"Use me for cover."
Kateri gaped as Ren moved to stand between her and whatever was approaching them. "Ren-"
"I'm immortal and I just got you resuscitated. You're a lot more important than I am. Now do what I say ... please."
Those words had her riled up until the please at the end. That one word coupled with the break of fear for her in his voice took every bit of the sting out of his sharp order. And it rammed home what he was really saying.
He who never cried, had cried over her.
"A'ight, baby," she said with a smile. "But just so you know, you get hurt, I'm opening up a can of 'Bama whup-ass on them so big it's gonna look like an LSU Bowl showdown. You hear me? Roll Tide."
Sasha turned around to face her with a severe scowl. "I speak dozens of languages and hundreds of dialects, but be damned if I caught a single word of that. Am I the only one completely baffled?"
Sundown cocked his gun. "He said he loved her. She said, 'I love you, too.' Now shush."
Sasha stood there moving his finger back and forth as if repeating her words silently in his head. After a second, he turned to face Jess. "How the hell did you get that out of what she said?"
Urian glared at Sasha. "The man speaks Southern football, now shut up."
"Southern football, my ass," he mumbled before he turned into a wolf and dashed into the woods after whatever was approaching.
Cabeza drew a strange triangle-shaped weapon Kateri had never seen before. "If I accidentally kill Sasha, you think anyone would hold it against me?"
"Yeah, unfortunately." Sundown sighed. "Zarek would tear you apart over it."
"Psycho Zarek?"
"Yep."
Cabeza clapped Ren on the back. "Then I shall blame you, amigo, should I slip and yield to my urges."
Ren gave him a wry stare. "Gracias."
"De nada."
Suddenly, and just as she remembered that so long as Ren's eyes were blue, he wasn't immortal, the forest around them attacked. Literally. The trees. The foliage. Demons.
Ren lowered his bow and moved to cover her. "Cabeza? Huitzauhqui, por favor!"
Cabeza manifested the huge paddle weapon with the jagged edging and handed it off to Ren. Sharper than a machete, it cut through everything it touched. Ren backed her up against a rock wall so that nothing could attack her from behind.
Kateri opened fire on every target that was within range. Sundown unloaded his shotgun, while Urian fought with a sword and Cabeza with a different kind of war club.
Ren cursed as more demons crawled out from the ground to attack. He'd lied to Kateri. His powers were still down, so he was as mortal as she was. But at least the others hadn't outed him for it.
The worst part was that he couldn't refill her quiver or blast them.
Or could he?
He looked at Sundown, who had yet to reload. That meant that Jess was able to create the rounds....
Closing his eyes, he summoned another quiver. It appeared instantly in his hands. Thank the gods!
He turned and handed the arrows off to Kateri, then manifested fireballs to throw at their attackers. They shrieked and screamed as fire hit them and drove them back.
It was a thing of beauty.
Kateri hesitated with her next shot as she saw Ren drop his weapon. He leaned his head back and spread his arms out wide. Arching his back, he chanted under his breath in a language she'd never heard before.
In a single blink, heavily stylized armor, unlike anything she'd ever seen, appeared on his body. A deep dark purple that was edged in gold, it covered him from neck to toe. Steel gloves shaped like talons complete with long claws curving over his fingers, both to protect and to fashion weapons for him, enveloped his hands.
The front of his hair was now pulled back from his face and secured with eagle feathers at the crown of his head.
A heartbeat later, similar armor covered her. She shivered at the feel of it. Instead of being heavy, it was air light. But more than that, it felt like it was breathing.
It's demonic.
Conjured from the powers that he'd inadvertently inherited while breast-feeding from the crow-demon. Amazed by it, she returned to shooting, only to learn that he'd put some kind of force field around her so that her arrows couldn't go more than a few feet before striking it and falling to the ground.
With her safe and secured, he lowered his head into the warrior's countenance that sent chills over her. Then he laid into the demons with a skill that was truly frightening.
This was the creature who had battled her father night and day for a solid year. Three demons attacked him at once. Ren caught one with his claws under its chin. Screaming, it staggered back while another moved to stab him with a short sword.
Ren caught it with his hands, disarmed the demon, then rammed its weapon straight through the demon's stomach. The third turned to run, but Ren wouldn't let it. He sent a blast into its back.
Sundown lowered his gun as Urian moved to stand by his side. "I'm feeling a little unnecessary right now. How about you, Cowboy?"
"About as useful as warts on a pig's bottom."
They turned to look at Kateri.
"Did you know about this?" Urian asked her.
"Kind of, but it's more impressive in live action."
And it was.
Until a bad feeling went through her. He is the Thunderbird....
She didn't know where that thought came from, but in her mind, she saw him as the destroyer of legend. While thunderbirds could be protective, they were also known to unleash their wrath against the world and to tear it apart. They destroyed everyone and everything in their path. That was why her father had placed a thunderbird on Ren's necklace that denoted him as a Guardian.
Cabeza fell back to their position. "We're in trouble."
Jess gave him a doubting grin. "How you figure?"
"The pendajo fighting Ren is Chamer. He's the husband to Ixtab. The suicide goddess."
Kateri started forward, but couldn't go far before the force field cut her off. "We have to help him."
"Help who?" Urian asked. "From where I'm standing, Ren's winning."
And if he was fighting a regular demon, she might believe it. But this was a god.
He's going to die.... She could feel it with every part of her.
Ren staggered back as Chamer kicked him hard in the chest. What the god didn't know was that it didn't hurt. The beauty about this brand of armor was that it drew power from hatred and malice. The more the god sought to hurt him, the stronger the armor made Ren. And the weaker the god would become.
"You will never leave here," Chamer snarled. "All of you belong to us now."
Ren laughed. "Do you know what happens to a god when you kill him? You gain his powers."
Chamer attacked him again.
Ren met him stroke for stroke without hesitation.
The god tried to blast him.
Ren arched one brow. "Are you done?"
"You should be in pieces. I don't understand."
Ren grabbed him by the throat. "Then let me explain the rules. We both draw demonic powers. And because yours are demonic in origin, they make me all the stronger. So summon every god here. Let me drink of their powers until I'm drunk from it." He laughed evilly. Then he sank his teeth into the neck of the god and drank his blood.
Kateri went cold at the sight. "Is he supposed to do that?"
"No," the three of them said in unison.
Cabeza slid his gaze to the other two men. "One of us should go and break that up, I think."
Urian clapped him on the back. "By all means. Go for it."
Sundown handed his gun to Kateri.
"What are you doing?" Urian asked.
"I don't want Ren to shoot me with my own weapon. If he goes for my throat, I'm expecting one of you to grow a set and pull him off me." Sundown headed to Ren.
At his approach, Ren raised his head and licked his bloody lips. His eyes glowed a deep, scary red.
"Why don't you go ahead and let the not so nice god go, Ren?"
"I am Makah'Alay. And you should fear me."
"Ain't real big on fear. I tried it once, and well ... didn't like the taste of it. Burped it up for days afterward and have no intention of doing that again. Now let the god go before we have to do something we're both liable to regret."
Ren tilted Chamer's head back, exposing the wound in his throat. He sniffed at it as if the scent of the blood was the finest nectar made. "Why don't you leave? I think I'll stay. I like it here."
Chamer summoned Ixtab to him.
With long black hair and skin of the finest caramel, she appeared, then froze at the sight of her bleeding husband.
"Get them out of here, Ixtab. Or they'll destroy us!"
She raised her arm, but Sundown stopped her.
"We're one man down and we're not leaving here without him."
She curled her lip. "The wolf? Take the beast. We don't want him here either."
One second they were in the forest, in the next, they were back at Ren's trashed house.
Even Sasha, who was still in wolf form and bleeding profusely.
"I'll get him to Sanctuary," Cabeza said, rushing to pick him up and teleport him out.
Sundown retrieved his gun from Kateri's hands. "I might be needing this after all."
Urian stopped him. "You know, a gun against a demon is a real bad idea. It won't kill him, but it will piss him off."
"Yeah, but it'll make me feel better." Sundown started past Urian, but Kateri cut him off.
She went to Ren and cupped his face in her hands. "Baby? What's going on?"
Ren heard the words, but he couldn't understand them. Any more than he could comprehend why this strange woman was touching him. His anger surged.
Until he caught a whiff of her scent.
Kateri. Images of her making love to him filled his head. He placed his hand over her heart so that he could feel it beating beneath his palm.
"Ren?"
Help me, Kateri. He wanted to go back to her. But he felt so lost.
She pulled him against her and held him tight. "It's okay, sweetie. We're home now. You're safe."
Safe. He'd never understood that word.
But as she rocked him back and forth, strange emotions and compulsions warred inside him. One was for him to bite her and taste her blood, too.
The other was to protect her. To make sure no one ever preyed on her.
"Look at me, Ren."
He did. He stared into a pair of eyes that were filled with ...
She kissed him. The moment her lips touched his, he remembered how she'd looked holding her bow and refusing to back down.
"A'ight, baby. But just so you know, you get hurt, I'm opening up a can of 'Bama whup-ass on them so big it's gonna look like an LSU Bowl showdown. You hear me? Roll Tide."
In that one memory, he found himself. Is this what it feels like to be loved?
Her hand toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck while her tongue teased his. When she pulled back, he was so light-headed that for a moment, he feared he might fall.
Kateri breathed in relief as she saw his eyes return to blue. There were still little flecks of red in them, but he seemed to be back to the Ren she'd made love to. "Feeling better?"
"If I say no, will you kiss me again?"
She laughed. "I'll kiss you either way." Her laughter died as she glanced down to see the red teardrop around his neck. The only time she'd seen him wear it had been in the visions where he fought her father. "Where did this come from?"
Ren looked down to see what she was referring to. His breath caught the instant he saw the crystal that contained Windseer's blood. The blood they'd used to tie him to the Grizzly Spirit.
In his mind, he heard the evil bitch curse him, and he finally understood. When the Guardian had freed Ren from Grizzly's hold, Windseer had been forced to return to Grizzly's service. She'd only been freed the first time because she'd delivered Ren to him, and her freedom was based on Ren's slavery.
No wonder she hated him so badly.
But he couldn't tell Kateri that, and he was grateful that she couldn't divine its significance that marked him as Grizzly's slave. "It's nothing."
Kateri knew he was lying. She just didn't know why. But she decided to trust him. Perhaps he had a good reason for it. However, he better not make it a habit. She hated a liar worse than anything, but she wasn't naive enough to think that there was never a time when a lie was needed. Like all the instances when they were kids and she'd tell Sunshine one of her paintings was beautiful while the truth was she thought it stunk.
He's hiding something from you.
And it was bad. She couldn't shake that feeling no matter what. Worse, images of him on a homicidal rampage wouldn't go away no matter how hard she tried.
In them, he destroyed the entire world. And there was nothing she could do to stop him.
