“Yes. I burned out channeling the explosion.”
“No more magic at all?”
“I still know the words, the gestures, and the math. But it’s like a musician who’s gone deaf and blind. You could put him in front of a piano and he might be able to hit the right keys by feel, but he can’t tell if the piano is tuned or even if the strings are missing.”
“But you can still do some magic?”
I shook my head. “Without the sight, any spell I cast could cause immense damage.”
“So, it’s a challenge—”
“Don’t use those SEAL mottos on me!” I snapped. “This is more than a challenge. I can’t heal Alisha, I can’t cast spells, I can’t make gold, and I don’t even know if my bullet-radar will work without magic.”
I fought off the urge to cry on his shoulder.
Mike looked at me calmly, then faster than a blink, snapped a punch at my nose.
I blocked his punch with my right hand and snapped a spear hand to his solar plexus. He managed to twist to take most of the force away, but still grunted with the impact.
He backpedaled quickly to get out of range, then held his hands up in surrender.
“Sorry, I wanted to test your reflexes. You’re still inhumanly fast,” he said as he rubbed his chest, “and inhumanly strong. Can you still shift and do werewolf stuff?”
“Of course. But magic was the ace up my sleeve. Without magic, we would have died in Riyadh.” Tears stung my eyes. “Magic made me special.”
Mike sneered. “Yes, let’s throw a pity party for the poor little werewolf girl. Never mind that she’s still rich, still faster, stronger, and a better fighter than almost anyone on the planet.”
I turned away from his jeers as he continued in a whisper, “Still the most beautiful woman in the world.”
I spun back and bared my fangs, showing him how ugly I could be. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off!”
“Yes. To get you out of your funk. I’d rather be guarding the pissed-off, werewolf-angry Luna than whatever you are now.”
I snatched the guard schedule off of the refrigerator door, crumpled it, and threw it in his face.
“Get the hell out of here.”
“We’ll stand our watches in the van across the street,” he said with a calmness that angered me even more.
He stepped to the door and put his hand on the handle, then said, “But we’ll be ready for you when you decide you want us.”
I brooded for two days, running over the argument again and again. On the night of the second day, I lay in the bed wrestling with anger. I turned to my inner wolf, my best friend. Surely, she would agree that there wasn’t anything we could do at this point but stay here and lick our wounds.
Three days later, Mike, Chrysoberyl, and I were having dinner after the babies had been put down for the night.
For the first time, I went over the story completely. Despite her lack of knowledge of Earth customs, Chrysoberyl understood conflict.
“And then I woke up in the hospital,” I finished. “You know the rest.”
“And this completes your…” She turned to Mike. “What’s the phrase? ‘After-action report?’”
“I think that covers it.”
Chrysoberyl leaned back and crossed her arms. “When are you going back?”
“Going back?”
“Yes, I’ll need to know so I can take the children for a slow-time nap.”
“Take the children?”
“Quit repeating what I say. Of course you must return. These men have bloodied your nose, injured your family, disfigured an innocent child, and crowed about it. Honor demands that they pay.”
“I don’t see what honor—”
“Don’t tell me Luna Ironbow—who defeated our best archer, who danced a minotaur to death, who made sushi from a kraken—is afraid of these men?”
“No, but I have a family here, a business to run, people who depend on me. I can’t go seeking revenge every time some idiot insults me.”
“That is precisely why you must go. Without honor, your business will be stolen, your family will be in peril, and your fortunes shattered. A wrong left unanswered is an opening for all to exploit.”
Chrysoberyl, the gentlest of Mason’s seven sisters, was more bloodthirsty than I had imagined. I took a deep breath and considered.
Did I want to turn tail and run? Play it safe as a werewolf alpha and businesswoman? Hope and pray that the children and I would never face danger again?
Hell, no! screamed both my wolf and human sides.
Anger flared in my heart. How dare demons and human monsters threaten me and my family! My vision blurred and turned red as anger roared through my soul.
When the roar calmed, the red faded—and all the colors of magic came back in a rush.
I hadn’t needed time to heal; I had needed to get pissed off.
“You’re right,” I said. “The children deserve a mother who will protect them at all costs.”
29
We rode the HMS Defender back into the Persian Gulf two weeks later. Despite the tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, these were still international waters.
The deck surged under my feet and the scent of salt air swept across the stern. I pushed down the normal werewolf trepidation at so much water beneath us, and resisted the urge to sprout foot claws to clutch the deck. Werewolves don’t float; we sink like rocks in open water. All the strength in the world won’t help if you’re drowning.
After the upgrades we had made to his bone and muscle density, Mike had the same problems. Despite his years of SEAL training, he couldn’t swim without overtaxing a standard buoyancy compensator.
Warrant Officer Stinton glared at us, his arms crossed on his chest as he repeated himself. “You need to take a RIB to get to shore safely.” He gestured to our scuba tanks and equipment. “I don’t care about this ‘advanced technology’ of yours that you claim will let you breath for hours; a ten-mile swim with all that equipment will exhaust the
