The pleasant ache in my abs reminded me of why I would fight to live, as did Benedict's hand playing with my fingers on the console between our seats in the SUV. Love, or at least the possibility of it, was worth fighting for.
He didn't speak after we got in the car, and in the silence, I reviewed every possible argument and threat and outcome. Maybe Val would come out swinging. Maybe she would stage an ambush after lulling me into a false sense of security. She preferred mental games, though. Maybe she would try to have me volunteer my way into servitude.
The car rolled to a stop a few blocks from the meeting place. Benedict turned off the car and braced his hands on the steering wheel. "Are you ready?"
"No." I took off my sunglasses and attempted a smile. "But that doesn't matter."
"You'll be fine." He touched the tip of my nose. "And don't be afraid to zap her with your freaky eyes, either. Petrify the shit out of her if you want. We'll be behind you."
"It's not my behind I'm worried about," I said with a laugh. "Her daughters will charge me from the front."
He pretended to examine my rear in the seat, frowning as he tugged on a belt loop of my jeans. "I'm very concerned about your behind, frankly. I might need to check it again. Just to make sure."
I swatted his hand away and opened the door. "Enough, I have to —"
He tugged my arm and pulled me back, across the console, and kissed me, tongue plunging into my mouth as I drew breath to tell him I loved him. Heat seared through me as his lips crushed mine and his hand slid into my hair, gripping the back of my head to hold me close. I touched his face, stubble on his cheeks rough against my palms, and thought about climbing over the console to straddle his lap. He broke the kiss but pressed his forehead to mine until our noses bumped.
He said very quietly, "I love you, Eloise Deacon. You are not a monster. You are strong and capable and worthy, and you have an ass that doesn't quit. All admirable traits. Do not ever forget that."
My throat closed around an emotion I didn't recognize, though my eyes burned with tears. I broke away before he noticed my reaction, instead saying over my shoulder, "My ass is pretty admirable," as I jumped out of the car and walked away.
But my hands shook as I approached the abandoned lot, overgrown with weeds and a couple of automotive skeletons, where Val wanted to meet. A single streetlamp provided just enough light to create some terrifying shadows. I didn't have to wait long. Val approached, several of her people with her in human and animal form. I held back my rage, let it simmer in my heart as I searched her expression for any hint of remorse. Any hint of humanity at all.
Val's eyes narrowed as she looked at me. "You don't have my money or my daughter. And yet you showed up. I don't know if you're brave or just stupid."
"Both, probably." The scary mojo worked up my spine in icy tendrils, just waiting for the opportunity. Cold gathered around my eyes as soon as I saw her face, heard the disregard in her voice. The thought of Benedict and his brothers, watching from the darkness around the pool of light where I stood, gave me the courage to say more. "But I could say the same about you."
She rocked back on her heels, laughing. "What, you took the money you stole from me and invested in some bodyguards? That makes you brave? Cut the shit, Eloise. Give me my money, tell me where Lacey is, and I'll probably let you live."
"Ask Lorraine." My hands clenched into fists at my sides. I recognized one of the hyenas as Lorraine, but Heba stood in human form at Val's shoulder. "Or Heba there. Ask them where your money is. If you don't already know, that is."
A twitch of doubt made Val frown. Her upper lip curled in a snarl. "I don't like what you're implying, Eloise."
I forced a laugh through the terror and anger clogging my throat. "Implying? Please. I'll spell it out for you. Lorraine and Heba set this up, and maybe Lacey, too. They stole your money, they killed Cal Armstrong, and they're trying to set me up too. Well, I'm not going down without a fight."
Val's eyes went flat, emotionless. The vertebrae in her neck cracked as she rotated her head. She didn't take her eyes off me but snapped her fingers, her voice deceptively quiet. "Heba. Start talking."
The woman edged forward, glaring at me as she pulled her dark hair out of the way. "She's making shit up, highest. We didn't —"
"You're lying." The hyena queen's breathe rasped in her throat. "Tell me where Lacey is. Right. Now."
Heba swallowed as the hyena with Lorraine's coloring stalked from the darkness and fixed her with a yellow gaze. "She's chained up there," and Heba jerked her chin at a nearby abandoned building.
Val gestured and three of her people raced off into the night. The hyena queen still hadn't looked away from me, and the direct threat in her gaze set my heart racing and the ice coalescing in my head. When she went on, the blood froze in my veins as well. "We have a different problem now, Eloise. You've witnessed too much. You've seen Lorraine's disrespect, and Heba's disobedience. I should kill them for it, but I still have a use for them. You, on the other hand..." She shook her head, as if she regretted an unpleasant task. "Your utility has expired."
I drew breath to scream for Benedict as my hair flared out in a cloud and one of the hyenas barked a warning, and Val said, "Lorraine, go."
The growling mass of yellow and black fur leapt at me and I kicked, trying to keep her claws from me, but Lorraine's teeth sunk into my arm and wrenched. Flesh parted and an awful roaring filled the night. The pain of the bite sent cold through every part of me and I looked at Heba, watched unfeeling as she turned the blue-gray of new concrete. Frozen forever.
Something landed on the hyena, still chewing on me, and that freed me up to lurch toward Val, arms outstretched. She would pay. I would be free of her forever, and the pain in my head would fade eventually. The cold burst in my eyes, filled the world with ice and rage and power, and I saw the fear in her eyes. Saw the horror in her expression, the way her fingers shook as she held up — a mirror.
A mirror.
And then it was my own face, devoid of emotion and framed by a cloud of black hair, staring at me. The cold snapped back, hit me in the gut, and everything stopped. Feeling disappeared, I couldn't blink, nothing worked. I felt as if I were falling but nothing else moved, and I tried to scream.
I tried to scream.
No sound escaped. A lion flew through the air in my peripheral vision and then Benedict's face appeared in front of me. Mouth open as he yelled, eyes wide and molten gold. I love you I tried to say, but not even my lips would move.
Everything went dark.