Healing Cherri (25 page)

The
Ulfer
were different. As Cherri would say, there were not too many branches on their family tree. They had the same DNA strand as the magical community, but there were holes in it. The humans tried to make all the shifters and whatnot take a DNA test so they could figure out who was evil and who was not. Like that really worked, but you can't blame them for trying. No, the
Ulfer
fit into society, that is, until they decided to go mental and began to kill people. That's where the Drekinn Agency came in. They responded to
Ulfer
problems and handled them. Calli and her friends were the best handlers in the Agency. That was probably why the
Bondi King
wanted them dead, it would solve a lot of his problems. No one was close to their knowledge or skills. But then again, no one tried.

Just recently, their boss asked them to train the younger ranks. Calli and her friends thought it was an honor to be able to pass their knowledge along. Unfortunately, they had just begun to interview candidates and classes had not started. It would have been great if they had had some back-up.

"Now, why would he want me dead? I have never done anything to him, personally," Calli said, forcing a tear from her eye.

The hyena rolled his eyes, "I'm not that stupid, bitch."

"But you do admit to being mentally challenged, right?" Calli sneered.

She grinned when he pulled the gun up and aimed it at her head.
If she was gonna go, she was gonna go in style
, she thought.

"Hey, besties. Are you done arguing yet, ‘cause I have to tell you good-bye. It's been fun, but I have a gun pointed at my head, and I think that possibly we're gonna have to re-evaluate the rent. You all are gonna have to pay more," Calli called out, and grinned at the shifter in front of her who was frowning.

Did he expect her to cry, cower? It wasn't in her vocabulary, and she refused to go out without at least a fight. She knew her friends were trying to get loose, if their arguments that drifted down the hallways were any indication; they couldn't shift either. She needed to try to bide some time, or maybe she should take it like a woman...Nah.

"So, self-proclaimed slow boy, what exactly are your plans here, so I know what to expect," Calli said calmly.

She could feel the drugs beginning to wear off, but the silver was still affecting her. On a normal day, she could have probably found a way out of this cluster fuck. Calli was a wolf, and a damn good one. Standing five feet eight, she was not a shrinking flower. Her taunt, muscular form made men sit up and take notice. Her black hair and blue eyes matched that of her wolf, and when she was pissed, there was a sparkle to her eyes—they must be fucking glowing about now. No one would say she was beautiful, but her breasts were an eye catcher. She used to hate them when she was younger, but as she grew, Calli realized that most of her prey fixated on them, so she used to them to her advantage. Her friends called her 'GI Bombshell' as a joke. But it wasn't far off the mark since her daily attire usually consisted of military style, black cargo pants and a black tank top. Her long, black hair tied into intricate braids around her head and then clasped in a pony tail. She never wore make up, because with her coloring, she didn't need it.

The hyena growled and moved closer to press the gun right against her temple. "Simple, I shoot you, your friends, and then drag your carcasses to the
King
, then I get the handsome reward he has put on your head."

"Wait there, slow boy. You never said anything about a reward. How much?" she laughed. Then thought,
why the hell was there a bounty on her head?
Cherri and Rissa were both wolves too, and they worked together a lot, but in the last six months, they had been working on the training gig, not on the front lines where they could piss someone off enough to put a bounty on their heads.

"Fifty thou a piece," the smelly man said.

Calli frowned again, not a huge amount in this day and age; she was a little offended the bounty was such a meager amount. Hell, she had that much sitting her account if she needed it. She could buy her way out of this, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Are you freaking kidding me? A measly fifty thou for killing my ass? It's a scandal, a travesty. Hey, girls, I have a fifty thousand bounty on my head, is that shit or what?"

Rissa yelled in reply, "Hell, you're worth more than that, I think you're losing your mojo. I wouldn't waste my time on fifty thou, now if they upped it a few million, then your ass is toast, and I'm the toaster, but for now, I'm insulted right along with you."

Calli rolled her eyes; figures Rissa would be the one who answered her on this question. She was the investment genius that made them the money they had stored in so many accounts around the world. It would be a little scary if anyone actually found out their net worth.

"Fuckin' A, now before you kill me, let me point out a few facts to you," Calli said calmly.

The man grunted and looked at her breasts that were heaving. Dammit, this is why she hated sports bras; they tended to flatten you best assets when you needed them the most. Calli pushed her chest out so the idiot would continue to stare at her breasts and not pay attention to the sounds coming from the other room. With her wolf senses, she could tell that her friends were close to getting loose. She only had to keep his attention. Maybe her day of death had not arrived.

"Now, if you kill me right away, then you will be wasting that yummy hard on you have going on," Calli said seductively. She tried to look at the tiny bulge in his pants with interest, but she was sure they were talking cocktail, not ballpark, at this point.

The hyena grinned and she almost threw up a little. Her friends had better hurry their furry asses up, or she was going to shave their heads in their sleep, again. He dropped the gun a little, and she let out a breath of relief and then nodded to him.

"Yeah, I think maybe you could go out with a bang, in more ways than one," he barked, and she laughed with him while she was rolling her eyes.

"Good one, now why don't you come on over here and let me take care of that thing?" she growled and licked her lips as an invitation.

Damn, but he was stupid. The big man put the gun down on the floor and hurriedly began unsnapping his pants. She almost groaned when she saw he wore tightie whities, of course he did. She seriously thought those had gone out in the mid to late 20's.

Finally, she heard the scrape of her friends getting out of the room they were being held in. Slow Boy was too busy trying to pull the cocktail wiener out of his pants to notice. That was until Cherri slammed in the room holding a metal bar and swung it like Zena Warrior Princess at the idiot's head—Calli loved that show on the oldies channel. He had no time to react and went down like a house of cards on the floor, still holding his pecker in his hands.

Rissa walked in the room slowly and grinned when she saw the man on the floor. "Really, can we take pictures and post on the page?"

Cherri turned to her and growled, "Where the fuck were you? I thought we said we were going on three."

Rissa shrugged and kicked the gun away from the man, in case he woke up. "
Your
three and
my
three are two totally different things. You need to work on that. And we killed the other four that were outside the door, you did the same thing there; I only got to kill one."

"How the fuck can the number three be different? It's a Goddamn number," Cherri yelled.

Calli waited patiently while they fought about the timing of their entrance, and finally, she couldn't take it anymore. Here she was, tied to a freaking wall with silver chains, and they were fighting in front of her instead of getting her loose. They sucked; she had no clue why she was best friends with them sometimes.

They were all so different. Cherri was the short, cute, perky one. She was referred to as Marilyn Monroe on more than one occasion because of her voluptuous body, and blonde, curly hair. When the girls saw that old faded pin-up, they had laughed. Men chased her constantly when they went anywhere, she was a slut. Then there was Rissa; she was the nerdy counterpart. She had brown hair that was cut into a short, spiky hairdo, and she was stick thin and tall; they could never figure out where the hell her muscles went to. Rissa was strong, but it looked like a wind could blow her over—she said it was because of her metabolism, they said she was anorexic.

None of them were in a relationship because they were all holding out hope that they would find their mate, but after one hundred years or so, they had pretty much given up and figured that scratching their itch was needed. They only had one rule, and that was no one brought a man to the apartment. It was their sanctuary.

She loved being close to the park so she could run. It was a good thing that when they shifted their clothes disappeared and then reappeared when they shifted back. It was part of their magic. But it took practice. You have no idea how many times Calli had shifted back to a human with her underwear on the outside of her clothes. Thank goodness that was just when she was young. Now she could do it without thinking.

Sitting on the top floor of a highly secured apartment building they had bought when the prices were cheap in the mid 2530's, their apartment took up the whole floor and was huge. They divided it into sections for each of them with a common area in the middle. Every high tech gadget you could think of was in the place,
since Rissa invented most of them
, few people had them. If a stranger came into their place, they would probably try to steal their shit.

Calli hung on the chains thinking that her bed sounded good about right now, considering the silver was making her tired, and her friends were still fighting, completely forgetting about her predicament. She growled when they began to walk out of the room, like she was supposed to follow them.

"Bitches, get me out of here," Calli said, and her friends stopped and turned to look at her. Cherri put her hands on her hips.

"Seriously, we escaped. Why can't you? I thought you were playing with him?" she said, losing her patience a little.

"Really, and what would your clue have been? Possibly the silver chains that were hanging on me? Or maybe it was the way I was hung on the wall," Calli snapped.

"Silver?" Rissa said and stepped closer and narrowed her eyes. "Well why the hell didn't you say something sooner? We were only tied to the wall with iron chains; the dipshit must have thought you were a bigger threat. You know I get sick and tired of everyone thinking you are some badass and we're like your weak, little sidekicks."

Calli laughed as her friends grumbled and unchained her. She had been held in that position for so long that she fell to the floor. Her friends stood there with their hands on their hips and watched as she struggled to get up.

"Fuck you," Calli said and finally made it to a standing position.

"Hey, wonder girl, you're the one who usually kicks everyone's ass. We just clean up your mess. I hate to ruin my nails. Oh, by the way, we have a mani/pedi scheduled for three, so we kinda need to get cleaned up. I hate going to the parlor smelling like day-old BO," Cherri said. Then walked out of the room, while Rissa and Calli watched her in horror.

"Shit, really, we have to do that again?" Calli said and growled. It was Cherri's latest thing that made them seem more like chicks instead of Enforcers. She said that you could kick ass and still look good.

And Of Course the first book of the Chosen War, Cat’s Choices is another must read.

The Mating Call

Drekinn Series Book One

By Jana Leigh

Edited by: Rose Colton

JK Publishing LLC

Prologue

Lightning crashed, and thunder boomed as the wind pelted large spears of rain against her already sensitive and broken skin; but she couldn’t stop running if she wanted to stay alive. Day was quickly turning to night and she knew he would be after her soon.

Her tears were washed away by the harsh rain, and her sobs could barely be heard over the loud thunder. She thought this would at least be one blessing because the storm would make it harder for him to hear her and to catch her scent. Perhaps, there was a god after all.

But she quickly pushed that thought away when images of her parents and her little sister flashed before her eyes. Their horrific screams as he tortured them and broke their bones. Then the ill silence as they lay lifeless in a pool of their own blood, while he stood over them with their blood dripping from his mouth. His eyes had a bright-red glow to them and oh god, those teeth, no; they weren’t teeth, they were fangs! The man was a Vampire.