“I told you they would kill him if you betrayed them,” Bernard cried out and was backhanded by Angelica.
“Get out of my sight you fool,” she demanded, pointing at the area behind them. “Leave…now!”
Bernard looked out at us and I gave him a little wink and shook my head slightly. I saw a small smile cross his face and a fast sharp nod before he turned and rushed out. I had no idea what my little black leather wearing boy was going to do, but I knew he was angry with his twin mistresses and we needed some help.
“So, tell me, what do you have in mind?” Angelica asked, laughing and waving her hand toward the crowd, getting little reaction. They, too, had heard of our coming and the things we left in our wake.
Things could have gone smooth at that point and I was going to step back and let Jacob take control. But I saw something that took my anger over the boiling point and right into molten lava. Angelica was wearing my ring. As Jacob was stepping back to us I was taking my own steps up to the stage. He grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?” I could see his eyes looking around at the many eyes of the crowd watching us.
“She’s wearing my ring,” I spat each word as my eyes squinted into glares of hatred. “And I’m fixing to go get it back.”
“We have a chance to show superiority in front of the people we want to change, and you wish to start a battle?”
“Yep, now let me go.”
“This is not a good idea.”
“Well, the way she got my ring wasn’t a very good idea. We came here to stop that sort of shit and that is exactly what I am fixing to do. Either join me or get the hell out of my way.”
“I’m with you. And you heard her, Jacob, let her go. She gave you a direct order.” Derek looked from Jacob to me and raised his sword and bumped hilts with mine. “Let’s kick their ass, what do you say?”
“Fine, but we go in as one,” Jacob smiled at me. “As you have always said, we are one. No leader, but a whole.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
The proverbial ball had fallen, so to speak, and I was about to kick the shit out of it. Most of the crowd was clearing out and only the ones that the twins held power over, stayed. Once the room held fewer people, another stage came into view. It had to be Lord Cheree. He had two young males sitting on the floor, each one holding his extremely large legs as if afraid. There were two other beings standing behind his throne with flesh hanging in rotted patches from their bodies. Neither had eyes and both carried the form of the walking dead.
“He truly is a sick bastard, isn’t he?” I looked back to see most of my people looking at the beings behind Lord Cheree and not one of us wanted to have an encounter with them.
“You can deal with him later. Right now we have more pressing matters,” Jacob said as ten men dressed in some sort of armor came in behind us. “Ready yourself!”
“You will die this night and the elders will give me reign over anything I choose,” Angelica proclaimed then clapped once.
No one had a chance to respond, all ten men came rushing at us with blades swinging. Jacob, Cates, and Derek took the first three down with ease, as Garvin and Sydney fought three back into a corner. Tammy and I fought back to back while two of the armor wearing breeders sliced their blades wildly at us. The dress I was wearing was taking blow after blow, saving my flesh, but it was also hindering me from moving with the speed that I needed to save my own life.
“Tammy I have to get out of this thing.”
“Same here.” Then she yelled out in pain.
Cates was there in seconds, killing the breeder with one sharp slice to the back of his neck. Tammy spun around and planted her blade under the left arm pit of the one who was trying to reach deeper than my flesh. That’s when I began ripping at the huge skirt. I pulled with everything I had and it would not budge. “Son-of-a-bitch!” I couldn’t lift the thing up to get the hoop undergarment out and was fixing to die for my efforts.
“Renee, watch out!” Sydney yelled.
I turned in time to see his blade spinning through the air at the back of an armor wearing breeder that was coming down at my back with his blade. I closed my eyes waiting for the sharp sting and felt his body crash into mine instead. His weight was ridiculous and I could not move him no matter what I tried. I was sprawled out on my stomach, pulling on the floor as if it had handles, trying to free myself from the solid form that pinned me down. He hadn’t changed at all, meaning he must have been a very new breeder.
“Cates!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The body rolled off of me and Sydney smiled reaching out his hand. “I’m not the big man, but I’ll do in a pinch.”
“You sure will,” I said, getting to my feet. “Now help me get this damn thing off!”
“Are you sure?”
“Just cut the damn thing. Do you really think I wanna die in this?” I turned around and Sydney did as I had ordered and cut the whole back of the dress from my mid back to the top of my legs. I grabbed the top, right before my breasts were exposed to the entire room.
“Maybe I didn’t mean the top. Mind if a lady asked for your shirt?”
He quickly took off his jacket and threw it to the floor and pulled his button up shirt over his head and handed it to me. While I put it on, he grabbed his blade. I looked over and saw Cates cutting Tammy’s skirt from the bottom up and shook my head wondering why we hadn’t thought about that. He then turned her and sliced up the other side and yanked her hoop undergarment off.
Jacob and Derek had dropped the last two as Fala slung his query across the floor. He had shifted sometime during the commotion. My eyes found the stage where the twins had been but the only thing there was their thrones. Lord Cheree was doing his best to get around his throne, with the two young males clinging to the garment that he wore. It seemed he couldn’t control the walking dead as much as he had thought and they wouldn’t move out of his way.
“Kill them you foul beast.” He pushed one back. “Do you do nothing that you are told?”
“They are dead. What do you expect, Lord Cheree?” Jacob called out and the large man froze.
“He’s almost as big as that man we killed in Cuba, isn’t he Renee? I wonder what kind of a mess he would make?” Derek laughed.
“Tell you what Derek, why don’t you and Fala find out. We have some twins to go find. “Do me a favor…find out who created these dead things before you kill that sick bastard. I’d really like to know.”
“Mind if I stay and help?” Tammy asked.
“Not at all,” I half grinned. We all knew that Tammy had been through hell and it was time for her to get a little payback.
“Tell Bernard I’ll be waiting to have a little chat with him too,” Tammy winked, then got up on her tiptoes and kissed Cates on the mouth. “Now, be a good man and go help your mistress kick some bad breeder backside.”
“As My Lady asks.”
“I wonder where everyone went. None of them jumped in to fight?” Garvin inquired.
“Looks like the rest of their people have followed them to their safe area,” Cates surmised.
“They will have an advantage. It will be much harder to penetrate Angelica’s fortress than it was Yvette’s,” Jacob spoke as he jumped up on the stage. “They could have already left this place and fled to another.”
A cloaked figured dropped down and kicked Jacob in the back, knocking him into the far left throne, sending both crashing to the floor. The figure threw the cloak and showed himself to be, none other than, one of the assassins. Together, we stormed the stage as the sword was rising in the air to come down at Jacob who was pushing the chair away and trying to get up.