Fox Play (36 page)

I paused in confusion.

"Ah, the fox," Durian said.

I stepped forward to stand next to Lara. "We seem to be missing a wolf," I said. "I was looking forward to seeing Jared again."

"Jared was unable to attend. My head enforcer is taking his place. This is Garth."

"Pleased to meet you," I said. He ignored me. I was fine with that.

"I hope we're done wasting time," Durian said. He pulled out a large packet of money. "There's my fifty thousand," he said, throwing it onto the table. Avery and Garth's packets followed.

I stared. "Ten thousand," I said. "It was to be ten thousand. I don't have fifty. I have ten."

Lara turned to me, and her expression was cold. "I can loan you the difference," she said. "You can take out a loan against your house in Bayfield. I had it appraised and am satisfied of its value."

I stared at her. She had known this was happening and was prepared, but she hadn't told me.

"You want me to wager my house?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Or Elisabeth can take your seat. She has the necessary funds without needing to borrow from me."

I stared for a minute. "All right," I said. "Fine."

Lara slipped a set of papers to me. They were a loan agreement for forty thousand dollars with my house as collateral. The interest rate was twelve percent, and she could foreclose on my house if I grew more than three months behind in payments.

"Twelve percent in this market?"

"You are free to search for better terms elsewhere," Lara told me. "Or as I said, Elisabeth can take your place."

This clearly was the wrinkle Elisabeth had warned me about. I signed the papers, Lara handed me a packet with forty thousand dollars, which I counted carefully, and then Durian signed the papers as witness, smiling broadly.

I wondered how much property he had stolen in just this fashion, offering loans at outrageous terms and then foreclosing on the resulting property.

Lara collected the paperwork.

"I do not want the responsibility of holding the money this time," I said.

Garth laughed. "Like we would trust a fox."

"We'll use the safe," Lara said. "It is biometrically controlled. Durian and I will both be required to open it afterwards."

Lara provided a box for the money. She counted Durian's money and set it in the box. Durian counted hers. Lara counted Avery's. Vivian handed her money to Lara, who handed it to Durian, and he counted it. Lara counted Garths and added it to the substantial stack of cash in the box. I gave Lara my money and then watched as she counted it, twice, before giving it to Durian.

I looked away. It wasn't hard to display hurt at the insult she'd given me. Durian counted my money, and it went into the box. Lara closed it, then she and Durian together moved to the end of the room. Lara slid aside a painting. "It's unlocked," Lara said. She demonstrated that it would indeed require both of them to open it, then they put the money box in and locked it tightly, sliding the painting back into place.

There was a bar set up in the room. It wasn't normally there. "Michaela, bring me a bottle of water."

Suddenly all the wolves added their orders to the mix, with Durian's and his two wolves ordering beers. His enforcers demanded beer as well.

Lara and I hadn't discussed this, but again, I trusted her and followed her lead. I moved to the bar and brought the alpha's their requested drinks. Then Lara said, "Better yet, bring me a beer, too." So I returned with a beer for her as well, then set beers on the table for Durian's wolves. No way was I crossing to that side of the table, not with the way they were all looking at me.

I sat back down after retrieving my own water, and I felt Lara's hand waiting for me. She squeezed once and released.

Lara passed out the poker chips and invited Durian to deal.

Lara and Vivian spent the next hour displaying their false tells. Durian and Avery did the same, but their real tells hadn't changed, and I could read them easily. Garth though, Garth was dead stupid. He didn't even have false tells. He had nothing but real tells, and they were based on one simple principle: he was a bully.

Lara took money from him. So did Vivian. I bided my time, folding down hands I should have kept while establishing my scent tell. I didn't know if it would matter, but I wanted to be prepared.

Avery took a large pot from Garth and Vivian and was pleased with himself, but Vivian had taken several from Garth, and she was doing okay.

Durian demanded another beer, looking pointedly at me. I retrieved fresh drinks for everyone.

I drew a good hand and played it, taking a modest pot in which only Vivien and Durian had folded, but no one had bet heavily. Garth said, "The fox smells funny."

I shrugged. "I smell like a fox, I suppose," I said.

He began to smile, and it was clear he thought he had my scent tell.

It was a dozen hands later when Garth had a good hand, but mine was better. We both bid it up, everyone else folding out, and then he smiled at me. I was imagining the lousy hand I wasn't holding and was sure I wasn't giving away my scent tell.

Garth went all in. I had more money than he did by then and matched his final raise. When the cards were exposed, he stared. He was cleaned out, the last pot I'd taken from him holding twenty thousand of his dollars, the rest spread around to the rest of us fairly evenly.

"You cheated!" he screamed and launched himself across the corner of the table at me.

What happened next was gruesome. The attack had come out of nowhere. We'd known that Durian wanted me for a fox hunt, we absolutely had known that, and none of us had considered that I would be the target of a sudden attack of rage. It had never come up in any of our conversations.

There wasn't an enforcer remotely close enough to protect me. Lara was close, but I was between here and Garth.

Lara started to scream, "No!"

Durian reached out a hand to pull his enforcer back into his seat, but found only open air.

Lara began to move from her seat, but she was going to be late, way too late to protect me.

Werewolf reactions are fast, exceedingly fast, but there are certain laws of inertia that still need to be overcome. Fox-sized inertia is much lower than wolf-sized, and fox reflexes were much faster than a wolf's. To top it off, Garth was incensed with anger and accustomed to fighting based on brute strength, probably with absolutely no finesse at all.

Garth was still in his chair, just leaving it, by the time I slipped sideways out of my chair.

Durian's hand was just closing on empty space when Garth's hand reached through the space that I'd occupied a few milliseconds previously.

And my silver daggers were in my hands.

I ducked under Garth's reach and stabbed upwards with my right hand as he passed over me, my silver dagger penetrating his throat, ripping out sideways due to his own motion as I hung onto the handle.

My left hand shoved upwards after that, entering his stomach immediately under his ribcage. I shoved upwards as hard as I could, my hand disappearing into his stomach up to my wrist. I felt when the tip of the dagger pierced his heart.

That dagger was wrenched from my grasp as Garth's body, fueled now only by inertia, continued past me. I dropped to the ground, pulling my hand out of Garth's stomach, his blood spraying me as he flew past. I reached under my skirt and withdrew a third dagger to replace the one still buried somewhere in Garth's body.

Elisabeth and Eric were both in motion, moving towards me.

Lara's attention remained on Garth, her hands grasping for him, and she followed him to the floor, landing on top of him, but he was already gurgling out his last breath.

I crouched, grasping my daggers, facing Durian's wolf, my heart hammering in my chest. Elisabeth was suddenly in front of me, and Eric too, and then no one moved.

I listened as Garth died, Lara's growl filling the room. There was noise from the hallway, but Elisabeth and Durian both yelled, "Stay outside!"

Lara straightened. I glanced over briefly. There was blood on her hands and in her clothes. She had gotten sprayed, although perhaps not as badly as I had.

"That was against orders," Durian stated.

Lara faced him. "We both know you have a different plan than that. Are we agreed he engaged in an unprovoked attack, and my fox was fully in her rights to lethally defend herself.

"Yes," he said.

"Daddy," Avery whined. "She should pay!"

"Shut up, Avery," Durian said. "Garth was a fucking idiot."

I hadn't moved from where I was, crouched down, covered in blood, holding my two daggers in front of me, peering between Elisabeth's and Eric's legs.

Durian turned to his two enforcers. "Stand down."

They both relaxed against the wall.

"May I suggest a break while we clean up the mess?" Lara said. "Thirty minutes?"

"Of course," Durian said.

"Perhaps it would be best if your enforcer from the hall took care of the body."

"I want my dagger," I said in a small voice. "I want my dagger!" I probably wasn't thinking clearly, but that dagger had helped save my live, and I wanted it back.

"There's no dagger, honey," Lara said gently.

Without taking my eyes off Durian and his wolves, I stepped sideways then reached down with my bloody right hand into the wound in Garth's stomach. I found the handle of my dagger, but it was lodged inside, and I couldn't draw it out.

"Lara," I said, and I began to shake.

Lara reached down, wrapped her hand around mine, and together we pulled the dripping dagger from Garth's body.

"Don't touch it," I told her. "It's silver."

"Give them to Elisabeth, honey," she said quietly. "Give all of them to Elisabeth."

I set them on the table, everyone in the room watching me, staring at the blood along the tip of the dagger from my right hand, the blood on the handle of the one I'd drawn from my ankle, and the third one bathed entirely in Garth's blood.

Durian called to his enforcer to come in and clean up the mess. The enforcer looked shocked, but Durian told him, "Get that piece of meat out of here," and the enforcer had bent to the task.

Then Lara picked me up. I clutched at her, and she carried me from the room, Elisabeth following. She ordered enforcers into the room to help secure it, but by then I was shaking so badly I couldn't think straight.

Lara carried me home. I held my tears in long enough to get into our house, then I began sobbing. Lara carried me straight to our bathroom, set me down in the shower, and removed my clothes by the expedient of tearing them from my body. She turned on the water, stepped into the shower herself, and then removed her own clothes the same way she had removed mine.

I sobbed the entire time she gently washed me, and I realized she was checking me over to make sure I wasn't hurt. Then we clung together.

Francesca and Serena arrived at our room; they were waiting with warm, fresh towels. I let myself be treated like a child; they dried me off then sat me down and dried and brushed my hair.

Lara couldn't stop touching me, and I clutched at her. Serena and Francesca just worked around that, everyone making soothing noises.

I got myself under control even before Lara did. I looked into her eyes, and she was livid, but when she looked at me, it was with the deepest pride.

"Number eight?" she asked.

"What?"

"You killed seven when you were fourteen," she said. "Was that your eighth?"

I stared at her and didn't answer. It wasn't my eighth. I didn't intend to tell her how many I'd killed during the time I'd been running. I began to shake again, thinking about it, but I breathed deeply of Lara's scent and calmed myself.

They dressed me. They tried to put me in tight clothing, but I said, "No!" And wouldn't relent until I was dressed loosely. But I wore a shorter skirt, then strapped my dagger sheaths in place. Elisabeth stepped forward and slipped my now cleaned and dried daggers into their sheaths, then she put her hands on my shoulders and started into my eyes.

"You follow orders for shit, little fox." Then she pulled me into a crushing hug. "And I'm so glad you do."

"You ordered me to stay safe," I said. "I think I followed my orders to a tee."

She laughed. "Yes, little fox, perhaps you did."

All four of them fussed at me. I stood up straight and said, "We have two more wolves to fleece, and I am not sure the excitement is over. I wouldn't suppose I could get a little bite to eat?"

"I'm warming some chicken," Francesca said. "Will that do?"

"Thank you."

"You are staying here," Lara said.

"Like hell I am!" I said. "I am finishing what I started."

"Do not argue with me," she said.

"I'm not arguing," I said. "I am stating a fact. I think I earned it, Alpha."

"I think she did too," said Elisabeth. "Damn, Michaela, you were fast."

"You could have gotten killed," Lara said.

"Durian was almost as upset about it as you were," I said. "He tried to stop Garth, but he wasn't fast enough."

"I didn't see that," Lara said.

"I did. Let's go."

Francesca fed me, and as long as we were in the kitchen, Lara and Elisabeth ate a little to settle their stomachs as well. I turned to Francesca and thanked her for the food, then suggested, "Word gets out fast. You may want to call Angel and tell her you just fed me a huge fox sized meal of an entire chicken thigh."

She smiled. "I'll call her."

Once we stepped out of the house, every pack member currently on the compound was waiting for me. As I walked towards the barracks, they reached out and touched me. Gia stepped into my path and pulled me into a hug. Then so did Rory and Karen. I whispered into Karen's ear, "Thank you." It was her training that helped me. "Tell Greg I'll be thanking him later."

She nodded, and then Elisabeth held the door for the barracks.

"You don't have to do this," Lara said.

"Are you kidding? There's another hundred thousand dollars with my name waiting for me, and I want it!"

Lara laughed nervously. "Please don't joke," she said.