Raphael smiled. “Big talk for a man in a dress.”
“It’s not a dress. It’s robes, which are my work clothes. You know, work? The thing real men do?”
Uh-oh.
“Real men, huh?” Raphael was still smiling, and the hint of insanity in his eyes made him look slightly unhinged.
“What was your job again?” Roman frowned, pretending to think. “Ah yes. Don’t you stand there and look pretty to impress female visitors? You’re really good at that. No real skill involved. Not much of a retirement for that kind of thing, though. Doesn’t help to keep a wife and kids fed either. Unless you find a rich old lady and hope she puts you in her will…”
He did not just say that.
Raphael froze, momentarily stricken speechless.
“How old would the old lady have to be?” Ascanio asked. “Old like forty?”
“Go back to Aunt B and stay with her,” Raphael said. His voice was eerily calm. Uh-oh.
“Yes, Alpha.” Ascanio spun on his heel and took off.
Raphael had removed him from immediate danger.
“What are you two doing?” I asked them. “Don’t we have a bigger fish to fry?”
“Stay out of it,” Raphael told me. “This is between him and me.”
I knew that look. It was his “I will do this or die trying” look.
“I have to concur,” Roman said. “This is an A-B conversation.”
Two idiots. “Fine,” I said. “Knock yourselves out.”
Raphael focused on Roman with the unwavering concentration of a predator sighting his prey. “Right now. Let’s go.”
Roman grinned. “Sure.”
Raphael stretched, rolling his head left to right.
Roman stood, picked up his staff, and spun it like a Shaolin monk bent on a rampage. Raphael squared his shoulders.
Men. Enough said.
Roman leaned forward. Wind swirled around his feet. The black volhv shot forward, as if his black boots had wings. Raphael stepped out of the way, letting Roman pass him, spun, jumped up, and kicked Roman between the shoulder blades.
The wizard flew into the wall, but didn’t hit it, because an invisible cushion of air stopped his fall. He dropped down to his feet and turned. “Hmm.”
Raphael had a frighteningly grim look on his face.
Roman’s lips moved. A cocoon of black threads slid from the ground in twisted streams, wrapping themselves around him, not quite touching.
Raphael lunged, shockingly fast.
The black threads snapped, binding around Raphael’s wrist. Roman leaned back and drove a crushing sidekick into the top of Raphael’s hip. It sounded like a sledgehammer pounding into a stud. I’d seen it before. It was a sambo kick, part of a personal defense martial art the Russians practiced. Ow. Ow, ow, ow.
Raphael grabbed the black threads and pulled. Roman strained, pulling back.
A small boy ran through the stone arch and headed for the two of them. I jumped off the bench, ran, and caught him.
“Hi!” he said.
I lifted him off the ground. My rebroken arm screamed a little and I shifted his weight to the other. “Hi.”
“They’re fighting!” the boy told me, pointing at the two men.
“Yes, they are. Where are your parents?”
A couple ran through the arch, a tall man and a dark-haired woman in her late thirties, followed by a teenage girl.
“Dylan!” The woman reached for the boy. “I’m so, so sorry. We just wanted to pay our respects to the alpha. We were told he would be here. We didn’t mean to interrupt. We’re trying to get admitted into Clan Bouda…”
I looked at her face, and recognition punched me in the gut.
Michelle.
Michelle Carver, who put a nail through my hand when I was five, because she thought it was funny to hear me scream. Michelle Carver, who pelted me with bricks, after Candy broke my legs. All I could do was crawl and Michelle chased me and threw bricks and rocks at my head. Michelle, who cheered while the bitch alpha beat my mother to a bloody pulp. Michelle “Hit her again, Candy!”
I had killed every last one of them. Every last one, except her. She had gone missing a couple of years before I came back and wiped that sadistic clan of bouda bitches off the face of the planet. I had tried to find her, but she had done a good job of covering her tracks.
Raphael let go of the threads. “Andrea?”
I was holding Michelle Carver’s child in my hands.
I let go of the boy. He slid to the ground.
“Andrea?” All blood drained from Michelle’s face. “Andrea Nash?”
She backed away from me.
Raphael started toward me.
“Do you know what she is?” A hysterical note vibrated in Michelle’s voice. “She’s beastkin.”
The world suddenly became very simple. I moved. Her mate tried to stand in my way. I backhanded him, and he went flying. I grabbed Michelle by her throat and drove her into the wall, pinning her in place. My arm had fur, and my hand had claws, and Michelle’s blood squirting under her skin through her jugular tickled my fingers.
“Tell me again what I am.” I smashed the back of her head into the brick. “Tell me again.”
Michelle croaked in my grip. She made no move to shift. She had no warrior form. She was never the strongest. No, she just liked to yip on the sidelines, picking on someone weaker out of fear. It changed nothing.
“This woman did something bad to you?” Roman asked.
“This woman tortured me and my mother.”
Roman shrugged. “If you want to do her, do it quick. I’ll go watch the entrance for you.”
He was gone. All that was left was me and Michelle’s pale, soft throat. The world was red. So, so red, and every time I exhaled, it was growing angrier and redder.
Raphael’s hand rested on my shoulder. He stroked me, firm fingers caressing my fur. “You have the right. It would feel good.”
It would feel great. He had no f**king idea how great it would be. I wanted to tell him that I finally caught her. I had told Raphael about her before. I wanted to tell him now how much I wanted to rip her apart, but all that came out was a snarl.
“I know you.” Raphael put his arms around me, his mouth close to my ear, his voice soothing. “If you kill her in front of her children, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Let go, babe. Let her go.”
No! No, she didn’t get to get away with this. No! Everybody else had paid, she would pay, too.
My injured arm hurt. The pain was so raw, so fresh.