“Son of a bitch,” Cullen said. He’d thrown his body over George to shield him when Javier jumped Rule, but now jerked upright. “Son of a sorry mongrel bitch.”
George’s eyes were blank and staring.
“I’ve had enough of this shit.” Lily held up her hand. “Get me on my feet.”
“Do you think you ought to—”
Lily snarled. “Now!”
He took her hand and tugged her easily to her feet. She reached inside her sling and pulled out the little Smith & Wesson Airweight Snubnose she’d hidden there.
Shooting left-handed, Lily was pretty sure she’d miss any target less stationary than the proverbial side of a barn. That’s why she hadn’t tried to use it earlier. Benedict hadn’t seemed interested in holding still. God only knew who she might have hit.
But Javier didn’t know she was right-handed, did he?
“As soon as I’ve done for you,” Javier snarled, “I’ll have the life of your brother as well in payment for Gil.”
“No,” Rule said, “you won’t. I’m tired of making allowances for your age. We don’t have time for this.”
Lily clicked off the safety and began moving.
Javier’s voice was low, throbbing with anger. “I’ll help you make time.”
She picked a spot on Rule’s left. Not too close, since he needed room to react, but well within Javier’s line of sight—and saw that Javier’s eyes had bled to black. All-over black, the whites subsumed by darkness. So not a good sign. His wolf was trying to force the Change. Lily sited carefully. Unfamiliar weapon, left hand … she’d best be sure. “You’re going to listen before you leap this time.”
He barely glanced at her. “A puta with a toy gun .”
“It shoots real bullets.”
He sneered at Rule as if she hadn’t spoken. “You have your woman fight for you now, Rule?”
If Rule was surprised by her weapon—and he should have been—it didn’t show. “My nadia has killed demons. I don’t think you can say the same.”
“Listen to me,” Lily said. “Benedict isn’t responsible. Neither is Rule. Robert Friar set this up. Somehow he got George to dope Benedict, induce the fury in him. You need to back off. There are wounded. You need to stop this now.”
Javier crouched a little lower, as if about to spring.
“Javier,” Myron said sternly, “get your wolf under control.”
“Myron’s right.” Lucas limped toward them. “This is a public place, man. I’m surprised we don’t hear a siren yet.” He looked at Lily, then Rule. “Not that I buy this nonsense about Friar. A human wouldn’t even know about the fury, much less how to induce it. But that’s for later. We need to be out of here.”
Javier had gone still in the way lupi did sometimes. Inhumanly still. Suddenly he drew himself up straight. The black receded from his eyes. The anger didn’t. “You told me earlier to call you liar or be quiet. I call you liar now.” He spat at the ground. “I call on Szøs and Kyffin to witness. Nokolai has dealt in deceit and death. For this, Ybirra Challenges Nokolai. Single combat.”
For a second no one moved or spoke. Then Lucas said quietly, “Szøs witnesses the Challenge.”
Myron sighed. “Idiot. Kyffin witnesses the Challenge.”
Rule’s voice was cold and weary. “Nokolai accepts the Challenge. I exercise my right as Challenged to pick the location. I choose the abandoned mine near Hole-in-the-Wall where our clans last met to discuss boundaries.”
“Accepted.” Javier bit that off as if it galled him to accept anything Rule said. “Ybirra exercises its right to choose the time. This Challenge will be fought at ten o’clock tonight.”
“Accepted. I propose we ask Etorri to handle the arrangements. I further propose that we limit attendance.”
“Two,” Javier said. “That is customary. Nokolai and Ybirra may each have two witnesses present. Other clans may have two witnesses there as well, if they wish.”
“Save Etorri,” Rule said, “who will bring as many as they deem right. That stipulated, Nokolai accepts these terms.”
“Ybirra accepts these terms.”
“I call on Szøs and Kyffin to witness.”
“So witnessed.”
“So witnessed.”
“Shit,” said Lily.
THIRTY-NINE
RULE climbed stiffly behind the wheel of the Lincoln and slammed the door. His ribs hurt like fire. Cullen had wrapped them hurriedly with an elastic bandage, but that was mainly to remind him not to bend.
Lily looked at him. “I can’t believe you accepted a Challenge. Your ribs are broken. You can’t fight tonight.”
Did she think he had a choice? “They’ll be partially healed by then.” Not healed enough, and he knew it. So did Javier, damn and blast him.
Rule turned the key, slid the car into gear, and got the hell out of there.
Etorri had arrived seconds after Rule accepted Javier’s Challenge. Stephen had been informed of the Challenge, and had agreed to serve as caller and witness.
With Etorri’s help the rest of the bodies, living and dead, had been quickly removed. Stephen and four of his people had simply taken off at a run back into the reserve; their cars were parked elsewhere. The fifth Etorri guard would return Edgar’s rental car discreetly.
Rule and Lily were the last to leave. Javier had been the first, screeching away with the body of his friend in his rental car. Myron was taking Billy to a hospital, where they’d both lie about how he’d been injured. Rule had promised to send Nettie to them as soon as possible … assuming Cullen was right, and Billy survived to be treated. Lucas’s man had still been unconscious when the two of them left, but that was probably because he’d been the closest to Arjenie when she pulled her knockout trick. Otherwise, he’d seemed the least injured of the guards, with only a broken arm.
Cullen and Benedict were in the back of Scott’s white SUV. Benedict was bound with a plastic restraint and out cold. Cullen was keeping him that way.
Arjenie was still passed out on the backseat of the Lincoln … which also had two bodies in its spacious trunk.
To be doubly sure Benedict didn’t wake up, Rule would take the long way home, allowing Scott to put plenty of distance between them. Even if Cullen suddenly passed out and dropped the charm, Benedict would remain unconscious because his mate was too far away.
Rule was numb with disaster. He felt as if he were moving through a mind-dulling fog, able to see a single step ahead, and no more. That step was calling his Rho … who he could not think of as his father. Not now. Not with his brother locked in madness as tightly as he was in plastic and sleep. Rule reached for his phone … and realized he didn’t have it.
Shit. Had he left it back there?
“Here.” Lily held out an iPhone.
“Is that mine or yours?”
“Yours. Javier knocked it out of my hand, but I found it before we left.”
Thank God one of them was thinking. “Thank you. I’d like to know about the gun you pulled on Javier.”
“It seemed to me I’d been left out of the ban on weapons, since I wasn’t a principal or a guard. I asked Isen about it last night. He said that if I were asked, I’d have to say I had a gun, but otherwise, I was free to carry a gun if I wanted to. And, ah, he offered to loan me one.”
“You saw no need to tell me? No, never mind. Isen would have wanted me kept in the dark.”
“He suggested that, yes.”
Isen would have wanted to leave Rule free to honestly deny that any Nokolai had come armed to the meeting. Oh, yes—as Lily had said earlier, Nokolai was known to be tricky. And largely because of the man who’d been its Rho for so many years.