Rane's Mate (14 page)

Kirby smiled. It felt so good to be useful.

* * * *

Rane found everyone in the training yard. Kane was running
all the recruits hard. He watched as all of the werewolves conversed about the
good and the weaknesses they saw.

Forty minutes later Kane brought them in with a wicked grin
on his face; it got wider as they came to the group of women. Faith, Sara, and
Kirby came toward them, and Kane turned to the panting men. “What I have just
put you through is child’s play, but I will reluctantly say that there were a
couple of men who stuck out, and I see a lot of potential. I’m going to reward
you.”

Kane turned to Faith and she came forward, all five-three, fifty
kg of her, and stood next to Kane. She wore tight, leather pants and a matching
top. Kane growled at the men as most of their eyes bugged out at the sight of Faith,
and Rane laughed.

“Lieutenant Logan and Lieutenant Lance were by far the
leaders of this pitiful group, but you two are still not up to scratch, and to
prove this, so you don’t get too cocky while you’re out, Faith is going to
bring both of you two to the ground. Now, I will tell you she is human with a
bit of enhancement, nothing that should stop you two though, she is not
military trained. She is what you would call werewolf trained.”

Rane watched as Logan’s and Lance’s smiles became huge,
especially as Kane continued on. “If you two can beat her I will give you two
days off, and apologize for doubting you.” Kane turned to Faith and smiled.
“Faith will even agree not to go for the family jewels.”

Faith smiled and stepped into the fighting ring that had
been made.

Kirby moved over to Rane, pulling him down so she could
whisper in his ear. “I’m not sure that this is a good idea. I don’t like the
look on my brother’s face.”

Rane kissed her lips. “Don’t worry, little red. Remember
what you saw Faith do the other night, just watch.”

She smiled and then moved closer in to watch. Faith was in
the middle of the mats, looking at both men, who were circling her. They came
for her together. Faith laughed and kicked Lance in the stomach and punched
Logan in the stomach too. She then spun, turned, and high kicked Logan. Jumping
back, she kick-punched Lance, laughing the whole time as she backflipped out of
the way.

Rane laughed too as Faith looked like she was deliberately
playing with them. She sparred with Logan, and spun, flipping out of Lance’s
way. Rane could see the look of wonder on both men’s faces. Faith used that to
her advantage and pounced with everything she had, finally taking out both of
them.

He heard Kirby murmur, “How does she do that? Move over Buffy.”
She chuckled. Kirby came into his embrace as Sara and her cheered. Lance and
Logan had looks of respect and wonder as they sat up and stared at Faith.

She smiled at them, which turned strained a second later as
she went straight to Kane and said, “They did good, but they need to keep their
anger and frustration contained, because it’s holding them back.” Faith
whispered something into Kane’s ear before she fell into his arms and went into
a vision. Rane took over from Kane, putting a human with every werewolf patrol
group.

When Faith came out of her vision Kirby and Sara were sitting
next to Kane. One held some bottles of water, and the other had sandwiches.
While they ate, Faith talked to Kane, and his frown got worse the more she
spoke. Rane moved over to hear the end of the conversation.

Kane looked up to him. “What do you want first, the good
news or the bad?”

Rane ran his fingers through his hair, almost pulling it out.
“Bad.”

Kane’s smile was strained. “We’re going to have to move our
raid of the demon stronghold up. We’re going on Wednesday. We’ll leave here and
travel through the night, arriving at daylight, so everyone needs to be ready
pretty much now. Wednesday morning will now be D-Day.”

Rane groaned.

Kane continued, “The good news, which we kind of already
knew, is Wrath will have a mate by the end of the night, and she will be a
healer. Here is a tiny bit more bad news. We’re going to a hospital tonight. We’re
going to have a busy night, Dad is even coming to fight. We’re pulling in every
werewolf, even Granddad is going to help. He’ll be doing locations, and Mum’s
getting the house ready for any supernaturals. We have four elders who are
going to be drivers tonight. Everyone is pitching in.”

Rane moaned, nodding as they all headed to the van where he
saw an elder and Wrath arguing.

As they drove through the city to their destination Kirby
reflected back on the last couple of days. Had only been four days since she’d
met Rane and found out about demons? It felt like years.

She couldn’t believe she’d found someone who accepted her
and her gift. She was so happy to be learning how to use her gift, fighting and
helping save the world. She was mated to a man who was nothing like what she
thought she would end up with. He was strong, stubborn, sure of himself, proud,
and definitely a force to be reckoned with. Groaning, she realized that he was
a lot like her brothers. If someone had asked her if she’d ever go for a
military man or mercenary, she would have said ‘no way’. Kirby knew how
controlling and overbearing her brothers were. She didn’t want that for
herself.

But Rane had been more than anything she could imagine. She
looked at him and sighed. He was way too good looking for her.

She knew he wasn’t happy right now. His face was a granite
mask of anger, and it was half her brother’s fault, he had done it again, come
over yelling at her and telling her she was not allowed to come out tonight
fighting, then the idiot had turned to Rane, saying, “I can’t believe you’re
letting her go fight demons, minions, and zombies. I thought you were going to
look after her and take care of her. This is not something I want for my baby
sister. I haven’t worked so hard to keep all those military men in Singleton
away from her only to have her fall into something worse.”

What had shocked Kirby the most was that all Rane did was
growl and nod his head. Kirby shook her head. She was pissed off with her
brother, and Rane. Her brother should stay out of her business and stop being
an arsehole. She was angry with Rane because he had agreed about her not
coming. And he wasn’t even trying to get on with her brother. You would think
they would try as they worked together, but no, they couldn’t even for her.

The twenty-five minute drive to the hospital was tense and
uncomfortable, with only Faith talking, reminding Kirby she needed to focus on
the minions and try what she had been taught earlier today. Sara was told to
call on her water element powers and ice anything she could, with water to fire
at the demons. Tray had gone nuts at that, saying Sara wouldn’t be getting close
enough to the demons to do that.

Sara and Kirby sighed in relief as they all got out of the
car when they arrived at the hospital, which was eerily quiet considering it
was a metropolitan hospital. All the werewolves swore as the sulfur smell
emanated around them, and Faith paled for a moment and turned, staring at
Wrath.

“They’ve got her, Wrath. She didn’t mean to do it, but she
told them we’re coming. She has no control over her sight, and only sees
visions very rarely, but since she turned thirty she has been coming here to
get help.” Faith patted his hand. “I need you so enraged that you can take on
two demons by yourself, because from what I’ve seen we’re going to have to call
in reinforcements. They have your mate on the tenth floor and—” Before she
could get the rest out he was gone. Faith wasted no time turning to Jack. “Call
in more reinforcements, because they are everywhere in there. They’re waiting
for us. There are about eighteen supernaturals in there, and over two hundred
civilians. Once we step in they will be on us.”

Faith turned to Sara and her. Kirby gulped, knowing what
Faith was going to say. “I don’t care, I’m helping,” Sara and her said
together.

Logan, Tray, and Rane jumped in with, “No, there are too
many of them. Someone needs to drive the women back now.”

“Don’t even think that I’m not helping,” Kirby said. “For
once my power will have some use.”

Sara added, “Think of all those people. That could be me in
there, Tray. I’m a nurse, I’m going to help.”

They took Faith’s hands, pulled out their iced knives,
smiled at each other, and were about to go inside when Rane grabbed her arm.

“Little red, I really think you need to go back. You haven’t
had enough training. Two days of training is nothing. Come on, not tonight, you’re
already coming on Wednesday.” He kissed her hand.

Her brother piped up. “I agree with the dog.”

Rane growled, and she turned to them both. “I’m going.”

Faith smiled. “Kirby, minions will be the first things that
come at us, so you’ll need to be in the front line.” Kirby straightened her
shoulders and took several calming breathes while Faith continued. “Logan, I’ll
need you at the back to shut and lock the doors. I don’t want anyone coming
in.” Faith then raised her eyebrow at Logan, saying two words, “Use it.”

Kirby shook her head at the odd comment, while she felt
Rane’s arms come around her as he leaned down and whispered, “I’m really not
happy right now. Promise me that you will try not to be a hero, because back up
is a good half hour away, and I will personally tan your butt if I find out you
didn’t hide from the demons.” He turned her and kissed her forehead. “Don’t let
anything happen to you. I need you, little red.”

They walked into the empty emergency room. The smell of
blood was so strong not even the disinfectant smell drowned it out. Kirby could
hear faint screaming and moaning. Everyone started to spread out.

Faith shook her head and said, “Not here. Up.”

They took the stairs. As they reached the second floor,
Kirby turned back to all of them and whispered, “I feel hundreds of minions.”

As they got closer to the door, the crying, screaming, and
moaning got louder. Kirby was terrified, but she knew that she had to do this. Wiping
her hands on the leather pants that she had been given, she stared at the door
that would lead them all into chaos and ordered herself to focus on the
minions. She nodded as the door opened and she zoned in on the first forty
minions that came for them.

Focusing on as many as she could, she screamed, “Stop!”

Over half froze, but the rest kept coming. Never giving up,
she kept trying to contact as many as she could. Faith moved, crouching down in
front of her, getting everything that came at her head on. Jamie and Rane were
on either side of her, with Logan at her back.

* * * *

Rane was amazed at his mate as she held twenty something
minions back. Knowing they had to act fast, he, Jamie, and David, who he had to
admit he was impressed with, backflipped in the air, taking out as many minions
as they could. Moving forward, they searched out demons.

Rane dared not look back as Jamie, Faith, and Kane took care
of a massive demon coming for Kirby. He ran down one of the halls where the
screaming was the loudest.

A demon held two people, one was a woman in her late
thirties, the other a man who seemed to be in his forties. The demon was
looking into the man’s eyes, and then he drank his blood. The woman screamed
and the air around them swirled, moving things, making things fly through the
air at the demon; the woman was an air element. The demon shook the woman and
growled. “Stop or I will kill him.”

The demon shook the woman again before his head came up and he
stared at Rane. He wasn’t the largest demon, only about eleven feet, although
he had two tails, which was something Rane had rarely seen. It added to the
problem, as the tails were like extra sharp hands with pointed arrows at the
end.

Rane nodded to David, telling him to hurry as they needed to
get up to the tenth floor and help Wrath. “David, you deal with the front. I
will do the back.”

Nodding, David attacked the front, cutting off one of the
demon’s hands with his long knives, which released the dead man, and the woman
slowly tried to crawl away. Rane went for the tails, getting rid of them first,
as they had the best movement and did a lot of damage.

Blocking as one tail came at him, Rane sliced the other off.
The other tail tried to wrap around his waist, succeeding when minions came at
him, slicing his skin and obscuring his vision with their body and wings. With the
demon’s sharp tail wrapped around his waist, its arrow head digging into his
stomach, Rane killed the minions. He sliced off the tail around his waist, pulled
out the arrow head that had embedded in his skin, and jumped on the demon’s
back. The demon bucked, growled, and threw his huge body around, trying to get
him off.

The demon said, “You will all die tonight. We have over thirty
demons to your pitiful numbers. You puny werewolves will all die,” he spat at
David. “We demons will have your mates and all the others that are here.”

The demon grabbed David and threw him at the wall, then
banged his back with Rane on it against the other side of the wall. Using the
wall as leverage, Rane pushed the rest of the way up and wrapped his arms
around the demon’s neck, slicing his head off. He then pushed the demon’s body
forward with his feet.

Letting David handle the rest, he ran, heading for the next
level. Passing more demons and helping fight them, he stopped when he saw his
mate commanding minions to freeze. A zombie came up to Kirby, and Rane glanced
around, noticing that everyone was busy. He ran over to his mate, killing the
zombie.

Kirby chanted “Stop, stop, freeze, freeze” over and over
again. Faith and Kane were fighting a demon together only metres away from her,
and Logan was killing as many minions as he could that were frozen. Rane helped
Kirby again as another zombie came out of nowhere and grabbed her around the
waist, which made her lose her concentration. The minions came out of their
freeze, and they attacked. She kicked and punched and slashed at wings and cut
heads off the minions, doing her best. Rane growled, trying to get the minions’
attention and to get them to turn to him.