Screaming a wordless battle cry, he ran toward his one-time friends and the melee across the courtyard.

Apparently, we’d had the weaker ogres come for us, because the seven that were left were not dying so easily. The triplets had their backs against each other, their roars raised above the clash of the black-skinned ogre’s clubs against the finer swords and axes that the triplets carried.

Three more of the black-skinned ogres peeled off and faced us. Close up, I could see the battle scars on their bodies, glimmers of faint silver against their skin. These were the battle-hardened warriors. Whoever we had faced first, I’d bet it was their introduction into raiding. Or whatever the hell this was.

Fan-freaking-tastic. A chill of fear swept me and I forced it down. Liam moved up beside me.

“Don’t let them separate us,” He growled.

Easier said than done. The ogre closest to Liam had a club with no spikes, just a solid smooth wood made for bashing, and he swung it hard, catching Liam in the stomach and sending him flying into a door on the building closest to us.

Which was rather bad because Liam didn’t slide to the ground like I’d expected.

He disappeared.

Damn it! There had to be a doorway through there, and the courtyard was like the castle, a gods-be-damned gateway for travelling through the veil.

But all that passed my mind in a flash, and then I was dodging two ogres and had no time to worry about Liam.

Liam hit the wall hard, the sounds of the fight ringing in his ears, but as he slid downward the world twisted, and then he was face down on a rocky beach, waves crashing up around him, startling him out of his momentary stupor.

“What the hell?” He pushed himself to his feet. The shoreline stretched for miles on either side of him, the smell of rotting fish and salt water filling his nose.

A tittering laugh spun him around. There, just behind him lay a stunningly beautiful woman, her blonde hair studded with pearls and curling around her heart-shaped face, with luminescent blue eyes that stared up at him. Her soft curves were bared to the open sky, but there was no shame in her. He blinked a couple of times and she reached for him.

“Stay with me, wolf.” There was a command in her voice, a spell that stirred his wolf and the strength to deny her more than anything else could have.

He snarled, reached out, and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her high. She let out a scream, high-pitched and warbling, the lower half of her body coming clear of where she’d hidden it. From the waist down she was all fish, a pearlescent collision of scales, a rainbow of colors that danced in the lights.

“How do I get back?”

Fury lit her pretty features, twisting them into something ugly and monstrous. “The darkness will rise and he will swallow you, wolf. I see it, even now. You will die. And your death will be meaningless.”

“TELL ME OR I’LL SNAP YOUR NECK.”

She trembled in his hands, but he didn’t care. With a thrust, she pointed at a rock, somewhat more square than the others, one that almost resembled a doorway.

With no ceremony, he dropped her to the jagged rocks and ignored her grunt of pain. Leaping past her, he didn’t hesitate, but hit the doorway at full speed, expecting it to give way to him.

Thank the gods it did.

Liam was gone all of three minutes, but it was enough to land me in a seriously bad spot. The triplets had dispatched two of the interlopers, screaming obscenities at them the whole time. In another place, I would have been laughing at the ridiculous, imaginative cursing they came up with.

The triplets still faced two of the black-skinned ogres, and Dox and I faced three. But we’d been separated, and while Dox was holding his own, he didn’t have the experience with a full-on fight to the death. Bar brawls he was used to, but throwing drunks out of the Landing Pad was a hell of a lot different than trying to actually kill someone. This did not bode well for his long-term health. Hell, it didn’t bode well for his short-term health.

I, on the other hand, had plenty of experience with this kind of fighting. Didn’t mean I was faring any better against the big bastards.

A blunt club smashed into the ground, missing me by a single hairsbreadth. I rolled to my feet, then spun, arms outstretched at the full reach of my blade. I caught the ogre in the thigh, but while blood spilled, it was not a killing slice. Or even a particularly crippling one. But I couldn’t focus on just one of them, I had to dance between the two, dodging blows without being able to get much in by the way of strikes of my own.

Fast, these ogres for all their size were damn quick: both with their swings and their feet. A booted foot swung at me, sweeping my legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard and rolled before a club could finish the job.

A snarling growl brought their heads around, but for all their speed, it was too late. Liam hit the one on the left from behind, driving both blades through the ogre’s neck, nearly severing his head from his shoulders. While the second ogre was distracted, I drove both my swords through his guts, jerking my blades up and sideways in an attempt to bisect his body.

The black-skinned ogre slowly turned his head toward me. “Well done, Tracker.” He slumped forward to his knees as I yanked my blades free.

I didn’t stop to thank Liam for the help or acknowledge the ogre’s words, just pointed at Dox. Liam leapt from the back of the ogre he’d nearly decapitated to hamstring the ogre facing Dox. As the black-skinned ogre fell with a scream, I cut it short with a hard strike from my own blade. His head rolled from his shoulders, the sightless eyes staring up at the rain clouds hovering above us.

“Now what?” Liam panted.

“Now we make some friends.” I ran toward the battle, saw Tin go down to one knee, stunned from a blow to his head. As the ogre opposite him lifted his club to finish the job, I swept my sword upward, taking his arm.

The black-skinned ogre stood as the blood flowed, stunned long enough for me to drive the point of my second blade through his neck. Liam and Dox pinned the last ogre between them and the triplets. The triplets worked over the ogre with shouts of glee blasting the final black-skinned ogre, literally pounding him into a pulp, the spray of flesh and blood like some sort of macabre splatter paint art on the courtyard tiles. That wasn’t what shocked me, though. Dox joined in, sprays of blood flicking up along his bare arms and face. He didn’t seem to mind; no, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

I backed up, unable to stop the way my stomach rolled. Even for me, that was a bit much. Overkill suddenly held new meaning. I needed to stop their spree or I was going to lose my lunch.

“You boys done?” I calmly wiped my blades off on the few scraps of un-bloodied cloth left on the bodies. The triplets paused in mid-swing, turned, and stared at me and Liam. With grins splitting their faces, they rushed us, scooping up Dox in the process. I let Tin grab me in a crushing hug, seeing it for the camaraderie it was. Liam dodged their advances, lips curling in a snarl.

Lop gave him a salute. “Damn, that was some f**kery, wasn’t it? We’d have been toasted without you three. Mind-blastingly brilliant, that was!”

Tin put me down and gave me a salute. “Respect, in our world, is earned. Tracker, you might be, but you fight well enough to have that much from us.”

Dox let out a big sigh and clapped his hand on Dev’s shoulder. Something in him had loosened, the fight bringing out the ogre in him. I wondered if he’d ever killed anyone before. I doubted it.

I sheathed my swords. “We need your help, if you’ll give it.”

They shared a glance. “Does it involve fighting?”

I nodded. “Sneaking past a number of Gangs and stealing a unicorn foal back from a Roc. Probably some high speed chases, knowing my luck. We need you to help us avoid as much detection as possible.”

Dox’s eyes bugged out, and even Liam lifted an eyebrow at me. They thought me reckless, but I knew when a gamble was weighted in my favor. These three might come off as goons, but if I remembered my recent studies correctly, now that they respected us, there would be no going back.

Dev, who turned out to be the oldest, put one hand on his knee. “And if you’re wrong?”

I shrugged. “We’ll find you someone, or something, to fight. Sound fair?”

He held his hand out and I set mine in it, shaking it as firmly as I could, considering the size difference.

“We need to go now—”

Lop interrupted me with a swing of his ridiculously large hands. “Tonight, under cover of darkness is best. If your unicorn truly has been taken by the Roc, it roosts at night and getting past it will be easier.”

Before I could answer, things took an unexpected turn.

A set of high-heeled footsteps turned us all to the side.

What had to be the most striking woman I’d ever seen swayed toward us. In heels, she was well over six feet, close to Dox’s height. Her curves flowed from the gentle swell of her h*ps up to the rather large swell of her br**sts. Sheathed in a cream-colored low cut, sleeveless dress, there was a lot of skin showing. Pale violet skin that peaked in a rosy color across her cheeks and the tops of her ample br**sts seemed to have every male’s attention. Even Liam’s. Not that I could blame him. She really was stunning, right down to her violet eyes, which were shadowed with silver dusting that only accentuated the color. Crap, I suddenly felt how very tomboyish and unfeminine I was. This felt like standing next to Milly when she was all dolled up. I let out a resigned breath; at least I was used to it.

Her hair was done in tiny dreadlocks beaded up with jewels and stones that clinked lightly with each step she took toward us.

“You three boys, are you done with the fighting for today? And more importantly, are you ready to move on with the more interesting activities I have planned?” Her voice was husky and sensual and it curled around the six of us. There was magic in her voice that skittled off me, but I could sense it nonetheless.

The three triplets bobbed their heads, the crotch of Tin’s pants swiftly tenting. That, along with the way they looked at her—I was guessing they weren’t related, despite their similar skin color. Her eyes drifted over us, pausing on Dox. “And you brought me a new friend. Who is he?”