Xander all but throws Savage through the door outside, and I take Scythe with me. The telekinetic power in the air hums for a millisecond before the explosion.
BOOM!
Light and heat explode into the air, and metal goes flying as we all roll onto the concrete outside. Something big shields me from the heat, and I growl in annoyance, pushing myself to my feet. Xander lets me go, the back of his shirt nonexistent after he covered Scythe, Savage and me.
“Looky what we have here,” Titus snarls, and the barrel of a gun shoves into my cheek. The Clawsons have us surrounded, guns pressed to temples. “A pussy, a reptile, a fish, and a dog.”
Savage snarls in dismay, and I want to warn him not to get us all shot. But then a voice, sweet and high but ravenous with fury, screams, “Titus Clawson!”
Every head swings around to see Minnie, Marduk and Yeti flying towards us, the little tigress’ eyes alight with adrenaline.
Chapter 77
Savage
Just when I think we’re all about to die, little Minnie appears, shouting her ex-mate’s name. With one sweep of her hand, we all go flying away from each other. My ass skids against the concrete, giving me carpet burn straight from hell, so I’ll have to talk to her about that later, but it means everyone is given a time out of maybe…ten seconds.
Bullets fly, but the Devi pack send them up all uselessly to the sky. Angry feline roars fill the air as many of the Clawson grunts shift into a mix of tiger, lion, panther, and cheetah. But Titus stays in human form, swinging his rifle right at the Devi pack.
Xander and I cry “No!” at the same time, but Minnie is better than all of us combined because she screams at Titus and waves her fist, sending the bulletandhis automatic rifle flying high onto the warehouse roof. Guns go flying as Marduk and Yeti fall upon the other felines, knocking them out with telekinetic blasts.
I bet Titus regrets using feral beasts because they can’t hold their human skins long enough to keep a gun. But the felines are too many, and they get split up under the sheer number of charging animals. Marduk blasts one lion into the sky, and Yetipunches another right in the face, sending him to the ground. Minnie blasts two away just as I start running to help them.
No one sees Titus come up from behind Yeti.
The Siberian Tiger’s eyes widen as something strikes him in the leg. Time seems to slow down as I shout Yeti’s name, but he just falls over, his mouth yawning open in the beginning of a shout. And then comes the sound of crunching. Titus claws Yeti to the ground, and my legs just won’t move fast enough as Titus holds Yeti’s foot in his metal-mouth and spits it out onto the concrete.
Minnie screams in a regina’s outrage just before she shifts, clothes tearing off her body like tissue paper. Power booms out like a powerful ocean wave, rippling over our skins, raising the hairs and fur on everyone’s bodies. Titus rises into the sky, his arms outstretched like an angel, and both his arms break at the humerusandforearm on their own. His big body crumples in on itself as his metal mouth opens in agony, eyes wide as if he can’t possibly believe this is happening to him. Then Minnie is on him, leaping through the air and trapping his legs in her big tiger’s jaws, pulling him down to the ground, claw over claw.
Nothing can stop her as Xander whisks Yeti and Marduk away to safety, but we don’t need to deal with the other felines. Everyone stops.
Everythingstops to look on in shock as Minnie mauls Titus Clawson to death.
Chapter 78
Scythe
We’d been preparing Minnie for this, but nothing could have prepared the rest of us for the way Titus screamed as he died. Screaming his fury, his rage, his misogyny as Minnie—his tiny regina whom he thought so beneath his consideration—overpowered him. Her superior power had always been there, she’d just never had the audacity to wield it in a way that could hurt people.
Marduk looks on with horrific adoration, holding a white-faced Yeti in his arms as his regina silences the last Clawson lord. The Devi regina’s growls quieten as she shifts back, crouched over her ex-mate’s mangled, bloody form, feline eyes glistening, her face consumed with feral bloodlust.
With her mouth and neck covered in Clawson blood, Minnie rises to her feet with Titus’ metal jaw dangling between her fingers. She stares the other felines down with a look so terrifying, more than one beast takes a step back. She throws the metal onto the concrete, and it clangs as it bounces before coming to a definite, final stop.
The felines of Clawson House drop to the ground in submission, but Minnie only has eyes for her mates.
There is nothing else left of this night.
Chapter 79
Ghoul
There is only one place to bring my regina.
Only one place hidden in plain sight where no one will think to look for a little while, at least.
We rematerialise in the darkness behind Charlotte Naga’s old house, and I hold my snakelet close as my feet touch the grass. She wraps her long limbs around my naked hips as I shove open the front door and carry her into the house. It’s not bridal style, but it’s close enough, and with my cock this deep in her heat, her skin on mine, and her scent in my nose, I cannot complain about anything. Even now that my mask is off, she’s not looking at me, but at the living room through the darkness, her little nose sniffing the dust and old, familiar scents.
“Still smells the same,” she huffs. “I think there’s still two-minute noodles in the cupboard. Those never go off.”
