Storm's Fury

by Nya Rayne

  Stormy ground her teeth together. She hated to play the fool. She shoved her plate away and stared him squarely in the eyes. “What-the-hell-are-you? Because you’re not human.”

  He leaned forward again. His elbow was on the table, his temple resting on his fisted hand. “I am many things, Ambrosia, depending on whom you ask.”

  “I’m asking you, smartass.”

  “In that case, I’m the threat to children on the lips of mothers and fathers. I’m a destroyer and a redeemer. I’m trusted by none but needed by many.”

  She peered at him. Her brows drown together in concentration.

  “Or do you want to know what I am to you?”

  “Once again, semantics,” she hissed.

  He chuckled softly. “In that case, I’m the whisper of your heart and the answer to your prayers.” He looked away from her, a deep cranberry blush creeping over his cheeks.

  Stormy opened her mouth to demand he clarify, but a foreboding sensation swept through her. She turned in her seat and scanned the room as a shiver raced down her spine before spreading out into her extremities. For the briefest second, the need to run that came every three weeks like clockwork was back, tickling the nape of her neck. It urged her to move, to run, and to hide.

  She looked out the window, and then down the hall to the front door, but there was nothing there. She would have tried to convince herself it was her imagination if it hadn’t been for Fury’s reaction.

  Fury stood, his relaxed façade gone. “You’ll remain here.” It was an order, not a question or a suggestion.

  Stormy blinked and he was gone.

  “He’s not human,” she admitted with the certainty of a judge’s gavel. She didn’t hear a door open or close, nor his feet padding across the floor or the rasp of denim against denim. There was only the sound of birds chirping beyond the windows, and the hum of current running through the appliances.

  The house was empty. She shoved aside every notion that didn’t involve escape and stood. “To hell with this and him; I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Six

  Materializing in the clearing a few yards from his home, Fury scanned the surrounding area. Hatrid, stop playing these childish games. Show yourself. If you have a reason for calling me here, speak on it, he said via their mental link.

  Only an Anubi ready to do battle would call out another Anubi using a pulse of power as a beckoning tool, which was exactly what Hatrid had done.

  So now my antics are childish? They weren’t childish when I was helping you hunt down Terroar. Nor were they childish when I helped rescue you from that damn facility. But now, suddenly they’re childish?

  Fury glared at Hatrid as the younger Anubi manifested to his right. His lithe body was tense, his muscles rigid, and his dark eyes were hard and flat.

  It was true. Fury had been held against his will for sixty-three days, seven hours, thirty-two minutes and fifty-seven seconds in the name of human “science.” Because the one being he’d trusted above all others had given his captors the spell that would leave him as weak as a babe. He had been chained to a wall and treated like a mongrel. He had been made to lie in his own defecation day after day, night after night, while he prayed to gods he didn’t believe in for death, knowing it would never come for him. So, yes, when his brothers finally located and rescued him, he’d been grateful, but to have it thrown in his face in such away?

  “You sound like a jealous lover,” Fury told him. “It’s beneath you.”

  Hatrid circled him slowly. To a lesser being, a pup, his antics would have been frightening, but Fury stood strong, his back straight, his hands buried in his pockets, waiting for the moment when Hatrid lost all sense and charged.

  He remembered feeling like Hatrid did—abandoned. As his brother was doing now, Fury had called Crul out and challenged Tempest’s placement in their pack. What he had not known—nor cared to know—at the time was that if an Anubi could get his chosen to accept him into her life for who he truly was within three days’ time, he would be made whole—his heart, his lungs, his very soul. He would never live another day as a golem. But if he failed, regardless of his years of service, he would begin to quickly lose his powers. He would age at a rapid rate. Within two lunar cycles, he would be but a shell of himself. By the end of the third, he would return to the crushed bones and blood from which he was created.

  “You would put this, this woman before blood, brother?”

  “She’s my gift, the one I was created to protect. None shall come before her. To even consider such a thing is blasphemy.” It was the truth, regardless of how emotionally torn he was.

  Hatrid paused mid-step, his fists clenched at his sides, his face pinched, and his mouth set in a sneer. “You started this fight with Terroar. You need to clean it up. We don’t have time for this.” He spoke so fast his sentences seemed like one long incoherent ramble.

  “Don’t you think I know that? I didn’t ask for this, Hatrid, but I have been given my blessing. I will do what needs to be done.”

  “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means as an Anubi, I accept my gift and will do what needs to be done to bring her fully into our way.”

  Hatrid dropped his head and glared at Fury. “That bitch is going to do nothing but hinder us. You know what happened when Tempest was brought in. She damaged the relationship you had with Crul. Be rid of the tramp, before she destroys what it took so long to rebuild.”

  “Make that the last time you call her out of her name, Hatrid.” It was a warning, plain and simple. Fury ran his hand down his face. “You know as well as I do that Tempest was not to blame for anything that occurred between Crul and me. It was my doing, and mine alone.”

  Hatrid took a step closer. “Don’t you see? Had he not brought her in, it never would’ve taken place.” He was pleading now. “Let me take her back to the alley where you found her. We could get Crul to wipe her mind. She’ll never be any the wiser. We could go back to our mission.”

  “You can’t be this stupid, Hatrid. You would wish me out of existence, is that what you’re saying?”

  “You? No, never! I-I-I would nev—”

  “Well, should you ever think of separating us, that is exactly what will happen. If you believe nothing else, believe that I have every intention of seeing that Terroar is dealt with. But I will not tolerate your interference with Ambrosia and me.”

  Hatrid snarled, showing his elongated incisors. “We have Luzivius sealed in the damn tombs, and Terroar is probably tearing through hell and heaven seeking answers to his whereabouts. We don’t have time for this. Be done with that bitch.”

  Hatrid never saw it coming. Fury drew his fist back and slammed it in Hatrid’s jaw.

  The younger Anubi staggered back, his hand coming up to rub at the bruised area in astonishment. “You would attack me?” His form blurred as he charged forward, his shoulder colliding with Fury’s chest.

  Had Fury not been waiting for it, the hit probably would have sent him reeling, but he had expected such a reaction. He grasped Hatrid around the shoulders and heaved him up and over his head, slamming him into the ground. Landing on top of his brother, he buried his knee in Hatrid’s chest, keeping him solidly in place. “Give,” he ordered.

  Hatrid fought, kicked out his feet and called upon his elemental power, wind, but he couldn’t escape Fury’s hold. Hatrid was an excellent fighter and known to the Yazaron as one to be feared, but against Fury, it was student versus teacher.

  “Damn it, Hatrid! Give.”

  After another few moments of struggling, Hatrid began to calm, the tension evaporating from his limbs.

  Fury released him and jumped back out of the small crater he’d created when Hatrid’s body had impacted the earth. “No more, Hatrid. No more, do you understand?”

  Hatrid glared at him for a long moment, before he hung his head, his shoulders slumping forward. “I don’t like this. Crul is with Tempest every day, he ra
rely hunts anymore, and now you have that…Now you have her. Where does that leave me?” He brushed at the dirt on his pants and then ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. “I don’t like feeling like this. I don’t like feeling petty and jealous, Fury. These are human emotions, not those of an Anubi.”

  Fury was cautious about stepping close to his brother, but in the end pushed those feelings aside and helped him up. “If no one else understands what you’re going through, I do. You’re my flesh and my blood, born from the same serum as I.” He squeezed Hatrid’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. “Until your gift finds you or you choose of your own volition to leave us, there will never be a time when you don’t have a home with me and mine.”

  There was a good chance that as the last unmated male in their pack, Hatrid would choose to strike off on his own rather than live among them as a fifth wheel.

  Fury prayed he wouldn’t choose that route.

  Hatrid tensed and squared his shoulders. “She’ll destroy us. I can feel it.” He was like a starving jackal trying to bring down an elephant—no matter how futile, he wasn’t willing to give up.

  “In the end, we’ll be stronger because of her.” Fury spoke adamantly. “Ambrosia is one of us now. You have to at least try to wrap your head around that.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  He stepped closer, stared Hatrid in the eyes, and finished. “If you expect me to choose, you won’t win, Hatrid.”

  “We’re blood. How could you so easily dismiss me?”

  Fury shook his head. “No. I’m simply becoming whole. She’s the other half of me. You are the last one I should have to explain this to.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it, brother.”

  “What would you have me do?” It was a rhetorical question, so he continued. “If the sands were reversed and you were the one given your gift, could I come to you and ask of you what you’re asking of me? Would you even entertain the idea?”

  “I would at least consider it.”

  The remains of Fury’s patience unraveled. “For Anubis’s sake, Hatrid, listen to yourself.”

  Hatrid’s nostrils flared, his fists clenched and released, and he looked at any and everything except Fury, but he didn’t respond.

  “Do not think that my past mistakes will excuse your actions now.” Fury exhaled and took a step back. “Think long and hard about what I’ve said before you do anything foolish. I will not easily forgive you should you harm my chosen.” His body dissolved into a smoky haze and shot off into the forest.

  He was weary of Hatrid’s state of mind, but at the moment the woman who didn’t know how to listen to orders needed him more. Using the bond they shared, he connected with her and was assaulted by fear. It coursed through her veins, had her heart stuttering, her pulse racing, and her mind running amok.

  Fury shot forward. Her panic became his own as he reached for her with mental fingers in an attempt to soothe her. As he drew closer to her he understood why.

  Vicious snarls, the raking of claws, and then the smell of blood assaulted him.

  The first time she felt the sensation to run, she was twelve. The first time she listened to it instead of discounting it was the night of her father’s funeral; she had been running ever since. She had no idea what she was running from, but it didn’t matter—the feeling was overwhelming and undeniable.

  Stormy hadn’t traveled a quarter of a mile from the house and she was already feeling beyond stupid for attempting such a feat.

  Attempting to run through a forest in heels needs to be right up there with waking a sleeping bear, she thought. Yep, it needs to be one of Jacob Talltree’s top ten rules of things not to do in a forest.

  The ground was layered with broken tree limbs and roots that seemed hell-bent on thwarting her at every turn. She’d take one good step and then nearly break her ankle on the next. Branches of overgrown bushes scraped at her bare legs like the claws of a ghoul determined to slow her progress.

  Stormy had been a lot of places in her life, but never once had she found herself in such a quandary. She had been caught in a drive-by shooting down in Florida, chased and nearly captured by a group of thugs on Bourbon Street, mugged in Baltimore, held hostage at a check cashing store in Seattle, and nearly raped in Houston by a group of MS-13 gang members. But this situation? Kidnapped and being dumped in the middle of nowhere with an evasive bastard? Well, it took the proverbial freaking cake.

  Looking for trouble had never been something Stormy practiced, but it always found her.

  She stumbled, fell flat on her stomach, and cursed the heavens for her terrible luck. What she wouldn’t give to face a horde of MS-13s if it meant she’d be out of this blasted forest and back on concrete footing where she actually had a chance of surviving.

  “Damn it!” She pounded the ground and pushed back onto her knees.

  Under different circumstances she might have found the earthy smell and the sound of the branches creaking calming, but she didn’t. It was infuriating. If she had been a weaker woman, she would have cried.

  Where the hell was she anyway? She knew it wasn’t Atlantic City, because there was a total lack of cement, not to mention, people. So that left maybe a state park?

  The wind twisted around her, bringing a brittle chill with it. Stormy pushed to her feet and tested her footing to make sure she had some semblance of balance. She stared down at her shoes. She could do one of two things: take them off and run barefoot, and risk ripping open her feet, or leave them on and stumble around until a bear came and took a chunk out of her ass.

  Dropping her shoes into her purse, she tilted her face skyward. Rays of sunlight and shadowy phantoms danced across her skin as a chilly breeze blew strands of her hair into her face. Birds squawked and chirped from branches high above, and she inhaled, taking in the scent of pine.

  In a different world, Stormy would have been a college graduate with a degree in finance. She would have a high-paying job with a Fortune 500 company, and would probably be living the life of a successful businesswoman. She would have been the proud owner of a two-story house on a beautifully manicured street in some high-priced gated community. Her gorgeous husband would dote on her and their two-point-five kids. But those were should’ves, would’ves, and could’ves.

  Dreams—they make the world go round, don’t they? She sighed and started moving, but stopped at the sound of dried leaves crunching under foot. She looked down around her bare feet as the sound came again. I didn’t do that.

  Stormy turned in a slow, tight circle while she reached into her purse for the stun gun…the stun gun Fury had taken from her and hadn’t given back. Damn him! She tried to focus her attention on remaining calm and not sprinting in any particular direction.

  It didn’t work.

  She searched the ground for something big she could throw, or better yet, use as a bat or whacking stick. The sound came again. It was coming from everywhere: the ground, her right and left, directly in front of and behind her.

  Stormy took a hesitant step to the side. She could feel her heart pounding against her breastbone and hear it in her ears. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck and along her arms stood on end. She scanned the ground again, but found nothing but twigs and other tiny sticks that would probably fracture the moment she touched them.

  The sound came once more, this time much closer than it had been before.

  She refused to die out there. Stormy took a step back and froze, her eyes wide as the large, blocky head of a steroid muscled horse-dog moved languidly into sight from between two gigantic redwood trees. It moved so silently she could have sworn it simply materialized out of the darkness of the forest. From head to ground it was at least four feet tall and just as thick, like one of those short, squat body builders she’d seen on the fitness network. It padded soundlessly in her direction, stopping within chomping distance from her, on its dinner-plate-sized paws.

  Her stomach did a few flips and her heart was
promising to, at any moment, leap out of her chest.

  A rumble caught between a howl and a bark ripped up from the bowels of Hell and escaped through the monster’s salivating mouth. Its lips drew back in a snarl, revealing dangerously sharp canines. It dropped into a low crouch, telling her without words that it was one second from being all over her ass.

  Stormy tried to swallow the fear clogging her throat, but it wouldn’t budge. Though it would do little good, she backed away from the animal as carefully as she could, while she allowed her purse to slip from her shoulder.

  In an abstract way, the dog reminded her of a Sherlock Holmes story she’d read in high school. It had been about a big black ghost dog with red eyes, its body bathed in a fine hue of fire.

  She settled into her batter’s stance, held one hand out in front of her as if it were a barrier and used the other to begin a slow swinging motion with the purse by way of the strap.

  Around and around it went.

  Though the dog resembled Sodona, it was too big and vicious to be her. What had Fury said? She wanted in that second to kick herself for not listening to the ne’er-do-well. This monstrosity had to be Sodona’s mate. I’m seriously meeting the whole family.

  “Good puppy,” she sang, her voice quivering. Someone had told her that animals could smell fear, and dogs in particular thrived on it. Stormy was certain this freak of nature was relishing every drop of hers. “Nice…nice doggy. Please don’t eat me.” Her entire body shook.

  Stormy watched in stunned horror as Sodona’s mate lunged for her head, his claws outstretched, fangs bared, and two grotesquely long slobber shoestrings flying out the sides of his mouth.

  She threw her purse at him, screamed, and dropped to the ground, covering her head.

  Chapter Seven

  Fury burst through the foliage, changed to his humanoid form, and took in the mêlée.

  A large black bear leapt at Brutus, Sodona’s mate, its wide flat paw sweeping out in an attempt to knock Brutus’s legs out from under him. Brutus dodged the swipe, coming around to the left of the bear, his jaws wide as his teeth sank deeply into the bear’s meaty neck.