By the Tail

Chapter Nine

Quince couldn’t believe Ayers had the nerve to invite not just two supposedly impartial elders—judges who by their very natures observed with neutrality—and three witnesses, but his entire band of loyal shitheads as well. In the fighting ring behind the House, a cleared area in the middle of the pine forest the size of half a football field, Quince and Ayers stood barefoot and bare-chested over matted grass. On either side of the ring stood members of the pride, while a small raised platform with six mounted chairs oversaw the activities.

Normally they held contests and sporting matches in the ring, while those who supervised or judged watched from the platform. Where the new pride leader might stand the next time they held the pride games. God willing it wouldn’t be Ayers or Quince.

Behind him, Jace, Ellis and Rain—his witnesses—stood waiting and watching. He’d forced Dana, Willow and Joy to stand by in secret. Females could be deadly, but by not having them present, he would appear as if trying to protect them. Actually, he had them watching from the woods, masked by Hunter’s mist so they wouldn’t be scented, waiting in their feline forms, armed with claws and teeth and muscular grace. And guns, if need be.

Quince was no fool. When Ayers made his play—and he would—Quince needed to be one step ahead of him. He had no doubt that if left to Greg Ayers, Quince and his guys wouldn’t be leaving this fight alive. He wondered if the judges would support Quince’s side, or if they’d been bought. He glanced at the three older men.

Alan Danville, the oldest member of the pride and their current European Liaison, would and had remained loyal to the pride. During Lex’s chaos, Danville had been in France dealing with obnoxious lions. But when he’d learned of Michael’s passing, he’d sent Quince condolences by way of secret correspondence. That the sly older man had known not to trust Lex showed him to be a keen ally.

Yet Quince also knew that Danville would turn on him in a heartbeat if he tried to hurt the good of the pride. Danville was the pride’s conscience, and a good one they couldn’t afford to lose. Despite wanting him in attendance, Quince had had second thoughts about inviting him tonight. But when he’d warned Danville of the possible danger, the elder had ignored good sense and insisted on being present. As one of the only judges old enough to have witnessed an actual Pride Fight, he at least knew how to run the thing.

Rumblings behind Ayers from two dozen pride members, to include Alissa and Darren Watson, Ayers’s right hand man, alerted Quince to pay better attention. What was supposed to have been a private fight had apparently turned into the evening’s entertainment.

“So much for this being between you and me,” Quince mocked and raised his hands while Judge Nettles looked him over and patted him down.

“He’s clean.”

Judge Everton did the same to Ayers. “Him too.”

Nettles and Everton walked back to the raised platform at the head of the clearing, where Danville stood waiting.

“Danville?” Nettles blinked in surprise, not having seen the old man take his place as head of the proceedings. “Hadn’t heard you were back in town.”

Danville, a cranky old bastard by anyone’s standards, scowled. “Didn’t know I needed your permission to come back to my own pride.”

“No, sir.” Nettles flushed. “Welcome back.”

“Gee, thanks.” Danville jumped onto the platform with the spry grace of a man several decades younger than the ninety-two he was purported to be. “Well, get on with it. I have things to do before I die, you know.” Then he and the other two judges took their seats.

Ayers gave Quince a crafty look. “Danville doesn’t matter. Neither do the others. You’re going down, one way or the other.”

“Dream on.” Quince wondered when Ayers would make his move. Physically, Quince outweighed and outmuscled him. Sure, Ayers could use his guys to try to attack Quince’s group, but none of them were armed. Quince had personally looked them over while Ayers had done the same to Jace, Ellis and Rain.

Would Ayers try to kill Quince and his men in front of impartial witnesses? Unless Nettles and Everton weren’t legit. Yet of all the judges that could have been present, Nettles and Everton seemed the cleanest and most sincere. Quince’s decision to involve Danville in pride politics had been made some time ago, back when he’d finally started to make progress cleaning up Lex’s mess. Just his luck the old cat had decided to return to the states when Quince needed him most.

Danville spoke. “Shake hands, then prepare to fight.”

Ayers held out his hand. Quince eyed it warily, but he didn’t scent or see any sign of foul play. With the judges waiting for him to take Ayers’s hand, then step back and prepare to fight, he reached out.

Ayers clasped his hand tightly, and a burning sensation struck Quince’s palm. He wanted to pull back, but Ayers refused to let him go.

“You fucker.” Quince snorted in derision. “I’m not surprised you cheated.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ayers grinned, yanked his hand back, and then crouched, prepared to fight. “Quit whining and fight me, Quince.”

“Stop all the chit chat.” Danville ordered. “You fight first as human, then as feline.” The judge sat between Nettles and Everton, watching. “Winner rules the pride. We three judges will decide the outcome in the event no one dies. Somehow, I don’t see that being an issue with you two.”

“You got that right,” Quince growled.

“Hell, yeah,” Ayers agreed.

“Unfortunate, but there you have it. Now get it on, boys.” Danville nodded.

Quince wanted to see Joy again before he fought, but he didn’t have the time. Already he could feel himself changing, his animal spirit hissing at the wrongness invading his system. What the fuck had Ayers done to him?

No matter. He had to draw this out. If he’d gauged his timing right, he had a good twenty minutes before Miles showed up. He had to clean up Ayers now.

Launching himself at Ayers, he knocked the pussy down. Ayers’s wide eyes made it seem as if he’d expected the toxin he’d infected Quince with to knock him out or weaken him, so Quince worked fast. Tired of dealing with the shitty cats day after day, of knowing he might lose Joy if he didn’t end Ayers’s threat, he used every ounce of his waning strength to knock Ayers off his feet.

Blow upon blow against the man’s head, chest and side. He heard bones crack and felt blood trickling through his fists. He hadn’t felt Ayers’s impact, but apparently his opponent had dealt him a few good hits to the face.

Quince blinked past the blurriness obscuring his vision. Shadows, then light, yet the moon lit up the area like a spotlight.

A bell rang. “And now, fight as felines,” Danville ordered in a booming voice. “Damn fine battle as men, though. You do our ancestors proud.”

Quince distantly heard commentary from the sidelines. His guys yelling at him to hold on. Just five—or was that fifteen?—more minutes. Alissa shrieking for Ayers to stop playing and kill him. Watson and the others shouting their encouragement as well, that Ayers end him now.

Ayers staggered as he shucked off his pants and shifted. Quince tried to hurry as well, but he had trouble coordinating his movements.

Claws ripped into his skin as he swore and finally got his pants off. It took him a few tries to find his animal spirit, and then he felt Joy inside him somehow, ragging on him to man up and shift already.

He shook his head and turned into his cat, a hybrid cougar and jaguar that wanted nothing more than to kill the cheater currently wrapping his teeth around Quince’s throat.

He would have had more trouble if Joy hadn’t been nagging his ass to quit pussying around. She actually had the nerve to threaten to leave him if he didn’t prove himself worthy.

Confused, awash in weakness and a murderous rage at the thought of his mate leaving him, he roared his fury and attacked Ayers with a vengeance. Around them, everyone went quiet, the sounds of enraged cat and Ayers’s gurgling the only things to be heard.

He clawed through Ayers’s belly and finally managed to grip the cat’s throat between his powerful jaws. And then he ripped his head back and tore out Ayers’s throat.

Ayers sagged, dead, a threat to Joy and Quince no more.

“What the fuck is this?” Miles’s shout drew his attention.

He wavered on his paws and meowed his confusion, then found himself tackled by someone from behind.

Before he could move, he heard yowls, screams of enraged female panthers and gunfire.

Quince tried to shake off his dizziness, wondering if he’d been badly injured or if Ayers’s drugs were to blame. Before he could figure it out, a large yellow paw slapped across his face. He managed to blink his eyes open and focus.

Miles sneered at him, his golden coat thick and unblemished, his ears back and his mouth opened in a hiss. Dickhead had a mouth of really big teeth.

“I don’t know what the hell this is all about, but if you think you can use my sister and—”

“So we have a new challenger?” Danville said.

“Challenger?” Miles looked behind him at Danville. “What is this—?”

Before Danville answered and ruined everything, Quince forced himself to concentrate on the plan. “I accept,” he snarled and knocked Miles on his ass.

So he’d had to fall on the big cat to make his move, but it worked.

“Get off me. You’re bleeding. You stink, and you smell…like you mated my sister!” Miles clawed him across the face and struck out with his hind legs, raking them across Quince’s belly.

Quince didn’t fight back. At all. “Pussy,” he said with bravado, smothering a groan. He needed Miles to engage, to make the fight look real. “Fuck, Miles. That’s a fifth grade move, if that.” Then, because he wanted no one to doubt that Miles had beaten him without question, he added slowly, so that he wouldn’t slur, “Your sister moves better than that. You should see her on her knees…”

Miles’s next assault knocked Quince down and left him unable to move.

As he went down, he saw Willow holding a gun, Dana and Joy in feline form watching Ayers’s people, and heard Joy shrieking his name as she bounded to his side.

Then he closed his eyes as blackness descended. They’d won, and his mate was safe. That was enough.

“Damn it. Leave him alone.” Joy threw herself at her brother just as he’d stopped himself from going for the final blow sure to end Quince’s life. She landed hard on top of him, but he didn’t try to move her.

He was breathing hard and staring past her at Quince, confusion making his whiskers twitch. He flatted his ears then raised them. “Joy?”

“We have a winner,” Alan Danville said with enthusiasm. For an old cat, he moved with the speed of a juvenile in his prime. In seconds, he leapt from the platform and reached them in four strides. “Congratulations, son.”

“Uh, thanks?”

Beyond them, Willow stood naked holding a weapon on what remained of Ayers’s groupies while Jace, Ellis and Rain pushed through the dead and injured. Dana remained a feline, hissing at the others until they stopped trying to escape into the woods. Maybe ten of Ayers’s people remained alive. And of course, Alissa happened to be one of them.

While Quince had been fighting the drug in his system and Ayers, Joy’d kept her spirit glued to his, giving him the strength to see past the fog in his mind and the lethargy in his body. But the poor baby had given his due. Especially to her brother.

“Joy, can you get off me now?”

“Oh, sorry.” She stepped off Miles and moved back to Quince. Danville had his hand on Quince’s neck and his eyes closed. “Is he okay?”

“He’s in pretty bad shape.” Danville opened his eyes, then smiled. “But he’s a fighter and he’s newly mated. He’ll survive.” He turned to Miles. “Well, pride leader? What do we do with them?” Danville nodded at Ayers’s group.

“Wait. What?” Miles blinked at the judge.

“Good thinking.” Danville nodded and said over his shoulder, “Nettles, secure Everton. He colluded with Ayers to cheat. Jace and the rest of you, handle these idiots.” He pointed to the group Willow watched over. “Put them in the cells underground.” The judgment cells located under the House, where offending felines went while waiting judgment. It had been a long time since Michael had imprisoned anyone. But she supposed the time had come to totally clean house, so to speak.

“Well, young lady. Do you want to explain things or should I?” Danville asked her, his voice gentle.

“I…” She looked down at Quince and had to work not to cry. He looked so still, so vulnerable lying there. “Could you, please? I have to see to my mate.”

A rush of voices and the scent of more cats poured through the woods. She leaned down to lick Quince’s injured face, remembering it wasn’t so long ago that she’d done the same in Cougar Falls. Then she sat by his side and waited for Doctor Hicks to reach them.

Miles stared in confusion at the chaos around them and shifted back to human. “What the hell is going on?”

From Quince’s provoking note and that fight, to Greg Ayers lying dead in cat form, to the battle he’d stumbled over tonight, nothing made sense. What were three judges doing presiding over this mess, and in the challenge ring no less? And why was his sister licking that bastard like he belonged to her? Fuck, that scent. They’d mated. Yet Joy looked proud to be by Quince’s side. And Jace, Ellis, Rain… They’d all been loyal to Michael and remained protective of Quince, keeping a watchful eye over him and Joy.

“Well, son. It’s like this,” Alan Danville, one of the most respected members in the pride—and with Michael gone—probably the most respected, answered. “You beat Quince in a Pride Fight. That makes you pride leader. Did you or did you not win? You’re standing. He’s not, correct?”

“I, well, yes. But I didn’t know it was a Pride Fight.” Those antiquated battles for supremacy still happened? “And now that I think about it, something wasn’t right with Castille. It wasn’t a fair—”

“Nonsense. You won. I witnessed it. So did Nettles. Ignore Everton.” In a lower voice, he whispered to Miles, “Everton overlooked Ayers’s cheating. My guess is Ayers drugged Quince somehow, because the boy doesn’t smell right. And he didn’t fight at top speed either. A little sloppy, if you asked me.”

“Huh?”

In a louder voice, Danville continued, “You see, Ayers has been pushing to take over where Lex left off. Quince, naturally, wasn’t having any of it. So he asked me to settle the score by watching over a Pride Fight. An old tradition we rarely use anymore. Mostly we vote as a council, of course. But our council’s been pretty messed up since Michael died, I’m sorry to say.” Danville sighed, then smiled. “But hey, we’re good now, aren’t we Miles?”

“Good?” As reason returned, he started to make sense of it all. And he realized Quince had never been or done all those bad things of which he’d been accused.

He glanced at the group of Ayers’s supporters moving past him. Alissa scowled at Joy as if she wanted nothing more than to wipe her off the face of the planet.

“You lied to me,” he said softly to Alissa, but she heard him because she looked his way.

Alissa smiled through her teeth. “Hey, Miles. Welcome home.”

He glanced back at his sister, who kept a paw on Quince’s torso, protecting what she obviously considered hers.

“See? She’s standing where her loyalties have always been—with the enemy.” Joy sniffed. “You owe me and Quince a big apology. Oh, and I want my bracelet back. I gave it to Quince. It’s his.”

“Nice looking couple, aren’t they?” Ellis asked as he joined Danville and Miles. “I’m thinking we’ll be back to three lieutenants again. And boy, am I glad about that. So Miles, we’re going to take the guilty into the cells. Dana and Willow are drafting a notice to all the pride. We need a meeting, big time. But I think we should hold it in the House once Quince is on his feet. You need him and us for solidarity, but I don’t see anyone protesting your appointment.” He glanced at Danville. “That sound about right, sir?”

“Yes, yes.” Danville waved him away. “I’ll pass the word to the other judging council so we can at least tell everyone that there’s been an official change. ’Course, the others will spread the rumor.” More cats filled the area, everyone talking at once. “And boy,” he said to Miles. “You’re going to have to move into the estate. With Jace, Ellis and Quince working for you, you’ll have the pride whipped into shape in no time.” He slapped Miles on the back. “Now I’d best be going. Talk to you tomorrow at two in the conference room. Don’t be late.”

Miles watched, dumbfounded, as Danville walked away whistling. The field was abuzz with cats and people staring at him, nodding and smiling. Ellis and the others rounded up Ayers’s group, dragged the dead away and tended the wounded.

A few cats had gathered around Quince and carried him back to the House while Joy trotted by his side. Miles changed back into his cat form and hustled after her, full of questions needing answers.

Quince had told Miles to meet him here, knowing he’d be involved in a Pride Fight. Was Miles there to defend Joy in case things had gone sour? Then why had Quince egged Miles on with all that smack talk about Joy?

Had Miles actually inadvertently become pride leader? The others acted like he had, but it made no sense. He followed Joy into the House, scenting Quince’s blood and that odd taint that didn’t belong on him. A poison or sedative of some kind.

Miles felt guilty for having smacked around the half-conscious asshole, even though Quince had asked for it. For so long he’d thought Quince guilty of awful crimes, only to find out it had been a lie.

Yet, would his sister, the smartest of them all, if truth be told, really stay with a male who raped and killed to rule? No way in hell. Joy had a temper and a definite idea about right and wrong. Like the rest of his sisters, she wanted to be treated with dignity and respect. And love.

He wondered about the bracelet Quince had left with that letter. The bracelet was old. He remembered Joy trying to foist one on him years ago, before he’d tossed his in the trash. But Quince had his still. What did that mean?

He followed his sister and Quince into the room that Michael had used. Now it belonged to Quince, the pride leader. Past pride leader, according to Danville. Shit.

“Joy?” She sat in the corner, still as a statue, watching the doctor and two assistants cleaning Quince’s wounds.

He remained a large black cat, but his chest rose and fell evenly.

“He’ll be fine, Joy,” Doctor Hicks assured her. “A lot of bloody cuts, but they’re pretty superficial. Well, except for the one on his abdomen.” The one Miles had made. “I’ll stitch him up. He’ll need a few days to rest.”

“And that drug in his system?” she asked, sounding nervous.

Miles moved to sit next to her, not saying anything. Just for support.

“Myron?” Doc asked his assistant. “Smell like Forissol to you?”

Myron nodded. “I tasted a bit of his blood. Yeah. Forissol. Crappy-ass Hunter sedative. He’ll be out for a good twelve hours, but it’ll slow his system enough to heal better, actually.”

“Okay.” Joy sounded relieved.

“You stay with him,” the doctor ordered her. “He’ll be out of it for a while. I’ll be here tending the others. Myron’s going to hang around for the next few days to check on him. I’d stay, but I’m needed for Annabeth. She’s due to give birth any day now.”

“I know.” Joy nodded. “Thanks, Doc, and tell Annabeth I’ll be seeing her soon.”

“I will. Anytime you need help, just ask.” Doc Hicks glanced at Miles and nodded. “Pride leader.” Then he left with Myron close behind and shut the door after him.

Joy walked to Quince’s side and put her head next to his. She licked his nose, then rubbed her cheek against him, moving slowly and gently.

The obvious love between them humbled Miles, and he lowered to his haunches to sit and wait without speaking. His questions could hold. While Joy looked over her mate, he’d look after her.

That’s what big brothers were for.