Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets)

by Michael Anderle

Marcus was looking down at his scratch pad and up at the drawings they had taped to the whiteboard on the wall.

  Bobcat and William were in a heated discussion over something to do with fins. Something wasn’t right and Marcus couldn’t grasp it, yet.

  “Gentleman.” He spoke a little louder, “Gentleman!” Bobcat and William turned to face him. Marcus pointed to the sketches. “Why are we using three as the assumed number of people on the rocket?”

  Bobcat answered, “That’s how many Bethany Anne asked for, two and a pilot.”

  Marcus walked up to the whiteboard and looked through the sketches. They all looked like some variation of the old V-2 rockets from World War II. “Who would we need to ask if that’s the right decision?”

  Bobcat’s eyes stopped tracking Marcus and looked over their designs. “Probably Dan at first, but also Todd and Pete.”

  Marcus looked over his shoulder at Bobcat. “Not Bethany Anne’s group?”

  William snorted. “Why would she take something slow like this?”

  Marcus’s mouth dropped open. “Slow? Do you realize just how fast this can actually go? We are talking up to Mach 42 and that’s just in the atmosphere.” There was a new hypersonic private jet concept out of Bombardier that was possibly going to do Mach 24, so humans were going to catch up with this craft eventually, but it wouldn’t be as agile or safe as theirs.

  William shrugged. “Yeah? But if you can step 7,000 miles in a second even Mach 42 might be a tad on the slow side.”

  Marcus’s face scrunched up. He had tried to ask her about her Etheric walking, but she politely pointed him back to this task and told him, “One Nobel prize winning project at a time, Marcus.” Before he wiped the shit-eating grin off of his face, she was out of the room.

  Marcus shrugged, nothing he could do about that curiosity at the moment.

  Bobcat started his question by drawing out his first word, “Sooooooo…. You’re wanting to figure out if Bethany Anne has made the right decision on how many people should be in the craft?” It was Bobcat’s turn to think about the question. “Fuck if I know. Let’s ask Dan and the guys what they want. We had better get this done pronto, though.”

  Marcus, Bobcat and William were walking down the hallway when they caught sight of Tim Kinley, from the Guardians. He was the easiest one for Bobcat to remember, as he was the tallest of the group.

  “Tim!” Bobcat called out.

  Tim turned his head as he continued down the hallway. “Yeah?”

  “Have you seen Pete or Todd?”

  He pointed the direction he was walking. “This way. They’re with Dan, Stephen and the captains in the meeting room.”

  “Meeting room?” Marcus asked, looking between his teammates.

  “BT FOOM,” said William, shrugging.

  Marcus’s face was comical as he tried to parse the letters. Bobcat took pity on the scientist. “Beats-the-fuck-out-of-me.”

  “Ah.” Marcus figured it would take him another lifetime to learn all of the acronyms his new military friends used.

  They got to the meeting room and were surprised to see a group of eleven crew standing around the door talking to each other.

  As they walked up, the door opened and Dan stuck his head out. “Can someone go get—” He spotted Bobcat walking up. “Just the man I wanted, can you three join us, please?”

  He left the door open and they followed Dan into the room.

  It was a pretty large room. It hadn’t started as a conference room, but rather a medium sized holding area for some expensive toy or another. The team had dropped in a couple of tables and twenty chairs. Typically, they would have held the meeting in the nicer rooms on the Polarus, but most of the people were here on the Ad Aeternitatem, so Dan, Captain Thomas and Jean Dukes had joined Captain Wagner, Todd, Pete and Stephen, who was sitting at the head of the table.

  The three men sat down, clueless as to what was happening.

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  Michael was working through the papers in Anton’s main house. He was disgusted by what he had found over the last few weeks.

  Moreover, he was ashamed that he had allowed it to go on as long as he had.

  His first efforts had been to find, and get rid of, the research apparatus and people that Anton had built over the decades since he had run from Germany. Michael had been ruthless when he learned some of the scientists had been old Nazis that Anton had helped keep alive far longer than their normal lifespan.

  He had even taken a couple of days to track down one who had heard of the ‘change in management’ and fled to Chile. When Michael had someone executed on his orders, he required the head to be brought back to him as proof. He wasn’t going to take any chances.

  He wasn’t as trusting as he might have been before his altercation with David. His hubris had certainly caught up with him and he now trusted only a few.

  Three of Anton’s main people had to be eliminated. They had tried to talk the talk without taking a step in the right direction. Unfortunately for them, Michael could hear their thoughts on the matter. Most of the time he would allow them to make a mistake, not just judge them on their inner musings. It helped others to believe he was being fair.

  Of course, a few wondered how Michael always seemed to be around when the offenders were breaking his rules.

  He was going through each of the files in Anton’s desk. He had come across some notes related to his contacts in South America and set them aside for later review. He had created another pile for Anton’s banking information.

  Anton had little notes all over the place. Often, they would only have a few words on them scrawled in a scratchy way Michael found difficult to decipher. Anton’s handwriting had always been horrible and becoming a vampire, Michael admitted, did nothing to help.

  He had found a U.S. folder and was able to decipher a few short notes on a plan related to banking in Miami. He thought this must be the effort Bethany Anne had interrupted. He called Bethany Anne’s phone and was surprised when Ecaterina answered for her. It seemed Bethany Anne had left her phone in her room when she stepped over to the ship from Miami, with Gabrielle. Michael decided he didn’t need Bethany Anne specifically to answer his question when Ecaterina told him that John Grimes was in the house.

  Pity that.

  John was able to confirm the information and Michael hung up.

  Michael had almost ignored some writing in the corner of a worksheet as useless until he caught ‘Were contact.’

  Michael turned the paper sideways to try and browbeat the lines into a semblance of understanding.

  That effort was useless.

  He went searching and found a few more cryptic notes. He wasn’t able to glean a name, but he was able to learn one bit of information.

  The American Pack Council had a Forsaken mole in their midst.

  4

  Key Biscayne, FL USA

  Lance was relaxing on the patio outside Bethany Anne’s main house in Key Biscayne. He was sipping on a beer when the patio door opened and Patricia stepped out with a white wine in her hand.

  Lance smiled at the woman, she had been everything he had needed and more. He pushed out the chair next to him in invitation and she smiled in response and sat down, setting her wine on the table.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.

  “I can’t believe it’s done.” The sun was going down and it would get unseasonably cold this evening. For both Patricia and Lance, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. They had spent most of their lives in Colorado and were well acquainted with cold weather. Miami didn’t have anything close to cold in its temperature range.

  She took a sip from her wine, a nice Riesling. When she went back in, she would see if the fridge had a cheese that would go with it. “The base?” She often knew exactly what Lance was thinking after so many years working together.

  “Yes.” He said no more.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  He looked over at the woman
beside him and sighed. “There isn’t any hiding stuff from you, is there?”

  She communed with her wine for a second. “Of course you can. I didn’t realize the owner of this beautiful house, the CEO of the corporation was your own daughter.” The sunset light was playing in her wine, mesmerizing colors swirling around.

  Lance smiled. “Ha! That’s probably the only thing I was able to hide from you and thank God it was only for a day. It helped that you thought she was.” Lance turned back to look out over the water.

  Patricia looked up. “You’re probably right. I’m being too hard on myself. My lack of perfection was starting to grate on my nerves for a minute. I appreciate you reminding me that you only succeeded because you were working for the undead.” Patricia took a deep breath; sometimes she forgot to close her damn mouth around this man.

  Fortunately, Lance took it as the joke she intended. “That’s right! I guess you could say that I’ve worked for the undead in both versions of the meaning.” Lance rubbed his hands together. “I can’t wait to spring that on old futz and guts.”

  Patricia’s face was elegantly confused. “Who?” Before Lance could respond, she made her best guess, “Frank?”

  Lance continued looking out over the water, but waved his hand in her direction. “That’s why I needed you so much. I don’t have to explain the little things.”

  She resolved to circle back around to Frank later. “Why are you surprised we got the base back and what has you so melancholy over it?”

  “Surprised because I thought it would be another couple of years, melancholic because I’m the asshole corporate raider that helped close it down. I would never, in my life, have thought that I would be the cause of good men and women in the service needing to move from that location.”

  Patricia understood what was causing Lance’s unease. He blamed himself for the base closing the military operation and going private. “We have open calls for those who want to leave the Army and help with the new base, changes, and security, to stay in the area. It looks like we’re going to be resourced pretty well. Both on security and on the engineering side.”

  Lance looked over at Patricia and raised an eyebrow.

  “Probably a hundred percent of our short term needs and seventy percent of our long term needs for security are going to be staying with us.”

  Hot damn, Lance thought, the eyebrow worked!

  He asked, “How did you get that many to make the change?”

  “There was a rumor going around about the new corporation. Apparently they’re moving their corporate headquarters, and highly valuable research and development. It appears that they have a ‘military history.’”

  “You didn’t!”

  Patricia looked at her fingernails, admiring the manicure she had done just this morning. She let Lance sit for another few seconds before answering, “You’re right, I didn’t.”

  Lance grunted and turned back towards the view.

  “Kevin did.”

  Lance swung his head back towards her, shock on his face. “Kevin knows? You told Kevin?”

  Patricia looked dead into Lance’s eyes. Sometimes she wished she could use a bat, this man was that blind to the obvious. “No. I didn’t tell Kevin. Kevin is a little quicker on the uptake than you. He knows I wouldn’t quit my job and move to Florida for just anyone, so I assume he is making a very educated guess.”

  Lance was working on her statement. He knew there were two discussions going on, but he couldn’t connect the first because the comment about Kevin held his attention. Well, hell, he would come back to it.

  He turned back again. Maybe taking over his old base wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  Key Biscayne, FL USA

  Bethany Anne, Gabrielle and Ashur arrived back in her suite. This time, Ashur ignored her shoes and walked to the door. Gabrielle did the honors and Ashur took off ahead of them, down the stairs.

  Gabrielle waved over her shoulder as she walked ahead of Bethany Anne. “I’m heading next door. I’ll send John and Eric over.” Gabrielle was out the front door before Bethany Anne had made it down the steps. She could hear her dad and Patricia in the back. It sounded like they were possibly having a personal moment, so she turned around and headed back upstairs. No need to spray any gasoline on that little fire right now. Bethany Anne hadn’t decided whether she was going to get personally involved in that relationship or not.

  Ecaterina and Nathan’s dance had been fun to watch, and even more fun to poke and prod at every once in a while. Bethany Anne wasn’t sure whether to have fun at her father’s expense, always tempting, or find a moment to slap her father upside his overly thick, caveman skull. Unfortunately, she shouldn’t tell him that Patricia wouldn’t wait forever because to date, she already had.

  As she went back into her room she heard her phone go off. She walked over to her nightstand to pick it up. Ecaterina would kill her if she realized that she had left it behind.

  When she answered, she could smell that Ecaterina had already picked up her phone. Looks like she was in for a lecture in Ecaterina’s Romanian accent. Bethany Anne had a hard time feeling ‘talked at’ when the person talking to you sounded sexy as shit.

  “Hey Michael.” Bethany Anne sat on her bed. The back patio was not an option. She didn’t want to intrude on what might become a personal moment. She considered her other options for a place to hold this conversation. She stood back up to get a jacket and go out. Damn shame Shelly wasn’t around.

  “Hello Bethany Anne, how are you?” Michael was like that. He was ever the polite person with her, no matter how much she tried to poke the bear, his aloofness making it hard to settle into any sort of relationship. She was no longer the woman who needed his help. With TOM’s information, she often understood more about what was going on with their abilities than Michael did.

  She considered how she could poke the man one more time, and keep poking him to see what would get a reaction out of him.

  “I’m not late, that’s how I am.” There, take that. Next time you come rushing to rescue the damsel who-wasn’t-in-distress be on time.

  “That’s nice. I didn’t realize that still occurred since your change.”

  Gott Verdammt. That motherfucker just dinged her and got a point in. Fucking prick!

  Shit, she had no retort for that statement. He was getting better, time to up her game. Can’t have a thousand-year-old walking aristocrat thinking he’s got game.

  Then again, she had seen him without a shirt, so he had at least some game. Not that she would ever admit that to Michael, his overgrown ego would explode.

  “Lots of things you don’t know about me since my change. Come to think about it, you didn’t know me well before my change either. But, enough about my mysteriousness. Whatcha’ got?”

  Damn, Michael thought, he was sure he was going to get under her skin with that comment. Time to figure out how to up his game, as Stephen would say. “I’ve been going through Anton’s records and I found some notes that suggest he has a contact on the American Pack Council.”

  Bethany Anne’s face clouded up. “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  Bethany Anne grabbed her purse and headed out the door of her suite. She heard the front door open, so her shadows had arrived. She boosted her speed to meet John as he entered the house. She quickly slid between John and the half-open door, his face moving from startled to resigned as his boss left him behind.

  He closed the door behind her.

  Bethany Anne walked over to one of the SUVs and jumped in the back.

  John called out, “Where are we going?”

  Bethany Anne answered Michael. “I wish that asshole was still alive so I could kick his nuts hard enough he would suffocate.”

  Eric looked over at John and mouthed, “Anton?” John shrugged and nodded that was his guess as well.

  Bethany Anne answered John’s question, “Take me to someplace that sells Bugattis. I feel a need for speed.”

&nb
sp; Eric took out his phone. “Hot damn, car shopping!”

  John wasn’t too happy. “Those cars have four seats, right?”

  Eric shrugged, “Beats the fuck out of me, if they have two seats then Miss Moneybags… Oww!” Eric spun around in his seat after his ear blazed with a sharp, intense pain. Bethany Anne was sitting in the back seat, looking out her window ignoring the byplay of her guards up front. Eric turned back around while rubbing his sore earlobe. “Then our beloved leader, Bethany Anne, will need to purchase two so her ever-dependable and long-suffering…” Eric slammed his hand back over his ear, but nothing happened. “Guards will be able to keep up.”

  John smiled, he decided he could support that argument. “Then hurry up with the directions, we are wasting valuable daylight, my good man.”

  Michael continued the conversation from his side. He had heard everything including the infinitesimal sound when Bethany Anne flicked her guard’s ear. He was trying to understand why she allowed what seemed like disrespect from her guards. He couldn’t, however, deny that all of them would put their own life on the line to save hers. Maybe he had a few things to learn, yet. “Yes, well Ecaterina and Killian made short work of him. His death was too quick. He deserved far worse.”

  “I thought you were ambivalent about Anton? I know you have a hard-on for David…”

  “I do NOT have a ‘hard-on’ for David.”

  Bethany Anne snickered, point for her.

  “Sorry.” No she wasn’t. “Turn of phrase. I mean I know you want David’s death to be significant, but I thought you didn’t care about Anton’s as much.”

  Dammit, that was a point, he was sure she got a point in there. She often got him by using vernacular he wasn’t used to hearing. When he pulled out a phrase from the 1980s it took her three minutes to stop laughing. He had almost hung up except that would have given her extra bonus something or other. “I’ve been having to deal with, and clean up, Anton’s mess for the last few weeks. I have a fresh appreciation for his evil.”

  Bethany Anne grew somber. “Thank you, Michael. I do appreciate you taking this on.” Michael felt her sincerity thousands of miles away as if he was there in the car with her.