Chapter 28 The Main Event Begins
The Main Event Begins
SARI
We’re here!
The Harleys descend on the neighborhood in a chorus of combustion, churning up a chaos of sound.
We are an asphalt wave—all black leather and chrome—so when we swing off the main road onto the tree-lined drive of the cat’s house, every head on the estate’s crowded patio snaps in our direction with the precise, trained motion of prey animals smelling fire.
That makes my coyote howl in happiness.
The music already pounds, and the pack of us ride up two by two, except for me at the apex, splitting the chaos like a warhead.
I glance in the mirror to make sure the others are in formation: Belle and Mayhem to my left, Amanda and Constantine to my right.
Our timing is perfect, and the effect is more than I’d hoped for—the crowd out front cracks into pockets and the music almost falters, as if the DJ has to fight for the beat in the shadow of our arrival.
The house had always been a center of gravity for the community, but tonight, Cat’s gone full bacchanalia.
The patio is lit with gold rope lights and that new spectrum LED stuff that throws magenta and blue across everyone’s faces, making the suits and the dresses, and the jeans and mesh shirts, all look like they belong to competing species.
It’s like the casting call for a reality show from hell.
But everyone is here, which means everyone will see us and, more importantly, see what comes next.
I simply cannot wait, but I need to make this entrance stick in people’s minds.
The party would have flown outdoors based on size alone, and the weather played along, thankfully.
It’s warm enough for the men to keep their silk shirts open, but with a tang of storm that makes the air taste like lightning.
From the way people cluster along the periphery—along the edge of the infinity pool, and in little knots by the outdoor bar.
I can feel the tension in the way some glassware tilts and how hands hover, uncertain, over their drinks.
They know what’s coming, even if they don’t know its shape.
We make our approach slowly, savoring it, the way you’d walk into a funeral of someone you outlived on a technicality. Not a single person moves to greet us, but no one steps aside either. It’s the perfect standoff, a tableau of power waiting to be rearranged.
I kill the engine first and let the silence settle like a punchline.
The others follow suit, bikes ticking as they cool.
We dismount in sequence, the click of boot heels and the strained creak of leather at odds with the clamor of the party.
Belle runs a dramatic hand through her hair, a calculated gesture that throws her platinum curls into a curtain around her face.
Mayhem cracks his neck, face split in a wolfish grin.
Amanda stays close to Constantine, whose eyes are already scanning for threats, but she’s got a smile that says she’s shopping for something better.
I take my helmet off—slowly, always slowly—and let my hair, stiff with product and the expectation of violence, fall into place.
It’s time for the main event, my little minions.
This is my moment. I feel it in the way the crowd leans forward, in the way my pulse is just a fraction of a beat off.
I’ve envisioned this entrance for a month—this exact confrontation.
We are the ones who stand at the edge of the party and demand that everyone else recalibrate.
We are the ones who refuse to be erased by time or the social cannibalism of this place.
For a second, I allow myself to remember what it was like before Talia showed up and upended everything.
Before her mate, before the coup, before the entire order of things was rewritten in blood and betrayal.
There was a comfort to the old world—a social brutality, yes, but also clarity.
I want to reclaim some of that because I believe in the right to change things on my terms. This night is a pivot point; if I can pull this off, if I can make them see what I see, the clock will start over.
We’ll have another first day in the Resistance, and The Zoo can recreate Dirty Deeds.
The others fan out slightly, a maneuver we’d practiced but never named, and I walk ahead, helmet dangling from two fingers like a grenade with the pin out. We stop ten feet from the nearest group, the hush finally spreading through the mass of bodies.
“Evening, everyone,” I say, pitching my voice to fill the space without strain. “Are we late to the party?”
There’s a shimmer like heat off pavement in my peripheral.
Queen Kitty herself, in a dress that must have taken three hours to get painted onto her body, glides forward with her primary close behind.
They both look so perfectly constructed it’s almost an insult, and I hate that the first thing I think is how good they’d look in my rearview.
But there’s a threat here, too—Taurus and Talia materialize, both of them tense knowing that tonight could go very, very wrong.
Talia plays with a knife, spinning it between her fingers in a way that broadcasts both skill and intent.
It won’t save you, sweetie. Just you wait.
Belle and Mayhem close ranks beside me, vibrating with the possibility of violence.
I can tell from their posture that they’re hoping for a fight.
But that’s not the game tonight. This is about corrosion, not explosion—about what rots underneath the surface until the whole structure fails.
My crew gets it; they pivot from intimidation to anticipation, ready to follow my lead no matter where it heads.
Amanda and Constantine join us, forming a small triad at my back.
This needs to be perfect to work, which is why I’m not moving until everyone is in place.
Veruca and Calista are further back now, working on their portion of the halftime show, while Roman and Janus were told to arrive by car before the rest of us.
The two of them have too much heart to be part of us for this plan.
They were never told the important parts and kept in the dark to keep this from leaking.
I’m going to fuck up their life a bit, but it cannot be helped.
Something in the air changes, and within seconds, there’s a fan of droids behind our hosts and their mates.
Every member of Deli’s household is positioned in pairs in an arc in front of the guests as if they need to protect them.
That mental shit she does is getting scary, but I’ve got magick users of my own.
“Good evening, Sari, Belle, Amanda. I see the gang’s all here. I’m glad you could make it,” the cat says.
She’s ever the hostess, ever the peacemaker.
I arch a brow, chuckling low. “Well, I couldn’t miss my mate’s birthday party, now could I?” I knew that would hit a nerve, and it worked like a charm because that blade is spinning faster and the bird’s teeth are on edge. He moves closer to both, as if ready to fight me, and it occurs to me.
Oh, this is beautiful. This is perfect. They’ve all slept together.
How the mighty ‘I only have one mate’ preachers have fallen. That little tidbit had left me, but it makes this night even more wonderful. I thought I’d hit two buttons, but now I have four. Clapping my hands, I look over at Belle. “I think the guest of honor is ignoring us. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“It doesn’t seem very neighborly,” my partner in crime nods, edging closer.
“I’m not ignoring you ladies,” the long-haired double says, voice all full of charm and good humor. “You’ve made such a grand entrance; it’d be impossible to do.”
Ooh, a double-edged sword. Good parry, mate. You’ve grown a backbone since we saw one another last. That’s very attractive.
“It’s true; we have taken the stage.”
“Do you plan on attending the party or standing there looking at it?”
My head turns, and there stands Philomena—the crown bitch herself—martini in hand as she snipes at us.
Roman and Janus are with her, both wearing brooding expressions as they try to read the situation.
Their intuition is why they got left out of planning, but if this draws a line in the sand, I know they’ll stand with the family no matter what—even if it makes them unhappy.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Deli asks, stalking forward until she’s within a hair’s breadth of us, her eyes stormy with irritation. I see the beast in those eyes, her anger and fear raging to get out as she holds onto control.
What I can’t figure out is why the air around her feels like a breeze blowing shocks over my skin or why the wind kicked up.
A few clouds roll in, and I look around, hoping the girls finish before a freak summer storm brews.
A crackle of bright flashes from behind me, and I smirk, turning towards the back of my group. “My date.”
Wilde walks through the crowd, his smug expression making me proud as he stops right in front of her. “Now that I am returned, we may join the festivities, my Darkness.”
A roar escapes her throat, and lightning sizzles in an arc in the clearing behind the pool house.
Before she responds with a clawed reproach, a blond droid that I don’t recognize steps forward from the crowd with Philomena.
The two of them are stone-faced and immovable as they block access to the cat and the lazy one.
“How rude of us,” the blond says, her voice soft in tone, but sharp as a razor in tone. “Had we known you were coming, Wilde, we would have sent a welcome-back card with a formal invitation.”
Philomena snorts and rolls her eyes. “As if Hallmark makes a ‘welcome back from being dead zombie blogger’ card.”
The blond gives her a look and continues, “Perhaps you all would like to visit the bar or the kitchen. Leo and Hex have prepared a wonderful spread for everyone. I’m sure it would shock the guests to hear your story.”
“However, the hosts are retiring before they are available for receiving,” Philomena says, her gaze icy. “Thank you for understanding.” She shoots a look at Taurus, who nods, and the fabulous four disapparate into thin air before I even shoot a retort.
“Rude isn’t the word, lady,” Belle snaps. “It feels like a mate returning from the dead requires at least a ‘hello’ before you blink off to God knows where instead of hosting your own party.”
Blurred motion is all I see for a moment, but when it stops, the blond has Belle against a wall, a scimitar at her throat, pinning her in place. Wilde and Mayhem move, but I shake my head, knowing she’d have Belle’s throat slit before they even got there.
How in the hell did Victor and the boys program that kind of speed?
“You are correct; I am a lady. That is why I’m not slicing off your white-trash head and letting it bounce at my feet for my amusement.
We are at a party hosted by my family, at which you are guests.
You have attempted to disrupt and destroy that atmosphere for your own amusement, despite how it would affect the entire community in attendance this evening.
” The drunken socialite tosses her hair over her shoulder and gives her a fangy grin.
“Such behavior would grant me the excuse to kill you; however, I will say this once, so I’m being sporting. Behave or die. It’s your choice.”
Pulling the scimitar out of the wall, she walks away to rejoin the droids from Deli’s family on the lawn as Belle slides down the wall, breathing heavily. Mayhem and Veruca run to her, and Chaos comes flying out of the crowd, a vision of looniness in white in the moonlight.
I watch as Roman and Janus slink away from the bar where they’d been with Philomena to join us, and I spot the look on the bad boy Hex’s face as he watches Chaos tend to her ‘mummy’.
Constantine is still staring at the place where the cat was when she almost attacked Wilde, as if he has no idea what to do.
The lines are drawn, and they have chosen sides.
The only question is what will happen next?