leave whenever you wish.”

  “Tell me more about your dream,” Lilith said. “I want to know how you knew how to find me.”

  “The first night, the dream was unclear. I could see your hair, but to me it looked like a lion’s mane. I didn’t realize it was a woman until the next night, when I saw your face. Slowly, over a period of weeks, everything came into focus. I knew you were going to be at the hotel to kill me. We caught Night Star because I wanted to talk to you alone. I sent my men to find you, wherever you were. Problem is, you evaded them.”

  “Your men were going to kill me! Of course I evaded them.”

  “They had explicit instructions to keep you safe.” His eyes darkened. “Did they harm you?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Storm took a seat next to Lilith and pressed his brawny shoulder up against hers. She didn’t fight it. In fact, she welcomed it.

  She sighed.

  “What?” Storm asked her. “Are you okay?”

  “Just confused,” she replied. “I can’t decide if you’re nuts, or if I am.”

  “Well, I can verify I’m rational. As for you… I’m starting to have my doubts.”

  “Hey!” Lilith protested halfheartedly, looking up at him.

  A cold burst of air blew through the hole up above. She wished he would hurry up and heal so he could fly again and they could escape.

  Shivering from the cold, Lilith thought, Well, if I’m stuck here for a while, I should make the best out of this situation.

  Slowly, almost like she was asking permission, she leaned her head up against his chest. She could feel his heart thumping beneath her ear. He was strong, and his chest was solid muscle, which she felt through the material of his sweater.

  Storm brought her in closer and wrapped his powerful arms around her, which warmed her up immediately. She felt comfortable and safe. She felt protected.

  9

  Lilith fell asleep.

  It wasn’t a conscious decision, but the day had worn her out. So much had happened.

  Storm’s fingers tapped her shoulder with his arm still around her. “Hey,” he whispered. “Wake up.”

  “What?” she replied, attempting to wake up.

  Her brain was still foggy. “How long was I out?”

  “Hours.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You were clearly tired,” he replied. “I saw no reason to wake you up.”

  She yawned. “Then why did you wake me up now?”

  “I heard something.”

  “Something? Like I was snoring?”

  “A person,” he said. “There’s someone here.”

  She perked up, sitting up immediately. “In the cave?”

  “Up there,” he replied, pointing up to the hole.

  Lilith tried to listen. She got nothing, other than the slight wind and the snow that was starting to fall. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Someone’s up there, trust me.”

  “Isn’t that good?”

  “Could be…” He stood up. “But I don’t think so. Something’s not right.”

  Lilith felt it too; something was amiss. Her instincts told her to run as the hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. She felt like she’d just watched a good horror movie. She was unsettled. And although she couldn’t hear or see anything, someone was watching them.

  “Do you still hear it?” Lilith asked.

  “Yes,” he said. His nose twitched. “It’s not my men. I don’t recognize the scent.”

  Right then, she realized that despite his outside appearance, Storm was very much still a predator. His abilities to smell, hear, and track were much stronger than hers.

  She laid a hand on her whip, which sprang to life at her touch.

  “Get back,” Storm ordered, putting a hand in front of her like a shield. “I don’t like this.”

  This time, Lilith could hear it.

  The sound of a gun being loaded.

  She’d recognize that distinctive sound anywhere. Someone was there to kill either Lilith or Storm, or both. She cracked her whip. “Let’s get further into the cave,” she said. “Now.”

  At the bottom of the hole, Storm and Lilith were easy targets. If they went deeper into the expansive, dark cave, they would have a fighting chance. Well, it would give her a fighting chance. She wasn’t immortal.

  Lilith scampered back into the cave with Storm beside her. She wished she still had her rifle. It would be easy to pop a bullet into the skull of whomever was hunting them. As it was, Lilith had only her whip, and Storm couldn’t shift without tremendous pain because of the rip in his wing.

  “A partner of yours?” Storm asked as they vanished into the darkness.

  “You killed Night Star,” she replied. “I was only working with him on this job.”

  What appeared to be a collection of marbles dropped into the hole and bounced off the stone floor high into the air. Each marble was about two inches in circumference and decorated with a yellow painted smiley face.

  Lilith inhaled sharply. “Fuck,” she said. “Those are Night Star’s!”

  “What are they?” Storm asked, eyeballing them.

  “You don’t want to know,” she hissed. “Get back!”

  The two dashed towards the back of the cave as the marbles continued to bounce down through the hole at the top of the cave.

  One hit the wall and exploded.

  The resulting explosion was amazingly ferocious for the size of the marble. It sounded like a firework had gone off and obliterated a substantial chunk of the stone wall into nothing but tiny pebbles.

  Lilith hissed, “I thought you said you killed him!”

  “I thought we did!’ answered Storm as they continued to run from the continued explosions.

  Boom!

  Another one hit nearby.

  Storm abruptly grabbed Lilith and tossed her like a ragdoll. She sailed through the air and landed hard.

  “Hey!” she screamed, ready to fight, but then realized why he had pushed her.

  She watched him jump back to avoid a six-foot icicle that smashed into a million pieces directly in front of him. If Lilith had been there and he hadn’t shoved her, she would have been impaled. He saved her. Again.

  There was no time for thanks, as both scrambled deeper in the cave. The bombs kept detonating, shaking icicles free and blowing out parts of the wall. Each explosion shook the mountain to its core. Lilith panicked that the bombs would create a new avalanche.

  Then, she realized that’s exactly what Night Star was trying to do. If he couldn’t kill them with the bombs, he’d damn well bury them alive.

  Stalactites dropped from the ceiling like spears, hitting the ground at breakneck speeds and shattering. The splinters stung like daggers when they hit. Several times, they ripped through Lilith’s clothes. Luckily, her suit offered a little protection, but some sharp pieces still managed to penetrate her skin.

  Lilith couldn’t hold back expletives that would’ve made sailors blush.

  How was Night Star still alive? Storm’s men said they’d killed him! Night Star was one of the best in the business. She wasn’t feeling optimistic about getting out of there alive.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The smiley face bombs started to explode with increasing regularity. They had to keep running. />
  Lilith’s foot caught on a rock. She tried to catch herself and keep running. Maybe on another day at a better time, she would’ve been able to pull it off. In that moment, too many things were happening, and she failed. She flew from the ground and landed up against the wall. Her chin slammed into the wall before the rest of her body, and she fell to the ground in intense pain. She tried to get up, coughing and gasping. Blood filled her mouth as the metallic taste and scent took over her senses.

  She was too late. A smiley bomb bounced directly towards her face. Her eyes widened, but she knew she couldn’t do anything. The bombs were equipped with timers, and the barely audible beeps came faster and faster indicating the bomb was about to detonate.

  She closed her eyes and braced herself for the end.

  A sudden jolt made her open her eyes as Storm shielded her from the explosion with his body. The bomb exploded with enough force to physically throw them into the air. When they came crashing down, he still had his massive body wrapped around hers, and when they landed, his body felt like a rock as they fell the ground and knocked every bit of her air out. But at least she was alive.

  “Storm!” she cried.

  Storm pinned her to the ground. “Stay still!” he snarled. His voice was tight with pain.

  The rest of the bombs bounced over them, and Storm got up, swearing viciously. She caught a glimpse of his back. His entire sweater had been vaporized, and his broad back had caught most of the impact.

  He snarled in pain, bending over and gasping.

  “Oh my God!” Lilith yelped.

  “I’m fine,” he choked out. “I’ll heal. You have… You have to hold him off.”

  She was going to do more than hold him off. She was going to strangle the bastard.

  “Night Star!” she shouted towards the entrance. “I’m in here, you asshole!”

  Night Star’s silky-smooth voice came through. He was in the cave with them. He must have dropped in while Lilith and Storm were running. “I know that, Red Shadow.”

  “You were supposed to be dead,” Lilith protested.

  “The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” grunted the Slayer. He shouldered his way into the light.

  He looked dead. His suit was torn, and he walked with a limp. “Storm’s guards beat me up and tossed me in the lake, chained up. Takes a hell of a lot more than that to kill me.”

  Lilith groaned. She’d hoped he wouldn’t be armed, so she could take him on. Not so. He had his rifle in his hand. If she made a move for him, he’d gun her down before she moved two feet. Her whip wouldn’t do any good. Storm was beside her, kneeling and obviously in great deal of pain. She couldn’t do anything.

  “What the hell you been doing?” Night Star demanded. “I get mauled, and you look fine. But you didn’t care. You ran out here to get the bounty by yourself, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t know. She realized abruptly that Night Star had no idea that the infamous Red Shadow was no longer trying to kill Storm.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I thought you were dead!”

  Night Star spread his arms. His mask, torn and ragged, hung about his face. The guy valued secrecy above all else. “Well, guess what. I’m not.”

  He looked at her, then Storm—all while walking ever closer, to the very edge of her whip’s radius.

  After a long pause, Night Star said, “Hold on. You…” His voice turned angry. “You’re working with him!”

  “Yep!” Lilith snapped, while rearing her whip back and slashing at him.

  Lilith knew her time was extremely limited before Night Star could reach for his gun and shoot her. Because they were only standing about eight feet apart, she hoped her whip would do enough damage to slow him down.

  It worked.

  The whip caught him in the leg, which wasn’t what she had planned, but it startled him enough to give her time to pounce at him. He jerked the gun towards her and squeezed the trigger. A stream of bullets whistled past her, one skimming her ribs

  By this time, she was close enough to him to grab the barrel of the gun and twist it away from him. He was big and towered at least a foot above her small frame. He was also much stronger physically.

  The one thing she had on him was speed. Her best chance to stay alive was to move quickly. She wasn’t about to let him hit her.

  Red Shadow versus Night Star: the fight of the decade.

  The two best Slayers in the business at each other’s throats. Her speed and agility against his strength and size.

  The fight was furious and fast. Lilith wrestled his gun away from him, but it was a short-lived victory. He kicked her firmly in the chest with enough power to knock her onto her back. When she got up, he rolled his neck and slid his hands into a weapon she wasn’t prepared to face—brass knuckles with spikes on the end. They were cruel weapons, designed to maul and brutalize.

  Night Star spat. “Traitor! I’m going to kill you first, then the beast.”

  He advanced on her, leaving Storm in the background. Lilith couldn’t see Storm well. The last thing she saw was blood pouring from the wound on his back.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Lilith panted. Her chest was aching. He’d kicked her hard.

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m doing this because I want to.”

  She slashed at him with the whip, but he was too close. Way too close. The whip didn’t hit him with enough force to do any damage.

  He punched at her with the knuckle spikes and tore the whip out of her hand while she was distracted. He threw the whip down, away from them both. An amateur would swing for the head. It was certainly the most tempting target, but it was also the easiest to miss. He swung at her chest. She deflected his shot and brought her knee up into his groin. Even he had to feel that.

  He did.

  He let out a grunt of pain. That was it. It gave her three, maybe four seconds of respite at most. He was back at her in a second. He swung once more. She saw it coming and got him into an arm lock, forcing his arm into a painful bend. She got behind him so that he couldn’t get her with his knuckles. He shouted in agony as she pushed him down to the ground.

  She made the mistake of looking for Storm.

  Her enemy took full advantage of her lapse in judgment. She had him firmly in her grasp. He didn’t try to fight that. Instead, he brought his other hand around—with the brass knuckles—into Lilith’s arm. She saw it coming and jerked back, barely missing getting skewered. As it was, the brass slid into her skin on her shoulder. They effectively slashed a rent in her muscle. She tripped while jumping back and tumbled off the edge of the rock.

  She fell down a small hill of stone in the cave, finally coming to a stop only after being submersed in darkness. She watched the outline of Night Star’s tattered form walk towards her with her blood dripping off his knuckles.

  Lilith was almost positive that she had broke several ribs falling down the cave, and a bullet had grazed her skin, although she was luck it didn’t enter her body. It was dark, and when she attempted to get up, her hand slipped and she wiped out. She stood up as he scooped up her whip. It crackled with energy, illuminating his face in way that made him resemble a wicked paranormal entity.

  That’s when a shape loomed up behind him like a mountain, silent and deadly. Storm. He raised up his hand. She could just barely see dozens of sharp fangs glitter in the darkness.

  Night Star didn’t see him. He kept walking, confident in his ability to kill Lilith right then and there. He’d go back for Storm and come back with two heads: that of the Keeper of the Wind and that of the infamous Red Shadow.

  “Are you going to beg?” he asked her.

  “Doubt it.” Her eyes flickered up at the dragon form of Storm.

  Storm reared back a paw and slashed at Night Star. The strength of Storm’s claw sliced right through Night Star, slicing him into five pieces as his remaining body parts fell to the cold stone floor beneath him. Through the darkness, Lilith saw dark, viscous liquid pool around Nigh
t Star’s dismembered body.

  Storm shifted down to his human form and staggered over to her. “You’re hurt!”

  “I’m fine.” She held her hand over her shoulder, ignoring the pain from the cut. It probably looked worse than it felt. “You’re the one who should be worried,” she said. “Your back!”

  She turned him around to see… nothing. His skin had healed.

  “What are you?”

  “A dragon,” he replied. He took her face in his hands, checking for injures. “Are you really okay? No internal injuries.”

  “I’m pretty sure I broke some ribs.”

  “Good thing you’re tough.”

  She laughed and then inhaled deeply as the pain set in. She was the proud owner of a couple broken ribs. No doubt about it.

  He extended a hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet gently. Together, they walked to the cave entrance. She reached down and snatched her whip.

  “That’s mine, thank you,” she told Night Star’s body. Then, she faced Storm. “You told me Night Star was dead.”

  “My men told me he was.”

  “They didn’t make sure?”

  “I’ll find who was responsible and punish them severely. I’m just happy we’re alive.”

  Lilith looked back at Night Star’s body. “Think anyone heard the explosions?’

  “I will be indescribably furious if nobody comes after that. My men will definitely be able to pinpoint our location now.”

  “That’s a good point, actually.”

  Lilith kept eying the stalactites. Most of them had come down with the smiley face balls of death. The few that had stayed were dangerously close to breaking free and plummeting. It would be tragic if Storm and Lilith survived everything that they had only to get mauled by nature.

  “Hey!” called someone. “Sir! Sir, are you down there?”

  Lilith wasn’t sure how she felt about getting rescued. She was ready to get away from Night Star. She wasn’t quite ready to leave Storm yet.

  I’ll give him a shot, she decided.

  10

  Lilith anticipated seeing the famed residence of the Keeper of the Wind. No Slayer had ever found it, but if the legends were true, it was magnificent.