Walk on the Striped Side

by Jessie Lane

  She did another visual sweep in the opposite direction. They’d now been in the house a minute tops. Surely something would happen soon.

  Her scan of the area brought Gage into view where he stood on the other side of the stairs. He was also scanning the area, but she figured he was doing a much better job with his superior senses acting as an earlier warning system compared to her inferior sight and hearing capabilities. She glanced down to his hands resting at his sides, and she couldn’t be sure because of the dim lighting, however she thought the tips of his fingers looked quite a bit longer and pointer than normal. Were those his claws?

  He turned his head to glance at her, and Elena inhaled sharply when she caught sight of his eyes glowing a little in the dark, kind of how a dog or a cat’s eyes glowed at night. The effect was both beautiful on the fierce man and just a wee bit creepy.

  Knowing she couldn’t let herself get distracted by the titillating sight of Gage, she returned her visual sweep in the other direction. Bringing her back around to the basement door which was still closed with no light shining from underneath it. Maybe the Corvus Pack had made sudden vacation plans and bugged out? Because this house was too quiet and surely someone would have sensed or stumbled upon them by that point.

  Elena figured they’d been in the house for a minute and a half now, yet it had felt like an eternity waiting for something to happen. Hopefully in just a couple of minutes, her comrades were going to come back down those stairs plus one more person and they could bug out of here.

  She was just about to return her visual sweep back to Gage’s direction when a small movement caught her eye. She kept her eyes glued to that area, trying to figure out what it was that had inadvertently caught her attention, when she heard a low, menacing growl from behind her.

  Gage.

  He sensed whatever it was, too, and that’s when she saw it. The basement door handle was turning oh so slowly, as if the person opening it was trying to open the door without getting their attention. Elena’s eyes were locked on the doorknob while she watched the handle stop turning, then start once more. She flipped her ignition valve on the top of her gun nozzle, placed both of her fingers on the flamethrower’s triggers and then physically braced herself for whoever it was that was about to come out of that door.

  Gage was still growling lowly behind her. All of the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck were standing on end, and sweat was beading on her forehead. She felt the tingles of anticipation throughout her body as if she were being electrified as the doorknob finally stopped turning. Her breaths were coming in small, fast pants as she pulled the ignition trigger, causing a small flame to appear at the end of her gun nozzle. The door eased open bit by bit and her finger on the fuel trigger actually twitched, almost causing her to let out her first load of devastating flame, but she stopped herself before it happened.

  Which was a good thing because the a pale, little hand the size of a small child’s eased out of the open crack of the door to grip the door frame. Elena was stunned speechless.

  Good God, she’d almost pulled the trigger and killed a fucking child.

  CHAPTER-TWENTY-ONE

  Gage

  He heard Elena gasp when the small hand appeared from behind the door. Though he wanted to go over and stand at her back against any perceivable threat that might come, Gage had to stand his ground until they figured out what was going on. If the enforcers figured out they were there, they might have sent the child out as a distraction while they attacked from another direction. So he stood on his side of the ridiculously over-sized staircase with half of his attention on the door to the basement and the other half facing the opposite direction.

  The door eased open incrementally until a little head peered out from behind it, and what he saw made him want to roar in rage. A little boy with big, brown eyes rounded in fear and a massive bruise covering his right cheek stared at Elena. Who would hit a child in such a manner? Gage felt his blood boil at the thought of how hard the little boy would have had to have been hit to receive a mark that big and colored such a deep purple. He saw the little boy’s bottom lip tremble and a tear drop down from his left eye as he looked from Elena to Gage.

  Was he afraid of them? Or was he afraid of the person who had hurt him? Would the child’s protective wolf parent be right behind it? That thought didn’t ring true to Gage because, if the child had a protective parent, the boy would have yelled for them already to come and protect him from two people who were obviously intruders. Or was the child’s abuser standing behind the boy, ready to use him as a deterrent to Elena using the flamethrower against them?

  Gage’s mind was racing a hundred miles an hour at all of the possible scenarios. When the boy unfroze from his surprised position, he soundlessly slipped out from behind the door and took a step away from it. Elena took a matching step backwards from the boy, and he could tell it was because she was unsure of what might happen with an innocent civilian put in front of her.

  The boy glanced back at the door and then took another hesitant step in Elena’s direction. This time his wary mate didn’t take a step back, though. She stood her ground, waiting to see what would happen.

  Although he was halfway across the expansive room, Gage heard the little boy suck in a small breath before he whispered, “Will you help me?”

  He could almost feel his mate’s hesitation across the room at the small child’s plea, and he didn’t like it one bit. This could be a trap.

  Gage quickly looked about to make sure no one was trying to sneak up on them as he heard Elena whisper back hesitantly, “Help you with what?”

  Not seeing any danger around them, he’d just looked back in her direction to see the little boy, whom he was guessing was around ten-years-old, take another step in her direction. “Take me away from here? Please?”

  The terror in that boy’s voice shredded Gage’s soul. It was tortured, that voice. No one that young should sound like that.

  “Why do you want us to take you away from here? Isn’t this your home?” Elena asked him quietly.

  He whispered back, “No.”

  “You’re going to have to help me out here, kid, if you want me to help you. Have you been kidnapped? Is that why you can speak English; because you’re not from here?” Elena asked the questions quickly and quietly, seemingly aware of the possible danger of taking the time to talk to the child when she should be on alert for trouble.

  The boy shook his head. “I haven’t been kidnapped, but please take me with you!” When his voice cracked loudly on the last word, his head jerked back to look at the door to the basement, as if afraid someone had heard him.

  “If you haven’t been kidnapped, and this is your home, why would you want to come with us? Don’t you want to stay here with your mommy and daddy?”

  Gage watched as the boy shook his head again, only this time it was frantically. The child’s fear must have won out over his wariness of them as strangers because he covered the distance separating him from Elena until he stood right in front of her. Elena moved the nozzle of the flamethrower to the side so that it wasn’t directly in the kid’s face, pointing it again at the basement door.

  The boy sobbed, but it was in a manner that you could tell he was still trying to be as quiet as he possibly could. “This isn’t my home. My mom and I lived in Arizona. She brought me here a month ago to meet my dad for the first time. She said it was important because I was different.” Tears poured down his face and snot ran down his nose. He used the sleeve of his ratty, long-sleeved shirt to wipe his face. “As soon as Mom told him who I was… he… he… he killed her!”

  Gage watched as Elena dropped down into a crouch in front of the child and then reached her hand out to wipe away some of his new tears. “Who killed her, honey? Your dad?”

  The boy nodded again.

  He couldn’t see his mate’s face, however he could tell Elena was trying to soothe him by putting her hand on his shoulder and using a gentle tone of voice
. “Why did he do that? Do you know?”

  The kid stepped closer to Elena, into the space between her legs, seemingly looking for comfort. Looking over his shoulder one last time to check the basement door that he was obviously so afraid of, he then looked back to Elena. “He said she had to die because she was human. I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but then later that day, he changed right in front of me. He became a monster and all of his friends laughed at me when I screamed!”

  The boy had the bottom of his shirt all knotted up in his hands, fidgeting. “Please, lady, please, please, please take me away from here.”

  Gage watched his mate run one of her fingers gently over the bruised side of the kid’s face. “Did he do this to you, honey?”

  When the boy meekly nodded once more, Gage was filled with fury. To hear that the child’s own father had hurt him in such a way was despicable. Parents were supposed to protect their children, not torture and batter them. Besides, shifter children were so rare that it was considered a blessing to have one. Who could treat such a gift that way?

  As much as his heart broke for the child, though—and this scene bothered him beyond measure—Gage didn’t like the timing of all of this. Sure, it wasn’t the kids fault, but they had to be alert. Anything could happen at any moment, and you could never be certain when things were going to go to shit on a mission.

  Elena smoothed the boy’s dark hair back from his forehead. “Can you tell me if there are any other children in the basement? Any women?”

  “Only my dad and the men he works with are down there. I didn’t see anyone else in the basement when I snuck up here for some food because they didn’t feed me dinner.” And as if on cue, the kid’s stomach rumbled loudly.

  “Okay, little man, what’s your name?”

  “Zane.”

  “Okay, Zane. I need you to go stay by the front door behind me. Squat down and try to make yourself look as small as possible. My friends and I are here to do something, but we’ll be leaving in just a couple of minutes. ‘Til we leave, I need you to do what I say and don’t move no matter what happens. Can you do that for me?”

  The boy nodded enthusiastically. “Thank you, lady!”

  Elena pushed the boy in the direction of the front door. “Go now, do what I—”

  An enraged roar ripped through the house from the second floor and Gage could feel the vibrations of it through the soles of his boots. Instinctively, he knew that was Alec.

  Instantly alert for whatever was about to happen, he saw Elena push the terrified kid towards the door again.

  “Now, Zane! Go; do what I said NOW!” she snapped.

  She gave him a quick once over, and Gage took the opportunity to say what needed to be said. “Burn those bitches like bad barbeque, babe.”

  A small flame popped up at the end of her nozzle again as she pulled the ignition trigger and then turned back to focus on the oncoming threat.

  The whole house was suddenly clamoring with noise. Gage could hear fighting upstairs and feet thudding on the basement stairs. Trouble was closing in fast from two different directions. He looked over his shoulder at the front door to check on Zane and found the kid exactly where Elena had told him to be, squatted down with his arms thrown over his head to protect himself.

  As the thunderous sound of fighting and running footsteps became louder, he looked toward the top of the staircase. Three wolves were vaulting over the bannister of the second floor, forgoing the stairs altogether, dropping down to the ground floor with their sights set on him. He heard a loud banging sound to his left where Elena was, like a door hitting the wall hard, followed shortly by the hissing blast of Elena’s flamethrower and agonizing screams, but he couldn’t look over there.

  As his three opponents landed on their feet, Gage quickly took in their state of dress, or in one of their cases, lack thereof. It was apparent that they’d been in bed because one wolf was in his boxers, a second wolf in some sleep pants and the third wolf was butt ass naked. Not that being naked was unusual for shifters, yet that didn’t mean Gage enjoyed seeing other men with their dicks swinging free.

  They launched themselves at Gage with claws and teeth bared to fight. He caught the wolf in his boxers by his throat and immediately threw him into the wolf with no clothes on. Both of them flew backwards several feet and smashed into the wall violently from the power of Gage’s throw.

  The third wolf in his sleep pants took advantage of his preoccupation with the other two and wrapped his beefy arm around Gage’s neck, placing him in a choke hold. He was probably hoping to hold him there until his comrades picked their dazed asses up off the floor and came back to the fight, however Gage wasn’t going to wait around for that.

  Gage used his right hand to grab the man’s elbow while bending them both down and out to the side a bit, using his opponent’s leverage against him. Once they were bent over, he turned his head in the lock, grabbed the man’s wrist with his other hand, and flipped the wolf over his shoulder while also securing the arm that had been holding him in a submission lock. After Gage’s maneuver, he used his knee and braced it in the armpit of the wolf, leaving the wolf exposed for Gage to retaliate in an attack by smashing his fist into the wolf’s fat head several times, knocking him unconscious. The whole thing might have taken ten seconds to happen, which was long enough for his two friends to get back up on their feet and attack again.

  Chaos had erupted all around him, and as he watched the two wolves circle him, he hoped the rest of their group was okay upstairs since he hadn’t seen them come back down yet. There were roars of rage, shrieks of pain, and Elena’s flamethrower had just gone off for the second time.

  His two remaining opponents started striking out at him as a team. One would lean in and swipe at him with his claws, and while Gage blocked the attack, the second wolf would hit him from the other side. Gage would then turn to fight off the other attacker, and the hits would reverse so that he was getting punched, kicked or clawed on his unprotected side—much like wolves attacked while hunting with their pack. He had to kill off one of these assholes, and he needed to do it now so that he could check on Elena and the kid.

  Having figured out their tactic, he waited for the blow to come at his front. When it did, he dodged to the left instead of blocking the attack as they expected him to do. Moving in on the attacker in front of him, he grabbed the man by his outstretched arm and spun him around so that Gage had the wolf’s arms pinned behind him. He placed the man in front of him as a human shield when he felt the second wolf move behind him.

  Spinning both himself and his captured wolf around, he placed his hostage right in the path of his comrade’s claws, which had been meant for Gage’s back. As the naked German wolf’s claws sank deeply into his pack mate’s chest, Gage wasn’t sure who was more surprised at the turn of events, the man with claws in his chest right above his heart, or his friend. It didn’t matter to Gage, though, because it served as the distraction he needed to take them both out.

  He placed one hand on the injured wolf’s chin and his other on the back of his head then snapped his neck like it was a twig. When he let go of the head, the wolf’s entire body collapsed to the floor in front of him, pulling the second wolf’s hand out of his chest cavity with it.

  His pack mate stared at the dead man and then the heart clutched in his hand, in panic. When he looked back up to Gage with murder in his eyes, Gage took his claws and swiped them across the man’s vulnerable throat as easily as a knife through warm butter. Placing both hands on either side of the wolf’s head, he twisted and then pulled with all his might until Gage had ripped the man’s head clear off his body.

  He didn’t even flinch when the dead wolf’s arterial spray spurted on him before the headless body fell to the floor. Gage threw the head next to its body as he heard Elena’s flamethrower go off for a third time, so he turned around to check on his mate. What met his eyes could have come straight out of a horror movie.

  Elena stood
there with fire shooting out of her weapon at the already blackened doorway and surrounding wall to the basement. Flames were licking up the sides and spreading down and out to cover nearby paintings and some of the floor.

  When her flame shut off, there were several blackened bodies burning in the doorway. Facial features were no longer discernable except for holes where the eyes and mouth had once been. Amazingly, the teeth were still intact and white as can be, almost smiling out of their owner’s corpse at him as if they were laughing at death. A couple of the bodies had fallen to the floor, but a few of them seemed fused to the walls behind them by the extreme heat they’d endured. Arms were missing, skin was sizzling and massive boils were already rising.

  He didn’t seem to be the only one mortified at what was left behind because his mate doubled over and started to puke her guts out.

  He began to go to her, however a noise on the stairs stopped him. He looked up and found his brother standing there in his tiger form with a dead wolf hanging from his mouth. Alec tossed the body to the side and then took a flying leap at a second wolf that came barreling out of a hallway in his animal’s form. The two collided with a sick thud and went rolling out of Gage’s line of sight.

  He didn’t worry about his brother because he knew the six-foot, four hundred fifty pound tiger could handle one much smaller wolf easily. He did, however, end up vaulting up those stairs anyways because, at that moment, the rest of their group came into view ringed by wolves. Minna was struggling to carry the much larger frame of the presumed captive Alpha Corvus, while Davies, Adam and Jenna were all attempting to keep her safe from those who had surrounded them. They were outnumbered and trying to fight off wolves who were taking every chance they could to lean in and swipe or bite at any of them. Once they had one person weak enough to take out, the small, safe circle around Minna would be gone and the Corvus wolves could go in for the kill.