"Raina has forbidden us to make Anita lukoi," Heidi said.
The glare that Sebastian gave her made her cringe against the curtain door. Her eyes were round with fear.
"Is that true?" Richard asked.
"It's true," Sebastian growled. "We can kill her, but we can't make her pack." He grinned, a brief flash of teeth. "So we'll just kill her."
I drew the Firestar, using Richard's body to shield the movement from the lycanthropes. We were in trouble. Even with the Uzi, I couldn't kill them all. If Richard would kill Sebastian, we might salvage the situation, but he'd try not to kill him. The other shapeshifters watched us with patient, eager eyes. This had been the plan all along. There had to be a way out.
I had an idea. "Are all Marcus's enforcers ass**les?"
Sebastian turned to me. "Was that an insult?"
"If you have to ask, then indeedy-do, it was."
"Anita," Richard said, low and careful, "what are you doing?"
"Defending myself," I said.
His eyes widened, but he didn't take his glance from the big werewolf. Richard understood. There was no time to argue about it. Sebastian took a step forward, big hands balled into fists. He tried to step around Richard to get to me. Richard moved in front of him. He put out his hand, palm outward like he had with Heidi, and that roiling energy damped down, spilling out like water from a broken cup. I'd never seen anything like it. Calming Heidi was one thing. Forcing a lycanthrope to swallow such power was something else.
Sebastian took a step back, almost a stagger. "You bastard."
"You are not strong enough to challenge me, Sebastian. Don't ever forget that," Richard said. His voice was still calm, with the barest hint of anger underneath. It was a reasonable voice, a voice for negotiating.
I stood behind Richard with the Firestar held at my side, as unobtrusive as I could make it. The fight was off, and my little show of bravado hadn't been needed. I'd underestimated Richard's power. I'd apologize later.
"Now, where is Stephen?" Richard asked.
A slender black man stalked towards us, moving like a dancer in a shimmering wash of his own energy. His hair was braided in shoulder-length cornrows with colored beads worked into them. His features were small and neat, his skin a rich solid brown. "You may be able to control us one at a time, Richard, but not all at once."
"You were kicked out of your last pack for being a troublemaker, Jamil," Richard said. "Don't make the same mistake twice."
"I won't. Marcus will win this fight because you are a f**king bleeding heart. You still don't get it, Richard. We aren't the Young Republicans." Jamil stopped about eight feet back. "We are a pack of werewolves, and we aren't human. Unless you accept that, you are going to die."
Sebastian stepped back to stand beside Jamil. The rest of the lycanthropes moved up behind the two men. Their combined energy flowed outward, filling the room like warm water with piranha in it. The power bit along my skin like tiny electric shocks. It rose in my throat until it was hard to breathe, and the hair on my head stood at attention.
"Will you be pissed if I kill some of them?" I asked. My voice sounded squeezed and harsh. I moved closer to Richard, but had to step back. His power poured over me like something alive. It was impressive, but there were twenty lycanthropes on the other side, and it wasn't that impressive.
A scream shattered the silence, and I jumped.
"Anita," Richard said.
"Yeah."
"Go get Stephen."
"That was him screaming?" I asked.
"Go get him."
I looked at the mass of lycanthropes and said, "You can handle this?"
"I can hold them."
"You can't hold us all," Jamil said.
"Yes," Richard said, "I can."