Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

Fae.”
     
    “It‟s Rhys na Garanwyn putting out the word through his brother, Kal‟andel.”
     
    Alexios whistled long and low. “High court Seelie royalty? Oh, yeah. We‟re screwed.”
     
    He heard them before he saw them, and from the way Lucas lifted his head and sniffed the air, he figured the wolf‟s sense of smell had warned him. They were Pack, they were Atlantis Unmasked - Warriors of Poseidon 04
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    in wolf shape, and there were at least a dozen of them. Worse, they were moving in fast and low to surround Alexios and Lucas.
     
    “You mentioned being screwed?” Lucas said, his voice little more than a guttural growl as he prepared for the Change.
     
    “We may be screwed, but we‟re going down fighting,” Alexios said, daggers already in his hands. He whirled so he was standing back to flank with Lucas, who‟d completed his shift and transformed fully into wolf form in seconds, as only the most powerful shifters could do.
     
    “Okay, ladies,” Alexios called out. “Who wants to dance?”
     
    Before the attackers could charge, two shimmering clouds of mist soared down through the air and coalesced into the shapes of two very welcome allies—Christophe and Brennan.
     
    Christophe shook his hair out of his face and grinned. “Hey, I‟m up for it. Just none of that line-dancing crap. Give me a hot, slow song where I can get up close and personal with an armful of warm, willing woman.”
     
    Brennan nodded. “I do occasionally miss a good waltz,” he mused.
     
    The huge shifter leading the charge, apparently no fan of either dance or witty repartee, snarled and made a gesture to his comrades, who attacked.
     
    Alexios, daggers out, hurled himself up and over the crouching wolf coming at him low, leaving that one for Brennan, and scored a direct hit on the shifter in the second row, ripping through its jugular with his downward slash. The shifter screamed and fell, blood spouting in a macabre pattern against the stark white of the snow.
     
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    The next attacker was more prepared, though, and before Alexios could regain his balance a heavy claw smashed into his head, knocking him to the ground. The ugly ripping sound of his hair being wrenched from his head pissed him off more than the pain.
     
    He flipped over and shot up off the ground, leading with his daggers. Before the shifter could get in another blow, both of Alexios‟s blades were buried in its abdomen. Alexios kept shoving upward through flesh and muscle until the shifter‟s eyes went slack, telling him the tips of his daggers had reached its heart. It took a lot to keep a wolf shifter down, and he had no time for do-overs tonight.
     
    “Oh, did the wolfie make you mad when he pulled out your pretty golden hair?”
    Christophe said, laughing.
     
    “I am so going to kick your ass when we‟re done here,” Alexios said, whirling around, searching for his next target.
     
    Christophe, already calling power, hurled a blue-green energy sphere at a shifter who was charging straight for Alexios. This sphere smashed into the wolf‟s chest and knocked him through the air a good fifteen feet, slamming him into a tree. There was an audible crack—skull or spinal cord, probably—and the shifter fell into a heap at the base of the tree, head at an unnatural angle.
     
    “That one‟s not getting up again, Lexi,” Christophe gloated.
     
    “Call me Lexi again, and my next dagger is going up your—”
     
    “Incoming!” Brennan shouted, interrupting the very real threat that Alexios had in mind.
    Alexios spun around to see two shifters charging for him in a coordinated attack.
     
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    “It seems rather unfair that all the dance partners prefer you,” Brennan said, materializing beside Alexios, throwing stars in his hands.
     
    “Well, I am prettier,” Alexios replied, grinning.
     
    Brennan‟s hands flashed out almost quicker than even an Atlantean eye could see, and two pairs of shuriken , made of Atlantean metal instead of the customary silver of Japanese throwing stars, sliced through the air and found their marks, dead center in the foreheads and hearts of each of the two shifters. Momentum carried the shifters forward a few more steps before they dropped.
     
    But by then Alexios had already turned to scan the area and see where the next threat would be coming from. Lucas was caught up