Beneath a Blood Moon (72 page)

“I’m in.”

If killing my father was necessary to secure my future with my mate, it was a price I was willing to pay. No one else deserved to stain their hands with his blood. I hoped I would be able to learn what had happened to my mother before I pulled the trigger.

Nicolina, Amber, and Lisa took turns driving. Twenty hours after leaving the border, we pulled into the parking lot of a shop dedicated to rocks and gemstones. Puzzled, I stared at the building before narrowing my eyes to regard Amber suspiciously. “It’s a store. It sells rocks.”

“It’s a convenient place to park while I make a phone call,” Amber stated, pulling out her new phone. She dialed a number and put it to her ear. “Cassiar outpost, please.”

The five minute wait left Amber drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. Her posture relaxed when I heard the murmur of someone speaking on the other end of the line.

“It’s Amber. I need a quiet run at the course for three days for five people. A shared suite is preferred if you have one. I’m at the shop. Red truck, Washington plates. Call me back on this number when we’re cleared. We’ll be waiting. I want this
very
quiet.”

She hung up without waiting for an answer.

Sighing, Nicolina reached up and poked Amber’s side. “When I suggested a resort, I did not mean a torture chamber. Resorts are fun.”

“Stop whining, Nicole. You survived just fine. Sara’s tough, as is your mother. They’ll have sore hands, some blisters, and an assortment of bumps and bruises, but they’ll be fine. You need the practice, anyway. Richard has spoiled you rotten—and you’re no different, Lisa. Use the chance to get some of your edge back. If I thought we had a week to spend, we would.” Amber sighed. “At least we’re just taking down a Fenerec. It’s not a sorcerer.”

I winced. “Agreed.”

I’d be happy if I could avoid meeting a sorcerer ever again. Kent’s delight at the idea of torturing my mate haunted me. Growling at the thought of what might have been, I clenched my hands into fists.

“Fenerec are dangerous enough, especially if he’s managed to make himself into an Alpha,” Nicolina growled. “Dominants are bad, but Alphas are so much worse.”

Wrinkling her nose, Amber unbuckled her seatbelt so she could kneel on her seat to face backwards. “I’m aware. While I realize you’re all mated to Alpha-quality Fenerec, there’s a huge difference between tame ones and the type we’ll likely have to face.”

“Richard, tame?” Nicolina laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Give me a break, Amber. He’s tame when everything’s going just like he wants—screw with his ideal little world and things go to shit fast. I have no delusions about my mate. If Alex and Desmond weren’t with him, I wouldn’t have agreed to come on this little jaunt at all. As it is, I expect he’ll be a handful when we return home.”

Sighing, Amber shook her head. “He’s not
that
bad.”

“Oh, he is,” Wendy disagreed. “You weren’t around when he courted Nicolina. He’s a lot better than he used to be! After they met, he ran wild several times in a span of three or four months. On his own he was bad enough, but without fail, he managed to get my daughter involved in one way or another. Charles didn’t believe me when I told him there would be a marriage or a murder. He should have. If he had, things would have been so much easier on them.”

“Can we not talk about this,” Nicolina begged.

I joined Amber and kneeled on the seat to watch Wendy and her daughters. “Will Sanders be as problematic?” I demanded.

Making a thoughtful sound, Wendy leaned back in her seat. “In different ways. Sanders has pretty good control. Richard does as well, but when he slips, he slips bad. Sanders has been less stable lately, but with you around, he’ll settle down. You content him and his wolf.”

Amber’s phone rang, and with a wide grin, she answered, “Amber.”

Her grin slid into a sly smirk. “Excellent. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes. Please have someone ready to open it up for us.” Hanging up, she hopped around in her seat and grabbed her belt. “Buckle up, ladies. We have a date at the range, and Carrie tells me she has some new toys in stock. If you girls are on your best behavior, I’ll even let you play with them.”

The Inquisition outpost was underground in stone caverns veined with jade. Lamps hanging from the ceiling cast a blue-white glow on the smooth floors. Amber parked the truck in an empty lot capable of holding hundreds of cars, and giggling like a fiend, she got out.

“It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten to do this,” she declared, her eyes bright with excitement. Grabbing the ammunition box, she headed for a pair of steel doors set into the cavern wall. “Hurry up. I want to sign us in, get our toys, and go. Leave everything in the truck, you won’t need it—and no one would be stupid enough to steal from me.”

I shrugged, unbuckled, and followed after her, leaving everything behind as instructed. While there was a desk in the room beyond, it was empty. Amber circled it, grabbed a clipboard, and went to work, writing information down. When she finished, she handed it to Wendy. “Everyone sign where I printed your names.”

When the clipboard made its way around to me, I giggled at the irreverent way Amber had simply written ‘no’ for most of the fields. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?”

“I’m sure someone will make me fill them out properly at some point,” she conceded. “I’ll have a lot of paperwork to fill out if you qualify for permits, Sara—until you qualify, I’m not going to bother. We’re all registered in the Inquisitor database, so they can figure out who we are and pull our information as needed.”

I signed, hoping I wasn’t about to sell my soul to the devil. Once she reclaimed the clipboard, she went to a door, slid open a small panel, and tapped in a code. A lock clicked, and pushing open the door, Amber held it for us. It led into a long hallway lined with patterned steel panels.

“The rules are simple. Sara, you’ll do exactly what I say, how I say, and when I say. I you’re told ‘safety on,’ it means you’re to stop firing, engage the safety, and put the weapon down. Do not shoot if you do not have mufflers on unless you want to go deaf. Since you’re not licensed, you won’t shoot without an instructor present. Lisa and Nicolina are both qualified. Wendy is not.”

“I’m the chaff of the group,” Wendy admitted cheerfully.

“I’ll be starting you with a Beretta, Sara. It’s a standard-issue weapon favored by the Inquisition. It’s reliable, has good accuracy, and has enough firepower to get the job done. I’ll also be working you with a Kahr PM9; it’s accurate enough and easy to conceal.” Amber guided us to a door at the end of the hall, and after tapping in another code, she led the way into a gun vault. Hundreds upon hundreds of weapons were racked against the wall, with many of them being duplicates. Nicolina, Lisa, and Wendy each claimed a gun and several boxes of ammunition along with a headset with huge earpieces.

Amber waited for them to leave before taking four weapons from the rack; two were the same guns the others had taken, and two were substantially smaller. In turn, she checked each one over, and once satisfied, she tucked them under her arm, grabbed several ammunition boxes and two of the headsets. “Normally, you wouldn’t carry a gun like this, but the chambers are empty, as are the magazines. There’s zero chance of someone getting shot. Once we’re at the range, I’ll go over all of the gun handling and safety rules.”

“Okay.” I took the ammunition boxes from the witch and hoped I wasn’t about to bite off more than I could chew.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I had the shooting accuracy of a blind rat stricken with palsy.

After an hour of shooting the Beretta over and over again, I had hit the paper target a grand total of twice. Both shots had struck the target dead center, both a promise of what I could do and a mockery of my efforts. A fortune of spent casings littered the floor around me along with empty ammunition boxes.

Amber cleared her throat. “Safety on.”

Disgusted at my utter inability to hit the target, I engaged the safety and set the weapon down. I was tempted to hurl the thing at the target. I’d likely have better aim throwing the gun instead of shooting it.

“I am a miserable failure at this,” I announced.

“Closing your eyes while you’re firing does have a tendency to screw up your aim,” she replied, her tone neutral. The corners of her mouth twitched, and my wolf identified the sweetness in the witch’s scent as good humor.

“Go ahead and laugh,” I grumbled, wondering how anyone could fire a gun without flinching, grimacing, or closing their eyes. “Stupid thing is noisy, it keeps trying to jump out of my hand, and I’m pretty sure those two shots were utter flukes.”

“You didn’t close your eyes,” Amber replied, grinning at me. “You kept them open, and you hit your mark. So, we beat the flinching out of you.”

“I’m sure that’s not how it works. Beating people tends to make them flinch.”

“Oh, you’ll see. Stay here, and leave the gun on the shelf,” she ordered, stepping out of the box and vanishing down the hallway linking the stalls in the range. Several minutes later, she returned with Nicolina in tow. “All I want you to do is stand there and watch my face while I shoot.”

I obeyed, wondering what the witch was doing.

When she opened fire, Amber’s eyes remained fixed in one location. Until the magazine was emptied, she didn’t even blink. I flinched each time she pulled the trigger, the sound enough to set my ears ringing despite the muffling headset.

Once Amber stepped back, Nicolina tapped my shoulder. I turned to face her. She stared at me, extended her arm, and opened fire at the target.

I twisted to stare at the target.

She drew a smiley face on the paper, glancing out of the corner of her eye to pick her target and aim.

“What the hell,” I blurted, pointing at the target. “That’s not even fair.”

Setting her gun down on the shelf next to mine, Amber picked up one of the ammunition boxes and went to work refilling magazines. “Being afraid of the sound of gunfire is actually normal. So, there’s a simple solution. You’re currently conditioned to flinch at the noise. We will remove that conditioning.”

I had no idea what she meant, but I had a really bad feeling about it. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to stand next to you and fire until you’re so conditioned by the noise of them you stop flinching. I will fire. Each time you flinch, Nicolina is going to give you a zap. If you do not flinch, you will not get zapped. Don’t zap her too hard, and be careful of her puppy. Just give her enough of a jolt she knows she’s screwed up.”

I backed away, my eyes widening. “That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” I stammered.

“You’ll survive,” Amber promised me. “Up front and center, Mrs. Sanders. I saw two glorious hits from you. I know there’s a markswoman hidden in that body of yours somewhere, and I’ll beat the skill into you if I must.”