Page 15 of The Omega Thief

The horse seemed to skid on the cobbles, and Attiker tightened his hold, dragging himself out of his thoughts. He could hear the fire now. Not the flames themselves, obviously, but the noise that came with it. Shouting, panicked human cries. Panicked horses. Even dogs barking. The horse came to an abrupt halt, and it was only Raz’s broad back that stopped Attiker from pitching forward. Then Raz had his hands on him, and he was down. “Stay with me.”

It was an order Attiker had no intention of obeying. Attiker could get places there was no way Raz’s guards would let him, but he just nodded in compliance and took a moment. There was a line reaching as far as the well. Plenty of buckets, but times that by a score, and it still wouldn’t be enough. The tannery was ablaze, the stables were ash, and the inn was on its way. The bakery was smoking, and Raz immediately pointed people in that direction. Attiker didn’t join the human chain. It would be a waste. There were a dozen places in the same row that, according to the screams, people were trapped.

He gazed at the bookstore. They were having to physically hold Seamus back from rescuing his first editions until Attiker caught what he was saying and blanched. His wife was unconscious in the healer tent quickly set up, but he had two babes no one had seen. That was why the man was nearly hysterical.

Attiker shoved forward, but there was so much chaos no one was listening. “Where are they?”

Seamus gulped a breath. “The back. I carried Mara out, and they wouldn’t let me—” He bent over coughing and clutching his chest. Seamus had a bad heart. He wasn’t surprised the soldiers hadn’t listened, but they weren’t listening for the wrong reason. Seamus didn’t care about his business. He had two little ones.

Attiker glanced back at Raz. He was carrying a woman in his arms with a badly burned left arm. He looked back at the building and sized it up. He could never afford to shop in there, but he knew the standard layout. He also knew the babes would be huddled in the attic terrified out of their wits.

“If I don’t come back in a few, get to Thakeray and tell him what I’m doing.”

Seamus nodded gratefully.

Attiker had to do this. It was chaos. They needed the soldiers to put the fire out, but Attiker knew this rabbit warren like the back of his hand, and he took a deep clean breath and ran in before anyone saw him.

The flames were like a wall. He dodged and ran, scaling the broken stairs and the part of the roof still attached. He ran to the back, hearing the crashes behind him, battling the intense heat that seemed to strip his fur…no skin surely, but before he’d had the chance to sort that out in his head, he’d bust through the flimsy attic door, and two small heads rose gaping at him.

Little Elspeth was already crying, but as he appeared, Liam also burst into tears. Attiker opened his arms, and they both rushed him. They knew him, and hushing them both, he steered them to the door, only to be beaten back by a barrier of flames so large he couldn’t comprehend how they would ever get out. His gaze tracked the tiny room. There was a window that led to the roof that he couldn’t navigate and hold on to two terrified kids. Another crash sounded from just out of the room, and Elspeth cried out in fear. They had to go, and go now.

“Liam,” Attiker nearly had to shout over the din. “Promise me you’ll hold on to your sister. I’m a wolf. I can jump, but you need to stay on me.”

The little boy’s eyes widened at the declaration, and before Attiker had consciously made a decision, he crouched and bit his lip as a painful battering ram seemed to hit him on all sides. Then he was fur. He knew because everything was so much sharper, and he quickly crouched in front of the two terrified children. Liam managed to keep it together enough to shove Elspeth onto his back and climb on behind her. They didn’t need to be told to wind their fingers tight in Attiker’s fur before he set off for a leap at the window.

He had a few seconds to realize he’d cleared it with ease, and his claws dug into the straw and pitch of the roof. The already smoking roof. Seven hells, the place was like a tinder box. He swung his head around to look at the babes and felt Liam’s fingers tighten in response to the unspoken message, and then he was off. He ran across the roof and leaped building after building until he came to the flat stone roof of the chapel and the stairs. He made his way down and turned towards the crowd, intending on taking the babes back to their dad.

The moment he was seen, even in the chaos surrounding the street, he could hear the gasps. People backed away. One woman even dropped a full bucket and pressed a hand to her mouth, terror flooding her eyes. Attiker could only frown in his mind. What in seven hells was wrong with her? He stopped in front of the crowd, and the babes were dragged off his back. He turned, surveying the fire, which was just about under control, and then stopped.

What happened now? He just…what? Ditched the fur and grew legs? He was just looking around to ask when he heard a deep growl. It echoed in his mind before he heard it with his ears, and he swung his head to see a huge black wolf pacing towards him. His thick fur was stood up on his neck, and his lips were drawn back in a snarl. He could hear the angry rumble from the wolf’s chest and swallowed as the amber eyes glittered in anger. He knew two things…maybe three? He knew it was Raz—the prince—whatever. He knew, for some reason, the wolf was angry. Angry? If he could have laughed, he would have done. Probably hysterically. Because the animal prowling towards him looked like he was ten seconds away from ripping out his jugular.

He also knew that, for some reason, he was in trouble.

Attiker didn’t wait to find out. He turned and ran.

Turned out that even in the laws of natural physiology—that his healers were forever spouting—even having four legs to run with didn’t make you faster than someone that had much longer four legs than you had. Attiker realized that about the same time as a very large body slammed into him yet somehow rolling so that Attiker never so much as skinned an elbow on the cobbles. Elbow? Oh yeah, all man. He had a brief moment to appreciate the very large human body…naked human body he was sprawled upon, when he felt a large cloak cover him and saw soldiers surround them both.

Not embarrassing at all. At least he could roll his human eyes, even if he was standing and wrapped in the very large cloak before he could do anything more than blink, as well.

“Your Highness,” Thakeray acknowledged as Raz caught the cloak Thakeray passed him. He draped it around himself and glanced at Attiker briefly, before turning back to Thakeray.

“Report.” The word was clipped, angry.

“The fires are either completely out or contained. Apothecaries have been brought from the palace as instructed, and the east guard house is being cleared for the townsfolk that need it.”

“Deaths?”

Thakeray’s face grew even grimmer. “Stable lad. Older woman confined to bed. We have at least three other young ‘uns missing, and we’re not sure yet how many others were sleeping in the Salamander.”

“Bartholemew will know,” Attiker said quietly really not wanting to bring any attention to himself, but he knew Jenny was meticulous with her records.

Raz nodded and looked around at the few bystanders gawking at them that the soldiers were keeping back. Another soldier ran forward with what looked like clothes. Attiker didn’t get handed any, and he pulled the cloak around him a little more. All his clothes—not that he had many—had literally just gone up in smoke.

“Your Highness—” Thakeray started, but Raz interrupted him.

“Yes,” he answered the unspoken question. “We’ll go, but I want reports in the morning, both if we have a starting point for the fire and damage estimates. I will, of course, pay for the funerals.”

“Pay for the funerals?”

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