“So you aren’t Russian.” Russel filled the usually surprisingly roomy space of the RV living area, not just the size of him but his smell, wolf on steroids, overcoming even the fresh, hot pizza.
“You plan to bore me to death?” I said.
“The Crosses didn’t send you,” he said with a chuckle. “Dani said you’re an assassin. Who hired you?”
He moved toward me and I refused to retreat, moving instead to keep my body as much between him and Dani as I could. It meant shifting away from the table, and my Glock.
“The Crosses hired me,” I said, which was somewhat the truth anyway.
Russel stepped into me, his chest brushing my chest. Our eyes were nearly level, every gold and green fleck in his hazel eyes defined as he stared me down. I could make out each ruddy hair on his rough shaven chin, though the only thing I wanted to lick off his jaw anymore was his own blood. I bared my teeth in a snarl and he laughed again, his breath hot in my face.
“Bad kitty,” he said. “The Crosses have locked down, like they are expecting a threat. My sources say nobody hired you to come after me.”
“Your sources suck,” I said.
“You killed my wolf on Friday night, didn’t you? Know what that night and last night have in common? Not me. Just a certain blonde human.” All humor left his eyes like water sucked down a drain, leaving emptiness behind.
I had the disconcerting thought that maybe this is what the people I hunted saw in my eyes before their end.
“Okay,” I said, pushing away my thoughts. “So you figured out I’m not after you. How about you fuck off then?” I leaned into him, my chest against his, his hands brushing mine. Our lips were nearly touching, his throat close enough I could almost taste his pulse. Only the thought of Alma and Cora being ripped apart by a thousand bullets kept me from striking.
“You fucked up my arena, killed four of my pack, and have created unnecessary tension with the Cross family. Not to mention kidnapping my daughter.” Russel stroked his knuckles up my bare arms.
“You were going to kill her,” I said. Pieces fell into place. Dani’s scent, for example. Wolf, on steroids. Except she wasn’t an epicyon shifter. Maybe daddy asshole there was pissed about her being a dog instead, and that’s why he justified beating her and leaving her to die as spectator sport.
“Her choice,” Russel said. “She knew what she needed to do in order to stop that.”
“I’m sorry,” Dani whimpered behind me.
“Not your fault who you sperm donor is,” I said. “Okay, Russel. How do you want to do this? Why don’t we go outside, you call off your pack, and we find out one on one if there’s a reason your species went extinct.”
“Such a fierce little pussy,” Russel said, his eyes still cold and empty. “I respect that. But I have other plans for you.”
A shiver of ice crawled down my spine and my skin wanted to slink away from his touch at the sound of those words. It didn’t matter if his plans involved fucking me or making me fight in his sick little arena, I wanted zero part of either. The ironic thing was, if he’d been even half as much a monster, I probably would have fallen into his bed willingly. For a night or two.
“No chance,” I growled.
Russel stepped back, surprising me. He looked around the RV with an almost mournful expression. His gaze caught on the LeMat.
“Don’t touch that,” I said, moving to stop him.
He backhanded me with more speed and force than I’d expected. I recoiled, face stinging, and then went for him, stopping only when he put up a warning hand, tapping his cheek by his ear.
“Down, kitty, or your friends out there turn into hamburger.” Russel took the LeMat down, testing the grip in his hand.
I straightened and spit blood on his shiny cowboy boots. “Put that back.” He wasn’t worthy to look at Daniel’s gun, much less hold it.
“I like old weapons. Don’t have a black powder revolver yet. Never seen one like this.” He turned the gun in his hands, but his eyes were on me.
“I’d be happy to tell you the entire history of the LeMat if you want to send away your pack,” I said. My hands flexed, I could almost feel my claws trying to come out.
“You get a ring of orange in your eyes around the pupil when you’re angry, you know that? It’s cute.”
Him being force fed his own entrails would also be cute.
“Put the gun back,” I said.
Russel tucked the LeMat into his belt. “Good chat. Now, pick up my kid. I’ve seen your home, such as it is. How about we go visit mine?”
I could see that future playing out. One of the primary rules of surviving was to never let the attacker take you to a secondary location. It was always best to assume if they wanted to take you somewhere, you were already a corpse, and to fight accordingly. Going with Russel might stave off violence in the short term, but I knew that road led only to bad places. Places where I had less control and fewer options.
“You go first,” I said. I forced my posture to relax, even tipped my head slightly to the side, showing more neck.
Russel’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no, ladies first,” he said. “Pick her up, and don’t do anything reckless.”
Little did he know, reckless was my middle name.
“I can walk,” Dani said, struggling upright on the couch. She clutched her badly bruised left arm against her chest but her swollen eyes were bright with fear and hate as she glared at Russel. Blood had dried in a crust under her nose, around her mouth and down her chin.
“You’re coming with me,” I said to her. I couldn’t put emphasis on the words, only hoping she’d understand what to do when the time came.
“We’ll all go together,” Russel said. “Out, now.”
Dani got to her feet and I steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. I hated turning by back on Russel, but it was unavoidable as we made our way out of the RV. I risked a glance toward the cab and flexed my left hand, spreading my fingers. I hoped Jaq had seen the gesture.
The twins were standing immediately to the right of the door, engaged in a glare-off with the nearest truck of gun-toting wolves. Alma glanced at me as I followed Dani out of the RV. I flicked my eyes up and to the left.
One one-thousand.
Russel stepped out behind us, his body brushing my back. I stepped left, opening a small gap between us as I shoved on Dani’s shoulder, pushing her right.
Two one-thousand.
Russel’s next step took him between Dani and I. I grabbed him, throwing all my weight into shoving him forward.
“Back in,” I yelled.
Three one-thousand.
Russel twisted in my grip. I slammed my head into his face, pain blooming between my eyes. My knee caught his thigh with enough force to shove him backward. Something flew past our heads in the direction of the front truck.
Four one-thousand.
I almost fell with him as he let go of me abruptly, disengaging. I made a wild snatch for the LeMat in his belt but he leapt away too quickly. From the corner of my eye I saw the twins pulling themselves into the RV.
Five one-thousand.
I leapt backward, turning as I landed. The twins were inside, Cora twisting to reach for me. I caught the doorway as I heard Russel shout.
“Shoot them.”
The grenade that Cora had thrown in front went off with a world-shaking ripple of sound and sand as I dove inside the RV.
The door closed behind me. I tumbled onto the twins’ legs, the RV engine chugging to life. Bullets ripped into the windows and the door behind us, filling the air with reverberating thunder. I tried to remain low as the RV crashed forward, throwing me into the couch. I caught a glimpse of Alma’s panicked face as she clutched Cora from under the table. I had no idea where Dani had gone, the aftermath of the grenade and the scream of bullets around me overwhelming my senses.
A bullet ripped through the RV wall and caught my side in a line of exploding pain, but it was Alma’s scream I heard.
Then the world went silent, the gunfire ending so abruptly my ears felt like I’d jammed cotton into them. For a heartbeat or three I lay, holding my side, until the RV lurched to a halt. Debris and cushion stuffing and who knew what else drifted and settled around us. The smells of blood and pizza warred with dust and hot metal.
“Kira? We’re hit,” Alma said, her voice strained but calm.
“Me too,” I said. I rubbed dust out of my eyes with the back of my arm, feeling blood smear. My side injury had gone from lightning pain to a deep ache I could live with for the moment. “How bad?”
“Missed my heart.” Blood flowed from under Alma’s hands as she clutched her upper left chest. There was more blood seeping from her thigh, but that wound looked like a shallow gash and less serious.
Cora curled an arm around her twin’s shoulder and helped her sit up. “I’m okay,” she said. “Fuck, this hurts. Quédate conmigo, hermanita.” She pressed a hand over Alma’s hands as though that could stop the bleeding. “We have to shift.”
“Wait, let me get you to the bed. Can you hang on?” I asked, trying to rise. Pain slashed through my belly and I sank down. “Fuck.”
“I took us as far as I dared with the RV compromised,” Jaq said.
“You okay?” I looked up at him as he came to stand over us. Bits of glass were caught in his hair and his face sported a dozen oozing cuts.
“Nothing serious. That grenade stopped them from shooting too much in front.” Jaq crouched down beside me. “You need to shift too,” he said.
“Gotta get them to the bed, we’ll never move their jaguar. No room here for both of us.” I gritted my teeth and shoved the wave of nausea and pain away.
“I can help,” Dani said.
She crawled to her feet from where she’d curled next to the kitchenette. The cupboards and fridge had apparently protected her from the wickedly penetrative rounds.
“Your arm is broken,” I said.
“Still look better than you,” she retorted, baring her teeth. “This is my fault, let me help.”
Between Dani, Jaq, and I, and with as much help as Cora could give, we managed to get the twins into their bed. They shifted almost immediately, their jaguar closing her eyes with a groan as soon as she was settled on the mattress. I leaned against the doorway, staring at the blood covering my hands and smearing the floor and bedframe.
My world narrowed to red as my mind went into silent focus. Alma was going to be fine. I had to believe that, she’d healed worse and while my head knew it, I hated the fear creeping like a scavenger around my heart. I pulled the curtain shut and stumbled back to the main room.
“She gonna die?” Dani asked as she slumped onto the floor by the mostly intact table. Pizza stained the walls and seats where the hail of bullets had destroyed the boxes.
I collapsed against the couch. There was a mostly intact pizza box on the floor near my foot, and I scooted it over, flipping the top open. The pizza was smashed but more or less intact.
“Cora and Alma are an Alpha shifter,” I said before shoving a piece of pizza into my mouth with a bloody hand.
“She got shot in the heart,” Dani insisted, watching me chew.
“She doesn’t have a heart,” Jaq said. He knelt beside me and ignored my growl as he pushed my teeshirt up to look at my side. “Bullet went right though, but you should shift to heal.”
“In a minute,” I said. I was starving as the stress of dealing with Russel, the adrenaline from our mad escape, and my injuries all hit me at once. I squished another slice into a ball and jammed it into my mouth. A glance downward told me the bleeding had already stopped. I had far worse.
“Who doesn’t have a heart?” Dani said. “Alma?” She wiped her face on her bloody teeshirt and then tentatively checked another destroyed pizza box.
“Have some of this one, it’s mostly bullet free,” I said with a sigh as she found only destroyed cardboard and debris-contaminated gobs and cheese and bread.
I didn’t miss Jaq’s surprised look but I did ignore it. Dani scooted closer to me, her swollen, blackened eyes wary. She took a slice and scooted back.
“You know what the Spanish word for heart is?” I asked.
Dani shook her head.
“Corazón. Alma means soul. Cora has their only heart, that’s why they couldn’t be surgically separated at birth. Not that they want to be anyway, they’re clearly meant to be together.”
Cora and Alma had their jaguar self, forming a triumvirate of selves that I didn’t really understand beyond knowing it worked for them. They had told me once that they were meant to be how they were, and they were comfortable with that despite the challenges.
“Oh,” Dani said, looking impressed. She chewed her pizza like it hurt.
“How safe are we?” I asked Jaq. The adrenaline was wearing off and I felt the urge to shift and heal rising.
“Safe enough. Got us about ten miles down the coast. Going to need a few repairs before we go again.” Jaq rose to his feet and looked around the RV. “I’ll clean up while you rest.”
“Maybe wash those cuts?” I said.
“I’ll heal,” Jaq said with a shrug. Some of the cuts were already gone, only smears of blood remaining.
I pulled myself up onto the ruined couch and turned tiger. The pain in my side receded, though not completely. My body was too large for the couch so I had to let my back legs and much of my ass hang off the back and onto the floor. It was comfortable enough. I laid my head on my paws.
“The bunks look mostly safe to sleep on,” Jaq said to Dani as he walked back from checking. “Get some rest.”
“I’m sorry,” Dani said, looking at me and then at Jaq. “I didn’t mean to tell him.”
I growled. This wasn’t her fault, not entirely. I didn’t know why she’d gone back to Russel, but him torturing her for information was one hundred percent on him.
“Never blame yourself for the cruel actions of others,” Jaq said gently.
“I thought if I went back he’d leave you alone,” Dani said. “You were all so nice to me. I didn’t want him to hurt you. I fucked that up good I guess.” She held her injured arm against her chest, tears leaking from her eyes and streaking pale tracks down her dirty cheeks.
I gave a snort and closed my eyes. Just an hour or two of rest. It was all I could afford.
Somewhere out there, Marcus Cross had Cecilia in his creepy, murderous hands. I hadn’t forgotten him.
But more important than him now, well… Russel had shot my friends, wrecked my home, and taken my gun. A short rest, and then this kitty was going to unsheathe her claws.