When Mac went down from another ice bolt, he screamed and charged the taika, ignoring the damage he was taking from the bonde as he bowled them over. Hip-checking one of the mindre into the wall as he passed it, he cast a cone of fire at the other one, then he dove forward and screamed in pain as he took a sword through the side, but he got the taika in the head, killing it instantly.

  The power that surged into him was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. He knew when djevels died to a lion, the lion devoured their being, whatever it was, and all that they were, which meant they also got all their memories, though most of those quickly faded. Only in the other world had anyone gotten anything more than that. But what he was feeling now wasn't what he'd expected.

  A mindre yanked the sword in his side out, ripping open a great deal of his body. The incredible agony brought him back immediately to what was happening around him, as several råge turned on him to help the mindre trying to kill him. Grabbing the lion power pool, he sucked down as much as he could to heal himself as he cried out in pain, rolling over onto his back to use his sword to keep the mindre attacking him from taking off his head.

  It was then that he noticed that the others had followed him! As he watched, Dirk was cleaved in two by the other mindre, and then it turned its attention to Jenny.

  "Jenny! Run!" he screamed, but it was too late, and as he blocked another attack from the one standing over him, the other's blade passed through her neck, taking her head.

  He lost it.

  The only girlfriend he'd ever had—had died trying to protect him. She should have just left him to die; he'd come back eventually, but she wouldn't.

  She couldn't.

  Shifting into full lion, he grabbed the power pool as hard as he could, hooked the mindre with his claws, and literally climbed its body, ripping huge chunks out of it, until he got it by the throat with his jaws and ripped it out.

  The other mindre was chopping at him now, but Mihalis was pulling down so much power, his wounds healed almost as fast as they were caused. Leaping from the first mindre, he charged the second one, ignored the sword it buried in his shoulder as he clawed his way up its body, and dispatched that one as well.

  Snarling and snapping, he set on one of the råges trying to hamstring him, not understanding why it didn't work.

  He tore that one apart with the swipe of a paw, then spent then next minute spinning around in the midst of them, tearing pieces from all their bodies until there was nothing moving.

  Roaring out his anger, he remembered there were more in the silo ahead of him, and charging off, heedless of the calls of the survivors of his group, he ran straight for the missile silo.

  There were a lot of djevels before him as he ran into the room, and he leapt onto a råge, shredded it, launched himself onto another mindre, and tore it to pieces as well. He felt its power enter his body before it hit the floor beneath him, so he ran into the middle of a group, not really caring what it was anymore.

  Just as long as he could feel their bodies shred beneath his claws, the sensation of his fangs driving into flesh as he tore huge chunks out of them. He didn't care if he died. He didn't care what happened to him. They'd killed his Jenny, and he wasn't going to stop until he was dead.

  About the second or third time he lost a paw, he realized he needed to change tactics if he wanted to kill more of them before he died. Went from djevel to djevel, doing some damage, then attacking another one, then another. There was so much tar on the floor now, they were losing their footing constantly.

  But he didn't care; he dug his claws into their bodies and used that to keep himself moving.

  Alska came running into the room, with Sten and the others hot on her heels. There'd been very few djevels in the third silo. Oh, there was a nursery there, when they'd broken through the concrete at the bottom of the machine room, but that was it.

  Then they'd heard the echoes of gunfire, and running back, they'd seen the carnage and the dead bodies. Half of the team that had gone with her brother was either dead or disabled. The remaining ones were trying to hold off what was left of the attackers.

  "Where's Mihalis?" she yelled.

  "He ran in there; I think he's gone insane!" Woz yelled.

  That was when she saw Jenny's body, without its head, lying on the ground. Drawing her own sword, she ran forward, the others following, and they followed the trail of carnage.

  They had to stop and fight themselves, clearing the fuel room before they could go on, but from the roaring and the screaming, she knew something terrible had to be going on.

  When they got to the silo, she saw him, his black fur covered in djevel tar as he seemed to throw himself mindlessly from djevel to djevel, without rhyme or rhythm, ignoring their strikes on his body, his eyes seeming to glow from some power within.

  She saw the ridder then. It was directing the others to attack the lion in their midst while trying to kill him itself. She threw the biggest spell she had left at it, staggering it. It turned to look at her and, raising its sword as she raised hers, it charged her.

  And was brought down by a five-hundred-pound lion landing on its back and tearing it to pieces as she watched. As all the djevels stopped and watched.

  Sten and the others took advantage of their shock, and in less than a minute, all the djevels in the silo were dead.

  "Mihalis," she called, as he continued to tear and rend the dead ridder, which was now turning into tar.

  "Mihalis!

  "MIHALIS!"

  He stopped and looked up at her.

  "He's dead. They're all dead. Let's go home now."

  She watched as he looked around the room, turned a full circle, then gave an anguished moan.

  "This is not the place to mourn, Mihalis. Come, we must go; there are others to tend to."

  He looked up at her as she sheathed her sword.

  "Don't make me come down there and knock some sense into you. It would be untoward."

  He dropped his head in a nod and padded over towards her.

  "Are you going to shift back?"

  He shook his large head.

  "Follow me," she sighed and led him back towards the living quarters, stopping only to pick up his sword from where he'd dropped it when he'd shifted. The bodies were all gone by the time they got there, and when they made it to the main staircase by the living quarters that led up out of the complex, Sten and the rest of the team were behind them.

  It was still dark when they came outside, and the Goshawk was waiting patiently with the ramp down. They trudged up inside, and she noticed they were all staring at her brother, who went over to the body bag with Jenny's dog tags clipped to it, laid down beside it, and quietly cried.

  Insult to Injury

  "Hey, Dad."

  The First looked up from his lounge chair. They weren't at the wives' favorite beach in Southern Europe. This one was his favorite, on the coast of France.

  "You don't look happy to see me. What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up and waving to the waiter to bring some more drinks.

  His wives were also turning to look at Sean as he came over to join them.

  "Family matters," Sean said with a sigh.

  "Uh-oh," Keairra said.

  "What happened?"

  "It turns out a number of our lionesses have been taking advantage of Mihalis."

  "Taking advantage of how? By sleeping with him? That doesn't sound all that painful to me."

  "Tell me, Dad, how many black lions are there again?"

  "I think I see where this is going, and it doesn't look good," Keairra said as the First sighed heavily.

  "It turns out sleeping with Mihalis became something of a 'fad', or a way to score points—I don't know what the hell they were thinking," Sean said with a growl. "But I don't think any of them really gave a damn about him. They just wanted the experience. Screw him a few times, then move on, and another takes over. One day he found out none of them cared about him at all, that he was just a thing to them, to be experienced."

  "Wait, how'd he find that out?"

  "You know how we absorb power from djevels when we kill them?"

  Keairra nodded.

  "Apparently he inherited enough from Cali that he can use it, so he discovered exactly what they thought of him and what they were using him for. So he confronted them."

  "They didn't!" the First all but growled it out.

  "Oh yeah, they did. They insulted him, told him he was worthless, all that sort of stuff—oh, and apparently they're getting pregnant by him as well, without even asking if he's okay with it. Guess that's the next step of the 'game'."

  "They told him about that?" Peym burst out, looking shocked.

  "That's what led to me finding out. Here he is, feeling totally worthless, and now he's told he's got a cub on the way? So yeah, he wants to go off and be an adult, do adult things, prove himself to everyone, so they know he's more than just a freak, that he's somebody of value. Not, and I quote: 'Just a sex toy for lionesses'."

  "What did he do?"

  "He was running off with the teams to fight djevels without asking permission, seeing as he's not eighteen yet."

  "What'd you do?" the First asked.

  "Gave him permission; what else could I do? Between Cali, Roxy, Estrella, and even Keairra here, it's not like he can't hold his own in a fight. Hell, he was so pissed off, he punched me!"

  The First laughed. "He did, did he?"

  "Yup. He's better than SJ was when he was his age. He's inherited his mother's whole 'No half-measures' thing. When he pops, he puts everything into it. Cali was proud, until Roxy told her what she overheard Mihalis telling me. Now," Sean sighed, "if it's possible for a lioness to die, Cali is seriously going to kill at least one, maybe more."

  "Okay, that sounds bad, and yes, I'm very unhappy with some of my daughters," the First said, frowning. "But why come to me?"

  "There's a couple of reasons. The first is, they're abusing my son, who's still just a child."

  "He's almost eighteen."

  "This started when he was sixteen, I've since discovered. Also, he's half dark elf, Dad, and you know how slow they mature."

  "Point," the First said with a nod.

  "Second, they treated him like a thing, then admitted it to his face, and made fun of him. Even Adam never did that to anybody. Oh, sure, he did a lot of stupid shit, but he was never cruel to any of his lovers.

  "Third, how many girlfriends do you think Mihalis has?"

  "Huh?"

  "They were running off all the other girls his own age because they didn't want to take the chance he might not sleep with them anymore. I did some checking. Mihalis has never had a girlfriend—hell, he's never slept with a woman who wasn't at least a couple thousand years older than him! They even ordered some of the girls to stay away from him!"

  "I'm surprised you're not killing them yourself," the First said, giving Sean the eye.

  "Oh, I want to; trust me, I want to. But you are the head of the family. Not me. I need you to deal with this. Mihalis doesn't want me to do anything, he just wants to crawl off and hide. He thinks he's a laughingstock now, and the worst part of it is, he can't hide. He's the only male dark elf for thousands of miles, and the only black lion in all of creation. So anywhere he goes…"

  "Everyone knows who he is and wants a part of him. I understand. What they did was cruel, no doubt about that. Having a child without his permission and not letting him choose his own lovers?" The First stood up. "Vacation's over, my wives. I think we need to straighten out a few of our children, teach them how they're supposed to act."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  "Just understand that as soon as we straighten this problem out, I'll go back to lying on the beach all day."

  Keairra stood up. "I'll get our things together and let the hotel know we're going to be gone for a…"

  They all stood up, frowning. Sean could feel it too.

  "Someone's really pulling down the power," Dienna said.

  "Feels like they're outraged," Nibisa said.

  "It's Mihalis," the First said, looking at Sean. "He's in Colorado? What's he doing there?"

  "The team was sent out on a mission." Sean paled slightly then. "Alska's with him."

  "Let's head back to the hotel. Keairra can call the desk and let them know we'll be gone a while, then we can open a gateway from the room."

  Sean nodded, one of the wives handed the waiter a wad of bills to cover their tab, and they headed off.

  #

  Mihalis didn't know what to do with himself when they landed. It was still dark out, and somebody, his sister or the sorceress they'd gotten, had silenced the Goshawk, so they were dropped off on the roof. He'd padded down into the basement with everyone else, the tar on his fur hardening and causing him pain as it pulled out some of his fur.

  His sister all but dragged him into the shower, sat him under a showerhead, and turned it on full blast. After a while, he realized unless he shifted, it wasn't going to get better, so he did, stripped off his wet clothes, got clean, then went in search of his ruck. He found his sword there, so he reunited it with its sheath, put on his shorts, shifted into his hybrid form, then sat in the corner and stared off in the distance, ignoring the others.

  He felt funny.

  It wasn't just that Jenny had died, but touching the power pool… The lioness who'd insulted him had said he was just an F3, he wasn't worth her caring. F3's weren't supposed to be able to do what he'd done. Dad was an F1; everyone knew that. Everyone also thought Mom was an F3—hell, she hadn't even been a lioness when he was born!

  Only F2s and the like could do what he'd done with the pool.

  Then there was the power from all those dead djevels. He could feel it. He'd especially felt it when he'd killed the ridder. He wondered what it meant. This wasn't the Onderwereld. What good was that power here? Sure, the last time he'd been able to use it to understand how people felt, like his mother was able to. He'd gained that ability for a little while. But other than that? What else was there?

  But did it really matter? The only woman who'd ever cared about him, other than his family, was dead, and it was his fault. She'd been trying to help him, to protect him, when she should have just left him to die.

  They all should have just left him to die.

  He wondered if there was anything he couldn't fuck up.

  Everyone racked out in the small barracks in the basement. Those there weren't enough beds for slept on pads on the floor. Sten said he wanted everyone to be rested and the wounded recovered before they left for home. Everyone left him alone, even his sister, though she came over and laid her pad out by him, and slept near him.

  He appreciated her presence, and he appreciated her silence even more.

  He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he woke, everyone was packing up, and they were passing out food. He ate some, but only because his sister handed it to him, then sat there and watched him until he did.

  Then they went up on the roof—the sun had set an hour or so ago—got into the Goshawk when it got there, and made the trip back to Carson City.

  "How many did we lose?" he asked Alska at some point during the flight.

  "Jenny, Dirk, Mark, and Rem. If you hadn't taken out the magic user, the rest would have died as well. Jake, Mac, Doug, and Ted had already been taken out of action, and I guess it was smart enough to realize it couldn't hurt you, so it went after the ones it could."

  "If anybody calls me a hero, I'll probably kill them."

  "Yeah, I think they figured that one out on their own, Mike."

  "Wake me when we get home. I'm tired."

  Alska nodded and watched as he closed his eyes and fell asleep. In his hybrid form, he was pretty big, almost as big as their dad, and just as handsome as he was as a dark elf. She found it strange that until Jenny, he'd never had a girlfriend. Then again, some of the lionesses had probably been scaring off the competition. It sucked when you always stood out; she knew that better than most. But at least she had three aunts and seven dark elf sisters to 'share the load'. Mike really had nobody; it was just him. Even SJ was able to hide when the pressure of being 'Sean's Son' got to be too much for him at times.

  She'd talk to Dad when she got home. He was the best magic user out there and could enchant damn near anything. She had an idea that might at least make it a little easier for her brother to get some of the anonymity he seemed to be seeking these days.

  She saw her brother to bed in the barracks after they landed. He was very subdued, and the other team members gathered around him to keep everyone else away. He might have only been with them a week, but it was heartening to see them joining ranks to support him. She headed off to her father's office, where she found Sten and Woz already inside, getting debriefed, with Chad sitting in.

  Her father noticed her when she slipped in and sat by the door behind the others but didn't acknowledge her.

  "I think he saved our asses," Sten said with a sigh. "There was a ridder down there, and a half dozen mindre, plus that taika thing, the magic user. They set us up for an ambush, and laid into us pretty well. They'd been growing gnashers as food and probably ranging out at night to grab whoever they could get their hands on. Terry, back at the shop, is going to have his hands full trying to track down how many people disappeared."

  "It sucks that he lost his girlfriend," Woz said with a sigh of his own. "Jenny was a good kid. She was covering Mike's back, along with Dirk, when he realized the mage was picking us off one by one. I know he's broken up about it, but we couldn't all charge, or the bonde and råge would have gotten past us and been able to ambush Sten and the rest from behind."

  Sean nodded. "I'm not questioning your judgment, and I can't think of anything worse to happen than to have your new girlfriend die protecting your back. It's just that I felt it when he lost her, and my first thought was that Alska had been hurt, or worse. I didn't know about his girlfriend until Terry sent me his report."