Chapter Three
Ulmer was on another tear, and this one was savage.
He hadn’t bothered to Change back because his nose was better like this, and he and the rest of Sebastian’s security detail—along with every wolf in Arnou—were currently ripping the hotel apart, piece by piece.
That wasn’t going down well with the hotel manager, who was shrilly demanding to know what the hell was going on, but everybody was ignoring him.
That included Cyrus, who had Farkas by the collar and was threatening his life, his clan, and his entire lineage because he believed that Rand was behind this.
That Whirlwind had died trying to take the throne from Sebastian, and when that failed, his son had taken Sebastian from the throne—and possibly from life. I wasn’t so sure.
Not that I doubted that Rand had something to do with this—that much was obvious—where I lost the thread was how.
The distraction—yeah, I got that. Wait until everyone’s eyes were on the fight, which was probably supposed to be Cyrus versus Bleddyn, who had specifically turned down the challenge and hadn’t attacked. Meaning that my fiancé would not have been allowed to kill him by Were law.
The worst he could have gotten was a beating, while in the meantime…
What had happened in the meantime?
“I don’t care about your damned hotel!” That was Sienna Thunderbird, Lupa of the Red Mountain Clan, who was currently doing to the hotel manager what Cyrus was to Farkas. “I want the surveillance tapes—and don’t tell me you don’t have them!”
“Lia! Lia!” Aki was in my face, but it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying. I hadn’t Changed back, leaving me in wolf mind, but that shouldn’t have mattered. I could think perfectly well this way, although my beast’s thoughts were often neck and neck with mine in that guise.
And right now, she was raging.
That wasn’t unexpected, and it wasn’t the problem. The problem was something else, something I didn’t understand. Had somebody spelled me?
It felt a bit like that, with the room going hazy around the edges and my sight receding, although not to the point that I couldn’t see.
It just became secondary in importance, the way it did for animals.
Sight was the most important sense for humans, as it was easily the sharpest, but scent held greater significance for Weres.
Only it wasn’t scent that was threatening to overwhelm me right now.
I didn’t know what it was.
“Lia! What do we do?” That was Jen, backed up by Sophie and the rest. Who had arrayed themselves around my small clan of wolves, all of whom had Changed now, probably because Rand was coming for them.
“Get them out,” I heard myself say, my voice thick with wolf speak.
“How?” That was Sophie, who was staring at a circle of snarling wolves outside the impressive shield that Dimas had thrown around us.
It was as thick as a dozen brick walls stacked back-to-back, but it wouldn’t last forever.
Not with Arnou off hunting their leader and Rand’s people tearing at it with everything they had, all the pent-up rage I should have seen in them.
And which should have caused me to put an end to this as soon as I realized they were in attendance, and screw council law!
But I hadn’t, and that was a problem, but not half so much as the fact that I couldn’t currently think. Or, rather, I could, but about the wrong thing. I had to practically pull my wolf back from leaping over the shield to get to the dais, where she definitely wanted to go Right Freaking Now.
Only that would be tough, as there were already wolves coming over the top of the shield.
Dimas had forgotten to close it, not used to dealing with creatures that could leap several stories high.
And who were getting their asses blown backward by the vicious spell I sent at them, tossing them halfway across the room, and sending more of their clan tumbling when their bodies hit the floor, like bowling balls taking out pins.
“Take them home!” I told Aki again, more forcefully.
“No! We want to fight!” That was Lee.
“Damned right! You think we’re leaving you?” Noah said, staring at me.
“And in the meantime?” Sophie demanded. “It’ll take Aki ages to take them all!”
Part of me, whatever was still in human mind, noticed she hadn’t said “take us,” because Sophie had never met a fight she didn’t like.
Half the time, my “teaching” was me pulling her back because she needed to learn restraint, but that was under normal circumstances.
Right now, there was no reason to restrain her, or Jen, either, whose eyes were already glowing green since she’d probably found something to reanimate.
Considering that we were in a casino run by vampires, I guessed that wasn’t too surprising.
“Have fun,” I told them, and got a startled look from Sophie.
And then a vicious smile, right before I jumped over the shield wall as well, in a ripple of muscle that made it so easy, I was surprised more wolves hadn’t already done it.
But perhaps they’d been worried about what was on the other side.
They should have been. The Corps had chosen my students specifically because they were dangerous as hell. So God help anybody who gets inside that shield, I thought, and then thought no more, at least not in human terms.
Because I was immediately getting piled on by what felt like the entirety of Rand, and taking massive punishment until Sunchaser, an allied clan, came to the rescue.
I tore free—literally, as my teeth were buried in someone’s throat—and fought through the writhing, roaring, furious field of fur and claws and teeth until— There.
Right there.
Every sense I had was focused on the spot where Sebastian had been standing the last time I’d seen him.
There was a puddle of scent connected to a thin thread coming down the steps from the throne that nobody called that, because Weres didn’t have a king they would admit to.
Sebastian had descended and stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment, in support of his brother, and then what had happened?
I closed my eyes for a second, all I could spare, and smelled scent trails going in all directions. As if a hundred Sebastians had broken off from the man and scattered to the four winds. A typical magical distraction.
I had unconsciously moved forward, toward the deeper well of scent around the chair, but at that thought, I reversed course. Back to the smaller puddle, where he’d been distracted, too, watching me tear into Bleddyn. And where someone had taken the opportunity to strike.
Someone who wasn’t Were.
I fought off an attack by a young wolf too stupid to know better, then got my nose down into that well. Got it in there good, because a myriad of other scents had started to obscure Sebastian’s. To the point of threatening to overwrite it entirely.
A hundred strains of musk tore through that patch of scent, along with the sweat of both human and beast, and the cologne of a waiter who had passed by a while ago with a tray of drinks.
The different cocktails fought with each other in my nose, their alcoholic reek separating into the smoky hint of mescal, the herbaceousness of gin, the spiciness of bourbon, and the sharp tang of limoncello.
And over all was blood, including my own, suffocating my nose with it, as well as the cranked-up scent of the air freshener they used around here, and that the pained-looking vampire staff had been hitting extra hard since we smelly bunch of fur-covered savages showed up.
The stuff was supposed to be faintly floral, but it was cloyingly sweet and annoying. My wolf batted at her nose as if she could claw it out, although I didn’t need a clear nose for this. Because I’d figured out what other sense I was using, and it wasn’t smell.
Magic tingled through the air like a touch on my skin, like a siren’s call in my ears, like a scent, too, one I had known as long as I had the smell of Were, of musky fur, of my mother’s perfume as her tongue licked my face.
For I had a father, too, a powerful mage, and I had bred true.
And the Corps had taken the raw material he’d given them and molded me into a fierce magic user in my own right.
And right then, every instinct I had, every bit of training, every hard-won piece of experience, said something remarkable…
Something impossible…
Something…
There!
I grabbed a patch of air near the wall and jerked, pulling a cloaking spell off of the four men hiding behind it.
It had made them disappear into the tasteful wallpaper, camouflaging sight and scent alike, because someone had dealt with Weres before.
Someone who had just hit me with a spell that I caught with my shield, but that was still vicious enough to send me to the floor and knock me several yards back before I recovered, my paws slipping on the slick surface.
But that wasn’t important in comparison to the slumped figure between two of the mages.
“Sebastian!” I yelled. And then enhanced my voice, screaming his name so that it echoed around the room, bringing every member of Arnou and her allies still in the area running.
Cyrus was at the forefront of the rush, which was good because I couldn’t help the bardric, being suddenly in a fight for my life.
It looked like my opponents hadn’t known I could do magic in wolf form, so I’d managed to get off that one spell to shatter their camouflage.
But they’d figured it out now, and these weren’t lightweights.
And, I strongly suspected, they were hopped up on stolen magic to augment their own, because damn.
I had shields up, was in my more sturdy Were form, and was still slammed across the room by a succession of blows. And when I came bounding back for more, I was sent flying into the wall so hard that I thought I’d broken it. Or that it had broken me.