Page 95 of Act of Brotherhood
He bent just as a hole exploded in the door behind him, right where his chest would have been. He came up fast and struck a man trying to enter the room. He hit the man with such a force that he felt the man’s jaw shattering upon impact. Garth wasted no time. He let his claws emerge and he spun, slashing the man’s throat open wide. He kicked him back through the door, making the blood spray away from him.
Another man charged in, this one partially shifted. The smell of cat-shifter filled the room. Garth made a move to go at the man, only to find Boomer rushing the guy. It gave new meaning to the term cat fight, since Boomer was also a cat-shifter.
Auberi withdrew his sidearm and pointed at Garth. Prior to their come-to-Odin moment on the plane, Garth would have assumed the vampire was going to shoot him. He knew better now. He stepped to the right and Auberi took the shot, taking out another of the bad guys.
There was no shortage of them. Two dove through the front window and Garth bent before stiff-arming them at the same time. They went down hard. Shots rang out and the men’s bodies jerked. Garth knew without being told that Auberi had fired the kill shots.
Never did Garth think he’d see the day when he and the stiff got along on anything. Then again, he never imagined Auberi as his father-in-law either.
There was no way he could wrap his mind around that at the moment. No. That would take several bottles of vodka and therapy.
Nicolette screamed, and Garth twisted to find hybrids rushing in through a side window. The men stunk of decay. That meant they weren’t the cream-of-the-crop experiments Grid and The Corporation were so fond of. Garth had to wonder if that meant his brother was running an off-the-books mission.
Garth attacked one of the hybrids while Auberi went at another, keeping Nicolette pushed behind him.
Suddenly, there seemed to be far more bad guys than should be swarming around them. Garth did a partial shift, allowing his arms and upper body to increase in size and mass. His shirt pulled hard at his biceps, threatening to tear from the added girth.
He cut through three of the enemy and saw Boomer partially shifted as well, making short work of some others. As Garth spun around and delivered a wicked kick to a hybrid, he caught sight of Auberi being piled on by hybrids. There were too many for the vampire to handle alone. Garth fought faster, trying to get to the man and Nicolette.
A huge hybrid male who had skin rotting off one cheek made a play for Nicolette. Garth’s breath caught as he watched his mate bend, grab the very phone she’d nailed Striker with, and then proceed to beat the living hell out of the rotting hybrid before her.
“Take that!” she yelled, giving the hybrid a stern look that really belonged more in her preschool classroom than in a battle for their lives. The look was that nonthreatening. “I will spoon you in the eye with this phone!”
Garth lifted a brow at her words and kept fighting against the enemy. He tripped over two dead bodies, and a hybrid used the moment to his advantage. He caught Garth’s upper arm with his clawed hand, slashing it open.
Nicolette screamed again, and Garth’s head filled with the sound of buzzing.
As the hybrid who had cut him went airborne, and then smashed against the wall like a bug on a windshield, Garth realized the buzzing was Nicolette’s doing. It was her power.
His eyes widened, and he made a mental note to avoid pissing her off.
Garth used his good arm to yank a hybrid off Auberi, who was now pinned to one of the beds by bad guys. Auberi hissed and bit the neck of the hybrid on him. When Auberi yanked his head back, the bad guy’s throat came with him, drenching Auberi in blood.
Nicolette hit another of the men on Auberi with the same phone she’d clearly mastered the art of weaponizing. The impact was hard enough for Garth to hear.
The hybrid fell away and stopped moving.
Nicolette looked up at Garth, her green eyes wide.
It took him a second to realize he was still partially shifted. He put his furred arms up. “I won’t hurt you!”
She pointed at something behind him.
He spun and found his brother there, holding Boomer off the ground by the throat. Garth knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his brother would snap Boomer’s neck without a second thought.
“Enough!” said Garth, watching his brother closely. “I’m here. Let’s do this.”
Grid sneered, and Boomer slashed at him, catching Grid’s cheek in the process. Grid released the cat-shifter, and Boomer made a move to charge him.
“No!” shouted Garth. “See to Auberi and Nicolette. I’ll deal with him.”
Boomer cast him a questioning look but nodded and went for Auberi, who was in the process of killing the last of the men near him. He also looked like someone had dumped buckets of blood on him. While that was normally a vampire’s idea of a kick-ass time, from the expression on Auberi’s face, he wasn’t happy.
“Brother, you didn’t tell me you claimed her,” said Grid, holding Garth’s attention. “When we spoke last week, you never brought that up. Then again, you were having issues talking with your wolf riding high. So weak now.”
“Grid, I won’t pull punches. I won’t step in to protect you. We’re past all of that,” warned Garth. “The time has come for you to pay for your crimes.”
“And you think you’re the one to make me pay?” Grid asked, laughing and glancing past Garth at Nicolette. “Tell me something, brother, how are you going to hand out this justice when your mate and unborn babe are in danger?”
