Stratus, who seemed unable to care less about who won the fight. Really.
Socrates started caterwauling, weaving through the bars of the gate, going inside of the compound then quickly back out, as if not knowing what to do or how to stop Viv.
Milan was a large black Loup with a mane that reached to the middle of his back. His ears were long and pinpoint straight, and his bared fangs were at least six inches long. He stood upright like a man, though his paws were those of a Loup, and he swiped at Warden with long, sharp, black claws. Warden was a blond Loup and nearly twice Milan’s size. Yet he showed the worst of the wear simply because of his color. More blood stained his fur. It was difficult to tell if most of it came from his own wounds or was splatter from his opponent’s. Suddenly, Whiskers and Yazdee started whooping and jumping up and down with excitement. Evidently Socrates’s noise had caught their attention and they had zeroed in on the floating two-by-four.
Viv dared to move faster, fearing the racket stirred up by her cheerleading squad might capture Warden’s or Milan’s attention.
It did rouse Stratus. The alpha female lifted her head from her paws, looked past the two-by-four and directly at Viv as if she were in full view. Viv could’ve sworn she saw Stratus smirk. She hated when that Loup went into heat. It always turned the compound upside down. Throw in a stray male alpha from a different compound, and she had World War Seven.
Viv kept her focus on the alpha males, inching closer, dodging left, back, forward in rhythm with their fight. It felt like an odd war dance as she juggled around the fight, trying to avoid getting clawed, yet get close enough to make impact.
She took aim. Whichever Loup cleared first was the one she planned to whack.
They tumbled, clawed, she dodged left. Blood from one of the Loups sprayed across her shirt and jeans, then again before she felt it splatter across her face and slide down her neck. These guys were really getting out of control, and if she didn’t do something soon, one of them was going to die. And that was not an option.
The closer she moved in, the harder they fought. She ducked left, more blood sprayed across her face. She felt it splat onto her head and through her hair, which she kept in a braid that reached the small of her back.
Finally, seeming to gather what strength he had left, Warden leaped out and took a huge swatch of flesh from Milan’s chest, turning him in place. Blood sprayed everywhere, especially over Viv, who now looked like she’d bathed in it. Milan’s eyes appeared dazed as he whirled about from the blow.
Before he could refocus for the fight, Viv grabbed the two-by-four in both hands and swung at him, whacking him across the head as hard as her tall, slender body would allow. That pitched him off balance and dropped him to the ground.
As Milan scrambled to get upright, Warden had enough time to race over to Stratus and attempt to mount her even before she stood.
Milan mewled when he saw Stratus begin to take all Warden had to offer.
Viv allowed herself to return to full view, tossed the two-by-four aside and snarled at Milan’s mewling. “Oh, grow the hell up,” she said, then whirled about and headed back for the gate.
En route, Viv pointed at Stratus, making sure she had her attention. “You want to play games with these guys, sistah? Then get ready to play hard because I quit.”
Viv stormed off for the gate, her head buzzing with an ache so painful she could barely see.
No sooner did she unlock the gate, let herself through and relock it than Socrates started yelling at her. She ignored him, catching only a word or two from his rampage because of the buzzing in her head.
“You can’t just leave, Viv,” Socrates yelled after her.
She stormed past him, turning her back on the fortress bound with silver-tipped barbed wire. In the distance, she caught the sound of Whiskers fretting.
“Wait, wait! What do we do? Stop! Yazdee, what do we do now? What? Our leader has absconded!”
* * *
Socrates scrambled to the other side of the gate and watched Viv storm off. He knew he couldn’t stop her, not when she was this mad, this disgusted. It worried him that her spells hadn’t worked. Even under the circumstances, with all that just happened, leaving hadn’t been the answer.
If Viv thought things were bad now, she was about to discover a new definition for worse.
Nikoli Hyland and his cousins, Lucien, Gavril and Ronan, sat in brown leather captain’s chairs across from one another in pairs. A small dining table separated them.
They were flying from New Zealand to New Orleans on the family’s Gulfstream G200 jet as instructed. They’d received the alert yesterday evening with orders to leave immediately. The orders came from their fathers, who were brothers and retired Benders.
Although involved in the family business for the past ten years, the onset of a mission always settled hard in Nikoli’s gut.
He was thirty-five years old, and his cousins only a year or two younger than he. It was still hard for him to intellectualize that they were the new generation of Benders. The tenth generation, to be exact. And, as usual with the onset of a mission, Nikoli pondered what that something was. Sometimes it felt like pride—heavy responsibility—purpose.
Tuning out his cousins’ banter about the witches they were about to meet, he glanced out of the plane window, soaking in the sight of dawn beginning to light a blue-black sky. A finger snap brought his attention back to his cousins.
“Where’d you go, bro?” Lucien asked, grinning. “Neverland?”
“No, I heard everything you guys said. But it doesn’t matter what these women look like,” Nikoli said, knowing full well the appearance of each woman. His father had given him pictures to verify their identification. Each one was drop-dead gorgeous. He’d kept that information to himself, knowing how crude a couple of his cousins could be. “We’re going over there for one reason and one reason only. Remember our mission creed. Keep your dick in your pants and your eyes and ears sure and mindful.”
“Right,” Ronan said.
Now it was Gavril’s turn to roll his eyes.
“This is our biggest job ever,” Nikoli continued. “And from all indications, it’ll get even bigger before we land. We’ve been nickel and diming Cartesians for the past three years. One here, three there.”
“Hey, don’t forget about the fifteen we knocked off in Brazil last year,” Lucien said. “That was no small bite of potato.”
“It is when compared to what we’re about to face,” Nikoli said.
“How many we talking, cuz?” Gavril asked.
“From what I hear, we might be talking a hundred or more.”
Ronan turned his attention back to his cousins and let out a low whistle.
Lucian grimaced. “How in the hell are just the four of us going to handle a hundred or more of
