Prowlers - 1 (13 page)

With a roar he bounded off the landing and halfway to the fourth floor. He grabbed hold of the banister halfway down and threw himself over, completely bypassing the next landing.

Jasmine stood on the third floor waiting for him. "They should know better," his mate said, eyes down-

cast, every inch of her body speaking to him. Her stance revealed her respect, love, and obedience, but it also revealed her lust for him.

"They should," Tanzer agreed. "Next time they will. The pack must hunt in groups, but not its leader. Only I may choose to hunt alone."

"They would usurp my place at your side if they could," Jasmine said. She stepped closer to him

and nuzzled her head under his chin, rubbing her body against his.

"If they could. But they cannot," he assured her.

Jasmine wanted him to ask her to come along on the hunt. Tanzer sensed it. But she would not ask. She knew the ways of the pack.

He sensed something else then. It hit him all at once as he inhaled deeply and took in the odors of the pack Violence below. Bloodlust and fury.

"A challenge?" he asked.

"If Carver is courageous enough," Jasmine told him.

"Carver?" Tanzer asked, surprised. He took another whiff of the air and confirmed it.

"Interesting. This I'd like to see."

He stood up straight, body still humming with the thrill of the hunt. It could wait, though, for a few moments. More slowly, he walked down the stairs with Jasmine at his side. His right hand reached around her and came to rest on the back of her neck, and he stroked her there, the way she liked. Her hair was dark red, dyed that savage color, and her eyes were burnt orange, there in the shadow of the stairs. She looked up at him and he thought of copper.

Long before they reached the first floor, Tanzer heard the shouting.

"I've given this place over to the pack," Eric Carver snarled. "It is our lair now. But the things inside, they're mine. Unless Tanzer takes them away, they belong to me. He left me my room and my bed, and you trashed it."

Tanzer smiled appreciatively. The pretender actually sounded dangerous. All this time hiding behind the mask of humanity had not dulled him as much as Tanzer had feared.

He held Jasmine's hand as they reached the bottom of the steps. They turned from the foyer into a large parlor on the right. In the center of the room, Carver squared off against Ghirardi, the leader of a small band they had picked up in Michigan, just before arriving in Detroit. Ghirardi was thick-necked and strong, but stupid. Though Tanzer brought new members into his pack most often by explaining his vision for the future, sometimes he had to do so by force. Ghirardi and his clan were one example. Tanzer had won the right to lead them by defeating Ghirardi in combat. It had taken him seventeen seconds.

Though he had been no match for Tanzer, Ghirardi was brutal. Carver was a pretender, and too used to playing human. He was angry, though, so he had the edge there. Ghirardi saw only that Carver was smaller, thinner, and seemed more civilized, so he did not take him seriously.

Tanzer knew just from watching the way Carver moved that underestimating him was a mistake.

As the two beasts faced each other, Ghirardi let his control of his form slip a little. The human disguise began to peel back, revealing the Prowler within. Fur and fangs and claws erupted from the thin skin, and then Ghirardi was gnashing his teeth and snapping at the air between them.

"I took your bed," Ghirardi growled. "Tanzer didn't take it, but he didn't say no one else could. You want to take it back, you're more than welcome to try."

The parlor was filled with beautiful furniture. There were vases and paintings and a small reproduction of The Thinker on a baby grand piano, its top propped up and the strings exposed. For the most part, the pack had left Carver's things alone. They were treasures, art and other items to be appreciated, by a human or a Prowler. Though Carver was the lowest member of the pack, they had let him be—all of them except Ghirardi. Tanzer wondered if the others were simply deferring, in almost human fashion, to the Prowler who had provided their lair, or if they sensed the same thing in Carver that he did. Carver was not brave. That was true. But backed into a corner, he would be savage.

Four other members of the pack were in the large room when Tanzer and Jasmine entered and joined them in watching Carver and Ghirardi circle each other. From their scent alone, Tanzer knew the others expected blood, wanted it. Two were from Ghirardi's clan and they were tensed to spring, to act should their former leader need help.

Tanzer narrowed his gaze and snarled to let them know they were not to interfere. A challenge was a challenge.

Carver snarled and advanced a single step toward Ghirardi. "You'll stay out of there or I'll kill you."

"So kill me." Ghirardi crouched expectantly. He laughed, but it came out a low, mocking growl.

Carver nodded slowly, almost to himself. At Tanzer's side, Jasmine tensed. She would never interfere, but they all reacted this way to a fight among them. Seeing violence made them feel more like killing.

"No killing," Tanzer said, his tone low but firm, the voice he had used to inspire them to follow him. For it was he that they followed. Without him, they would fight among themselves and destroy what he had built. Tanzer would not allow that. "The pack has its rules," he reminded them. "There can be a challenge, even injuries, but no killing unless we're dealing with a traitor to the pack. You both know that."

"Fine. I'll just cripple him," Ghirardi snarled. He scratched idly at his furry snout. "Then you'll have to kill him before we move on from here anyway." He focused his red eyes on Carver. 'And I'll still get his bed. Then I'll start breaking one pretty thing at a time."

Carver changed so quickly that Tanzer almost missed it. His true form did not so much as erupt

from the human guise as flow into it. Many Prowlers left shed skin behind when they changed, but Carver's transformation was instant and total. The beast emerged from the human disguise their kind had

learned to manifest millennia ago. Where before, Carver's features had been human, they were now purely Prowler. He flexed his long talons and gnashed his teeth as he lunged for Ghirardi. The other Prowler lashed out and raked his talons across Carver's chest, tearing his shirt and the furred flesh.

Carver struck back. His reflexes were quick and he fought smart and dirty. He raked his talons across Ghirardi's face, scratching one of the beast's eyes. Tanzer stiffened as he watched, wondering if Ghirardi would lose the eye. Blood flowed. Ghirardi howled, loud enough that Tanzer snarled under his breath, a signal for them both to take care not to be so loud that it would arouse suspicion in passersby. Ghirardi brought an arm up to wipe away the blood, then tried to blink it away as he lunged, half-blind, for his challenger.

Swift and decisive, as though it had been, his plan all along, Carver backpedaled, stepped out of the way and grabbed a high-backed chair. With feral strength and brutality, he lifted the chair and brought it down hard on Ghirardi's head. The chair shattered, and Ghirardi went down.

"Mine," Carver snarled.

Ghirardi shook his head, blood streaming from his eye and snout, obviously reeling from the blow. He roared loudly and lunged at Carver again. Once more, the other dodged. Ghirardi was stronger, possibly just as quick, and he certainly had greater endurance—you could beat Ghirardi's thick skull for hours and not put him out.

But Carver was smarter and stunningly vicious, and

Tanzer quickly began to realize that, unlike any of the others in the pack, even in his natural, bestial form Carver did not completely lose the human thought processes he had developed. In combat, Prowlers regressed to their most feral, most primitive state. It was talons and gnashing teeth, and that was that. But Carver had used the chair to his advantage.

As he watched them, Tanzer wondered if the thing he most disdained in Carver might not be his greatest strength.

Ghirardi lunged again. Carver's talons flashed out and he grabbed Ghirardi by what remained of the beast's shirt and by tufts of fur. With a small, savage roar of his own, Carver propelled Ghirardi along, using the other's momentum against him. Muscles rippled beneath Carver's fur as he slammed Ghirardi into the open top of the piano. He knocked out the wooden prop stick and slammed the heavy piano lid down on top of Ghirardi; once, twice, five, six times.

Ghirardi lashed out with his feet, struggling to be free. He was tired, but as Tanzer had expected, even the nastiest beating would not put him down. Carver must have understood that now. And