by Aja James
But when they were ready to set the fuse, a faint clanging and whining reached their ears.
“Someone’s still here,” Ariel said, sniffing the air.
“Several someones.”
“I’ve checked the halls. All the rooms are empty,” Luka said. “Unless there’s a secret chamber somewhere.”
Goya pushed past them in long, ground-eating strides as if he knew exactly where to go. Maximus and Ariel followed closely behind while the others stayed in the main lab for a final check.
Two corridors down, they met a dead end.
But Goya kicked at the wall with his bare feet. Then, he backed up, transformed into the giant white tiger and rammed the wall with a resounding roar that shook the halls, exploding the plaster and cracking the concrete behind it.
Maximus and Ariel heard it too, the faint clawing, whimpering, barking and hissing that came from behind the wall. Together, they shifted into their animal forms and followed Goya’s lead, charging at the wall until it broke apart.
After the dust and concrete blocks had settled, they found themselves in a hall of horrors.
Side by side were dozens of cages, some housing dead animals; some, barely living beasts that looked like nothing the three of them had ever seen.
The smell was atrocious. Animal and human waste, decomposition, and most of all, the stench of fear and desperation.
They slowly walked by each and every cage, taking in with horrified eyes the monstrous creations that each cell contained.
“Dark Goddess above,” Maximus muttered, clenching his fists.
Ariel had a feeling that if they ever crossed paths with the researcher again, she might have to fight him for the privilege of ending the bitch’s sadistic ass.
Goya looked at Maximus intently, and the two males exchanged a private conversation to which Ariel wasn’t privy.
“We’ll free them. Goya, Luka, Rhys and Roark will take them to safety,” Maximus explained to her.
“But…”
She looked at the mangled beast closest to her.
It was half man, half wolf, an ugly, crazed combination of the two. How could something like that ever be safe?
More pertinently, how could humans be safe from a monster like that? Surely it needed to be put down? Surely it wouldn’t want to live like that?
“But they are living, Ariel,” Maximus said, reading her mind. “It’s not their fault to have been forced into this fate. Goya intends to help them however he can. This is perhaps all that’s left of his clan.”
Ariel felt duly chastised at that. She was responsible for everything that’s happened, after all. She was Medusa’s unwitting tool.
“It’s not your fault,” Maximus said sternly, grasping her hand.
Then he gave her a hard look.
“But when we’re done here, I’m taking you to Ava Monroe to get you checked out. I don’t want any more of your ‘programs’ popping up on us unawares.”
She nodded, in complete agreement.
But how were they going to get all the animals out of here?
These creatures were wild, frightened, and violent. They’d be lucky if the animals didn’t try to kill each other once they were let out of their cages—or try to kill their rescuers.
Just as she had the thought, everything went abruptly still and silent, as if Father Time had waved his wand and frozen the continuum.
It was Goya, Ariel saw.
He was staring each of the animals in the eyes one by one. When his gaze met theirs, they calmed. No more whimpering, sniffling and growling. No one twitched so much as a hair.
Guess that’s why he was the Tiger King.
Carefully, she and Maximus opened the cages, not making any sudden movements or sounds.
But the animals paid them no heed, all of their attention focused on their king, alert and ready to do his bidding.
Together, their motley crew made their way back to the central labs where Rhys, Luka and Roark awaited them.
Ariel paused on the threshold.
Rhys was cradling Leti’s body in his arms. Their dead comrades, the ones Medusa’s soldiers had brought back, were all present, laid out side by side on the floor.
Goya must have communicated something to Rhys, because the eagle looked up at his king and answered, “I will not go with you. I want to stay here and fight.”
He looked to Maximus next.
“You are one of the Dark King’s warriors, are you not? Will you keep your command of the Chosen, or will you go with Goya?”
Maximus and Goya exchanged a brief, intense look.
“I will stay to fight Medusa,” Maximus determined. “She must be stopped.”
“Then I will fight with you,” Rhys vowed, “If you will have me.”
Maximus gave one firm nod.
The Chosen and their allies needed all the help they could get if this was what Medusa had up her sleeve. Added to the fight clubs, the vampire-killer bullets, and all the other countless machinations she’d put in motion.
They probably didn’t even know the half of it.
Rhys, Luka and Roark set the charges and ushered the other animal spirits and animals out in a somewhat orderly manner.
There weren’t enough clothes for everyone. Some of them had to wear disposable hospital gowns, but it was better than nothing. At least the night was still dark, and the few humans who loitered above ground in Chinatown were either drunk or homeless or both.
Might not raise too much alarm, in other words, if they saw something they didn’t see every day.
Maximus, Ariel and Goya left last, Ariel clutching a micro-disc of all the information she’d been able to copy from the facility’s records.
A couple of her Mate’s comrades were supposed to be digital wizards. Perhaps they could make sense of the information and give them some advantage over Medusa. Or, at least whittle down their disadvantage versus their nemesis.
They were a safe distance away when the facility imploded in a mushroom cloud of flames. Nothing would be salvageable from that blast; Rhys and the others had made sure of it.
Maximus turned to Goya, and the two males shared a silent, weighty look.
No embrace. No hand-shaking.
Maximus gave one curt nod, and Goya gracefully inclined his head. And each went their separate ways.
Goya with Luka, Roark and the animals. Maximus with Rhys and Ariel.
They’d never lose each other again after this, Ariel knew. But her Mate had business to take care of, justice to mete out. And Goya had to rebuild and protect his clan.
She knew from Maximus’s communication to her that the Tiger King intended to find the remaining animal spirits in this world and gather them to him.
They all needed to prepare for the coming wars.
*** *** *** ***
Roark hotwired a van, Luka jump started a Chinatown bus. They proceeded to load up the other animal spirits and animals and hasten their journey out of the City to someplace safe.
They’d agreed to travel north, stop first in the Catskills for food, water and rest. But after that, they’d head up through Canada, maybe go all the way west to the Yukon Territory.
The climate and terrain were a lot more forgiving than their old home in Siberia, but it was similar and isolated enough that they determined they could make a safe haven there for however many other animal spirits they rescued in the future.
But just as Roark and Luka got behind the wheels of their vehicles and started them up, Goya tensed with alertness, standing on the bottom step of the bus, and narrowed his eyes down the darkened streets.
Wordlessly, he jerked his head to Roark, and the lion closed the bus’s doors without question, leaving Goya outside.
Both vehicles accelerated with a screech and sped down the streets in the opposite direction.
That was when the threat showed itself.
A squadron of black motorcycles came flying through the streets right at Goya, and leading the charge was
the Paladin himself.
Goya shifted into giant tiger form, and in two huge bounds, leapt directly at the center of the formation, knocking out three of the riders simultaneously, their bikes skidding and crashing into the curb and lamp posts.
These were trained assassins, however, most of them vampire, some Pure, like the Paladin himself.
The bike-less riders rebounded lithely with supernatural grace and unsheathed their weapons en masse.
The Paladin himself reared his bike on the back wheel like a stallion, turned on a dime, and headed back straight for Goya.
The tiger kept the Paladin in the corner of his eye while swatting one vampire with enough force to send him crashing into the approaching vehicle.
The Paladin avoided the collision by leaping off his bike first, but the vampire wasn’t so lucky. The screeching crash ended in an explosion in the corner of an alley, engulfing the vampire in its flames.
Goya calculated his odds.
One down, still six against one.
And the Paladin himself, with his crescent blades drawn, was more trouble than all five of the others combined. Two of the bikes were out of commission, one of them a mangled mess wrapped around a lamp post. Still five bikes operational.
While Goya could outrun them for a few minutes in giant tiger form, he couldn’t outrun them forever. He had to take as many of them out right now, on foot.
He leapt against the side of a building, rebounded, and all but slashed a vampire in half with one of his claws, taking another soldier between his jaws and chomping down with a crunch.
Two more down, four to go.
The Paladin came at him with lethal efficiency, leaping from apartment steps to the fire escapes to the brick facades themselves to gain leverage and height against Goya, the moon blades churning like circular saws in his hands.
He managed to cut into Goya’s side as the tiger prioritized clawing through another soldier rather than avoiding the blade.
Three more.
With two long bounds, Goya leapt to a rooftop and charged East, heading toward the river.
His enemies would have to ditch their vehicles if they wanted to pursue him across the rooftops; they’d never be able to match the speed of a giant tiger in that case.
If they chased him in the streets below on their bikes, they’d have to take occasional detours, while Goya had at least a few hundred yards of rooftops to cut directly to his destination.
With a burst of adrenaline, he ran, leaping effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop, while his enemies got back on their bikes and tried, but failed, to catch up.
He could maintain top speed for ten minutes, and he’d gain maybe ten to fifteen seconds head start by the time he reached the river. There, he planned to jump in and swim to safety.
Unlike most cats, tigers were excellent swimmers. They wouldn’t be able to track him unless they had speedboats waiting. And even then, they wouldn’t be assured success.
Goya flew across the rooftops at a blurring speed, but he could still hear the motorcycles revving up behind him. His enemies weren’t giving up the chase.
He had an almost continuous stretch of rooftops before he had to take the roads again. By then, he was over ten seconds ahead of his pursuers.
Luka, Roark and the animals must be many miles away by now.
They were safe. He would rendezvous with them later.
The river was near. He could smell it.
And then he could see it too. Just a few more yards.
He shortened his bounds to turbo-charge his sprint, ignoring the pain from the gaping wound in his side. He still had an hour or two of strength left. He wouldn’t pass out from blood loss. It’d be just enough time to swim to safety.
He hoped.
Yes! The river’s edge! He made it.
But just as he took the leap over the guardrails that separated the street from the river, a shot echoed through the air.
Something punched into the base of his skull with the force of a small rocket, sending him crashing into the choppy waters rather than entering in a smooth dive.
As Goya sunk deeper into the river, pulled by its rapid current downstream, he involuntarily transformed into a humanoid male.
Flailing, he tried to fight to the surface to gulp in air. He tried to shift back into tiger form. He tried to reach out to Maximus through their telepathic bond.
Nothing happened.
The thing in the base of his skull shot debilitating electricity into his brain.
He was trapped in this weakling humanoid form.
And sinking like a stone to the bottom of the river.
*** *** *** ***
When Maximus walked into the Atrium of the Cove with a black panther slinking leisurely on one side and a stranger male with angel-like wings tucked behind his back on the other side, all inhabitants of the Dark King’s “castle” stopped and stared.
“I don’t think they’ve ever seen wings before,” Rhys said, sotto voce, from Maximus’s left. “Where have you people been hiding? Under a rock?”
The black panther on Maximus’s right chuffed as if she were chuckling, her muzzle curved upwards in a feline smile.
By the time they reached the Chosen’s quarters on a separate floor, the Dark King himself met them at the end of the spacious hall.
All of the Chosen were present—Ryu, Devlin, his Mate, Grace, and Anastasia. Even Ryu’s wife, Ava, was here.
“Welcome back, Commander,” Alend Ramses greeted Maximus, clasping his forearm in a firm grip.
The other Chosen weren’t so formal, having fought alongside each other for decades, if not centuries. Even though it was stick-in-the-mud, ever-serious Maximus, they embraced him heartily one by one.
“What news, Max?” Devlin was the first to inquire, using the shortened version of his name that Maximus used to hate.
But now that Ariel called him Mad Max, amongst other nicknames, hearing Devlin use it didn’t grate on him as much as before.
“Who’s your friend?”
This from Ana, who bared her teeth at Rhys in a beatific smile.
“Allow me to introduce Rhys…”
Maximus stalled in the introduction because he didn’t know more than the eagle’s first name. He didn’t know his last name, his history, or where he was even from.
Rhys took care of that himself.
“Rhys Evans, at your service. Welsh in origin. Lived almost a thousand years. Still wet behind the ears compared to old Max here, and perhaps some of you as well.”
“Not to worry,” Devlin inserted. “I’m only a couple hundred years old. I’m the infant of the group.”
“Those wings…” Ava said with wonder, helplessly inching closer to have a better look, her scientific mind doing cartwheels at the sight.
“I’m an eagle,” Rhys volunteered. “A Golden Eagle. I can make them disappear if they disturb anyone. I just feel naked without my wings.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Ana mused, smirking.
Rhys quirked a corner of his lips at her.
They were both shameless flirts, he recognized. Nothing serious. Just good, harmless fun.
“No, please don’t make them disappear,” Ava said, now standing close enough to actually reach out and touch those fascinating wings.
“You look like an Angel from Ma’s romance novels.”
“Ava,” her vampire husband warned just as she was about to stroke a few feathers with her inquisitive fingertips.
Ryu wasn’t a possessive male. Not that he ever showed outwardly anyway. But Ava heard him loud and clear: don’t touch a male who was not him without his explicit permission.
She shuffled back to his side and tucked herself under his arm, properly chastised like a child who’d snuck downstairs and tried to open her Christmas present early.
“Sorry,” she murmured and smiled at Ryu sheepishly. “My curiosity and all that.”
Indeed, Ava’s Einstein-topping IQ made her endlessly curious about
everything, especially all things scientific.
“Make them disappear,” Grace said, countermanding Ava’s request, a small frown creasing her brow.
“I want to see it happen. It’s not possible for a man to have real wings.”
“Just like it’s not possible for vampires to exist, darling?” Devlin whispered in her ear.
Physically, Grace appeared to melt at the sexy timbre of her Mate’s tone, especially when he called her “darling.” But mentally, she was still stuck on the conundrum before her.
“I want to see it,” she repeated.
No one thought her request rude. They were used to her personality quirks, given her unique case of Asperger’s.
Rhys shrugged carelessly and fulfilled her request, folding his wings back into his shoulder blades in slow increments so that she could see it happen.
A few of the Chosen gasped at the sight. Only the Dark King seemed unsurprised.
“How is that possible?” Grace pondered out loud.
She was just as bad as Ava was when her curiosity was aroused. And she could get fixated on a subject of interest for hours, until either something else interested her more, or she figured it out.
“I’m an animal spirit,” Rhys answered matter-of-factly. “I gather you lot haven’t encountered one before? I can take the form of a man, an eagle, and a mix of both. May I unfurl my wings again?”
“Feeling naked?” Ana teased.
“Very much so,” Rhys answered solemnly.
“Please do!” Ava chimed in, eager to see the “angel wings” again.
Without the slow-motion this time, Rhys grew his wings back out and stretched them open to show off, each and every gold-tipped feather on gorgeous display.
“Oooohhh,” Ava said, clapping her hands together in admiration.
But just as Rhys started to preen, she followed that up with, “May I take a sample of the feathers, their roots and the skin and bone sometime? Wouldn’t hurt…much. I really must study these in the lab.”
“Ava.”
This time, Ryu’s tone held exasperation as well as resignation.
With Ava, science always came first. She was their resident geneticist and medical doctor. (At least in theory. She couldn’t actually operate without fainting at the sight of blood).