“That prick thinks he’s better than me! I am—”
“Not the alpha!” Ford roared behind me, his naked body jammed up against my back. “Zam is the alpha!”
Steve pushed on my front and Ford pushed from behind. Two large naked men, and me in the middle. This was surely someone else’s fantasy, because the last thing I needed was two men in my life. I dropped my flail to the ground at my feet and put a hand on each chest. “Back up, boys. We aren’t making a Zam sandwich and I’m not starting a harem.” I shoved them both back a few steps while Lila snickered.
“If I ruled Dragon’s Ground, I could have my own harem,” she said. I didn’t dare look at her. But I couldn’t resist.
“I’m sure Trick would be first in line.”
She sucked in a deep breath and then laughed. “Yeah, he would be. And I’d let him.”
I still had a hand on Ford’s chest as it rose and fell, sweat-slicked and all but vibrating with anger. I’d done good by naming him my enforcer. One good thing. He leaned into my hand, wanting another go at Steve. I shook my head.
“Enough. Both of you,” I snapped. “I don’t have time or the patience to break up a fight every day. You get that? We are trying to save the fucking world and you two are so busy marking territory, you can’t see that we are in danger!”
“He won’t stick around,” Ford said. “He wants to leave. He wouldn’t save you, and you’re his alpha.”
Steve adjusted his bottom jaw forward in an expression I wanted to slap off his smug face. “And you would put your life in front of hers?”
Ford took a big breath. “I would. I would lay down my life for hers because I know she would do the same.”
“How sweet,” Steve purred. “Let’s see if you’re full of shit or not.”
Part of my head said he wouldn’t dare, the other part said was I really surprised?
But Steve was bad about telegraphing, and that was all I needed. He snarled and tried to snap the gun up to point it at me. Too slow.
Goddess of the desert, I knew this move would work, but I’d be scrubbing my hands for days.
I shot a hand out and grabbed Steve by the balls, digging my nails into the soft skin. Steve’s whole body stiffened, and he held perfectly still, the gun no longer moving, not even an inch.
“Zam, I would never actually kill you—” He squeezed the words out but barely.
I smiled up at him. “You’ve forgotten how things are done in a real pride, Steve. We don’t kill each other. And yes, I will rip your balls off to prove my point. How would that be, Darcy? You don’t mind? I mean, it’s not like he’s our only male now. We have Benji and Ford. Hell, even one day Frankie will be all grown up. You aren’t special anymore, Steve. You might do well to keep that thought at the front of your pea brain. We don’t need these balls to keep our pride going.”
“Don’t,” Darcy said. “Please don’t.”
I dug my middle finger into the connection between sack and body and he closed his eyes, face purpling. Anger or pain, I wasn’t sure. Nor did I really care. No, that’s not true. I wanted him to hurt a little. Mostly because he was an idiot and idiots learn best with pain. “Steve, you will behave. Or I will castrate you. Maybe just the left testicle. You always did complain it was smaller. Then if you misbehave again, I’ll take the right testicle. And a third strike . . . well, a third strike, you remember what that is in a pride, don’t you?”
His eyes locked on my mine and I schooled my face as still as I could. Let him see that I was serious, that whatever there was between us was done and in the past. That I would kill him to keep the pride whole.
“Capiche?” I smiled and tightened my hold a little more.
He dropped the gun to the sand and gave me a tight nod, sweat beading along his brow. “Consider me warned.”
I dropped my hand from his balls and he stumbled back, cupping himself. My other hand was still on Ford’s chest, my back to him as I watched to make sure Steve went to his side of the camp.
“You’re going to have to kill him one day,” Ford said. “Can I help?”
I gave him a gentle push. “Get dressed.”
He took a step, the slide of sand under his feet telling me that he’d stopped. “You really don’t want a harem?”
I whipped around, my eyebrows up. “Are you fucking serious? I obviously can barely keep you two from killing each other.”
Ford grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me as he scratched at his ribcage, puffing his chest out. “Maybe we just need a better distraction.”
“Real subtle, man.” I rolled my eyes as Kiara stepped out of her tent. Ford’s eyes followed mine and he went very still. Yeah, that’s what I thought. He was keeping his eyes on the prize, as it were. Kiara saw me and started my way.
“Alpha, may I speak with you?” she asked so quietly I barely heard her. This was the Kiara who had been fooled by Steve. I couldn’t have her be this quiet little mousy thing.
“Not if you’re going to act like a doormat. You’re a goddess-given lioness. Act like it,” I said.
Her lips twitched and she straightened up. “Zam. I need to speak with you.”
I jerked my head to the side, bent and picked up my flail from the ground, then set it into the strap across my back. I scooped the shotgun up with my toe, flicked it into the air and caught it, then tossed it at Ford.
“Come on, we’ll get Balder and then we can talk,” I said to Kiara.
Only that talk didn’t happen. The light bounce of feet on the sand, the pads of a cat moving at high speed. It could only be Asuga, which was good and bad. Good that she was there. Bad that she was in cheetah form and all but flying over the sand to reach us.
I ran to meet her as she slid so hard to a stop that she tumbled in the sand, her legs all akimbo. She shifted, clothes still intact, just like me. A trick of the Jinn blood that allowed us to keep our clothes on our bodies while the other shifters always ended up naked as the day they were born.
Her pale green eyes met mine, flashing with fear. I put a careful hand on her shoulder. She flinched and I smiled. “Asuga, are you okay?”
She bobbed her head, barely out of breath despite the speed of her run. “Yes. But there is trouble coming.”
“What did you see?”
She closed her eyes. “I was out doing a circuit around the camp, as you asked. Nothing I could see but . . . I could feel my half-brother. He’s part of the hunting party that’s been sent out for us. He . . . sent me a warning. To run.”
The heat around us did nothing to stem the chill that flashed through me. “Your half-brother?”
She nodded and shrunk in on herself. “We share the same father. A Jinn father.”
Fucking sand up my ass crack, the Jinn knew where we were. But was it because of Asuga’s connection to her brother?
Or was it because of mine to Maks?
4
“Get everyone together, quickly.” I sent Asuga ahead of me, her long dark hair bound up in braids, dancing with beads that Kiara and Darcy had woven in for her. If the Jinn really were on their way, we had to get our camp cleared out—immediately. Fuck. As if things weren’t already too complicated. Steve and Ford. Finding the Oracle. Evading the Emperor.
“I thought Maks was going to try to keep them away,” Lila said, her claws digging into my shoulder. “I guess this means the Toad is really gone then.”
Only he wasn’t, not really, and I’d not had a chance to tell her the details of what I’d seen of him in the whirlwind, that he’d called to me and a part of me had wanted to go to him, to throw the world away to be loved.
I drew a breath and brushed off the strange sensation that I could do just that, that I could turn my back on the pride and go to him. “This is going to be bad. If the Jinn can still track their half-siblings, we’ll never throw them.” Of course, the same could be said for Maks. I would have to find a way to cut my ties with him once and for all.
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from
crying out, to keep all that bottled up hurt from escaping.
Lila touched the lobe of my ear, tugging it gently. “We’ll find a way to bring him back. We have to. Just like we’ll find a way to bring Bryce back so we can ditch Steve. We only need one golden lion, right?”
The smile I gave her was forced, but I managed. “Yeah. Right. Okay.” There was no time to dwell on him, anyway. He was out of reach, and we had more immediate issues. As in Maks had sent his Jinn after us, and not to play pattycake or hide and seek. I strode toward the center of the camp, the others drawing near. Well, except for Steve and Darcy. They hung back, which was fine. I didn’t really care if they heard this or not; it was more for the newbies.
I caught Benji’s eyes first. “Ben, do you have any half-siblings, or a father still alive in the Jinn?”
He shook his head. “No. Neither does Frankie.”
I looked to Asuga and Nell. Asuga shifted on her feet. “I didn’t tell him nothing, and my brother wants . . . he wants me to be safe. I was never safe in the Dominion.” Her words were hesitant but there was no sense of a lie on them.
I turned to Nell. “And you?”
“I have no one there but Maks,” she said.
It took everything I had not to stiffen. Could he be playing us both? “Did you see him today?”
She turned her head away, but not before I saw the flash of her eyes as they widened, the blue showing clear and haunted. “No.”
Lie, it was there in every line of her body. Lila leaned forward and let out a hiss. “You know she’s lying, right?”
“Yes, I know.” But it still didn’t answer the question. Was it Nell or me that Maks was tracking? I turned to look at the others. “We need to pack this place up.”
Steve lifted his hands, his face a perfect look of condescension. Jesus, if I never saw that smug look on his face, it would be too fucking soon.
“I mean it, Steve! Or you lose the left ball right fucking now!” Whatever calm I’d managed to hold onto earlier was gone in a single sneer of his mouth. Gods, he pissed me off when he was barely even trying.
I would have said more, and maybe he would have argued, but a new sound cut through all the bullshit like a hot knife through lard.
A howl on the wind, the cackling laughter of hyenas on the hunt.
Ishtar had sent hyenas after us already, and they’d been killed by the Jinn. I had to give her credit for finding more of the hyena shifters so soon after killing her first pack. For years, she’d used me and Steve, Darcy and the other lion shifters to do her dirty work, convincing us that we were saving her life, that without our help and the jewels, she would die. Once I realized she wasn’t who I thought she was, that her power hung on the jewels and her life wasn’t on the line, I’d changed my mind about giving her the jewels in my possession.
Because of that choice, Ishtar now hunted me and my pride. Three of the jewels she sought, we held. The blue ice jewel was Lila’s to carry, and the clear diamond that had belonged to the Swamps was in a pouch under my shirt and meant for the male golden lion. The third jewel, the green dragon stone, was also on me, in its own pouch—it was supposed to be Maks’s. We had three jewels and Maks had a fourth, the stone belonging to the Jinn. If I’d taken it could have broken the wall to the east, but that would free the Emperor.
Merlin wanted me to have the stones. Flora wanted me to have the stones.
But they didn’t want the Emperor free. So to say I was confused was no small thing. I rubbed at my head. But now was not the time.
A second howl ripped along the edge of the wind and my jaw tightened of its own accord. Fuck, this was bad. A third followed the second, the tone totally different. Three hyenas. Plus the Jinn coming in from the rear.
But at least it was just one at a time—hyenas first. We could deal with one or the other, but not both at the same time.
“Get your shit and mount up!” I yelled. “They’re about ten miles off by the sound of it and coming fast.”
Lila shot straight into the air from my shoulder. I didn’t have to ask what she was doing. She was my second in the pride even though she was a dragon. She was family, sister of my heart and soul, and she was looking out for us the best way she could—by getting a bead on those coming to kill, or worse, capture us.
I ran for my small tent and slammed the poles down, rolled the canvas into a tight ball, then tied it off in about three seconds flat. Benji struggled with his tent and I helped him next. “Go cover the fire pit with as much sand as you can. We need to cover our tracks well,” I said.
He nodded, fear written all over his face as he turned and ran to do what I asked. Sand on the ashes and we always kept the horses away from camp and covered their mess every day, keeping it as clean as we could, always covering our tracks. But hyenas could smell shit two miles off, sometimes more if the wind was right. I stood as an idea hit me right between the eyes. I stopped what I was doing, dropping the half-folded tent, and ran for Balder.
“Ford, get Batman,” I yelled.
He was next to me in a flash, and luckily everyone else was up and mounted a moment later. Goddess save me from what I was about to do, but it was my place alone to make the decision. I pointed a finger at my ex-husband. “Steve, get everyone clear of this place; head for the edge of the blasted lands but don’t go in.”
His eyebrows shot up. “And now you trust me?”
I yanked my own shotgun out from under my stirrup strap and pulled the hammer back. “Listen, fucker, I’ve had about enough of your shit for one day. Unless you want to go with me to head off the hyenas, and Ford can lead the others to safety, this is how it’s happening.”
Remarkably, Steve nodded and didn’t have one stupid word to say. For once.
I looked to Kiara. “Keep an eye on him and rip off his left testicle if he causes any grief. Okay?”
Kiara and Steve both startled and Steve laughed. “She wouldn’t.”
I saw the moment Kiara’s spine stiffened and her eyes flashed. “Try me.”
“There’s the fiery girl I knew was hidden away.” I gave her a wink, then turned and looked for Flora. Petite, old beyond her looks, and a priestess of a lightning god. She waited quietly on the edge of the group. “Can you dust the camp? Clear our tracks for as far as you can in both directions?”
She nodded. “I won’t have much left for a fight if I do that.”
“Hopefully no fight. Not if Ford and I pull this off.” I twisted in my saddle and leaned forward. Balder leapt from a quiet standstill into a full-out gallop in three strides, the power in his limbs enough to unseat anyone who didn’t know how much juice he had in him.
“Good boy,” I whispered over the whipping wind. I held him back a little so Batman and Ford could catch up. Ford was not Maks, but Batman seemed to like him well enough, and Ford was good with the horse, which was impressive. The lion shifter didn’t have much experience with horses—he’d been on his own for years. But he took to the saddle and care of Batman as though it was second nature to him.
And that did something twisty and uncomfortable to my heart . . . as though it were another drop on the scales already set against Maks coming back to us. It felt as though Batman had replaced Maks with Ford.
Fickle horse.
Behind us, the wind swept up, dusting away the horses’ hoof prints, hiding the direction we’d come as Flora worked her magic. That would have to be good enough for now to keep the others safe.
Lila swept down from the sky, barely catching the edge of my cloak, pulling herself to my shoulder. Her mouth tucked in close to my ear. “Three of the hyenas are coming fast, but something is wrong with them. They don’t look right, and the sand they are kicking up is making it hard to see just what’s going on with them.”
I frowned as I crouched over Balder’s neck. “They shouldn’t be kicking up sand.”
“I know. It’s . . . weird.”
Weird was not good when it came to facing an enemy. You wanted straightforward bad g
uy. Guns. Magic. Swords. Teeth. Claws. Not weird.
Weird was generally bad, and I’d had enough bad and weird shit to last me several lifetimes.
Ford rode up beside us and I glanced at him. His face was lit up with the joy of the gallop, but his balance. Lawd Jesus, his balance was all over the fucking place, and poor Batman had to fight to keep underneath his rider. Apparently he’d not taken as well as I’d thought to riding. Or maybe just riding slowly.
“Good boy,” I said.
Ford grinned at me. “Thanks!”
I shook my head. “I meant the horse.”
He grinned wider. “I know.”
I turned my head back to face what was coming. The seconds passed, then minutes, and I counted the miles based on our rate of speed. Four miles, then five, away from camp, and then suddenly they were there behind us and coming in from our left-hand side. Our hunters and a billowing spray of sand around them just like Lila had said.
Sand sprays and hyenas, what in the seven hells was going on now? “Slow it down some.” I held a hand out and waved at Ford to ease back. Batman saw my hand and slowed before Ford even tugged on the reins. He really was a good boy.
We eased to a trot, the horses blowing, sides heaving as we slowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off the coming hyenas—or what I assumed were hyenas. “Lila?”
“On it.” She pushed off my shoulder, and I braced for the shove. For being only six pounds, she was strong enough that she could knock me out of the saddle if I wasn’t careful.
I slowed Balder to a walk, then to a standstill. He pawed at the sand, and shook his head, flipping his mane around. “Yeah, I don’t like it either,” I muttered.
Ford handed me a pair of binoculars. I brought them to my eyes and squinted as the image came into view.
The hyenas were at best a mile away, and I still couldn’t see them clearly even with binoculars. There were glimpses of snouts and legs as they raced toward us, bits of fur and something else . . . I blinked, pulled the binoculars away, and then put them back to my face. “That can’t be.”
Oracle’s Haunt: Desert Cursed Series Book 4 Page 3