by Jackie May
“Are you sure they’ll come in and fight us fairly?” Charlie asks, eyeing the roof with trepidation. “What’s to stop them from burning the building to flush us out, or just blowing it all together?”
“They’ll come in,” Parker says confidently, eyes fastened on the front door.
“They can’t risk hurting Kat or me,” I say. “They won’t do anything that could jeopardize us.”
I barely finish my explanation when the front door is ripped off its hinges. The man who steps inside is a shifter, but not one I’ve ever seen before. He’s a cat shifter. A cougar, I think. He’s got a cocky strut and a self-satisfied smirk. Either he’s incapable of dying, or he doesn’t realize the threat my clan poses. He’s clearly not from around here. He’s too confident.
My siren burns with indignation at his arrogance. She wants to devour this man, and I want to let her. Maybe I should let Parker lift my compulsion. I almost suggest it, but then I look around me and just can’t do it. What if I lost control and hurt the men I love? If my siren, caught up in battle, started sucking souls, would she stop when I asked her? Would she know the difference between friend and foe? Would she care? I can’t say with certainty, so I leave her locked away. She’s pissed at me for that, but I ignore her and pay attention to the small army that enters the club behind the cougar.
There’re nearly fifty of them by the time they stop coming in. They’re all different species. Some look rough and scary while others look sophisticated. Some are ugly while others beautiful. I know better than to think the nice-looking ones aren’t dangerous.
As the room fills, my guys shuffle in just a little tighter around Kat and me. Henry’s vampires pull in on either side of us as well. With them, we’re only outnumbered about two to one. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m grateful for Henry’s presence.
The overconfident cat shifter stands in front of the group. “Is this all you have?” He laughs.
Terrance, in full badass troll mode, replies in a no-nonsense tone, “Are you the collector? The one who put out the bounties on my clan?”
The guy smirks. “Nah. I’m just the guy who’s going to kill your clan and capture those bitches.”
Before he can even point in my direction, a small silver dagger flies across the room from a dark corner where a person can’t even be seen and stabs the asshole right in the heart. He falls to the ground, dead. None of my clan flinches. We’ve seen Illren’s stealth, aim, and speed before. But the group of mercenaries shifts uneasily, and a few murmurs spread through them. A few of them nervously lift weapons Illren’s direction, but he’s probably already moved locations.
“Anyone else?” Terrance asks, having not moved a muscle. No one makes a peep. “Who is your leader?” He growls. “Let him show himself.”
The mercenaries all look around, but no collector steps forward. Coward.
“We don’t care who the boss is,” someone near the back of the group shouts.
“Yeah,” another agrees, sounding a little more confident since he wasn’t the first to speak up. “We don’t care who wants you dead. All we care about is the million dollars apiece we’re going to get for killing you.”
“Assuming you can do it,” Wulf grumbles. I’m not surprised his alpha wolf doesn’t like being talked down to.
“He’s not here,” I murmur, my heart sinking. The whole point of this suicidal showdown was to end the threat once and for all.
“He’s here,” Parker says quietly. “There’s no way he’d stay out of this when everything he wants is right here.”
“It could be any of them,” Ren says.
Rook growls. “Then we’ll just have to kill them all and send a message to the entire underworld that you do not mess with our clan.”
Someone laughs. A large werewolf with brawny shoulders and a scraggly beard carrying two swords in either hand laughs. He steps up to the front of the group, kicking aside the body of the werecat. “You’re awfully confident.”
“And you’re not nearly wary enough,” Parker tells him calmly.
“Of you?” the wolfman scoffs. “We’ve all heard of your clan.” He sneers. “The siren who was raised human and collects outcasts. You’re a mish-mashed group of underworld rejects. All exiled from your own clans or”—he gives me a pointed look—“orphans with no one else to love them, so you had to form this disgraceful excuse for a clan.”
My siren roars in my head at the insults against her men. Her clan is not disgraceful. She may not be able to unleash her power on these people like she wants to, but her anger and bloodlust are seeping into my own feelings. I was nervous, but I don’t think I’ll have any hesitation when it comes time to kill the enemy. My siren is as bloodthirsty as Illren.
A hiss escapes me, and the werewolf’s gaze fastens on me. His smirk turns dark. “And you all share the little slut,” he spats, pointing his finger at me. “You just pass her around like the whore that she is.”
His words don’t affect me, but every member of my clan growls. The man laughs evilly, his disgust growing by the second. “She’s got you all so whipped, you don’t even realize how pathetic and weak you are. You’re a disgrace to the underworld.”
“Then come at us!” Rook shouts, the control on his temper starting to snap. “Let us show you how weak we are.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then a man shouts a word, sending a glowing red fireball straight for Rook. It explodes against an invisible shield, and then a blazing white fireball is shot back, nearly vaporizing the sorcerer who tried to kill Rook. One more body drops to the floor.
Again, none of my clan is fazed, but the unease grows amongst our enemies. Pride swells in my heart for Oliver. If any of the guys were worried he might not be confident enough with his magic, they’re no longer concerned. Oliver will protect us with everything he has in himself.
“Kill the sorcerer first!” someone shouts, and that sets the crowd off.
Several people aim magical and physical attacks at Oliver, and in the moment of distraction, the group of mercenaries finally charges. Chaos erupts. Terrance roars, pulling an iron blade out of his shoulder, and then he grabs the man who stabbed him. I look away before I have to see what comes next. Trolls have a tendency to literally rip their enemies apart with their bare hands. It’s messy.
The shouts and clanking of swords makes me feel like I’m in some medieval war. How in the world did this become my life?
I have my hands on my waist, ready to grab whatever weapons I might need, but so far, no one has managed to get close enough to me. Terrance is causing all kinds of trouble in the middle of the crowd, and the wolves are holding the line in front of me quite nicely. Nick, in his half-shifted form, is standing guard in front of Kat and me.
Suddenly there’s an explosion, and glass rains down on the room as several smaller faeries fly through the windows near the ceiling. They start firing arrows down at us. “Look out!” I shout. “Above you!”
An arrow hits Ren in the leg, and he goes down with a hiss. Enzo is at his side in an instant, but the pixie who shot him is now aiming at the shaman. “Enzo!” I screech, feeling utterly helpless.
Beside me, Kat bursts into a ball of magical flame and emerges from it in the form of a big, beautiful firebird. She unleashes a deafening screech and heads straight for the flying pixies. I watch in awe as she spits fire at them. I’ve never seen anything like her. She’s fierce, deadly, and absolutely beautiful. She’s as breathtaking as Nick is in his dragon form.
She has no problem taking down the pixies, but then a large, nasty demonic bird/woman creature streaks through the air right for Kat. It takes me a moment to recognize the nightmarish thing as a harpy. It’s got the head and wings of a crow but the body of a naked woman, and a nasty set of clawed bird’s feet to finish out the grotesque picture. She dives for Kat, claws first, with an ear-piercing screech. The harpy is four times larger than Kat.
Kat doesn’t have time to get out of the way and takes a nasty s
wipe to her side. She squawks in pain but flips around and dives at the harpy, spitting fire as she does. The beast goes up in smoke but gets in one last hit that sends Kat careening through the air. She crashes into a wall clear on the far side of the club, and as soon as she tumbles to the ground, someone casts a golden net over her. Her cries of pain tell me that the net isn’t just colored gold, it’s made of—or at least coated in—real gold.
“Shit!” Nick shouts. He starts to run for her but stops and glances my way. A quick look around us has him torn with indecision. It’s pandemonium. Every person on our side of this fight is engaged in their own battles. Nick is my guard. He doesn’t want to leave me, but he can’t let the collector get Kat, either.
“Go!” I shout. “I’m right behind you!”
He glares at me. “Do not lose me!”
We take off through the fighting for the far back corner of the club. As we pass, several men try to grab me, but I manage to hold them off with my daggers. The further we get, the more crowded the fighting. Henry’s vampires are fighting fiercely, and when they see Nick and me, they form a protective circle around us. Henry makes his way to my side. “What are you doing?” He shouts at me like I’m crazy for jumping into the fray.
A man comes at me then, and I barely get my dagger up before he gets his hands on me. I shove my iron blade into his chest with all my strength, and the fairy goes down. Henry blinks at me, surprised, and then his lips twitch like he’s impressed. We don’t have time for this.
Down the back hallway, we can hear Kat’s anguished cries. Her captors have the back door open. They’re going to take her. “Go!” I shout at Nick. “Don’t wait for me! Go get her!”
His gaze flicks back and forth between Kat and me, then he glares at Henry. “Get her upstairs to Terrance’s office. It’s a panic room,” he shouts, clearly unhappy about having to trust Henry.
“I’ve got her,” Henry promises, gripping my shoulder tightly. For once, it’s almost reassuring. “Go save the phoenix.”
“Be safe,” Nick orders me.
I see the double cross seconds too late. When Nick whirls around and dashes for the back door, Henry’s vampires have somehow all gathered around him. They throw fistfuls of gold dust at him, and he roars as he falls to the ground, writhing and coughing. “Now!” Henry shouts, and his men cast another gold net over Nick.
“Nick!” I dash for him, but Henry’s still holding my shoulder. I reach for my stake and jab him with it, but I’m not quite fast enough, and my aim isn’t true. He roars but is able to pull the stake from his side. He grabs my face, and his eyes glow red as he hisses one word at me. “Sleep.”
Damn that bastard! I feel the compulsion settle in my head just as the world around me goes dark.
I wake up slowly. I’m stiff and freezing. My brain is sluggish, and my body even more so. What the hell happened? I press my hand to my spinning head and groan. My brain feels like it’s about to explode, and my stomach is ready to stage a revolt. “What’s wrong with me?”
“It’s the cage,” a man says weakly, and then coughs. “Your fey body can’t handle all the iron.”
Cage? Iron? My eyes open slowly. I carefully sit up, afraid if I move too fast, I’ll puke. Vomit and I are not friends. I breathe through the nausea and finally catch a glimpse of my surroundings. I’m lying on the floor of a large iron cage snuggled in a pile of soft blankets. Panic thrums in my chest, but it doesn’t overwhelm me. Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve passed out and woken up in a cell.
I think back. What happened?
As I try to gain my wits, I wrap myself in one of the blankets because it’s freezing and I’m shivering. I’m in what looks to be an old abandoned church. The place has been looted and vandalized, and is crumbling in disrepair.
It’s all boarded up, so the only source of light is coming from the moonlight shining in through the busted out windows way up near the ceiling and a small fire near the back of the old chapel. No wonder it’s so cold. An abandoned building at night in a Michigan January isn’t exactly a hospitable climate. I hope whoever locked me up doesn’t plan to leave me out here long. I don’t know that I’ll survive an entire night here, even with the blankets.
“Nora?” a weak female voice whispers. “Are you okay?”
I squint across the room and can barely make out four other cages, each set a good five or six feet apart. They’re a little smaller than mine, and from the looks of it, all of them are occupied. There’s something strange about the cages. Are they…made of gold?
“Nora? It’s Kat.” She coughs. “Are you okay?”
Kat…Kat… Kat! I finally remember the crazy redheaded phoenix that came to the club to help us, and my memories click into place. Bits and pieces of a crazy battle flash through my mind. Terrance ripping someone apart after being stabbed in the shoulder. Rook and Wulf fighting side by side. Arrows and swords. Ren going down. Harpies. Kat. A golden net. Henry. Nick! I gasp again. “Kat! Nick! Are you all right?”
“Nick’s unconscious,” Kat murmurs. Even with the weakness of her voice, I can hear the emotion in it. “He inhaled a lot of gold dust. He can’t shift. If he doesn’t get a healer to expel it from his system soon, he could die.”
My heart lurches. Nick can’t die.
I reach for my weapons belt, but of course it’s gone. I jump up and rattle my cage bars, but the iron burns my hands and I fall back, hissing from the sting. “Nora?” Kat asks again.
“I’m okay. It’s nothing that won’t heal.” I blow on my stinging palms. They’re already blistering. “What about you guys? Are the rest of you all right?”
“We’re weak,” the man says. “He’s keeping us that way on purpose so that we can’t shift, but he’s taken care to keep us away from death’s door. He needs us alive.”
“You’re the missing gryphon?”
“Yes. I am Aziel Emery. I was taken from my home in North Dakota over a week ago.”
“And the girl?” I ask, my heart full of sadness that the child was taken and also filled with hope that she’s here and that she’s okay. “The young unicorn who went missing? Is she here? Is she okay?”
“My name is Sapphire,” a quiet voice says. She sounds terrified, but her voice isn’t as weak as the gryphon’s or Kat’s. “I’m okay. He’s been very polite, and he spelled my cage to keep me warm.”
“A sorcerer?” I’m surprised. “I thought it was Henry.”
“The vampire is working with a powerful sorcerer,” Aziel says.
“But to do what?” I mutter.
Henry’s voice rings out behind me, filled with satisfaction. “A very powerful spell, love.”
Henry comes up to the front of the church with a man who looks to be in his early twenties. He must be the sorcerer, because he’s holding a torch that’s blazing with a strange fire that can only be magical. Witchlight. I’ve heard of it but never seen it.
Henry comes up to my cage and gives me a smug smile. I glare at him. “You bastard! I should have known you’d betray us!”
Henry frowns. “I did no such thing. I promised I’d keep you safe, and I have.”
Henry’s logic and skewed version of reality will never cease to amaze me. He looks around the old building. “I apologize for the crude conditions, but I needed a place entirely unconnected to me or my clan. I needed discretion.”
“For what?” I demand. “A binding spell? You think that’s going to work? I’ll never love you, Henry. No matter what you do, I’ll never want you!”
He ignores me. “Soon, though, I will take you to a place worthy of you. I will give you all the luxuries you deserve.”
I’m starting to lose my patience. “I don’t give a shit about luxury, Henry. What about all of my men?” My heart leaps into my chest. “What happened to my clan?”
Henry grinds his teeth. “Hopefully, they’re dead.” I flinch at the harsh words. “But I’m sure at least some of them will survive the battle. They are resilient.” He sighs. “Ho
wever, if at least some of them are out of the way, it will be easier to get to the others in the future.”
My soul fills with dread. Without Henry and his vampires, my guys were so outnumbered. They’re strong, maybe the strongest clan in the city, but could they possibly defeat so many trained fighters?
I reach within myself, to that place in my heart where I can feel Charlie. His feelings come through loud and clear. They’re devastated, and panicked, but they’re there. At least he’s still alive. I send him waves of reassurance, and his feelings burst into a chaotic mess of hope, excitement, relief, and determination. I guess he couldn’t feel me when I was unconscious. Now he knows I’m alive. Hopefully he can feel that I’m safe. Well, physically anyway. Henry won’t hurt me. But if the bastard binds me to him with mythic magic, he’ll have complete control over me, and who knows what will happen then.
I don’t think Rook is dead, either. I can’t feel him the same way I can feel Charlie, but I’d know it if he died. I’d be missing half my soul. Rook described it as being gutted or torn in half. And when Rook nearly died in the club, my soul hurt. I feel fine right now. I still feel complete.
That’s two of my men. All I can do is pray the others are safe, too. It would kill me to lose any of them. My voice trembles with fear and rage when I say, “If even one of those men dies, I will never forgive you.”
Henry gives me a long look, considering my words, and eventually shakes off my threat. “Doesn’t matter. I will take you however I can get you.”
He’s such an arrogant asshole. “You can’t have me, Henry.”
His eyes glow a faint red as he battles his anger. “I already have you, Nora. And after I fix you, I will make you love me. I didn’t want to have to compel you, but you’ve left me no choice.”
