Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(53)

"As the Irish, a brilliant people, say, a good retreat is better than a bad stand. Also the Bard once pontificated that the better part of valor is discretion. I am nothing if not loaded with discretion. Shall we?" Robin turned and began to sprint back the way we had come.

I couldn't say he had the wrong idea. Attacked by our own wounded, crazed ally and Sawney gone…things weren't going as planned. One half of the wolf, a gray male, fell from Boggle's hand and the other was thrown against the far wall. The back legs and hindquarters slapped limply against the surface, then dropped into the water.

"Where?"

"Fortune may favor the brave, but pucks are remarkably long-lived. I say we go with the latter advice." Niko yanked me the rest of the way aloft as I was pushing up from the water. And for the second time in a week we were running through a tunnel. This time we had the addition of Robin and three wolves—as well as the world's most pissed-off boggle.

We could have killed her. She was more savagely fierce than her mate had been, but she was injured and there were seven of us. It would've been enough, but…she was our partner. We'd gotten her into this. It didn't seem right to finish off what Sawney had started. Although in the end, it wouldn't have mattered what our moral stance was on skinned boggles and their murderous rampages. If she had chased us, that stand Robin wanted to avoid would've taken place, brutally and instantly. If she chased us.

She didn't.

She chose to go after Sawney. He was long gone, I had the feeling, but I wished her the best of luck. I also hoped she lived. I couldn't spend every day tossing raw meat at a mud pit full of baby boggles. I had a job. I had things to do. I was responsible for their father's death. I didn't want to go there with their mother too. Guilt gets old. It gets so damn old.

Beside me ran the white wolf, who within six steps transformed to a naked human female. Except for the scars on her stomach and the choker tattoo around her neck, she was wet and gloriously nude. I handed her my jacket as we ran and her upper lip lifted to show her teeth in an amused smile. She also thought about patting me on the head, I could see it, but she took the jacket and slipped it on.

I liked Delilah—why, I wasn't sure. Perhaps because she was like Niko … if he were a completely immoral female. Lethal and laconic. The familiar is always comfortable. The fact she was sexy as hell didn't hurt.

She wasn't Georgina. Never would be—I knew that. But I'd have to learn to settle for a warm touch or a secret smile from someone else, and it would have to be enough. Or I could spend that part of my life alone. Not only did I have hormones that strongly disagreed with that, but without that wall between us, George might eventually convince me.

And then she would die. Or worse. Delilah or Charm would never die for me, not if they could avoid it.

We all ran on, slowing when it was clear Boggle wasn't following us but delving farther into the depths for Sawney. When we finally hit a maintenance tunnel, we had three half wolves—one in my jacket and two naked. None of them minded. The two males were partially covered with patches of fur here and there, one with a stub of tail and the other with a misshapen jaw and joints. Badly bred or not, they ran far faster than the rest of us did, although I knew Promise could've kept up.

They disappeared around a turn and I turned to ? Delilah. "Sorry about your friends."

She was wearing my jacket with casual flair. It fell past her hips and hung open enough that I saw the curve of her apricot-colored breasts. I'd already seen them in their entirety; it didn't change the fact I was still looking.

"Friends?" Her amber eyes slanted in my direction. After she'd changed back from what Wolves considered their true shape, her silver-blond hair had fallen free to hang like a wedding veil in color and sweep. "Keep up with the pack or don't. Die for the pack when needed. Pack is all. There are no friends." With that, she was gone too. Despite her sly glances and my hazily half-ass thoughts on the matter, I didn't know if I'd see her again or not. Delilah was Delilah. She lived, like most fur creatures, in the here and now. Planning ahead wasn't a priority or a concern.

"Furry women are tricky, kid." Robin was waiting for us. "I suggest a spoonful of butter before and after any snorkeling activities. Hairballs. Also, diamond-studded flea collars? They are a bitch to find for anniversary gifts." He'd put away his sword under his coat and continued with a more serious and uncertain shrug. "On the other hand, her abdomen. You know…she may be infert—"

I waved him off with a growl. "I think the fact Sawney got away again is a little more pressing, okay?" We were letting down a dead little girl right and left. It was in my pocket, my reminder—the sunny barrette of a girl who would never see the sun again. My social life and the lack thereof paled in comparison to that.

"And he nearly slaughtered a boggle to do it. Single-handedly." Niko had retrieved his cello case from where he'd left it, dry and safe. We hadn't been hit with a random search yet, but our luck would run out sooner or later. If Sawney stayed down here, we were going to have to find a different access. "The fact that he did it with a hole that ran the entire depth of his body isn't encouraging either." Closing the case with a snick of buckles, he looked at me steadily. "Next time, go for the head shot."

I was a good shot, not Olympic quality or anything, but competition-wise, I could've held my own. A head shot, though, on a moving target wasn't easy under the best of circumstances, and I'd yet to see anything remotely less than absolutely crappy circumstances demonstrated during our recent battles. Niko knew that as well as I did, if not better.