Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) (10 page)

A rush of air whooshed past me as a large mass of thugs, punks, and hoo
dlums materialized behind us, closing ranks like an army battalion. They made the number of Phoenix’s pack look small by comparison. That made me feel better, if just a little bit. Maybe now the stupid git would actually take a hint and retreat. And preferably, when they did end up fighting, it wouldn’t be in my club.

“
Quality over quantity, Kieran.” Phoenix shook his head. “When will you ever learn?”

Kieran grinned, well, wolfishly. “
I know. Quality over quantity.”

His men cheered raucously, shouting obsce
nities at Phoenix’s pack. His pack didn’t take it well. Some of them mumbled amongst themselves, and a few cracked their knuckles in an ominous way.

It all felt staged, like watching the fight scene in West Side Story.

“Here? You were always such an impatient prick, Kieran.” Phoenix slipped out of his jacket as his men did the same.

Oh, God. This was not going how I imagined.

Kieran ignored the way I tugged at the sleeve of his leather jacket. “Who me? I’m not the fucker straining at the leash,” he said. “But while we’re on the subject of straining….” He snuck a glance at me. “Take your little werewolf girl and get the fuck out of here. Things are going to get a little…messy,” he said quickly and pulled off his leather jacket.

“
What? You’re fucking kidding me. If you’re fighting, if you’re going to fuck up
my
club, then the least you could allow me is the fun of doing some of that damage myself.”

The look on Kieran
’s face was priceless. “You’re not serious.”

I
was
serious. Watching Eileen risk death by standing up for me made me realize I had grown weak. I didn’t dislike the person that I’d become—a nicer person. But I’d also turned soft, and that wasn’t good. Nicer wouldn’t kill me, but soft just might do the job. Here was the chance to redeem myself.

I took
the coat from Kieran and turned to Eileen. She stared back at me, a petrified expression on her pretty face.

“
Go. Go into my office and put everything against the door. Don’t worry about the windows, they’re shatterproof.”

“
But, but….” Her eyes flickered to Phoenix. “He’s my pack leader. He could kill me for deserting.”

Kieran butted in. “
You’re welcome in my pack. Any time.”

Phoenix laughed.

“You like picking up strays? Well, you can have that one. She was never any good anyways. Wasn’t much good in bed either,” he said.

Eileen staggered back as if she
’d been struck.

“
How would you know, Phoenix? I hear you aren’t exactly a Casanova, either,” said Kieran with a smile.

Phoenix
’s face turned an ugly red.

“
Go. Eileen, go!” I shoved her toward the general direction of my office on the second floor. After a few faltering steps, she dashed for the stairs, Kieran’s jacket flapping in her slim arms.

It looked like Phoenix
’s pack was all ready to go, and when I glanced back at Kieran’s men, they stood at the ready, all of them smiling in anticipation of the blood that would be spilled.

“
You going to be okay? I won’t have to worry about you, will I?” Kieran asked, sounding worried for the first time that night.

I couldn
’t help but grin.

It
’d been a long, long time since I fought. Most of my opponents would get knocked out after one blow, so fighting had lost much of its allure. But Phoenix’s men looked so strong. Surely, they could take me on.

“
I think you should be worried about yourself,” I teased.

Damn.

This was going to be a
lot
of fun.

And maybe for just a few minutes, I could forget about Jamison.

I hoped.

CHAPTER NINE

“
No one can answer for his courage when he has never been in danger....”

I could smell it.

I could taste it.

The almost tangible feeling of expectation hung thick in the air, so thick one could almost choke on it.

Phoenix sneered and spat on the spic-and-span floor my employees spent an hour polishing every day. I was sort of hoping I
’d be able to polish it back to its original state with his body. “You’re really going to regret butting in pack business, bitch.”

“
I’d be careful of what I said if I were you. You’re already in deep shit. Do you really think you want to dig any deeper?” Kieran countered.

Since when did I need a spokesperson to speak on my behalf? But I wasn
’t stupid enough to start an argument. Not with thirty Weres grinning at me twenty feet away.

A pause lingered as the tracks changed in the DJ booth, and in that instant, ev
erything happened, seemingly all at once, like a choreographed dance. I realized then, turning Were could be one of the most painful things in the world. How could it
not
hurt when you’ve got bones shifting and melding...right under your skin?

Phoenix was
changing—changing a lot faster than anyone else. While everyone else in his pack still remained on their hands and knees, their backbones elongating into painfully straight lines, fur already started to glisten on his body.

But so was Kieran, maybe even j
ust a bit faster than Phoenix. After all, they were both Alphas, so were bound to change before anyone else. However, Kieran was the disputed Were King. He was supposed to hold court over the other Weres, and that meant he was, technically, Phoenix’s liege lord.

Apparently, Phoenix didn
’t think so.

He snarled at me, teeth long enough to go through my arm.

"I'm gonna tear you to pieces, bitch."

Shit, I didn
’t have a weapon. I didn’t even have anything in my hands. Did I really want to fight an eight-foot werewolf with my bare hands?

The answer came only a split second later before I sprinted for the bar counter on the other side of the dance floor.

Fuck no.

Someone howled, a long, low sound that set my hair on end. Damned if I knew who it was and damned
again if I was going to turn around to see. I hurled myself over the bar counter, knocking over drinks in the process. My pants started to smell strongly of
Jaegermeister,
and a tiny part of me was glad I chose to wear casual that night.

I groped around
for the aluminum baseball bat one of my human bartenders, Kel, kept underneath the counter and cautiously poked out my head to survey the dance floor.

Everyone had changed. I couldn
’t see a single man, but a mass of gigantic wolves, thick beads of saliva dripping from their muzzles.

Kieran was completely silver, a rarity in its own right, but even from where I crouched, I saw his eyes shifted hues as well, from a cerulean blue to a silver so light they were almost white. He stuck out like a bent nail on a
plank among those dark bodies, and I noticed Phoenix was a very common brown. Hah.

Why weren
’t they moving? By this time, I thought to see blood flashing in the air, fur flying in tufts, to hear yelps and other general wolf noises.

But nothing.

The ranks were cleanly delineated, and it was obvious that while Kieran’s boys clearly outnumbered Phoenix’s by at least a good dozen, Phoenix’s pack members looked a bit...bigger. In fact, a few in Kieran’s pack looked downright
runty.
Kind of like a pack of Davids versus of pack of Goliaths. But David had won, hadn’t he?

Then again, David wasn
’t a wolf. At least, I didn’t think he was.

Phoenix growled and started to move, his feet silent on the floor except the clicking of massive claws the length of my hand. Wo
w. One hit from those suckers and you’d be picking up your intestines from the floor. I fought him before but he was in human form then and now, I couldn’t help but get a little impressed.

Still, Kieran didn
’t move.

While Phoenix and his pack took one ste
p after another, closer and closer to Kieran and his men, Kieran just stood there. Was he waiting? I had to admit, for runty werewolves, his men were very well disciplined. Having seen them as a rather motley crew, I didn’t know they could do self-control as well as any great army.

My hand tightened around the bat. Aluminum wasn
’t very good; the bat would bend right in half as soon as I hit someone, but that split second of impact was all I needed. I regretted cutting my nails the night before. Didn’t quite seem fair I had nails no longer than one and a half centimeters while Phoenix could literally cut his way through bars of steel. Ah well. Better luck next time?

“
Come on...move. Move it, before he bites you in half, you idiot,” I muttered.

Closer and cl
oser...Phoenix padded towards Kieran, lips curled back, showing off frighteningly sharp teeth.

Why wasn
’t Kieran
moving?

Phoenix took a running leap, and I jumped over the bar counter, the bat ridiculously light in my hands.

“Kieran!” I screamed, unable to keep quiet any longer.

He moved.

Almost too fast for my eyes to follow, he rose up from a low crouch, powerful back legs propelling him into the air like he’d been shot from cannon.

They met in a flurry of brown and silver fur, and then the entire fl
oor rolled with a teeming mass of Weres, yowling, snarling, snapping, biting, scratching. I’d never seen anything like it, and for a moment I was struck dumb by the entire spectacle.

Chaotic.

That was the only word that rose in my mind. The bat fell out of my hands, and I couldn’t look away. Every wolf looked the same. How could they tell each other apart? It wasn’t as though they could talk. Could they? 

At the edge of the floor, a flash of white danced before it disappeared under a heap of brown and blac
k fur. Kieran was being targeted not only by Phoenix, but one of Phoenix’s pack mates.

He yelped, and I felt it pierce my heart harder than someone shoving a dagger through that exact spot.

No.

Had to get there.

Had to help!

I kicked a large Were out of
the way, and it hit one of the pillars at the edge of the dance floor. The pillar cracked, and the top leaned precariously over a pile of Weres duking it out.

“
Kieran!”

I tripped over the body of a Were, its eyes glazed and blood already clotting from a
massive slash across its neck. A big Were. I hoped it wasn’t one of Kieran’s.

The sounds got worse. Screams, sounding far too human for my liking, echoed through the club, and I wanted to stuff my fingers into my ears. Anything to stop hearing those eerie
cries. I was no stranger to pain, inflicting or receiving, but this kind of screaming...scared me.

Kieran yelped once more as Phoenix ripped savagely into his back with those gigantic claws, while his pack mate held Kieran down.

It was unfair. It was cowardly, and just fucking wrong, but since when did Phoenix actually adhere to any code of chivalry and fair play?

A huge Were, black fur tinged with red, lunged towards me, teeth and muzzle stained with someone else
’s blood. Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his ears. I hooked an arm around the Were’s neck, its claws scoring deeply into my back. But I didn’t, couldn’t feel the pain. I could only think of Kieran’s suffering. And this Were was keeping me away from him.