He smiled, delighting in the way the mercenaries shifted on their feet and kept their faces carefully stony. It was never comfortable knowing that your enemy wasn't taking you seriously.
“Lewis always had one fatal flaw,” he said cheerfully, leaning back into a deck chair, looking for all the world as if he had nothing better to do than lounge in the sun overlooking the pool while his mate was hauled off as a hostage.
Travis and Bastian exchanged brief, mystified looks, but played along willingly, pulling up their own chairs.
“What's that?” Travis asked, swinging his feet up on the lounge and settling his sunglasses over his eyes.
Bastian picked up a magazine, hamming it up even further.
“He always underestimated shifters,” Neal said merrily. “Like, he didn't know about the other things we can do.”
It was the mercenaries’ turn to exchange looks, and Travis immediately caught Neal's intentions.
“He doesn't know we can turn invisible?”
“He doesn't know a thing about that,” Neal agreed. “I bet he even thinks the silver bullet thing is a myth and thinks that those standard bullets would stop us.” He nodded at the gun the nearest mercenary was holding in what were now white-knuckled hands.
The second mercenary made a skeptical noise, and when the shifters looked at him, broke his cold facade to scoff, “You wouldn't be saying those things with us listening if it were true.”
Bastian laughed lightly. “We'll just use a forget-me field on you… if we let you leave at all.”
“Because really,” Travis added swiftly. “How do you think shifters have stayed a secret this long without those extra tricks?”
The first mercenary scowled at his partner. “Quit talking to them, Jake.”
Out of the corner of Neal’s eyes, a flash of movement caught his attention. The gazelle was browsing on the lawn by the deck—suspiciously close, for her.
Jake, defying the other’s suggestion, mockingly said, “You wouldn’t have let Lewis walk off with your girlfriend if you could have stopped him.”
Touché, Neal thought, scrambling for a cool response through the flare of anger at the memory of Mary’s last fearful glance.
“Didn’t have to stop them,” Travis said, before Neal could think of anything. “They’re walking right into Scarlet’s trap, after all. Mary’s safe as houses with her.”
How safe are houses? Neal had to wonder, and he would have shot Travis a grateful look if he hadn’t been concentrating on appearing cool and in control of the situation.
Jake’s partner hooked him by the elbow and pulled him out of easy earshot, toward the lawn where the gazelle was still pretending to graze so they could exchange whispers.
Neal kept a practiced eye on their weapons, judging how they were held.
Bastian nudged a shoulder towards them and raised his eyebrows, subtly asking Neal if they should try to take them by surprise. Neal concealed his head shake by raking fingers through his hair lazily. Whatever else these soldiers were, they were profession
als, and their attention was complete enough that their weapons could be brought to bear before the shifters could take them down. They looked rattled, but not entirely distracted, glancing around often.
At a moment when they weren't watching him, Neal gave a wave to the gazelle, who was still grazing in earshot. He wasn't quite sure what she could do to help them, but another source of distraction would give them more options.
The gazelle lifted her head and with slow, cautious steps, walked to where the men stood with their guns.
At her first deliberate steps, the guards were at full attention, discussion over whether to call Lewis and warn him about the supposed trap at a standstill. Jake lifted the muzzle of his gun to point at her, while the other had his rifle down, but a finger at the trigger, swapping his attention between the gazelle and the shifters lounging on the pool deck.
She scented the air as she walked forward, one slow hoof after another. Jake lowered his gun, for some reason dismissing her as a threat despite the long, spiraled horns, but she riveted all of their attention—and Neal’s as well—as she rippled and shifted.
A woman knelt there, shrouded in waves of waist-length hair in mixed black and white. At first glance, she was an old woman, the white in her hair and the gauntness of her limbs giving an impression of age. But her face, though haunted, was free of wrinkles, and her eyes were wide and full of youthful innocence as she looked up through her hair at them.
“You are bad men,” she said chidingly.
She had all of their attention, much more than she ought to, and it took Neal a moment to shake off her spell himself and realize that the soldiers’ hands had gone slack on their guns.
He rose to his feet, waiting for either of the bodyguards’ attention to snap back to him at the sound of the lounge chair creaking underneath him. He poked Travis, who blinked stupidly at him for a moment before turning to put an elbow in Bastian’s side.