Luna of Rogues

Part 65 - Hidden Weapon

"So we know where Malcolm is," Rhodric said. "Let's go and kill him."

I glowered at him. "No shit. But it's not going to be as easy as killing Callum, is it?"

"It needs to be planned properly," Rhys added. "I saw a shit ton of guns at their camp. Who would you bet on? A hundred werewolves or an AK-47?"

"Exactly." I was glad of my brother's support. Fion was still feeling too ill to leave bed, and Leo was being extra quiet today.

Rhodric folded his arms. "We are not bringing the raiders into this — let me make that very clear. It's not their fight."

"Where are you getting we from? I'm debating whether to include you at all," I snapped back.

My father leaned forwards to regard me, his forearms resting on the table. We were in the empty council room, arguing over the finer details of slaughtering hunters, as normal families do. He spoke through the mind-link to avoid telling Rhys about his mother, completely clueless that he already knew. "He killed my mate. I'm coming."

"Not even a chance unless you tell me the entire story," I replied the same way. "There's obviously more to it. I can't walk in there without knowing what I'm walking into."

"That's an excellent point, Skye," Rhodric retorted aloud. "You won't have to walk in there, because I will."

"You're really stubborn, you know that?" I sighed.

Rhodric snorted at me. "Best to give in now, then."

"Fat chance of that," I growled. "I'm stubborn too. But I'm getting sick of all this fighting. Rhys and Fion fell out months ago. Granted, they fixed it. But now it's you on a kamikaze road."

"He's been cruising the kamikaze road for a while," Rhys said spitefully. "Remember when you abandoned us to Brandon, Dad? Wasn't that an amazing bit of parenting?"

"If you've got something to say, boy, spit it out," Rhodric told him mildly.

"Alright then." Rhys braced his arms on the tabletop. "It was your fault. You could've stopped Bran before he even started, but instead you vanished into thin air. Without so much as a word."

Rhodric didn't rise to it. He wasn't even looking at Rhys anymore.

"Even if I had known what he was about to do, I couldn't have stopped him," he said after a moment's silence. "Not without killing him. And I never managed to do that to Jeff ... so what makes you think my own son would be any easier?"

Rhys blinked. Then his eyes softened, and I knew he felt the same as me. He couldn't hate his father, no matter how much he wanted to.

"If you let us help you," I told him, "killing Malcolm will probably be a walk in the park. Think about that. It didn't go well for you when you tried to do it alone, did it?"

Rhodric took that in sullen silence. I completely gave up, standing up and pulling Rhys with me. Just when we were about to get out of earshot, he called after us. "You should go and see old Jeff. It's about time you really got to know your grandfather."

It was as close to as a hint as he was likely to give us. I fully intended to take it. For better or for worse, we would be seeing a lot more of old Jeff. He was family, after all. I didn't have much shortage of that, except when it came to blood relatives. Then Kara was all I had, and there was still a chance she wasn't really my twin. A small one, admittedly. She looked like my mirror image.

Rhys, Leo and I went to visit old Jeff in his cabin in the woods. I was told Cassidy was sleeping soundly in our beds under the eaves. It was about time she caught a break. Discovering the existence of werewolves and meeting your mate all in one day was a lot to handle.

As soon as we entered the cabin, I knew something was off. Jeff wasn't sat up in his usual chair. He was slumped in a corner, hands trembling. Even his bad eye was bright gold, the same colour as the night he had tried to kill all of us.

"Skye ... I think we should leave," Leo said immediately. He knew about the incident a few nights ago and obviously wasn't in a hurry to witness it first-hand.

"No." Rhys shook his head. He knelt next to his grandfather and touched his arm hesitantly. Old Jeff didn't react at all. He didn't seem to realise we were here.

"What the hell?" I hissed. "We've got to go get Rhodric. He's the only one who be here safely."

"And why is that? He said it's got nothing to do with their relationship. So it has to be some physical quality..." Rhys reasoned.

I met his eyes, beginning to understand. "If you're wrong about this, we might all die."

He grinned that hellion grin. "When has that ever bothered us before?"

Jeff's entire body was trembling now. I recognised that symptom from the full moon. When someone was fighting their shift, this often happened. And if old Jeff was deadly in human form, I dreaded to think what he could do as a wolf. The time he had fought off ferals with his son, two children had mistaken his wolf form for a monster. But all the same, I returned the smile. "Fair enough. Whatever you're going to do, I'll help."

Leo didn't look so certain, but he nodded in agreement. I moved a hand to the hilt of my knife, ready for whatever hell was about to break loose.

But I wasn't expecting Rhys to shift on the spot and close his teeth around his grandfather's arm. The old man jumped to awareness, letting out a roar that triggered my own shift by instinct alone. Rhys darted backwards fast as lightning and turned tail, heading for the open door. He was provoking him to shift and give chase, the sneaky little idiot.

Leo and I didn't hesitate to follow him. We were heading back to camp, which was a risk. There were enough fighters there to overwhelm him, but there were also plenty of easy victims for a crazy old werewolf. Praying not for the first time that my brother knew what he was doing, I ran after him.

That's when it struck me. A roar, not a growl. And the sounds coming from behind us now were hisses. We were missing something. Oh, shit. What sort of animal hisses, Skye?

At that point, I probably should have told Rhys what I had realised. He wouldn't have cared anyway, knowing him. But it might have been a good idea. Instead, I doubled my speed to the point where I found it difficult to stop when Rhys suddenly skidded to a halt.

The three of us ended up facing the path behind us just in time to see the massive shape that was charging after us. It was feline, with those glowing golden eyes and a colouring like the night sky. A deadly monster, armed with fangs and claws. Old Jeff wasn't a werewolf. He was a werecat.

Rhodric had told us about these shifters. He had warned us about them. Hell, he had even mentioned that they originated from the island he had grown up on. Where Jeff had lived. Not one of us had paid any attention.

And now that werecat was rushing headlong at us, ready to end our lives. My reckless shit of a brother waited until he was just metres away before turning off his scent. A physical ability that he shared with his father, which seemed to have no apparent origin. Until now, that was. I was willing to bet that werecats had all sorts of abilities, some of which may be passed down to their offspring, even when they mated with werewolves. This also explained the Llewellyns' improbable strength and speed.

It worked, astonishingly enough. But not quite the way we had hoped. Jeff changed course and instead of killing Rhys, he headed straight for me. Crap seemed like an understatement. I rolled left, narrowly avoiding being raked by a paw of razor-sharp claws. When Jeff turned for another go, he found Rhys standing over me protectively, with Leo behind the pair of us.

The golden eyes considered us for a nearly a full minute as Jeff decided if he wanted to kill his own grandson to get at us. Then he blinked, shook himself and ran back the way he had come. I resisted the urge to sigh in relief.

Leo turned to me with eyes as wide as saucepans. Through the link, he asked, "What the hell was that?"

"That," I began, a wolfy grin spreading across my face, "is our ticket to killing Malcolm.