Saved by the Lion

by Selina Woods

  Stepping off him, I glanced over to see Hyde shaking his victim’s blood from his face and mane, the enforcer dead at his feet with a crushed face and skull. He saw me watching him, licking blood from my lips, and said, “This was almost too easy.”

  “We caught them by surprise,” I replied, “and they were stupid.”

  The sound of the gunshot brought the guards in on the run, breaking the front door down, splintering it from its jamb under the great weight of their lion bodies. Freddy, the wolf, leaped in behind them ready for battle, yet he gazed around in consternation.

  “You don’t leave us enough to do, boss,” he complained, strolling over to sniff the corpses. Then he hiked his rear leg to piss on the nearest. I laughed.

  “I think you did plenty right there,” I said.

  “Should we hang these guys up as we did that other?” Hyde asked me.

  “I wouldn’t want to scare the residents,” I replied, sitting on my haunches to lick the blood from my paws. “We’d have to pack them into my SUV, and I don’t want blood on the carpet.”

  “We can roll them up into something, boss,” Freddy said. “We need to send a message to those bastards.”

  “He’s right,” Hyde added. “No one will get the message with these guys rotting here.”

  “Very well,” I answered, shifting into my two-legged form, and the others followed my example. “Spread out, let’s see what we can find. Look for rope, too.”

  We rolled the bodies into rugs on the floor, and while my guards dragged them out the broken front door, Hyde and I went back for the SUV. “We’ll hang them up several blocks from your restaurant,” I told him. “I want you out of it as much as possible.”

  He shrugged. “They may still see me as the enemy, but I appreciate the effort.”

  The guards tossed the corpses into the rear hatch and climbed into the back seat. As there wasn’t enough room for everyone, and I wouldn’t let any of them run on four legs with the night stalkers emerging, three elected to sit on the roof. I grinned up at them. “Don’t fall off now.”

  Driving slowly and keeping a wary eye out for the packs of roving stalkers, I headed back to the downtown area and pulled to the curb six blocks from the restaurant. The place I chose to hang my messages was often busy and frequented by enforcers. In their human forms, the corpses were easy for us to hang by their feet with their heads down, blood still oozing to drip onto the cement sidewalk.

  “We got company, boss,” Freddy said as we tied the ropes off.

  “Who?” I began, then I saw them.

  Chapter Ten

  About twenty shifters approached from down the street, a mixture of enforcers with guns, and what I suspected were night stalkers on four legs. Lions and wolves, and a single tiger, strolled openly toward us, their ears flattened in silent menace.

  “What the—” Hyde began.

  “I’m guessing the enforcers and their crazy compatriots have joined forces,” I replied.

  “Boss, more coming from the other direction.”

  I spun to look. Sure enough, another dozen of the same mixture of shifters on four and two legs, the guys with hands holding guns. All of them had handguns, yet my guards carried semiautomatic rifles. That helped our odds, yet we were still grossly outnumbered. I pulled my weapon from my jeans.

  With no weapon save his teeth and claws, Hyde shifted into his lion body.

  “Back to back,” I ordered swiftly. “Shoot anything that moves.”

  The guards always carried extra magazines for their semiautomatic rifles. Thus, I hoped for a quick but messy conclusion to this confrontation. My gun held only thirteen bullets, and I had no extra. “Fire!” I bellowed.

  I started shooting at the enforcers who now charged forward, yelling, the lions, wolves, and the tiger racing ahead of them. My boys fired their rifles, mowing down enforcers and stalkers alike. The enforcers fired back even as they ran, and a choked-off grunt informed me at least one of my crew was hit. I took careful aim, trying to make every shot count.

  Despite our greater firepower, shifters still got through, and now my gun only clicked when I pulled the trigger. Throwing it to the side, I shifted forms and lunged at another lion. We slammed into one another, our fangs clashing, our claws ripping at shoulders, ribs. Rearing back on my hind legs, I sought to throw him off his paws with my greater weight.

  Perhaps knowing what I tried to do, he leaped out from under me, and I struck asphalt, not lion. Still, my speed was greater than his, nor was I half-insane from drug use. As fast as he jumped sideways, my front claws slashed across his muzzle and one eye. He screamed, backing away, blood gushing from where his eye once was.

  I followed, snarling, charging in from his blindside, raking more deep gashes in his face. Though he should have accepted defeat and fled from me, perhaps he might have stood a chance to escape, he continued to fight. He aimed his right front claws at my face, maybe thinking he could do for me what I did to him. Instead of ducking away, I caught his leg in my jaws.

  I crunched down.

  His roar of panic and rage might have terrified one of lesser nerves than me. His front leg, though shattered, still caught in my teeth, I shook him hard, back and forth while forcing myself backward, dragging him with me. I might have torn his leg off, but with an incredible lunge, he ripped his foreleg from my jaws.

  Then he turned to run.

  Big mistake. With his back to me, he was now my victim. And on three legs, far too slow. I spat skin and fur from my mouth, and charged him, leaping onto his rear quarters. Biting deep into his spine even as he tried to twist, squalling, to both throw me off and fight me, I clamped my jaws tight. I held on as he fought, screaming, using every ounce of my strength.

  His spine broke.

  His rear end collapsed as his scream of anguish and agony ripped through the night. I let him go to step back, watching him writhe and shriek, unable to walk or fight. Panting lightly, I turned back to the battle, seeing three of my guards on the ground. Hyde fought the tiger, both of them on their hind legs, each trying to outflank the other.

  Just before he fired, I saw an enforcer take aim at me. I jumped sideways, and the bullet missed me by a fraction to ricochet off the pavement with a sharp whine. He corrected his aim, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. Empty.

  “You’re my bitch,” I snarled, charging at him at full speed.

  He shifted forms before I reached him, but his wolf was no match for me. He fought for his life, but one sweep of my claws laid open his face, neck, and ribcage. Howling, he tried to rip into my shoulder with his fangs, but I spun away and pounced. He went down, thrashing, his teeth finding only my thick mane as mine ripped his throat wide open.

  Leaving him to bleed out, kicking and his jaws snapping down on nothing, I searched for another enemy to fight. Hyde, bleeding from deep cuts all over his body, had his fangs locked on the tiger’s throat. The tiger beat ineffectually, but his paws couldn’t come close to him as he slowly suffocated. All around, the dead and the dying lay on the street.

  Freddy and two guards remained standing, turning their rifles this way and that, looking into the darkness for another enemy to shoot.

  “Holy shit,” Freddy gasped, gazing past the bodies on the ground.

  I looked at what he stared at. Yet another group of enforcers and stalkers headed toward us, perhaps fifteen of them. Like the others, the enforcers held handguns, and the stalkers paced toward us on four legs. “Shit is right,” I panted, knowing we’d never survive another attack.

  But I’ll go down fighting. My thoughts roamed to Iliana, and I hoped the guards would hold true and get her out of there once I was killed. Even then, I knew she’d most likely die while they raped her. Their loyalty would die with me.

  Suddenly, gunfire exploded, and it wasn’t aimed at us. The shifters screamed, several dropping to the ground with blood bursting from their bodies, others trying to turn to shoot at whoever shot them down. But the gunmen from the rear had s
emiautomatic weapons, and fired almost continually, the coughing barks melding into one another. A few lions and wolves tried to flee but were also gunned down before they managed a dozen leaping strides.

  “Holy shit,” Freddy repeated, stunned, and I almost echoed him.

  Two tall shifters strode toward us, walking through the dead and dying, pausing to casually shoot a wounded creature on the ground before passing on.

  “Who the hell are those guys?” Freddy asked, bewildered.

  “I have no idea.”

  Hyde stood beside me as the pair continued to walk toward us, getting closer, and I knew that if they chose to shoot us, we were dead, helpless to run or fight back. Yet they lifted their big rifles to their shoulders, their grins gleaming in the faint light. I choked back a gasp of shock as I recognized them.

  They each had a lightning bolt tattoo on their left cheek.

  “You’re a hard lion to catch, Griffin,” said the one on the left.

  “Do I know you guys?”

  “You would if you hadn’t lost us that night,” replied the other cheerfully. “We had intended to introduce ourselves.”

  I found myself stared at by Freddy, the two surviving guards, and Hyde. “What do you want with me?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  The cheerful one scratched his head, grinning. “We can answer one of those questions. I’m Pierce, and this grouchy fellow is Kincaid.”

  “So, what do you want?” I asked again, not quite willing to trust them, even though they just saved our hides.

  “Just know that we’re here to protect you,” Kincaid said. “We’ve taken an oath never to reveal anything about the people who sent us to you. But we will die to keep you alive.”

  Hyde shifted into his human form, swaying slightly on his feet. “I, er, I think I need Iliana’s help.”

  He then promptly collapsed onto the asphalt. I knelt beside him, fearing he’d die. Bleeding profusely, he blinked up at me and tried to grin. “I think I passed out for a moment. Help me up.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Pierce said, crouching beside me. “We have a car back yonder.”

  “More of your former enforcers might come,” Kincaid added. “We didn’t see any others, but they might be in hiding.”

  I dug into my pocket and tossed Freddy the keys to my SUV. “Go get my car,” I said.

  He ran to get it while I jerked my head at the other two guards. “Put the noisy fellows out of the misery, would you?”

  They nodded and obeyed, and single gunshots rang through the air, stilling the wails and screams of the dying. Pierce helped me to get Hyde on his feet, but I didn’t like how pale Hyde’s flesh was. I suspected he’d lost a great deal of blood in his battle with the tiger.

  Freddy brought the SUV over. Pierce helped me get Hyde into the rear seat, half sitting and half lying inside it, wedged in the corner by the door. “Where is your car?” I asked Kincaid.

  “We’ll load into yours, then I’ll jump out when we get to it and follow you.”

  I was forced to drive over the curb in order to avoid the corpses in the middle of the street, then drove where Kincaid directed. I stopped by a long dark sedan and waited until Kincaid got into it. I headed toward the apartment building with Kincaid following and gazed into the rearview mirror.

  “How you doing back there?” I asked.

  “I’ll live,” Hyde answered crankily. “I think.”

  “His bleeding has mostly stopped,” Pierce reported. “But he needs medical attention.”

  “He’ll get it.”

  We encountered no more night stalkers or enforcers out to kill me, but as I drove, I knew that I was now at war. My former crews had decided a change in management was in order, and now that they’d shown their hand, there was nothing that would stop them. From the corner of my eye, I saw Freddy in the front passenger seat watching me.

  “We’re in trouble, aren’t we, boss?”

  I glanced sidelong at him. “Are you planning to join them, Freddy?”

  Expecting him to get defensive, I felt no surprise when he shook his head. “Nope. I hate those guys. I’ll stick by you if you’ll have me.”

  Driving with my left hand on the steering wheel, I stuck out my right toward him. “You got it.”

  He shook it with a grin. “Lots of our boys will stand by you,” he said, then looked over the seat toward the back. “Frankie, Johnny, you with me and the boss?”

  “Damn straight,” replied the one Freddy addressed as Johnny. “I’m getting sick of those guys running loose and killing people. They ain’t civilized at all.”

  As they talked about family members or friends who had been harmed by the enforcers, I wondered when they’d remember I was one of them once. Hoping I personally hadn’t harmed one of their friends, I sped the SUV up, needing to get to the penthouse as fast as possible. The enforcers might join together and attack the building in force.

  I braked hard in front of it, the guards out front staring as I jumped out, observing Brand among them. He stared at my bloodied appearance and stepped toward me, then his eyes were caught by Pierce and his tattoo. He froze, and I knew once again that somehow, someway, he knew what that tattoo meant.

  “Brand,” I snapped, garnering his attention. “The enforcers have declared open war. They’ve joined up with the night stalkers.”

  “What?”

  I helped Pierce and Frankie get Hyde out of the SUV as Kincaid parked behind, and also got out. “They killed three of our guys,” I went on, hoping their bonds of loyalty to one another will keep the guards fighting on my side. However, they were less than fifty all told while the enforcers numbered in the hundreds. “Get everyone inside,” I ordered. “I don’t know if they’ll come here tonight, but we have to be ready if they do.”

  Now was the time. If Brand had ambitions of taking my place, all he had to do was order the guards to gun us all down. He could declare himself lord, and the enforcers might recognize his new authority. Or they could shoot him down and plant one of their own as the new top guy. I held my breath, searching his pale eyes as he gazed at me, and I saw little in them.

  Then he turned. “You heard him,” Brand barked. “Get inside. We’ll lock the elevator so they can’t come up and barricade the door to the stairs. They won’t get past us.”

  Cheers met his orders, and the guards surged inside. I couldn’t stop thinking that we might just effectively have trapped ourselves in the tall building, and if the guards decided I wasn’t worth risking their lives for—

  “Will they stay loyal?”

  I jumped, finding Kincaid at my shoulder. “I don’t know,” I replied. “For tonight, probably. Come tomorrow, they may decide that even if the enforcers want their heads alongside mine, there is a big world out there and little to stop them from going.”

  “Then at least we’re safe for tonight,” he answered, his stormy gray eyes staring into mine. “Your enemies may take a day or two to gather.”

  We started to follow the guards inside, Kincaid still talking. “They don’t have a leader that all are willing to fight for, not from what I saw tonight. They are howling for your blood, but unless they have a strong leader to unite behind, they’ll flounder in fits and starts.”

  “This isn’t a democracy, either,” I muttered. “It may take a few days of infighting to decide who is the fittest to lead. That may buy us some time.”

  The guards flowed through the stairwell door and up as Brand, Freddy, and Pierce, still holding Hyde upright, waited for us at the elevator. We joined them inside, and Brand pushed the button for the top floor. It rose upward smoothly, and I watched Brand as he eyed Kincaid and Pierce closely. Mentally planning to corner him and demand him tell me what he knows, I glanced at Hyde. He gave me a quick grin and a wink, then the doors slid open.

  Iliana, reading a book on the couch, jumped off it with a strangled cry the moment she saw us. “Dad!” she shrieked, running toward us.

  I caught her before she threw he
rself at him. “We need your expertise,” I told her. “There’s a medical kit in the second bathroom. He’ll be all right, Iliana, I promise.”

  “He’s right,” Hyde said wearily, sinking to the couch she just vacated. “I need stitches and sleep, girl.”

  Iliana, her blue eyes bigger than normal, stared from him to me and back again. “A-all right.” She swallowed hard, then turned to rush to the other side of the penthouse.

  “You’re Griffin’s lieutenant?” Kincaid asked Brand, holing out his hand to shake. “Kincaid. This is Pierce.”

  “Brand.” He shook with them. “I’m going to organize the defense of this place,” he said to me. “I’ll gather the guys on the floor below this one. If they come, we’ll have the advantage of firing down on them.”

  I had the only key to the elevator. “I’ll take the elevator down a couple of floors, then lock it. I’ll come back up via the stairs.”

  Kincaid eyed me. “We can keep them at bay if they come up the stairwell,” he said, his voice low. “But all they have to do is set fire to the structure.”

  “I know. That’s why we have to get out of here by tomorrow. Find another safe place, one we can fight from that’s easier to protect.”

  He seemed about to say something, but Pierce called his name from across the room. “Right.”

  Following Pierce and Brand to organize a defense of the building, I went to the elevator and rode it down three floors. Stepping out, I locked the car in place, then ran for the stairs. The floors below mine held the lavish apartments my guards lived in, and Brand had a floor suite all of his own. I headed up the stairs, finding my guards on the floor below the penthouse.

  They had spread out to watch the streets and parking lots below, Brand, Pierce, and Kincaid moving among them to inform them of what to expect and what to do. I watched for a few minutes, wondering how long I’d live if they decided obedience to a gang lord on the brink didn’t last the night. Pierce and Kincaid still had their semiautomatic rifles, and I had a few in the penthouse, but ammunition wouldn’t last forever.