Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(8)

Dev stepped forward.

“I’m going,” Fury said. “But before I do, let me congratulate all of you on your stupidity. Those two *s who just left were the ones who screwed the lions upstairs. I was trying to get the information out of them.”

Dev cursed. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I was trying. Next time you forcefield someone to the ground, you might not want to stifle their ability to talk, too.”

The dragon, Max, shook his head. “I thought you were just going to insult me for holding you down. It’s what you normally do whenever you speak to me.”

“I probably would have had I not had something more important to tell you.”

Dev cleared his throat to get their attention. “Are they from this time period?”

“No.”

Mama nodded. “Then they have to be in town somewhere. There’s no full moon for them to use to time jump.”

Fury wished, but there was another truth about his old friend. “The woman was Aristos. She’s not bound by the moon. They could be anywhere, in any time.”

Dev sighed. “Well, at least we got the humans out before they saw anything unnatural happen.”

“Bully that.” Fury zipped his jacket up. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

”Hey.”

He looked at Dev.

“You’re still banned from here.”

“Like I care.” He’d been banned from much nicer places than this, and at least there he’d had people who’d actually cared for him . . . at least for a few years.

Without a backward glance, he left them and headed back to Ursulines. The street was strangely quiet, especially given the fact that a large number of humans had gone screaming into the night only a few minutes before. The threat of violence must have really gotten under their skin.

But that didn’t change the fact that he still had a wolf to track. Two of them to be precise. Common sense told him to return to his pack and tell Vane what was happening.

Fury scoffed. “Lived my whole life without any sense. Why should I start having some now?”

As he reached his bike, a strange fissure of power went down his spine.

He turned in expectation of a fight, but before he could even move, he was hit with a fierce shock. Cursing, he hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through him as he changed into his wolf form, then human, then wolf again. He was completely immobilized as his body struggled to hold onto one form and was incapable of it.

Dare walked up to him slowly, then kicked him hard in the ribs. “You should have died, Fury. Now you’re going to wish you had.”

Fury lunged at him, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. If he could lay hand or paw on the bastard, he’d rip his throat out.

He looked up at Angelia to see sympathy on her face an instant before Dare shot him again. Unbelievable pain ripped through him as he struggled to stay conscious.

It was a losing battle. In one heartbeat, everything went black.

“What are you doing?” Angelia asked Dare.

“We need to know what he knows about our experiment. More to the point, we need to know who he’s been talking to. We can’t afford for our secret to get out.”

She cringed as she watched Fury’s body continue to shift from human to white wolf and back again. At least until Dare wrapped the collar around his throat that kept him as human. Since Fury’s natural form was a wolf, keeping him as a human, especially in daylight, would weaken him.

And it would hurt.

She shook her head at his actions. “You know he’s not going to tell us anything.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

The Fury she remembered would never tell secrets. He’d die before he did, and he could take a lot of pain. Even as a child, he’d been stronger than any other. “How can you be so certain?”

“Because I’m going to turn him over to our Jackal.”

Angelia sucked her breath in sharply at the threat. Oscar was a jackal whose heart was so black, he was more animal than man. “He’s your brother, Dare.”

“I have no brother. You know what the Katagaria did to my family. To our patria.”

It was true. She’d been there the night Dare’s Katagari father had led the attack on their Arcadian camp. Just a child, she’d been hidden as the attacks began. Her mother had smeared her with earth to mask her scent before she’d placed her in the cellar.

Even now, she could see the wolves as they attacked her mother and killed her while she’d watched in horror through the slats in the floor.

Dare was right. They had to protect their people. The animals needed to be stripped of their powers and put down like the rabid creatures they were.

Even Fury.

“Are you with me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I won’t see another child suffer my fate. We have to protect ourselves. Whatever it takes.”





3


Angelia paced the small camp they’d made as she listened to Fury insulting Oscar while he and Dare tortured Fury for information. Honestly, she didn’t have the stomach for it. She never had.

Maybe Dare was right. Maybe she shouldn’t be on a tessera after all.

Then again, she was a warrior of unparalleled skill. In battle, she didn’t hesitate to kill or to wound. It was just the idea of beating someone who couldn’t fight back that sickened her.