Gladiator Cheetah, page 16
part #2 of Gladiator Shifters Series
That seemed so simple as to be ridiculous. Aeolis ducked his head without taking his eyes from the road, and quietly, just above the sound of the Jeep's engine, asked, "How do you know what to do, so clearly?"
She glanced at him, some of her anger disappearing into a brief, wry smile. "You literally hired me to shoot at bad guys, Ay." A bark of surprised laughter escaped him, but she went on. "You believe the wolves will do what Joash tells them to, and I respect that, but I don't understand why, so if I'm going to do the job I was hired to, I need to be prepared. Even if I did understand why, I don't think trusting self-proclaimed bad guys is a smart choice, so, again, I need to be prepared."
"Joash…his story isn't mine to tell, Shannon. He might tell you if you asked him, but…" Aeolis searched for words, then shook his head. "Joash has power, among shifters. Like a king, maybe, but he doesn't rule us. Maybe more like a judge. It's…I don't think it's possible for one of us to look on him and deny his power or his influence. So when he expects something of us…we do it. If he passes judgment…we accept it."
"Why?"
"Did you do what your coach told you, in training?"
"Yeah, of course, because I respected his authority and knowledge."
Aeolis opened a hand against the steering wheel, encompassing that answer as his own. "Add magic to that, and that's why we obey Joash."
Shannon exhaled noisily. "Okay. I think that's crazy, but…okay. Whatever."
"Really?" Aeolis cast her a quick smile. "That's where you draw the line? Shapeshifters, territory fights, silver bullets, those all fall under acceptably weird, but a respected elder with undeniable power is too much?"
"He's not that old! And he's charming, but I don't see the power aspect."
"I do," Aeolis said simply. "Almost literally. He exudes it."
"Oh, well, if he exudes it." Shannon shook her head, amused now. "All right. Okay, fine. It's got something to do with being a shifter, and I literally can't see it because I'm human. Which seems totally unfair, but I guess life isn't fair. I still don't trust Marco's pack, so if you don't mind, I'm just going to assume it's all gonna go to hell."
"Let's hope you're wrong."
CHAPTER 25
Shannon was not, she was sure, wrong.
She trusted Aeolis implicitly. She believed Aeolis trusted Joash, and that he couldn't imagine any shifter rejecting Joash's ruling.
But not being able to imagine it, and it not happening, weren't the same things. She hadn't been able to imagine shattering her hip, either, and yet here she was, one fracture away from an Olympic medal, with a new shapeshifter boyfriend and a wildlife reserve to protect.
If she was wrong, she could feel badly about underestimating people later. For the moment, as they approached the Imvelo cave system, Shannon wanted to take her rifle out again so that she would be prepared for anything. She didn't, partly because there were far more people at the cave's mouth than she'd expected, and she didn't want to start anything that couldn't be stopped. "Who are all these people?"
"Marco's pack, and the Imvelo shifters." Aeolis parked the Jeep a couple hundred feet from the caves and glanced at the rifles. "I'd like the whole Jeep locked down until this is over."
"Shooting at stuff is kind of my line of defense for you, though."
"I won't need it." Aeolis sounded sincere, but he also tossed her the keys as they got out of the Jeep. "Just in case I do need it."
Shannon snatched the keys out of the air and pushed them into her pants pocket, satisfied. "What's going to happen?"
"I don't know yet." He offered Shannon his hand, and, suddenly glad despite the ominous aura in the warm afternoon air, she took it and squeezed as they walked toward the caves. "Whatever happens," Aeolis said, "you can't interfere."
"What, are you Highlanders or something?"
His eyebrows drew down. "Are we what?"
"You know, once the fight starts, nobody can intervene? There can be only one? Never mind," Shannon said to his blank look. "I'll show you later. There's Joash."
The tiger shifter arrived with Ndleleni, both of them hopping out of the Land Rover, which, for the moment, had no dogs in the back. Shannon looked around for them, but Aeolis, as if sensing what she was looking for, said, "It's dangerous for them with the wolf pack around."
"But not for us?"
Aeolis gave her a look that took the humor out of her question. "Aeolis, what's going to happen here?"
"We're about to find out." Aeolis nodded as the shifters gathered into a loose circle with Marco's wolf pack making up one half, and the Imvelo shifters as the other. Shannon hadn't met most of the Imvelo people at all, much less known they were shifters, although she recognized one slender woman with a long neck and short-cropped hair, and wondered if she was a gazelle.
Joash walked into the center of the circle as if he belonged there, obviously comfortable with everyone's gaze on him. Shannon, approaching with Aeolis, tore her gaze from the tiger shifter to study the wolves, trying to decide how much of a threat they were.
In Aeolis's defense, most of them looked the way Shannon had felt when she'd met Joash: star-struck. Several of them scuffed at the ground, or dropped their eyes, like being in his presence was more than they could really handle. A few, though, watched through narrowed eyes and paced as Joash gestured for Marco, Aeolis, and, to Shannon's surprise, Shannon herself to join him in the middle of the circle.
"You fought for Imvelo?" Joash asked, and at her startled nod, inclined his head. "A noble effort. I don't think I've ever known a human to take the place of a shifter in one of our arena battles. Not even a fated mate." Amusement shone in his eyes for a moment, before gravity replaced it. "But while I applaud the sentiment behind your actions, Shannon Kavanaugh, there is nothing in our law, in our ritual, or in our history that allows for it."
Shannon's shoulders stiffened. "So what does that mean?"
"It means gladiator shifter culture doesn't allow for a human champion. It means that the battle, while honorably fought, cannot stand."
"Wh—you mean it's null and void?" A trickle of delight started to run though Shannon's veins, warming her like the sun. "You mean what I did doesn't count?"
"I'm afraid that's exactly what I mean."
Shannon nearly punched the air with glee. All she'd wanted was to get everybody out of the arena alive that night, and she'd succeeded. She didn't care if the fight was declared unconstitutional, or whatever passed for unconstitutional in shifter terms. She'd just needed to stall for time, and it had worked.
Shouting yippee! didn't seem like the right approach, though, so she schooled her features, trying to look and sound serious as she asked, "So what happens now?"
"Aeolis and Marco fight."
"No!" Fury slashed deep lines into the wolf shifter's face. "I won this place fairly. You can't undo an arena victory. Not even you, Joash."
"Fine," Aeolis said languidly. "Then I challenge you again, Marco. For Imvelo."
The wolf's lip curled. "I have no reason to fight you."
"You do," Joash said with the air of a faintly impatient parent. "You can't fight a human, even a fated mate, for gladiator shifter territory, Marco. Either you fight Aeolis now, or you concede Imvelo without an arena battle. I'm comfortable with that," he added, eyebrows elevated slightly, and Shannon bit her inner cheek to keep from laughing. Joash just looked so serene, so totally unconcerned with what Marco chose.
"You can't afford to lose Imvelo," Marco snarled. "Not with us holding the shifter database. We'll expose all of you."
"Ah." Joash's voice dropped. "Well, yes. That would be a bother, wouldn't it? Fortunately, Garius and Anna recovered their vast majority of the database from backup servers at the foundation headquarters. So you're right. You could expose all of us." A smile appeared, sharp and white. "But your names are all on our copy, Marco, and there's a delightful human phrase you might be familiar with. 'What's good for the goose'?"
Shannon could see Marco struggling for some kind of quick-witted response about geese and wolves, and just barely managed not to smile when he failed. She glanced at Aeolis, who was also visibly trying to hold back a grin, and she bit her cheek even harder, then looked at the ground, sure she would wreck everything by giggling.
Marco finally snarled, "Fine," and glared at Aeolis with glittering rage. "But when I win this place again, cheetah, you and yours are banned for life."
"If you were in any danger of winning, I might be concerned," Aeolis replied coolly, then looked to Joash. "Now?"
Joash spread his hands. "Now is as good a time as any."
Aeolis nodded and Marco bared his teeth, then stalked out of the circle toward the cave's mouth. His pack gathered behind him, shooting suspicious glances over their shoulders as the Imvelo shifters came together and followed them.
"What," Shannon said beneath her breath, "do they think we're gonna jump them on the way down?"
"I'm sure they would, if Marco hadn't needed to make a dramatic exit that put him ahead of us." Aeolis gave Shannon a tense smile. "I'm sorry you got beaten up for nothing."
"No!" Surprise coursed through her. "I got exactly what I wanted out of this. I knew I was never gonna win. I just needed to buy you some time to heal so you could kick his mangy tail."
Aeolis's tense smile turned to a choked laugh. "You're not what I expected, Shannon."
"Really?" She squinted at him dubiously as the light changed when they entered the cave. "I sent a job application that said 'happy to plant a dart in a poacher's ass' and you expected something else?"
"When you put it that way…" He took her hand, interlacing their fingers. "I still wish you hadn't had to choose to take a beating," he said quietly. "Some protector I am, hm?"
"You didn't bring me here to be protected," Shannon pointed out. "I'm here to help do the protecting. And obviously I'd have been just as happy to not get my lip split, but I've taken worse for less good causes, so stop, uh, beating yourself up about it." She nodded ahead, toward Marco. "Beat him up for it instead."
"Believe me," Aeolis said, his tone suddenly grim, "I intend to."
CHAPTER 26
The Imvelo caves were deep enough that once the entrance was left behind, they reached a steady, cool temperature that never varied. The wildlife reserve was at its most humid at this time of year, but the caves were more so, their dampness as unchanging as their temperature.
Aeolis hadn't been to the underground arena in years, before this week, and now he was approaching them for the second time in a matter of days. He remembered exploring them when he was a kid, always confident he could find his way home. And he always had, partly because unlike a true human, he could scent the path he'd taken, but mostly because they weren't a very complex cave system.
At the moment, he was grateful for that. The wolf pack ahead of them would range out if they could, finding places to ambush passers-by from. Although attacking the Imvelo shifters would offer some unpleasant surprises: there were gazelles, yes, but Aeolis wasn't the only predator, and Africa was known, in general, for its big game. Aeolis almost wished the wolves would try something, just to watch them turn tail and run when they discovered they were biting off more than they could chew.
It had taken a long time, a few nights earlier, to make their way down to the arena. He'd been injured then, badly enough that—in retrospect—Aeolis was willing to concede that maybe he shouldn't have left Ulwazi's medical center.
He glanced at Shannon, whose hand was warm and comfortable in his. Her bruises were greening up now, and the worst of the swelling had faded. Aside from the occasional ow, she hadn't complained at all, and he felt an overwhelming combination of admiration and guilt about the whole thing. She shouldn't have had to fight for him. On the other hand…it was no exaggeration to say her decision to do so had saved his life, and by extension, Imvelo Wildlife Reserve.
Queens do what's necessary, his cheetah said, with obvious pride.
They do, Aeolis agreed. And so do we.
His cheetah's tail lashed. Kill the wolf, it suggested. Save us trouble, later.
Aeolis breathed, "We'll see," aloud as they reached the final curve leading to the arena. There were torches along the entire path down, but most of the shifters were using the flashlights on their phones, rendering the fire light unnecessary. They did ignite the torches in the arena, though: their phones wouldn't provide enough illumination, and nobody wanted to risk shifter fights being recorded. Nido had even stopped at the cave's mouth, delaying coming down to the fight, in order to set up a disrupter that would delete any recent camera footage. Shifters had developed the tech years earlier, one of a hundred ways they protected themselves in the modern world.
The last time Aeolis had been at a battle presided over by Joash, the tiger shifter had come in full Roman regalia, hewing flawlessly to a style more than two millennia old. Today he wore the casually flowing silk trousers and thigh-length tunic that he'd had on earlier, and still managed to look more formal than anyone else in the arena. He made a minute gesture, so small that had Aeolis not been aware of his every move, he would have missed it.
Neither he nor Marco did miss it, though, and they both walked onto the arena sands as if they'd been verbally commanded to. The rest of the shifters, Imvelo-affiliated and wolf pack alike, took to the stands, with only Shannon startling and moving after the rest of them. She, among everyone there, wasn't attuned to Joash's presence, which was fascinating to Aeolis. Shifters couldn't help themselves, and watching true humans be able to ignore him bordered on bewildering.
She took a seat in the stands, alone, and blew Aeolis a kiss.
With that, his attention fell away from the audience, and onto his opponent.
Marco was in Aeolis's weight class as a human, and consequently, his wolf form was a match for Aeolis's cheetah.
Hnh, his cheetah said dismissively, and he felt a quick, fierce smile pull at his lips.
In weight, at least, he said, mollifying the beast. Not in skill.
The cheetah made a satisfied sound, and Aeolis's grin grew as he and Marco paced one another in the arena. Wolves had greater endurance than cheetahs, but less reach; they were well matched, in most ways.
But Aeolis had his friends—his family—and his life's work to fight for, here in Imvelo. Marco had a need for territory, to establish himself within the now-chaotic lupine ranks in the wake of Remus's death, but he probably wouldn't fight to the death. Not when there were other places a wolf leader could use as his home base. La Isla Battaglia, for example, the Italian island with the hidden pits that shifter fights had taken place on for centuries.
A moment's distraction followed that thought, Aeolis wondering why Marco hadn't tried to establish himself at La Isla, but in that heartbeat of distraction, the wolf shifter flowed into wolf form and pounced.
Aeolis shifted as easily, springing out of the way, then bounced back toward the wolf's back, unretractable claws spread wide. Marco twisted out from beneath him at the last possible moment, rolling onto his back with the effort. They brushed so closely together that fur flew as Aeolis's claws razed it, but he didn't score a hit. As Aeolis came back to the sand again, Marco shifted to human and—a little to Aeolis's amusement—used the one move that Shannon had succeeded with against Marco a few days ago. He caught Aeolis in the gut with his feet and threw him, sending the cheetah tumbling in somersaults across the arena floor.
Aeolis was still trying to establish up from down when the wolf landed on him, all savage teeth and snarls. For a moment they were a whirlwind of claws and lashing tails, of snapping bites and surges of brief, searing pain. Then they broke apart again, unable to keep the momentum of the fight, and they both backed away, heaving for breath and assessing the damage they'd taken and received.
The wolf had marked Aeolis's shoulder, a long scrape that didn't bleed much, and caught the back of his neck with a tooth, where he could feel blood seeping. He'd landed a full claw score across the wolf's ribs, deep enough to drip blood, but not enough to be debilitating, especially as Marco shifted to human and back again, healing the worst of the injury.
Aeolis pounced as soon as the wolf became human, hoping to get to his fragile, vulnerable throat, but by the time he landed, his rival was a wolf again, and they went spilling across the sand in another flurry of teeth and claws. Blood spattered, and Marco suddenly broke free, racing across the arena as if in search of refuge.
Running, though: that, Aeolis could do. He surged after the wolf, cornering sharply as Marco tried to dart to one side. He felt his tail swish against the arena wall, and if he could have laughed in his cheetah form, he would have. Presumably Marco had hoped he would smash into the walls, but cheetahs weren't just fast: they could stop and start on a dime, throwing off huge amounts of their speed within a single stride. By comparison, Marco cornered like a whale, and he was still trying to complete his turn when Aeolis lashed out with a single paw and took two of the wolf's feet out from under him.
This time Marco tumbled alone across the floor, and Aeolis leaped with all four paws extended, landing on the wolf with rib-breaking power. Marco howled, shifting to human beneath Aeolis before sheer panic whitened his features and he changed back again, rendering himself slightly less vulnerable.
It didn't matter, though. Aeolis snarled in Marco's face, bared teeth demanding a surrender. He would kill the wolf if he had to, but he'd prefer to avoid that fate.
Marco, his face contorted with terror, shifted to human, but instead of capitulating, he howled, "Now!" and his pack flooded the arena.
CHAPTER 27
Shannon tried very hard not to scream, until the wolves attacked.
It was a fight, after all. A fight between animals, at that, although they were animals with human thought and intent behind their actions. Animal fights, though, weren't ever pretty, and she figured shrieking from the sidelines wouldn't be of any help to Aeolis, so she bit her tongue and covered her mouth and managed not to scream.
