The Ruby Blade

by Amy Cissell

“Did you have something specific in mind to reassure yourself? Or, since you asked us to do this service for you before you’d ever met me, just on the strength of the mage and wolf in my company, are you going to assume that I’m at least as strong as them?” I shook my head. That sentence had completely gotten away from me.

  “You shamed my wolves.”

  Ah. Now we were getting to the crux of it. He wasn’t interested in our strength until it turns out we were stronger. That made the motivations for asking us to take care of their little vamp infestation suspect. If he wanted us to be weaker than the pack, then it didn’t make sense he’d trust us to take care of a problem he couldn’t. Something was wrong.

  I might be Fae. And supernatural. And preternaturally strong. But I was still young and unskilled at strategy and supernatural politics. I wished Raj was here. If anyone could figure out what was going on with this guy, it’d be my wicked old boyfriend.

  “On my way,” his voice whispered in my head. “Stall them.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to reason out a plan of attack.

  “I didn’t shame them. I merely showed them why they shouldn’t dismiss me. If they felt shame, it was not my intention.”

  “You cowed them.”

  “I am not a cow.” Ugh. I was stretching now. I needed a better plan. I smiled brightly. I couldn’t lie, but now was the time to use the truth to mislead.

  “You know what I mean, bitch,” he growled. Literally. His eyes were starting to glow, and he was pissed off enough that one more snide comment on my part would make him go furry. I could handle him, but I didn’t want to. Not yet, anyway.

  I smiled and hoped it looked reconciliatory and not threatening. I was almost as bad at lying with my facial expressions as I was at lying with my words. I had no future on the poker world tour circuit. “I don’t want to start a fight. We’ve only just met. I’m Eleanor, Fae, World-breaker, mate to Isaac Walker, and friend of the Black Hills and St. Louis Packs. We appreciate your hospitality.” I wracked my brains, trying to remember what Isaac said when he was talking to pack leaders in new areas. “We are passing through and have no design on your land or any of your pack members.” It struck me then that I hadn’t seen any female wolves. “Where are the women?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  He growled again, and I winced internally. That was not the kind of question you ask when trying to diffuse a tense werewolf situation. “I am only curious,” I hastened to explain. “I haven’t seen any women, and in the other packs I’ve visited, there were several.”

  “They are hidden,” Bruce said, his voice at such a low register I could barely understand him. “You will not threaten them.”

  I help my hands up. “I mean the women and children no harm. We will perform the service you contracted us to do. The meals and hospitality you’ve provided have been exquisite, and I have every intention to uphold our side of the bargain.”

  “But?” he asked. He was cautious, but not as angry as he’d been. He must know enough about the Fae to know I was telling the truth.

  “I have questions. I do not wish to offend you, but I’m hoping you’ll take my queries in the spirit in which they’re intended: curiosity and to further my knowledge as to what we’re facing.”

  “You may ask. I may not answer.”

  “That is fair.” I took a deep breath and tried to decide the best way to word my first question. “You are a strong alpha, and your pack members that I’ve seen are also strong. Why are you outsourcing a problem to four individuals whose strength you haven’t measured?”

  He paused to consider his answer, and I reassessed my opinion. He wasn’t a mere Alpha hothead. This did not reassure me as to the sheer wrongness of the situation.

  “We do not want to appear weak, but we also don’t want to give away our true strength. Either you will defeat them, and we will claim that we hired mercenaries to assist us, or you will weaken them, and we will finish them off. We could easily take them out, but we choose not to because this coven and this clan need to believe us more vulnerable than we are.”

  “Lie,” Raj said in my mind. “Not all of it, but he had no confidence that his pack could defeat this enemy, and after surveilling them myself, I don’t blame him.”

  “Will you come in and be my visual backup?”

  “You want them to know your full manpower?”

  “They don’t know about Petrina.”

  “Of course they do,” Raj said. “We have no privacy.”

  “By that measure, they already know about you, too. Come in. Be intimidating.”

  I struggled to get back to the thread of the conversation with Bruce. “What about your promise to let our wolf run with your pack at the full moon?”

  “It stands. She will receive several offers. We have few females, and an unattached and attractive woman is a valuable commodity.”

  Heat rose through my body, and it took conscious effort not to light him on fire. “She is not a commodity,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Of course not,” he replied. “She is an actualized woman who can make her own choices about her body and who she mates with.”

  “Your thoughts say otherwise,” Raj said, appearing behind me. I jumped but was pleased to see Bruce, Jason, and the other one were more startled than me. “If Emma has any other choices, I would recommend she not run with this pack at the full moon,” Raj said.

  “I can’t disagree. They’re skeevy.”

  “Who are you?” Bruce demanded.

  “That’s the vampire,” Jason whispered. He winked at me, and I sighed inwardly. I didn’t know his endgame, but it was clear he’d decided we were on the same side. I was not taking out his Alpha just so he could have his own pack, no matter how cute and nice he was.

  “He doesn’t look that impressive,” Bruce said. “I thought their vampire would be…bigger.”

  “Size matters not,” I intoned. Raj laughed, but the wolves just stared. “C’mon, you guys! Yoda? Star Wars?” More blank looks. “Whatever. We have five people against the approximate three dozen folks inhabiting your wildlife preserve. Tomorrow night, we’ll challenge them. We will win. I expect that you’ll have personnel available to us in case we have prisoners or injuries.”

  “Sure,” Bruce agreed.

  “Your word on this,” I insisted. “Raj will know if you’re lying.”

  “I give you my word that I will supply pack members at the parking lot to assist in any first aid or prisoner transportation you need.”

  I looked at Raj, and he nodded.

  “Good enough.” I held out my hand again.

  Bruce looked at it, and then stared at me. Someone had versed him on how I’d dominated his wolves. I smiled and kept my hand out. A sheen of sweat appeared on his brow. I held eye-contact. My smile grew wider.

  “Fuck you,” he ground out, and reached out and shook my hand. One rough shake, too firm to be polite, and he dropped my hand like it was on fire, then turned and practically ran out of the gym.

  I sagged into Raj. “Did I play that right?” I asked.

  “Yes. You waited to show your dominance until the end, weren’t too overt with it, and got him to tell you what he was up to. You did good.”

  I tilted my head and looked up at him. “Don’t you mean I did well?”

  Raj smiled, then leaned down and kissed me. “Very well. Let’s find the others. Petrina and I have a report.”

  The next night dawned—what’s the opposite of dawned? dusked?—dark and early and Petrina and Raj showed up about thirty minutes after sunset. I was in the process of trying to convince Emma to stay at the motel to “guard our retreat,” but she was having none of that.

  “Even if I’m not the best fighter yet, I’m still another set of teeth and claws,” she pointed out. “I’m not so incompetent that I’m a bigger hindrance than help, am I?”

  I had to answer true, dammit. “No, but Isaac will be pissed off if I don’t even manage to keep you alive for one
moon cycle.”

  “We can’t worry about things like living or dying. We just have to go out there and do our darnedest to win!”

  I rolled my eyes. “You need a skirt and some pom-poms,” I said. “You’d be a great cheerleader.”

  “Is cheerleader werewolf a step up or down from werewolf Barbie?” she asked.

  I thought about it. “Up. I am now ascribing you an actual personality instead of relegating you to a generic plastic doll. I mean, I’m assigning you a generic bimbo personality, but it’s definitely a step up.”

  “I’m so pleased.”

  I grinned. She wasn’t completely awful. At least she had a well-developed sense of sarcasm.

  “Are we ready?” Petrina asked. I tried not to read too much into her impatience. Likely she wanted to get this show on the road. I’m sure she wasn’t impatient with my immature, yet witty banter. Oh my gods, what if she didn’t think I was witty? What if she thought I was lame?

  “This self-doubt isn’t like you,” Raj’s voice infiltrated my mind. “You’ve never cared what anyone thought of you.”

  “I’ve never met any of my boyfriends’ Swedish bikini team daughters before, either,” I thought back at him. “You could’ve warned me.”

  “I didn’t think I needed to warn you that my daughter was good looking.”

  “Mehmed,” I thought at him. I sensed his moment of confusion before he caught the gist of my admittedly messed up line of thought.

  “No, no, my sweet. Trina and I have never had that kind of relationship. And even if we had, it would be long over. I do not mean to be rude, but you’ve not struck me as a jealous person before. I wonder the real reason for your nerves?”

  I stopped and thought. He was right. I was about the least jealous person ever. I didn’t like Emma, but not out of jealousy. Well, it was mostly not jealousy. The majority of my issues with Emma were because she was kinda bitchy and kept calling me a whore. I wasn’t truly jealous of any relationships Raj had indulged in in the past or present, and actually found the idea of him and Isaac to be…not something I was going to think about right now.

  “I think I just really want her to like me. I want her to think I’m good enough for you.” I cringed a bit; this was most definitely not like me. I looked up when Raj didn’t answer and saw him staring at me. The look on his face was similar to the one that I’d seen when he’d realized how much I really did trust him, and it was amazing.

  Out loud, he said, “If we didn’t have three dozen supernaturals to clear out of a one hundred square mile park, I’d take you back to my place, and we would make out. A lot.”

  I laughed. “That sounded very teenagery, Raj.”

  Petrina was staring at him. “Have you been watching Twilight again and pretending you’re a centuries-old frustrated virgin vamp?”

  “Again?” I asked. “This is a thing you do?”

  Raj was glaring at Petrina. “No, this is not a thing I do. We watched the Twilight movies together once. Petrina had a crush on the twee one.”

  “She really was the only interesting one,” I agreed. “Although my favorite parts were the shirtless werewolves.” Petrina grinned at me, and I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.

  “Did you ever watch Buffy?” she asked.

  “Of course! Spike is my secret boyfriend.”

  “I had a thing for Willow until her magic addiction thing in season six. I know it’s the writers’ faults, but it really kind of pissed me off, and the female vamps were either too bimboish—Harmony—or too crazy…”

  “Dru,” we said together.

  “Anya was awesome,” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  Florence cleared her throat, “How about we go find some real witches and vampires and kick their asses?” she asked.

  “Witches?” I asked, grinning.

  She sighed. “Mages, then.”

  Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Speaking of plans, do we have one?”

  “Will you be able to transform?” Florence asked.

  “If Emma comes along and tells me exactly how she feels about my relationship with Isaac, probably.”

  “What if she doesn’t manage to piss you off?”

  “Then I’ll think about Finn. I can do it, but I won’t be at full strength.”

  “What do you transform into?” Petrina asked. “I thought you were Fae and not a shifter.”

  “I’m both. I’m a dragon shifter.”

  Her eyes got big, and she shot a not-very-subtle glance at Raj. “Ohhh, you’re the catalyst?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  Raj held up his hands. “It wasn’t the most important piece of information.”

  “Whatever, honey,” I said. “I’ll turn into a dragon and try to herd them all into one place. Are we giving them a chance to surrender and leave, or are we just killing them where they stand?”

  “Can we trust a choice made under that kind of duress?” Emma asked.

  “Would you rather kill them all?” Florence asked.

  “Yes,” Emma said. “Less likely to come back and bite us in the behinds later.”

  “Florence, this is your deal, so we’ll do what you instruct.”

  “We will give them a chance. Anyone who lays down their weapons and stops fighting will be given a chance to surrender. Everyone else will die.” Florence really was terrifying.

  “Okay, so I’ll concentrate on herding and not burning. Raj?”

  “I can destroy the vampires that do not immediately surrender, although not more than one at a time unless you don’t care if I accidentally get a few that have surrendered.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “It is hard to explain, and we will still need to cut off their heads and burn them after to ensure they don’t rise again, but it should be fairly effective.”

  “Emma?”

  “I’ll scout for any surprises they might have—rogue shifters or Fae, and mentally shout warnings to Raj so he can keep everyone up to date. I’ll also keep an eye out for anyone trying to sneak off and take care of them.”

  “Sounds good. Petrina and Florence, you’re in charge of the witches, then.”

  “We should chat on the way there,” Florence said. “Make sure our magics will mesh instead of fight each other.”

  “Of course. There are a few odd things about what I do since I’m a mage and a vampire, but I’ve no doubt that someone of your power can adapt easily to that.”

  Chapter Ten

  EMMA DROVE US out to the Preserve. We were the only car on the road and the only one in the parking lot. As soon as we got out of the vehicle, Emma said to me, “Try not to fuck up too badly, whore. If you need to take a breather from the fight, I’m sure there’s plenty of lizards around you can rut with.” Then she pulled off her clothes and shifted. It took her fifteen minutes to make the transformation, and from the noises she was making, it was not pleasant. I was surprised since all the other shifters I’d spent time with had made it seem almost effortless. When she took her wolf form, she was gorgeous. Snow white with ice blue eyes. She shook herself, sniffed each of us, and then trotted off into the trees.

  I wasn’t pissed off enough to be warm, but I called to my dragon and started my own transformation. I’d forgotten to take off my clothes until I was halfway through. “Raj!” I called. “Help me strip!”

  He laughed and said aloud, “You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you beg me to strip you, and now under these circumstances, it is less than ideal.” He and Florence worked quickly to remove my layers of clothing and finally freed me just as I finished. They backed up, and I stretched out my wings, shot a burst of flame into the air, and tried to move my torpid blood through my body.

  “Okay?” Florence asked.

  “Cold. Flying will be slow.”

  “Take care of yourself.” She cocked her head to one side. I didn’t hear anything, so I assumed that there was something magical happening somewhere. “It’s show time,” she said. �
�Let’s go.”

  I launched myself clumsily into the air and took off. I flew lazy circles over the preserve, trying to heat up my body and make flying more than just instinct and muscle memory. Other than my brief flight the night before, I hadn’t flown outside since the last full moon. I vowed to retire somewhere tropical and deserted, so it was effortless to do this every day.

  I dipped lower when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Three figures were walking slowly towards our base of operations. I think they were trying to be stealthy. I couldn’t tell from the distance if they were vamps or witches, so I roared, they screamed and ran, and my first group was herded hysterically in the right direction.

  There were more people here than I was expecting to see, and the fighting was more intense. To be honest—cause what else am I going to be?—I’d hoped to stay out of the fray. I was cold and unwieldy, and the nature of the preserve meant that I couldn’t get in close. I had my fire, but even though it was winter, there was still a good chance that dragon flames could start a forest fire in the dormant trees.

  I flew back and forth over the preserve. Every once in a while, I’d see a flash of white as Emma took down a straggler. I stayed away from Raj, Petrina, and Florence and just let them do their thing. Once, I saw a lone figure running in the wrong direction. I flew low and roared, trying to herd her back in towards the others, but she shot a burst of magical fire at me and kept running. The fire had no effect because I was a dragon, but it was the thought that counted.

  I pulled my wings in close to my body and shot towards her. She was running faster than any human ought to be capable of, but not faster than a dragon in flight. Joy surged through my body, and I was so overwhelmed with the sheer beauty and pleasure of giving in to my dragon side and flying effortlessly that I forgot my goal for a moment and reveled in the sensations.

  I had a bird’s eye—or dragon’s, rather—view of the course the mage was taking and saw that unless they drastically changed their trajectory, they’d ran into a large clearing in a few seconds. I put on a burst of speed, passed the mage, then did an abrupt about-face and dove down into the clearing. I miscalculated my landing a bit. Giving into my instincts didn’t give me all the requisite skills and I skidded in the snow until I finally came to a stop in the middle of the clearing with a wake of snow behind me.