Rebels and Realms: A Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection Read online

  I probably had a one-way ticket straight to hell without the benefit of a hand basket. A wise person would’ve panicked at being trapped in a vehicle with three armed men. Instead, I contemplated whether or not I could get away with murder.

  Would the defense pursue justifiable homicide or self-defense? If I got a gun away from one of them, I’d be able to put up a good fight. Dad insisted I go to the range with him right along with Mom. I’d never match Dad’s skills, but while my accuracy left a lot to be desired, I could beat most Fenerec to the draw, and that said a lot.

  Dad hated when I called him and his kind werewolves, furballs, or fuzzbuckets, but it kept him on his toes. I often visited my parents, which gave me plenty of chances to yank his tail. It also kept them from whining, and while Mom was a witch, she had picked up several bad habits from Dad, including her tendency to whine when she didn’t get her way, growl when annoyed, and bite. Fortunately, she bit Dad rather than me, but I’d learned my lesson: maybe Mom was a witch, but being mated to a Fenerec meant certain instincts rubbed off.

  When my parents learned about my kidnapping, they’d tear Las Vegas apart looking for me with the help of the pack plus every single member of the police department. I pinched the bridge of my nose, a habit I’d picked up from Mom, and sighed.

  My kidnappers had planned their hit wisely. By grabbing me at gunpoint, they had taken advantage of my unfortunately human nature. They’d likely counted on my inability to risk the lives of others, a common trait among the family members of law enforcement. It set me apart from their sort of filth.

  By changing cars, they ensured the descriptions from witnesses at the college wouldn’t do the police any good. Discarding their masks and changing their clothes would grind the investigation to a halt.

  Unless someone noticed me in the car, I was screwed. I didn’t need anyone telling me putting up a fight would end badly for me. Maybe I’d draw attention, but unlike Dad, I wasn’t unnaturally resilient when it came to gunshot wounds.

  For the first time in my life, I regretted my decision to remain human. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to become a Fenerec like Dad; I did. However, I wanted to do it on my own terms, after I had a chance to experience the world without a wolf crawling under my skin. Going to college and finding my way in the world was part of my plan.

  Mom being a witch put a kink in my efforts, although my heritage wasn’t an insurmountable challenge. The Inquisition, which monitored the supernatural, didn’t like when witches or their children became Fenerec. So far, I was as Normal as a Fenerec-born got, which was a relief. It meant I could pursue my goals without anyone breathing down my neck.

  I’d find a way to get what I wanted, one way or the other. Too many my age didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives. For me, it was simple. After obtaining a degree or two in Criminal Law, I’d help Dad. I wouldn’t do it the way he wanted, which involved serving on the police force, but I’d finish what he started and make sure the scum who deserved to go to prison went there and stayed there.

  My kidnappers played it safe, went the speed limit, stopped at the yellow lights, and did absolutely everything by the book to prevent unwanted attention. The driver stuck to the main streets, too, acting like stereotypical tourists in Vegas.

  It took them less than an hour to escape the city, and according to my watch, we arrived at a marina in Marina del Rey five hours after my kidnapping. The rare times Dad escaped his duties as Alpha of the Las Vegas pack, he took us to the ocean, although he preferred Long Beach. Dad surfed, Mom read books on the beach, and I watched the distant waves without stepping foot in the water.

  “Keep quiet,” the driver ordered, gesturing at me with his gun. Of the three, he was the youngest. Someone had broken his nose, leaving it bent.

  There was power in a name, and as long as I thought of him as Bent Nose, I could pretend he hadn’t just kidnapped me to get back at Dad.

  Bent Nose and his accomplices concealed their weapons inside their jeans rather than using a proper holster. Their t-shirts masked the presence of their guns but wouldn’t impede their ability to draw and fire.

  I was fast, but not fast enough to disarm three men and disable them before one of them put a bullet in my brain. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I got out of the car and went where they told me to go.

  Since the other two men lacked distinguishing features to name them after, I dubbed the man beside me Tweedledee and his friend Tweedledum.

  They had a twenty-foot motorboat docked at the marina, and no one gave us a second look as we headed down the pier. Boating wasn’t something I did; Dad enjoyed fishing, but I had kept my distance from where the waves met the shore. I didn’t understand his love affair with the sea. I preferred Mom’s view of the ocean: it was safest on land.

  Of course, it didn’t help Mom was a fire witch and didn’t enjoy getting wet. Water didn’t hurt her. She could even swim, but she didn’t like it. The only type of water she enjoyed was the hot tub, and only if Dad was with her.

  I avoided the water altogether, my exposure limited to taking quick showers and Vegas’s rare rainfall.

  As a result, Dad fished alone and taunted us both when he couldn’t convince us to join him.

  Why did my first boating trip have to be with a trio of kidnappers? I grimaced at the gap between the pier and boat. The vessel rolled on waves the harbor’s breakwater didn’t stop.

  Tweedledee planted his hand between my shoulders and shoved me off the pier. I pinwheeled my arms, caught my balance, and ended up standing on the boat’s white-painted bottom. There were two rows of paired seats, and the bow had a large, flat section surrounded by a metal rail. I swallowed, grabbed hold of the nearest armrest, and held on with a white-knuckled grip.

  Bent Nose pointed at one of the back seats. “Sit.”

  The boat rocked beneath my feet, and I stumbled the few steps, falling onto the white leather cushion.

  “Get the bait.” Bent Nose took the seat behind the wheel and started the engine while Tweedledee kept a close eye on me, his hand on his gun. Tweedledum jogged to shore and disappeared into the marina’s primary building.

  Why did my kidnappers need bait? I shifted on the seat, eyeing the water warily. White caps marked the ocean beyond the breakwaters.

  Dad didn’t go boating on days the water was choppy, instead taking advantage of the waves to surf. I figured if Dad wasn’t willing to risk it, there was a damned good reason for it.

  My kidnappers were lunatics with a death wish. Kidnapping a police chief’s son would draw a lot of attention, attention they’d have trouble shaking once they got rid of me.

  I scowled, kept a wary eye on the ocean, and wondered how the hell I was going to get out of my situation. At least I knew what I’d do if I did manage to escape: I’d learn how to swim.

  Shortly after clearing the breakwaters, the driver opened the throttle and headed for the open ocean. As the boat pulled away from shore, the water calmed to rolling swells rather than white-capped waves, although I didn’t find the change all that comforting.

  White-capped or not, some of the waves were taller than the boat was long. Normal people would’ve been afraid, but all I felt was a bone-deep numbness. When I could no longer see land, I acknowledged my mistakes.

  I should have put up a fight at the marina. I should have done something other than cooperate. A swift death from being shot in the head was a hell of a lot more merciful than drowning in the ocean.

  Dying at the marina would’ve left Mom and Dad with my body and the hope of closure. If Bent Nose and Friends threw me overboard, my parents would have nothing.

  If I’d known my kidnappers were planning on taking me out to sea, I would have fought in the car until I either won and escaped or lost and died. The spray from the water soaked my clothes and chilled me despite the late-spring warmth.

  Tweedledee chuckled. “You’ve got steel balls, kid.”

  Nothing made a conversation quite as uncomfortable
as having a gun pointed at my head. I glanced at the man beside me, careful to keep my expression neutral. Dad hated my poker face; Fenerec liked cheating at cards, using their over-sensitive noses to deduce when someone was bluffing. Keeping calm prevented my scent from changing, which meant Dad couldn’t use his sense of smell to his advantage.

  I doubted my kidnappers were anything other than Normal idiots. If they’d been Fenerec, they wouldn’t have touched me; they would’ve smelled Dad’s scent marker on me. Witches often had ways of knowing, too, though I didn’t know how their magic worked. No sane supernatural being endangered a Fenerec’s puppy. Fenerec males were aggressive enough without being antagonized. They’d fight to the death for their mate or child.

  A Fenerec Alpha male took their need to defend their own to the extreme. If my dad got his hands on my kidnappers, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left when he was done. I suspected the Inquisition and police department would take steps to prevent Dad from getting too close to my kidnappers if they were caught.

  If I was rescued, the Inquisition would hand me over to Dad and deliberately trigger every last one of his protective instincts to keep him out of the way.

  “What, you mute, kid?”

  “No, I just don’t want to talk to scum like you.”

  Why did my mouth always have to get me in trouble? I knew I had a low tolerance for stupidity, but it wasn’t exactly wise telling someone they were filth straight to their face when they were armed and I wasn’t.

  Tweedledee introduced me to the butt of his pistol, hitting me with the weapon so hard my head snapped to the side and I saw stars. I slumped over the side of the boat, the ocean splashing into my face when the boat crested a swell. Spluttering, I scrambled upright, shaking when I realized how close I’d come to falling in.

  “Watch your mouth, kid.”

  Pain stabbed through the left side of my face, but after a few minutes, it dulled to an incessant throb. I ran my tongue over my teeth, relieved they seemed intact. I tasted blood and pinpointed the injury as a split in my lower lip.

  “It would’ve been easier and safer if you’d just shot me at the college, you know.”

  I really needed to learn when to keep my mouth shut. Instead of smacking the daylights out of me with his gun again, Tweedledee chuckled. “Safer and easier, but not nearly as satisfying. I’m going enjoy feeding you to the sharks, kid.”

  Great. Since killing me wasn’t enough to satisfy them, they planned to feed me to sharks. His comment explained the bait, the boat, and the hassle of kidnapping me and dragging me from Vegas to the coast.

  I found comfort in the realization things couldn’t get any worse.

  Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific was an island, and it was home to sharks, lots and lots of sharks. Their fins cut through the water, and cold dread seeped through me.

  Bent Nose killed the engine, and the boat drifted and rocked in the waves. “Chum the water.”

  I hated the way Tweedledum, the eldest of the lot, smiled when he picked up the bucket of bloody bait, lifted it up, and sent it arcing out over the water. The ocean turned red where the chunked fish hit the surface before fading to a grizzly pink.

  Every fin in the water changed direction, and the sharks swarmed towards the boat.

  That was when they shot me.

  The bang of gunfire deafened me, and the thump of impact on my arm heralded a flash of heat and pulsing agony. Tweedledee smirked, took aim, and fired again. The second round hit above the first and tore through my upper arm. The pain was so intense a scream built in my chest but stuck in my throat.

  Lifting his leg, Tweedledee braced his foot against my chest and shoved. My back struck the boat’s ledge, driving the air out of my lungs. His second kick toppled me into the ocean.

  Water closed over my head. I gasped at the cold, and instead of air, the ocean flooded into my lungs. I jerked, and agony lanced through my arm, stunning me with its intensity. The saltwater stung my eyes, and blood streamed from my arm.

  In the movies, sharks slid through the waters as dark shadows. In reality, I felt them before I saw them. They brushed against me, their skin sandpaper rough. I hung motionless, aware I needed to struggle, but I remained frozen in place, riveted by the curtains of blood streaming in the ocean, the tug of the sea at my clothes, and the sharks thrashing as they searched for their next meal.

  It didn’t take them long to find me.

  The first bumped its nose against me, and my stinging eyes focused on its many rows of jagged teeth. A dark, glassy eye stared into mine, and losing interest, it glided away.

  Its body was easily as long as the boat, and I had no doubt it could swallow me without stopping to chew.

  Fear came second to my need for air. My lungs burned, and my chest ached. Sunlight played over the surface above, but I couldn’t reach it. No matter how much I needed to get my head above the surface, my body refused to move. Panic surged through me. I felt my heartbeat stutter, intensifying the suffocating pressure of the water around me.

  Instead of tearing me into bite-sized pieces, the sharks circled, leaving me to drift in the ocean and drown. A large shark passed over me and blocked out the light.

  It rammed the boat, rocking it in the water. Following its lead, the others joined in, slamming their bodies against the vessel. They opened their maws, snapping their teeth as they breached the surface.

  A bump against my side captured my attention.

  I’d seen enough movies to recognize a great white shark when I saw one. Its triangular teeth were several inches long, set in a stark white mouth large enough I’d slide right into its stomach without it noticing. As though aware I gaped at it, it thrashed in the water, giving me a very close and personal look down its throat.

  Instead of eating me, it pushed me through the water. A second shark joined it, one that was even larger, with a darker hide covered in white spots. Unlike the great white, when it opened its mouth, I couldn’t spot any teeth at all. It rammed its snout into my stomach and forced the water out of me.

  I surfaced moments before I convulsively sucked in a breath. Coughs tore through me, and I choked and vomited water. Instead of sinking beneath the waves, thrashing bodies pinned me between them and held me up, their rough skin scraping me. Teeth and fins caught in my clothes, and my shirt tore under the abuse.

  My kidnappers’ boat bobbed in the water far out of reach while the ocean churned from the sheer number of sharks swarming around it. I spluttered, shaking my head to clear it. Another coughing fit seized me, and a shudder ripped through me.

  I made the mistake of looking down. A dark shape angled toward the boat, so large I couldn’t tell where it began and ended, let alone identify its species. Whatever it was, its size intimidated the sharks. They scattered, leaving the boat in a circle of still, shark-free waters.

  A dorsal fin bumped against my hand. My hand jerked and twitched, and I gasped from the pain lancing through my arm. I regained enough control of my body to throw my right arm across the gray-blue back, clutching at the slick fin.

  Maybe if I clung to its back, it wouldn’t twist around and tear me into bite-sized pieces.

  A great white breached, surging out of the ocean and thrashing its massive body. Water sprayed in my face, and when the shark splashed back into the water, a wave crested over my head.

  The ocean stilled, and the shadowy behemoth lurking beneath the waves rose up, surfaced beneath my kidnappers’ boat, and shunted it aside. The vessel careened one way, leaning so far over the ocean poured into the hull before it lurched the other way and righted.

  While drenched, all three of my kidnappers somehow remained on board. The massive beast sank beneath the water, and when it vanished from sight, the frenzied sharks converged on the boat once more.

  When their prey didn’t willingly leap into the water to be eaten, the sharks rammed the boat until it began to rock, snatched the three screaming men in their hungry jaws, and dragged them into the depths.
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  I realized I had passed out when I woke with my face encrusted with sand and water lapping at my shoulders and neck. For one blissful moment, confusion reigned.

  Then the pain hit me so hard it stole my breath, and when I recovered enough to breathe, I instinctively curled into a ball, which only made the throbbing in my arm worse.

  Bent Nose and his cohorts had shot me and thrown me to the sharks, that much I remembered. I knew just enough about gunshot wounds to recognize being shot twice was bad news. However, what I didn’t understand was why I was on a beach with the sun hard at work baking me into a shriveled mummy rather than being slowly digested in the stomach of a hungry shark.

  It had only taken a single bucket of chum to whip the sharks into a frenzy. My fresh blood should have ensured a quick trip into one’s mouth. Instead, I had somehow made it to shore.

  Moving hurt. My arm wanted nothing to do with anything, throbbing along with my heartbeat. Bracing myself for the worst, I stole a glance at the damage.

  Blood and sand caked my entire left arm, hiding the gunshot wounds. While I couldn’t spot any fresh blood, I also couldn’t tell how bad my injuries were.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either. Some said knowledge was power, but it was a curse, too. It was one thing to understand death was a possibility, but another to know the specifics of what was in store for me.

  I’d hope for civilization and a phone so I could make the most embarrassing call to my parents I’d ever made in my life. Then again, surviving shark-infested waters was something to write home about. Without the gritty sand and the sun seeking to burn me to a crisp, I would’ve doubted everything, even my blood-caked arm.

  I couldn’t swim, so how had I survived? Groaning, I shook my head and expanded my world from beyond my immediate surroundings to the rest of the beach. Pristine white sand stretched to where the shore of the island curved out of sight, blocked by tall grasses. The sun rode high overhead—too high.