Big fearsome, awesome, Queen Novitiate, and I was plucking grass under a tree in some miserable suburban shithole in back of a pseudo-Italianate mistake. Oh, and my Monitor of Challenge was sitting up in a tree probably staring down my shirt—as usual.
I was not feeling the bad ass.
A half a second after, I leaned to the right to look up at Nial, and something whizzed by and embedded itself in the tree next to me.
I gasped and found a bullet lodged there, as four more quickly followed.
“What the fuck?” Nial whispered, jumping down and narrowly missing getting shot.
“They aren’t aiming at us.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to the house, hoping for a little protection from the bullets under the massive, useless deck at the back. “They’re shooting at each other. Or it’s someone else.”
The slam of car doors out front and the pound of boots up the front stairs attacked my sensitive hearing. A portion of the fence was ripped apart, stomped down into the ground, and a half dozen men came flying around the corner with guns drawn. Their aim was at the back door, shooting at will.
That much firepower would injure even Nial and me if we took any measure of it at once. We ducked back into the shadows, and my eyebrows rose as Nial cloaked both our forms so they couldn’t see us.
The amount of wasted ammunition these fools were using shocked me.
Didn’t they ever learn how to aim?
“Lost art of marksmanship,” Nial mumbled as if reading my mind. “If this is a mob hit, they’ll be done in a moment.”
“If this is a hit, we’re going to lose whatever information Samson has. I can’t take his memories if he’s dead.” My fists clenched.
“We could lose our heads with that much spray. And I can’t technically help you win this Challenge.” His hard gaze met mine. “Think, Gwen. If you can’t figure this out yourself, you don’t deserve to be their queen.”
I took a deep breath. Iwouldbe the queen. I should have enough power—enough influence, to take them all in Thrall at once. I was freshly fed, and I was well rested. It shouldn’t be hard at all. I just had to get in there and look at them. I couldn’t do it from the shadows under the deck.
“Wait here.” I ran to the far side of the house where there was another set of stairs.
Nial wouldn’t help. He was just there to monitor me.
I leapt up the stairs into the shadows at the top and moved along the back wall of the house. The Mafioso were shoving and stumbling through the back door, two men dead at the main back stairs. Waste of blood. One of the men trying to push glanced over at me, and I caught his eyes.
Mine. Easily.
His mind was clay, and I easily backed him up.
Another man glanced over at the one I had controlled, his brows furrowing.
I threw a touch of persuasion, and he looked at me. Another was mine.
He joined the first by the back railing.
I crawled in closer and let out a low whistle.
Two men glanced over at me, and I grabbed them. Mine.
Over to the railing with them.
Rapid gunfire was coming out of the house, and I still didn’t want to be hit with that many bullets. I pulled my own gun out, and shot one of the men closest to the door, through the window. He dropped dead.
Marksmanship. I smirked, thankful for the humans the overlords had sent to me upon waking me from my Rest. One of those tasty meals had prided themselves on the art of a direct hit. No need to be wasteful or messy.
Three more turned by the back door. I was able to Thrall them and had them dropped to the floor a heartbeat later, curled into a fetal position. The other men inside were getting confused, and it was all I hoped for. They were all turning to the window to see what was going on as the gunfire started to die.
I stepped through the hole-filled window and dropped five more into Thrall.
A bullet ripped through my shoulder, jerking me back and pissing me off.
