by Laura Taylor
“Cover me,” he snapped at Baron, then fired two shots at the Mercedes and dashed across the roadway, sliding into cover behind another of the parked cars. And for a split second, he had a perfect line of sight to where Banks was cowering beside the car. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger, a perfect headshot that sent the man sprawling to the ground, blood spraying over the side of the car.
But an instant later, he felt the hot bite of a bullet in his own shoulder. Baron was beside him in an instant, a volley of bullets sending Melissa into cover, retreating deeper between the cars, out of sight for the moment. “Guards!” she screamed, though Silas hadn’t let any of the men get any further than the gateway.
But Miller was having trouble focusing on anything other than his own pain. He put a dazed hand to his shoulder, feeling dizzy as it came away coated in blood. Fucking hell, where had Melissa learned to shoot like that?
“Shift!” Baron ordered him. “We need to get out of here.”
“What?” Miller asked, not understanding. He was bleeding heavily, his shoulder feeling like a hot poker had been stabbed straight through him, and Baron wanted him to pour energy and effort into shifting?
“I said shift! Right now!” Baron said again, firing another shot at the car as Melissa tried to peer over the top.
Miller struggled to concentrate, but finally managed the shift… and was entirely startled when the searing pain immediately vanished.
“Into the van,” Baron ordered, retreating after him, and the two of them made it back to the vehicle in record time, Baron taking out one more guard on his way.
“Silas! We’re out of here,” he yelled. Silas was crouched beside the security bollard, exchanging fire with the guards attempting to gain entrance to the basement.
With Baron covering him, Silas bolted for the van, leapt inside and slammed the door. Simon was still at the wheel, shooting through the window, and he slammed his foot to the floor, the van lurching forward with a squeal of tyres.
“We’re on our way out,” Baron informed Caroline and the others, waiting with the bikes. “We’re going to need covering fire.”
“Copy that,” Caroline replied calmly, and Miller smiled at the thought of the four of them, racing towards the complex, the bikes sleek and fast, but also light and manoeuvrable. He suspected that the fierce woman would get a kick out of this, for all the seriousness of the situation.
There were more guards up the ramp, Miller straining to see out the front windscreen from his lower position, but Simon didn’t even hesitate. Just ploughed straight through them, hitting one who was either not quick enough, or not smart enough to get out of the way, and sending him to the ground with a wet thud. Then the main security gate loomed ahead of them.
“Get down,” Simon ordered, sliding lower in his seat. The windscreen, like the rest of the van, was bulletproof, but if enough shots were fired at it, it would still break. There didn’t seem to be many guards left – most of them had probably been killed in the basement. But there was still the boom gate to get through.
Two men at the gate were firing at the van, the thuds of the bullets hitting the side loud and terrifying. “Hold on!” Simon yelled, then put his foot down, barrelling towards the boom gate with no intention of slowing down.
The collision made the van shudder and swerve, Miller being thrown about as Baron and Silas both held on. The revving of engines could be heard from nearby, and Miller jumped up on his back legs, peering out the window and seeing two motorbikes racing towards them. More shots were fired, a car that tried to pursue the van put out of action as Andre expertly shot its tyres out, the last of the guards taken out as Kwan and Raniesha appeared out of the darkness, controlling their bikes effortlessly with one hand while the other held a submachine gun.
“We’re going to have to ditch the van,” Simon said, after a minute or two had passed, and they were sure there were no more pursuers. “It’s riddled with bullet holes, and we’ll never get back to the estate without attracting some unwanted attention.”
“Can’t,” Baron contradicted him. “Miller’s been shot. You stay in wolf form!” he snapped at Miller, when he stepped forward, ready to shift. “You shift now, and you’ll bleed out before we get you back to the estate.”
So that was how it worked. He’d wondered why Skip hadn’t been more concerned about her injury, back when she was shot after her kidnapping, and he longed to ask for details now. But that would have to wait. The simple answer seemed to be that staying in wolf form prevented him from bleeding, and that was all he really needed to know for the moment.
“Miller can’t ride a bike as a wolf, so we’ll have to hope for the best.”
“Skip and Tank have a car,” Simon pointed out. “If we can rendezvous with them, they can take Miller, and the rest of us can go on the bikes.”
Baron considered that for a moment, then pulled out his phone. Skip would be too far away by now for the radio link to work. “What’s your position?” he asked, when she answered.
“Clean and clear. Heading for the motorway,” came the reply. “No sign of pursuit.”
“Find a quiet backstreet and pull over, then text me your position. We have a delivery for you.” Baron hung up, then glanced at Miller. “Once we get back to the estate, you’re going to have some serious explaining to do,” he said grimly. “There had better be a damn good reason for you fucking up our escape plan to kill whoever the fuck that was.”
“What he means to say,” Silas said, from where he was watching the road behind them, in case of being tailed, “is that you need to stay in wolf form until we get back, and then I’ll remove that bullet from your arm for you.”
If he had been in human form, Miller might have laughed. As it was, he gave Silas a grateful whine, a tentative wag of his tail, and then settled in for the ride home.
“So who was this guy you needed to kill so much?” Baron asked Miller. It was three o’clock in the morning; another sleepless night after the long drive home and Silas’s careful efforts to remove the bullet from Miller’s shoulder. He was placing the last few stitches in the wound now, an IV line in Miller’s arm delivering a blood transfusion, compliments of Skip. When she’d heard he’d been shot, she’d volunteered to give blood immediately, as well as repeatedly reassuring him on the way home that Silas was an excellent surgeon, and they had plenty of medical supplies on hand for the job. Now, the local anaesthetic was making his arm feel strange, not quite numb, but heavy and uncooperative, and he thanked Silas for the expert job as he snipped off the last piece of suture material.
“Professor Ivor Banks,” Miller told Baron, as both Caroline and Andre appeared in the doorway. “He’s the head scientist from-”
“No fucking way!” Andre interrupted him, staring at him in amazement, the curse word an unusual thing to hear from the usually genteel man. “Ivor Banks? From Germany? He was here?”
“So it seems,” Miller said, not sure why Andre was so interested in him. “I’m not sure when he arrived, or why he was here, but it was definitely him.”
“Excuse me?” Baron interrupted, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
“He’s the Noturatii’s most senior scientist,” Andre filled him in. “Runs the lab in Germany. The Council has had dozens of reports about his work. The things he does to shifters makes Freddy Kruger look like a charity worker. Where is he now?” he asked, turning back to Miller.
“Dead,” Miller said. “Single shot to the head.”
“Nice work,” Andre said, genuine admiration in his voice.
Baron looked momentarily nonplussed. “So he was a big deal, yeah?” he clarified.
“Absolutely,” Andre confirmed. “Taking him out should set the Noturatii back at least five years in their research.”
“Fine. Then… good job,” he said to Miller, looking pained by the concession.
Miller laughed, holding the end of a bandage for Silas as he finished dressing the
wound. “Oh, come on. Does it really hurt that much to admit that I got something right?”
Baron tried to glare at him, but couldn’t quite manage to look angry. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you credit for this one. But don’t let it go to your head.”
“Does that mean I can get this damned tag off my ankle now?” Miller asked, holding out his leg. The tracking device had been temporarily disabled while he was off the property, but Simon had activated it again the moment they got back, and if he was honest about it, Miller was feeling rather resentful about the continuing sign of their distrust.
Baron glanced at Caroline, who nodded. “Yeah, okay,” Baron agreed. “That little excursion didn’t exactly go according to plan, but from what Andre says, the mess was worth it. So I think you’ve earned your freedom. I’ll get Simon onto it first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks,” Miller said, then stood up, eager to get to bed now that his wound had been seen to. Silas removed the IV from his arm and covered the spot with an adhesive dressing. But then he noticed Andre watching him strangely, and Miller felt a little unnerved by the expression on his face. “What?” he asked, trying not to sound confrontational with the question.
“Just thinking,” Andre said. “Baron’s given me a review of the mission. And it seems you had a run in with Melissa while you were there.”
“We did,” Miller confirmed. “This was her doing,” he added, pointing to the wound on his shoulder.
“And she’s still alive?”
“She is.” Miller was far from happy with the situation. He’d done a rather good job of playing dead, as far as the Noturatii were concerned, and now that they knew he was alive…
“Then we have a rather serious security issue,” Andre said, glancing at Baron. “Deserters from the Noturatii are treated just as seriously as we treat ours. Which means they’re going to be sending a Khuli after you,” he told Miller. The Satva Khuli, or the Blood Tigers, were the Noturatii’s own brand of professional killer, a perfect counterpart to the Council’s assassins. Andre himself had fought one back during the raid on the lab, and had won the battle only by the narrowest of margins.
“I’m aware of it,” Miller acknowledged with a heavy heart. “So what now?” he asked Baron. With a Khuli on his tail, it wouldn’t be safe for him to remain in England, and he waited to be told that he would be sent elsewhere. To this mysterious Council, perhaps, or to another Den, far away from here-
“So now we batten down the hatches and wait,” Baron said, sounding strangely calm about the whole thing.
“You’re not sending me away?” Miller asked, surprised by the answer.
“There would be no point,” Baron replied. “National borders pose no barrier to the Khuli. We could send you anywhere in the world, and they’d still manage to find you, one way or another. And if we send you to another Den, we’re just making them a target.” He shook his head. “Much as I don’t like it, we’re the ones who chose to accept you, so we’re the ones who will have to deal with the fallout.”
“I don’t want to put you all at risk,” Miller protested, but Baron wouldn’t hear it.
“You’re familiar with the phrase ‘all for one, and one for all’?” he asked, a wry amusement in his voice, despite the serious issue at hand. “We tend to take that rather to extremes here. Like it or not, Miller, you’re one of us now. Looks like you’re damn well stuck with us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Miller stepped into the dining room, feeling a tense apprehension about what was about to happen. It was two weeks since they’d assassinated Jacob, and as predicted, the Noturatii had been thrown into chaos. Skip had access to a small number of communication routes used by the organisation, a few phones she’d tapped, email accounts she’d managed to hack, and the news had been encouraging. The staff were disorganised, no new scientific endeavours to speak of, no planned investigations or raids for the security staff, and the Noturatii’s head office had made the unfortunate error of describing Jacob’s death as a suicide. While it was a neat sidestep that avoided the need to explain a fire fight in a Noturatii complex to any official stakeholders, it had also spread a wave of doubt through the Noturatii’s various financiers, with members of parliament and the heads of several large banks all rapidly re-evaluating the benefits of pouring funds into an organisation that had apparently been headed by someone of questionable mental stability. It would take them weeks, if not months to regroup, and the shifters were enjoying a small respite from the constant worries of being attacked by their enemies.
The electronic tag had indeed been removed from Miller’s ankle, but Baron had taken the time to explain his new place in the Den to him. He had earned a measure of trust, he had acknowledged, but Il Trosa had strict rules in place as to the expected conduct of its members. If he were ever to betray them, Baron had told him, reminding him of his oath during his welcoming ceremony, then every member of Il Trosa was charged with his execution. He’d also been warned that he would be required to remain on estate grounds for the foreseeable future. With a Khuli trying to pick up his trail, keeping him out of sight was their best defensive tactic for the moment.
In the spirit of his renewed acceptance and the slightly less severe restrictions on his movements, Miller had once again challenged George to a status fight. The older man had rolled his eyes, and surrendered almost the moment the fight started. Miller had already proven himself the stronger fighter, and the challenge was entirely for show.
So now, he was to see the result of this latest challenge. Would Silas, Tank and the other senior wolves finally allow him to begin climbing the ranks, or would they once again kick him to the curb?
Miller glanced around the seats. Mark was in his usual place at the bottom of the table, and half of the other seats were filled, while the rest of the Den straggled in for the evening meal. George hadn’t taken his seat yet, still ferrying dishes in from the kitchen, so there were no clues there as to where Miller was expected to sit. He glanced at Tank, who was engaged in a heated discussion with Caroline, and hadn’t noticed him arrive, and then at Silas, who raised a sardonic eyebrow at him, and then pointedly ignored him. Hoping for the best, he headed for George’s usual seat, one place up from Miller’s old spot, and sat down, holding his breath as he waited for a reaction from the others.
Nothing.
The rest of the Den filed in, taking their seats, and George sat down beside him, looking vaguely relieved about the new seating arrangement. Baron tapped his glass, getting the attention of everyone in the room, and Miller waited, expecting some last minute objection to his new rank…
“Any news?” Baron asked, and a moment’s silence followed as everyone shook their heads. Baron lifted his glass. “To those who still run,” he recited, pride and admiration in his voice for the members of this eclectic family.
“And to those who have fallen,” the Den replied in unison. “May they be welcome at the table of Sirius at the setting of the sun.”
With that, conversations sprung up all over the room, and everyone dug into the food.
Baron opened the door to his bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. The room would be empty, as it always was these days, and having to stare at the unoccupied bed, the vacant desk by the window where John had kept his gaming console, the neat floor devoid of randomly scattered clothing was too disheartening to draw attention to it all by illuminating the room.
He stripped off his clothes, automatically tossing them into the laundry hamper, and headed for the shower.
He’d contacted Dr Nagi, their vet friend, a few days ago, reiterating his request that the man assist them with the occasional veterinary crisis. Skip had done a more thorough background check on him since her surgery, and Simon had been monitoring his phone and internet accounts. He’d done nothing suspicious or unexpected since that night, making no mention of his encounter with strange military types to anyone. When Baron spoke to him, Nagi had thanked him for giving him the time to thin
k his offer through, and had agreed to help them, on a number of conditions; none of his staff were ever to be put at risk, Baron was to pay him double the usual fee for any required procedures and the moment any nefarious types started asking questions, the deal was off. Baron had agreed to his conditions, and gone out one evening to meet the man, presenting him with an official-looking contract. He’d also informed the Council of their new alliance, and been praised by both Eleanor and Feng for his quick thinking and his success in saving one of his Den mates under such pressing circumstances.
Miller was shaping up well. After their assassination of Jacob and Professor Banks, the majority of the Den had lost some of their antagonism towards him, and he’d started combat training again, several sessions with both Silas and Tank testing out his abilities and highlighting any areas that might need more work. All things considered, the decision to keep him was turning out rather well.
But the one sore spot in Baron’s life remained his relationship with John. The boy had stubbornly refused to reconsider his position on Miller, despite the success of the assassination, and was still going out of his way to be uncooperative where Baron was concerned. On the bright side, if it could be called that, John seemed to be making more of an effort lately to control his temper, spending regular sessions in the gym to work off his inevitable frustrations, asking Tank and Silas for sparring sessions, and while he was still vocal about his opinions, he had managed to go a full two weeks without breaking anything around the manor. Heron had quietly reported that she’d even seen him down in the laundry the other day, washing his own clothes for the first time in years, and despite knowing that he should be proud of the boy for finally taking responsibility for his own life, Baron couldn’t help his disappointment that John seemed to be proving himself capable of living comfortably without him.