Page 66 of Mated to the Enemy
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They’d left the SUV’s behind, hidden in a ditch a good hike from the edge of Canis territory. Klaue knew they would never be found. The Canis were like his Ursa in that regard. The sheer size of the land upon which their House resided meant their manpower was fully used up patrolling the area inside their boundaries. With walls kilometers long, it was hard to keep up full-scale surveillance inside, let alone send patrols into the surrounding area.
The last thing Klaue was willing to risk was them being discovered. The SUV’s were going to be crucial to their escape, considering the hornets’ nest they were about to stir up. He glanced to the side. Jessica was keeping up so far, but he knew it was already starting to tax her, and they weren’t even over the wall yet. Still, she didn’t complain, just kept her eyes ahead and kept moving with the group, focused on the mission at hand.
His chest puffed out ever so slightly with pride. That washismate. It was still insane to have her come along, but there had been no denying her, not after the fury she’d unleashed upon him when he’d made the mistake of telling her she wasn’t coming. Klaue had learned quite quickly, and forcefully, that shewasin fact, going to be joining him. So he’d said yes, despite hating the idea.
The walls loomed into view. Nervously, he glanced around, fingering a short rod of intricately-carved wood attached to his hip. It was close to two feet long, and covered in runes. All his men carried something similar. All of them that is, except for Jessica. She wore a pendant necklace.
As part of his planning, Klaue had met with Kvoss before the Assassin set out on his own mission, this one completely sanctioned by the Queen. With a rogue mage on the field practicing banned magic, Kvoss and his Asps were on the hunt. Klaue smiled, knowing the mage’s days were numbered now. Kvoss was the best Assassin he’d ever met, even if he was an ass.
Klaue had discussed how to defend against the mage, pretending he wanted to outfit his soldiers with more powerful magical artifacts. None of them could summon their own magic, but anyone, human or otherwise, could use an artifact and the magic it contained. So, after Kvoss had given him a tour of what he would recommend within the armory at House Ursa, Klaue had waited until Kvoss and his men left, then broken in and stolen each and every one.
Oops.
Now he and his men were as ready as they could be to deal with the mage. Most of them had no skill with magic, and thus would be mostly ineffective, but numbers mattered as well, and maybe they could overwhelm him—or, distract the mage long enough for one of the three men carrying pistols to use them.
The special uranium-bullet firing weapons were much harder to get a hold of than most, contained in a special armory only open to the Queen’s Own. Access was rigidly guarded and monitored.
That was why Klaue had found it odd that apparently his passcodes from his time in the Queen’s Own hadn’t been removed from the database, despite him having left it five years earlier. Still, he wasn’t about to question how that bit of data had been overlooked, and he’d waltzed out with three of the pistols.
They were armed. They were ready. Now, it all came down to the execution of their plan. The ten of them huddled together in a mass of shadow and darkness at the base of the wall. There they waited, blending in, letting the animals and night sounds return, so that none would be aware of their presence.
Klaue glanced down at the watch he wore, eyeing the green digits as they clicked over to half past one.
A boom, dulled by distance, reached his ears. Seconds later, they heard howls, one of them startlingly close by, as the wolves raised the alarm and raced to the north side of the property to investigate the disturbance.
Grinning, he wondered what they would make of the massive bulldozer that two of his men had rigged up and driven into the wall, bowling it over and hopefully continuing on to ravage the inside of Canis territory.
“That’s our signal,” he said, speaking quietly but without the harshness of a whisper.
The shadows around him unfolded and men began leaping the wall on the western edge. Klaue got up, grabbed Jessica in his arms and, with a powerful bend of his legs, landed on top of the wall. Another quick hop and he sank several inches into the ground on the far side, flexing his knees to absorb the impact as gently as possible for Jessica.
Then they quickly erased the signs of their passage as best they could and crossed the service road that ran against the wall, disappearing into the forest beyond. His men were specters of death as they moved, blending speed with stealth, moving silently. Even Jessica moved swiftly, following in their steps.
It was a long journey to the edge of the property, and more than once he saw his mate flag, but never did she ask for help, and even bared her teeth in a silent growl when one of them offered to carry her. She was going to do this, and Klaue let her. Jess knew the stakes. If she fell behind, she would have to wait for them to return. Stealth wouldn’t be a big deal on their way back, and she was fully prepared to be carried at that point. But not now.
Klaue looked around, barely able to pick out the shadows in the woods around him as they moved. Gratitude filled him. When he’d first decided on this course of action, he’d expected to receive no support. What he’d found, instead, was a wellspring of those who wanted todosomething. To prove that their House was still a power. Most of them weren’t there for Jessica, but for Ursa, even if it was an unsanctioned hit. They wanted to remind Canis this wasn’t over. Not even close—even if that meant losing their lives.
The men were all friends of his, which was no surprise considering Klaue felt the same way. It would be good to teach Canis a lesson. The bloody wolves had gone too long without suffering, the bastards. It was time they had their noses punched in.
“Hold up,” he called as they reached the edge of the woods. Beyond were acres of manicured lawns, gardens and pathways, but his attention was fixed past that, on Moonshadow Manor itself. There were lights on, more than normal for this time of night, but that was a risk they had deemed necessary.
There was no way his team would have been able to reach the edge of the forest without being detected if they hadn’t drawn attention to the north side of the compound. It was still a little close for him, but they had a plan for that.
He sent a text message, and moments later, heard more howling followed by several deeperthumps—explosive charges designed to weaken multiple sections of the eastern wall. And then…
The howls redoubled as high-pitched engines screamed to life. Klaue could only imagine the chaos as the two specially-modified SUV’s crashed through the weakened walls and began tearing up Canis property. More shifters streamed away from the House to deal with the intruders. Now all his men needed to do was ensure they escaped and didn’t get pinned down. But their distraction was working perfectly.
“Okay, boys and girl,” he said. “In pairs, let’s go. This is the most dangerous part. Until the next one. Get across these lawns undetected, and we have a serious chance of success here. Roll out.”
Two-man teams of shifters split up and fanned out, each heading for slightly different entry points on the manor. The ground they had to cover was enormous, and it was the only way Klaue had been able to see the potential for victory.
Reaching out, he motioned for Jessica to join him. They stepped forward, running low and slow toward the building. He waited for a spotlight to flick on, to pin him or one of his teams in its glare, but it didn’t happen. They were a quarter of the way across. Then a third. He grinned at Jessica. They were going to make it. It was going to work.
“Told you everything would be f—”
His world exploded in a haze of red. Klaue pinwheeled through the night sky. Shouts broke out. More waves of red, then a blast of white as the space in front of them split, energy cascading up and down the sides of the rent and the mage stepped through.
“Take him down!” he bellowed, then bent over in a fit of coughing. The property was laced with a magi-minefield, and he’d walked right into one of them unsuspectingly.
Around him, others rushed to his aide, but many of them were flung back, up, or slammed straight down as they tripped the invisible traps. And, in the middle of it all, was Jessica.
At least she’s safe.
Even as he thought it, the mage seemed intent on proving him wrong.
An evil sneer split his features as he leveled a staff of dark wood at her, blue energy building at the tip.
