Chapter 11

Lauren performed her checks and made the required notes on her clipboard under Kenzi's glaring gaze and the doctor felt extremely grateful to Bo for taking the sting out of the new fae's restless agitation. "The only reason I am not asking Bo to throw you out is that you seem to have a positive influence on Dyson's state," she warned in a low voice restraining herself from voicing her primary reason for that: "And he's your only anchor to sanity."

The kitsune was just about to come up with a worthy reply when her fox ears caught an incongruously rude sound, menacing and out of place at the infirmary. "Two men are here, Doc," she pronounced in a peculiar high-pitch growl, "and they are not coming to party, they've got weapon. Lauren looked over at the girl just in time to catch a pointy-toothed unhappy half-smile. For a second the doctor weighed the possibility of it being a trick of the new Kenzi but then the sound of approaching heavy boots became evident even to her unenhanced human ears and she straightened her white coat and pasted on her authoritative face. The door swung open sharply and Kenzi crouched next to Dyson in a defensive position while Lauren stepped forward determined to impress her commanding status on the newcomers straightaway.

The two huge fae striding confidently into the lab, however, seemed pretty hard to impress. One of them spoke up before the doctor had a chance to enquire after the purpose of their visit. "We've come on the orders on the Ash," he boomed casting a disparaging look at the tiny figure huddled next to a listless form of the wolf, "which are to apprehend one kitsune charged with murder, attempted assasintaion and civil disobedience."

Whereas Lauren gasped with horror, Kenzi was relieved to be the focus of the Ash's missionaries thus deflecting them from Dyson. She straightened proudly and slid off the side of the bed, but had to brace herself against the footboard as her legs were still shaking from Bo-induced exhaustion. "That would be me," she piped up almost sweetly.

"Will you go willingly?" the fae asked casually and looked almost bored in a what's-the-fun-in-a-sitting-duck kind of way. The kitsune did a flash-quick calculation factoring in her severely diminished strength against two full-blooded fae, a chance to stick it to them all against a chance of Dyson or Lauren getting hurt in the process. As if to facilitate her thinking the other fae, silent till then, ambled with a speed unusual for someone of his bulk towards the bed and faced the young fox across the white expanse of the sheets covering Dyson. His hand stretched to touch the IV bag with a disinterested air. "The Ash said to use any leverage if you put up a struggle," he remarked casually, "One animal to another, come with us quietly, girl."

Kenzi sniffed the air and her eyebrows shot up, "A cougar shifter?"

"Two cougars, actually," the first fae corrected her with a distinct note of self-importance, "against a tired little fox and a half-dead wolf."

Kenzi drew another lungful of air and with a pointed tilt of her head amended, "Yeah, definitely, two cougars, both in dire need of a shower and someone to teach them about deodorant."

Snapping out of her own stupor, Lauren hurried over to the second fae and tried to insert herself between him and the IV stand. "Ash's orders or not, I'd appreciate it if you leave my patient alone in my infirmary," she found her voice but got the response of being disdainfully shouldered away and shoved into the wall.

"Because one day you might find yourselves in this very bed and under this very doctor's care," the kitsune hissed in support from her spot, "Leave the doctor and the sick one alone, I'm coming with you." For a second her fingers lingered on Dyson's leg as if trying to convey her parting message of love. "Get well, my love," she whispered, "I'll come back or else you'll have to come for me. You know the drill."

Kenzi unpeeled herself from the footboard and took a step towards the first of the fae, who seized her arms in an iron hold and whirled her around handcuffing her wrists behind her back.

"No tricks, fox," he grumbled into her ear and frog-marched her to the door. Right before the threshold she managed to dig her considerable heels into the linoleum on the floor and half-turned to get the last eyeful of her wolf. Taking in the pale, hand-wringing sight of Lauren, she almost begged, "Take care of him, Lolo." Her tone immediate swung into an openly mocking range when she tacked on, "And my congrats to Bo, how clever of her to drain me for our Ash-holeness's convenience all the while keeping her caring-best-friend face on."

"It's all a mistake," Lauren cried out pleading, "I swear Bo has nothing to do with this, Kenzi, you're not thinking straight. Shake it off before you lose it completely. Bo will get you out and I will take care of Dyson. Just don't give in to your anger."

"My anger? Seems like that's all I've got," the girl spat out as the two cougar fae pushed her put of the lab and Lauren felt her knuckles crackle under her own nervous pressure. She unclasped her whitened hands and rushed to the monitor above Dyson's head. Her one hand, the one where circulation had resumed faster, slipped into her pocket and fumbled for her cell.

At that very moment Bo was standing in the middle of a rather littered and very unfeminine-looking room belonging to the most feminine valkyrie in town. The room bore all the signs of not having being disturbed by a cleaning hand for a good couple of weeks and of not being disturbed in any other way over the last couple of days. "Where are you, Tammy?" the succubus whispered in a question to herself taking her own cell out to put in another unanswered and thus uninformative call to the said blonde. But the vibrating buzz of the incoming call from another blonde stalled her. "Lauren?" she spoke into the phone and frowned, listening to the doctor's flustered and stammering rendition of the most recent developments. "So, Kenzi's taken, Tamsin is missing and Hale seems to have failed to learn his lesson," she summed up curtly, "I am on it, babe, look after our shifter." She replaced the phone into its hidey-hole in her cleavage allowed by the generous swell of her breast and stomped decisively out of the valkyrie pad.

Her step maintained its resolute and firm quality as she was making her way along the corridors of the Light fae compound, waylaid a couple of times by the guards. Those who were too persistent in asking her questions found themselves succubus-handled which provided for a bit of an additional boost to Bo's outrage-fuelled intent. The only warning Hale got of her approach was the door flying off its hinges as the brunette power-walked into his room.

"Bo?! What an unexpected pleasure to see you," the Ash exclaimed smoothly and the succubus was a little disconcerted by his apparent lack of fear but plowed ahead. She covered the short distance between them in a few broad strides and grabbed the lapels of his coat getting as close up and personal as she deemed menacing enough. "Where are they, my girls?" the succubus enunciated, her eyes swirling with blue. Hale couldn't help a nervous twitch and despite all the precautions he had taken and the safety net he had put in place felt distinctly uncomfortable under her burning gaze. "Which girls are you talking about? You have so many," he managed out in a sufficiently jeering tone.

"Your goons took Kenzi from the lab, they threatened Lauren and Dyson. Tamsin has disappeared and I have a feeling you're in the know on her whereabouts," the brunette hissed relocating one of her hands onto the siren's still tender neck. "Care to share? I'm not in a joking mood."

"Kenzi is arrested and charged as she's due to be for what she did. Tamsin has a score to settle with her own superior – the Morrigan. Both of them are contained in a guarded facility, at least, I was kind enough to let them enjoy each other's company for a while," Hale elaborated with a crooked smile.

"I warned you, didn't I?" there was not a trace of brown in Bo's eyes as she put her mouth inches away from that taunting smile.

"You are not in a position to threaten me, succubus," Hale wheezed out, his throat constricted but his confidence undiminished. "Your friends are in my power and depend on my lenience as new-born kittens depend on their mother."

"Tamsin and Kenzi are not new-born kittens, their claws can cut much deeper," Bo was nearing the end of her patience, "and such kind of leverage is a double-edged weapon. Your life at the moment depends on my lenience as one shitty underqualified and overconfident ash might depend on one really pissed succubus who is holding him by the throat." She leaned in for a lethal kiss but instead of the anticipated juicy stream of siren chi got a rasping whiff of grey that made her cough and take a step back releasing the Ash. Hale could no longer conceal his jubilation.

"Someone has overplayed her hand here," he sneered enjoying the woman's confusion, "remember the koushang – the amulet that was supposed to protect you from your crazy mother once. Now it's protecting me from the crazy daughter. You are powerless, Bo. I can knock you out with my song faster than you can bend down to get a blade from your boot. I can then call my guards and let you enjoy the Ash's hospitality in the dungeon. And I can then deliver Tamsin to the Morrigan and execute Kenzi for her crimes. If you don't want all of this to happen, you'll be a good girl and leave, never to come uninvited again."

"What will happen to the girls if I do that?" Bo asked still reeling from being thus blindsided.

"I might tell the Morrigan that her rebellious valkyrie has managed to escape and I might let the charges against the kitsune drop on the grounds of her obvious mental incompetence," Hale drawled, "It goes without saying that, in actual fact, the girls will be my guests in their current abode for as long as I think fit."

"Why did you capture them? What do you want from them?" the succubus made herself look her former friend in the eye.

"I don't care about Tamsin but she's my bargaining chip with you. As long as I have her, you can be kept in check. As for Kenzi …. Are you asking what I want from the girl I have loved with all my heart, from the one who repulsed my feelings and wanted to kill me? I don't really know, Bo. I want her either to come to her senses when the fog of her kitsune transformation clears and see what's best for her and who's best fro her or … the least I can do is make sure she won't be Dyson's. It would be debasing to extract revenge on the wolf in his current state but keeping Kenzi away from him will be killing two birds with one stone."

"Yeah, cos you will be killing them both by keeping them apart," the brunette said bitterly, "If there's one in urgent need of coming to their senses, it's you, Hale."

The siren's face closed up, his smile fading together with any other trace of emotion. "You may go, succubus, and remember what I told you," his voice was similar to the two previous ashes that Bo had butted heads with, in its supercilious tone if not in its booming quality.

Kenzi was shoved through the door by one of the cougar shifters so heartily that she actually covered half of the room before landing hard on her nose on the rough short-piled carpet.

"Look who's here," came a taunting, oddly familiar, voice from somewhere above her right shoulder, "And here was me thinking that solitary confinement is the worst that can happen to a reasonably gregarious girl."

"Tammy," the younger girl muttered her recognition, lifting herself on trembling arms and flopping over onto her butt. The valkyrie's snark dissipated as soon as she saw the kitsune's exhausted pale face and asked with a hint of concern, "Why are you here and what have they done to you, red-tail? You look like you've just completed digging the Eurotunnel. And I thought you were souped-up with fox powers."

"I was, before the blonde-magnet of a succubus hovered me clean of energy," Kenzi huffed begrudgingly accepting the valkyrie's helping hand to get her off the floor and sit her onto the side of the nearest bed, "And what I did to get a roomie like you was to royally piss off one blue-balled Ash."

"The Ash?" Tamsin allowed some degree of surprise to show on her unlined face, "You mean he arranged for us being cooped up here? The last I remember was a shoddy bar and a foaming tankard I downed before blacking out."

"Did you notice an ugly foul-smelling feline mug hovering anywhere in the vicinity of your beer?" the kistune inquired. "We were both roofied and faenapped, girl."

"Hale wants revenge for his spurned love and his humiliation," the blonde mused aloud, "You're not exactly his tea buddy at the moment. But why go to such length to take me? As a hostage against Bo?"

"And Bo loves you so much that she agreed to facilitate my taking as well?" the kitsune came to the front of Kenzi's mind overtaking the human rationale.

Tamsin gave her a sharp once-over. "I almost forgot you're off your trolley," she shrugged her shoulders dismissively, "It'll pass once you're settled into your new fae-hood. Just try to keep from killing or alienating everyone you hold dear before that happens. Bo would never hurt you, silly fox, even if I was hanging over a vat of boiling oil on a disintegrating rope she would rush off to save you."

The valkyrie's strange choice of imagery doused the kitsune's misplaced anger better than any reasonable words could. Another train of thought ousted Bo-centred conflicting emotions and Kenzi's face scrunched into a pain-filled grimace, "Dyson needs me, Tams, I have to get out of here. As soon as my strength is back, we need to act, break the door, shred the cougars or whoever is guarding us."

"You think if that was an option I would be still sitting on my delectable ass in this cage?" the blonde sniffed and pointed to the door. "This and also the walls are under a spell, you can't break the door and just prance out. I'm not even sure our fae powers are in working order in here. Hale is a scumbag, but not a stupid scumbag."

Kenzi fell back onto the bed, "Then I'm gonna rest until I think of a way out. There's always magic to beat magic. In this case, the magic of Kenzi's inventiveness."

"Hey, that's my bed," Tamsin yelled indignantly, suddenly registering the fact of the intrusion into her chosen sleeping place, "I was here first, I call dibs on it."

"Unless you fancy carrying me across the room to the other one, you can carry your own ass over there," the younger girl didn't deign to lift her drooping eyelids, "Cos there's no way I am walking or sharing a bed with you for that matter. Your sexual preferences or lack of thereof are disturbing."

With a resigned sigh the valkyrie chose the sensible path of least resistance and trudged across the room to catch the strategically required rest of her own on the second bed.