Page 28 of Flesh and Fury
He glanced at Eoghan who was watching the vignette playing out right in front of their very eyes. Eoghan met Ari’s gaze for a moment and pivoted, directing his comments to Tyler. “What the fuck do you want?”
The werewolf sneered. “I want my woman and my baby. That fucking marriage to Edward Walters is going forward over my dead body, and anyone who dares to try and stop me from taking Carmen, dies here, tonight.” He advanced and Ari slipped his hand into his pocket, slowly sliding the can of werewolf deterrent out of his tac pants.
“We came here to talk about that, son,” the chief said. “No one wants to take Carmen anywhere. It’s all arranged. You’re free to take her and go. No need for threats to a baby, threats to us. You’re responsible for the death of three of your brothers and it was all for nothin’, son.”
“What?” Tyler looked dumbfounded.
“That’s right, you idiot!” Juan screamed. “But you might have jeopardized all of that, Tyler! I’m your Alpha.” The outraged man turned toward the man holding the knife on the young baby. “And you…you’re a disgrace, Lomax! I’m still your Alpha and I’m ordering you to get that knife away from the baby and let the woman go!”
Ari turned to look at the wolf who Juan had called Lomax. He looked uncertain what to do, moving his glance back and forth between his Alpha and Tyler. Their numbers had been cut in half with the three who lay on the ground. Ari had been in multiple hostage crisis situations including ones where innocents like this woman were taken, both in the Army Special Forces and his Lexington marshal duties. In Lomax, all he could see when he looked at the hostage taker, was a man who felt trapped and desperate. But Washington’s reference to Tyler’s brothers and Juan’s incendiary comments wouldn’t help the situation along, not by a long shot.
Lomax had to know he was wrong in threatening this innocent woman’s child as well as the rest of them. He’d disobeyed Juan, his Alpha, as well as Tyler, the leader of this mob. There had to be punishment for that. Maybe he was afraid but there was nothing he could do about the situation. At most there was only one other werewolf on his side and those were crappy odds when you considered who he was up against. Then, there was the woman Tyler supposedly loved in the restaurant behind him. She wasn’t on the side of any of this. She’d come to the table with her gay brother to negotiateher freedom so she could be with Tyler. This seemed to all be a huge misunderstanding.
Ari hoped Lomax would back down, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the butcher knife, aimed at the child. He stood a good twenty feet from the man. There was no way for him to use the spray on Lomax or shoot him without endangering the sleeping infant or her frightened mother.
“Lomax, put down the knife,” Juan said. “With two Alphas, Edward, and five marshals from the I.S.R. you have to see that you’re wildly outnumbered.” He glanced at Tyler before looking back at the hostage taker. “I think you know that now we’ve all come to an agreement, I’ll be giving little Galen Walters back to the Bishop Pack, and Carmen will be going back to Tyler. There’s no reason to take anyone hostage, Lomax. You have to see that and surrender. We’ve come to an agreement. Carmen is coming home.”
Lomax looked torn, likely afraid of what he knew he should do, and terrified of the punishment he’d face from Tyler and his Alpha if he didn’t abandon his crazed plan instead of helping him as he’d probably planned.
“Please,” Ari pleaded, anxious to get this over and done with. “Please let the woman go. Carmen’s coming home to Tyler.”
Lomax lowered the knife slowly, eased his arm from around the woman and let her step away from his body. He dropped the knife on the ground and waited. Juan walked past the rest of them and stood naked before his kinsman, looking like a large, werewolf god in human form. He was magnificent…
…even a moment later when he shifted to his half human form and tore Lomax’s head from his body.
Chapter Nine
EOGHAN
He saw what was happeningasit was happening, and it took everything in him to stay rooted to the ground, knowing that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Watching Lomax’s disembodied head flying through the air in a twirling motion, spraying blood all over the place, was horrifying…but almost elegant in the way it rotated while airborne. It hit the sand and rolled ten feet away from the body as Lomax’s knees bent and the rest of him dropped to the ground with a dusty thud.
Juan turned to face them, and Eoghan stared, transfixed at the werewolf who calmly shifted back to human, blinking his eyes through the blood which covered him like he’d just walked off the set of Carrie. Watching him placidly reach up and wipe away Lomax’s blood from his dripping cheeks made Eoghan’s stomach turn.
“I’m sorry, Alpha,” Tyler said, dropping to his knees and lowering his head to the sand as he kowtowed to his master. He didn’t look up. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You weren’t thinking,” Juan roared.
Eoghan steeled himself, preparing himself for another beheading as Tyler’s other thug also dropped to the ground and bowed his head.
“I should kill you but instead, I’m going to be magnanimous and abjure you,” the Alpha continued.
Tyler obviously didn’t dare look up but kept his head pressed to the dirt. “No, please, Alpha. What about Carmen and our baby?”
“My sister doesn’t figure into this. She belongs to me and the Hawthorne pack,” Juan said. He took another step closer, but Tyler wasn’t daring to lift his face to look his Alpha in the eyes. “And so does her baby.”
“Please, Alpha. Please let us stay. You wouldn’t be so cruel as to banish Carmen, your own sister.”
“You dare ask me anything after this? You dare speak my sister’s name in the same breath as a plea to stay after what you did? You make me sick, Vallejo! How can I ever trust you again? You and the lowlife beside you. I will not force my sister to stay but youwillgo. If she’s stupid enough to follow you, then that will be her decision, but she’ll always be welcome back in Hawthorne.”
“I’ll be leaving with Tyler if you abjure him, Juan.”
They all turned to the small voice of the woman who’d come out of the restaurant along with the husband of the crying hostage. A third person was with them in his stained cook’s apron and stood beside Carmen and the husband, looking shell-shocked at the carnage strewn all around the battlefield.
Eoghan took a moment to glance around at everyone including his partner who was standing beside Edward and looking at his still healing stomach wound. It had knitted together nicely but was still stained with blood and had slightly puffy flesh at the seams. He marveled at the way the werewolves healed. A human would have succumbed to their disembowelment and the blood loss resulting from it in a matter of minutes.
“Carmen…hermana,” Juan cajoled, walking up to his sister and putting an arm around her. Blood rubbed off ontoher clothes almost immediately. “I don’t want you to leave. You and the baby are always welcome in the pack. Please…don’t go.”
“Please, Juanito,” she pleaded, looking up at her brother’s face. “I was silent until now but now that you know Tyler is the father of the babe, you must let us both stay. He has always been a loyal lieutenant to you, Alpha. Please let him stay. He will remain loyal. We don’t want to leave our family.”