Nine Souls Read online

  “This is wolf business,” he had said in a firm tone.

  Tired of walking, I approached my seat to find Alucard and Roland using my umbrella, smirking at Talon’s act of defiance. They had been silent about their meeting last night, even though I had pestered them several times already. At least the cloud cover would protect Roland from the sun, although I knew he had a stash of some special sunscreen that could protect him for short periods.

  It looked like we all had our dance cards and wouldn’t be sharing partners.

  Talon, Carl and I were secretly going to Hell.

  Gunnar and Ashley were about to fight a duel so they could hopefully go on their honeymoon.

  Roland and Alucard were attending secret vampire meetings.

  Yahn and the Reds were stealing kisses, avoiding the adults like the plague.

  And Tory was working as a private investigator for the dragons.

  I let out an angry sigh, but I wasn’t quite sure why. I didn’t want to stick my head into anyone else’s problems, but… I was used to it. Us working as a team. And now…

  Talon and Carl strutted our way, sitting in the grass beside me, glaring at the wolves across the ring, who actually seemed to be snarling back. “I can’t wait to go to Hell,” Talon purred in a tone that even Roland and Alucard couldn’t have overheard.

  “I hear it’s beautiful this time of year,” Carl agreed just as quietly, his tongue flicking out to catch rain drops.

  Tory and Callie approached from behind us and both Roland and I jumped to our feet. Roland instantly wrapped an arm around Callie, leading her away to talk in private. I approached Tory, not sure if I wanted to apologize or demand answers about the dragons. I’d taken the slap like a man, so I deserved something for my trouble. I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand.

  “I will not speak of it, Nate. Don’t meddle. Please.” She very discreetly flicked her eyes beyond my shoulder, back towards the trees to her right. I sighed, turning my back on her and muttering under my breath as if angry that she had just shut me down. Then I let my eyes sweep the area, as if taking in all the Freaks present for the fight, and annoyed that Tory wouldn’t talk to me. I was sure not to let my eyes linger on the area she had indicated, but even still, my heart skipped a beat.

  Baron Skyfall leaned against a tree in a bowler hat, watching Tory for a moment before his eyes drifted to the wolves closest to him – those against Gunnar.

  Tory murmured under her breath, as if talking to herself, but loud enough for me to hear. “Seems I have a tail… Ah, irony.”

  “Is Baron actually his first name or is it a title?” I muttered. “The others only had one name.”

  “First name.”

  I grunted, debating sauntering over to ask him a few pointed questions, but thought better of it. Not my problem. I let out a growl and sat back down. Alucard waited five seconds before standing up to talk with Tory. I waited to hear the slap he deserved, but instead saw her hugging him tightly. My eyes narrowed and I picked up a twig beside me, snapping it in half violently.

  Why was I the bad guy in this situation? The world was unfair. I didn’t see what the big deal was. Yahn liked the Reds – both of them – and believe it or not, they obviously felt the same. Why were they so adamant about keeping an eye on them? Sure, it wasn’t a traditional relationship, but they were dragons, and I’d heard all sorts of crazy stories about them.

  A steady hush settled over the valley as the hulking Minotaur entered the ring. “Finally,” I breathed, sitting up straighter.

  I needed to see someone else get slapped around.

  Chapter 14

  The Minotaur wore his fighting gear – spiked tridents on the tips of his aged ivory horns – and he stomped into the ring as if expecting trouble. He halted in the center and snorted into the air, sending a puff of fog to burst through the thick ring in his nostrils. The rain only emphasized his muscles, matting down his shaggy fur to reveal the thick slabs of muscle covering his body. He wore a set of prayer beads on his chest and a tattered skirt of some thick blue cloth with white embroidery on the hem. The white was stained here and there with flecks of blood.

  His eyes narrowed as he spun in a circle, glaring at everyone in silent warning. Then he bellowed, but to me it just sounded like a murderous MOO!

  The sound somehow shared both the anguished cry of a beast being slaughtered, and the victorious roar of the beast doing the slaughtering. Like a homicidal harmony.

  You know how they combined a bunch of unique animalistic sounds to make that T-Rex roar in the dinosaur movie? This was kind of like that. A mixed drink of seemingly random animals, but spiked with an extra shot of nightmare juice.

  It made the hair on the back of my arms stand up, and anyone who hadn’t been paying full attention suddenly whipped around to see what was happening. An old man slipped into the ring, wearing a brilliant white suit and a pair of expensive leather loafers. Because this old man was kind of a big deal, he had someone holding an umbrella for him.

  A full-grown chimera walking on his hind legs.

  The monster was easily ten feet tall, larger than even the Minotaur, and it held that tiny black umbrella in a thickly furred paw as big as the old man’s head. The chimera was a demonic hodge-podge of three different kinds of monster. Above the shoulders it was a fire-eyed, horned ram. On the chest was the head of a snarling lion. But to top it off, a hooded cobra as thick as a python made up its tail, wavering back and forth as it hissed in every direction.

  And it was holding an umbrella for the little old man – King Midas.

  But where had he gotten a pet chimera? This one was much bigger than the chimera I knew.

  The white-haired old man cleared his throat audibly as the Minotaur and chimera flanked him on either side, the Minotaur facing Gunnar’s pack and the chimera facing Zeus’ pack.

  “We gather here today for respect and power. Gunnar Randulf has been challenged for his position as Alpha of the St. Louis werewolves by…” he leaned closer, listening as the Minotaur leaned down to speak into his ear. Midas nodded, turning back to the crowd. “Zeus Fletcher, Alpha of a pack in Illinois.” The Minotaur leaned closer, and Midas nodded after a moment. “The pack in Illinois,” he corrected, dipping his head at Zeus apologetically. “I’m not too familiar with the shifter nations unless they’re for sale. Old men must have their hobbies, after all,” he chuckled. But the glitter in his eyes put the lie to his words.

  I hadn’t noticed Zeus Fletcher standing before his pack of wolves. He had both feet inside the ring and a thickly muscled woman stood beside – and slightly behind – him. She was easily over six-feet-tall, and thicker in the arms and legs than I was. Considerably.

  Zeus didn’t acknowledge Midas’ comment – just glared ninety degrees to his right towards the edge of the ring. I followed his gaze to see Gunnar staring at him, his eyepatch glittering.

  But he wasn’t standing with his wolves behind him. There was literally no one behind him.

  I frowned. Why wasn’t he standing before his pack, directly across from Zeus? And where was Ashley? Wasn’t she his second in this fight?

  I scanned the perimeter of the ring, searching for her, and saw her standing directly across from Gunnar, glaring at Zeus and the woman. Was this some tactic? Divide and conquer? Midas didn’t seem to mind, and neither did the challenging wolves. Although they did look curious.

  Midas cleared his throat again. “Asterion,” he said, and then stepped to the side.

  The Minotaur cleared his throat, and then spoke in a low, deadly tone. “I have lived for thousands of years, and killed many.” Zeus’ pack studied him with renewed interest. “I am the Minotaur. I’d like to clear the air. I have heard whispers as I walked through the crowd that this arena may in some way be tainted by our history with Gunnar and Ashley Randulf…”

  Murmurs of agreement and protest, both, began to drift through those gathered, and I found I wasn’t the only one of my friends leaning closer. What was
this all about?

  As if on cue, Gunnar and Ashley both strolled forward, staring at Zeus and his partner as they walked towards Asterion. Neither looked at the Minotaur as they approached, leveling their flat, murderous glares at their challengers. It was… oddly chilling.

  Gunnar stopped before the Minotaur and then tugged off his shirt, leaving him only in his khakis, his hair plastered back against his skull as the rain poured down. Many of the females behind Zeus grumbled their appreciation, and I saw Zeus’ face tighten angrily as he noticed. Gunnar’s open chest faced the Minotaur but he kept his face locked on Zeus, flashing a smile as he spoke. “Missouri wolves don’t turn their backs on pain.” Without warning, the Minotaur slashed his head down, scoring a diagonal gash across Gunnar’s chest from pectoral to stomach, drawing blood. I gasped as the blood continued to flow. That had not been a shallow cut.

  Gunnar didn’t even flinch. Then… he laughed, a great echoing sound in the valley.

  “In fact, we kind of like it,” he told Zeus with a wink. Or a blink. Whatever.

  And the Minotaur slashed again, this time from the opposite direction, making a bloody X across Gunnar’s chest. Gunnar’s torso was a sheet of blood as he smiled at Zeus. Then as slowly as I had ever seen him shift, he morphed into Wulfric, over the space of fifteen long, excruciating seconds. As he stretched taller and taller, his pants popped, snapped, and a button flew off, sparkling as it whipped off into the crowd. I barely noticed Talon’s instinctive reaction as he jumped to his feet as if to chase it down. Then he grunted in embarrassment and sat back down.

  Fur slowly sprouted all over Gunnar, instantly painted red as the slowly increasing downpour of rain spilled down his chest, spreading the blood over his snow-white fur. His arms elongated, bulging with thigh-thick muscles, and diamond encrusted claws erupted from his fingers as his snout finally erupted from his face, his teeth chomping at the empty air.

  His crystal blue eye never blinked as he stared down Zeus.

  Ashley interrupted the stunned silence with a sudden shout. “GERI!”

  I spun to see the chimera slash across her chest just like the Minotaur had done to Gunnar.

  “This might be the greatest day of my life…” Carl hissed, leaning forward hungrily.

  I ignored him as I stared at Ashley. Why were they purposely injuring themselves before the fight? I would have thought this some kind of ritual, except every wolf looked just as startled as the rest of us. Well, Zeus’ wolves looked startled. Gunnar’s wolves looked… proud.

  “FREKI!” Ashley snarled, and the chimera slashed her again, making a gory X across her chest that matched her husband’s. Then she duplicated Gunnar’s impressive feat of slowly shifting into Wulfra form – which had to be painful. Before now, I hadn’t even known it was possible.

  But I knew one thing. It was a very poignant display of their confidence, control, and willingness to bleed for their pack.

  Ashley dragged a claw through the blood of the first wound. Then she dipped another claw into the blood of the second slash. “For Odin’s wolves, this bride will make a wedding dress out of your hide…” she snarled, staring right at Zeus’ second. Then she licked up the blood and waited, chest heaving.

  The Minotaur stared at Zeus. “I hope this shows our… neutrality.”

  In answer, Zeus and his second exploded into their wolf forms. They were big – huge as hell, in fact – but not as intimidating as Wulfra and Wulfric – who had chosen their wild Fae wolf forms. But I’ll say this, before I had taken Ashley and Gunnar to the Fae, I had never seen them look as deadly as the two challenging werewolves.

  Midas called out in a clear voice, vacating the ring with the Minotaur and chimera.

  “There will be blood. Submission or death. St. Louis or die.”

  And the crowd went wild.

  Chapter 15

  The two Illinois wolves didn’t waste any time, going straight for Gunnar’s bad side, although they did eye his diamond coated claws warily. The woman only managed one swipe of her claws before Ashley jumped onto her back, did a cool spinning thing with her legs wrapped around the woman’s neck, and the next thing I knew the poor wolf was sailing across the ring.

  But Ashley was running in an instant, chasing down the airborne wolf with inhuman speed. Ashley caught up to her right before the wolf was about to land again, and hammer-fisted the back of her neck so hard that the wolf yelped – once at the blow, and a second time as her face slammed into the mud. Dazed, the wolf tried scrambling to her feet, but Ashley kicked her elbow so hard it hyperextended with a loud pop that almost seemed to echo in the valley.

  The wolf howled in agony, clutching her broken arm as she writhed through the mud. Zeus whirled at the sound, his instincts urging him to help his fallen packmate. Or avenge her.

  Ashley had been waiting for that look, and with his full attention on her, she blew him a slow, mocking kiss. Then she reached down, grabbed her opponent by the neck fur, and proceeded to drag the wolf through the mud towards the center of the ring.

  Zeus didn’t notice Gunnar was now standing directly behind him until it was too late. Gunnar grabbed both of the wolf’s ears and swiftly ripped them off. Zeus roared, jumping away. Gunnar flung the ears into a puddle as if they were trash.

  “Sweet Jesu—” Roland abruptly cut off when Callie blindly elbowed him in the ribs. He blushed, but didn’t actually draw his eyes away. “This is unbelievable…” he amended.

  I nodded distantly. This wasn’t a fight, this was retribution. For ruining their wedding day.

  Carl and Talon acted like a couple of kids with their first video game, bobbing and weaving as they watched the fight, breathing heavily as if trying to mimic the moves in the ring.

  Paradise and Lost now sat beside Roland and Callie, watching the fight as if taking notes. Whether as ideas on how to counter Gunnar’s strengths, or to learn new moves for when they got back home to Kansas City, I wasn’t sure. They were pretty new at the werewolf thing, but they had spent a few months training with the Shepherds in the Vatican, and then a few more months training with Roland. Callie had told me they were scrappers in every sense of the word, but formidable. Cunning and quick to learn from their mistakes.

  Ashley had her opponent on her back and was slapping her in the muzzle repeatedly. The woman found a sudden boost of strength and kicked up with her feet, tossing Ashley into the air.

  Zeus snarled, his ears bloody holes, and slashed out with his claws. Gunnar didn’t lean back far enough, and one of the claws raked his face, but his stone eyepatch took much of the hit. Gunnar didn’t acknowledge the pain, but instead grabbed the offending arm and sliced it clean off at the shoulder. Zeus threw back his head and howled in agony, blood fountaining from the wound as he clutched the other paw over it to staunch the bleeding. He thudded to his knees, whimpering as the flesh tried to regrow – the werewolf gene actually doing more harm than good in this scenario, because if that wound closed, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to reattach the arm. Then again, it seemed the only place Zeus would be visiting today was a morgue.

  “Ashley! Need a hand?” Gunnar called out, circling Zeus thoughtfully.

  “If you have one to spare,” she growled, climbing back to her feet to glare at her opponent.

  Zeus’ arm thumped into a puddle, right beside Ashley. Her opponent went entirely still, and then slowly turned to look at Zeus, who had now fallen onto his face in a puddle of bloody mud.

  So, she didn’t see Ashley scoop up the arm and stab her through the kidneys, but her head did drop down to see her Alpha’s claws suddenly poking out of her stomach. Ashley slashed her throat, panting as she let the woman fall.

  “You never should have let him come to my wedding.”

  Then she stomped over to Zeus, glaring down at him, nothing rational about her movement. Zeus struggled to rise with his one remaining arm. Gunnar let out a rough bark at Ashley. She halted instinctively and took three hurried steps back, ducking her head low, bu
t still panting from the adrenaline. Gunnar had claimed the kill for his own, and Ashley obeyed.

  Gunnar squatted down beside Zeus. “Answer me truly…” he said in a very soft voice, but the silence of the crowd let it carry to all of us. Zeus bobbed his head woozily. “Did you challenge me because you really thought you were a better alpha, or were you just looking for a fight?”

  Zeus’ head began to loll and Gunnar gripped his snout, lifting it to look into the man’s eyes.

  He died of blood loss without giving Gunnar an answer.

  Gunnar finally turned away and saw his wife. His lips curled and his ears tucked back at the wounds raking her chest – but his lone eye shone with pride. Both at the outcome of her fight and her ability to do so injured. He placed an arm around her shoulders and turned to face Zeus’ pack.

  He cleared his throat. “You are free to go back home. I have no interest in Illinois. But mark my words… If you come back to St. Louis with this type of shit again, you better fucking bring an army. Because once we’re through with you, we will come to Illinois. To burn your homes to the ground. Then we’ll come back home to celebrate.” He let that sink in for a few seconds. “We don’t play games here. None of the petty dominance shit. We don’t do pissing contests. It’s really very simple. I – just – run – this – city. Period. You want to see what a real pack is like, then you need to talk to them,” he said, pointing. Two men I hadn’t met before stepped up obediently. The two couldn’t have looked more different. One was a tall black guy with a flat-top and bushy beard, and the other a scrawny looking white guy with unruly brown hair. “I can’t promise any openings,” Gunnar continued, “but I understand that many of you might just be here out of obedience to Zeus Fletcher. Your choice.”

  The wolves shared looks back and forth, but no one spoke.

  Gunnar slowly lifted his arms, and his wolves began howling in a low rumble. As Gunnar’s arms stretched higher, so did the pitch and volume, until Gunnar held his hands over his head, staring down the pack with his one icy eye. The howling made the very air vibrate.