by Marie Harte
She knew that. But having Alan in her corner meant a lot. “Yeah, but I’ll have the senior council on my side. And I can just intimidate the rest of them.”
“Wonderful,” he said dryly. “Miles had more charm than you do.”
“He also missed half of what’s going on,” she said bluntly. “I love him, but he’s too arrogant sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
They shared a laugh. Before she could say anything else, Alan’s amusement faded. He looked worriedly over her shoulder.
She spun around, putting herself between the oncoming danger she could sense and the senior judge.
“Don’t do that. I’m not an invalid.”
She ignored him. Seeing Quince, she relaxed but couldn’t altogether shake her unease. “What’s wrong?”
He looked mad enough to chew through steel. “Here. Message from those fuckhead birds. They have Miles.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Alissa Roberto came storming after Quince. “Hold on a minute. I said wait.” She took long strides to catch up but still managed to look as fresh as a daisy.
“You.” It took everything Zoe had not to backslap the woman into yesterday. “This is your fucking fault.”
“Excuse me?” Alissa planted her hands on her slender hips and glared.
“You put them up at your hotel. You hid them when you should have—”
“Now hold on. I run one of five hotels. That particular hotel has over four hundred rooms, and approximately sixteen hundred people at any given time. How the hell am I supposed to keep track of which guests are birds? Besides, from what I hear, you were the one slumming around with roosters in Baltimore. Now it’s my problem they nabbed Miles?” She huffed.
“Listen, you uppity bitch, I—”
Quince yanked her back before Zoe did something Alissa—not Zoe—would regret.
Alissa scowled at her. “The reason I’m here is that those assholes are using my hotel as their meeting place. I’ve cleared out the grand ballroom for a six o’clock party. And the room is full.”
Zoe frowned. “Full how? The last I checked, only two-dozen raptors had stayed behind. The rest migrated back to Maryland.”
“Well, genius, it appears your intel was way off. The birds, all five hundred strong, are drinking my booze, eating my food and threatening a complete takeover of the Roberto Towers if you don’t show up to deal with them. That and they promised to string Miles up by his designer thumbs.” She sniffed. “So what’s your plan of attack? Well, pride leader? How are you going to make this go away?”
Zoe felt a sense of a panic she immediately quelled. Her first true challenge. The huntress inside her couldn’t wait to handle those who dared encroach on her territory. Threatening her mate?
“Do they know he’s mine?” she asked Alissa. That wouldn’t be good. A pride leader was worth a lot, but keeping her mate hostage would ensure they had an even bigger hold over her.
Alissa rolled her eyes. “Not from me, Ms. Love Connection. I’m not stupid. He’s a bargaining chip, as they see it. Our pride leader. Between holding him and my hotel hostage, they’re threatening with some valuable markers. So I ask again, what do you plan to do?”
All eyes fell on her. Her first inclination was to find Lisette and tear out her throat. Then do the same to Brian. Oscar, that wuss, she’d save for last… But a hundred panthers, and actually less than that not counting the incapacitated or young, couldn’t stand against five times as many warring birds and come out the victor.
Unless…
Zoe’s smile grew as she considered the many options she had fighting against the enemy on her home turf. “Alissa, stall them. Tell them I’ll be there at six. But they touch one hair on Miles’s head, and I’ll kill Lisette, Oscar and Brian. And I don’t care who takes me out, but those three won’t live to see their victory.”
“Not bad.” Alissa considered her. “But you’d better have something better up your sleeve than empty threats. They’re not that bright, I grant you, but even they can do the math. Their numbers overwhelm ours without question.”
“Thanks so much for the pep talk, Alissa,” she said sarcastically.
“Whatever. You wanted to be head bitch, you got it. Now fix this mess. I have a business to run.” She turned on her heel and stalked away.
The silence grew.
“You have a plan?” Alan asked slowly.
“Of course she does. She might not look too bright, but she gets her smarts from my mother.” Quince forced a laugh, but she saw his worry.
She smacked him in the back of the head.
“Ow. Damn it. What was that for?”
“For doubting me. Of course I have a plan. Get me the Cotton brothers. I need Sam here now. And bring Jace and Ellis, Rain and the others. The females too, Quince. Dana, Willow and Joy are needed. This isn’t the time to protect, it’s time to take back by force. I need fifty of our strongest here ASAP.”
“Yeah, yeah.” A spark lit his eyes, the need to battle, same as she felt. “Trust me. Joy wouldn’t let me leave her behind. She fights dirty. We can use her.” Quince darted away, dialing madly on his cell phone.
Alan seemed to perk up. “And what would you like me to do?”
“Get all the children and elderly to safety. I want you, Sims, Nettles and my mother watching over our most vulnerable. Take them out to the House and spread out. Make sure the cats are prepared if we have to fight back.”
He nodded. “Been a long time since we’ve trained to fight in an all-out war.”
“And that’s going to change. We need better keepsafes.”
“On that I agree.”
“We’ll be lucky if Hunters don’t get wind of something this big going down. Stupid-ass birds are going to out us all.” Hunters—humans who killed Shifters— were bad for everyone. When she got a hold of Lisette, she planned to wring the woman’s neck.
Alan cleared his throat and clapped her on the back. “Zoe? If I could offer one piece of advice?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck them up but good.”
She blinked and had a hearty laugh.
Alan raced away, and she hustled back to the main house and cleared some space in the office. She refused to consider anything bad happening to Miles. Fear held no place in her heart. Not now. Purpose and a clear sense of her destiny poured through her animal spirit, and she growled as she reached for the phone.
While she waited for the other line to pick up, she muttered under her breath, “Oh, Lisette. You, honey, are going to pay. Dearly.”
Miles had no idea what to expect. He ran through a list of things in his head, but biding his time in the ballroom of Roberto Towers for hours on end wasn’t one of them. “Can I at least get the financial section?” he asked Oscar, who surprisingly had been the sanest one of the feather heads. Underneath all that fluff sat a man of keen intellect. Too bad he let his wife hold his balls. He would have made a formidable ally if they had been in the middle of negotiating contracts.
“I’m still looking at it, but you can have it as soon as I’m done,” Oscar offered.
“Thanks.” Miles glanced around. He sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by the largest warriors present. Probably golden or bald eagles. As both avian and human, they grew massive. He couldn’t help wondering just what Brian and Lisette thought they were doing.
This many Ac-taw in one place invariably brought Hunters. But in the event that didn’t happen, did the raptors really believe they could take over the city because they had numbers? For that matter, why had their pride not sensed so many raptors so close before now?
We’ve gotten lazy, his cat admitted. Too fat and happy doing human things. Then the cat purred, But Zoe will change all that.
If she could. What looked like several hundred raptors had crammed into a space with an occupancy limit of three hundred. He knew because he’d hosted several soirees in the Towers’s ballroom. His estimation put them anywhere from four to six hundred, e
asy. Shit.
He looked for Brian, who sat at an expansive table to his right, surrounded by sycophants and his sister. A few female groupies tittered and hung on to his every word. They all looked like rejects from an eighties movie, wearing shitty dresses and too much blue eye shadow. He wanted to offer some fashion advice, but he remembered how poorly both Brian and Lisette had taken it.
He sighed and stood. None of the birds around him twitched. Honestly, what could he do, one against however many hundred? Miles approached Brian and put on his perturbed face. His brows touched and he frowned while checking his watch.
“It’s time. Now what?”
Brian turned from one woman baring entirely too much cleavage and sneered, “Why, afraid for your bitch of a leader?”
“I have things to do. My flight was delayed, and I could really use a shower.”
Brian frowned, as did Lisette. “Don’t you care at all that you’re about to be wiped from the city? You’ll be lucky if we let you live.”
Miles arched a brow. “You have met Zoe before, haven’t you? You keep calling her a bitch. So I’m assuming you’ve had extensive interaction. She is very territorial, and if you think she’s going to let you waltz in here and waltz out after all this?” He glanced around him. The birds had demolished several tables and chairs and busted two very expensive chandeliers. Alissa would be livid. “I’m going to sit over with Oscar and hope none of you get blood on my new suit. This is an original, and it cost a pretty penny.” And he looked damn good in it.
He winked at the females now ignoring Brian in favor of him. At least they showed some sense of taste.
Brian stood, but before he could respond, the two main doors at the front of the ballroom opened. Finally.
Miles strolled back to his seat and took the paper Oscar willingly offered.
“Just remember I was nice to you,” Oscar whispered.
“No problem. I appreciated your take on the Harrelson merger. We’ll have to talk again soon.”
Oscar gave him a shy smile. Poor guy. Burdened with Lisette and Brian. Such uncivilized morons.
Zoe strolled into the room surrounded by her lieutenants, some of the tougher enforcers, and…Sam Cotton? She’d brought maybe two dozen men and women into a party of five or six hundred. Well, she’d always said she had bigger balls than most.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said with bite, wanting to appear vexed and not nervous as hell. He tamped down his fear scent and used anger instead. “Where was my ride at the airport?”
She frowned at him, gave him a subtle once-over, and sneered back. Good. She had her game face on. “Francis is more than upset. You couldn’t have called?”
“I wanted to, but they took my phone.” He nodded at Brian. “No matter. Tell Francis I’m sorry. If we could hurry this up? I missed lunch, and it’s dinnertime. I’m thinking chicken tonight. I’m in the mood for something tangy.” He winked at Oscar, who looked less than impressed with his sense of humor.
Brian didn’t seem to care for it either. He nodded at the giants behind Miles. They grabbed him hard and yanked him to stand by Brian and Lisette. The rest of the raptors gathered around the small group of panthers walking with way too much confidence into enemy camp.
“We do this one of two ways,” Brian said. “You give over your territory, and we let you go. No one has to get hurt. Well, maybe I take a few of Miles’s teeth. He’s annoying.”
“You have no idea,” she said, and several of the cats with her snickered.
“Hey. I’m a hostage,” Miles complained. “Play it up or they might hurt me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. What’s option number two?”
“We kill you all.”
The birds of prey leaned forward as one. Bloodthirsty lot anticipating carnage.
“Are all of you vultures?” Miles asked, curious.
Lisette glared at him. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Nice mouth,” Zoe said with a snort. “Goes with the trampy getup. How about option number three? We have a raptor brawl. Winner takes all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Everyone around began talking at once, until Brian yelled at them to quiet down. He gave Zoe an insulting once-over. “Why the hell would I do that when I already own your ass?”
Miles didn’t like the tone or the look. He figured he could rip out Brian’s spine before the fucker took his next breath. Miles wouldn’t survive the aftermath of the attack, of course, nor would his one-of-a-kind suit, but in the melee, Zoe would surely put her plan into motion to free herself and the pride from this blackmail. She had to have brought more backup than what she appeared to have.
But before he could do something stupid, Quince made a loud noise.
Lisette frowned at him. “What was that?”
Quince coughed, and a feather fell to the floor. “Had chicken for lunch. Hope that wasn’t one of your relatives.”
The cats roared with laughter while the birds closed around them tighter, circling before preparing to go in for the kill. Again with the chicken gag. Zoe and her lieutenants needed to work on being a bit more PC when faced with certain death.
She raised a hand and they grew silent. “Sorry, poor joke. My brother has a stupid sense of humor.” She glared at him over her shoulder, and big bad Quince gave her a sheepish apology.
Miles was getting whiplash trying to catch anyone’s eye. Granted, he’d been playing along, but he wanted to know how the hell Zoe thought they could finesse their way out of this one. And then she told him.
“Okay, here’s option that three I mentioned, and I suggest you take it. This guy here might look kind of geeky.” She thumbed in the direction of Sam Cotton.
“Gee, thanks.” Sam shoved his glasses higher and scowled.
“But he’s hell on wheels with a computer. Now Sam, show them the laptop.”
He held out the slender laptop in his hand. “Can I put it on the table so you can see better?” he asked Brian.
Brian looked as confused as everyone else. The raptors whispered among themselves. “Go ahead. This won’t take long, will it?”
Sam smiled. From what Miles recalled of the college grad, Sam was some kind of computer genius with a snarky attitude. No doubt he and Zoe were now best pals.
“Okay. I’ll keep this simple.” He punched a few keys and Miles saw a large graph appear. “These are your assets now.”
Brian leaned closer. “What…? Oscar, come here.”
Oscar hustled around the table. “That’s our condensed portfolio.” He frowned. “Where did you get that information?”
Sam hit another button, and the lines on the graph shifted. “And this is your net worth now. The money just jumped into an offshore account that’s managed by us.”
No one made a sound until Miles started laughing. Damn if Zoe hadn’t done it. She’d taken down an overpowering opponent without cutting a single throat. “Okay, that’s just impressive any way you look at it.”
“But that’s not how we have to leave things,” she said over the growing noise once more. The room quieted on a dime. “If you don’t want that to become your new reality, you’ll hear me out.”
“I could kill you all now,” Brian threatened.
One of the assholes holding Miles wrenched his arm back, and he bit his lip to keep from yelling out when his arm shifted in the socket. Not quite out of the socket, but damn, he fucking hurt.
Zoe didn’t flinch or otherwise react. God, he loved her.
“Yes, you could. It would be a smart move on your part,” she agreed. “Except then you’ll be the man who bankrupted his nest. I doubt you’ll be looked upon too favorably by your constituents.”
“Brian?” Bill asked.
“That can’t be right,” Lisetted cried. “Oscar?”
He was bent over, reading the screen. “I’m afraid it is. Hold on.” He pulled out a cell phone and talked to someone in a hushed voice. Then he slapped his cell phone closed, looking pale. “We’re tappe
d.”
“Or,” Zoe continued. “You could do what’s considered honorable among Ac-taw. Like what I’m proposing. Battle to the finish. Our champion versus yours. We win, you go home and don’t come back unless you want a real war and to be bankrupted for life.”
“We win?” Brian asked. His forehead shone with sweat.
Good, you bastard. How do you feel about dealing with a “weak” female now?
“You win, we hand over our territory and take off. Our earnings are our own, but you get property rights.”
“Zoe,” he growled. That was ridiculous.
“How do I know you won’t renege?” Brian taunted, no doubt trying to look tougher than he was feeling.
“I’m not the one who kidnapped your pride leader. I’m not the one currently outnumbered five-to-one. I am, however, one of two people who know the password to the account Sam shifted your money into. And I’m happy to go to my grave with that secret. Harm any of the cats with me, and you’ll chance killing the other guy or gal with the code.”
Brian fumed.
“Nicely done,” Miles congratulated her.
“Thanks.”
Brian glared at her. “You want to fight Ac-taw to Ac-taw?” A chancy engagement. Raptors could be big and had large talons, but against an enraged panther with sharp teeth and claws, it would be a draw to know who might win.
“No. Human-to-human.”
Brian looked them over, and Miles knew what he saw. Big and tough cats, but none of them were as huge as the small guard around Miles. What the hell did he feed these birds anyway? Worms on steroids?
With a sly smile, Brian motioned to one of the guys behind Miles. “Fine. Harold, come forward.”
The biggest, meanest dickhead among them rounded the tables and stood a head taller than Brian.
Miles sighed. Fine. He tugged his arms free from the guys holding him and started to take off his jacket when Zoe shook her head.