Wolf at the Door

by Christine Warren

  Damn. Things were going to get messy.

  Twenty-nine

  Cassidy’s skid ended just far enough from the door that it didn’t smack her in the head when it blew open with the force of an invading hurricane. That seemed like cold comfort when the heel of a woman’s shoe stabbed her hard in the ass.

  “Oh, gods, I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you? Oh, I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you. Here. Let me help you up.”

  Small, delicate hands closed around her wrists and tugged ineffectually, but it was the large masculine one hooked in the back of her jeans that ended up hauling her to her feet.

  “Forgive my wife,” a deep voice said as the scenery flew by. Cassidy was lifted up so fast, she felt as if she should be worried about the bends. “She means well, but she sometimes loses track of where her pretty little feet are going.”

  With both of her own feet planted back on the ballroom floor, Cassidy had about three seconds to recognize Tess and Rafe De Santos standing in front of her. She didn’t bother with friendly greetings, just stuck out her bound hands and snarled.

  “Untie me! They have Nana!”

  Tess already had the first knot free when an invisible force closed around Cassidy’s ankles and jerked her to the floor. She scrambled for purchase against the slick wood, but there was nothing to grab hold of. She felt twin lightning bolts of pain in her hips and saw the world tilt crazily off its axis. Across the room, Madame used that fucking doll to jerk Cassidy up by her ankles and dangle her eight feet off the floor before sending her slamming down with brutal force. She landed directly on her side as Madame had intended and cried out when she felt two of her ribs give way with a snap.

  Tess shouted her name over the ringing in her ears, and she struggled against a wave of nausea. The other woman knelt by her side and ran quick hands over her limbs, searching for injuries. Cassidy groaned and opened her eyes just enough to look into Tess’s. “Did I mention Madame has a voodoo doll with my hair on its head?”

  “No, you forgot to mention that little fact,” Rafael growled, rolling his shoulders as if to ease away a knot of tension. “But it won’t be an issue for long.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, Cassidy watched as a man shifted and disappeared, changing into something else right before her eyes. Unlike Quinn, though, Rafael left behind not a werewolf but a sleek, deadly jaguar with fangs like razor blades. He also had a very irritated look in his eyes as he sprang with lethal grace across the floor toward the dais.

  Powerful as Madame Touleine might be, her human reflexes were no match for those of a shifter, let alone a Felix. She yanked the black-headed needle from the Cassidy-doll’s leg and raised it high above the center of its chest, but her hand never got the chance to fall. She was too busy screaming and tumbling to the floor beneath the weight of a snarling seven-hundred-pound feline with a temper.

  “Don’t hurt the doll!” Tess screamed. “You have to get it away from her!”

  Cassidy thrust her hands back at Tess and shook them. “Untie me! Hurry up! I don’t see Ngala. Where did Ngala go?”

  She felt Tess attacking the knots again and turned back to scan the chaos in the room for signs of the animus. She didn’t like the idea of him being out of her sight, but all she could see were piles of struggling fur and flesh as Quinn and Rafael kicked some insane Other ass.

  A hideous screech from the other side of the room whipped her head in that direction. The demon had risen from his seat on the stage and was currently hovering just below the ceiling, his huge, batlike wings creating a foul wind as he kept himself aloft. On top of that, he looked kind of cranky. Cassidy saw his head turn and his eyes focus on Quinn, and panic flooded her. She remembered how helpless they’d both been against him before, and all she could think about was getting to Quinn’s side and doing whatever she could to protect him. Forgetting all about Tess, she took one lunging step forward . . .

  . . . and landed back on the floor, flat on her face once again. Only this time, Tess’s knee was digging into her spine.

  “That time I did it on purpose,” the witch grumbled, “and I don’t intend to apologize. Stop being an idiot. That’s a demon, in case you hadn’t noticed. You guys have about as much chance of kicking its ass as I do of keeping a pint of cream in my refrigerator for more than an hour before Mr. Puss-in-Boots over there drains the damned thing. Let me handle the demon.”

  Cassidy might have wondered how a hundred-and-some-pound human planned to deal with a seven-foot-tall demon, but she didn’t have time to worry about it. Before she could even blink, Tess De Santos climbed up on a chair she’d dragged into the middle of the room and shouted, “Hey! Tall, dark, and accursed! Over here! C’mon and show me what you got!”

  Shaking her head at the idiocy of humans, Cassidy hunkered down against the floor as the rush of wind from Amon’s beating wings threatened to send her sailing. She wanted to see what exactly Tess intended to do with a huge, angry demon who outweighed her by a metric ton and made Charles Manson look like a good-tempered fellow, but she had other things to think about. Like Thabo Ngala and the fact that she didn’t trust him farther than she could throw him. Then one quick look across the room drove every single solitary thought from her mind except one.

  NANA!

  Ngala had reappeared from behind the dais accompanied by the golem. The mindless creature scooped Adele up in his burly arms and turned to follow orders.

  Screaming in wordless rage, Cassidy scrambled to her feet and threw herself forward into a shift. Her broken ribs protested as her flesh reshaped itself around them. She felt the searing pain of her body clicking into overdrive, knitting the bones together at an unnatural pace, but she didn’t care. She ignored the pain and dove for her grandmother’s side.

  Her paws searched for traction on the slippery floor and found just enough to keep her in motion. Her strides ate up the distance between herself and her target, but she knew it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t large enough or fast enough to reach them in time. She howled in pain and rage and threw on a final, frantic burst of speed.

  “Be still!” Ngala roared, raising his medicine wand high and pointing it directly at Adele. “Do not take another step, Miss Poe. And tell your pets to back away from my associates. Do it now.”

  Cassidy skidded to a halt, her nails carving deep grooves into the wooden floor. Her eyes widened and fixed on the threat poised above her grandmother’s head, and she shifted back to her human form on a curse.

  “Quinn! Rafael! Tess!” She shouted to be heard over the din. “Back off! Please.”

  Her voice broke as the room quieted, snarls and roars and howls falling silent. “Please. He has my Nana.”

  Quinn felt his heart breaking at the pain in his mate’s voice. He withdrew his teeth from the vampire’s throat and looked up, snarling under his breath at the raw agony on her face. She looked vulnerable and shaken and he never, ever wanted to see that look on her face again. Not as long as they lived.

  Cautiously and reluctantly, he stepped back from the vampire’s limp body and crouched there, licking his chops, his gaze fixed on the animus and the frail old woman in the golem’s arms.

  It was funny, he thought, that a woman who looked as strong and indomitable as Adele Berry did when she was conscious, could be reduced to something so small and fragile simply by removing the force of her personality. It shook him. What would his Cassie look like, he wondered, if she were unconscious and helpless in the clutches of a villain?

  Covered in blood, he reassured himself. Because anyone who laid a hand on his mate, be he man or beast, would lose that hand along with his life the minute Quinn got a hold of him.

  “All right,” Cassidy said, watching the animus and the golem warily. Her body looked tense and her hands were half-raised, palms down, in a calming gesture. “They’ve backed off, see? They’re not hurting anyone.”

  The animus looked around the room and frowned. “Where’s the demon?”

  Eyes wide, Cassidy
turned her head, and Quinn followed her gaze. He saw Tess sitting cross-legged on her chair in the middle of the ballroom floor, her hands folded in her lap, her big, blue eyes wide and innocent. The floor and walls around her were charred, and she had a smudge of soot across one cheek.

  “Sorry,” the witch said, shrugging. “You were too late for the demon. Next time, give a girl a little warning, will you?”

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  Ngala’s mouth twisted in a snarl. “It is of little matter. Why should I need the aid of a demon?”

  Cassidy turned back to him and nodded. “You don’t need the demon. And we won’t touch Madame or Mr. Leonard again. I swear. Now tell the golem to put my grandmother down.”

  Ngala laughed, a low, harsh, evil sound that had Quinn’s hackles rising. “Why would I do something like that, you foolish little girl? Do you think I wouldn’t realize that Adele Berry is the key to bringing all our plans to fruition? After I worked so hard to prepare the humans and whip them into the frenzy that would force them to take actions the Council could no longer ignore? Her death will be the impetus the Russian woman’s should have been. It will be the final straw that forces the Council to take action against the Light of Truth.”

  Quinn felt a sickening wave of hatred for this man. He had been the “Damned Soul,” and he was the one responsible for the pain of so many in the community. Quinn’s rage astounded him, but he knew it would be nothing to what he would feel if the animus succeeded in causing Cassidy the pain of her grandmother’s loss.

  “The circumstances will, of course, be tragic,” Ngala continued, his voice turning falsely regretful, a parody of grief. “As the only survivors, Leonard and Madame Touleine and I will explain how we discovered the Light of Truth finally gone out of control. First they took Ysabel Mirenow, tortured and killed her. That was bad enough, but now we discover they have come to America and settled in our very midst! They arranged an automobile accident that killed the daughter of the governor of New York, and then they kidnapped the most respected member of the Council of Others and used her to lure the head of the Council, his wife, the head of the European delegation, and the poor old woman’s own granddaughter to their deaths. Of course, we tried to stop them, but there was nothing we could do.”

  His stomach rolling with nausea, Quinn marveled at the African magician’s level of insanity.

  “Clearly, though, this means the Light of Truth must be destroyed,” Ngala said, and his eyes blazed with malevolent glee. “You can see how dangerous they are. They are madmen! They will stop at nothing to destroy us. The only way to protect ourselves is to destroy them first. The Council will see. It is the only way.”

  With a ululating shout, the animus drew back his arm and prepared to deliver his wand’s death blow to the unconscious old woman before him.

  As one, Quinn and Cassidy launched themselves forward, intent only on preventing the blow from falling, but they were too late. With a sudden jerk and twist, Adele Berry shifted forms and threw herself out of the golem’s arms, darting through the legs of the unsuspecting animus.

  Ngala whipped around, roaring in fury. He tried to track Adele’s movements, but surprise threw him off balance. He discharged the wand into a multipaned window, shattering it with seismic force and sending shards of glass and wood spraying out in all directions like shrapnel from a grenade.

  Quinn ignored all of it. With a glad howl he slammed into Ngala and sent the man sprawling. He opened his mouth and prepared to clamp down hard around the bastard’s throat when he felt slim, angry fingers tangle in the fur at the scruff of his neck and haul backward with great force. It wasn’t enough to move him, but it was enough to get his attention. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Cassidy staring past him at Thabo Ngala, a murderous look on her face.

  “No you don’t, White Fang,” she snarled. “This one is mine. Go disassemble the golem.”

  Thirty

  The feelings of rage and hatred, fury and loathing, crashed through Cassidy like a tsunami, threatening to overwhelm her. They certainly terrified her. She’d never felt this way before, not about anything or anyone. Not even toward the vampires who had murdered her parents. Of course, she’d only been six at the time, and if a six-year-old could have felt what Cassidy had felt, there would have been one more child killer in the world.

  She waited while Quinn stepped back off her prey. Ngala lay on the floor, staring up at her with an expression of mad defiance, but his eyes also held terror. She looked into those dark brown eyes and wondered if she should be feeling something like sympathy for him. She couldn’t do it. This man had nearly killed her nana. And on top of that, he had planned to kill her and her mate, as well. He didn’t deserve her mercy.

  Lips curving into a snarl, Cassidy leaned slowly down over the prone form of the animus until her face hovered only inches from him. She inhaled deeply and could smell his fear.

  “Cassidy.”

  At first, she didn’t hear the soft voice behind her. Her fingers curled into fists and flexed, as if she imagined curling them around Ngala’s throat. The voice spoke again, more insistently this time.

  “Cassie.”

  Startled, Cassie jerked upright and turned her head. Behind her, Adele stood, as proudly straight as ever, silk back on and barely mussed, without even the pretense of a cane to support her. She looked unharmed, but somehow older than before.

  “Let him be, Cassidy. If you kill him now, he will win, in his own way. The Council will deal with him perfectly well.”

  The older woman turned and gave Rafael a regal nod. The Felix stepped forward from where he’d been standing near Madame Touleine’s unmoving form and quickly bound Ngala in a length of shed demon rope. Then he stuffed a wadded-up handkerchief in the man’s mouth for good measure to muffle his curses.

  Making a soft noise of mingled worry and relief, Cassidy forgot all about the animus, the Felix, and the rest of the world and threw herself into her grandmother’s arms.

  “Nana! God, Nana, are you okay? Did he hurt you? Do you need a doctor? We should get you to a hospital. We’ve already been to the hospital. It looked nice. They’ll take care of you there—”

  Adele laughed softly and stroked a slender hand over her granddaughter’s hair. “Hush, kit. I’m fine. Just fine. Don’t you worry about me. I don’t need any doctors.”

  Cassidy shook, a great shudder that trembled through her from head to toe, and took a deep breath. “I thought I was going to lose you, Nana. I thought you were going to die and leave me alone again.”

  “Never,” Adele said with a smile. “Even if I did leave you, Cassidy, my darling, I have a feeling you won’t ever be alone.”

  The older woman turned to Quinn with an arch look and beckoned to him. He jerked as if surprised, then started forward. He took two steps before he seemed to realize he still had a dismembered golem hand clutched in his fist. He dropped it as if it were on fire and closed the rest of the distance, shifting back to his human shape.

  With one arm still around Cassidy’s shoulder, Adele looked at the Lupine before her and gave a small smile. “Well, I can’t say you’re anything like the man I had envisioned for my Cassidy.”

  “No, ma’am. I imagine I’m not.”

  “You’re also naked.”

  Quinn blinked and looked down at his own bare skin. His clothes had been left behind when he’d shifted. Bloody hell. “Yes, ma’am. I am.”

  “And can you give me one good reason why I should give you my approval?”

  Cassidy started and shot her grandmother a wide-eyed glance, her voice ringing with shock and amusement. Now that she could begin to see the danger was over, all her other emotions felt heightened. “Nana!”

  “I can think of several,” Quinn said, both of them ignoring her. “But the first that comes to mind is that if you don’t, I might come to regret saving you from that madman over there.”

  Adele sniffed indignantly and raised her chin several notches
. “I’ll have you know, young man, that I saved myself.”

  “Actually, I’m going to say it was a team effort,” Tess called from her chair in the center of the room. “We all did a pretty good amount of saving. Not to mention ass-kicking.” She grinned at her husband. “The ass-kicking was my favorite part.”

  Cassidy took another look at Tess, peering past the heap of golden curls and the sweet, ingenuous features to the power below. She had forgotten that the Felix had married a witch. Still, she didn’t look like the kind to go mano a mano with a demon and come out smiling. “You handled the demon?”

  With an expression that said she’d had her fill of doubting Thomases, Tess rolled her eyes and pointed to a spot in the middle of the ballroom floor. “Who else here could have done that?”

  “That” turned out to be a circle drawn on the wood with fine black line. Parts of the outer edges seemed to glisten as if they were wet, and at the center lay a small copper disc.

  Cassidy’s eyes widened. “You bound the demon? But that takes salt and a circle and some kind of object to bind him to. I didn’t see you carrying anything but your purse! How on earth did you manage to bind a demon with no supplies?”

  Tess grinned smugly and held up her tiny handbag. “Eyeliner pencil, saline solution, and a Canadian penny. A good witch never leaves home unprepared.”

  “Just your routine day at the office for us brave cavalry soldiers,” Rafe laughed. He walked over to where his wife sat, usurped her place, and settled her petite form in his lap. “You can thank us for our timely arrival later, by the way. When Quinn didn’t call to check in after you reached the hospital, we became concerned. I don’t like losing contact with my people.”

  Cassidy took in the rips and stains on Rafe’s usually immaculate clothing and the quickly healing scratches on his face and hands and raised an eyebrow. “Clearly.”