LIAM (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 2) (7 page)

“
WHAT THE HELL
is a Guardian doing in a zoo?” I stood as I spoke. The Guardian continued to approach me, a low rumble in his chest that sounded a bit like a laugh. He sat on his haunches at the edge of the false river, his paws sinking into the soft, wet ground. There was only the one fence between us. And suddenly I was thinking that it had been a bad idea to come over even one fence.

“Well, I could ask you what exactly you are doing here, Wolf.” The lion’s silver eyes narrowed. “And what happened to you? Your eyes are blue instead of silver.”

I shook my head. “Long story. And you are avoiding my question. What are you doing stuck in a zoo? Unless you are here of your own free will? And if you are, why did you call for me?”

He snorted and shook his head, mane flipping about. “No, hardly. I was knocked out, captured, and then sold into this place. As to why I would call on you, take a guess, mutt.”

I wasn’t buying his story. Something about it wasn’t quite right. “Why?”

“Why would I want out?” His voice had a perpetual edge of laughter, like every word was hanging onto humor like a monkey from a branch.

I put my hands on my hips. “That much is obvious, idiot, but why were you taken? What would be the point of capturing a Guardian?”

He lifted one big paw to me in supplication, pad upward. “Because with the Guardians out of the world, our places, our sanctuaries can be taken. Unlike you, the rest of us are set to guard certain . . . things. You are the wanderer. You are the one who is set to guard the world.” He swiped the paw across the dirt in front of him. His eyes were intense, but I didn’t look away.

Bits and pieces of what he said were truth. I just didn’t know how much. I took a step toward the fence between us. “Then I need to get you out of here if that’s the case. You need to get back to taking care of whatever it is you left behind.”

“No.” He put a paw over his face, as though he couldn’t stand the sight of me. “If you try, they will capture you too. No, you must leave this place. Guard your home territory. That is your job, Wolf. Leave me here . . . to rot.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t need to convince me to help you with some attempt at reverse psychology.”

He peeked through the toes of his paw. “Really? The last Guardian I drew in just laughed at me.”

I lifted an eyebrow. There weren’t many Guardians left that I knew of, and the ones I did recall were less than kind. “Wasn’t Spider, was it?”

He winked. “That would be the one. She’s a real bitch.”

“Recently?” I had to still the urge to look over my shoulder. Spider was not to be trifled with.

He shook his head. “No, about six months ago. She was looking for someone who’d taken her by surprise.”

Shit, that would be Rylee again. I kept my face still. “Well, let’s get you out of here.”

I took a look at the final fence. It was steel vertical bars with spaces that would maybe allow me to stuff an arm through. I stared up at the top. As I tried to figure out how to get him out, I continued to interrogate him. “Was it the ogres who captured you?”

“They . . . helped. They had a mage, she is powerful and dangerous. She bound me into this form within the confines of the cage once she realized what I was.” His eyes narrowed. “If you’re going to do something, get on it, Wolf.”

I put a hand on the steel bars, feeling the steady hum of magic within the metal. Magic I’d felt before . . . in the collar I’d worn when I’d been captive to Milly. “This cage keeps you from shifting?”

He nodded. “From what I can tell. I could climb out as a man, but not as a lion.”

I gripped the steel harder, thinking to pull it out.

“Stop. You cannot save me. I am resigned to this place. And I do not want to owe my life to a stupid dog. Why the world would make a Wolf the Guardian of us all is beyond me.” He snarled, the laughter suddenly gone from his voice. There was more truth in those words than all his previous ones combined.

He wanted to be freed, but he didn’t want to owe anyone anything. He didn’t want to be beholden to another Guardian, but another Guardian was probably the only one who could free him.

Quite the quandary.

I stepped back, finally understanding why my wolf had brought me to a lion who didn’t want freedom bad enough to fight for it. My feet froze. “Maybe you can help me, we can strike a deal. You help me, and I’ll help you free yourself.”

His ears perked up, the tips flicking back and forth. “How?”

“I cannot . . . shift any longer.”

He closed his eyes and a long pink tongue flicked out, smoothing out his whiskers. “A problem some Guardians face when they are too long in one shape or another. You know that already, though, don’t you?”

I nodded. “That’s not the case, though. I’ve been trapped in my wolf form and found my way back to my human shape.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then it is a matter of need, of desire for the form of the wolf. If you have been stuck like this before, then you know it must be a powerful draw that pulls you through to the other side.” He shrugged and I understood two things. One, we were more alike than probably he wanted to believe, seeing as he told me exactly what his own problem was. And two, if he really wanted to shift, even within the cage he could.

There was one thing I knew about alpha males: Their pride didn’t take being poked well.

Time to smack the kitty with a stick and see what happened.

“You’re afraid to leave, Lion. That is why Spider left you.” I laughed as I backed away from him, seeing a fork in the future if I chose it. Helping Lion could change the trajectory of my own quest.

I chose to help him, even though it was going to piss him the fuck off.

He roared at me. “I am not afraid.”

I shrugged. “I see a tiny little kitten shivering in his boxed yard. You could shift if you really wanted to.” I kept backing away until the fence touched my spine. I held the smile on my lips.

He snarled and lunged at the fence between us. He landed half in the water, his back end sinking as his claws clattered against the steel bars, almost as if he made to climb. “You don’t scare me,” I said. “You’re the ultimate cowardly lion. Enjoy your humans pampering you, pointing at you for the rest of your miserable life.”

His snarls ripped through the night as he slid in the moat, his body jerking as he fought to climb upward. “I will kill you, Wolf!”

“I doubt it, seeing as you are too afraid to even bother trying to live. You’d have to shift, and it’s obvious you can’t even do that.” It didn’t matter that I couldn’t shift, he’d forgotten about that in his rage.

He snarled and roared, splashing through the moat as he fought to reach through to me. His claws swiped uselessly through the air and I just shook my head. I couldn’t save him. He had to get himself out of that cage, for I was surely not climbing in to lift him out.

He backed out of the moat, shaking his mane and roaring at me.

I flipped him off, knowing that what I said next would either spur him forward or make him fail. “Weak as a newborn pussy cat. Sad, really, but your territory is probably better off without your supposed Guardianship. Maybe I’ll take them a tabby cat to replace you.”

I stood with my back against the mesh wire fence with the electrical lines in it. There was a slight humming coming from down the fence. Shit.

His silver eyes all but shot hatred at me. He ran at the fence and launched upward, shifting in mid-air. His body was long and lean, his skin blending into the night as his hands wrapped around the steel bars. He shimmied up and over the fence.

He pointed a finger at me. “You’re going to die.”

He leapt from the top, shifting once more as he fell. His body hit the ground in front of me, tail twitching, mouth open in a snarl. He crouched, prepped to spring at me.

I saluted him, a grin on my lips. “You’re welcome.”

I jumped up and sideways, fingers and feet digging into the fence as the electricity began to bounce and hum along the lines. I just needed to get up and over the top and then I could get shocked to hell and it wouldn’t matter.

At the top of the mesh fence, the electricity came on. The voltage was as powerful as I feared, and it slammed me between the legs, through my balls and into my belly. The world blanked out, an instant re-start. I fell, thank the gods, to the side Levi was on, though I wouldn’t have cared either way.

The ground was soft like a cloud compared to the pain that rocketed through my belly and family jewels. I lay there, twitching, a small part of me wishing that Lion would indeed kill me and stop the pain that sliced me. There was the sound of tearing, the shrieking of metal, and I struggled to place it. Or maybe that was just my body as it still hummed with the shock.

Levi bent over me, his eyes darting to me and then above my head. “Liam, get up, he’s clawing his way through the fence.”

I rolled to my belly and looked behind me. Lion was indeed tearing through the fence, his claws taking huge chunks out with each swipe. He twitched as the electricity hit him, but it didn’t slow him much. The rage in him had not abated. Shit, I’d thought once he realized why I’d pushed his buttons he’d settle down. Apparently not.

I pushed to my feet, staggered and then grabbed Levi’s arm. “Okay, time to go.”

Levi ran beside me, but he kept looking back. “That lion was . . . talking! Is that normal?”

“I know. Yes, it’s normal. Now run if you don’t want to be stuffed with catnip and be turned into a kitty toy.”

Behind us, there was a particularly loud crack of metal, then the sound of a gun going off. I spun around in time to see Lion leap through the green space between the two fences. Within the ground, those little devices shot upward. Two of them spit out a wire netting, and two others shot out feathered darts. They had to have been tripped by his weight. It was a good thing then that I couldn’t shift or my wolf and I would have been tangled up.

Lion dodged them both with ease, saw us and leapt in our direction. Holy damn shit balls.

I pushed Levi ahead of me. “Go, go!”

The sound of the Guardian chasing us down was heavy in my ears, the thud of his pads on the pavement was loud to me. We wove through the zoo, and I kept us a few feet ahead of the Lion, but barely . . . and then he suddenly stopped. The sounds of pursuit gone from one second to the next.

I spun around, expecting anything but what I saw.

The same tall, lean man with jet black hair and dark mocha skin who’d climbed the first fence stared at me. “You . . . you bastard.”

I grinned at him, but still kept Levi behind me. “As I said, you’re welcome.”

His lips twisted up in a perfect imitation of a cat grimace. “Go on, Wolf. This city is not for anyone but the ogres now. And you have given me the . . . encouragement I needed to free myself. For that I will give you this advice.” He took a step back, his silver eyes glittering in the night. “This is the city of death. Whatever you seek here, let it go. It isn’t worth it. The ogres will come when they realize I am free, and they will find your scent and they will hunt you down. Leave while you still can.”

With that he spun on his heel and was gone in a flash of skin and teeth.

I turned and headed toward fence line closest to us.

“Not again,” Levi muttered. I grabbed him and launched him over, using my bag again to cover the razor wire for my passing.

The moon was setting, and I felt time passing. Already, I put the Lion behind us, both in thoughts and deeds. His advice was probably warranted, but there was no way I was leaving without a female ogre.

I hurried Levi along, all but herding him through the trees toward the not-so-distant sound of traffic. There was a highway around here, there had to be. Another half an hour slipped by before we emerged onto what did look like a main highway. “Can you see a sign or anything? Are we almost there?” Levi asked, and I stared at him.

“Why, you got somewhere you want to be?”

His shoulders dropped. “I just figured it helps to find where we need to go, if we know where we are first.”

I slapped a hand on his shoulder; he flinched, and I eased off. “You’re right. And the sign says 99.”

He pulled out his phone and brought up the Internet. I leaned over to look and the screen fuzzed up. I backed off. He tick-tacked a few things in, his fingers flying over the miniscule digital keyboard. A part of me was glad I didn’t have to deal with technology anymore. My fingers were not meant for detail work. I glanced at my hands and cringed. Strike that, my hands weren’t meant for the detail work, but Faris’s hands could have worked one of those new phones over, no problem.

“We’re about an hour walk from Kerry Park. I mean,” he glanced up at me, “if that’s where you want to go still?”

I wasn’t sure I did. What were the chances there was a female ogre just waiting out in the park for me? Slim to none, and even I knew that.

I rubbed a hand over my face, thinking. Dox was the only ogre I really had ever known and he’d been an outcast from his own kind. He’d run a pub, but had loved to cook; in particular, he had a thing for sweets. I thought about the brownies he made, and how Alex had gone gaga over them. To be fair, anyone who ate Dox’s baking had gone gaga over it. Did all ogres like sweets?

This was the only potential clue I had, which meant we were running with it.

“Find a bakery close to Kerry Park.” I motioned at Levi.

“A bakery?”

I nodded, waiting while he looked up bakeries in the area on his phone. “There’s one about an hour that way, and it’s got lots of good reviews,” he pointed east, “
and
it will be open in two hours so we wouldn’t have long to wait.”

I was already walking along the highway. “Then that’s the bakery we go to.” Fuck, this was a long shot, a toss in the dark that probably wouldn’t pan out. But I had no other choice, no other clue. Because rushing over to Kerry Park and asking if I could borrow a female ogre would be like some missionary asking to come in to a gun-toting drunk’s house to discuss their salvation through Jesus. In other words, it was a very, very bad idea.