“We doing this, or do you guys want to be fucking adorable a little bit longer?” Secret asked.
“The adorable just happens naturally, I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” I retorted.
“There’s only so much cutesy bullshit I can handle before murdering someone a second time.”
“She says that,” Desmond said. “But I’m here to tell you she loves cutesy bullshit twenty-four-seven.”
Secret rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Am I the only one who toggled my switch to badass-butt-kicking mode? You guys are still in quippy-one-liners-and-being-sappy mode.”
“You’re a weird lady,” Wilder told her.
“You have no idea,” Lucas said.
“I hope she kills all of you.”
“You love us,” I said.
The pall of fear that had followed us into the garden had lifted slightly, and lightness had come into its place. None of us were trying to pretend this wasn’t serious and potentially very deadly, but it wouldn’t help any of us to go through those doors already dreading the outcome.
If we could crack jokes, it meant we thought this might end well.
It had to end well.
“Let’s fucking do this,” Secret announced as she kicked open the door.
Immediately it became clear we weren’t only going to be dealing with Mercy. I wasn’t sure how it was possible for her to have amassed goons so quickly, or if these men were still loyal to her fr
om the last time she made a bid to usurp the throne, but the second we got through the door a dozen werewolves were on us.
They were all in human form, same as us, but it didn’t mean they weren’t deeply dangerous, especially since they seemed to be fighting like they didn’t care whether they lived or died.
The museum door shut behind me and before my eyes had a chance to adjust to the darkness, someone struck me hard right across the face. The punch landed right on my cheekbone, and pain exploded through the side of my head as if I’d been hit with a hammer rather than a fist.
I staggered backward, hitting the door, and cradling my face in my palm while stars swam in front of my eyes.
Being hit by a human would have done more damage to them than it did me.
Being hit by a grown male werewolf who wasn’t holding anything back? Well, that hurt a hell of a lot, I’m here to tell you.
Once my brain started to function again I was able to better assess our situation. Unfortunately for me, that was the precise moment one of the wolves took notice of me and lunged in for a second attack.
My instincts took over and I tucked and rolled just as he was about to collide with me, but my little evasive maneuver only managed to roll me directly under Desmond’s legs, bringing both him and the werewolf he’d been fighting right down on top of me.
Four hundred plus pounds of writhing, snarling men fighting on top of you isn’t sexy or enjoyable no matter how you look at it. The air was knocked from my lungs and I struggled to breathe as I wrestled my way out from under them.
I was already a sticky, sweaty, bruised disaster by the time I got to my feet, and we weren’t even out of the main entrance hall yet. Admittedly, I’d come into this assuming Wilder, Secret, Desmond, Lucas, Dominick, and I would be able to handily dispatch one once-dead werewolf. We’d left Sutherland back at his apartment, assuming he’d be more of a liability than an asset.
I was starting to wish we had the vampire on our side.
Secret swore, and the sound of crunching bone echoed through the chamber, but there was no way for me to tell if the crunching sound had been from her or caused by her. Either way, someone was going to be in a shitload of pain.
“Genie?” Wilder’s voice echoed through the room, over the din from the clashing bodies and guttural violence. “Genie?”
A moment ago I’d been standing next to him and now I was all the way across the room. No wonder he was frantic.
“I’m okay,” I called back, though it wasn’t entirely true. My cheek stung badly and I was pretty sure my eye was starting to swell shut. Thanks a heap, stupid werewolf.
Wilder forced his way through the crowd until he was standing in front of me, and took one look at my face before letting out a snarl so vicious it made fingers of ice crawl down my spine. That snarl promised an agonizing end to whoever had done this to me.