CHAPTER 14
I GOT UP, PADDED TO THE RAIL, AND LEANED against the wall, hidden in the shadow. From here I had an excellent view of the main room. Ascanio barred the stairs. Julie stood in the middle of the room, with a determined look on her face. Her light hair was pulled into a ponytail. Good balance, light on her toes. Her hand was on one of my throwing knives. No matter how many times I took them away from her, she always managed to steal them.
“I’m Ascanio Ferara of Clan Bouda. The question is, who are you?”
“Move aside.”
“I can’t do that,” Ascanio purred. “I’m under strict orders not to let anyone I don’t know upstairs. And I don’t know you.”
At least in one respect the school had been good for Julie—they’d made sure she had frequent meals.
She’d come a long way from the waif I found in the Honeycomb. Still slender and pale, she looked stronger now, and her legs and arms no longer resembled toothpicks. She was also pretty, a fact Ascanio noticed, judging by his killer smile and the light flexing of his arms.
One cute face and all my orders of not admitting strangers flew right out the window. The kid was hopeless.
“Move,” Julie repeated.
“No. You see, I have a problem. Kate didn’t tell me she was expecting an angel.”
Bwahahaha.
Julie blinked, obviously stunned.
“I’d like to help you.” Ascanio spread his arms. “I just can’t. Kate is a very stern alpha.”
Stern?
“She might put me in a hole. Or whip me.”
No, but she might twist your head off for this.
Julie arranged her face into a shocked expression. “Whip you? Really?”
Ascanio nodded. “It’s brutal. But if I had something, some small favor, I might take a chance on being punished.”
“A small favor?” Julie nodded. “Like what?”
“A kiss.”
Julie’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’ll come back later.”
“She’ll be leaving later and my memory is terrible. I might forget you were here and let her leave for the Keep. It’s very difficult to reach her in the Keep. There are many guards.”
Who would all fall over themselves to deliver her to me.
Julie stepped back. Ascanio stepped forward. She took another step. He followed, with a fluid shapeshifter grace. He thought he was stalking her. She was pulling him away from the stairs, giving herself room to work.
“Are you going to be nice if I kiss you?” Julie took another step back.
“Very nice.”
“And no tongue.”
“No tongue.”
Kill me, somebody.
Julie motioned to him. “Okay.”
Ascanio took a step forward. Julie stood on her toes and gently kissed him. Her right hand slid into a leather pouch on her belt. Ascanio leaned forward, gliding his hands over her shoulders. Julie jerked back and smothered a handful of yellowish paste on his face. Wolfsbane. Deep color too, almost orange—potent as hell.
Ascanio made a strangled noise and clawed at his face, trying to exhale the fire that suddenly exploded in his mouth and nose. Julie hooked his right leg with hers and shoved him back. He crashed like a log. His back slapped the floor, forcing all of the air out of his lungs in a hoarse breath. Julie grabbed his arm, twisted it, flipping him over on his stomach, landed on Ascanio’s back, pulled a plastic tie from her pocket, and locked his wrists.
I wanted to jump up and down, clapping. We’d practiced this takedown over the Christmas break and she had done it perfectly.
Julie grabbed Ascanio by his hair, raising his face off the floor, and slid her knife against his throat.
An eerie hyena noise broke from Ascanio’s lips, a ululating half groan, half laugh, laced with a hoarse snarl, like a creaky barn door swinging open inch by inch. Every hair rose on the back of my neck.
“I’ll rip you apart!”
“Oh no.” Julie clicked her tongue. “Did the mean human girl pick on you? Does the little bouda boy want his mommy?”
“Untie me!”
“Awww, the little baby is crying. Boohoo. Does the baby need his bottle and his teddy?”
That plastic tie looked too thin to hold a shapeshifter.
“When I get free, I’ll—”
“Don’t worry. Your teddy has to be here somewhere. I bet he is upstairs. You lie here like a slug while I go look for him.”
Ascanio twisted. Hard muscles bulged on his arms. Julie took a step back.
The boy jerked. A ragged snarl tore out of his throat, his skin ruptured, and a monster spilled forth.
The plastic tie snapped apart and a six-and-a-half-foot-tall bouda in a warrior form rolled to his feet.
Dark stripes marked his massive limbs, dashing up to his shoulders, where the brown fur flared into a long thick mane. A brown hyena. Interesting. I had only seen one of those before.
Red eyes stared at Julie from a shockingly inhuman face.
She raised her knife.
Ascanio lunged. His clawed fingers caught her wrist. He plucked the knife out of her hand and dropped it to the floor.
That was just about enough of that. I opened my mouth.
The front door swung open and Derek walked into the office. Ascanio and Julie froze, her arm still caught in his grip.
Derek’s eyes sparked with a lethal yellow glow.
I moved to the stairs. Julie jerked her arm away from Ascanio.
Derek’s voice was iced over. “Julie, go upstairs.”
Julie sidestepped Ascanio and swiped her knife off the floor.
The bouda’s mouth gaped open. Mangled words came out, shredded by his fangs. “Gorna dooo what he said, huh?”
Surprise, surprise. He could speak in a half-form. That took real talent.
Julie stuck her tongue out, went to the stairs, and saw me. Her face fell. That’s right. You’re so busted.
Derek shut the door and looked at Ascanio.