The Mercenary Read online

  Laura didn’t seem the least bit rattled by the barrage of questions they threw at her, she almost seemed to have expected it. “I’m not afraid, I don’t spill secrets and I won’t be a liability. I am confident I can help if I know the details, even if it’s just scouting out information.”

  “We know the pigs are planning something big, we’ve been trying to arrange a meeting with the boar king. We’ll try to negotiate there, but if it comes down to it we can deal with the threat physically.” Danny said. “We’ll be prepared if it turns into a battle.”

  Doug hissed and shook his head. Clearly in disapproval of Laura’s inclusion, he took his tea from the room and gave up trying to interject.

  “We want them to think they are calling the shots and have the upper hand,” Danny followed on. “But we’ll be ready and waiting.”

  “Are just the eight of you going to take on all the Pigs and whomever they drag along with them?” Laura didn’t seem impressed with the plan.

  Mark put his palms on the table and leaned forward as he sat down, his cool gaze fixed on Laura. “That would be suicidal.”

  “Exactly,” Laura nodded, meeting him eye for eye.

  “We’ll be getting reinforcements at some point,” said Danny. “We’re waiting to hear from Head Office. They’ll let us know when our comrades will be arriving.”

  “Why do the pigs want to kill me?” Jodie blurted.

  “They don’t want to kill you, they want to turn you,” Eddie said. “Like Luke was. Before your Therian side is exposed.”

  “What?” She cried in horror, feeling lightheaded and dizzy as she tried to wrap her head around the suggestion.

  “They were never trying to kill you,” Danny took her hand. “They didn’t know that Luke was Therian. They knew he was a shifter, but until he became a Lycan they hadn’t realized he’d never shifted. Lycans are like that, they can feel the power but that’s all. So they know now that Luke is capable of two forms. He won’t join them, so they are going after you.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned, shutting her eyes. “I think I liked it better when I thought they were trying to kill me.”

  “Do you know what an Alpha is, Jodie?” Mark asked.

  “Well in the fiction I’ve read, it means someone powerful or dominant.”

  “Yes,” Mark nodded. ‘There are several levels to our power structure. A Royal Alpha is at the top, Therians are always governed by monarchies and royals can be some of the most powerful shifters. Royal blood almost always trumps a regular Alpha but it depends on the species. Below Alphas are Betas, which semi dominant. Then there are Omegas, the lowest rank. Most Omegas are females and adolescent males.” “So are you all Alphas?” Laura inquired.

  “Nope!” Eddie grinned.

  “Eddie’s the son of Tiniraumano, clan leader of the Ngarara, also known as the lizard king,” Danny smiled as he shook his head. “He likes to think that makes him top rank around here.”

  “Danny, Rufus, Jarvis, and I are Alphas,” Mark intercepted. “Leon, Adam, and Doug are Betas.”

  “The point is,” Danny continued. “That if Luke is an Alpha, he’s one of the most powerful that we’ve seen. We suspect that the two of you have some royal blood in your ancestry somewhere.”

  “Holy crap,” Jodie breathed her mouth devoid of moisture.

  Screwing her face up, Jodie tried to digest the information. Basically the pigs didn’t change Luke on purpose. They knew he was something and had no idea he would become Lycan. When they did realize, they wanted him to join their clan. He wouldn’t do it, so now they want her instead.

  “I think they are hoping that if they turn Jodie, Luke will come begging for acceptance. Then they’ll have two very powerful Alphas. Alternatively they would still have Jodie, which is a damned sight more than they would have had before.” Eddie said.

  “I am so not becoming a pig!” She yelled.

  “We wouldn’t dream of allowing that to happen,” Danny smiled at her. “That’s why Mark, Rufus, Jarvis, and I have been alternating guarding you for the past couple of months.”

  “All the time?” Laura had straightened in her chair, looking at the guys in amazement.

  “Yes,” Eddie confirmed, “Head Office approved it. They don’t want Luke in the hands of the pigs, so they definitely don’t want Jodie to become one.” “Wow,” Jodie said, still in shock.

  “Luke is a lot more powerful than any of the pigs in the local clan,” Mark added. “It would make them very dangerous.”

  “Given everything you’ve said I don’t see why he would even consider it,” Jodie could feel a headache coming on.

  “He almost did,” Rufus said, joining the conversation for the first time.

  “Luke got lost and confused. He’d just become inhuman and needed somewhere to belong,” Danny still had his hand over Jodie’s, squeezing and stroking it in an effort to calm her. “Eddie and I have spent hours with him, talking, explaining, and trying to get him to understand the big picture.”

  “Does he know he’s Therian?” She asked, her voice quiet.

  “No.” Eddie shook his head. “We tried to tell him but he refused to believe it, accepting that he turned Lycan was difficult enough. He seemed adamant that if he’d been something else all along, your parents would have told him.”

  “My Dad doesn’t know,” Jodie murmured, “and my Grandmother won’t tell me anything.”

  “Well that sucks,” Jarvis sat back down with a plate of lasagne that he’d reheated in the microwave.

  “Seriously, how can you eat that right after crepes?” Laura looked ready to gag.

  “Food is food,” shrugged Jarvis as he tucked into it.

  “Don’t worry Jodie, we won’t let anything happen to you,” Danny whispered, his attention solely on her.

  “I’m going to need more coffee,” she decided as she took a deep breath.

  Chapter 19

  Mid-morning had arrived by the time anybody seemed prepared to drive the women home. Head Office called to assign Danny, Eddie, and Mark a job. Danny didn’t say much about it, but did indicate that there would be little or no blood shed. While that reassured Jodie, it also implied that if there would be bloodshed he’d tell her that too. She didn’t want to know in advance if he planned to go and kill someone.

  Laura and Ainsley decided they would go with Jodie to her place, they needed to have a long ‘girl’ talk about everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. They could have walked, which Jodie felt happy to do but Rufus vetoed the idea, insisting that someone accompany them. Jarvis claimed to have plans and Adam and Doug weren’t qualified to ‘guard’ Jodie on their own, so Rufus would be the one to hold the girls’ hands.

  The foursome trouped outside and Rufus opened the wide door of the small double garage. Jodie wondered why he didn’t qualify for the large garage and almost felt a sense of injustice on his behalf. At least that was how she felt until she took a look at what waited inside. One of the vehicles appeared to be a 1972 Holden Kingswood, the other a 1980 Ford Escort panel van and neither looked roadworthy. Okay, now I can understand the separate garage.

  “You have got to be joking.” Laura balked.

  “You’d better not be dissing my car.” Rufus warned as he unlocked the Holden.

  “No of course not,” Laura said as she gathered her composure.

  “Jodie, could I borrow your jacket?” Ainsley asked in her usual breezy tone.

  “What for?” Jodie frowned, as Ainsley already had a perfectly good jacket on.

  “I don’t want to sit on the seat, it looks really ick.”

  Gaping at her, Jodie’s eyebrows went skyward, “Ainsley!”

  “Just get in,” Laura groaned, giving them one of her ‘don’t push me’ looks.

  Rufus scouted the perimeter as Jodie unlocked the front door and Ainsley went straight to the kitchen. Laura declared it far too soon for another coffee so Ains decided to make smoothies instead. While she began to haul fruit and yog
urt out of the refrigerator, Laura went to use the bathroom. Jodie stepped back outside to ask Rufus if he wanted a smoothie too but couldn’t find him, her gaze drifting from one side of the yard to the other as she stood on the porch, quite perplexed.

  It occurred to her that Rufus may not have realized he was welcome in the house. Perhaps he’d assumed that being on the job meant he had to stay out of sight and out of the way, maybe he even preferred that. It would definitely mean less distraction. Jodie tucked her hair behind an ear and set off toward the boundary.

  “Rufus?” She called.

  He gave no response, rousing her suspicions at once. Jodie began by walking in the direction of the garage, but she never took her eyes off the woods. The door wouldn’t budge, locked at all times by her own request. I should have expected as much. The garden fork staked in the dirt nearby caught Jodie’s eye, the last time she’d used that thing two people had died. For lack of a better weapon, she snatched it up anyway and headed back toward the boundary.

  “Rufus?” She called a second time.

  “Jodie, get back inside!” His voice did not sound at all the way that it should have.

  Jodie did her usual thing, the opposite of what any sane person would do, ignoring her instincts and plowing on ahead. When she reached Rufus, Jodie stopped short. He’d dropped into a lunge position, a pair of enormous long hooked knives in his hands. Where the heck had he been keeping those? A short distance away, a large gold leopard lay on the forest floor.

  Its rich gold coloration appeared much brighter than Danny’s leopard, the bone structure more delicate. It also seemed to be female. Unaware she was holding her breath Jodie glanced down and saw that its eyes were closed, oh no! Is it dead? Why was Rufus spooked, what’s going on? Slowly inching closer, Jodie’s instincts told her there did not appear to be any element of danger. Either her senses were really screwed up, or something weird was going on, she looked over at Rufus again. The unimpressed look she received in return made her want to shrink back, but Jodie ignored the urge. Spinning the knives on their hilts, he slid them inside his jacket somewhere and blocked her path.

  “What’s going on?” She asked, the confidence in her tone coming as a shock to her.

  “You don’t want to see this,” he said in a low voice.

  “A word of advice Rufus... that is never a good thing to say to me.” Jodie told him.

  “Fine,” he shrugged and stepped aside.

  Jodie approached the leopard with caution. The animal had a nasty knife wound on one shoulder but her heart rate and breathing remained steady. Kneeling down Jodie placed a hand on its head, stroking the fur as she spoke in soft, gentle voice. The leopard’s eyes flew open and she hissed at Jodie, ears flattened and eyes wild. Jodie scrambled back, awkward in her haste to put space between them.

  Sniffing the air, the leopard gave her a strange stare as it started chuffing. If Jodie hadn’t seen Danny in leopard form so many times now she’d have still been afraid, however she knew that sound and there was nothing threatening about it.

  Moving closer she allowed the leopard to sniff her fingers and smiled as the animal began to lick them. It felt awful but she allowed it, knowing it seemed to be an affectionate ‘thing’ with leopards. It had been one of the first things Danny had done when she’d met him.

  “It’s all right,” Jodie soothed. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  An invisible weight seemed to settle over Jodie, the air growing thick and unbreathable. A prickling sensation crawled its way down her chest and arms. The leopard froze, her ears flattening back against her head as she hissed again, louder this time.

  “Jodie, get back!” Rufus yelled.

  He yanked her toward him by the arm and the sheer force of it landed her flat on her butt. Jodie knew it hadn’t been intentional so she said nothing. Instead, her eyes stayed glued to the leopard as the spotted animal tried to get up. Still very weak, she gave up after only a handful of attempts.

  “Can you pick her up?” Jodie questioned Rufus.

  “Hell no,” he said.

  “I thought you were really strong,” she argued from behind her pointed gaze.

  Rufus gave her another unimpressed look. “I didn’t mean that I couldn’t do it. I meant that I didn’t want to. She tried to take a chunk out of my ass and she’s lucky I didn’t kill her.”

  Who is she?” Jodie asked, looking at the shoulder wound as it dawned on her that Rufus had done that.

  The leopard hissed and spat at them both. Jodie moved to approach the animal but Rufus blocked her path. He muttered something under his breath and slid his arms under the animal’s midsection, lifting her effortlessly despite her large size. She continued to growl and protest but she didn’t try to bite him as they crossed over into the back yard.

  “Who is she?” Jodie repeated, with a little more assertion.

  Before Rufus could answer, two pigs appeared at the tree line followed soon after by a third. One charged at Jodie and Rufus had to put down the leopard before he could even consider drawing a weapon. Jodie still had the garden fork. Remembering her last attempt at wielding it, Jodie brought her arm down to her side to secure the right hand hold. Drawing the fork behind her in an arc, she swung it over until it connected with the pig. Stunned for a moment, the beast froze, so she hit it again.

  By this time Rufus had started flinging his knives around. His large size didn’t seem to impede him at all as the shiny metal flashed in the pockets of sunlight filtering down through the trees. Distracting as it was having him darting about beside her, Jodie remained focused on her own task.

  Rufus had halted his threat in as little as four or five strokes. Unaware of the fact, Jodie kept going with her pig, coping brilliantly. After several successful hits she managed to connect with the back of its skull, and it fell, reverting to human form in an instant. Jodie knew with a sickening dread that she’d killed it. Prying her eyes from the still form at her feet, she turned to Rufus, heartbeat still wild.

  “I think you’re done.” He rumbled.

  “For crying out loud Jodie!” Laura shouted from the porch. “I leave you alone for five minutes and look at the disaster you’ve gotten yourself into!”

  Jodie looked back at the blood and the bodies, starting to feel ill. Over it all. Three boars, one of which had reverted to human, and a wounded leopard. She’d definitely killed her pig. Rufus checked just to make sure, but it wasn’t coming back. The big guy pulled out his phone and called Doug to tell him what had happened. As soon as the call had ended, Rufus carried the leopard inside and went back out to deal with the mess.

  Inside Ainsley sat at the table drinking her smoothie, appearing calm and composed. Jodie frowned at Laura, giving her a questioning look.

  “She hasn’t noticed what happened outside,” Laura said in a low voice. “She had the blender going the whole time you were fighting, she missed the whole thing.”

  Blinking in astonishment, Jodie’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  “Yup and she does know there’s a leopard on your couch; she’s just pretending she doesn’t.”

  “Right.” How on earth is Ainsley going to survive long-term with Eddie if she has that level of denial? It worried Jodie, though she couldn’t do much to change it.

  Deep in thought about the future of Ains and Eddie’s relationship, Jodie got a bowl of water and took it to the leopard. Still wary of her, the animal’s thirst won out and she lapped it up furiously. Jodie knew the animal could change at any moment but she did not. By the time Rufus came inside again an hour later, the poor leopard had started to get anxious. With a few angry swishes of her tail, she kept shifting her position, soft growls coming from her throat every few minutes. As soon as Rufus announced that he had dealt with the situation in the yard, the leopard jumped off the couch and bolted out the door.

  “Weird.” Laura mused, gaze fixed in the direction it had gone.

  “Do you want a smoothie Rufus?” Ainsley’s ch
eerful voice rang out from the kitchen.

  Rufus arched an eyebrow at Ainsley’s separation from the turn of events. “Sure, why not.” After a glance at Jodie and Laura, he asked for directions to the bathroom to clean himself up a little.

  “So who in the hell was that?” Laura asked once Rufus had gone out of earshot.

  Jodie pursed her lips. “I’m not sure. I’ve been given the impression that Danny is the only leopard around here.”

  “What are the chances it could’ve been your Gran?” Laura had plucked the words right out of Jodie’s mind. Her gut told her Laura was right, though she had nothing to back it up.

  She couldn’t think of a rational explanation for her grandmother running around the forest by the cottage, in leopard form. A lot of open countryside spanned the distance between Seaview and where the house stood. Irene was an almost eighty-year old woman and not in any condition to walk the entire journey. So, if it had been Irene, she’d been running around in plain sight, looking every bit the wild animal.

  “Jodie, I reckon that was your grandmother.” Rufus said as he sauntered back into the room. Great, we’re all on the same page.

  “What tipped you off?” Laura wanted to know.

  “Well I ain’t never met Jodie’s Grandmother so I don’t know her scent,” Rufus began, “but that leopard had a shit ton of power. We know most of the shifters in the area and I never seen or heard of her before. I reckon that’s the first time she’s shifted in a while too, she sure wasn’t at peace with her beast. When two shifters are together, their power washes over each other. When it’s a lover or a relative, the reaction is strong. Your beast was real close to the surface just now and I could feel the energy trying to merge with hers.”

  “Is that why you made me step back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s your smoothie.” Ainsley said with a bright smile, handing it to Rufus.

  “Rufus,” Jodie hesitated at first as she watched him accept the beverage then Ainsley bustle off unconcerned. “Danny said that it’s rare to be both Lycan and Therian at the same time. Is that because you have to be genetically prone to it, or did it happen because Luke’s never changed into anything else? Did his ignorance make him vulnerable?”