22. Not Today, Satan

22

Not Today, Satan

FLOR

M y heart almost stopped beating when I heard Finnick's voice, revealing my deepest secret to the enemy. "She is the only child of the deposed Southern Alpha, Calvin Callaway." Hearing my connection stated out loud made me want to vomit.

I had no idea how Finnick had known, no idea how anyone might. Callaway would never have told anyone, and Del had died before Finnick came to Southern.

Did all the Heirs know? Did Luke?

Fuck. I didn't have time to think about this. I had to listen and keep playing possum, which meant keeping my heart rate steady and slow, my breathing shallow. Even if I wanted to jump up and murder Finnick.

I'd come to when Vanessa had called out, but kept still, listening as other shifters had gathered around. I'd known from the rustling sounds that there were at least a half-dozen shifters around me, and my wolf had roused enough to help me sort out a few more scents. Luckily for me, I'd been able to remain silent and still and gather as much information as I could. So before Finnick stuck his nose in, I'd already been well aware that I was screwed ten ways to Sunday.

And then he'd screwed me once more. But not in the way I'd wanted in my weak moments. Not now that I knew he wasn't just a chickenshit, he was a traitor, too.

It was all I could do not to react, not to jump up and punch him in the ballsack. I was going to end his shit once and for all after this. Selling me out to a bunch of rogues? As soon as I got my hands untied, I would prioritize his punishment. Ghost pepper juice in his eyes. Poison ivy in his butt crack. I'd duct tape him to a chair and make him watch reality TV for a solid week.

I allowed my thoughts to run free but held my body utterly immobile as he spoke to the "general," letting only the tips of my fingers and my thumbs work beneath me. When the man had so obligingly rolled me over to show Finnick, meaning my tied hands were hidden behind my back at last, I'd fought a smile. Thank goodness that incompetent traitor bitch Vanessa had tied me. She'd apparently slept through not only pack law and the code of honor lessons, but also knot tying.

In seconds, my hands were freed, though I kept the ends of the rope tucked into my palms, loops still around my wrists. It was paracord, nice and strong, and would serve as a weapon when the moment came.

Weapons. It was time to make a mental list. My most important one was… My wolf cackled inside me.These stupid fucks hadn't tied my feet. I had two weapons now—the cord and my ability to run.

Then another thought occurred to me. Maybe I could shift my claws.

I asked my wolf, and for once, she answered. Slowly, achingly, I felt my fingernails change, and my claws emerge, a centimeter at a time. There was a little blood when they came through, but I was already pretty scratched up, so I didn't think they'd smell it. And Vanessa's blood was in the air as well.

If only there was time to spill more of it.

I tuned back into the conversation, and almost choked. Finnick was spinning some crazy story about how the Southern Alpha and I were estranged— yeah, that's the word for it —but he would want to see me again. Be desperate to see me. Finnick was clever with his truths.

My old Alpha probably would love to see me… dead.

The story Finnick told made me sound valuable, too important to kill. Possibly ransom worthy. But he was so full of it, I wondered what his game was. Why was he making all this up? Why was he painting me to be a hidden princess, or some shit?

"Fine," the general said at last. "You have answered my question."

"Now you'll answer mine?" Finnick demanded. He was using his ultra-snooty voice, the one that made me want to belch out loud and scratch my armpits, just to annoy him.

There was a weird, metallic clicking sound from the vicinity of the general's mouth. "Amusing. No, dearest Alpha Heir. You are a tool now. I owe you no answers." He hummed. "If you prove useful to me, I may not kill you."

I wasn't certain why it made my heart warm to hear the quasi-death threat, to know that Finnick wasn't friends with these assholes. I was relieved that he wasn't a traitor. Maybe I would only put pepper juice in one of his eyes.

Finnick cursed. "Who are you, then? Besides a dishonorable pretender?"

"Pretender?" A low growl rattled the air. "You're the one who must pretend to have power he clearly doesn't possess. Just like your father, desperate and grasping, believing you have something I could want or need."

Finnick spat something in a language I didn't know, but assumed was Russian.

The general answered calmly. " Menya zavut Ivan. Alpha Ivan. "

I didn't need to know what the other words meant. I knew the name.

My heart sank. Del had shared shifter gossip while we worked in the kitchens. More than once, he'd muttered about the Russian ex-Enforcer Ivan, who'd fled after the final battle against Northern. He had deserted, but rumor said he had since been forming some sort of rogue army, where they espoused everything that was the antithesis of pack law. Del had said they were out west near California, though, not up here.

And no matter how often I'd asked about the area past the Borderlands, Del had never said a word about that place. I'd assumed it was populated by rogues. But if the rogue army was in Canada, who knew what was out west? Sandworms like in that movie, Dune , maybe.

Finnick and the general were jabbering away, but from the tightness in Finnick's tone, he knew as well as I did that we were screwed. I cracked my eyes open to find him staring right at me, even though he was spitting more Russian words at Ivan. He began pacing, drawing the gaze of the rogues away from me. Helping me.

Fuck. There were a half-dozen of them, from what I could tell. All lean, hardened shifters. All armed with military tactical knives. I didn't want to have to fight them, and knew I couldn't, not all at once. They'd be a real bitch to outrun as well, but maybe not impossible. My bare feet were still calloused, though not nearly as much as they had been back at Southern.

When Finnick was far enough away, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, and when he dropped it to his side, he soundlessly mouthed the word go in my direction, not meeting my gaze. Instead, he turned his head to a dark group of trees downwind.

I widened my eyes, thinking the question, though I knew he couldn't hear: What about you? He shook his head a fraction as he jabbered on in Russian, his jaw tightening.

He wanted me to run away without him? I mentally rolled my eyes. Mother Moon, save me from martyrs and idiots. Even if I could leave him here, I was in the middle of an enemy pack. It was all about timing.

While I waited for my moment, Vanessa started yelling again. Someone knocked her out with a blow to the head that might have cracked her skull, and it took a lot not to mutter a thank you.

I slammed my eyes shut again as the group's leader spat out curt orders, and I was lifted onto a shifter's shoulder. I had to keep playing dead for a little bit, until we were moving and the group naturally drifted farther apart. I needed to buy us time, slow us down.

I felt a short, sharp tugging at the bite mark at the top of my shoulder. I shouldn't have been surprised. Brand had to be missing me by now, right? If Finnick knew I'd been taken, others would know, too. Brand would come, or even Glen, if he'd sobered up.

Why hadn't someone arrived already? I worried for a moment. Had anyone else been hurt or drugged when I was taken? Or killed?

Had Brand been hurt? No, I would have felt it in the bond. I focused on that connection now, and my mind hazed with a red rage.

Okay, Brand definitely knew I'd been taken. My breath stuttered, as I felt him reach back to me in the bond, all sorts of wild emotions zinging through me. I shut it down, knowing I needed to concentrate.

"Bring her up here to me," Ivan called back from twenty feet ahead. "She's awake."

Showtime.

I let my eyes fly open and did a flip, twisting free of the shifter who had me over his shoulder. On the way down, I stabbed him with my claws in the kidney as hard as I could, then twisted around and sliced his hamstring on one leg. I made a lunge for his knife, but it was out of reach.

I spun away, taking in the scene in an instant. The gloomy pre-dawn light showed me all I needed. Two shifters were about fifty feet ahead of us, and three or four were behind us, all in human form, and all dressed, so they wouldn't be shifting too quickly.

Finnick and I were in the middle of the group, of course. I couldn't find an obvious escape route. Then I heard a distant howl, filled with rage, power, and a promise.

Help was on the way.

"Mila, take the niece," Ivan ordered, sniffing the air. "We're compromised."

"What about the others, General?"

"I'll take care of them." He pulled something out of his pocket. A gun? A knife? No, a dark stick. It looked like some sort of wand.

It was fucking magic . I threw myself to the side just as he pointed it at me, and some sort of red light flared. It missed me, mostly. The left side of my calf went slightly numb, my leg a little slow to respond as I tried to regain my feet.

Finnick leaped after Ivan, but the wand's blast caught him in the chest, and he dropped mid-leap, like a giant hand had smashed him to the ground.

My heart skipped a beat. Was Finnick dead? Everything in me was screaming for me to run, but I couldn't leave him here. I knelt beside him, feeling a thready pulse.

"You're very good." Ivan paced over to me. "I may keep you."

I sneered, unimpressed. "I get that a lot."

I took up a fighting stance, although I had a feeling my moves wouldn't work against his magic fucking wand. Why the hell hadn't Del taught me how to combat magic?

"You can fight!" Ivan grinned, like he'd found out we shared a birthday. I tried not to react as I realized what the metallic sound had been.

His teeth. His damned teeth were silver, though they weren't doing his gums any favors. The silver smell alone would make a normal shifter feel sick. The sight of his rotting, bleeding gums around them… I shuddered.

"Oh, we have a few minutes. Let's play, little wolf." He dropped the wand into his pocket, and I backed up, not sure what this guy was doing. He seemed like a great tactician and a pretty effective leader, if a little bad-guy-monologue-y now and then. But stopping an evacuation to play with a captive?

"It's your funeral."

"Wouldn't be my first one," he murmured, swiping at me with his claws. I felt one slide over my arm before I could dart away, felt rivulets of fire as my skin parted beneath the thick, sharp points.

Holy shit, that hurt. I didn't cry out or react, just took a new stance and raised my own claws.

"Strong, little wolf. I'm impressed."

I didn't want him to like anything about me. Sticking out my tongue, I blew a raspberry to distract him.

He blinked. "What?"

I used the split second of confusion to whirl under his guard and punch the side of one knee, twisting to avoid his hands. His arms caught me, though, and before I could slip free, he was lifting me to his mouth, to those silver teeth.

Shit! He was going to tear my throat out.

I begged my wolf to come out a little more, and felt my own teeth change. I sank into the circle of his arms, wrapping my hands around his biceps, then vaulted up and through his loosened hold, squirming around to the top of his shoulders like a squirrel.

He let out a coughing laugh. "You're not a wolf. You're a little monkey."

Yeah, actual warriors never saw that one coming. They also never saw the next one. Time to use my most effective weapon. I vaulted off his back and ran like a rabbit on speed, ignoring the shocked yells behind me.

What this general asshole didn't know was that I'd been hunted hard for years, and I'd learned how to be very good, extremely elusive prey. How to climb, and hide, and become nearly invisible. How to obscure my scent, even traces of blood. I didn't have time to use all my years of honed skills, but I'd surprised these asshole rogues enough that I got a decent head start.

Behind me, the woods filled with howls as their instinct to chase took over. Good. I needed to keep them busy until backup arrived, and keep this Voldemort-wannabe shifter away from Finnick.

And keep my ass as far from these toadfuckers as possible. Silver-toothed Ivan had been clear he was going to do something nefarious with me. I shuddered, recalling what he'd said about keeping me.

Not today, Satan.