Justice
It took every last bit of strength I had not to turn us around and drop Milla off with Tansy. Starr might not have fur and claws, but she’d be able to protect them both while I took care of the threat. No one was going to harm my mate. No one.
But keeping her away from where she felt she needed to be could only backfire. Milla might not have teeth, but she had a backbone made of steel, and there was no way on this planet she’d allow me to put her in a protective box, and that would result in us fighting and being in town long enough for them to track us there, or her playing along, long enough for me to get back to Shotgun Row with her on my tail. The first endangered the town, the second endangered my mate, and neither was an acceptable risk.
“They need to breathe their last breath at the row.” Milla was convincing herself more than me. She knew they were evil better than I, but there was a huge difference between knowing someone should die and being the one to take that life.
“I know.” I squeezed her knee, barreling far beyond the speed limit everyone else following. However this went down, Milla wouldn’t be alone. We wouldn’t be alone. “I will end them.” It was a vow. I’d do anything to make her safe.
“If that were how it was meant to be, Marie would’ve popped into your house and not mine.” She argued as if I cared about her reasoning. She needed to be safe, fucking done. My gator would allow for no less.
“Listen, this is not like when you hold your own against other shifters. You know how we tick, our tricks, our limits.” She knew them better than we did. It was instinctual and the real reason she was able to best me all those years ago. She might not shift, but she was the most powerful shifter I’d ever met.
“These are men made of nothing less than evil, and they have guns. Guns. Not teeth or strength. Steel and power. You can’t go up against that. You need to promise me, or I’m turning this fucker around.” I wouldn’t because it would do not a lick of good, but I was willing to use any threat I had to convince her to fight this battle in the safest way possible.
“I know what he is. I have always known to some extent.” Guilt poured off her, filling the air and weighing me down. Fuck. She blamed herself for his actions. If I lived to be a hundred, I was going to spend every last breath making sure that guilt was erased and replaced with nothing but goodness. “I also now have something he wants. He won’t kill me outright.”
Hell no. There was no way she was going to be bait of any kind. If she thought for one second that shit was gonna fly, she was dead fucking wrong.
“So you what, pretend to give him his money?” There was no masking my frustration and anger at that scenario.
“No, we, as a crew, take his sorry ass down.” Because anything was ever that easy.
“We aren’t crew,” I reminded her, calling on my inner Loic.
“We are as close as we get.”
“I don’t like this plan.” Understatement of the year.
“I don’t like any of this, but it is what it is.”
“Shit.” I slammed on the brakes, thankful I’d pulled ahead of the rest when we turned down the dirt road leading to Shotgun Row. “Tracks. We are pulling off here and going by foot. Tell the others,” I barked as I pulled off to the side.
She pulled out her phone and then mumbled something like, “Fuck it,” and jumped out of the car, waving her hands, signaling them all to stop. That worked, too.
“What’s the story?” Etienne asked, his gator showing in his eyes. He could be a scary effer.
“Tracks. We go in on foot and surprise them.” Milla took over, and I allowed it. Ha. As if I could forbid anything with my mate, but I made no fuss, so that was something. I wasn’t going to be so cordial when it came to the physical confrontation. No, that was for the guys and I to do. It might be sexist as fuck, but she was my mate and I would not, could not lose her.
We followed the tracks, none of us hearing or smelling anyone, which made sense since they would’ve been in the car at that point. It wasn’t until we rounded the last corner that Milla stiffened up.
“Evil,” was all she said, but we knew exactly what she meant. Following the tire tracks past our houses, we found the car abandoned behind the old wood pile. Why they thought they could hide it with their tracks being all places was beyond me. My only guess was that, being city folk, they had zero clues about such things.
“How should we track them? Half human-half shifter—all one way or another?” Milla asked us as a group. At least she wasn’t planning to go in there all superhero-like because I hated the idea of having to haul her out of there and leave the danger to our friends.
“Half and half,” Leon announced as he shucked his shirt. Callum joined him.
“Should we discuss this in detail?” Gina asked, with almost trepidation in her voice and, given she had the scariest beast out of all of us, surprising me.
“Where were you?” Marie started to speak before she materialized. It was bad enough she was a reaper and showing up all the time, but acting all Cheshire cat was something we were going to have words about once this was all over. “I had to tell them you went fishing to get them to stick around.”
“Starr needed our help,” Lazare mouthed back. Sometimes that man had no sense of self-preservation. He told the truth, but his tone was that of an errant child and not one I’d ever use with the reaper.
“It was meant to be this way.” Gina ignored his attitude and just stood there, looking perplexed for an entire minute before adding, “Interesting.”
Marie pointed to the north. “They think you went fishing. Damn city folks were too impatient to wait for you to return. They went that way.” And, with that, she left, or maybe left. Now that I knew she had the Cheshire cat trick, I had no idea.
“T-that was Marie,” Gina stuttered. “She’s dead.”
I’d forgotten she hadn’t been there for any of Marie’s surprise visits before.
“That is only partially true,” Loic answered removing his shirt. Looked like he was wanting his animal as badly as the rest of us, but some of us needed to be human in case there was information to be had.
“You, you, you, you Loic—shifter out.” Milla took over and not one person argued even though I wanted to. I wanted to insist she get back in the car and drive away. “The rest of us will go as we are. Gina, I wish I could have you all fire-breathing and shit, but they will see that coming.”
“True,” Gina agreed, a little less pale than she’d been. “I don’t blend.”
“Badass,” Lazare stated proudly as he removed his pants. “Damn straight you don’t.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was looking to get into Gina’s pants. Bad news for him. Dragons did the wait-until-you-were-ready-to-mate thing. There was going to be no naked time for him.
Within minutes, we were on our way. And in true city-folk fashion, they had managed to steal and then get our pirogue stuck in the bayou and were trying to silently remedy that situation as we snuck up on them. I shucked my clothing, knowing my best weapon was in the form of teeth, especially with them surrounded by water. I took my form and slunk into the swamp as Milla watched and gave her okay with a nod. She’d better not get hurt, was my last human thought before the gator took over and pushed my human side down. I was still there and in control, but he had the power now which was exactly what I needed, given the situation. Human me had too many feels hung up in the entire thing.
“Louie. What brings you to my home?” Milla called out, the only person visible to them from my angle. Good. Gina was hidden or getting ready to change. Either scenario was for the best. They needed to feel like they had the upper hand.
“Where is it?” Louie asked, gun in hand. It was all I could do not to capsize the boat and chomp his ass, but Milla had a point. If he knew something he was willing to share, this was a risk worth taking. My gut said he was not going to say a damn thing.
“Your conscience?” she asked, shrugging. “I have no idea. Thinking you never had one, but maybe it is somewhere.”
I swam so I could watch both of them, while still being close enough to protect Milla should he attempt more that holding that fucking gun.
“You bitch. Tell me how to get my money back.” He was mad but held his temper visually. I could see it, though, and more than that, I could smell it. The man was unhinged.
“You can’t. I donated it all. To places that help people like those you fucking hurt.”
“It’s not like you don’t have more.”
And then I saw it. The bastard did have more. Not easily accessible if they paid cash for the plane, but more he had, and from the glint in my mate’s eye, he gave away more in that nonverbal hint than I caught.
“Put the gun down.” Little bossy, powerful mate. Shit, I almost wanted to put mine down, and I didn’t even have one. She had no idea how powerful she was. Louie’s taller henchman put his gun down. That’s how fucking powerful.
“If you shoot me, I lie here dead on the shore. Then what? You wait until the rest of the residents come back from their fishing trip to get you unstuck? I’m pretty sure seeing me dead will make them think twice on that one.”
Not that he’d live a second after. Nor the second before, for that fucking matter.
“We can swim out,” he argued like the fool he was. He seriously had no clue about the dangers the bayou held, not even the ones humans normally worried about.
“Do you have any sense of self-preservation?” She talked to him fearlessly, which had him visibly off-kilter. He was used to being the one feared, and here was this young woman who, in his mind, was weaponless, talking to him like he was no more than a pesky fly. It wasn’t the route I would’ve taken, but, damn, it was working.
“This is gator country. You will be in more bits than you can begin to fathom long before you reach the bank and, spoiler alert—gators aren’t fish. Once they smell blood, they are going to follow you until you are gone, so even the bank isn’t a safe zone.”
Fear rolled off them, especially the shorter of the henchmen. He was the one I kept my eye on. A scared person with a gun was the very worst kind of gun wielder. Especially when they had no conscience.
“Yet there you stand.” He pointed to the bank, not knowing that the gators in this water were all under her command. Shit. We were. When did that happen?
“You can’t scare me, little girl.” His lie tasted as vile as he was.
“Boss. She’s not lying. Look.” Short guy pointed to where Loic had just been. Playing with your prey was never prudent, but it sure as shit was fun.
“Shut up. I don’t see a thing.” Louie snapped his head back toward my mate, pretending not to be frazzled and failing miserably.
Lazare howled from behind them. He was much closer than I’d realized. His silence until he wanted to be heard made him one of the most lethal animals I’d ever come across.
“What was that?” Louie was shaking, not enough for most humans to notice, but enough for me and Milla to know he was beginning to crumble.
“I may have been dishonest with you. It is gator country, but they aren’t the worst thing here. That was a coyote.” She talked to him as if they were discussing weather and not a wild animal that wanted to bleed him dry.
“Coyotes aren’t worse than gators.” The taller henchman decided to add in his two cents.
In return, so did Bruno and Callum, both letting their animals join in the takedown. This wasn’t how we usually dealt with danger. No, the guys and I were all teeth first, questions later, but this wasn’t our show.
“What the fuck was that?”
I swore to all that was holy if Louie or either of his goons peed in my boat, I was going to see if Marie would bring them back so I could kill them again. If she could do that. I still had no understanding of all she did and was honestly too scared to ever ask.
“I maybe forgot to mention the panthers. And the bears,” Milla said.
At that, she started to toe off her shoes. I did not like that. Not one bit. She was up to something and I was not at all okay with that. Because, screw feminism. I was the guy, and I wanted her safe.
“Boss, I see eyes in the trees,” the taller guy said before Louie pushed him into the water, his screams ending quickly as one or more of my crew, our crew, took him down. Good fucking riddance.
“Don’t let the bitch scare you.,” Louie spoke to his remaining goon but was trying to bolster himself up. That was so not going to work. “Nothing here can hurt us as long as we stay in the boat. We have guns. Fire power beats teeth.”
He was so fucking wrong.
“Sometimes, that is true,” Milla singsonged, her shoes now behind her. “Good thing I brought a dragon.”
The air filled with her roar, which was like no animal known to humans. And, with that, one of the assholes peed. I was so fucking done.
“There’s no such—” Gina came into view, distracting us all. She was fucking beautiful all turquoise with auburn eyes. “Fuck. Louie. That’s a fucking dragon.”
Damn straight she was. And then Callum came into view.
“And that’s a fucking panther.”
And then Bruno and Lazare. Each of them showing the men how very surrounded they really were.
“Shit. That’s a coyote. That’s a bear.” He pointed to each, his voice quaking more with each word. “She’s like Snow White with scary shit.”
He was wrong. Snow White had seven men, and Milla had only one. Me. And after we bled the crooks, she was going to wear my mark so no one ever made a mistake about it.
“Shut the fuck up, or you are taking a swim.”
I took that as my cue to show myself.
“But, Boss.”
“I fucking warned you.” Louie pushed him into the water, and for the first time reacted to me and the lethal stare I was giving him. He pointed his gun, aimed it with a wobbly hand, and pulled the trigger, grazing me with the fucking bullet. It hurt like a mutha.
A bloodcurdling scream came from my mate before the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen filled my vision. Milla’s gator took over, and on the bank of the river stood the largest, fiercest, and most fucking gorgeous gator I’d ever seen. At least for a second, because before I could take it all in, she was in the water, her tremendous jaws holding a very dead Louie.
By the time we got the three guys to the shore to determine what to do with them, Marie had come and gone. We never asked where she was taking them. Best we didn’t know. As long as they were no longer on the Earth, it didn’t matter.
What did matter was getting clothing on my mate because anytime anyone, including Gina, looked near her in her undressed state I wanted to murder them, and there was already enough death in this bayou for one night.