Chapter 17

The reception desk, which had been bolted to the floor, ripped free of the tile, taking hunks of the ground up with it. It flew through the air and crashed into the doorframe, bending it dramatically out of shape and making me worry for the structure of the building.

Paintings flew off the walls, crashing to the floor and rolling out into the street. The modern art displays exploded into shrapnel and went flying.

Loki grabbed Reggie’s arm in one hand and mine in the other and shoved us both against a bare wall, out of the path of destruction.

The two wolves who had shifted shook themselves free of their torn clothing and bolted out the door.

All the furniture in the lobby began a slow movement. Circling the room, scraping against the floor and leaving scuff marks. It started moving faster and faster until they lifted clean off the floors.

The other werewolves turned around and looked across the street. When Basil nodded they all took off, without once looking at each other. Somehow just knowing that he had given the go ahead.

“To hell with this,” Reggie said and marched through the still reigning chaos. So many paintings and pieces of art were in the midst of utter destruction. And we all knew who was responsible. Our missing enemies. I had thrown my senses up, so I knew that the werewolves were moving like they were in a fight. Yet, I couldn’t sense anything else.

I went to follow Reggie, but Loki grabbed my arm. “Give me a second. I can only feel the strain of power that’s causing all this,” he gestured to the room, “Not the one blocking Billy’s tracking.”

“We don’t have time to hunt for it. We have non legions in a legion fight,” I said.

His lips cranked together in unhappiness. I could practically hear his teeth grinding, but then he nodded and suddenly all the furniture and paintings and shrapnel fell the ground with a loud boom. Whoever had been doing it was suddenly cut off from the power they had been using.

Loki and I rushed out into the street. I didn’t bother checking for drivers before rushing across. I heard Loki curse and then come rushing after me. There was no honking or a big thud, indicating a large body meeting a metal one, so I assumed that he was fine and busted into the restaurant across the street from the gallery.

It was one of those super fancy and expensive ones. Or it used to be. Now it had been reduced to utter destruction. The booths were pulled out of walls and the wooden floors had been peeled up. There were streaks of blood across the floor and there was a huge fight going on in the center.

Thankfully, the place only opened for dinner and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Which meant that the only people here were those in the fight.

Three of the werewolves were still in human form and the other two were fighting in their wolf shape. Which meant we had a pair of two hundred pound wolves attacking anything that smelled like a legion, because Basil hadn’t said if we were friend or foe before the fight started.

Reggie, still in her high heels, grabbed a legion man around the throat and hauled him off his feet, throwing him against a wall. He was blond, but he wasn’t familiar. He wasn’t one of the ones that kidnapped Millie.

He struggled against her and I immediately rushed over to cover her back when I saw that one of the other legions was rushing over. When she got close, I sent my fist into her stomach and she doubled over, coughing, but not down for the count. She lashed out and I barely dodged getting knocked on my ass.

A second legion appeared and was immediately gunning for me, only to be stopped by Loki this time. He grabbed the man around his torso, lifted him straight into the air and slammed him on the ground with all the strength in that powerful body of his. The enemy wheezed in air, coughing. That was all Loki needed.

He grabbed the man by the neck, lifted him into the air, wrapped one of those strong arms around him and squeezed. Even with all the chaos, I heard several cracking sounds and then the man went limp and his eyes started to glaze over.

The woman I was protecting Reggie from rose to her feet, panting and annoyed. She rushed me and I slipped to the side, keeping my arm out, so that I slid under her own. Then I hooked it around and brought it up with all the force I could. There was a snapping sound as her shoulder popped out of the socket and she screamed.

Music, really.

I twisted further until there was a cracking, like a gunshot from far away. The arm went limp and the woman screamed in utter agony. I slammed her head against the wall, just to daze her. We had to make sure we had a couple of them alive. That way we’d get the information on Millie all the faster.

However, the second she went limp on the ground, the werewolves made their presence known.

A dark gray one shot out from the side and latched onto the woman’s throat with teeth that were too white for all the red they brought forth. Blood pumped across the fur, the floor and my shoes.

I backed up until I was right next to Reggie and Loki moved with me. His eyes were harder than they’d ever been around me. He was fully in fighting mode. Everything reduced to friend or foe.

Reggie’s man was whimpering at her feet. He kept shaking his head, refusing to talk. His teeth clenched shut.

She reached down, snagged him up and slammed him again. “Just tell me,” she said, utterly calm.

He shook his head again.

“Reggie, this is about to go from bad to worse,” I said, scanning the brawl. There were two dead legions, but the wolves were still outnumbered. We couldn’t join the fray without becoming prey. And the dark gray wolf was done making mincemeat out of the woman I had been fighting. Now he eyed Reggie, from behind me.

My friend glanced over her shoulder. “Can’t do anything about that right now,” she said. “Give me two minutes.”

I would have loved to, but the wolf had different ideas. He charged forward. I knew better than to attempt stopping him. Fighting with an animal wasn’t easy. None of rules that applied to fighting with people worked with animals. If they were attacking you, it was because you’d either done something wrong or they were deranged. And nothing would stop them if it was the latter.

Werewolves, in their wolf shape, had the same intelligence they had as a person. They even had the same memories and the same personality. However, they were still an animal. With animal instincts.

So, when that wolf charged, I did the only thing that I could. I grabbed Reggie as Loki grabbed me and we got the fuck out of its way. The animal launched itself onto the man and started ripping. Tearing. Shredding.

Until there was a high pitched keening sound. I whipped around and cursed. The other wolf laid in the middle of the floor with a throwing knife sticking out of its side. He was crying in pain and his eyes rolled around, looking for comfort that he wasn’t about to get.

The wolf behind us howled in shared agony and the other werewolves all stopped, whipping around to look at their fallen pack member.

The Annihilists took the opportunity presented to them and bolted. They dispersed and when we went to follow, we found ourselves blocked by the wolves. They were all staring at us. Cold yellow eyes. Dark, dark anger pouring off them and into the air. Marking everything.

Basil was the one who spoke. “This… This is your problem,” he said. “You’d better figure out how to fix it soon.”

We all stood there, staring at each other.

I kept my body prepared for another fight.

The anger in Basil’s face. The utter misery in his other wolves as they surrounded their dying. The two who hadn’t shifted knelt down and wrapped their arms around the bleeding wolf and rose to their feet, cradling their injured like he was a newborn baby.

Loki was just as tense next to me, but there was an aura of calm around him. Like he didn’t doubt we could handle it.

Then the wolves walked away, crunching broken glass and bones as they went along. Leaving us in all the chaos that the fight had left behind.

“Call Lixa,” Reggie said, her voice dark. “We need a cleanup.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I almost had the information we need,” she continued, shaking her head. “I almost had it. Now, instead of taking care of the problem and bringing our girl home, we just have more trouble.”

Didn’t I know it.

Reggie shook her head and marched through the destruction on this side of the street to deal with destruction to her gallery. Leaving me and Loki to fix some of those problems.