Chapter Twelve

 

Otto tore up the western staircase of the Seversons’ estate, taking the steps three at a time and cursing the fact that his legs weren’t long enough to go four steps at a time. He’d been pacing anxiously in the forest outside the estate, counting down the minutes until he could expect Kate and her crew to reappear. With every passing minute, he’d grown tenser and tenser, but he’d forced himself to stay put. If he went in there to find her and everything was fine, as it probably was, then all he was doing was risking someone seeing him, which would severely compromise the mission. Otto was pretty easy to recognize, even if he covered his face. He was the tallest, most muscular shifter out of all the shifter competitors, and he’d been champion too many times to count. Most of the Gilt Hollow citizens would easily recognize him.

So Otto had stayed put, until the sound of gunshots and screaming tore across the otherwise silent Severson estate grounds.

“Shit!” Otto had said, and had started running toward the house without a second thought. His heart had pounded in his chest and his stomach had clenched up with fear. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened to Kate, or what would happen once the Seversons realized that there had been a break-in during a Games event. All he would allow himself to think about was the fact that Kate needed rescuing and he wasn’t going to let her down.

Otto reached the top of the stairs and ran in the direction of the vault. He would have known to head there anyway, but the continuous chorus of screams made it clear where the conflict was coming from.

Otto braced himself for the worst as he ran, and the scene in front of him definitely wasn’t pretty. But as he started counting shifters, his heart rate slowly settled. One…two…three…Three shifters were still alive and well. But where was the fourth.

Where was Kate?

With an angry, panicked roar, he scanned the room. That’s when he saw her motionless form, slumped on the ground in a pool of blood. One of the shifter guards near her was reaching for a gun that had been abandoned on the floor. Rage overwhelmed Otto, and he rushed forward, shifting into wolf form as he went.

He was still half human when he ran full speed into the guard, but that might have actually worked in his favor. The guard let out a terrified scream as the creature with the body of a man and the face of a wolf ran into him. Otto tore at the man’s arm and then dragged him by that arm into the corner. He could have easily killed the man, but he didn’t. He had a better plan.

He let out a long howl and quickly grabbed another of the guards, dragging him over to where the second one lay. Thankfully, the three shifters who were still fighting seemed to catch on that Otto had some sort of plan, and they yelled at the other guards and two servants who were also embroiled in the mess.

“You see what he wants!” Kellen yelled. “All of you in the corner! Now!”

Otto let out a long howl for good measure, to warn them that if they didn’t listen they would be sorry. He watched as the guards and servants turned terrified eyes in his direction. These men had all seen him competing in the ring before. They knew what he was capable of when he was angry, and they did not want that anger turned on them.

Once the men were all in the corner, Otto shifted back to human form and pointed a finger in their direction. “You listen to me, and you listen good if you want to live. I’m going to walk out of here with this crew, and you’re not going to tell anyone what happened today. You’re going to close up this vault, clean up this mess, and act like nothing happened. If I hear even the slightest of hints that you might have said something to anyone, I will come find you and kill you. And I won’t make it quick, either. It will be a long, painful death. And then I will go after your families. Do you understand?”

The guards and kitchen servants nodded, scrambling backward against the wall as much as they could. Otto growled at them for good measure, and then ran over to where Kate was lying on the floor. She was a bloody mess and unconscious, but she was alive. She’d been slashed in several places by a knife, and it looked like one of the bullets that had been shot had grazed her left arm. Miraculously, no one else seemed to have been shot. These guards had horrible aim. Otto figured they’d never had to actually shoot anyone before. Gilt Hollow was a generally calm place, and while the soldiers here probably knew how to use a gun, most of the guards weren’t so talented.

Otto scooped Kate gingerly up in his arms. She needed some medical attention, but Otto didn’t dare take her to the medical wing of the Severson estate. He needed to get her—and the rest of them—back to the Arena before anyone noticed they were gone. And he’d have to figure out how to explain her sudden abundance of wounds, but he’d think about that on the way back. Right now, he just wanted to get out of this house before anyone else saw them.

He ran down the stairs, out of the house, across the lawn, and into the woods. He could hear the other shifters panting behind him, struggling to keep up. All of the shifter competitors were in good shape, but Otto was the best by far. He wasn’t slowing down for the others, though. They’d just have to push themselves to keep up with him. Getting Kate back to the Arena, and getting her help, was the most important thing right now.

When they made it to the edge of the forest by the Arena, he did slow. He had formulated a plan for explaining away Kate’s injuries, but he would need a few minutes to carry it out. And he would need his hands free. Reluctantly, he handed Kate over to Kellen.

“Wait here for five minutes. Then bring her inside to the competitor room where we usually wait for our matches. By then, things should be in enough chaos that no one will question why she suddenly showed up all bloody and wounded.”

Kellen gave him a quizzical look, but did not press for further details. Otto took off running without another word. He didn’t have time to waste on explaining things.

The roar coming from inside the Arena indicated that another match had just started. Good. Usually at the very beginning or very end of a match, everyone’s attention was on the ring. That would give Otto the space he needed to do what he was about to do.

He crept down the long hallways and toward the cages where the wild animals were kept. Otto had only been in this area of the Arena a few times before. The Gilt Hollow citizens responsible for these wild animals liked to keep them away from everyone’s view, even the shifter competitors. They didn’t want anyone to know how poorly the animals were treated. But Otto had been in Gilt Hollow for so long that he had ended up back by the cages now and then while wandering. He’d also snuck back here a few times during an actual Games event, driven by curiosity as to what wild animals the shifters might be facing next. Because of this, he knew that the animals would not be closely guarded right now. Their handlers would be too focused on watching the wild animals that were actually in the ring at the moment, creating the perfect opportunity for Otto.

As Otto approached the cages, the roars and snarls of the animals grew louder. Several of the bears and wolves lunged at the doors of their cages, trying to break free and attack Otto. He ignored them as he looked up and down the rows of cages, trying to decide which animal would best serve his purpose. When he saw an angry lion at the end of the row, he knew he’d found what he was looking for. A lion was perfect. He could set the beast free, and no one would mistake it for a shifter gone mad, since there were no lion shifters in this part of the world. Everyone would know the lion was a wild animal, and since the lions were the fiercest, most exotic of the wild animals held in these cages, everyone would be more likely to believe that this beast had somehow been able to get out of its cage on its own.

Otto approached the lion’s cage, and, after looking around to make sure no one else had wandered into the cage area, he began punching the cage as hard as he could. The lion started roaring and lunging, but Otto kept punching. Slowly, the sturdy steel of the cage began to bend under Otto’s powerful blows. Otto kept going, doing his best to make the cage look as damaged as possible. He wanted the Gilt Hollow humans to take one look at it and think that the lion had gone crazy, and had broken its way out.

When the cage was finally smashed up enough that it wasn’t obvious whether the damage had occurred from the inside or outside, Otto delivered one last, giant blow to the cages locked latch. He had thought it would take a few blows to break the lock, but his fury was so great that his first blow smashed it to pieces.

Otto jumped back, preparing to shift and run. He wanted to lead the lion away from the cages and into the hallways where all the shifter competitor rooms were located. That’s where a loose lion would cause the most chaos. But to Otto’s surprise, the lion took off running on its own. He had expected the lion to try to attack him right away, but once the lion was free it seemed more interested in making a break for it than in tearing up Otto. Otto still shifted into wolf form, but he found himself running after the lion instead of away from it. He had a feeling he was about to get a whole lot more chaos than he had bargained for.

And he was right. The lion ran first toward the medical wing, where it scared the medical personnel so badly that a few of the doctors and nurses actually fainted. The doctors who managed to maintain their cool had the presence of mind to begin calling for security backup, but this lion was moving so quickly that Otto had a feeling it would be long gone from the medical wing before any guards showed up here. The wounded shifters in the medical wing stared wide-eyed at the rampaging lion, but the lion rushed past them and out into the main hallways again. It roared, and then took off running in the direction of the shifter competitor area.

Good, Otto thought. Stir up some mischief amongst the shifters. Otto was planning to blame the lion for all of Kate’s wounds, and if the lion had been spotted in the shifter area, that story would be more believable.

The shifters reacted with less fear than the medical personnel had, but they still weren’t pleased to have a wild lion running through their midst.

“What the heck! Is this some kind of sick joke by the Gilt Hollow trainers?” one of the shifters yelled.

Otto felt a little badly for putting his fellow shifters in harm’s way, but none of them were truly in danger. They could all shift into animal form and defend themselves. In fact, a few of them did start to shift. But Otto himself could defend them as well. He’d fought a lion in the ring before, and he knew he was capable of bringing this beast down.

The lion still didn’t attack anyone. Otto figured the creature must be more interested in finding an escape route than in killing anyone. Occasionally, a shifter got in the lion’s way and it swiped with its paw, leaving slash marks across the victim’s face or arms. But overall, the lion wasn’t looking for a fight. That was okay with Otto. A few minor wounds here and there would be enough for him to claim the lion had been attacking shifters.

Otto heard the sound of boots pounding in the hallway behind him, and he knew that a squadron of guards must have shown up. They would have stun guns and tasers, and they would quickly take the lion down. Otto kept running after the lion though, just to be on the safe side. He would hold himself responsible if anyone got seriously injured thanks to the lion he had loosed. Besides, it would look good if he was seen fearlessly chasing after the lion, trying to save the day. Anything that made the shifters look better was a bonus.

The lion must have heard the guards’ boots too, because it slowed and looked over its shoulder. Then it let out a roar and switched directions suddenly, running backward straight past Otto and turning left down a hallway before the guards were in range.

Shit. That hallway leads toward the main Arena area. If the lion got into the stands where all of the Gilt Hollow citizens were sitting right now, eating and drinking while they cheered, oblivious to the fact that a lion was loose in the building, things could get really ugly, really fast. Otto swallowed hard, and doubled down on his running speed. He had to catch this thing before it made some real trouble. But the lion must have sensed that Otto had sped up, because it sped up as well. Moments later, with a mighty roar, it broke free into the main part of the building.

Shit!

Otto ran as fast as he could, but even though his wolf form was quick, the lion was quicker. And the lion wasn’t slowing down for anyone. Screams rang out as the beast bowled over several people who had been in his way. Otto felt his lungs and legs burning as he pushed his wolf to its limit, but catching this lion was not going to be an easy task. The creature seemed to be spooked out of its mind at this point, and the screaming mess of Gilt Hollow citizens wasn’t helping anything. The full humans flailed around, waving their arms in terror and trying to jump out of the way. The noise they made was deafening, and their ridiculously ornate clothing glittered with every move they made. The lion was probably terrified by all the light being reflected in every direction.

Somehow, the news of the lion on the loose must have spread to the inside of the Arena, where everyone had been happily watching a match until moments ago. Now, screams rose from inside, and people began stampeding out. Otto couldn’t believe how dumb they were all acting. They were running toward the lion instead of away from it, and they were also spooking it horribly. Who knew what that thing would do if it felt cornered. And it wasn’t going to be long before it felt cornered. The crowd of people felt overwhelming even to Otto, and he was more or less used to dealing with these noisy, crazily-dressed full humans.

Otto doubled down his efforts to catch the lion. He hated to harm the beast, but he had to tackle it and bring it under control or someone was going to get killed. Otto ignored the sharp pains shooting through his side and sped up faster than he thought possible. He wove his way expertly through the crowd until he was only inches away from the lion. With a low growl and one final push, Otto jumped and grabbed its back legs.

To his relief, the lion came tumbling down right away. Otto jumped on top of it and held it down as best he could. It was no easy task, since the angry lion was thrashing about with teeth and claws everywhere. Otto felt sharp stings on his face, shoulders, and legs as the lion’s teeth or claws made contact, but Otto gritted his teeth together and bore it. He only had to hold on a few moments until the guards arrived.

As soon as they showed up with their stun guns and tasers, Otto leapt out of the way and let them take over. He felt badly for the lion, but he figured at this point being stunned and put back in a cage was better for the big cat than having to continue to be freaked out by all of the screaming chaos.

Otto realized as he started to limp away that many people were frightened by his wolf form. They backed away from him with wide eyes, even though he had just saved them from a lion. It probably didn’t help matters any that he was covered in blood, or that he had let out a loud, sharp yelp the first time he put weight on his left front leg. He decided it would be better to switch into human form, before the guards mistook him for a wild animal and started aiming at him with their stun guns.

As it turned out, shifting back into human form was a very good decision. As soon as his human head became visible again, the Gilt Hollow citizens instantly recognized him.

“It’s Otto!” they cheered. “Otto of House Severson! He saved us!”

Otto didn’t usually enjoy playing the hero. He had as little to do with the citizens of Gilt Hollow as possible, especially when it came to anything remotely related to the Games. But right now, the shifters could use all the good will they could get, and if Loki and the other Seversons were focused on having a “hero” in their group of shifter competitors, that would keep their minds off of Kate’s injuries, and off of any suspicions that their vault had been broken into. So Otto decided to play the hero just a bit for once. He smiled and waved, and then fist pumped the air. Everyone cheered loudly.

“I’m just glad you’re all okay!” he yelled, and they all cheered even louder. Otto waved a few more times, and then started running back toward the hallway that would lead him back to Kate.

“You’re in good hands now with the guards. I need to go check on the other shifters!”

Before anyone could protest, he was at a full speed run. He needed to get to Kate as soon as possible. He needed to make sure she was okay, and he needed to explain what was going on to her before she said something to a Gilt Hollow trainer that would give away the fact that her injuries hadn’t come from the rogue lion.

A few of the Gilt Hollow citizens tried to grab him as he went past, wanting a piece of the hero of the day, he supposed. But he shoved them off and kept running.

He had a lifemate to take care of.