by Sierra Dean
I vowed to never leave my house unarmed ever again. Leave your gun at home for one day and look what happens.
“You’re making a mistake, Marcus.” Lucas took a step towards the bar, his voice calm and hands up, palms outward, showing he meant no harm. “If you declare yourself as a traitor, you’ll be banished from the pack. You’ll have no one you can turn to. You don’t want that.”
“Don’t tell me what I want. I know what I want. You dead and me as a leader in your place.”
“You know the laws of succession. Desmond is next in line for the throne.”
Desmond and I shared a look. My gaze flicked to the bar, where I could see a clear path between myself and Marcus. Desmond grabbed my arm and pulled me close to his side, shaking his head so his meaning was clear. Don’t try anything.
From the bar, Marcus spoke again. “You lead like a friendly politician, Rain. You kiss all the babies and shake all the right paws. The pack doesn’t need diplomacy, it needs leadership.”
“Marcus, my family has led for generations. We might not be perfect, but we always do what’s best for the pack. If you’re unhappy, we can discuss it, but not like this.” Lucas had stopped advancing. The tension in the room was so thick it was hard to breathe. No one but the two men dared to speak as everyone waited to see what would happen.
Sophia, in spite of what she’d learned about her father’s betrayal, had gone to stand near him and away from the crowd protecting Lucas.
“It’s time for a change. I am not alone.” And all it took was a glance through the club to realize this was true. Marcus had at least a dozen men in the crowd, not counting his private guards or the men at the door. This was a coup.
“Marcus, don’t be a fool. Think about your family.” Like an expert police negotiator, Lucas was trying his hardest to defuse the situation without it coming to violence. His voice never rose above a soothing cadence, and his hands were still up.
I didn’t for one second believe it would work. My mind was racing, trying to match this Marcus with the distraught father I’d met in Albany two years earlier. Had all of it been a lie? A ruse to eliminate an undesirable mate from Sophia’s life? None of it was making any sense to me.
Marcus knelt on the bar and stroked Sophia’s hair. She looked up at him with trust shining from her face. Maybe she believed he really had been thinking of her best interests when he had Billy Reilly killed. It can be so easy to lie to yourself when it means you don’t have to accept a hard truth.
“My family.” Marcus touched Sophia’s cheek and smiled at her the way a doting father should look at his only child. I saw his hand move, but an instant too late, and was screaming “No!” as he snapped her neck and dropped her body to the floor like a sack of garbage.
Desmond was still holding me. I tried to break free, but he held me firm and whispered in my ear, “Not yet.”
“And her!” Marcus pointed to me. “You would have our queen be a killer for hire? A woman willing to murder her own kind for wealth?”
I’d had just about enough of this crap for one night. Marcus had lost his mind if he was willing to kill a beloved daughter to make a point. He’d successfully proven he had nothing to lose, but it wasn’t worth Sophia Sullivan’s life. I could no longer hold my tongue. Desmond might be able to keep me from attacking, but he couldn’t stop me from speaking up.
“That’s a lie! You hired me under false pretenses to kill an innocent boy. Why should anyone trust a word you say?” I pointed to the heap on the floor that had, until very recently, been a source of irritation to me. “If your own daughter’s life means so little to you, do the lives of your pack mean anything more?”
A few of the dissenting wolves turned to look at Marcus, whose jaw was clenched. I had expected a little more of the B-movie-villain banter he was proving to be so good at, but all I got was quiet rage. Tendons bulged on his neck, and his face reddened. He didn’t say anything else to me and looked back to Lucas instead.
“They’ll need to follow someone when you’re dead.”
He leaped off the bar into the crowd, and all hell broke loose on the dance floor. Weres, wolves or otherwise, are not the type to succumb to hysterics and make a madcap race for the exits. Nor are they the type to back down from a fight. Instead, men and women, friends and enemies, canine, feline or other, joined in the melee. This was no regular bar brawl, either. Everyone here meant business, making it a real fight to the death. I hadn’t thought a royal uprising among wolves could be solved with polite discussion and treaty signing, but I also hadn’t expected this level of violence to arise so quickly. The sickening sound of ripping flesh echoed through the room as limbs were torn from bodies. Once the smell of blood was in the air the madness really began.
People moved backwards from Lucas and Marcus in a wave, tumbling over one another and launching into attacks wherever they fell. When the floor had cleared around them, the two men stood facing each other. Lucas was rigid, his expression so pained I knew he still hoped for this to end without him fighting.
Desmond snarled as he yanked a man to the ground mid-attack, sending the inert body sliding over the slick marble floor. I doubted nonviolent confrontation was in the cards anymore.
“Marcus.” Lucas’s voice sounded tired, but there was an angry undertone that gave me a chill. “I’ve known you my whole life. My father trusted you. Please don’t do this.”
Dominick looked ready to jump in at any moment, but Desmond hadn’t budged from my side. The power radiating off him made my skin tingle. We all watched Marcus to see what he would do.
The alpha of Albany swung his fist, connecting with the wolf king’s cheek. The meaty smacking sound of flesh meeting knuckle was amplified above the rest of the melee. I’d never heard a punch sound so loud.
I moved, but Desmond was quick, pulling me back to him and crushing me against his chest.
“No,” he growled. The word reverberated through my whole body.
Lucas hadn’t budged. His face showed no change from the hit. Marcus flexed his hand and lunged again, but this time Lucas responded in kind, leaping into the attack. Their two bodies met midair with a crash of bone and skin. They snapped at each other like wild animals.
A seething mass of warm bodies crushed together like a sea of skin washing towards us. I held tightly to Desmond, trying to ignore the scent of blood the best I could. My fangs were extended, but I couldn’t help that. I was a predator, and in times of elevated emotion, especially in the presence of blood, I could not force false humanity over my basic urges. I wanted to keep those urges in check, but when one of Marcus’s guards came within arm’s reach, I decided in the current situation it might be best to put my natural abilities to good use. Desmond was sucked backwards by the crowd, and I took the opportunity to make my attack. Throwing myself at the guard who was at least twice my size, I sank my teeth into his throat before he knew I had landed on him.
Going for the jugular was a concept both of my monsters understood and an urge I never allowed myself to indulge in outside of a fight. Thanks to the fact I did not feed on humans, and most of the monsters I hunted were vampires and therefore not a feeding option, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had my teeth gums-deep in a living neck. But this was a fight and people I cared about were at risk. I didn’t think about the repercussions of giving into my own bloodlust. I had to use whatever skills I had in my power to help Lucas win this fight.
My fingers dug into his cheek with such ferocity that suddenly there was no resistance except for the wall of his teeth, and I knew my nails had burrowed right through the skin. It was my last coherent thought.
I broke the flesh on his neck as easily as biting into a ripe apple. Sucking the waiting artery into my mouth, I ripped it open. I might not eat this way normally, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know how. Every predator knows the way to kill. Death is a part of who we are. By repressing this side of me I had long been denying a core part of what I was. With an open artery i
n my mouth, it was impossible to deny that something in me loved this. The guard’s blood poured down my throat, and he stopped trying to fight me off.
I drank and drank, the empty well of hunger inside me filling up and running over. I felt full, satisfied and strong. I felt incredible, indestructible. Everything in the room sounded and smelled clearer. I could hear the individual curses and threats of everyone else fighting. I heard Genevieve, her lilting contralto voice never rising with alarm when she warded off an assault. The guard and I landed on the floor once he’d lost the ability to stand. I hadn’t noticed falling.
Someone ripped me off the dead werewolf, and I kicked the fallen body hard. I flailed and tried to pull free of the hands on me. Firm fingers pressed hard against my throat, and panic set in as I realized for certain this was not someone who intended to help me. I thrashed wildly, throwing my elbows backwards and kicking my feet in hopes of connecting with my attacker’s groin, assuming he must be a male.
The fingers on my captor’s hand began to shift and alter themselves until they were at the grisly halfway point between wolf and human. I’d heard some wolves had the ability to selectively shift with no full moon, but I’d never seen it in action. I would have taken more time to be impressed, but the claws dug into the skin of my neck.
I could taste blood in my mouth again and was hyperaware that it was my own. As I gasped for air, my throat made an open sucking noise that wasn’t a sign of anything good. I couldn’t fight back, not from this position and not with a hole ripped in my neck. I went limp and let my breathing stop. My head sagged to the side like a rag doll. I was hoping the idiot would think he’d nicked something vital and would move on. The ploy was rewarded when he dropped my would-be corpse to the floor.
All the noise around me was silenced by the serene white noise of healing. I was in a self-induced oblivion where nothing mattered but getting better.
My cheek rested in a puddle of sticky, coagulated blood so thick, when a huff of breath escaped my lips it made no impression on the rusty red pool. From where I lay, I could see the carnage of the battle littered across the floor. Discarded high heels and shredded clothing were scattered amid the lost flesh and fallen bodies. The once-black marble was now a dimly lit skating rink of gore. I was nose to nose with the man I’d killed moments earlier. I regretted not getting a look at whoever had attacked me so I could make them pay.
I felt the sharp, painful process of my skin knitting itself back together to make my neck whole. Strong hands landed on me and I almost lashed out to attack, until I registered that the blood in my mouth—my blood—tasted like limes.
The hollow silence slipped away, and now the din was overwhelming. Screaming and crashes, the sounds of battle. Desmond took me away from the body on the ground, and I heard Lucas yell, “Get her out of here!” before he was swallowed up by the crowd.
Dominick—small, blond and unassuming—snagged a man twice his size off Lucas and threw him across the room.
There was blood everywhere and on everyone, so I knew seeing the whole front of me soaked in it wouldn’t alarm anyone. With all the blood and body parts flying, I no longer knew who was on our side or who was winning the battle.
Shoving me roughly from behind, Desmond ushered me towards a now-unguarded door.
“We can’t leave him.” I tried to turn us around.
“We have to leave him. He can’t fight his best and worry about your safety at the same time. Although if he saw what you’d done to that guard I don’t think he’d be worried for very long.” We had arrived on the main floor. With everyone upstairs, the restaurant was now empty.
“But—”
“Secret!” He spun me around and looked me in the eyes. I was thankful my feeding had sated the vampire hunger enough for my fangs to retract. “In spite of what Marcus thinks, Lucas is a strong and ruthless fighter. This is a skirmish, not a war. There is no doubt Lucas will win. But if something were to happen to you so soon after we found you… I can’t let that happen.”
I let him push me outside with no further argument. It was starting to rain, but there was no way for us to get to the car, which was parked below the Chameleon. Even if we could find it, we didn’t have the keys. They were still with Dominick upstairs.
The night air held no evidence of the death and destruction happening only one story up. There were no screams and no sounds of crashing glass or snarling, gnashing teeth, only the steady, slick sound of cold spring rain. It made me more nervous than if we could hear what was really going on.
“I know a safe place.” I began to run, and he followed right behind me, never missing a beat.
The events of tonight made me wonder if there were any genuinely safe places left in the world.
Chapter Twenty
If I’d been able to, I would have taken him to Calliope’s. Unfortunately, I was the only exception to the steadfast no lycanthropes rule she had. Time didn’t pass in her reality the same way it did in ours, so shape-shifters were not governed by the cycles of the moon there. In Calliope’s reality any strong emotion could motivate a shift. Since shape-shifters were not used to uncontrolled shifts and the damage they could cause when in a state of panic was extraordinary, Calliope didn’t allow them to enter.
My apartment had no such restrictions. Even vampires didn’t need my invitation to enter because that particular rule only applied to human homes.
I was safe at home, though, because of the council, Keaty and the myriad of protection spells placed on my apartment by both my grandmere and Calliope. While Grandmere’s magic was good, having the protection of a half-god had a certain cachet to it.
I unlocked the exterior door with trembling hands and led us into the foyer that connected my apartment to the street entrance, knowing safety was awaiting us only a few feet away.
Once inside, I locked and dead-bolted the door. It wasn’t just Marcus’s rogue wolves I was worried about. Peyton was still out there planning something nasty. I couldn’t let my guard down to put all my focus on the wolf problem, because if I did that, it would be the moment he’d come for me.
I looked around my small apartment, seeing it as Desmond might. The door opened into the living room. There was a closet on the left-hand side of the doorway that was overwhelmed by my shoe collection, and a table to the right for keys and mail. In the living room there wasn’t space for a full couch, so instead I had a matching loveseat and armchair, both upholstered in a sun-yellow floral print.
No one really got my thing with yellow. The color adorned the fabric of my furniture and the paint on the kitchen walls. I had a framed photo of sunflowers hanging on the wall over the loveseat so the first thing I saw each evening when I rose was their cheery golden faces. At least half of the clothing I owned had a lemon or buttery hue. I was subconsciously drawn to the shade. When you’ve never been allowed to see the sun, you have weird attachments to it. Vampires had their lives before death, their time before, but I hadn’t been so lucky.
On the wall opposite the loveseat was the fireplace. To the right of the fireplace was my television, and above it my sword collection. I had a medieval broadsword from the tenth century, an era when swords were made shorter and more usable instead of taller than a person and impossible to swing. It had been my twenty-first birthday gift from Keaty. Some girls went barhopping, I got weapons.
Below the broadsword was a sheathed Japanese katana. In an actual fight, it was by far the superior choice. I’d bought it in a tourist shop in Koreatown from a smelly fae ogre who was a little too happy to see it leave. The folded-steel blade was also the sword I’d used in the now-infamous subway incident no one would let me forget.
To the left of the living room was the kitchen, which was currently dark, and down a small hallway was my bedroom. To the right past the hall closet was my miniscule bathroom, which had been done in gaudy pink fixtures. Given the size of the apartment, a tour was pretty unnecessary. A slow turn would do it.
“I really need
to shower,” I admitted, taking a moment to recognize my clothing wasn’t the worst part of me. My cheeks and mouth were smeared with blood, and judging by how heavy my hair felt, it had begun to mat the curls together, which must have looked quite dramatic. My nails had bits of werewolf cheek embedded under them. Gross. I disappeared into my bedroom to fetch my robe, then returned to the living room, where Desmond remained motionless. “Make yourself at home. If you need to change, there are some sweats and T-shirts in the bottom drawer of my dresser that might fit you.” I pointed down the dark hallway. “Help yourself.”
Stumbling into the bathroom, I didn’t bother to close the door. I shucked off my soiled clothing and turned the water on as hot as I could, then climbed into the shower.
I stood under the scalding torrent until the water was no longer pink with blood. It felt like hours and a few layers of flesh later that I finally set foot on dry land again.
I couldn’t be bothered to dry my hair other than to towel off as much water as I could. My curls had always been fat and loose, not tight and frizzy, so I wasn’t worried about them getting too out of control.
Slipping on the lilac silk robe, I wondered why I had ever bought such a stupid thing. It clung to me everywhere water was still on my body.
After exiting the bathroom, a cool wall of air greeted me in the living room, but there was no sign of Desmond. My loveseat was vacant and the television remained off. I didn’t see him in the kitchen, either. I crossed the short distance to my bedroom and stood in the doorway.
He sat on the end of my bed, shirtless, wearing a pair of old, baggy black sweats that had been left by the only man I’d dated long enough for him to leave things behind. Several fresh cuts marred Desmond’s chest, all of which were in the process of healing into pink scars. They would be gone by morning. His head was in his hands, and when he looked up I could see the weariness and frustration in his eyes. I assumed he was worried about Lucas until he spoke.
