by K. F. Breene
“She’s nuts,” I muttered, running after her. “She is fudge berries nuts.”
A shape moved through the trees with us, a large black wolf guarding our flank, with leaner gray wolves following behind. It must’ve been Devon and his pack, pushed out of the larger group of shifters to babysit us.
“It’s a wonder Roger didn’t choose someone more experienced,” I said, feeling magic ahead. Colorful threads waved through the trees.
The black wolf snarled before shooting forward with a burst of speed. He launched through the air, smacking a mage’s chest with his front paws and latching on to the mage’s throat.
“The experienced pack members probably know Reagan and found somewhere else to be.” Emery’s magic swished past me, darting through the trees to intersect the road. A mage cried out in surprise, then pain.
“This road goes on forever.” Instead of sticking with it around the bend, I cut left to follow Emery’s magic. “Shortcut.”
The wolves sped up, getting ahead of us. Two branched out to the sides, their lopes graceful and effortless. Each brought down a running mage.
“They’re starting to panic,” I said, following Devon to the road. He peeled off as we got there, back to guarding our flank.
“That’s good news for us.”
Emerging onto the road, I saw two things. One was that the magical workers were scarce down here, having clearly seen all the fire and crazy through the trees and found different paths (not necessarily toward the battle). And two, we were nearing the end of the line of cars, the larger road out of this area not too far beyond that.
“Almost there.” I shot my vermin zapper at a mage standing next to a car in indecision.
Emery sent a wide blast of heat at a line of cars. It sliced through two mages whipping up a couple of humdingers. They sank down, spells unrealized.
“That’s going to bother me,” I heard Emery mutter. “How the hell—”
He was trying to make magical fire and couldn’t. Point to me.
Reagan ran from around the bend, a deep score on her upper arm and blood dribbling down her skin. Her leather pants were torn, but the skin wasn’t broken underneath.
“You okay?” I asked, catching movement in one of the cars near the end of the row.
Without warning, the whole thing erupted into fire before a huge, invisible pressure swatted down on top of it, crushing it to the ground. Reagan’s magic surged, huge and strong and awe-inspiring. The car lifted into the air before being tossed, end over end, into the trees. Tree trunks snapped and wood squealed.
“My arm fucking hurts,” she said through clenched teeth, continuing on.
“I don’t think that’s what Darius meant when he told you to keep a low profile,” Emery said, chuckling.
“You guys got a were-donkey?” Reagan yelled into the trees.
The black wolf—Devon; I needed to remember they were actually people—trotted closer.
“Because we need to get the old people down here in a hurry. We gotta go.”
27
Less than a half-hour later, Emery stood beside one of the Guild mages’ extended cab trucks, waiting for the rest of the shifters to load up so they could move everyone out of the area. Penny stood at the SUV behind the truck, motioning for people to get in, and berating them when they took too long. Behind her, Ms. Bristol was doing the same thing, only a lot louder.
“What’s taking them so long?” Reagan called from the SUV in front of him, a shiny Ford stuffed with furry bodies.
They were loading nearly a hundred shifters into all of the larger SUVs and trucks at the end of the line on the long road doubling as the driveway. The smaller cars had been driven or pushed into the trees and out of the way.
“They’re trying to decide who will shift back into human form and who will stay in animal form.” Only the more powerful could make multiple changes in a short period of time, each change taking a lot of power and energy. It really hindered quick getaways.
Emery checked the space under the camper shell before motioning another wolf in. “It’ll be tight, but better than staying behind.”
Roger stalked up the line of cars, in human form and nude. It only took a look from him and the shifters in animal form were speeding up, cramming in wherever they could fit. As he drew near, his intense power pounded at Emery in waves, setting him on edge.
“We’re about done.” He stepped around Emery and closed the hatch. He glanced at a wolf who’d been left out. The wolf knew better than to object—it went somewhere else to find a spot. “I’ll take the SUV. Penny can go with you. We’re headed to Durant, right?”
“Yeah. Just follow us.”
Penny looked expectantly at Roger, having clearly thought she’d be driving. She flinched when he stopped close, then ripped her gaze to the sky and muttered, “It’s like an eyesight landmine with shifters.”
Emery chuckled and swung into the driver’s seat before sticking his hand out the window and motioning for Reagan to get into the SUV.
“Who’s leading?” she called.
“You are,” Roger yelled as Penny hurried to Emery’s passenger side.
“You’d think they could’ve thought ahead and brought some sweats or something.” Penny glanced behind her at the three burly guys sitting nude in the extended cab, and the two marginally smaller women sitting on their laps. Beyond them, the bed of the truck was full of wolves and various other animals. “No offense.”
“It would be nice to at least have a towel,” one of the women in the back said, moving so her junk wasn’t on the junk of the guy under her.
“I’m good without a towel,” the guy under her said with a grin.
“And you’re clearly good with a lot of fuzz. Ever hear of man-scaping, hairy balls?” the woman shot back.
The others laughed as Emery backed down to the larger road after the others. Once there, he waited for Reagan to get all the way out before slamming on the gas and following her. Nails scraped the truck bed and bodies bumped against the sides.
“We’re going to save a damn vampire,” one of the guys in the back seat said quietly. “Things you never thought you’d do…”
“You don’t live in Seattle,” the woman who was less concerned about hairy balls said. “It’s been hell up here trying to pussyfoot around the Guild. If we have to pair up with vampires to take them down, then we’ll pair up with vampires to take them down.”
“Did you know James Cannes?” the guy on the far right asked.
Spicy shifter magic seeped into the cab, and Emery could feel a throb within it. He could see the spark that gave them the ability to change, like looking into an open chest cavity and spying a beating heart. He could also see how to disable it, much like Penny had disabled Rex’s.
It was an incredible amount of power to have over the shifter species. Too much. In the wrong hands, it would be devastating. If not for Penny, who would never lose her way when it came to morality, he’d be eager to push the power to someone else. He didn’t trust himself with the responsibility.
“Yeah,” the woman said, her voice subdued. She directed her gaze out of the window.
“What happened to him?” Penny asked, turning in her seat to look behind her. She flinched and turned back around. “Lots of skin.”
“Like what you see?” the guy in the middle asked. “I’ll let you give me a tug.”
A tight and prickly sensation squeezed Emery’s chest. He connected eyes with the guy in the rearview mirror, changing his power to mimic their territorial vibe and pumping it into the cab. He wasn’t a jealous man by nature, but he would not stand for another guy harassing his woman. Not in this lifetime.
Everyone in the back tensed, muscles going taut. The women both glanced at the guy in the middle before looking away again. They didn’t plan to get involved.
“Not wise, bro,” one of the guys on the end said in a low tone before averting his gaze. The one on the other side followed suit.
�
�We’re drifting from the topic,” Penny said in a low, husky voice. He knew that tone. She’d felt his possessive push of magic, his claiming of her, and liked it.
Preventing a smile, he upped the power, magic throbbing in the truck now, needing that guy in the back to look away before he did. Damned unfortunate timing, given that he was supposed to be driving a truck.
Those dark brown eyes flared with fire once before the challenge in them muted. The shifter tore his gaze downward.
Ms. Bristol had been right about what it took to get respected as an Alpha. Not that Emery had needed the lesson.
“He stood up to one of the members of the Mages’ Guild,” the woman said after Emery’s magic receded. “Stopped him from picking on a teenage human male. It was James’s job as a shifter, but also the right thing to do.” Her voice dropped an octave. “That Guild member got a couple of his cronies together, found out where James lived, went to his house, and hacked him up. Hacked his girlfriend up, too, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She swallowed. “Nothing we could do about it, either. The MLE office is in their pocket. No one wants to stand up to the Guild.”
Penny nodded, staring straight out the window. Her magic rolled through the cab, hot and intense. “Until now.”
“Fuckin’-A,” the guy on the left side said.
They turned off the freeway as the sun lowered in the sky. They still had a couple hours before it would be dark enough for the vampires to go outside. He really hoped Ms. Bristol had gotten the time frame right.
“I hope my mother wasn’t wrong,” Penny said, echoing his thoughts.
“She’s not wrong,” the guy in the middle said. “I was there when she told the beta’s fortune. She started getting into his personal life, and I thought he was going to smack her across the room to shut her up.”
“That would not have been bright,” Penny murmured.
Two of the guys in the back huffed out laughter. “Don’t suppose it would’ve been, no,” the one on the right said. “I was there, too, for most of it. I could feel the magic. She wasn’t making it up. The way her voice and body and everything changed? No way. I saw Vlad’s face in the crystal ball. It couldn’t have been a picture or video, because vampires don’t show up in video. That was legit.”
“Yeah, that was whack, yo,” the guy in the middle said with a toothy grin. “I didn’t think crystal balls were real. Ain’t never seen one. I’ll never forget it.”
“Everyone loves a fortune teller,” Penny grumbled.
“Except for the frauds who try to get by on their looks and colorful rocks,” Emery teased, earning a dark look.
They turned off the main road and onto a smaller one. He passed a bright pink sign and slammed on the brakes. Furry bodies slammed into the front of the truck bed.
“My bad,” he said, catching another sign up the way. Instead of reversing, he pulled ahead to that one, realizing he was making the train of vehicles behind him stop as well.
“What’s the matter?” Penny asked, magic rolling and boiling through the cab.
He pointed at the marked-up “garage sale” sign, studying the added red words and low slashes, hard to see on the pink paper. “I saw something like this outside the Bankses’ house before the mages attacked. I never did get to piece together the code. The mages have been communicating with each other right under our noses.”
“That’s…a weird code,” one of the women in the back said, leaning toward the window. “It looks more like punctuation than characters, doesn’t it?”
Roger stepped out of the SUV behind them, still completely naked, and a driver coming the other way slammed on her brakes. A woman in her twenties gawked out the window with stars in her eyes and a crooked smile. Roger didn’t seem to notice.
“You’ve stopped because of the sign?” Penny asked. “That sign? The pink one?”
“What’s the problem?” Roger asked at the window.
“We’ve got some sort of—”
“That’s not code.” Penny waved Emery on. “Don’t be silly. That’s just Veronica letting off steam. Go. Reagan will get there before us.”
“But it’s all marked up,” the guy in the back said.
“She corrects the grammar on signs and things around the neighborhood. She’s an editor.” Penny pounded on the dash. “Come on. Let’s go.”
A honk sounded somewhere down the line. Roger stepped away from the car and stared down in that direction for a beat, and Emery had no doubt his nudity wouldn’t detract from the sheer force of command he exuded. When no other honks came, he stepped back to the car.
“My God, he’s terrifying,” Penny mumbled, slouching in her seat.
“You’re sure about the sign?” Roger asked her.
“Yeah.” The woman from the back nodded and leaned back. “That fits.”
“Oh sh—” The guy she was sitting on jumped and shoved at her. “Woman, watch out where you put that bony butt. You’re going to break my dick in half.”
“Why is your dick hard in the first place?” she asked dryly.
“I’m straight, and I’ve got a naked woman sitting on me. You’re under the impression I can control what my body does in this situation. I’m not trying to find a hole, so count yourself lucky.”
“Ah, come on, man.” The guy in the middle tried to scoot away from the one on the end.
“Enough.” Roger’s whip-crack command silenced the cab. His eyes bored into Penny. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Look”—Penny gestured at the window, accidentally flicking the glass with her fingers—“she put a command there, and added words to make that last bit a complete sentence. You guys, we’re wasting time!”
Roger stepped away from the truck and headed back to his SUV. Emery pulled away, not gunning it, since they’d have to turn up the driveway soon, anyway.
“Your friend corrects grammar on other people’s signs?” the guy in the middle asked.
“I’m glad someone said it,” the one on the end said. “That’s weird.”
“It’s not weird, it just ain’t right,” the one in the middle said. “She’s basically walking around, calling people dumb.”
“Well…if the shoe fits,” one of the women said.
The other guy huffed out a laugh. “Maybe the sign makers will learn something.”
“They ain’t gonna learn shit,” the guy in the middle said. “They probably won’t even take the signs down.”
“Well, I’ve learned something, and that’s all that matters,” the one on the end said.
“Yeah, you’ve learned that you can’t get laid even with a naked woman on your lap,” the unaffected naked woman said.
Everyone in the back busted up laughing, not at all tense or worried about the battle they were about to walk into. Their lack of fear indicated they were part of the select group of shifters Roger employed to keep magical people from outing themselves to humans in the Brink.
“There’s Reagan’s SUV,” Penny said quietly, having ignored the banter in the back seat. She hunched in her seat and pointed off to the side where the vehicle was parked in a little turnoff.
Emery pulled in and parked, then got out and motioned for Roger to do the same. There was space for a couple more cars, and then they’d have to take up the road. Not that it mattered. Darius’s residence was the only one up this way.
“What about the other locations for Darius’s people?” Penny asked as they met up with Reagan. The shifters in human form let out those in animal form.
“They’ve been loaded into coffins and are on their way in.” Reagan nodded a hello to Roger as he got out of his vehicle. “They’ll be told where to meet us. He had them staying about an hour outside of town in a couple of newly acquired residences. They haven’t heard a word from the Guild, and if it’s because the Guild is already on their way there, they’ll find empty houses to hide out in.”
Emery remembered the number of hearses Darius had used the last time he’d needed to
move around during the day. It wouldn’t be enough for the numbers they needed. “Hearses?” he asked.
“No.” Reagan motioned them toward the road. “Semitrucks. He has racks inside the trailers for the coffins, and humans to load them up. Darius might not totally possess Vlad’s planning ability, but he’s not far off.”
“Well…I don’t know.” Penny slipped her hand into Emery’s and looked around anxiously. “Vlad had two houses out of three ambushed, and Darius only had one. I would say he wins this round. Especially since…Vlad might not be entirely trustworthy.”
“Vlad is not at all trustworthy, usually, but in this instance, it is probably only because of the distance,” Reagan said, watching the shifters unload. Callie and Dizzy plucked ingredients out of their satchels as they made their way up the road. Ms. Bristol followed behind, her gun over her shoulder and a backpack in her hands.
“That counts. Clearly distance was a good idea.” When Ms. Bristol neared, Penny asked, “What’s in the backpack, Mother? You don’t have bombs or anything, right?”
“Roger had one of his people gather up my tools,” Ms. Bristol replied. “Very kind of him. I didn’t mention that they weren’t my best set. And no.” She looked down at the backpack. “No bombs. Just a couple of grenades Roger had lying around, is all.”
A grin broke through Reagan’s face. “Great. Those will come in handy at the Mages’ Guild. Now, what’s our plan for ending the siege?”
“Since when do you use plans?” Penny asked.
Reagan nodded. “Good point. Let’s make it up as we go along.” She started walking.
“No, no. That’s not what I meant!” Penny took a step toward her, then paused, looking out to the side with that same anxious expression.
“What is it—” In a moment, he knew exactly what she sensed. The danger of it. It was a feeling he’d never forget.
28
“It’s him,” I said softly, trying to pierce the shadows between the trees with my gaze. My heart was a terrified rabbit in my chest. “It’s the druid. I feel him.”
