“Please, I can handle myself, little boy.”

“It’s fine, Tammy. They could have been here forever.”

The man named Monroe turned his attention once again my way. Only this time he elegantly leaped off the stage and caused everyone around me to bring their weapons up. His eyes never left mine. I laid my hand on the back of Derek’s and brought his blade down and stepped up to meet Jacob’s older brother and get away from the family squabble. I extended my hand and he dropped down to one knee.

“Well, haven’t you heard? We don’t do that around here. We just say ‘howdy’ and get on with it,” I smiled keeping my hand out until he took it and got up. That just drove me crazy and all I wanted was to never see it again. “I’m Renee, the one everyone either wants to kill, or do whatever your elder folks want done with. How ya doin?”

“You’ll have to excuse her tongue. Renee’s slang deepens when the excitement rises.”

“Ya think, Jacob?” I smirked, shaking Monroe’s hand with him giving me the oddest look. “You should hear your brother try to talk like me and my boys.”

“Do we, or do we not, have a few breeders to find? The sun will not stay hidden all day.”

“Do I not need to make allegiance with my new mistress? I wish to not return…surely you know this?” Monroe’s eyes bore a hole into Jacob.

“Monroe, you shook my hand. That’s all you needed to do to show me you’re with us. More importantly, you saved one of us against one of your own.”

“You do not carry their blood in your body?”

I gave Jacob and the rest one of my ‘kiss my ass’ looks. “Not at first, but we had a situation and it kind of had to be done. But not because they had to.”

“Would you be offended if I said I would feel better if you made me one of you? I do not ever wish to go back, ever. I have finally found out what happened to the unborn child and I will never let him go, you see.”

“Jacob?” I needed help. I couldn’t make this one understand.

“I’m sorry, Renee, I agree with him. He is my blood from a time when we had a mother and father. He is no different than Jessica; only she has felt secure with me since our birth. Only Monroe knows what he has endured and I, too, would want to be marked. They will not be able to track him otherwise.”

“Can we at least do it after we find those sisters? This night really isn’t going to get any younger,” Garvin spoke up.

“Yeah, I completely agree,” I nodded and mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Garvin.

“Then you will?” Monroe asked again.

“You are mine and I will bite the crap out of you once we take care of this and I am not so full I could puke. Welcome home! Now let’s go take care of some sick cows.”

“Excuse me?”

“Welcome home big brother, welcome home indeed,” Jacob snorted as he walked by Monroe. ***   

Cates went through the door at the back of the stage first, with Jacob, Monroe, Derek, and Garvin following. Tammy and I stayed back a bit, with Fala taking care of our back. Jacob wanted there to be room in the small space of the stone hall if anything should happen.

“I can’t get over how much they look like each other.”

“If Monroe didn’t have hair almost as long as mine, it would be hard to tell them apart,” I whispered.

“The oldest is taller,” Fala added. “But if they were sitting?”

Tammy and I both had to hold in our desire to laugh out loud. Fala was on the uneducated side when it came to the civilized world and spoke in the ways of a person who learned life in the wilderness. Most of us hadn’t gone to conventional school, but most had learned a great deal from their own personal existence around those who had lived in, what they would call, a more sophisticated world.

“I hope if they did go back to Martin’s they didn’t try to go into the lower levels,” Tammy spoke low and her words knocked every thought but Martin and Tanda right out of my mind.

“You would have to say that, wouldn’t you?”

“It just hit my mind.”

“Your maker set the locks from the inside, so you both worry for no reason,” Fala snorted as softly as he could in his beast form.

I was pulling the hair pins out of my hair when I felt a hand on my chest. “What the hell.” Fala growled and yanked on the arm that had touched me and pulled Bernard free from his hiding spot. He screamed once and then fell silent when Fala’s huge hand clamped down over his mouth then he passed smooth out.

“He is a weak one, isn’t he?”

“Lane, is that you?” I asked as he stepped out from the same dark area.

“Yes, that one released me and my brother and hid with us here in the little room. He said we would be freed after all was clear. I do not think he knew you would be coming after the others went by.”

I could hear several footsteps coming our way and see the light of the torch. Derek held it as high as he could until he saw Luther stepping out. He slowed down and walked the rest of the way, smiling like he had swallowed the yellow canary. It was then that I saw Sydney running up behind him. “You pick them up all over the place, don’t you, Renee?”

“You’d be one of the first to know, huh Derek?” I laughed.

“He wakes,” Fala said, getting our attention.

Tammy was the first to get in front of Bernard. “Where did they go, Bernard?”

“What? What happened?”

“You touch my chest and our wolf friend here almost ate you for supper, that’s what happened. Now, answer her question.”

“Where did who go?”

“Pick him up, Fala. We’ll take him with us. Let’s move.” I gave the order and turned, heading down the hall-like tunnel to find the rest of my people. I could hear Bernard begging to be put down, saying that he could walk on his own. He rambled on about knowing where they had gone and would show us the way if we swore not to harm him or his beloved, Alex. I think Fala must have bumped Bernard’s head on the wall to shut him up, because it became very quiet all of the sudden.

Derek put the torch on the floor and stomped it out, telling us that the others were waiting just around the next turn. It hadn’t been an extremely noticeable slant in the hall, but with the way we walked, it was easy to tell that we had been going down at a slight angle the whole way. The turn opened into a small room with stone benches where the rest were waiting on us.

“You do not know how pleased I am to see that you found the key,” Jacob stood and was smiling so big I could see his fangs in full.

“The key?” I laughed at the look on his face. “We found a few things alright, but I didn’t see any keys.”

“Not you, my fearless leader, Fala.”

He was talking about Bernard and I was dying to see the meaning behind his words. Fala let Bernard slide off of his shoulder by pulling down on his arm, and not too gently. Bernard hit the stone floor with a thud. His scream echoed throughout the room as he grabbed his lower leg, falling back and acting more like a female than any man should. Cates stood up, walked over, yanked him up by the back of his leather top and slung him into the far corner.

“Open it you little weasel or I will break every bone in your body.”

“Then I will let you heal and let this beast of a man do it all over again,” I calmly added, crossing my arms over the shirt that Sydney let me use, with tights covering my legs and nothing else on but the slipper type shoes. My hair was hanging off to one side, half rolled up with hair pins sticking out everywhere. I must have looked like a mad woman.

“They split up. Inara took her men and left. She gave word to ready her ship before we came to the gala, in case things did not go her way.”

“And her sister?” Cates said in a deep growl, leaning down over Bernard, who just glanced at the wall then down at the floor. “Then open it before I get busy.”

“I can go to the coastline and stop the ship. I know the way well,” Monroe offered.