Page 68 of Flesh and Fury

“Same with us!” a woman shouted. “We’re wolves from Vegas but we’d love to join a bunch of werewolves to show them how it’s done!”

There was an enormous cheer which suddenly turned into howls that sent fear coursing through Ari so fast, he didn’t know where he was for a second. When he looked over at Eoghan, he noticed his lover had gone pale. He walked over to him and took his hand, squeezing it hard and making him look at him. As their eyes met, he willed courage and calm into himand eventually, amid the howls, his eyes lost their terror and his breathing slowed to normal.

“Enough!” Priest called out. “Enough! We have to get through this. You can howl all you want afterward.”

Everyone finally stopped making noise and she resumed what she’d been saying. “Fine. If you think you can take on Albuquerque with some of Vance’s wolves, I trust you know your own strengths.” She looked at Ross. “Thanks, Vance. Now, I want you to take the rest of your tribe to Tucson. They’re also large but equally matched with you in numbers.”

Vance saluted. “You got it, boss.”

Ari smiled. He liked him.

“Finally, Flagstaff,” she said. “Since this is his headquarters, I want the Tahoe grizzly pack there with me, Marshals Sapphire, Brown, and the dragons to take Flagstaff. I’m also assigning the Henderson vampire pack to Flagstaff to fight right alongside of us. With those combined forces, we should have about sixty fighters and should be able to take out Bradshaw with King John Townsend’s help. After all, I think he’ll want to rally whatever troops he still has living and get back on his throne as soon as he can.”

“Or Severin and I could just set fucking Flagstaff on fire and have done with it all,” Invictus said. “It’d save countless deaths.”

Ari laughed as did Eoghan beside him.

“No, I don’t think setting everyone in Flagstaff on fire would be a good idea, but I’ll keep your suggestion on file when I come across an unruly nest of politicians the next time I’m in D.C.,” she said, chuckling.

“There’s plenty of politicians all over the country that I’d love to see fried to a crisp,” someone in the back shouted.

After the laughter died down, Ari looked out at the crowd of shifters and werewolves. Even though he’d only known thatcreatures like these existed for a few months, he felt attuned to them, as if they were joined with invisible bonds, human and nonhuman. In a way, he felt safer among this crowd of creatures who could kill him by the tooth or nail, than he had on his job in the human U.S. Marshals service or even his Army Ranger unit on the front lines.

“When do we go, boss?” Eoghan asked.

She nodded to him and turned to the room, raising her arms. “I’d like to see the leaders of all clans for final preparations. The rest of you can stand easy.” She glanced at Eoghan and Ari. “I have to wait for Townsend to come but I want you to go to the office so that you can monitor what’s going on there with the search for my kidnapper.”

“You got it boss,” Ari said, meeting Eoghan’s gaze. He nodded before Ari turned back. Smiling at Priest, he said, “You did a wonderful job here, boss. We’re going to win this and it’s all because of you. I hope you know that.”

Priest smiled broadly at him as a blush stained her cheeks. “Thanks, Brown, but if it weren’t for you and Eoghan, none of this could have happened.”

Ari wasn’t so sure about that, not at all.

Chapter Twenty-One

EOGHAN

The situation at the office over the next twenty-four hours proved to be dire to say the least. With Priest missing and presumed kidnapped, the Agency had sent over an acting Deputy Chief from Vegas who preferred to sit in Priest’s office and bark orders, demanding updates on what was being done to find her rather than laying out a game plan of his own. It was hard for Eoghan to ignore the vibration from his cellphone as he listened to Ronald Cummings, Priest’s temporary replacement, prattle on as they sat in front of her desk for their end of day update. All he wanted to do was check his message, especially when he knew it had to be the boss in question. He was grateful when they were dismissed.

Cummings wasn’t a very impressive guy and he’d never been a deputy chief before, but he seemed like he genuinely wanted to find her, just had no idea how. Eoghan had assumed he was just totally out of his depth in a big office like L.A. the minute he’d called them into Priest’s office before lunch. They were coordinating with other law enforcement agencies, though. After a quick meeting and even quicker dismissal, Eoghan and Ari were sent off to figure out what had happened to her without any instruction on how to do that. He’d call the liaison for the investigation and gone from there.

The update from Cummings wasn’t very helpful. But hopefully, they had their hands full and they wouldn’t berequired to be anywhere. As soon as they were out of the office, he reached into his pocket and checked the message.

“I heard your phone buzz when we were talking with Cummings. What does it say?” Ari asked, watching him check his messages.

“Just to meet ‘us’—whoever that is—back at the warehouse. I assume King John arrived. It’s after dark. I really hope he has news from his people. It would be good to have a whole bunch of vamps joining us.”

“Do you really think that’s safe, Eoghan? I mean these guys are hungry. The whole reason they’re on our side is because they’re being starved,” Ari said.

They’d left the building and gotten on the road immediately. Eoghan dragged his eyes away from the freeway and looked over at Ari. He wasn’t looking very sure of himself. He offered him a half smile and reached across the console, taking his hand. Ari squeezed it hard. “Don’t worry about that. King John will see to it that anyone from his clan is well fed before joining with us. He wouldn’t want us put in harm’s way and you heard what Vance Ross said. The Vegas vampire clan isn’t affected by synthetic blood shortages and they’ll be well fed. I think the chief knows this or she wouldn’t ask any vamps to join us in this fight.”

Ari nodded. “You’re right, Eoghan, in this as in everything.” He lifted their clasped hands and put a soft kiss on the back of his hand.

Eoghan felt chills wash over him, exactly the way he always felt when Ari showed him affection.

“Why do you think the Agency sent someone like Cummings to head up the search and take over the Los Angeles office?” Ari asked as Eoghan drove back to Sun Valley. “Do you think he’s working with Katerina Rojas?”

Eoghan looked over at him, thought about it for only a second before shaking his head. “No. Remember what Vance Ross said about Vegas? Cummings is from Vegas and as far as we know, Bradshaw’s vamps haven’t infected that territory so far. I doubt Cummings is anything other than a marshal who’s been around a while and can be trusted to get back to the brass in Washington. He struck me as more of a brown noser than anything else. He’s certainly never run a kidnapping investigation before.”