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“No. ”
“And you didn’t come here to kill me, your blockheaded friend made sure I knew that much. ”
Pony-boy looked unimpressed. With the threat of my death off the table, the worst they could do was rough me up. Granted, that was going to suck a lot more than usual given the circumstances, but when you stop fearing death, the worst-case scenario usually looks a lot sunnier.
“Death is sometimes a gift. ”
“I’m big on re-gifting,” I parried.
“We came to deliver a message,” he said, not batting a lash at what I thought had been a very clever comeback. Ah well, I wasn’t going to dazzle everyone with my humor.
“You needed six guys to bring me a message? Must be a complicated one. ”
“No. ” Missed my sarcasm again. “It’s quite simple. She wants you to know your time has come to an end. ”
He was more right than he could imagine.
“That’s it?”
“Did each one of you need to remember one word?” Holden asked. “Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if you’d mixed up the order. Time to come. ”
I rolled my eyes, but in my hand the gun was shaking slightly. If anyone alive would go the distance to kill me, it was my mother. I’d made plenty of enemies in my life, but none had hated me since the moment of my birth. She blamed me for every ounce of her unhappiness, and now I was worried.
If I wasn’t careful, she could do it this time.
I was more afraid of the invisible threat of my mother than I was of the thugs she’d sent to deliver it.
“Noted. ”
The three wolves I didn’t know shared uneasy glances, as if wondering if that was it. Hank li
cked his lips and edged in front of Pony-boy. “There’s one more thing. ”
Pony-boy’s face went pale, and he looked as if he was about to say something. He went so far as to take Hank’s arm, but the sinewy redneck werewolf jerked away and with two quick, long-strided steps he ran at me.
My senses weren’t at their normal level, and it took a second for me to recognize that Hank had taken to the air. At first I thought Pony-boy might have a chance to stop him, but Hank was out of his reach and halfway to me before I understood what was actually happening. Desmond wasn’t as slow. He stepped in front of me, blocking Hank’s assault, and threw him onto the ground where he hit the concrete with a meaty smack.
There was a dead-silent pause where everyone stared at the tableau of Desmond standing over Hank, neither man moving, and none of us daring to breathe. Hank had attacked me, but Desmond had created the first real violent act by defending me.
Maybe we could call it a draw?
The linebacker genius behind Pony-boy didn’t seem to think so. He let out a roar and shoved past their fearless leader, his arm cocked back and already mid-swing by the time he’d crossed the distance between his group and Desmond. This time my wolf didn’t see the strike coming, he was so engrossed in the figure at his feet.
The punch cracked Desmond across the cheek with enough force to snap his head to the side, and even with my limited human senses, I could hear the bones grinding. Blood flew from his mouth and painted the sidewalk in red droplets.
My heart seized, throbbing with a fast, panicked rhythm.
So much for peacefully dissolving things.
The fight was on.
Chapter Forty
The first hit took me by complete surprise.
I should have been expecting it. With nine people all surging together and fists flying, the punch was inevitable. When a balled fist smashed into my sternum, though, it didn’t matter that I should have seen it coming, because I didn’t. And when pain exploded over my flesh and rattled my bones, knocking the air out of my lungs and doubling me over, I learned something.
Being human was a fragile, painful existence.
