by Amy Lane
Jack’s yip told her he’d help with the massacre if they survived this one. Then, with the exception of Teague—who used the distraction to keep maiming werewolves with a terrible ferocity for someone who couldn’t actually walk on all four paws—everybody looked up at the helicopter.
A person jumped out—a shocking thing to see—and everybody caught their breath in panic. He plummeted down, down, far enough down to be halfway between the helicopter and the ground. Then he was a bird, and Nicky started diving like a hawk, sighting a werewolf to harry even as he fell.
Everyone else ignored him, because there were two more people standing at the open bay of the copter.
“Oh, fuck oh hell oh no,” Katy breathed. “Tell me they’re not doing what I think they’re doing.”
But Jack couldn’t. There, right about two hundred feet up, was Cory, standing on the internal platform of what looked to be an old Black Hawk helicopter with an open bay door. Bracken had his arms wrapped around her, and she was unhooking the harness that held them both in the machine.
Even from two hundred feet away, everyone looking up saw their eyes meet, saw Bracken’s arms wrap firmly around her, and saw the way they trembled right before they leaped.
Leaping
GREEN HEARD Cory screaming “Green, we need the fucking copter!” and then Bracken threw open the door to Green’s room—broken magic lock and all!—and snapped, “You’ve got to fucking stop her, damn it! We can’t let her go!”
Green swung his legs out of bed and looked regretfully at the pretty little werekitty who had just climaxed around his body. She stood up with absolutely no self-consciousness whatsoever, transformed into a cat, and bulleted out of the room. Before her tail had even cleared his door, Green slammed a sound shield around his room and got hold of his temper.
“Helicopter?” he asked first. Bracken nodded curtly.
“Werewolves are in trouble. I think Teague just changed form, and if he survives that, he’s going to need backup. LaMark and Mario left an hour ago. They’ve got two more hours minimum, one if they abandon the car and fly. I figure the copter….”
Green looked blank for a moment and did a mind-to-mind with Arturo. He could do this with most of his people, although not as thoroughly as he often shared mind space with Cory.
“It’s done,” he said. “Now, about stopping her….”
Bracken’s expression was pleading, and Green abruptly forgave him for his rudeness and panic and the fact that he had busted down Green’s door while Green was in the middle of something delicate and personal.
“We’ve got to,” Bracken muttered. “Green, we have to. She can’t go. She’s….” Neither of them had said the words, not since the night Green had lain next to Bracken and their beloved and forced Bracken to feel the beginnings of the life growing in her womb.
“I know exactly what she is,” Green said now. “I helped make her that way, remember? But you know what she isn’t?”
“Sane?”
“Bracken!”
“Sensible?”
“So help me, I will curse your speech for a week!” Green finally snapped. He could do it. Bracken was well aware that Green’s power was greater—and more versatile—than his own.
“Okay, finish the sentence!” Bracken snapped back, and Green did.
“Helpless, okay, mate? She’s not fucking helpless! Two weeks ago—hell, one week ago—you would have enjoyed the hell out of this.”
“Well, that was before she was….” Bracken hesitated, and now Green filled in the blank.
“Pregnant?”
“In-fucking-sane!” Bracken roared. “Green, the whole reason she got pregnant was because her damned will eclipsed her goddamned common-fucking-sense, and then she had to prove to us that her will was all she needed!”
“Is that what you think happened?” Green asked, stunned. Oh, how could such a good man be so wrong?
“Yes!”
“Well, you’re wrong, mate. What happened that night, what happened in our bed after that—we’ve been grooming her for that since she walked in the door and fell into Adrian’s bed!”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?” Bracken wasn’t yelling anymore. In fact, he ran his hand through his shorn, pine-tar-colored hair and sank slowly onto Green’s used bed. Green sat next to him and wrapped a companionable arm around his shoulders. He and Bracken were partners of sorts in keeping their beloved alive, keeping her sane—and, in moments like these, keeping themselves sane when her courage and uniqueness seemed to overwhelm their good Goddess-damned sense.
“Independence, Bracken Brine. Self-belief. Our whole life with her, we’ve been trying to get her to believe in herself. Well, she does now. She believes in herself enough to contradict us and go her own way. But she loves us enough to respect our advice and stay right by our sides. Don’t let the life growing inside her blind you to the person she’s always been. She’s fully capable of this, and she needs it, damn it! She needs to see that she didn’t take that terrible risk for nothing.”
Bracken nodded, because he was a smart boy—he was still very young for a sidhe—and then his entire face puckered with worry. “She’s been so tired,” he whispered, and Green tightened that arm.
“I know. I know. Redding wiped her out, and her body is getting used to the pregnancy… but she’ll be up for it. You know she will. She’s in no greater danger now than she has been for the last two years, and we’ve stood it. We need to stand it again until she’s ready to hear the truth, to make her own decisions. If we tell her she can’t go now, and tell her why….”
Bracken scrubbed his face with his hand. “Goddess… it’ll fuck her up so bad….”
Green nodded and swallowed hard. Until this moment he hadn’t known about his half-hidden hope that Bracken would come up with a really good argument to convince him to keep her there, keep her safe, with him.
But he knew better, and in spite of his basic optimism, he was also a realist. With a sigh he stood up and reached for a pair of jeans, which he slid on and buttoned hastily before offering Bracken a hand.
“Come on, brother. Teague’s in danger. His family needs us. Nothing has changed.”
Bracken’s shoulders squared, and he stood and scowled, looking like the warrior he truly was. “Absolutely, leader,” he said tightly. Green nodded. Green dropped the sound blocker and opened the door about a fraction of a second before Cory battered it down, her magic escaping her control because of her panic.
He embraced her before she could say anything—open her mouth to panic, to issue orders, to start thinking out loud all the things that needed to be done in the next ten minutes before she left him to do something perilous and painful and dangerous.
“Of course,” he whispered, hauling her up until her toes dangled and giving a tight, worried smile into her puzzled eyes. “Of course. Our family needs us. Transportation is on its way. Just….” He took a quick breath and resolved to practice what he’d just preached. “Just be careful, beloved. Let Bracken and Nicky pick up the slack. Remember that you carry what’s best of both me and Bracken with you, yes?”
She swallowed and looked at him soberly. “I’d never do anything to hurt you, Green.”
He kissed her, drinking her down even as he heard the faraway sound of the helicopter that was coming to take her away.
Screaming
TEAGUE WAS half a mile away and stumbling on all four paws before he realized he wasn’t screaming anymore. Cinnamon had been right—the pain of changing to heal himself had damned near stopped his heart.
He reckoned it was worth it, even after his back end went out from under him for the umpteenth time as he ran toward Jacky’s frantic yips that, just like Jacky had said, resounded from nearly two miles away.
The absolute fear thundering through his veins made every fracture in his still-healing bones throb with each pulse of blood.
Jacky and Katy, Jacky and Katy, Jacky and Katy….
He knew, had a
lways known, that he was weaker than they were. He had always known that the most vulnerable place in his body was the place in his heart where the two of them dwelled, uneasy, hands wide over a balance beam of his own fear—fear that they would leave him, fear that he would let them down. He would rather have his heart explode. In fact, given the pain his body was in at the moment, he’d almost rather have his heart explode anyway.
But Teague was good with pain, and after all this time with people to care for, he was good at channeling it where it was needed. The first whiff of renegade werewolf mixed with crazy elf bitch turned that heartload of fear into ferocity. By the time he rounded the corner where his mates stood with their backs to the wall, Jacky ready to defend Katy with his dying breath and Katy using her clever mind for one last-ditch effort, he would have murdered anything that got in his way.
He ripped through the ranks of rabid-crazy elf bitch werewolves like a kid rips through a bag of potato chips, and he craved more. It wasn’t until he drew up even with Jacky and saw Jack’s horrified fascination with what was going on up above them that he realized the entire phalanx of werewolves was fatally preoccupied with what was going on above them as well. Finally his common sense kicked in, and with something besides blinding fear for his mates, he raised his muzzle to the sky.
He knew Nicky when he saw the first jumper, saw him change form in midair, and totally expected the fluttering of wings halfway down.
He identified Bracken and Cory about two seconds before they clutched each other like the lovers they were and fell out of the sky.
His entire identity spiraled with them. He realized with only a twinge of surprise that his life hinged on their survival as well. Here he was, standing in front of his lovers and certain death, while his devoted purpose for living, for being worthy of his lovers, plummeted from the sky in an attempt to keep them all safe.
He hadn’t felt this dizzy when it was himself plummeting without bounds or hope to a place where his body shattered in defense of his realm. Oh Goddess. His lovers, his leaders, all of it whirled together, and he could not, even as he thought his heart would explode from pain once again, give priority to one or the other.
Then Cory and Bracken slowed in midair, stalled, hovered for a moment about twenty feet off the ground, and touched down lightly, right in front of Teague and his lovers. Nicky settled down next to them, and everybody, Nicky included, turned toward Cory. It was almost poetic, the way everyone was looking at Lady Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick op Crocken Green when she opened her mouth and spoke.
“Who in the fuck is responsible for this festering goat turd of a welcome party?”
By now there were over thirty werewolves in the bottleneck of the back alley, although nearly a third of them were recovering from wounds Teague had inflicted while plowing through that phalanx of bodies. One of the wolves in the lead growled low in his throat and changed, standing upright and scowling at Cory with malice and intent.
“Who wants to know?” He was ordinary—average height, average build, sandy brown hair, brownish eyes. In a way he could have been Teague, although Teague had more scars and a prettier face.
“I’m the consort to the leader of this part of California, asshole. You are threatening my people for doing nothing more than shopping by the beach. I want to know who put you up to it, and I want to know now!” Cory’s brown-red hair was a mess. She was wearing cutoff shorts and a white T-shirt that was probably Bracken’s, which meant that the neck sagged almost low enough to be indecent, but since she was also wearing a bright pink sports bra, it wasn’t. She stood five feet two inches tall in her tennis shoes, and at the moment she would have looked like she hadn’t slept in about two hundred years—except she only looked about sixteen years of age, period, total, grand sum.
And Teague wouldn’t have wanted to meet her in a dark alley, for all of that. For one thing, the hum of power vibrating from her anger damned near turned the air red.
For another, Bracken was standing a little behind her with his hands out. Even as Cory spoke, he aimed that deadly power of blood at some of the werewolves Teague had injured, and they began to whimper and whine—and bleed through their wounds, which ordinarily would have been healing. Nicky was on her other side, and although he didn’t look nearly as imposing, he did make them look like a solid team.
But the bad guy didn’t see the threat—or maybe he didn’t care.
“What’re you gonna do if we just jump your shit, scary flying bitch? How are you going to find out what you want to know then?” The guy was looking sideways, his eyes shifty and frightened and, well, a little to the left of crazy. A little to the right of it too. Something about that off smell was not healthy—not for this guy, and not for the wolves that, now that Teague saw them whimpering, he shouldn’t have been able to carve through so damned cleanly.
Cory took one look at that crazy and sighed. “Really?” she muttered to Bracken and Nicky, and probably to Teague, Jacky, and Katy too. “Does it always have to be buckets of nuts? Just once I want someone who’s trying to take over the world to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a much better business plan… what do you think?’ But no. We’ve got more nuts than gayporn dot com.”
Bracken looked at her sideways. “That is the last time I let you stay up and play on the computer with Marcus and Phillip!”
Nicky chortled, but Teague glanced up and caught her sly, rather salacious grin in Bracken’s direction and let out a little whuff to keep them focused on the business at hand. The bad guy realized he was being ignored and broke in.
“Hey, bitch, you didn’t answer my question! What are you going to do about it if we just decide to take you out?” It was cold in Monterey, and maybe because Teague was a wolf and he was eye level, he noticed the guy’s body didn’t react well to the chilly fog that surrounded them.
Cory snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it, chum bucket, since you’ll be dead if that happens! Now, are you going to cough up a name and a location, or do I set Bracken loose on you? He was fucking cranky the entire trip here. He hates flying, and I gotta tell you, he really fucking wants to fucking kill something.” The words were semifacetious, but Teague could smell the seething, terrified anger just oozing off the big sidhe. He glanced sharply at Brack and thought that someone who didn’t know him would mistake the fear stink for fear of battle, but Teague had seen the guy in action and knew that wasn’t what he was afraid of.
There was a movement at Teague’s shoulder, and Teague looked sideways to see Jacky come abreast of him. Jacky whined and nuzzled Teague’s ear, and Teague allowed himself to be licked. Yes, yes, why, he did need some comfort, why do you ask?
In that moment of peace, Teague scented something under Bracken’s fear/hate musk, and his ears perked up. He whined and sneezed. Jacky looked at him, and then at Cory, and then at Bracken.
Passive-aggressive? Yes. Possessive and jealous? Absolutely. Shortsighted? Sometimes.
But nobody ever said Jacky was stupid.
Teague and Jacky both looked up at Cory, and Teague realized everything Kyle and Cinnamon had said the night before was absolutely the truth. That was their girl, their leader, their sorceress, and her body was gravid and quickening with the life of her lovers.
Teague and Jacky, as one wolf, growled low in their throats and stepped to either side of Cory, coming to stand between her and anything that threatened her.
Cory put her hand on Teague’s head, and Jacky insinuated his head under her other hand. They both heard her surprised “Hmm,” but that was all.
“Do you really think you can take all of us?” the lead werewolf was asking, and Cory snorted.
“Do you have any idea who we are? What we’ve done in the past?” she asked incredulously. “A week ago, we damned near took out Raphael’s kiss in Redding for protecting a pedophile, and that was for someone we didn’t know! Your people threatened my people. What do you think we’re going to do to you?”
There was a moment of silence, and Teague saw something that looked like sanity cross the features of the crazy werewolf. “Whatever it is,” he said quietly, “I wish you’d make it quick. She’s killing us slow, and it hurts.” Something happened then, a twisting, terrible thing, a line of crimson like an invisible wire cutting through the man’s flesh. It writhed, it arced, it wrought a slow, wretched, painful line through his skin, and Cory swore.
“Oh fuck….”
Bracken also swore, and Nicky after him.
“Holy Goddess! Is that what I think it is?”
Then the man went wolf and launched himself at Cory with a howl that signaled an attack.
Jack and Teague launched themselves at him. Just as their jaws closed in on his throat, there was a terrible clanging like a bunch of pigeons hitting a cast-iron pan. Even as the head wolf’s polluted blood flooded his mouth, Teague looked up for new enemies and saw the phalanx of enemy wolves hurling themselves against the shield Cory had erected between her people and their attackers with enough force to snap a wolf’s neck.
Many wolves did just that and fell to the ground to pant and writhe in pain, awaiting an agonizing moment of healing.
“Jesus Christ,” Nicky said after a few moments of horrible, horrible sounds and no indication of anybody stopping the madness. “Cory… Cory, I don’t think they’re going to stop.”
“Me neither.” Bracken looked at her, a very personal look. “They’re being forced into this, beloved. They either kill us or die. I don’t think whoever set them on us thought beyond that compulsion.”
“Shit fuck sonuvabitch….” Cory shook her head and watched as what should have been a magnificent phalanx ocean of beautiful animals flung and broke themselves in wretched desperation. “I mean, Jesus. Don’t they have to get tired of this? I just want to fucking talk to them!”
Her answer was more thudding, and she sighed. “The copter can’t get us out, can it?”
