by Zoe Chant
It was three against one, and they were wearing light armor and carrying weapons; one of them still had a gun, and two of them had nightsticks.
One of those sticks came crashing into his broken rib, and another struck his leg, hoping, no doubt, to disable him. Graham pivoted on the other leg and punched one of them in the throat, ducking a nightstick and coming up under the guard’s arm at the elbow with his shoulder. The third guard hung back with the gun, trying to find an opening to shoot.
Graham didn’t have to think about what he was doing; he simply acted.
Instinct and muscle memory took over, and he merely was: dodging blows, looking for openings, trying to keep someone between himself and the man with the gun. He wasn’t Grant, and he wasn’t Graham, he was just intuition and adrenaline.
Patience paid off; he was able to knock one of the guards into the other and use the ensuing moment of confusion to bring all his weight down onto onto the other one’s wrist, thinking with an unexpected jolt of humor about his advice to Alice as it cracked beneath his assault. The guard howled, and was out of the fight cradling his arm long enough for him to grab the other and spin, using the man’s weight to build enough momentum to hurl him at the guard with the gun.
As they both struggled to keep their balance, Graham wrested the nightstick from the guard with the broken wrist and flew into them, knocking one out with a blow to the head and turning to face the other, just as a black panther materialized from the darkness and tackled him from behind.
Shots cracked out and the sound of Saina’s lilting song suddenly went quiet as the generator failed with a sputter and a spray of sparks and all of the lights and sound equipment died.
The people who had been under her thrall shook themselves out, and, nearly as one, they turned to flee down the island for the dock. The guard with the broken wrist joined the flight through the sudden darkness, and the guard under the panther cried out for mercy.
The panther shifted into Wrench and exchanged an amused nod with Graham.
“Thanks,” Graham said briefly, looking around for a new opponent.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight; apparently his lion’s advantages were not all lost with his ability to reach his animal.
“Alice!” Graham cried, sprinting to where she was crouching. Her face was covered in blood, and Cyrus, pinned beneath her, was snarling and struggling.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “He’d be thrown out for poor sportsmanship if this were a real match. But I can’t let him up until I have something to do with him.” She grunted as Cyrus got a lucky elbow in her side, and adjusted her grip on him.
“I have something to do with him,” Graham growled, and he stepped on Cyrus’ protesting head while Alice carefully let go of him, bending to pull the man to his feet when she was free.
“You going to hurt me?” Cyrus challenged, anger and defeat in his beady eyes.
Graham was more aware of Alice’s gaze than he was Cyrus’.
She wouldn’t blame him for extracting justice.
But Graham didn’t want to.
Of all the people he hated, as much as he desired revenge, here he was with every opportunity to give Cyrus back some small portion of the pain he’d lived with for ten years... and all he wanted was to be done with it.
He had wanted to step into the cage and fight a doomed battle at a disadvantage more than he wanted to inflict pain on this hateful, beaten man.
“No,” Graham growled. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He frogmarched the man to the dark cage where the Irish elk and the bears had herded most of the guards and fighters who hadn’t fled with the audience to the docks below. Some of them were staggering in a daze that Graham recognized as Gizelle’s handiwork, and he wasn’t surprised to see her tiny gazelle shape darting at Conall’s heels.
Graham thrust Cyrus into the cage, not exactly gently, but not with the force that he could have. Someone had dragged in the guard he had knocked unconscious.
“You’re not worth it,” he said disdainfully as Cyrus stumbled into one of his unamused guards.
In the silence following the destruction of the generators, they could hear the distant sound of the boats starting to pull away from the docks below.
Neal, naked and grinning wolfishly, had an armful of chains and locks gathered from equipment boxes around the makeshift arena. “Is this all of them?” he asked.
Graham shrugged.
Tony, in tiger form, came circling around from the back of the cage and shifted back to human. “I checked the perimeter and didn’t see any stragglers. These are the only ones that weren’t smart enough to run for the boats.”
Neal set to work securing the cage.
Bastian was back in human form, and he was supporting a very wobbly-looking Saina. “What did you do to them?” he asked anxiously. “Are you alright?”
She had a shallow scratch on her forehead; Bastian frowned and reached for his first aid kit.
“I made them feel guilty,” Saina said, with a certain amount of tired satisfaction, letting him fuss over her as she sank to a seat on a fallen speaker. “I reminded them that they were part of something terrible and made them feel bad about it. It probably won’t last long—that’s a lot more people than I usually try something so complicated with. I doubt it will last long enough for any of them to turn themselves in or rat out the ring; they’ll likely forget about the whole thing by the time they get to the mainland.”
She hissed as Bastian cleaned her cut.
“Are you hurt?” Graham asked Alice. There was an alarming amount of blood on her face, but it didn’t appear to be flowing.
“Nah,” Alice said dismissively. “I got a bloody nose and I might chew on the left side until I can shift again and heal up, but nothing that needs stitches.” She gave him a suspicious look. “I’m more worried about you,” she said softly, for his ears only. “They...”
“I’m fine,” Graham said briefly. “Broken rib, maybe.” He drew in a deep breath. Definitely a broken rib.
Alice made a little noise of anger and helplessness. “You should have Bastian bind that up.”
“Darla’s hurt,” Breck said, coming out of the darkness with his arm around his mate, saving Graham having to argue about his rib.
“No more hurt than you are,” Darla protested. “He got tagged with one of the darts and neither of us can shift now.”
They had matching injuries, long slices on their arms. The runes circling their left wrists were gleaming slightly, reflecting the moonlight. Graham suspected that neither of them would have sought medical help for themselves, but Bastian solemnly cleaned the wounds for each of them and declared that they would probably heal with a shift or two once the drug wore off.
“Told you to stay back,” Wrench said, frowning and folding his arms. If he’d taken any injury, it wasn’t obvious on his scar- and tattoo- marked body.
Gizelle bounded into the space and shifted from gazelle to human in one swift leap. “I helped!” she declared cheerfully.
Conall, who had tossed a number of opponents easily aside in his Irish elk shape, gathered her into his arms. “I told you to stay back, too.”
Alice gave Graham a sideways look. “You going to tell me that I should have stayed back, too?” she asked for his ears only.
Graham snorted, and his side protested keenly. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said gruffly.
“Let’s see that rib,” Bastian said to him without leaving room for argument once he had finished with Darla and Breck. Dragon ears must be as keen as a lion’s.
“Great outfit,” Breck observed as Graham reluctantly took off the purple satin robe. “Gold lamé suits you! You should add more to your wardrobe, m’lord.”
Darla pinched him and said, “Ouch!” as she hurt herself as well.
“So, you’re the King of the Jungle.” Neal smirked as Bastian dug into his first aid kit.
“Don’t they realize that lions don’t eve
n usually live in the jungle?” Tony asked drolly.
“King of the Savannah doesn’t have quite the same ring,” Bastian observed thoughtfully, unwinding a roll of cloth.
“Besides,” Alice pointed out, “this lion lives in a jungle.”
At one time, not so long ago, Graham could have imagined nothing worse than facing the staff with the truth of his past. Now, he gave a gruff laugh that turned to a hiss of pain as Bastian tied off the binding around his chest. Alice’s hand in his tightened.
“You’re going to have some good bruises,” Bastian observed, his look suggesting that he guessed some of the other, less-obvious injuries Graham had taken. “Hope that Beehag’s drug wears off soon, because shifting will do more for you than I can.”
Tex had been guarding the van, and he greeted them with a grizzly growl from the darkness. Everyone dressed swiftly and piled in.
The Jeep still had the keys in it, to Alice’s comic relief. “Can you imagine what Scarlet would have done to me if I’d lost her keys?” she said, clutching her chest dramatically.
Scarlet.
Graham knew what he had to do.
Chapter 37
The journey back to the resort was much slower than Alice’s breakneck drive had been, and the mood was lighter. Most of the staff packed back into the groaning van.
Alice, Graham, Breck, and Darla took the Jeep.
Graham gritted his teeth at every bump and pretended he wasn’t hurting, but Alice knew better. She let Breck drive on the way back, content to curl in the back seat next to Graham, trying not to fall into him at the tight curves.
Scarlet was standing at the entrance of the resort, arms crossed, when they pulled in at last. She was frowning, to no one’s surprise, but she refrained from quizzing them as they tumbled out of the vehicles and gave her the story in piecemeal bits and vivid, rambling description.
She frowned at a new bullet hole in the van, but to Alice’s surprise, did not scold them for damage to resort property when she could have.
“That’ll buff right out,” Travis assured her with a grin.
Graham hung back, letting the others enthusiastically tell the tale of rescue and revenge with all the details they knew, and Alice stood with him. She felt like her bear was beginning to wake in her head and thought that she’d be able to shift soon. Her bond with Graham was a whisper in the back of her head and she was desperately relieved to feel it again.
“I’ll have the Civil Guard collect the trespassers in the morning,” Scarlet said dryly as the storytelling devolved into more and more colorful accounts of heroism. “I am sure you are all hungry and tired.”
The others all tramped for the buffet and their mates and their beds, leaving Scarlet, Graham, and Alice alone in the courtyard.
“I trust you concluded your business?” Scarlet asked pointedly, not prying for details.
Graham grunted and shrugged one shoulder, then added, “It shouldn’t be a problem again.”
“I’m glad to have you back in one piece,” she said mildly, with a glance at Alice. “Please don’t let me keep you from food and rest.”
Alice handed the Jeep keys back to her self-consciously. “Thank you,” she said awkwardly. “For trusting me.”
Scarlet only smiled her cool, distant smile, and accepted them without comment.
Alice and Graham, hand in hand, walked through the courtyard and stood at the top of the resort looking down over it for a long moment.
At night, it was subdued, but no less magic, a haven of soft light in the darkness. Alice understood why Graham loved this place.
“Graham,” she started to say.
But before she could speak, he was leading her away. Not to the buffet, as her stomach was hoping, nor to the Den, where her tired muscles longed to crawl into his bed again at last.
He led her past the hotel, still in its shroud, and up the path to his garden.
Alice had suspicions about what he had in mind as he opened the gate for her, but when she expected him to kiss her and pull her into his arms, he only sat on one of the ledges, and pulled her down next to him.
“Graham,” she started again.
“I want to tell you what Scarlet is,” he said unexpectedly.
Alice felt her empty stomach clench.
“I... can’t ask you to do that,” she said mournfully. It was something she hated thinking about; every option was ugly.
“You are my mate,” he told her simply. “And I don’t want secrets from you. I... can’t stand being so close to being able to help you and not doing it.”
Alice gazed at him, alarmed and overwhelmed by the depth of what he was offering.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, because knowing meant she had to decide what to do with the information.
They were quiet a long time, Alice not sure if she wanted to beg him to tell her... or beg him not to tell her.
Finally Graham raised his gaze. “Scarlet’s not a shifter.”
He paused, to let that bomb sink in, and Alice stopped him before he could continue. “She’s not a shifter? She doesn’t have a shift form?”
Graham shook his head. “She’s—”
Alice put a finger up firmly. “Don’t tell me,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to know.”
Graham blinked. “But...”
“I don’t give a damn what Scarlet actually is.”
“You could save your brother, your parents...”
“The guy with the business card? He didn’t ask me what she was. He asked me what her shifted form was. If she doesn’t have one... that’s his answer. And it’s an answer I feel just fine giving him. I’m not giving away Scarlet’s real secrets, and I’m not asking them from you. I can give him the truth, and it doesn’t... it doesn’t feel like betraying Scarlet.”
“He going to accept that answer?” he asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” Alice said merrily. “Let’s find out! You have a phone in those gold lamé shorts somewhere? I still have his business card.” Cyrus’ men had frisked her, but hadn’t seen any significance to the card and it had been returned to her pocket. She had memorized the number anyway.
Graham groaned. “Cyrus probably got it. I bet the cost of that comes out of my bonus.”
“When was the last time you got a bonus anyway?” Alice scoffed.
They walked down to Alice’s cottage to find her phone and disconnect it from the charging cable.
“What time is it there?” Graham thought to ask her before she dialed. It was still dark out, but dawn was starting to color the horizon.
“I don’t know what time zone he’s in,” Alice said frankly. “And frankly, it serves him right to get a call in the middle of the night for being all scary and mysterious.”
They sat together on the colorful tropical quilt on her bed, fingers twined, while the call rang through.
This was it, Alice thought. This was her brother’s care and her parent’s house and her mate’s trust, all on the line with a stranger that she didn’t know the first thing about. She thought about Jenny’s ledger, creeping ever so slowly towards an impossible finish line, and what the money left over could mean to that.
She turned the card over in her hands. N. Padrikanth Moore was the most absurd name she’d ever heard, and she now counted a man named Wrench among her friends.
He picked up on the third ring. “Moore,” he said simply, sounding cross but not at all asleep.
“Alice Anders,” she said firmly. “You owe me fifty million dollars.”
She was expecting to surprise him, but could not tell if she actually had. “You found out what Scarlet’s shift form is,” he said approvingly.
“Yup,” Alice said.
There was a moment of silence. “And...?” the man prompted.
“And you owe me fifty million dollars,” Alice said firmly. “I’m sure you know my bank account numbers and probably my passwords.”
“What kind of shifter is she?”
“If I tell you, are you going to actually pay me?”
Alice couldn’t miss the rich humor in his answer and she thought that was a good sign. “If you tell me the shift form of Scarlet Stanson, I will wire you fifty million dollars this very day.”
“She doesn’t have one.”
Graham’s hand squeezed hers and there was silence on the line.
“What is she?” he finally asked.
“Noooooope,” Alice drawled. “That wasn’t what you asked. I was sent to find out her shift form. I did that. It’s not my fault the answer is ‘nothing.’”
There was another silence long enough that Alice actually checked the connection.
She exchanged an anxious look with Graham.
N. Padrikanth Moore began to laugh.
Alice chuckled nervously, but wasn’t actually relieved until he stopped laughing and, to her shock, said, “Very well, Alice Anders. You have technically kept your end of the bargain and I will keep mine. What do you want for the remainder of the information I’m seeking?”
“Don’t have it, don’t want it, won’t do it,” Alice blurted. “There’s no price you can offer me.”
“Everything has a price,” the mysterious Mr. Moore insisted.
Alice looked at Graham, at the relief she felt mirrored in his face. “I think you’re wrong,” she said thoughtfully.
Graham slowly smiled and Alice felt her world fall into all the right places.
“It’s been a pleasure doing business, Mr. Moore, I look forward to seeing your payment,” she said, over whatever the man was trying to say. She hung up the phone and tossed it back onto the bedside table.
Graham’s smile was like sunlight and strawberries.
“You want to make love to a millionaire?” Alice asked.
Chapter 38
Mary and Neal’s wedding was simple and joyous... and completely lacking in battles, supernatural interruptions, and earthquakes.
