Fair Game

face, slamming the side of her head into the bars and wrenching her neck.
    Mindful of Charles’s battle, not wanting to distract him, Anna didn’t make a sound, just kept struggling.
    Charles crossed the room in the same zigzag motion she’d seen him use when hunting moose. He didn’t look like he was moving very fast—but he crossed the space in record time. This time he sliced the horned lord’s face open with his fangs.
    The cut on the side of Benedict’s neck had already quit bleeding; he healedthat quickly. But fully half of his silvery body was crimson with gore. He staggered and reached both hands to his face. Charles had taken out one eye entirely and sliced though the fae’s nose.
    It took the fight out of Benedict—Anna could see how that would be; she was pretty sure that something in her nose was broken, and it hurt, blurring her vision and sending weakness shivering through her muscles. Then Heuter came out of the office with a second gun, and she quit caring about anything except getting out so she could keep them from shooting Charles. The bars had moved that last time, before Travis hit her; she
knew
it.
    Anna wiggled with all of her might, and the floor gave a little beneath the claws of her back feet. It was too little, too late. The red wolf prowled slowly forward about fifteen feet from Benedict, giving Heuter the perfect shot.
    Heuter stopped, fumbled the second gun before putting it in his holster. The fumble made him rush his shot to make up for it and he squeezed the trigger just after Charles lunged.
    The sound pulled the old man’s attention from the fight. “Les! Get your scrawny ass over here and give me my gun. You can’t hit the broad side of a barn. Get a move on. My grandfather was faster than you when he was eighty-six.”
    Instead of trying for a second shot Heuter ran back toward Travis—proving to Anna that he was no Alpha wolf, whatever he thought he should be.
    The bars gave a little bit more and she was sliding forward—and Travis hit her again, in exactly the same spot on her nose where he’d hit her the first time.
    CHARLES KNEW HE was winning. He didn’t know why Benedict Heuter wasn’t going invisible; maybe he was too panicked to do it. Charles wouldn’tcomplain. The horned lord healed faster than a werewolf, but he couldn’t replace blood, not unless he was a lot more powerful than he seemed. Blood loss was slowing the fae down, making him clumsier.
    There were things that would have made this better. The floor was too slippery—it was a dance floor and he could smell the wax on it. It bothered the fae more than it did him, though, so it wasn’t really a major problem as long as he didn’t miscalculate. He’d also rather not have two other villains loose and running around with silver-loaded guns while he fought the fae, but they were human and Brother Wolf’s instincts were to discount them as a threat. The other thing he knew was that, winning or not, he had to keep his attention on the fae. Slower, clumsier—but he was fast enough and deadly with those antlers. He’d scored once on Charles’s shoulder when he’d gone for the fae’s throat, and it burned. The tips of those antlers didn’t just look silver; they were silver.
    The second rule of any drawn-out fight was to demoralize your opponent. The fae had started out scared of him. The strike to Benedict Heuter’s face wasn’t anything near fatal, but losing an eye was scary—and creatures with antlers and hooves were prone to panic. Fight or flight instinct, the scientists said. Wolves were all fight, and creatures like Benedict were all flight. Panic made people stupid, and since Benedict was already not all that bright from what Charles could tell, panicking him could only make things better.
    Of course, the first rule in any kind of fighting was not to get into a long-drawn-out confrontation in the first place. Charles started to sprint forward again when there was a crack of a pistol. The bullet didn’t hit him so he ignored it and continued his line of attack. But the small pained sound that Anna made almost immediately afterward was another thing entirely.
    He looked over to see Anna half in and half out of the cage, her nose dripping blood, and Travis Heuter standing beside the cage with an extra-long, extra-thick pool cue that had been chewed up on one end. Anna jerked herself back into the cage, where all they could do was poke at her—and something hit him like a freight