Trying Times (The Valens Legacy Book 14) Read online

  "Shit, have you see her coat? She's friggin' gor...gorgeous! If I gonna be a wolf, I wanna look..."

  "Damn, he passed out!" Woz said. Taking his tag off, he unhooked his necklace.

  "What are you doing?" Demon growled.

  "Those bullets are silver! He's got three in him! I need to fix that, or Shia's bite isn't gonna help!

  "Hey! They're retreating!" Trent called out.

  "Kill them ALL!" Demon snarled as Shia came running over and slid to a halt. She took one look at Alex and didn't even hesitate. Dropping to her hands and knees, she immediately bit Alex on the arm, and then again on the leg.

  Then the other leg.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Woz asked.

  "Works quicker this way," she said, sitting back and licking her lips. "Oh god, I hope I got here quick enough."

  "You know he picked you because he likes your coat?" Demon said, and he pulled Alex into his lap as Woz kept pressure on the bullet wounds.

  "Oh, yeah," Shia said and grinned. "We've talked about it in the past. He's been thinking about this for a while, but he figured he if looked like you, you'd get all self-conscious and stuff. Plus, you and I did use to be an item way back when..."

  Demon shook his head and grumbled.

  "Bleeding's stopped!" Woz said, looking up and smiling.

  Demon gave a heavy sigh of relief.

  "He's one of us now," Shia said with a grin.

  "He's always been one of us," Demon said with a relieved smile.

  "Hey, maybe now he'll tell us where he gets those biscuits!"

  "Not on your life," Alex mumbled weakly.

  "Shit shit shit shit shit!" Zack swore as he dove into the car and started it up. No one had told him the fucking werewolves would have guns! And what the hell? The silver bullets hadn't even slowed them down!

  Neil was dead; a werewolf had ripped his head off right in front of him! Kirsten had taken a buffer to the head and gone down; he was pretty sure it had crushed her skull. He could hear Charlie screaming as another werewolf shot him in the guts again and again.

  Firing up the car, he floored it, and nothing happened! Looking down, he could see the car was running and he could hear the engine screaming. Turning his head, he noticed it then.

  A big fucking werecat of some sort was holding the back of the car off the ground! And he didn't look happy.

  A hand smashed through the side window and wrapped around his neck. Squeezing him tightly, it ripped him out of the car through the window, then threw him across the street where the cars were being washed when they'd attacked.

  He tried to gasp, but he couldn't breathe! Putting his hands to his neck, he realized his throat had been crushed!

  The last thing he saw was the muzzle of a rifle pointed at his throat, and someone pulled the trigger.

  #

  A trio of Sean's people showed up armed with rifles to guard the front door, relieving him, so Sean quickly searched the house to make sure no one else was inside. He made a note that, from this day forward, the house would be well-stocked with rifles, just in case.

  Grabbing a couple of magazines, he recovered his pistol, reloaded it, and clipped the holster inside his waistband as he went out the back door to check on the situation. He heard Oak's announcement, repeated several times, to kill only when necessary, that they were fighting humans.

  There weren't any humans inside the perimeter of the buildings, thankfully, and no one had yet thought to attack their helicopters. Sean was surprised to see, for the first time since he'd gotten back, that there were now two dozen of them lined up outside; the helipads had been extended at some point while he was gone.

  He snagged one of his soldiers as they were running towards the front.

  "Yes, Sean?"

  "Tell Oak I want the helos launched. I don't want to take a chance on losing any of them."

  "Immediately, Sean!" the man said, running off.

  Shifting into his hybrid form, Sean leaped up on top of one of the barracks and looked out at the fighting.

  None of his people were using firearms now, though the same couldn't be said for the attackers. Thankfully they didn't seem to be very good with their weapons, because most of them were fumbling and dropping the magazines when they tried to reload.

  Once they managed to reload, several of them ended up shooting their buddies by accident. Sean noticed a lot of dead or wounded people in the mix.

  He heard the report of a rifle coming from the main house's direction. Looking over there, he saw Roxy and Cali were set up. Looking back to the mob, he saw a man lying on the ground clutching his leg. Apparently they were picking off the few who actually knew how to fight, but rather than killing them, they were giving them wounds that would hopefully turn out to be non-fatal.

  "There he is! There's the false god!" someone screamed. Sean noticed they were all looking at him now, and suddenly he was taking fire!

  He noticed immediately that his silver shield came up after he'd been hit several times. The bastards had silver ammunition! Looking through his framework, he found the spell he wanted, a massive windblast, a concussive-type spell. It would tap him out completely; he wasn't wearing any of his mana multipliers, unfortunately. But with the silver shield up, he wouldn't have to worry about that right away.

  It took him only a few seconds to prepare the spell. Stepping off the roof, he landed before the center of the mob and let it go. Everyone within fifty feet of him was immediately blown back a good ten feet, and even those behind them were knocked to the ground.

  Seeing the majority of the enemy knocked down and stunned, most of his forces streamed out to subdue their downed foes. Someone was handing out heavy-duty cable-ties, and within minutes people were being zip-tied all over.

  "Medic! Medic!" Sean heard his people yelling. "We got wounded!"

  As more and more of his people surged out, overwhelming and subduing those who hadn't been taken down by Sean's spell, he joined them and started checking the people who were down. Apparently when he'd jumped off the building, more than a few of the people in the mob had tracked him with their rifles, continuing to pull the trigger.

  There were a lot of people in the front lines who'd been shot in the back, or worse yet, the back of the head. Moving further towards the rear of the mob, where he'd seen a fair number of friendly-fire accidents, he found even more wounded—a fair number of whom were women.

  "Stabilize them and get them on a helicopter!" Sean yelled. "Treat the women first!"

  Looking around, he saw a few running away, ones who must have been at the very back of the crowd when he'd hit them with the wind blast. Shaking his head, he let them go.

  "Who are these people? And where the hell are the police?" he yelled, looking back towards the compound.

  Pastor Cross was panting hard as he ran back to where he'd left his car. Most of his people were down; somehow those demons had beaten them! There must have been something wrong with the weapons they'd been given!

  When they'd been overwhelmed, he'd been at the rear of the group, trying to figure out their next step. When he saw that heretical lion devil jump down into the crowd and knock them all down with the power of Satan, he'd lost hope for a moment, he admitted.

  But he'd been able to get back to his feet quickly. Unfortunately he'd seen many of his dear ewes who were there today could not, so he'd done the only merciful thing he could; he'd shot each of them in the back. Better to die cleanly than to be tortured and raped by the minions of hell. Shooting Betty had been particularly hard, as she'd been looking right at him when he'd pulled the trigger.

  But he was still alive, and he was free. He'd raised an army before, and he could raise another! This time he would be sure to raise one so large that his victory would not be denied!

  #

  Sean strode into the command center. "Did you call the police?" he asked Oak.

  "Your father-in-law did."

  "Then where the hell are they?" Sean growled.r />
  "Our building in town was attacked at the same time we were," Oak said, shaking his head.

  "How bad?"

  "We didn't lose anybody..."

  "But?" Sean growled.

  "Shia had to bite Alex. He got shot up pretty bad and almost died."

  "What!" Sean was shocked. "Alex? Harmless, everybody's friend Alex?"

  "Demon was so pissed he ordered them to kill everybody."

  "Oh, shit," Sean said with a sigh. "Call our lawyer. Tell him to get whoever he knows on this immediately."

  "Your father-in-law is grabbing one of the helicopters as we speak to get down there and do damage control, but the cops are all over the place. Trent told me they at least made it look like everyone they killed died while fighting them, even if they had to drag them back first. Apparently Demon wasn't the only one pissed that they shot Alex."

  Sean just shook his head.

  "I want all the heads to meet me in the conference room once we have this situation under control."

  "What do we do with the prisoners?"

  "Fly the seriously wounded to the hospital. Have the rest sit out in the field under armed guard. Oh! And have Maitland or Ruthelma question a couple of them using magic, their glamour or whatever. I want to know who the hell these people are."

  Oak nodded. "I'm on it." Oak stopped then and shook his head. "Hell of a welcome home, isn't it?"

  "That's not even the worst of it," Sean said.

  "Oh? What else is wrong?"

  "Today's my birthday," Sean said with a heavy sigh and left to check up on his wives and children.

  Recriminations

  Sean was sitting in the conference room as the others finally filed in. It wasn't even ten o'clock yet, and he was having to deal with this kind of crap.

  "You know, this almost makes me wish I'd stayed over there," Sean grumbled to nobody in particular, then looked at everyone as they sat down. Roxy, Cali, Peg, and Estrella were there. He guessed Jolene, Roberta, and Daelyn were watching the children. Adam was there, as well as Maitland, Oak, a dwarven woman who looked familiar but whom he didn't recognize, Bill, Hunter, and Stewart. Why Stewart was there he didn't know, but he'd find out, he was sure.

  "Okay, Uncle, we'll start with you," Sean said, turning to look at Maitland. "Who the hell are these people, and why are they here?"

  "They're religious fanatics," Maitland said with a shrug. "Apparently they believe the lycans are the real demons, or are in league with the demons and brought them here. I'm not quite clear on all of it. I let Stewart do the more detailed questioning."

  "Stew?" Sean asked and turned to look at him.

  Steward smiled a little guiltily. "My, umm, step-father was really big on mental domination spells, and he made me learn a lot of them. So it was pretty easy for me to get a few of them to tell me everything. I got the names of all the leaders." Stewart held up a small pad. "I got where they came from, how they got here, who helped them, everything."

  "Go on," Sean said.

  "Well, they're all followers of one Pastor Cross Macrey. Daelyn's surfing the internet right now to learn more about him, but apparently he's some sort of preacher from LA. He's been preaching against lycans since the whole 'lycan awareness' campaign started gaining traction. Between the video of the attack the other week and the president sanctioning of people in the military joining us, he decided they had to act now to stamp us out."

  "All in the name of God, right?" Sean asked with a heavy sigh.

  "Yup, all in the name of God. It seems they find the lions' declaration that they're gods also had something to do with it. I gather they consider lions to be quite the heretics."

  "Great. What else?"

  "The group that attacked our building downtown," Stewart winced a moment as he spoke, "weren't part of the church. They were a separate group. But Pastor Cross did supply the weapons."

  "A separate group?"

  "Yeah, the 'Anti-Lycan Society'."

  Roxy blinked. "There's an 'Anti-Lycan Society'?"

  Stewart nodded. "Apparently. From the sounds of it, they're new on the scene. Nobody I talked to knew anything more than that Pastor Cross had been talking to them and they'd helped him bring his people up here for the attack."

  "Where's this Pastor Cross?" Sean asked.

  "I guess he got away?" Stewart said with a shrug. "He's not among the captives, or the dead and wounded."

  "How are the wounded?" Sean asked, and the dwarven woman raised her hand slightly and spoke up.

  "I'm Healer Valerie Gold; I'm a cousin of your wife's. I came up here a couple of weeks ago with some of my staff to help out. We haven't bothered examining the dead yet, but most of the wounded appear to have been shot by 'friendly fire'. We found a number of women at the back of the mob who had all been recently shot, almost all in the back. Two of them died on us, but we managed to stabilize the rest of them long enough to ship them off to the hospital."

  "And that's important why?"

  Valerie looked at Stewart, who sighed. She continued, "We think this Pastor Cross shot them to keep them from falling into your 'evil hands'."

  "I questioned one of them," Stewart spoke up. "Young girl, hot as hell. She told me he shot her in the stomach after she saw him shoot several of the other women in the back. She was pregnant with his child."

  "Which she lost." Valerie sighed.

  "What about the others?"

  "Yup, all of them are pregnant, too. All, I suspect, by Pastor Cross."

  Sean just shook his head.

  "Now what?" Oak asked.

  "How many did we lose?"

  "We lost Josh down at the front gate. Gary and Fran were overwhelmed and killed when the mob went by the garage."

  "What other damage?"

  "Mostly a lot of bullet holes in the buildings; the weapons they had weren't very high-powered. They all had fairly new AK-74s."

  "Where the hell did they get those from?" Hunter asked, and everyone looked at Stewart.

  "Some friend of Pastor Cross's showed up with them. I was told the guy had an accent. That was all I got," Stewart said with a shrug.

  Bill spoke up then, "I took a look at those rifles, both from here and at your place in town. They're all Ak-74s out of one of the old Soviet-era East German armories. A lot of them looked like they'd never been used before; they still had the packing grease in the actions." He paused and looked around the room. "Those guns weren't just bought on the black market. They all came from the same place. Also, I looked at the silver ammo they were using. It all appears to be professionally made, not something put out by your typical basement reloader, which is what we were used to seeing from the magic users."

  "How's the situation in town?" Sean asked him.

  "Stable. Sid, the sheriff, showed up and has everything under control. From what I saw, it was a straight up firefight; all of Alex's people had weapons at hand and were facing a much smaller group."

  "How's Alex doing?"

  "He was unconscious when I got there, and sleeping soundly when I left. Still dealing with the infection shock because of his weakened condition. He'll be okay. I called my contacts at the FBI to come and examine those guns and see if they can figure out where the hell they came from."

  Sean just shook his head as he looked down at the table and digested it all. It wasn't good. Someone had supplied those weapons. Someone with a grudge, he'd guess.

  "Okay," he said, looking at everyone around the table. "Triple the guard, give them machine guns. I want rifles stored in the house, the offices, all the barracks. Set some lookouts to cover all the approaches, and look into putting out some anti-personnel mines the guards can trigger. Anyone leaves the property, they're to carry either a sidearm or a rifle. Loaded. Institute a buddy system. I don't want people being ambushed by themselves.

  "Call Chad, Claudia, everyone in the lycan fellowship. Warn them we've got problems. I'll call Steve and let him know about it."

  "What do we do with the prisoners?" Hun
ter asked.

  "Hold them until the police show up. Same for the dead bodies. Keep them under guard. Go. Deal. If anything else happens, let me or Roxy know."

  Sean watched as they got up and left the room. Roxy came over and gave him a hug after the others had left.

  "Sorry about this, Love. Not a good way to spend your birthday, is it?"

  Sean sighed and shook his head.

  "Well, Happy Birthday," she said and kissed him on the side of his head.

  "Thanks, Hon. I just wish I could understand some folks. The most I expected was some protestors, a bunch of sternly worded letters, and bad press. Not a whack job fanatic and his crazy armed followers."

  Roxy just patted him on the back and left him brooding in the conference room. It didn't take her long to find Deidre and whisper a few suggestions in her ear.

  "Master Sean," Deidre said, coming up behind him and once again running her fingers up the back of his neck and through his hair, making him shiver pleasantly.

  "Deidre," Sean said enjoying her fingers as she did it a second time.

  "I seem to recall something about going over our financials?" she asked with a giggle.

  "Umm, I..."

  Sean suddenly found Deidre sitting in his lap, kissing him.

  "Master Sean," she said in a husky voice as she put her arms around his neck, "you can't ignore your finances, they're so very important, and they've missed your personal attention for weeks!"

  Smiling down at her, Sean wrapped his arms around her. Standing up, he kissed her, then carried her from the room, heading back to the house.

  The moment they got into Deidre's office, Sean kicked the door behind him closed with a heel. Taking Deidre in his arms, he kissed her passionately as she pressed her lush body against his.

  "Wow," Deidre said, panting, as Sean slipped his hands up under her shirt and ripped it off of her, "you really did miss me!"

  "Silly woman," Sean growled. Turning her around, he grabbed the waistband of her pants and pulled them down. "Of course I missed you, and yes, I love you!"

  Kicking his own shorts off, Sean pushed on her shoulders, and Deidre immediately got the idea. Putting her palms on the wall, she spread her legs and arched her back as Sean moved up against her from behind. Wrapping his arms around her, he took her firm breasts in his hands and kneaded them between his fingers as he leaned forward to cover her back, nipping at her neck.