Dangerously Fierce

by Deborah Blake

  Alexei quirked an eyebrow and gave Bethany a look she couldn’t quite decipher, but which she figured boded nothing good for her peace of mind. “Can I keep this other one?” Alexei asked Robbie. It too bore the mark of an unusually large sucker. It was also starting to give off a distinct odor of not-quite-fresh fish.

  Bethany scowled at Alexei. “You are not carrying that thing in my truck.”

  “Got to,” he said. “I have to see a man about a bet.”

  Oh, hell. This was not going to end well.

  * * *

  When his shift with Calum was over for the day, Alexei took the cod out of the fridge where he’d stuck it at Bethany’s insistence (wrapped in two layers of plastic bags) and drove his motorcycle over to The Hook and Anchor. Luckily, the man he was looking for was already there, sitting at a table with a couple of his cronies.

  “Ha!” Alexei said, slamming the fish down between their beers. “Take a look at that.”

  Bethany looked up with alarm as Duke shoved his chair back, out of reach of the beer that slopped over the edge of his mug.

  “What the devil is wrong with you?” Duke bellowed. “You owe me another beer.”

  “Ha,” Alexei said again, at a slightly lower volume. “You owe me a hundred bucks. You wanted proof of monsters, there you go.”

  Duke rolled his eyes. “I don’t see how that cod is proof of anything other than the well known fact that dead fish smell. Jeez. Get that thing off my table, will ya?”

  “Sure,” Alexei said with a grin. “As soon as you give me my hundred dollars. Look at that sucker mark and tell me that didn’t come from a kraken.”

  “A kraken?” Duke guffawed, and his two friends joined in. “There’s no such thing as a kraken, you jackass. Maybe Robbie ran into a giant squid - they’re rare, but they do exist - but krakens are no more real that mermaids and fairies.”

  “Some of my favorite people are mermaids and fairies,” Alexei said in a low rumble that would have signaled trouble to anyone who knew him better. “And even an idiot like you should be able to tell the difference between the sucker mark from a giant squid and one from a kraken that could eat it for dinner and still have room left over for a whale or two. A bet’s a bet.”

  “Who are you calling an idiot?” Duke said in a threatening voice. He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over, and his friends rose to join him. “Because as far as I can see, the only idiot in this room is the one that thinks I’m stupid enough to pay him a hundred bucks for a dead fish.” He knelt down to pick the chair up, then swung it at Alexei’s head with all his might.

  All right then! Finally, a decent fight. True, it was only three against one, so it wouldn’t last long, but at least for a minute, Alexei felt like himself again, instead of lost and untethered the way he had for months. “Son of a goat!” he yelled in Russian, turning over the table as he ducked away from the chair as it whistled through the air right over his head. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Another chair connected with his shoulder, but he barely felt it as he picked up the man wielding it and tossed him across the room. More men joined into the fight as their drinks got knocked over, or more probably, just for the fun of it. Alexei roared, his blood pounding in his head and his muscles bunching as he held a sailor over his head with one hand.

  A piercing whistle rang out and everything stopped as all heads swiveled toward the bar. Bethany stood on top of it like a red-haired avenging angel, a baseball bat gripped in both small hands.

  “Put him down, Alexei,” she said through clenched teeth. “And the rest of you, you know the rules here - no fighting, and no breaking the furniture. What would Calum think of you lot, destroying the bar he worked so hard to build? Shame on you.”

  All around him, men sheepishly straightened tables and chairs, sitting down and trying to act like they hadn’t all been trying to kill him a minute ago. Alexei carefully lowered the guy he’d been holding until the man’s feet were securely on the ground.

  “But Bethany,” Alexei said.

  “Do. Not. But. Bethany. Me.” She swung the bat in his direction. “I warned you. Didn’t I? No fighting I said. No breaking things. But no, you just had to do it.” She glanced around the room, her jaw set rigid with anger. “The place is a wreck. You’ve seen the way we live. Do you really think I have the money to replace all this stuff?”

  The bat swung around until it was aimed at Duke. “Speaking of money, you owe Alexei a hundred bucks. He may be an ass, but he was right about the monster. I saw Robbie’s boat, and no normal squid did that. Pay him, and get out. You started this fight, so you’re banned for a month.”

  Duke narrowed his eyes at her, looking for a moment as if he might argue, then reached into his wallet, pulled out five twenties, put them on top of the now three-legged table, and stalked out of the bar without another word.

  “See, it wasn’t my fault,” Alexei said. “He started it. You said so yourself.”

  Bethany hopped down off the bar and stood in front of him, five feet three of steaming fury. “You provoked him. And don’t think I don’t know you could have stopped him without creating this disaster area. I think you just like destroying things. I grew up with a man just like you, remember. And for now, I suggest you go back to the house and figure out a way to explain to him that you helped tear his bar to pieces. Maybe it will finally motivate him to get his ass back in here, so I can get on with what I laughingly refer to as my life.”

  She waved the bat toward the door, and Alexei opened his mouth, closed it again, and left. He suddenly missed his brothers so much it made his chest hurt. Even fighting wasn’t fun anymore. Nothing was the same, and he had no idea what the hell to do about it.

  Chapter 6

  Bethany swept shards of broken glass and splintered wood into the pile she’d already amassed in the corner, muttering obscenities under her breath. The few customers left in the bar were clustered across the room in a section left reasonably untouched by the fight; wisely, they were all drinking quietly and keeping their heads down. Nobody wanted to mess with Bethany when she was in this mood.

  While some of her curses were aimed at Alexei, she saved most of the choice words for herself. She was an idiot. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know better, with Calum as a role model. She’d grown up with a man who dealt with his frustrations by drinking and brawling, and yet she’d still somehow let herself feel even the tiniest sliver of attraction to a man who’d made no secret of the fact that he was exactly the same. Okay, maybe more than a tiny sliver.

  The truth was, she’d been halfway to falling for him, even though he was completely different from the calm, controlled type she normally went for - boring, predictable, and completely safe, everything that Alexei wasn’t.

  Just because he’d been gentle with a pregnant dog and surprisingly good with her father, that was no reason to believe he was anything other than the wild man he’d seemed to be on that first day he’d walked into The Hook and Anchor. She was a thrice-damned empty-headed shit-for-brains fool, that’s what she was. It was a wonder they’d ever let her into Harvard Law School, much less almost allowed her to graduate. She was a moronic nincompoop.

  And she had four broken tables and nine smashed chairs to prove it. She’d bang her head against the bar a couple of times, but with her luck, she’d just crack that too.

  First thing in the morning, she was going to call the agency and beg for another aide. Then she was going to kick Alexei Knight out of her guest house and out of her life. Absolutely, positively, resolutely. That was the plan, and she was sticking to it.

  * * *

  Alexei sent the neighbor lady home early, got Calum comfortably ensconced in front of the television in his pajamas watching one of his favorite crime dramas, and then went outside to sit on the back steps with Lulu. He left the door open a crack so he could hear if Calum yelled for him, even though he was pretty sure that the old man’s bellow was audible three houses away.

  “I
really screwed things up this time, Lulu,” Alexei said, giving her an illicit treat. Bethany said the dog was supposed to be on a very specific diet until the puppies were born - which ought to be any day now - but Alexei figured that all pregnant women deserved a little treat now and then.

  The Great Dane mouthed the biscuit daintily then lowered herself to the ground with a sigh, large paws resting on Alexei’s similarly oversized motorcycle boots. He rubbed her ears absently, still brooding.

  He didn’t know what he was more upset about; that he’d wrecked the bar, or that he really hadn’t had fun doing it. In a way, both issues were equally upsetting.

  The truth of the matter was, in all the years that he and his brothers had spent brawling and fighting, he’d never really considered the damage they’d left behind. Never really thought about Human lives at all, except in the context of whatever job the Baba Yagas had them doing. They’d always been on the move and he’d never had time to get attached to any one place or any one Human. Not that he was attached now. Not really. No, not at all. He barely knew Bethany. And she was a Human, for heaven’s sake. But still. At least this time he was able to see the after effects of what he’d done, and he didn’t much like it. Didn’t much like himself right this very minute, and it wasn’t his nature to think about things that way.

  He felt terrible about wrecking Bethany’s place when she’d been nothing but good to him. But that was only part of the problem. Because if drinking and fighting didn’t make him happy anymore, he had no idea what to do with the rest of his life.

  Alexei groaned, resting his head in his hands. This was why he’d never wanted to think about things too much. It made his skull pound, and put a funny hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “What did you do now?” a deep growly voice asked. A rough tongue swiped across his cheek.

  Alexei sighed. He hadn’t made up his mind if he believed the dog was actually talking to him, or if it was just a symptom of his new mortality, a sign that he was, as the Humans said, “losing it.” Of course, considering that after they were changed by Brenna’s evil magic, his brother Mikhail became a shapeshifter and Gregori developed powerful psychic abilities inherited from his shamaness mother, Alexei supposed anything was possible.

  “I made a mess at the bar and Bethany is mad at me,” he explained to Lulu. “Hell, I don’t blame her. I’m mad at myself.”

  Another lick followed by a huge, stinky dog-breath yawn. “When I make a mess, I just look sad and she forgives me. You look sad. Girl forgive you too?”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple, Lulu.” Alexei fished another treat out of his pocket.

  The smart thing to do would be to just move on. This was only ever supposed to be temporary anyway. Bethany would find someone else to deal with the cantankerous old man - although maybe not someone who could get him to eat right or do his exercises. Still, that wasn’t Alexei’s problem. He was just passing through on the way to someplace better. Someplace without a feisty flame-haired dynamo who could stand toe to toe with him. He’d find someone else to watch across the room when she wasn’t looking, just to catch a glimpse of that dimpled smile. And as for Lulu…he didn’t care if he never saw her puppies born.

  Okay, that one was definitely a lie.

  “I don’t suppose you could have your babies tonight, before I go?” he said to the Great Dane.

  Lulu gave him a sad-eyed look. “Man go?” She whined, resting her head heavily on top of her paws. “No. No go.”

  “I wish I knew if you were really talking to me,” Alexei said. He could call one of the Baba Yagas and ask for their opinion, but he wasn’t ready to face them yet. Not when he’d let them down so badly. Because of him, they had to fight all their battles alone now, with no Riders at their sides.

  No, he couldn’t call any of them, not tough and cranky Barbara, who would probably tell him he was crazy and it served him right. Or sweet Beka, who would say something New Age about the universe speaking to him through nature’s creatures, or Bella, whose red hair and fiery temper just made him think of Bethany.

  That only left two people he could ask. The two he had let down the most. The two he couldn’t imagine ever being able to look in the eye again, but didn’t know how to live without.

  “I miss my brothers,” he admitted to Lulu. The hollow feeling in his stomach moved up into his chest, settling there like a stone. A boulder, more like.

  She whined again. “Call?” she said. “Talk?”

  Alexei fingered the cell phone in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. The Riders had never used such things, and Barbara hated them. But when the evil former Baba Yaga Brenna had stolen the Riders’ immortality, rendering them Riders no more, it had also broken the bond that had allowed the Baba Yagas to communicate with the brothers through the symbols permanently attached to their bodies. His dragon tattoo was nothing more than decorative now.

  While they were still all healing in the Otherworld, Beka had created a mix of technology and magic; as the youngest and newest of the Babas, this was something that came much more naturally to her than to the others. Messengers had delivered the cell phones to each of the broken Riders, with all of their numbers and those of the Baba Yagas already programmed in, and the information that the spell that powered them meant they would work anywhere and never need to be recharged.

  Alexei had never even turned his on. He had nothing to say to anyone. Nothing except “I’m sorry I failed you,” and that seemed inadequate under the circumstances.

  Now he took it out and stared at it. He’d meant to throw it away a million times. Had even tossed it into the ocean once, back when he was on the west coast. But the waves had brought it back to his feet, and the magic apparently meant it was waterproof as well, which made sense since Beka was a surfer and spent so much time at the shore.

  But maybe it was time to finally put it to use. And under the circumstances, there was only one clear choice for who to call. After patting Lulu on the head one more time for moral support, he powered it up and then touched the icon that said “Gregori.”

  * * *

  The calm, melodic voice on the other end said, “Hello, Alexei,” and didn’t sound surprised at all, despite the fact that they’d had no contact in almost a year. Alexei wasn’t sure it if that was just Gregori being Gregori - he almost always sounded serene, even in the middle of a sword fight with ten-foot-tall fire-belching ogres - or if his brother’s new psychic abilities had predicted this phone call. In the end, it didn’t much matter.

  For a minute, Alexei couldn’t think of what to say. So many words tumbled over each other in his mind, spilling into his mouth and choking him until he couldn’t talk at all. He hadn’t realized until this very minute how hard it had been to spend so long without contacting the brothers he’d spent centuries with, since they were all children of varying ages playing in the realms of the gods.

  “Alexei?” Gregori repeated. “Are you there?”

  “More or less,” Alexei mumbled. “Hello, Gregori.”

  His brother’s low chuckle crossed the many miles between them. “How are you, you big lout? And where are you? We were beginning to think you’d disappeared off the ends of the earth.”

  “Close enough,” Alexei said. He could hear the ocean from where he sat, although he’d have to walk down the road to actually put his feet in it. “And I’m…okay, mostly. You?”

  “I am well. Still adjusting to all the changes in my life, but well enough, for all of that. Content. Happy, even.” His brother paused for a moment. They’d never been an emotional bunch, or talked much about their feelings. “Are you happy, Alexei?”

  Alexei snorted, making Lulu jump and give him a disgruntled look. “How would I know? I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  “Ah. That explains the call, I expect. Has something happened?” Another pause. “Have you discovered what your new gift is?”

  “Pfft.” Alexei scowled into the night sky. “Gift
. Is that what we’re calling our brother turning into a big green creature and you suddenly being able to predict the future? Gifts? I’d rather have a bottle of vodka and a nice box of chocolates.”

  “Wouldn’t we all?” Gregori said lightly. But Alexei had heard through the paranormal grapevine of how hard his brother had had to fight to come to terms with his new talent. It had almost killed him, if the reports were right.

  “I suppose so.” Alexei took a deep breath. “Um, do you think hearing a dog talk could be my gift? Or is that just crazy?”

  He could practically see the raised eyebrow through the phone.

  “A dog? Or all of them?”

  Alexei glanced at Lulu, who simply yawned back at him, uninterested in the fact that his life was unraveling. “Only one so far. A very pregnant Great Dane.”

  “I see,” Gregori said. “And what does she say?”

  “Well, she told me to call you.”

  Gregori laughed quietly. “Then she is either the voice of your subconscious, or a very smart dog.”

  “Isn’t there some way to find out which one it is?” Alexei asked, only a touch plaintively.

  “Have you tried talking to any other animals?” his brother asked. “That might tell you something.”

  “Bad enough I’m having conversations with one,” Alexei grumbled. “Besides, I’m at the end of the world. Not many animals here, although I suppose there are other dogs and cats and such.” He thought for a moment, then said more cheerfully, “And maybe a kraken. I wonder if I could talk to a kraken.”