Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

  “If this is what humans feel with a hangover, I don’t see why any of them would drink. What happened?”

  “I believe George used some kind of topical potion on Benedict that induced the fury.”

  Myron’s eyebrows flew up. “You do? Ah, that would explain things. But what I meant was what knocked us all out?”

  “Oh. That was Arjenie. She’s Gifted. She knocked herself out, too, doing it. Rule woke up a couple minutes ago.”

  “That’s quite a trick. Wish she’d used it earlier.” He looked around, his eyes bleary. “How many of those bodies are dead?”

  “Edgar and Gil.”

  Myron winced. “Poor Gil. I never liked him much—he’s always been a bit of an ass, to tell the truth, but . . . I suppose you’re thinking Edgar was an ass, too. He wasn’t really. Just stubborn. Once he got hold of an idea—”

  “Myron, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have to move quickly. I don’t have Stephen’s number. Do you? Can you call him, get him to bring his men?”

  “Guess we’d better tidy up before your compatriots arrive, hadn’t we?” Myron got to his feet. “I’ll call.”

  Myron assumed she’d want to “tidy up” instead of cooperating with her compatriots. That bothered her. Everything about this bothered her. She looked around. “Everyone else is still out.”

  Myron flipped his phone open and offered her the sickly cousin of his charming smile. “I may be a lousy fighter, but I’m a fast healer. If—”

  “Myron,” Rule said. “I need you over here. I need you to listen to what George has to say. To serve as witness.”

  “You’d do better to wait for Lucas,” Myron said, but he started toward Rule. Lily kept pace with him.

  “You’re awake. He isn’t.”

  George lay flat on the ground. Cullen had straightened him, Lily supposed. His face was tight with pain, but his color was good and his eyes tracked them, so he was focusing.

  “Maybe,” Myron said, “but no one will be amazed if Kyffin backs you up when . . . yes, Stephen. This is Myron. We’ve got a situation. The circle won’t be happening and you’re needed here with your men.” A pause. “Well, you can talk to Rule, but everyone else is either unconscious or dead. Except Lily, of course, because the knockout was delivered magically, but that was after Benedict went into the fury. Lily says he was dosed with some sort of potion, and George is the likely culprit. We could use some help getting . . . certainly.” He held out the phone to Rule. “Here.”

  Rule grimaced but took it. “Stephen. We have two seriously injured and two dead. We need to get everyone away before—shit.”

  George had blanched suddenly, his face turning pale and sweaty. His eyes went frantic. Cullen laid his fingers on George’s neck, scowling.

  “Cullen, what’s—”

  “Shut up.” He bent and rested his ear on George’s chest. He stayed there a few seconds, then straightened. “Acute myocardial infarction. Maybe.”

  “Brian,” George gasped. “Brian. You have to . . .” He reached out weakly.

  Rule gripped that seeking hand. “We’ll rescue him. Be still.” Without looking around, he held the phone out to Lily. Automatically she took it. “You’re having a heart attack. You need to lie quietly.”

  George’s head turned toward Rule. “Benedict. Tell him . . . sorry. Had to. Had . . .”

  “I know,” Rule said soothingly. “I’ll tell him. Don’t try to—”

  “Watch out!” Myron yelled—a second before someone slammed into Lily, knocking her down. The phone went flying. She landed badly on her hip and her elbow. The elbow of her bad arm. Shock waves whited out her brain.

  “Whoops,” a vaguely familiar voice said, and a pair of hands seized her rib cage just below her arms and hauled her several feet backward. “There. Out of the way now.”

  Lily blinked her eyes back into focus. Javier and Rule were faced off, crouched and circling. Rule had a new trickle of blood from a cut lip.

  “Traitor,” Javier spat. “Oath-broke coward. You won’t walk away from this.”

  Myron—it was Myron who’d dragged Lily away from the fight—said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. I’m sure Rule can clear everything up. Though it may be hard to make Javier listen. He and Gil were close.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Cullen said. He’d thrown his body over George to shield him when Javier jumped Rule, but now jerked upright. “Son of a sorry mongrel bitch.”

  George’s eyes were blank and staring.

  “I’ve had enough of this shit.” Lily held up her hand. “Get me on my feet.”

  “Do you think you ought to—”

  Lily snarled. “Now!”

  He took her hand and tugged her easily to her feet. She reached inside her sling and pulled out the little Smith & Wesson Airweight Snubnose she’d hidden there.

  Shooting left-handed, Lily was pretty sure she’d miss any target less stationary than the proverbial side of a barn. That’s why she hadn’t tried to use it earlier. Benedict hadn’t seemed interested in holding still. God only knew who she might have hit.

  But Javier didn’t know she was right-handed, did he?

  “As soon as I’ve done for you,” Javier snarled, “I’ll have the life of your brother as well in payment for Gil.”

  “No,” Rule said, “you won’t. I’m tired of making allowances for your age. We don’t have time for this.”

  Lily clicked off the safety and began moving.

  Javier’s voice was low, throbbing with anger. “I’ll help you make time.”

  She picked a spot on Rule’s left. Not too close, since he needed room to react, but well within Javier’s line of sight—and saw that Javier’s eyes had bled to black. All-over black, the whites subsumed by darkness. So not a good sign. His wolf was trying to force the Change. Lily sited carefully. Unfamiliar weapon, left hand . . . she’d best be sure. “You’re going to listen before you leap this time.”

  He barely glanced at her. “A puta with a toy gun.”

  “It shoots real bullets.”

  He sneered at Rule as if she hadn’t spoken. “You have your woman fight for you now, Rule?”

  If Rule was surprised by her weapon—and he should have been—it didn’t show. “My nadia has killed demons. I don’t think you can say the same.”

  “Listen to me,” Lily said. “Benedict isn’t responsible. Neither is Rule. Robert Friar set this up. Somehow he got George to dope Benedict, induce the fury in him. You need to back off. There are wounded. You need to stop this now.”

  Javier crouched a little lower, as if about to spring.

  “Javier,” Myron said sternly, “get your wolf under control.”

  “Myron’s right.” Lucas limped toward them. “This is a public place, man. I’m surprised we don’t hear a siren yet.” He looked at Lily, then Rule. “Not that I buy this nonsense about Friar. A human wouldn’t even know about the fury, much less how to induce it. But that’s for later. We need to be out of here.”

  Javier had gone still in the way lupi did sometimes. Inhumanly still. Suddenly he drew himself up straight. The black receded from his eyes. The anger didn’t. “You told me earlier to call you liar or be quiet. I call you liar now.” He spat at the ground. “I call on Szøs and Kyffin to witness. Nokolai has dealt in deceit and death. For this, Ybirra Challenges Nokolai. Single combat.”

  For a second no one moved or spoke. Then Lucas said quietly, “Szøs witnesses the Challenge.”

  Myron sighed. “Idiot. Kyffin witnesses the Challenge.”

  Rule’s voice was cold and weary. “Nokolai accepts the Challenge. I exercise my right as Challenged to pick the location. I choose the abandoned mine near Hole-in-the-Wall where our clans last met to discuss boundaries.”

  “Accepted.” Javier bit that off as if it galled him to accept anything Rule said. “Ybirra exercises its right to choose the time. This Challenge will be fought at ten o’clock tonight.”

  “Accepted. I propose we ask Etorri to handle the arran
gements. I further propose that we limit attendance.”

  “Two,” Javier said. “That is customary. Nokolai and Ybirra may each have two witnesses present. Other clans may have two witnesses there as well, if they wish.”

  “Save Etorri,” Rule said, “who will bring as many as they deem right. That stipulated, Nokolai accepts these terms.”

  “Ybirra accepts these terms.”

  “I call on Szøs and Kyffin to witness.”

  “So witnessed.”

  “So witnessed.”

  “Shit,” said Lily.

  THIRTY-NINE

  RULE climbed stiffly behind the wheel of the Lincoln and slammed the door. His ribs hurt like fire. Cullen had wrapped them hurriedly with an elastic bandage, but that was mainly to remind him not to bend.

  Lily looked at him. “I can’t believe you accepted a Challenge. Your ribs are broken. You can’t fight tonight.”

  Did she think he had a choice? “They’ll be partially healed by then.” Not healed enough, and he knew it. So did Javier, damn and blast him.

  Rule turned the key, slid the car into gear, and got the hell out of there.

  Etorri had arrived seconds after Rule accepted Javier’s Challenge. Stephen had been informed of the Challenge, and had agreed to serve as caller and witness.

  With Etorri’s help the rest of the bodies, living and dead, had been quickly removed. Stephen and four of his people had simply taken off at a run back into the reserve; their cars were parked elsewhere. The fifth Etorri guard would return Edgar’s rental car discreetly.

  Rule and Lily were the last to leave. Javier had been the first, screeching away with the body of his friend in his rental car. Myron was taking Billy to a hospital, where they’d both lie about how he’d been injured. Rule had promised to send Nettie to them as soon as possible . . . assuming Cullen was right, and Billy survived to be treated. Lucas’s man had still been unconscious when the two of them left, but that was probably because he’d been the closest to Arjenie when she pulled her knockout trick. Otherwise, he’d seemed the least injured of the guards, with only a broken arm.

  Cullen and Benedict were in the back of Scott’s white SUV. Benedict was bound with a plastic restraint and out cold. Cullen was keeping him that way.

  Arjenie was still passed out on the backseat of the Lincoln . . . which also had two bodies in its spacious trunk.

  To be doubly sure Benedict didn’t wake up, Rule would take the long way home, allowing Scott to put plenty of distance between them. Even if Cullen suddenly passed out and dropped the charm, Benedict would remain unconscious because his mate was too far away.

  Rule was numb with disaster. He felt as if he were moving through a mind-dulling fog, able to see a single step ahead, and no more. That step was calling his Rho . . . who he could not think of as his father. Not now. Not with his brother locked in madness as tightly as he was in plastic and sleep. Rule reached for his phone . . . and realized he didn’t have it.

  Shit. Had he left it back there?

  “Here.” Lily held out an iPhone.

  “Is that mine or yours?”

  “Yours. Javier knocked it out of my hand, but I found it before we left.”

  Thank God one of them was thinking. “Thank you. I’d like to know about the gun you pulled on Javier.”

  “It seemed to me I’d been left out of the ban on weapons, since I wasn’t a principal or a guard. I asked Isen about it last night. He said that if I were asked, I’d have to say I had a gun, but otherwise, I was free to carry a gun if I wanted to. And, ah, he offered to loan me one.”

  “You saw no need to tell me? No, never mind. Isen would have wanted me kept in the dark.”

  “He suggested that, yes.”

  Isen would have wanted to leave Rule free to honestly deny that any Nokolai had come armed to the meeting. Oh, yes—as Lily had said earlier, Nokolai was known to be tricky. And largely because of the man who’d been its Rho for so many years.

  Rule hadn’t expected the question to even be raised. He for damn sure hadn’t expected it to come from Javier. Despite the occasional clash, he’d considered Javier a friend. Tonight his hotheaded friend would try to kill him.

  Rule placed the call he dreaded making.

  Immediately he got a busy signal. “Damn it. The house line’s tied up. You’d think he’d keep it open when . . . I’ll try his cell, but half the time he forgets to turn it on.” He did try, and was sent straight to voice mail. “This is Rule. It’s urgent. Call me.”

  He tossed the phone on the seat and tried to relax his grip on the steering wheel. He was tense and scared and hurting, and his wolf wanted out. Out of this luxurious box on wheels. Out of this stupid two-legged form so he could howl.

  Javier had Challenged him. His wolf felt betrayed and furious, eager to answer that challenge. Which told Rule why Javier had issued it in the first place. Too much wolf, not enough thinking. Surely if that young hothead had paused to think he’d have seen that Rule hadn’t somehow sent his own brother into the fury in order to stage an act as monumentally stupid as it was treacherous.

  Though Lucas had doubts, too, didn’t he? And Lucas was as coolheaded as they came.

  Rule glanced at the phone on the seat beside him as he slowed for the light. Grimaced. Better try again. Or maybe Lily could. He glanced at her, about to ask . . . and saw her face clearly.

  He reached for her hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I should be asking you that.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” He stretched out his hand. After a moment, she took it. He focused on the feel of her skin, the way her fingers wrapped around his, the sheer comfort of the connection. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Sorry I had to ask you to make such a choice. Are you okay?”

  She surprised him with a soft huff of a laugh. “Okay? I’m a mess. I’ve been a mess ever since I saw LeBron’s brains up way too close and personal.”

  “We’re quite a pair at the moment, aren’t we? Banged up, mixed up . . .” He squeezed her hand. “I know you hate messes.”

  “Especially when the mess is in my head. I made the best call I could at the time, but I don’t . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t have time to sort it out now. I still don’t hear any sirens. Do you?”

  Subject closed, he thought. For now. “Apparently no one saw the fight.” The traffic cones they’d used to block the street had kept cars away, and of course the fight hadn’t lasted as long as it seemed. Under ten minutes, surely, though the aftermath had taken that long again, and more. And several of the apartments in the nearby complex had a view of the turnaround. Those on upper floors wouldn’t have had that view blocked by everyone’s cars. If someone had looked out a window at the wrong time . . . “We were lucky.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “Luck isn’t defined by reason.”

  “No, but if you’re smart you minimize how much is left up to luck. Friar’s smart. Why didn’t he have a reporter or two tipped to be there? Or have one of his people hanging around, ready to call it in anonymously when Benedict freaked?”

  “Maybe he did and something went wrong.”

  “Which makes us awfully damn lucky, doesn’t it?”

  She was right. “Your brain’s working better than mine at the moment. Maybe you can come up with a reason. I’m drawing a blank.” The light changed to green. As he accelerated he frowned and released her hand. “Would you try calling Isen again?”

  She answered by picking up his phone and doing as he’d asked. “So what did George tell you before . . . Isen. It’s Lily. Things went badly. Three dead, none of them Nokolai. We never made it to the circle. I’m putting you on speaker so Rule and I can both speak.”

  Good idea. Rule inhaled carefully. Talking wasn’t comfortable. It required a lot of breath, and breathing hurt. “I’ll start at the end,” he said. “Ybirra has issued a formal Challenge, properly witnessed.”

  Isen hissed. It was an oddly feline sound from a man who w
asn’t at all catlike. “When?”

  “Tonight at ten. Single combat at the abandoned mine near Hole-in-the-Wall.”

  “In a hurry, was he? If that’s the ending, I’d better hear the beginning and middle.”

  Rule gestured for Lily to begin.

  “The beginning,” she said. “was when Javier insisted all the guards be checked for weapons before we left the rendezvous point. During this process Edgar’s guard, George, apparently dosed Benedict with something that sent him into the fury.”

  Rule heard his father’s quick indrawn breath. Lily probably didn’t.

  “There were multiple casualties,” she continued, “including two initial dead—Edgar of Wythe and Javier’s guard, Gil. Benedict was extremely difficult to stop or subdue, so Arjenie knocked everyone out—”

  “She what?”

  “That’s my assumption. I saw her slap the windshield of the car. I felt magic move out across the area. I saw everyone but Cullen collapse. I believe she drew strongly on her Gift, and the interference from the armored windshield knocked her out. Somehow she broadcast the effect.”

  “I see,” Isen said. “No, actually I don’t, but I’ll save my questions for later. Benedict’s condition?”

  “He took less damage than anyone, I think. He’s sleeping in the back of Scott’s car. Cullen’s keeping a sleep charm on him. Arjenie is with us. Um . . . summary of injuries. Rule has cracked or broken ribs, which is probably why he’s letting me do a lot of the talking. Cullen has a concussion, but his vision cleared quickly. I think Lucas’s guard has a broken arm. Billy—Myron’s guard—has a broken neck, but Cullen thinks he can heal it if he receives proper medical care. I think Lucas got bumps and bruises but no breaks.”

  “You don’t mention yourself.”

  “I stayed back. I couldn’t help. I didn’t trust myself to shoot left-handed, not with everyone moving so fast.”

  “She’s got a bruised hip,” Rule said, “and may have incurred damage to her arm. Javier knocked her down on his way to me.”

  She slid him a look he couldn’t interpret, but there seemed a hint of surprise in it. Had she thought he hadn’t noticed her being hurt?