by Zoe Chant
Obviously, evenings like these would have raked in cash. But Beau was willing to bet that illegal gambling parties were the culmination of this ‘boss’s’ criminal ambition, and they sat on top of a pile of other illegal ventures.
Especially if their go-to solution when it comes to forcing someone to pay their debts is arson, Beau thought grimly.
That didn’t really suggest someone who was new to the game.
I do not care about this ‘boss’, whoever they are, his hippogriff spoke up snippily, ruffling its wings and shifting its clawed front feet uneasily. All I care about it getting our mate out of danger. Nothing else matters.
The hippogriff had a point. Beau’s focus had to be laser-sharp until Annie was out of here, safe and sound.
He arrived at the door of the poker room. The guard posted in the corner didn’t give him a second glance, but the woman who’d welcomed them and changed Annie’s chips for her gave Beau a knowing glance as she looked at Scott’s limp figure.
Beau grimaced, rolling his eyes. “Humans. You can’t take them anywhere.”
The woman laughed lightly, shaking her head and seeming to return to organizing the returned chips.
Beau scanned the poker room, finding Annie in the crowd, her head bent down over her cards. Before he needed to make another move, however, she lifted her gaze, as if she’d felt his eyes on her.
A frisson of electricity shot through the air between them, and Beau knew she understood the situation immediately.
Sure enough, a moment later he saw her frown, shaking her head, before she sighed and laid her cards face-down on the table, clearly folding and leaving the game. He watched as the woman sitting next to her looked up in clear dismay when Annie began to stand up, urging her to stay for the next hand, but Annie firmly shook her head, gathering up her chips and her purse.
She arrived by the desk a moment later to cash her chips, flashing Beau a small, tight smile – and although his hippogriff cried out at the delay, he knew that her trying to leave the room with them wouldn’t be allowed.
Beside him, he felt Scott stiffen, sucking in a quick, shocked breath.
“Annie?! What the hell –”
Beau reminded him to keep quiet with a none-too-gentle squeeze around his arm, and he trailed off mid-sentence. There’d be time for Scott to ask questions later, if Annie wanted to answer them.
“How’d you do?” Beau asked, trying to keep things light.
“Oh, you know how it goes – well for a while, but I got overconfident. Sorry, I’m coming out with a little less than what I came in with.” She frowned as she accepted the cash from the woman at the desk. “Though I guess I got some other stuff too.”
She opened her palm, revealing –
Is that a manticore’s claw?! Beau thought, staring incredulously down at what Annie was holding. And… wyvern venom? Griffin blood?! What the hell?!
He shook his head. All of those items were highly prized, and extremely illegal to sell – or, in this case, bet in a poker game.
Annie clearly wouldn’t have known what the items were, though. Beau just hoped she wouldn’t mind too much when the Shifter Patrol Corps took her winnings in order to try to trace where they’d come from.
“He’s had a bit too much to drink,” Beau said, indicating Scott. “Best we get him home, I think.”
Annie’s eyes traveled to Scott, widening for a moment, and she didn’t quite manage to suppress her nervous swallow.
“Oh – sure. Right.” She nodded. She was obviously nervous, but Beau knew she was doing her best, and, considering the situation, she was doing amazingly well.
We need to get her out of here. Immediately.
His hippogriff lifted its head, eagle eyes searching for something – though Beau couldn’t tell what.
No arguments here, Beau told it. The sooner Annie’s out of here, the better.
The hippogriff didn’t seem reassured.
Beau looked around, checking for anyone following them as they made their way down the curving stairway. The heavies were at their posts, not seeming to be paying any attention to them whatsoever. The guests were only paying attention to their drinks and to each other. No one was looking at them at all.
And yet, Beau couldn’t shake the cold feeling of unease in his gut.
His hippogriff was nervous, its talons splaying and contracting, wings ruffling, back legs nervously shifting.
I dislike this, it repeated.
You and me both, Beau told it. Something isn’t right here. I can’t – it’s like my senses aren’t working properly.
He glanced at Annie, but of course, she wouldn’t have noticed anything. A human simply didn’t have the same kind of sensitivity to these things that a shifter did – the heightened awareness and senses, the powerful ability to tell when a situation was dangerous.
Right now, Beau’s senses felt… deadened.
But it hadn’t come on all at once. It had been building slowly, ever since he’d found Scott in the upstairs room.
Right now, his hippogriff could tell something was off. But what, and what direction it might be coming from, he couldn’t tell at all.
But we’re almost there, Beau thought, grim-faced, hauling Scott across the foyer. They were almost at the front counter. In a moment, Annie would have her coat, and then they would be out the doors, he would shift, and then –
Beau froze as a rich, velvety voice rang out from behind him.
“Surely you didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”
Chapter 13
I knew there was something wrong here.
Hauling in a deep breath, Beau glanced down at Annie, who was returning his gaze with wide, frightened eyes. He tried to nod reassuringly at her, but right now, he wasn’t sure how reassuring he could be.
No. No. No matter what happens, we will ensure our mate’s safety. His hippogriff rose up inside him, wings spread to their full span, clawing the air with its razor-sharp talons.
That was Beau’s only concern, even when he felt Scott go tense next to him, his head whipping around. He would get them both out safe and sound if there was any chance of doing that. But in a choice between Scott and Annie… well, it wasn’t really a choice at all.
“Oh, shit,” he heard Scott murmur. “It’s her.”
Beau at last lifted his eyes from Annie’s frightened gaze, settling on the source of the loud, commanding voice.
A woman stood there, tall, elegant, in a full-length sequined gown. Her snow-white hair was cut short in a sophisticated, modish cut, and despite the fact she was obviously not young, she also had a strangely ageless face. Her eyes – a strange, almost translucent blue – bored into Beau’s as they looked at each other. But despite her hard gaze, there was a small smile playing about her lips, as if she found this entire situation extremely amusing.
But, even more than her expression and her strange eyes, Beau found himself struck by the sheer power he felt emanating from her.
What is she?!
Beau couldn’t tell what shifter type she was – only that she was far more powerful even than his hippogriff. More powerful than either Rowan, a griffin, or Garrett, a dragon. More powerful even than his boss, Hardwicke, who had the most powerful energy Beau had ever felt, until now.
It doesn’t matter how powerful she is – if she threatens our mate, she will die!
Beau’s hippogriff tossed its head, beak opening to let out a shrill, furious cry.
And in that, Beau had to admit he was in agreement with it.
Shoving Scott reasonably gently away from his side, Beau stared up at the woman on the stairs.
“I take it you’re the one who’s responsible for all of this, then?” he asked, moving to stand in front of Annie.
The woman laughed, her voice rich and deep.
“You mean this lovely party? Well yes, I suppose I am.”
Beau could sense the other partygoers around him staring, while the heavies who’d been gu
arding the doors but had mysteriously disappeared over the past few minutes suddenly made their reappearance, moving to surround Beau, Scott and Annie. Beau noted their positions, while keeping most of his attention firmly on the woman on the stairs.
The guards he could take out, if he had to.
But her….
“I have to say, it was amusing, watching you scurry about, thinking you were being so sneaky.”
Beau grimaced.
Of course, it was all too easy. She must have known the whole time.
But still, it didn’t explain the strange veil that seemed to have come over his senses. With a shifter this powerful, how had his hippogriff not noticed her presence before?
The woman began descending the stairs, one elegant step at a time. “But I did want to see what you were up to. I have to say I’m shocked that the Shifter Patrol Corps is involving itself in something so petty as a human who’s gotten himself into a little hot water with a debt.”
Beau couldn’t hold back his incredulous laugh. “This is a little more than a human with a debt, wouldn’t you say?” he asked, gesturing to the grand – and illegal – party going on around them. His face hardened. “Not to mention trying to recover your money by burning down the business of someone who has nothing to do with this.”
The woman raised an eyebrow as she finished descending the stairs.
“I can’t say I really understand the fuss,” she said, her voice coldly amused. “Why do you care about some silly human business?”
If it’s so trivial, why go to those kinds of lengths? Why not just let the money go? Beau thought, but the last thing he wanted to do was start bickering with this woman.
Whatever else she was, she was clearly dangerous.
Now that she had revealed herself, his hippogriff was on high alert, all its senses screeching at him to get out of here, now. Take our mate and run.
Gritting his teeth, Beau pushed its urge to flee to the back of his mind as best he could.
“I care because humans aren’t just playthings for you to use and then discard,” Beau said, forcing himself to look the woman in her uncanny, almost colorless eyes. He swallowed. “Just who are you, anyway?”
The woman laughed frostily. “Oh, you wouldn’t know my name, even if I told you. But recently I’ve been going by the name Rosalind.”
The sound of Rosalind’s laughter sent a bolt of ice-cold fear straight down Beau’s spine. Instinctively, he moved to place himself even further between Annie and Rosalind.
We must get our mate out of here, his hippogriff insisted, growing ever more frantic by the second. Beau knew that, no matter what else happened, he had to get Annie to safety.
“Rosalind,” Beau said. If she saw humans as so unimportant, it was possible she could be persuaded to let Scott and Annie leave. He opened his hands. “Whatever you wanted to get out of this, you can’t get it out of these humans now. Whatever your goals are, they’re better served by letting them go. If you need a hostage, then you’ve got me.”
“Beau, no.” He heard Annie’s frantic voice behind him, and a moment later felt her hand on his arm. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
He wanted to turn and face Annie, but all his instincts were screaming at him not to take his eyes off Rosalind for a second. She smiled, seeming to reveal somehow each and every one of her teeth.
“And separate two fated mates?” she asked, her voice smooth as silk. “No – that would be quite cruel, don’t you think?”
Of course, Beau had known she’d be able to sense it. But he had had to try.
“Fated mate or not,” he said evenly. “Don’t you think it would be better to keep humans out of this? You’ve already involved them enough. You know the Shifter Patrol Corps don’t take dragging humans into shifter issues lightly.”
Rosalind let out a long, low laugh. “The Shifter Patrol Corps? Why on earth should I care about that? No. If humans want to come and join the games I run, then I allow them to. And if they break the rules, then they can reap the consequences. I didn’t force this human to do anything he didn’t want to do,” she said, lifting an elegant hand to point at Scott. “He chose it. He’s the one who came to me.”
Behind him, Beau could sense Scott stiffening as if in umbrage, and he willed him to keep his mouth shut.
“I’m not concerned with whether the people who play here are shifters or humans,” Rosalind continued evenly. “Only in balance. And if you cannot repay a debt, then the balance needs to be restored some other way.”
“How is this balance?”
To Beau’s surprise, it wasn’t Scott who ended up bursting out with a question, but Annie.
“To ruin Scott’s father’s business – his life – over a little bit of money?” Annie gestured to the massive, extravagant house around them. “To me, it seems like a lot of money, but to you? You can’t tell me you’d even notice it. Not if you can afford all this.”
Annie, please, Beau thought, don’t draw her attention.
True, he hadn’t yet come up with a way for them all to get out of here. But the thought of Rosalind training her icy eyes on Annie sent fear churning through his gut.
Rosalind’s lips twisted. “Balance isn’t always what it seems. You’re presumptuous to think you know how it’s calculated.”
“I know that if Scott had known how you were going to calculate it, he wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place,” Annie shot back.
Beau thought that was a rather generous assessment of Scott’s personality, but right now, he had bigger problems.
As much as he didn’t want Rosalind anywhere near Annie, he could take the moment when her attention was divided to hit the alert button in his pocket, which would send out the low-frequency signal that would call the Shifter Patrol Corps agents waiting in the forest to storm the building.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, but right now, it was the only one they had.
But as he began reaching into his pocket, he felt a strong arm around his bicep. Turning, he found himself staring into the impassive face of one of the security guards.
“I wouldn’t,” the man said in a low grunt.
Beau tensed, ready to throw him off. All he needed was a moment, and he could sense he was stronger than this man, for all his bulk and muscle.
But before he could do anything, there was a sudden flurry of activity from behind him.
Turning, he could see Scott from the corner of his eye as he lunged forward, making a grab for the guard.
He can’t possibly think he can take him down, Beau thought in the split second before he realized that that wasn’t what Scott was intending to do.
Instead of taking on the security guard himself, Scott was making a grab for –
His gun, Beau realized in a horrified rush.
“Scott, stop right now –” he shouted, but Scott paid him absolutely no attention at all.
He yanked the guard’s gun from its holster while his attention was on Beau, pointing it first at the guard, before turning his head madly to look at Rosalind.
“The shoe’s on the other foot now, isn’t it?” Scott yelled, waving the gun wildly from one guard to the next. “You think you can do this to me? Humiliate me and push me around the way you have?”
You… absolute idiot, Beau thought, which was fairly mild compared to the words he could have thought.
“Scott, don’t be so stupid,” he said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. For someone who’d appeared to have a healthy fear of Rosalind before, Scott didn’t seem to have a clear idea of just how precarious of a situation he was in.
Even with a gun – and even with a gun with dragonsbane-tipped bullets – there was no way he could hope for this situation to turn out well for him. There were too many security guards, each with their own gun, too many shifters, and, most importantly, Rosalind herself, whom Beau hadn’t been able to figure out at all yet.
Far from listening to his advice not to be stupid, howe
ver, Scott seemed to take it as his cue to be even more stupid.
Beau saw Annie’s pale, frightened face as Scott dashed past her, shoving her aside and sending her tumbling to the ground.
“Beau –!” she cried out, as Beau tried to race to her side, fighting off the security guard’s iron grip on his arm.
He wished he could reassure her. But Scott had done exactly what Beau had feared he might, and made a beeline for Rosalind, grabbing her around the shoulders and holding the gun to her head.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Scott yelled, his voice trembling almost as much as the gun in his hands. “I’ve got your boss here, and I won’t hesitate to shoot if you try to stop me!”
Beau stared. Far from seeming frightened, Rosalind merely looked amused – and impatient. The security guards around them were exchanging glances, clearly uncertain, but Rosalind herself didn’t appear to be the slightest bit fazed.
Beau drew in a deep breath, clenching his fists. He knew he had to get Annie out of danger. With Scott having decided to pull this stunt, he could see the situation could get out of hand in a moment.
I’ll need to shift and scoop her up, Beau thought. I’ll get her out of here and then signal the team to move in. That’s the best I can do right now. The only thing that matters is Annie’s safety.
He drew up his energy, preparing to shift –
“You are a fool, aren’t you?” Rosalind’s voice rang out, clear and cold.
Beau had seen she wasn’t concerned by Scott’s ridiculous threat – but still, a dragonsbane-tipped bullet could do damage to even the most powerful of shifters.
But she’s not worried at all.
“Scott, don’t do this!” Annie’s voice came next, as she pulled herself back to her feet. “Think about your father – he loves you, Scott. Please.”
“Shut up!” Scott cried, his voice rising several octaves and shaking with fear. “Shut up, all of you! I’m leaving here, and none of you are going to try to stop me, got it?!”
Again, Rosalind laughed. “Stupid. Very stupid.”
What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.