Off Leash (Freelance Familiars Book 1) (24 page)

I grinned. "What's the matter? Get beaten up by a little birdy?"

Her serenity wavered for a moment, and I saw her ears twitch in annoyance. "You rejected the TAU. That makes you fair game for other clients, kitten."

"Fair game, nothing. O'Meara's my bond. Call off your dogs."

"Oh, but I don't see O'Meara here to defend her claim. Do you?" Her posture bordered on triumphant. "That’s the trouble with fey chains—they're quite fragile.

"You think she'll forget, you think she'll forgive, until you're burned to an extra crispy cat on a stick."

She gave a pretty little sigh and fluttered her eyes. "I heard differently. I heard she drove you half mad after bonding with her, and you escaped into the forest." After a nod with her head, the man carrying her began to step forward and the pressure on my mind grew. Her beauty blossomed with each step.

"Stop it! Stay back!" I growled, backing into the corner with the hole.

She put on a dazzling smile. "Why would I do that? All my subjects benefit from up-close attention." Her voice was a rolling purr as her beauty transfigured from physical to divine.

My muscles screamed in protest as I wrenched my gaze away from her and catapulted my body into the garbage lid. It swung up like a doggie door and I felt a nail's stinging burn all along my spine as I pushed through the opening. The pain reawakened my anger. How dare she do this to me! How dare this world presume that it could harvest me like a lump of coal you pull out of the ground! I turned towards the source of the blue light, my teeth bared, with every intention of violence.

And looked into the eyes of divine beauty. She was the purest of beings, her flawless fur whiter than any that could be captured by mere light. Her sapphire eyes glowed with a soft blue light that bathed my entire being in warmth.

My anger evaporated like droplets tossed onto a hot stove. Only a thread of fear survived, for I had displeased this goddess, and I was so ashamed that I bolted away towards the forest.

"Thomas.
Stop!
" Her voice hit me like a leaden pillow, and I careened into the ground.

I looked back to see the goddess within a pyre of her blue fire, her body trembling with her divinity. I could barely see the human that held her little pillow through the flame. A flash of white teeth showed for a moment, and I saw the dark shadow of a universe without this goddess within it. The pyre resumed. "
Come here
," she commanded, and I obeyed, knowing I had done something truly horrible for the goddess to stoop to issuing a command. Truly, all she had to do was ask. I would do anything for her. I'd even let her enslave me. But she'd never do a thing like that. The goddess embodied goodness.

I settled five feet from her and her pillow as the pyre calmed to a radiant glow. Then with an indignant squawk, her beauty faded to a dull dirty white as she fell from her perch. Cyndi yelped as she hit the ground.

Blinking as if I had been staring into a pair of headlights, the rest of the world came into focus. The man who had been carrying the pillow lay on the ground behind Cyndi, a froth of spittle leaking from his mouth as he convulsed. The man had been at the epicenter of all that divine energy. Cyndi watched the man for a moment and sighed before turning back to me. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and the white of her third eyelids were visible in the corners of her eyes. Independent thought had begun to stir, but the return of the blue light of the goddess stomped them back into my lizard brain.

The goddess somehow looked down her nose at me despite the tininess of her body. The weight of her disapproval pushed me back several inches. She turned from me, her gaze falling first on the fallen man behind her and moving onto Noise, who stood glassy-eyed a few paces away from the car. "You there, dear, fetch me the tranquilizer gun behind the seat.”

"Yes, m'lady!" Noise hurried to comply. First she tried the door handle, and when it failed to open the door, she pulled back her fist to smash the window in.

"
Stop!
" my goddess screeched, and my heart nearly complied. The divinity before me wavered as her ears folded back. "Before you break the window of my chariot, do you know how to use a tranquilizer gun?"

Noise shrank back from the Caddy, hands clasping together in a way that tickled my brain, reminding me of something. "It’s a gun! You pull the trigger, right?"

"Have you ever loaded one? Do you know the dosage?" The goddess pawed at the ground in frustration. "Forget it!" Noise grabbed both sides of her jaw in utter mortification at the rebuke, but the goddess had already moved on. Tallow stood the closest to us, leaning against a thick oak tree that dominated the clearing. "Tallow, right? Choke him out and put him in the trunk."

Slaver.
The word stole across my mind along with the scent of the princess.

"Yes, princess." Tallow's voice sounded as far away as her glassy eyes, but she moved to obey all the same. She lumbered forward, using that particular knuckle walk of hers. She drew up and reached out her huge hand for my neck, and the mere image of the pain it would cause me drove me backwards.

"Thomas, be still!"

"She's going to hurt me!" I whined at the slaver—no, the goddess. "I'll be good, I swear!" I once again dodged a huge mitt, drawing a sawing growl from the she-wolf. I circled around to hide behind the goddess, to plead my case. Tallow followed, resulting a in a slow chase around the goddess.

"Stop moving!" the goddess pleaded. We both froze. "No!" she hissed in utter frustration, and her divinity fell away. There was no hesitation in what came next; my awareness burst forth, along with a red haze of hate and fear. My teeth clamped down on her fragile neck. I felt her neck and shoulders shatter under my teeth. Her blood was hot and bitter. I recoiled, but my teeth had hooked on her skin and she came up with my mouth. With a twist of my neck, I flung her away. She sailed away from me, all the wolves’ eyes tracking her arc like automated turrets. She landed soundlessly on the ground, slumping bonelessly.

The werewolves just stared at Cyndi’s body for a moment. So did I, before two shaggy arms wrapped around my torso and lifted me. I chirped in surprise as Tallow growled, "Trust me," in my ear. She charged around the gathered wolves and tossed me through the open window of the truck cab. I landed in the passenger’s seat as she yanked open the door and squeezed herself into the driver's side. The rest of the pack stood there, blinking stupidly as she started the engine and threw the truck into reverse. We backed out of the clearing and onto the road before she slammed it into first, flooring the engine. The wheels spun in place for a brief moment before we shot forward. A long mournful howl rang out behind us. First just Pa's baritone sang, and then the entire pack joined in.

Tallow cursed.

"What the hell is going on?" I cried, watching as Pa dashed onto the road behind us, the rest of the pack right on his heels.

"You hang on. If I can get us on a paved road . . ." She trailed off, eyes on the road. I clung to the seat with all four sets of claws to avoid getting bucked into the ceiling. All I could do was watch Pa's muzzle, twisted into sorrow and rage, loom closer and closer to the bed of the truck. A brown blur bounded past him, and Noise/Angelica leapt into the truck bed, snarling with a maw of very sharp-looking teeth.

"Sorry, hon," Tallow muttered, and she twisted the wheel. The truck hit something that kicked the left side into the air. I have never in my life wished for a seatbelt more. At least I had a chair—Noise had nothing, and the truck bucked her into the air. Her hands and feet pinwheeled in the air, but to no avail as her momentum carried her over the side of the truck. I winced in sympathy as I saw her hit the road, striking her leg on the road first, her knee bending sideways.

Tallow put us around a corner and onto a much smoother road. Pa, still right on our tail, started to fall behind, the other wolves lagging behind him. Then he suddenly darted off into the forest to the left. "He's taking a shortcut," Tallow growled. "The road circles back up ahead."

"What do we do?"

She grinned. "We play a little chicken." She said it with a sort of sinister delight that left me with the impression that Tallow had very little love for her alpha. "We get to find out what's stronger, his rage at you or his love for his grand-pups."

"Maybe you should let me out?"

Sure enough the road began to curve. "We're forty miles from town. Out there you're meat."

I couldn't disagree. So I watched as we rounded the bend to see Pa standing in the middle of the road. His eyes shone like evil orbs in the headlights.

Tallow poured on the speed, the engine roared and the truck started to shake so badly that it felt as if the frame would shatter. Pa hunched down, putting one foot in back of the other as he stretched his hands out towards us as if the truck were a ball to be caught.

"Is he going to catch the truck?" I asked.

"No." Tallow jerked the stick back into fourth gear, and the truck continued to accelerate. "Jump, damn you, Walter." His mouth opened, and I frantically looked around trying to figure out how to brace myself for impact, but the truck had no seat belts. All I could do was dig my claws into the dashboard and hope.

The glare of the headlights parted on him as the trunk screamed towards him. Thirty feet, twenty feet and then, just as the beams of the headlights parted on his grey fur, he sprang into the air and to the side. A sharp crack echoed through the truck as the headlight kissed his foot. We heard the howl of pain cut through the roar of the engine like a scythe.

"Stupid hoary old beast," I heard Tallow mutter as I slumped down into my seat, shaking from the adrenaline.

Minutes later we were sailing along on paved roads, streaking back towards town. Only then did I find my voice again. "How long was she doing that?"

Tallow was silent for a long moment. "She came to the pack about a year ago, offering the usual trades that magus types offer us. Kill or hunt this or that nuisance—it started subtle. Within six months we thought she was our god, and we did what she said, even when she wasn't there." Her words were pure loathing. "We didn't even realize what had happened to us."

"But you did?"

"She made a crack last month about how much my babies could be worth." Her teeth appeared at the thought. “It stuck in my head like a piece of gristle between the teeth. But only after she left and only if she stayed away for more than a week. I couldn't tell the rest of the pack. Pa wouldn't tolerate even mentioning her. She was the pack's secret, our special truth."

"What happens now?"

Tallow’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "They’ll be nothing but grief and revenge till mid-moon. After that maybe Walter will listen to reason.”

"What's mid-moon?"

"The gibbous moon, that’s when we are human enough for the Veil. The pack splits up, and we all go our separate ways to play at being human."

In my mind’s eye I saw Angelica limping back to the house on crutches with that unthinking rage in her eyes. A shiver passed down my spine.

Silence reigned for several miles. Worry gnawed at my stomach.

“Where do you need to go?” Tallow broke the silence first.

“Do you know where O’Meara’s office is?”

“You’re going to rebond with her?”

"Yeah." A deal was a deal.

"Good, because from what I know of the woman, your threats were not far off the mark. Call her off."

"Then we better hope that Ixey is at the office."

A
door hanging off its hinges is never a good sign. The scorch marks around the holes burned through the metal were even worse. The way Tallow had started to pant and clutch at her stomach the last few miles of the drive had also become worrisome.

Hopping out of the truck brought a variety of Cajun-style flavors to my nose. Plastic, metal, wood and a cocktail of chemicals. My heart dropped from my chest and started rolling around in my stomach. What the hell had happened? I'd been captured for less than a day! I poked my head through the doorway and saw the devastation of what had been O'Meara and Ixey's office. Charred cubicles lay scattered about. Huge holes had been torn up through the carpet floor, looking like something had erupted from the ground. Ixey's double-wide looked to have been smashed with a giant hammer. The carnage tracked back into the room and to a door that had previously been boarded up. It looked to have been “unboarded” via lightsaber. That lifted my mood a little. Hopefully O'Meara was still out there somewhere.

I turned around to see Tallow just inside the doorway, eyes closed as she sniffed at the air. "No blood, no scent of barbecued flesh. A lot of damage for nobody to actually land a blow," she said.

I looked at the scene. The doorframe was ringed with a layer of ash and char, but inside the ring was untouched. Similar marks appeared in several spots along what had been the central walkway of the cubicle farm. Ricochets from O'Meara's magic? Ixey's cubicle walls were marked with smaller scorches. Ashy bullet holes. The carnage widened halfway down the hallway. A little part of me noted with some alarm that the office was bone-dry, despite the ceiling being studded with sprinkler nozzles. I didn't smell any blood or cooked flesh either, but mostly because Tallow's scent had flooded the room like a sweaty foot being pulled from a shoe, except this musk reached up into my skull and screamed
pregnant!
behind my ear drums. Disturbingly, it set my hackles on edge and then had the gall to make my stomach rumble. Both the ritual cube and O'Meara's office seemed intact. They each sported orange-gold runes that had a threatening brightness to them.