“I’ll be happy when your throat’s open,” Ellis said and started forward again. Cole pointed the gun at him. Ellis froze. Roderick slid a step forward. Orrin yipped a warning, and Cole shifted aim. Roderick stopped.
“You can’t shoot all of us,” Roderick said
“No,” Cole agreed, “just the ones who matter. Ellis and Bernadette. Maybe you too. These bullets are spelled, like the one that got Albert. A graze is enough to kill you. Ask the witch.”
“He’s right,” Darinda said. “I didn’t bring enough cleanser. It would be best if nobody got shot.” Her gaze hit Cole. “Is that a possibility?”
“Maybe,” Cole said slyly. “It’s leadership of the packs we want, along with all territory. If our dear alphas are willing to officially show throat, maybe we can strike an agreement.”
“Submit? To the likes of you?” Bernadette’s bark dripped derision. “You’re not even a wolf. Half-breed coyote rubbish.”
Orrin strode over to his mother and smacked her hard across the face. Easy enough for him to be brave with his alpha pinned to a chair. “Your days are over,” he snarled at her. “You want to die right now? I’m good with that.”
“If I could get up, I’d—”
“Be shot in two seconds,” Darinda said, and Cole gleefully nodded. “That’s why I’m not letting you up. We’re going to do this without murder, if possible. So all you want is control of the packs?”
“And the territories,” Cole said. “It’s getting cramped out in Wissahickon. Coyotes breed faster than wolves. Oh, that’s another thing. I’m taking Diane as my mate. Orrin gets Coraline.” He snorted. “She probably won’t even know the difference.”
“Not Tamra?” Roderick said. “She is the heir apparent.”
“And a full-on queen bitch like her mother. No thank you. I like my shes young and trainable. So,” he addressed the alphas, “do we have a deal? Remember, these terms are not negotiable.”
“Out of the question,” Ellis roared. Bernadette’s snarl spoke for itself.
“I get to kill this one,” Orrin said, inclining his head toward his mother.
“Fine by me,” Cole said. “I expected you dogs to be stupid. Actually, I was hoping you’d…”
His insolence died away. Finally, with Cole’s attention split between Bernadette and Ellis, Darinda was able to reach into her shoulder bag and pull out her own weapon. She let the bag drop to the floor. It landed with a massive plop. Orrin and Eugene uttered twin whimpers. Cole just stared.
“What the hell’s that supposed to be?” Cole said.
“This,” Darinda said, shifting Stormin’ Norman more comfortably into the crook of her arm, “is a dragon. Don’t let the size fool you. He’s the real deal. His flame’s hot enough to melt silver bullets, and dissolve any little magic you might have on them. Your witch pals don’t have anything that can beat dragon fire. I’d put the gun down if I were you.”
“It’s a bloody lizard,” Orrin said.
The “bloody lizard’s” backbone spines glowed red. Steam wafted up from his hide. Roderick edged out of the line of fire. “I can’t control him once he powers up,” Darinda said, “and he’s in the red zone right now. Put down the gun and you should be okay.”
“Bite my tail,” Cole said. “You stupid ape. It might be worth a bullet to put you away.”
Darinda shrugged delicately, so as not to set Norman off. “It’s your cremation.”
She prayed he was bluffing. She’d learned to read wolves, but coyotes were too unpredictable. Norman sensed her tension and hissed. His lashing tail thumped against her backside.
Cole fired.
A single second split into fractions. The bullet left the gun, headed for Darinda. Norman belched a blast of fire. The bullet and its magics were vaporized barely two feet from the gun barrel. The flame engulfed the gun, Cole’s hand, then Cole. The young were became a bipedal torch. He fell to the floor and rolled frantically. His shrieks went off the scale.
“Roderick!” Darinda cried.
He moved with decisive speed, as if they’d rehearsed. He yanked the afghan off the back of the sofa and used it to beat at the flames enveloping Cole. They snuffed out with amazing quickness. That was dragon fire— bright and hot as hell but not long-lasting. But then, it didn’t need to be.
Darinda nudged her bag with her foot. She needed both hands to calm Norman. “There’s salve in my bag,” she said to Roderick. “A big tin. I was afraid it would come to this.”
Someone howled. Eugene? It sounded like his whiny voice. Orrin’s eyes bulged in his moon-pale face. “Is he alive?” Darinda asked.
“He’s breathing,” Roderick said. He caught the tin Darinda kicked across the floor to him and began to slather salve. “Maybe not for long. Ellis, he’s your pack. What do we do with him?”
Ellis had no answer. Events had moved too fast for the old-schooler. “Somebody call Dr. Clark,” Darinda said.
“It’s daylight, dear,” Letty reminded her.
“Oh. Yeah. Right. We’ll have to get him to Clark’s office. I know he has non-vamp assistants.”
“While you’re about it,” Bernadette said bitingly, “do you think you might see fit to let me go? Now that the danger’s past and all that. If you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure.” Darinda waved her hand absently. Bernadette stood. She went at once to her younger son and struck him a cruel blow across the face. Orrin whined and fell to his knees. He huddled where he landed and whimpered like a pup.
Bernadette marched past him as if he no longer existed. She stopped beside Darinda. “Is it over, then?” she asked.
Darinda ran down the list of players in her head. “Should be. We’ve caught Cole and Orrin. Alfie’s dead. The witches and the muscle were only hired help. I’d say this pretty much wraps it u—”
She never saw it coming. For a second she forgot she stood among wolves. They might look like they were human, but they weren’t. Her distraction was weakness, and in that moment of weakness Bernadette struck like a snake. Her blow slammed Darinda into the wall. Her head cracked hard against the plaster. Norman hit the floor. A second later Darinda joined him.
* * * *
Bernadette stepped over the motionless body of the human on the floor. “Now,” she said, turning on Roderick, “you and I have unfinished business.”
She’d barely got the words out when Roderick leaped at her. Not in attack. He shoved his mother away and knelt beside his mate. Blood from a cut on her scalp poured across the carpet. Her breathing was thready, but her heartbeat firm. Her personal protection spells had deflected the full force of the blow and the broken neck Bernadette had intended.
From the corner of his eye he saw Bernadette wriggle free of her dress and drop to all fours. Though crouched beside Darinda, he’d angled his body to keep her in sight. Even overwhelmed with concern for his mate, he knew better than to turn his back on his mother.
He had no time to shift and match her change. His clothes would hinder him. She knew it too, the bloody bitch. She planned to administer a thorough public drubbing, if not dispatch him outright. He heard no mercy in her snarl. In all his life he never had.
Bernadette charged him.
Roderick scooped up Stormin’ Norman.
The black she-wolf saw her jeopardy too late to stop her leap. Desperately she twisted her body in mid-air. She landed hard in a tangle of limbs. Before she could scramble up again Roderick placed Norman on her chest.
“Don’t move,” he said coolly. “He’s rather cross with you just now.”
Bernadette froze. The dragon’s claws clutched her fur. Every spine on his backbone stood erect and glowed a murderous crimson. His sides pulsed in and out like a bellows, building up the flame.
Roderick stood over her, his hands in his pockets. “He does look angry, doesn’t he? Probably burn your limbs off if you touched him. You might try your intimidation techniques, but I don’t think they’re going to work.”
Bernadette
’s lips pulled back. Norman was not impressed. Steam boiled off him in ever-thickening waves. Bernadette’s death glared at her through red, unblinking eyes.
None of the other wolves moved. No one was going anywhere near the dragon, not after what they’d seen it do to Cole.
Abruptly Bernadette shifted. Immediately Norman sank his talons into her flesh. Her bare skin beneath Norman’s body darkened to an ugly red. “Roderick. Get this thing off me now. Do you hear me?”
Roderick didn’t move. “I hear you. I’ve heard every word you’ve ever said.”
Bernadette reached a tentative hand toward Norman. Norman hissed. She snatched her hand back, away from the heat. “Roderick. Get. It. Off. Me.”
“You tried to kill my mate, and after she saved us all.”
“She’s not your mate. She’s a stinking monkey.”
“She’s the dragon’s mistress,” Roderick said. “That gives him the right of first crack at you.” He brushed hairs from his shirt front. “I can wait.”
“Roderick!” Her voice rose. Not quite a howl. Not yet a whine. “I’m your mother.”
“And you taught me well.”
She shut her eyes. Her teeth clenched. The reek of burning skin became pronounced.
Bernadette lifted her head and turned it, exposing her neck to Roderick. Her body slumped in submission. Her arms and legs trembled in pain.
Roderick snagged the afghan and bundled Norman into it. The bitten thing was hotter than a witch’s cauldron. He had to wrench it free. Norman came away with gouges of Bernadette’s flesh trailing from his claws.
Step one achieved. He had the pack. However, unless he could defuse this blighted incendiary monster his reign would go down as the shortest in Chase history.
How did Darinda control it? He gingerly rubbed Norman’s smoking belly. “Uh…good boy, that’s a good dragon. You know who I am, you’ve seen me before. You smell her on me, don’t you? Yes, you do.”
His spines seemed to glow a bit less dangerously. All right, talk worked. What else? Think. The tank in the shop. Lettuce, chicken gobbets and charcoal. “Letty. Is there still a log on the hearth?”
At Roderick’s instruction a trembling Letty broke off some bark and a couple charred pieces and passed them up to Roderick. Presented with a treat, Norman couldn’t help taking a nibble. It must have agreed with him, because he took a massive bite of the blackened wood. “So you fancy pine,” Roderick muttered. “I’ll remember that.”
Gradually Norman’s back spines lost their deadly red and drooped from erect to half-mast. He had become both visibly and tactilely cooler by the time he finished the wood.
Roderick freed the breath he’d been holding. “Thank Lycaon you’re not a cat.”
He set Norman gently on the floor, beside Darinda. She hadn’t stirred, and her face was far too pallid for his peace of mind. “Call Dr. Clark,” he barked at Eugene.
Eugene gestured vaguely at the window. “Uh, Rod? Vampire? Daylight?”
“I don’t give a bite if it’s bloody high noon! Get him up here!”
Eugene leaped past him, toward the kitchen. The receiver fell from his hands twice before he got a grip on it. Roderick waited until he heard Eugene make contact before he turned to the rest of the wolves.
And a sorry lot they were. Poor Aunt Letty looked about to faint. So did Ellis. This wasn’t how pack succession was determined in his experience. Cole lay in a fetal position, either unconscious or dead. Orrin was gone. He must have fled while attention was focused on Roderick and Bernadette. A pile of rags that had been his clothing was scattered on the floor where he’d been, along with a puddle of urine.
Bernadette remained on the floor. She had not been granted leave to rise. “So what happens now?” she said flatly. “Do you intend to kill me?”
“No.” He didn’t smile. “Once Tamra learns you’ve been deposed, I won’t need to. Get her out of here,” he said to Letty.
Wordlessly Letty helped her sister up off the floor. She stooped briefly, to pluck up the tin of burn salve. She guided the silent Bernadette upstairs.
Finally. Roderick went to his knees beside Darinda. She still breathed, but all that blood… “You’re not going to die,” he murmured. “Not after all we’ve had to go through.”
Ellis Duquesne cleared his throat. Roderick speared him with a murderous look. “You want a shot at me too?”
“No. Of course not.” Ellis backed a step.
“Do we have any further business?” Roderick said.
“Um, no. Don’t think so.”
“All right, then. The wedding’s off. I think we’re all clear on that. It will be a long time before I consider any further alliance with your pack. Now get out. You’re on Chase territory.”
Chapter 20
Darinda awoke with a dull headache, to the sight of a smiling mouth with fangs too slender to be Roderick’s. She lifted her hand to her throbbing skull and felt the bandage there. That clinched it. “Dr. Clark?”
“Yo, Lowell. Welcome back. There,” he said to Darinda’s left. “She’s all right. Can I go now?”
A low rumble answered him. Mindful of her aching head, Darinda looked to her left. Roderick, in wolf form, lay beside her. She was in his room, lying on his bed. That toasty, solid weight against her other side was Stormin’ Norman. The dragon gripped a wedge of burnt pine in his claws and snored peacefully.
Darinda shut her eyes. It didn’t help her headache. “Okay. What went wrong?”
“Mother.” Roderick had shifted form in order to speak. Clark made a sour face. Roderick made one right back at him and pointedly pulled the covers up over his hips. “She tried to kill you. She’s been dealt with.”
She kept her eyes shut. “Do I want to know how?”
“You’ve your dragon to thank. Seems alpha rank doesn’t carry any weight with him.”
“Not much does, outside of food.” Darinda let her eyes crack open again and caressed Norman’s spines. He sighed in his sleep. “Are you mommy’s special guy? Oh yes you are.”
“Oy,” Clark said. “You got me out’a bed to hear that?”
“I suppose this bandage I have on is your doing.”
“Right, blame me. There’s a skull-sized hole in the wall downstairs with your signature on it. I followed the flow of blood through your head and there’s no swelling or concussion. You are one hard-headed witch.”
Roderick kissed her cheek. “That’s what makes her special.”
“Screw the both of you,” Darinda muttered. She glanced beyond Clark, to the window. Memories began to filter back, as weak as the late afternoon sunlight on the glass. That fact took a moment to register. “Hey. The sun’s out.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So how did you get here?”
“You want to know how I got here? Let me tell you. I’m down in my cellar, undead to the world, when two of Big Alex’s goons bust in, roust me out of a sound sleep, bundle me up in a tarp and dump me in the trunk of a car, that’s how I got here. Whoever it was let those mutts watch GoodFellas ought’a be shot.”
She looked to Roderick. He shrugged. “They were here. I was desperate.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the ride. Wait’ll you get my bill.”
“Okay, that answers me,” Darinda said. “How’s Cole?”
“That the wolf tartare? He’ll need to change how he spells his name. Your hotheaded little buddy there did quite the number on him.”
“But he’ll live?”
“We think so, yeah. Whatever you slapped on him saved him. Still a lot of serious damage, though. Which I should be treating instead of my assistants, except somebody insisted I stay here to look after his girlfriend. What part of ‘She’ll be all right’ couldn’t you come to grips with?”
Roderick glowered at him. “I wanted to be sure.”
“And to hell with everything else, huh? Cripes, Lowell, where do you find these people? My assistants got Toasted Oats back to the clinic. If he makes it through
the night, I’ll try to get him to shift form. That should help with regeneration. Assuming he makes it, that is.”
“If he makes it, send him to Ellis Duquesne,” Roderick said. “He can ride home with Albert.”
“If you say so. Am I done here? Finally?”
Roderick sniffed Darinda’s bandage and nodded, satisfied. “Yes, you can go.”
“Thanks, Your Majesty.” Clark glanced at the window and the daylight beyond it, and shuddered. “Maybe after dark. You got a pantry or something? Maybe I can still catch a couple of hours.”
Roderick nodded toward the closet. Clark got up and climbed inside. “G’night,” he said, and shut the door.
Darinda curved one arm around Norman, the other around Roderick. “Okay,” she said, “fill me in. Starting with why your mother tried to off me.”
“She had no choice,” Roderick said. “You overpowered her. You, a human, a filthy ape, humiliated her in front of her pack as well as a rival alpha. She had to try to kill you to save face.”
“But I stopped Cole. I saved her damn life!”
“Irrelevant. If you’re to lead the pack with me, you need to think more like a wolf.”
“I don’t think I like that way of thinking. Is she…?”
“Confined to Lorraine’s room, for the time being. Aunt Letty’s looking after her.”
“So she’s still alive,” Darinda murmured. “Do no harm?”
He sniffed. “I forced her to show throat to me before witnesses. I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘harm.’”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“I haven’t decided yet. One of a string of decisions I’ll have to make from here on out.”
She rolled over to face him, forgetting the throb in her head. Her hand cupped his cheek. “This isn’t what you wanted.”
“No. I didn’t want leadership of the pack. I only wanted you. Get one to secure the other, eh?” His fingers brushed the bandage that covered her scalp, and his mouth tightened at it. “I do still have you, don’t I?”
“You never ‘have’ a witch. We go where we will.” She snuggled herself more completely into his arms. “Right here is working wonders for me.”
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