I drew in a quiet breath, getting ready to start slicing into them when Toady boy decided to get clever.

“Here, hang onto this, stupid. I want to leave the Tracker a message of me own.” He threw the book at the other two Trolls, both of which scrambled to grab it out of mid-air. They ended up landing on the floor, pounding the shit out of each other.

Toady boy wasn’t watching though. If I thought Trolls were disgusting before, it was nothing to this shit. A dick in both hands, he started to whack off on the bar, just to the left of me. Yeah, that’s what I said.

Nope, I was not getting that in my hair, thank you very much. While he moaned and panted, oblivious to the world around him, I snapped my sword forward and up, taking not only his two dicks, but both hands too.

The other Trolls were still wrestling on the ground when Toady began to shriek, acid spraying out of his mouth and onto the bar in a steady mucous stream.

“Alex, behind me,” I shouted as I jerked my second sword out and, Kordis shit.with the two, sliced Toady boy’s head from his shoulders.

Now, most creatures notice when their leader goes down. Not Trolls. Not smart, but mean as hell, they were too busy bashing the shit out of each other to notice their buddy was headless, dickless and, more importantly, dead.

As the two Trolls rolled across the room, I scooped up the black-skinned book and waved at Doran. “Got what I came for.”

I walked to the door, Alex snickering at my side. “Dumb Trolls.”

Yeah, when a submissive werewolf who was stuck permanently at the mentality of a two year old thought you were dumb, that was bad.

Doran held the door. “After you.”

And just like that, we were outside, in the fresh air.

Surrounded by Trolls.

Ah, fuck, it was never that easy, was it?

Chapter 9

“Where are we going now, Liam?”

He did his best not to sigh. Pamela meant well, but there were times her constant questions grated on him.

Like now.

“Agent Valley should have answers to the questions we have, so we go there. And quickly.”

Milly made eye contact with him briefly in the rearview mirror. “You think they’ll try to silence him?”

“If he’s not with Ingers, and she’s willing to kill us on sight, with no provocation, yes. I think they would try to shut him up.” Which would be bad on a lot of levels. If Valley was gone, and Ingers was in charge, they would no longer be able to say they had allies with the humans. And with a war coming, they needed all the allies they could get.

At the moment, Liam realized he was going to tell Agent Valley everything they knew about Orion, about Rylee, and the coming war. The agent, and the FBI, would need to know everything if they were going to help. And Liam was damn well making sure they would help one way or another.

He gave directions to the area he knew Agent Valley lived in. When Milly pulled over on the street intersection he’d given her, she said, “You don’t actually know what house he’s in, do you?”

“No, but I can figure out quick enough.” He shimmied out of his clothes, his nudity not something that bothered him. There were far bigger things to be worried about than a witch ogling his ass.

He folded the clothes and handed them up to Pamela.

“Here, hang onto these for me, would you?”

She kept her eyes forward, a pink blush staining her pale cheeks. “Okay.”

He opened the door and stepped into the snow. Pamela and Milly slid out of the Jeep to wait for him. This time of day the road was quiet, and most people were at work, so there was no one to peer out a window and see them. Without another thought, he let the shift take him, trusting if a human did see him, they would see something else. He didn’t know, didn’t care. Bones turned to liquid for a brief moment as they bent and twisted to that of a wolf’s, and then he was on all fours. Nose to the ground, it didn’t take long to pick up a sce Nordis twnt, though it wasn’t Agent Valley’s.

The smell of death and rot lay heavy all along the road. Rotting meat, molding clothes … he wrinkled his nose and let out a snort. He twitched his ears as Pamela moved up beside him and put a hand on the ruff of his neck.

“Any luck?”

Of course, he couldn’t answer her. He just put his nose to he ground and kept scenting. Somewhere in here he should find Agent Valley. He checked cars and walkways and when the occasional curtain twitched Milly and Pamela waved and smiled.

Again, he understood that humans saw what they wanted to: a large dog being walked by two nice young ladies. Probably sisters.

He worked his way up and down the road twice before he finally understood what was bothering him. The smell of rot … as he’d told Milly, Agent Valley had smelled of rot when they’d spoken London. Maybe there was more to it than just working with a necromancer. Excitement flared through him and he picked up the scent with ease, tracing it to the peach-colored house at the head of the street, right at the intersection.

When he approached the door, the curtain beside it twitched ever so slightly.

Bingo.

He glanced over his shoulder and the two witches walked swiftly to the left side of him.

“It’s about time, wolf,” Milly muttered under her breath as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

Pamela snorted at her. “You could have stayed home. We told you that you didn’t have to come.”

Liam couldn’t stop the grin that crossed his muzzle. That was Pamela. Milly stepped to the side, out of the way so Pam could knock on the door, his clothes gripped tightly in her hands. Inside, there was a sound of feet shuffling. And the light click of a gun being loaded.

Without thinking, he body-slammed Pamela against the wall as silenced shots popped softly, driving through the door where they’d been standing. Snarling, he leapt forward, taking the door out with his body in an explosion of wooden shards. Being part Guardian had its perks. Two more shots went off before he could see clearly, the bullets tearing through his chest.

Liam looked up as the wounds healed closed, the shooter a young man with pimples on his cheeks. Loose clothes, baggy jeans and underneath the smell of death was a three-week-old case of body odor.

“Oh, shit,” he squeaked, half-lowering the gun before seeming to realize he was going to need it again. Liam bared his teeth and took a step closer, the fur along his spine stiff with his anger.

The kid took a few steps back; the scent of magic filled the air and then the gun was jerked out of his hand, seemingly plucked away by an invisible person. The kid’s jaw twitched and he looked past Liam to Pamela.