by Selina Woods
Morgan watched out the window as I dozed in the chair, startling awake when Jae opened the door. “Declan, maybe you should stay here and rest,” she said, eyeing me and my weakened condition.
“Like hell,” I growled, standing. “Where you go, I go.”
I donned my peacoat with an effort, then worked hard to maintain a decent pace with Jae as Morgan followed a step behind. For the first time, I felt grateful for his immense presence to guard us both as we headed to The Tiger’s Paw. People stepped respectfully out of our way, and few goons looked as though they wanted to challenge us.
Fortunately, we arrived before the bar opened. Chad took one look at us and dropped his broom to the floor with a sharp bang. “What the hell happened? Who’s this guy?”
I sat, exhausted, on a stool as Jae explained what had happened and who Morgan was. “He’s going to help us get out of this town,” she said. “Declan’s mom sent him.”
Chad eyed me sidelong. “Who the hell are you, Declan?”
I flapped my hand wearily. “Nobody, Chad. Just a street kid.”
“Street kids don’t have secret societies protecting them,” he replied, picking up his broom and sweeping again. “Any thoughts on how to escape this place?”
Sitting on my stool when I wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep, I said, “Explosives.”
Morgan stared, and Chad almost dropped his broom again. “How do you mean?” Morgan asked.
“A distraction,” I answered, rubbing my face with my good hand. “Send the roadblocks out into the prairie while we sneak past them.”
“Possible,” Chad commented, sweeping again. “Except that may draw more from the city to investigate, and then we don’t have just the border guards after us; we have Raphael and his entire horde tagging along.”
“We can take out the roadblocks,” Morgan said. “Sneak up on them, kill them.”
“Chad, you should have seen Declan.” Jae’s admiring gaze rested on me, and her smile made me squirm. “He killed a huge lion last night.”
I hung my head. “He wasn’t that big.”
“He was savage and a killer,” Morgan added. “You were outmatched, but you fought well. I was impressed.”
I glanced up to find Chad eyeing me as he swept, a small grin on his face. “I suspected there was more to this skinny kid that met the eye.”
“Can we please talk about how we’re gonna get out of here?” I complained. “The roadblocks have semi-automatic rifles. We don’t. We’ll need vehicles, extra fuel, loads of food to survive out there. How are we gonna get all that?”
“I think we want to avoid a firefight with the patrol,” Morgan replied, taking a drink from the soda Jae set in front of him. “I know how to use them, but I have no way of teaching anyone else how to without firing them, and that would bring hell down on our heads.”
“With stealth and cunning,” Chad continued with a nod as he finished his task, “we can kill the goons on the road. Then we drive on past.”
“And if we’re hit by another blizzard?” Jae asked, putting a soda in front of me. “We’re in trouble.”
“Just about any winter storm can block the road,” I said. “What if we led the way with a big plow?”
At that suggestion, three sets of eyes stared at me. Defensive, I went on. “Look, they’re there. I don’t think they run, but couldn’t we get one running?”
“The kid is smart,” Chad muttered. “Too smart, maybe.”
“We’ll have to obtain vehicles,” Morgan added with a grin, “why not add a plow? If we enlist the help of an engine mechanic, we offer him his freedom from this hell hole in exchange for his know-how.”
“Do we know any mechanics?” Jae asked, leaning her elbows on the bar.
“I don’t know him as such,” I said slowly. “But I know of a wolf who works on cars. Unfortunately, he does a lot of work for Raphael and his goons.”
“If he’s unhappy with what he’s doing,” Morgan said, his tone speculative, “he may be interested in escaping to a free city.”
“But how can we ask him without warning him of what we’re doing?” Jae asked. “He could turn around and squeal to Raphael.”
“I’ll take my truck to him,” Chad replied. “It needs work on it, anyway. I’ll carefully sound him out.”
“If he’s willing,” I went on, “he may point us in the direction of cars or trucks we can steal. Not from citizens, though, just vehicles in good running condition from the enforcers.”
“So where can we get the food and fuel tanks?” Jae asked.
Moving carefully as just about anything I did hurt like hell; I pulled the jewels and the last of the cash from my pocket. “Sell these?” I suggested, pointing at the jewelry. “Then use the money to start buying what we need?”
Chad shook his head. “Barry had those on his person,” he told me, “they might be recognized.”
I counted the cash. “This won’t take us very far.”
Jae snapped her fingers. “Doesn’t Raphael have his own private stock of food? Keeps it in a small warehouse near his place?”
Chad lifted his brow as he considered. “I think I did hear than someplace. But it’s time to open the bar up, so we’ll have to finish this discussion later.”
We shifters heal quicker than ordinary folks, and I was no exception. Twenty-four hours later, my pain had mostly gone away, but at Chelsea’s insistence, I still popped the antibiotics. After the bar closed, Jae, Morgan, and I planned to scope out Raphael’s stockpiles of food. “We don’t want to steal it yet,” Chad warned as he locked the bar. “No sense in tipping our hand yet.”
Shifting into our lion bodies, we loped down the alley as Chad started up his truck to go home to his family. “Raphael lives in the ritzier part of town,” I said, leading the way. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find cuz he has guards all over the place.”
A pack of three lions, even with one as small as me, was enough to deter marauders from pestering us as we traveled across town. Even so, we still kept to the shadows, and we hid from the single renegade group we saw until they vanished from sight. “Pity they don’t overdose and do us a favor,” Jae muttered, crouched beside me as the mix of lions and wolves disappeared down an alley.
“We can but hope,” Morgan replied. “Let’s go.”
Though I seldom came to this part of town, Raphael’s mansion wasn’t difficult to find. If it had been damaged in the wars, he had repaired it, for it showed little damage. It was huge and well maintained with a vast lawn and a three-car garage. His goons in cars and on foot patrolled for blocks around, faithfully guarding their master.
“How are we gonna slip past them?” Jae asked as we hid behind a pile of rubble strewn from a bombed structure two blocks from the house.
Gazing upward, I spied no enforcers up on the roofs above. “From up there.”
Slinking away, I led Jae and Morgan away from the goons and to a shattered building several streets away. Climbing the piles of broken cement, I leaped upward to enter it through a busted window. Behind me, Jae managed it without much effort, but Morgan, less agile, grunted and swore as he clawed his way in.
“Being smaller has its advantages,” he grumbled as he followed me through it to the roof.
“I always thought so,” I replied absently, bounding out the broken door and onto the roof. “Be careful where you put your feet. This roof is weak, and your heavy weight can send you tumbling.”
It creaked ominously as we headed for the edge to leap over to the house next door. “Shit,” Morgan muttered. “You weren’t kidding.”
From roof to roof, we crossed silently, finding no squads patrolling upon them. “This is a serious security breach,” Morgan observed. “Why doesn’t he have enforcers up here?”
“Arrogance,” I answered, staring over the edge in an effort to find a property where Raphael might store his supplies. After checking all four corners, I finally jerked my chin at a structure, a smaller version of his house, two
streets from the big mansion. “That one looks awfully healthy. Think that could be it?”
To either side of me, Jae and Morgan gazed at the undamaged house. “I don’t see any guards on it,” Morgan replied. “There are those guys over there, but they don’t seem to be patrolling near that place.”
“I suggest we check it out.”
Leaving the rooftop via the attic, I led the way down the stairs to the ground floor, then slunk from shadow to shadow toward the spacious and graceful house. Constantly sniffing the still cold air and listening, I found nothing more dangerous than a rat creeping away from our immense threat to its safety. Little light revealed us to our enemies, but the bad guys were also concealed from us if they were there.
Unchallenged, we stalked through the big back yard of the house, peering in through the windows. Shifting forms, I tried the doorknob. “Locked,” I muttered. Heading to a window, I also found it locked. “There has to be something in there,” I whispered. “No other reason to lock doors and windows unless it's occupied by someone.”
“How do we get in without raising an alarm?” Morgan asked. “Especially if someone lives here.”
“We don’t,” I replied, spotting an old coal chute. “I do.”
“Declan,” Jae hissed. “You’re not going alone.”
“Watch me.”
Wriggling my way through the narrow opening, I slid down into the basement of the old house.
Chapter Nine
Changing forms with my keener senses, I crept through the dark and quickly found the stairs leading up. Hearing nothing save my own breathing, I entered the kitchen, which held no odors of cooking, yet was pristine, clean, and well ordered. Almost as though someone lives here. But I don’t smell anyone. I padded from the kitchen to the dining room and discovered it stacked from floor to ceiling with crates.
Sniffing them, I didn’t scent much at all. Canned goods maybe? The former sitting room held refrigerators and freezers filled with fresh and frozen food. Meat, seafood, packets of vegetables, jars of pickles, eggs in containers. Sacks of potatoes and onions hung from the ceiling. Jackpot.
Though I didn’t need to investigate further, I did so anyway to eliminate any potential surprises later. The second floor held supplies of blankets, sleeping bags, folded sheets, warm clothing. “What is this guy preparing for?” I muttered. “War?”
The third floor held crates also, but these were filled with rifles, handguns, boxes of ammunition. Explosive devices filled as many as twenty others. Uneasiness crept over me. It almost seemed as though Raphael planned an invasion of another city. But where? There was no other occupied town within hundreds of miles of Cheyenne.
“Surely he’s not dumb enough to attack a free city like Denver? Is he?”
Not having any answers to those questions, I returned to the basement and shifted forms so I could crawl back up the coal chute. Jae greeted me with a sharp gust of relieved breath and rubbed her muzzle against mine the instant after I shifted forms.
“What did you find?” Morgan asked as we crept silently away from the house.
“Plenty.”
As we loped away, I told them about the caches of food, weapons, and the other supplies. “It’s almost as though he’s planning an invasion,” I said.
Morgan stopped dead, forcing us to pause with him. “Denver.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I replied. “Expand his power.”
“He’d only do that if he thought he was going to get his hands on the source of magic,” Jae gasped. “He really thinks it's here.”
“Shit,” I gritted, trotting southwards through the alley. “We have to get out of this town. Barry might be found at any time, and once he is, Raphael will start killing.”
“We have to set fire to that house,” Morgan added, his voice grim as he caught up to me. “We have to destroy those weapons.”
“And bring his every enforcer down on us,” I snapped. “Good plan.”
“Even if he has no magic,” Morgan continued, stubborn, “he still poses a danger to other free cities. We must kill him and destroy that house.”
“Oh, boy,” Jae commented. “That’ll be fun.”
“Without his ambition and supplies,” Morgan went on, “the goon who replaces him will just be another gang lord.”
“Preying on the civilians without mercy,” I growled. “Too bad we can’t turn this town into a free city.”
“That’s not for us to do, Declan,” Morgan warned me. “In time, it will happen, but not now.”
Dawn was not far away when we reached Jae’s apartment, and I was tired and not in the mood to have Morgan sharing the place with us. He came in, however, as though he belonged there despite the stink eye, I sent him. Returning my glower with a bland expression, he settled onto the couch and yawned. “This sofa is pretty comfortable,” he commented and lay down on it.
Jae giggled as I followed her into the bedroom and closed the door behind us. “We’ll have to be quiet,” she said, undressing.
I hadn’t felt horny until she was naked. My rod sprang to attention, throbbing with need as Jae lay down on the bed. “What if he hears us?” I whispered, undressing more slowly.
“So, what if he does?’ Jae asked, curling her hand around my shaft. “He’s a big boy and should expect us to make love. We’ll just not be noisy.”
“It feels weird,” I said, lying down beside her.
“Don’t be a prude.”
That made me laugh. “A prude, huh?”
“Yeah. Come here.”
Leaning over her, I kissed her, my tongue tangled with hers. I slid my hand over her silky skin, cupping her small, perky boobs, flicking my thumb over her erect nipples. Jae moaned softly, arching her back into my hand, hers planted firmly on either side of my face. My excitement and lust grew with my pounding pulse, my staff throbbing with need.
“That feels so nice,” she murmured, breaking away from my mouth.
“Mmm,” I replied, my lips on her throat, nipping gently, licking her sweet flesh.
Caressing her ribs and belly, I explored further, dipping my fingers into her moist tunnel. “How does that feel?”
“You’re kidding, right?” she gasped as I played with her tiny nubbin, teasing her into full arousal.
Jae squirmed and wriggled, my mouth and hands bringing her to the brink of climax, then backed off. “I’ll kill you,” she snapped, groaning with a crazy need of her own while I continued to pleasure her.
“I want on top,” she suddenly said.
I gazed down into her luminous eyes, controlling my need to be buried to the hilt deep within her. “You do, eh?”
“Yeah. Roll over.”
Obedient, wondering what it would feel like to make love in this position, I lay on my back. Jae straddled my hips, picking up my rod to point it at the entrance to her cave. A long groan escaped from both of us as she impaled herself on my shaft. She was so wet, I glided in easily and stretched her to the max.
“Ohhh, my,” Jae moaned as the helmet of my shaft knocked against her cervix.
She lifted her hips and slid down again, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. I think she had sort of a mini orgasm as her body shuddered, her tight nest constricting even more around my erection. I cupped her boobs in both hands, teasing her nipples with my thumbs. I bucked my hips upward into her as she lifted her own, and soon we developed a nice rhythm.
Up and down, her rich hair cascading down her back, Jae worked her hips even as I plunged upward. “Declan,” she muttered, taking my hands in hers, “ohhh, don’t stop.”
Unfortunately, my orgasm loomed, burning red hot like a fire in my gut. “I can’t—hold on.”
Jae worked her hips faster, moaning softly, her breath hissing between her teeth. The motions only served to make me blast my seed deep into her, my upward thrusts slowing. I knew she hadn’t orgasmed, and I feared I’d disappoint her if I didn’t bring her to complete pleasure. While I was still buried deep inside her,
I worked my finger to her nib and stroked it.
“Ahh, ohhh,” she muttered thickly, her hands flat on my chest, my finger teasing her tiny love spot. Her juices flooded my pecker; her body quivered atop mine. I knew when her climax took control, as her breathing quickened in sharp, short gasps. She sucked in one last deep gulp of air and then collapsed on top of me.
Under her rich hair, I kissed her deeply, my hands holding her cheeks. “I am so in love with you, Jae,” I whispered against her lips.
The words were out. I could not recall them. I neared panic, fearing that it was too soon for the Big Three. I knew she cared for me, but did that mean she was in love with me, too? Caring for someone didn’t always equate love, and I half feared she could only think of me as a friend.
Jae’s lips curved in a smile, and she kissed me. “Good. Cuz I’m in love with you, Declan.”
Rolling over and taking her with me, I covered us both the sheets and blankets. Snuggling against her, feeling her heartbeat against my arm, I nuzzled my face into her sweet-smelling hair. “It’s good to be in love,” I murmured.
“Maybe.” Jae halted and started again, uncertain. “Maybe, when this is all over, and we’re in a free city, we can be mated. Have babies.”
Lifting my head and hand, I brushed her hair away from her bare shoulder and kissed it. “You’d want my kids?”
“Of course, silly.”
“Little bitty runt lions?”
Jae laughed. “As long as they’re all as cute as you are.”
“It might be better if they looked like you.”
If Morgan had heard our bout of lovemaking the night before, he made no comment. When I emerged, fully dressed, from the bedroom, leaving Jae to sleep for a little while longer, I saw him watching out the window. “Trouble?”
“Not yet,” he replied. “I left the apartment long enough to go to the bakery down the street. There are pastries there on the table.”
“Yummy.”
Selecting one, I took it with me to the couch and sat down to eat it. “Could the source of magic really be here in Cheyenne?” I asked, my mouth full of sweet bread and sugar.