36 – Big Fucking Fight

Troy followed the million tiny green arrows pointing him to his mate, or to the bad guys, and if they were both in the same place, Rhen help those bad guys.

The forest was angled up, and the trees were thinning and he knew exactly where he was headed. The bluff. Troy tucked in his elbows, bent his head and ran faster. The bluff had to have a clear view of Remington’s place, maybe even a clear walk down a hidden trail, which suddenly made him very nervous.

Trevor, he panted in his mind. You didn’t take the extra guards off Blake, did you?

They are in the yard.

Get them all under cover from the bluff, pull all drapes in the house.

Done already. We’ve been watching the bluff all morning. You thinking they’ve got rifles up there?

Yeah.

You there?

Not yet. Heading that way.

We’ll be up as soon as we clear this section, all of us. Wait for backup.

Troy was about to agree, but then he saw something through an opening in the trees, that made all thoughts of backup fly right out of his head. Rex, that bad-guy, foxen dickhead, leaning against a boulder, talking to someone behind the big rock that Troy couldn’t see. The faces of Troy’s niece and nephew flashed in his mind, propelling him forward fluidly and silently, helping him take advantage of the cover of the wind, which blowing in his favor. The hidden face of his very own pup lent him speed and absolute stupidity that would either serve him or destroy him.

A rifle scope flashed in the sunlight as it shifted aim down the bluff face, again making Troy lose all sense of perspective. He could no more wait for backup then he could kill them all with his mind. They would hear him or scent him at any second, but still he ran headlong, elbows tucked in, head pulled in, booted feet sure over loose rocks. This was what he’d been born for. By the time they got those rifles swung around, he would be on them. He would take them both at once, them, and anyone else he found.

Then someone caught his eye from two boulders farther that made him stumble, then recover and double his speed, a sick growl rolling from his throat.

Grey, he growled in ruhi, so loud it hurt his own brain. You useless piece of shit. Here I come for your ass.

The voices in his head started in a massive wave. Male wolven from four counties around chimed in, until it was deafening.

Grey! Where is that fucker?

Where are you Troy?

Leave a piece of him for me, Troy!

We’re four minutes out, Troy, do what you have to do. That was Trevor, trying to shout the rest down so he would be heard.

Get him, Troy.

Even Trent spoke in his mind, faint and sounding so far away, the first time Troy had heard his voice outside of his dreams for a month.

Kick his ass, Troy, Trent said.

Troy had no choice but to turn off the voices in his head. He was going in for the kill and he could not be distracted.

Grey heard him, too, Troy could see it in the new, tenser set of his limbs, but he didn’t turn. Instead he sidestepped and disappeared.

He’d known Troy was coming. It had been a trap.

But Troy was barreling headlong, and he could not stop himself for anything, so instead, he did the unexpected.

Troy made a climbing leap up and over the boulder, one he should not have been able to, one he never would have been able to as a wolf with no fingers to grab purchase. Instead of coming around the face of the boulder like they expected him to, he dropped straight down from above, landing right on the back of Rex, who had shifted. Grey was nowhere to be seen, and whoever Rex had been talking to was also gone, possibly Soren, the tampered-with scent said.

Shifted, Rex was a big-bad fox the size of a bear. Troy leaned over him like he was a rodeo bull and held on, digging for eyes, for trachea, for anything he could rip out and pulverize.

Rex got ahold of his left hand with his teeth, tearing it up a bit before he could get it out of there. Troy held on tightly, simultaneously searching Rex’s hide for a weakness with his hands and booted feet, while his eyes searched for Grey and Soren and Rex tried to unseat him by bashing him against a rock.

Troy hit once, twice, three times, his femur snapping, his head whipsawing. He was thrown clear. He hit the ground hard, bouncing, rolling, his injured leg flapping. Something fell out of his pocket with a clink on the rock.

Rex stared at him with one ruined, popped-out eye and great tufts of hair missing from his scratched-up throat. When he’d decided Troy wasn’t planning another assault, he shifted to naked man to heal his eye and his throat, then shifted back. Troy felt around on the ground with his fingers, his eyes on Rex’s shift, noting Khain’s red, raised mark on the chest of the man. Hot anger swept through Troy, that these males would work for the demon, foxen or not, marked or not, was unconscionable.

His fingers found what had made that noise. His mate’s pendant. He ripped the chain off of it and bent his head to secretly pop it in his mouth, in case he died. He threw the chain into the bushes behind his body with a short flick of his wrist. He didn’t want them going through his pockets and finding his mate’s pendant. He didn’t want them knowing it existed.

Troy rolled it to the back of his mouth with his tongue. Swallowing it would be a squeeze, but he had no alternative and there was no sense putting it off or wishing for water. Troy swallowed hard. For a moment, he thought it was going to go down, no problem, but then it got hung up. One of the points on the angel’s wings was scraping down the length of his esophagus. He swallowed harder, his eyes on Rex, who was staring at him and snorting and huffing, pawing the ground, about to charge.

The pendant was hung up. It was going to be stuck tight, which would be about as good for fighting as his injured leg.

Shift or die, his wolf told him.

Troy stood up and worked some saliva to the back of his throat, his eyes on Rex. He swallowed again, and again, crouching on the ground, trying not to show he had one injured leg. The pendant moved a little “It ain’t as serious as all that,” he growled to his wolf, feeling around on the ground for anything he could use as a weapon. Or better yet, if he could fight Rex as a man, he would have a chance.

His throat opened wider than it should have been able to. Troy’s bones shifted around in his face and chest before settling. The pendant was down. Good deal.

“Why don’t you fight me like a man, Rexie?” he called, considering pulling out the ‘your ol’ lady sucked my dick’ line, but thinking it probably wouldn’t work with Rex. He needed to be smart, he needed to just hang in there until his brother and his pack showed up.

Rex snorted and shook his head, looking rather like a super-ugly bear with a twisted snout and too long legs and too much fur, the ugliest fox/bear mashup you ever wanted to see.

Grey stepped out from behind a big rock, making Troy growl. Grey snapped his fingers at him, his hair even longer than Troy’s, and pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his head. Holy shit were the guys going to crank on that wolven fashion don’t.

Grey widened his stance and crossed his arms, standing next to, but a little in front of, Rex. “Oh! You’re scared to shift. Makes sense. I would be, too.” Grey paced a little in front of the rocks, arms still across his chest, keeping one eye on Troy. “I don’t think I would be able to think about anything else.” He turned to face Troy again, speaking quickly. “Because as soon as you shift and stay that way, that cute little mate of yours is going to be fair game. Your brother already has a mate, so he won’t try to tap that, but there’s plenty of other males out there who will. Hell, even Soren scented her last night and thought she smelled plenty fine.”

Troy lost his fucking mind, right there, knowing he was playing into Grey’s hand, still unable to help himself. His wolf held him back. Too late, he realized Soren and Bane were coming up behind him as men, but they were already shifting as they ran at him, clothes ripping off and falling to the ground. Troy twisted away from Soren’s leaping snap of the jaws and pushed off of Bane’s straight-ahead, face-first, bear plow, getting his elbow around the bear’s throat, holding on for his life, his back and ass and boots scraping against the ground as Bane dragged him. Soren came up from behind and grabbed him around his uninjured thigh with his teeth, pulling Troy from Bane’s back and shaking him like a rag doll. Troy gritted his teeth against the pain and levered himself into a sitting position in Soren’s mouth, using the eyeball move again. Soren’s hold loosened, but Bane moved in and snatched Troy by his other leg, shaking his head violently making Troy shout into the sky, then throwing Troy across the bluff’s rocky top.

Troy landed in a heap and lay still, in a pool of his own spilling blood.