The Devil's Wolf
Chapter 44

The office door opened, and Raiden and Cecelia entered the werewolf couple beginning to show the dishevelment of the situation, Raiden's curls standing on end as if the werewolf had dragged his hands through them, and Cecelia's lipstick having faded into crease points of color on her lips.

"What is the situation?" Raiden was all brisk business, the Other in his eyes flashing gold showing his agitation.

"I have issued orders to my military forces," Elior told him heavily. "Nate has verified that there are explosives as Ms Devereaux claims, and they have rigged in a way that makes their removal difficult. It is evident that we need to vacate this building. Cael has proposed we use portals to do so. We have the coven opening them on every occupied level in order to evacuate."

"Where to?" Raiden immediately wondered, and then saw the expression on Elior's face and groaned, rolling his eyes back into his head. "Again, Elior?"

"My sincerest apologies," Elior said with genuine feeling.

"These vampire wars are costly on my pack," Raiden said darkly. "The last one cost me my sister."

"I know, and I wish I could think of an alternative location," Elior apologized.

"This isn't a vampire war," Ashlynn corrected her father. "It is a human against Other war."

"Focusing on vampires," Raiden wasn't letting go of his resentment.

"It wasn't Elior they wanted," Ashlynn replied. "It was mum and me. The last I checked we are pack. And I am pretty sure I know that the Wingless are working with the humans and would be behind that request - making sure the vampires don't have access to our blood."

A muscle in Raiden's jaw ticked as he bit down on his rear teeth. "As you say, Ashlynn," he conceded reluctantly. "The vampires are welcome to take shelter with the pack, Elior."

"Thank you," Elior inclined his head. "I suggest that my mates and I do not join them. I would like to keep this battle off pack lands, Raiden, as much as you do. Whilst I will send the majority of my people there, my children, my mates and I will relocate to a building that I suspect the humans do not know we own, as it was bought by one of my investment companies."

The office door opened and Alatar stepped in. "Sorry to interrupt."

"Is everything okay?" Cecelia asked him anxiously.

"Evacuation to pack lands is underway," Alatar told her. "No problems. The gargoyles and I had an idea, and I have re-rigged the spells on the building, so that if they do explode it, they will get more than they bargained for, and the gargoyles are armed with a wide range of spell pouches. Ashlynn and Cael's spot of spell-casting was rather successful, so I thought we would give them another taste of what Others can do."

Cael's grin was evil. "I want to do that, too."

"Me too," Ashlynn agreed with a sneer.

"The two of you are flying targets," Elior reminded them. "If they realize who you are. And after your social media post, Ashlynn, you and Cael are entirely too recognizable."

"Shit," Ashlynn complained, but she couldn't deny the truth of his words.

"Our relocation destination will have a good view, I would think," Elior offered as compensation.

"What about Ms Devereaux?" Raiden asked.

"Once my people have been evacuated, we will release Ms Devereaux from her room, and let her leave," Elior replied. "In just under," he glanced at the time piece on his wrist. "Thirty-nine minutes, my military forces will make themselves known.

"I expect Ms Devereaux and company will detonate the building in retaliation, believing my people to be still within it. That should prevent the search of pack lands for them."

"You are very good at this," Ashlynn was impressed. "You came up with all that in the time since we came into your office."

Elior smiled and shrugged. "A lifetime of practice, my mate. Raiden, take your mate and warlock, and leave. Thank you for your help. I hope you will remain undisturbed from this point on-wards."

"How are you evacuating?" Raiden wondered, his eyes on Ashlynn.

"I am sure that my mates can help with that," Elior smiled a little.

"Perhaps Cael," Ashlynn suggested hurriedly. "I tend to fly into windows."

Cael snickered, and her mother and father hid their sudden smiles.

"It took a while for you to catch on to driving," Raiden offered once he had composed himself. "But once you got the hang of it, you excelled." "Aww, thanks dad. You wouldn't say that if you had seen the Audi after the Wingless totaled it. It was insured," she added hurriedly. "Fully."

"Time to go," Alatar decided, before Raiden could respond. "Kiss your cub goodbye, and let's go."

Ashlynn embraced her parents tightly and stood in the door of the office watching them hurry down the blue-green carpet of the hallway to the stairwell entrance.

Elior checked his wrist piece again and put his phone to his ear. "Nate. Is the evacuation nearing completion? ... Good. Well done. The gargoyles with you?... Meet us up there with Rebecca and Jacinta. We need to ask the gargoyles to help relocate us... Hmm, I know, and I am sorry." He disconnected chuckling. "Nate dislikes flying," he explained as he returned his phone to his pocket.

"Time to leave?" Ashlynn asked.

He glanced at his wrist. "Close enough. Let's collect Ms Devereaux and take her for a walk up the stairs with us. I think she could use the exercise."

"That is going to suck in those shoes she is wearing," Ashlynn smirked.

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"My thoughts exactly," he grinned back at her.

They went to the room where Ms Devereaux was secured, and he unlocked the door, swinging it open to reveal the ambassador sat at the head of the long conference table, with a half-drunk glass of water on a coaster before her. She looked a little sweaty in the poorly ventilated room but had kept her suit jacket on stubbornly.

"Good evening, Ms Devereaux," he said.

"Mr Cohen," she stood, smoothing her hands down her pencil skirt, as she moved around the table. "I am not surprised to replace you on the premise. Nor you Ms Grenmeyer," she nodded to Ashlynn. "Despite your parent's protestations otherwise," she pointed out sourly.

"Mrs Cohen," Elior corrected her. "According to my people's traditions, Ashlynn is Mrs Cohen."

"Mrs Cohen-Jovil," Cael murmured almost inaudibly.

"Apologies," Elior smiled at him warmly. "Of course, she is Mrs Cohen-Jovil," he told the other woman. "My mates," he gestured expansively to include Ashlynn and Cael. "Ashlynn Cohen-Jovil, and Cael Jovil-Cohen. I guess you may call me Elior Cohen-Jovil as well, for the sake of consistency," he sneered the last derisively.

The woman paused, non-plussed by the tangle of names. "My apologies. You introduced yourself as Grenmeyer on your recent social media update," she said to Ashlynn.

"Convenience," Ashlynn shrugged unapologetically. She had, but she had been using her family name to invoke the werewolf connection. Maybe she was Mrs Grenmeyer-Cohen-Jovil, she thought to herself. Politically it covered all bases. Something, she added, to discuss with her mates at another time.

"Join us for a walk," Elior gestured the woman to proceed them down the hall.

"Mr Cohen, I am certain that time has progressed to the point that I need my devices in order to report in," she said, but she complied and led the way towards the stairwell.

Cael opened the door for her. "Thank you," she said to him in automatic politeness. The devil leered threateningly, his pretty features contorting into something feral and very unsafe, and the human reacted accordingly, gasping and scuttling ahead of him in a flight for escape.

"Up," Elior corrected her when she started down the stairs. "We have to go up, Ms Devereaux."

"Is that where my devices are?" She asked him, starting up the stairs obediently, her steps hasty and her eye on Cael.

"You will want to increase your pace. We have," Elior checked his wrist piece. "Twenty minutes, and twenty-seven flights of stairs."

"Mr Cohen, you are joking," she looked over her shoulder at him, appalled out of her fear.

"You might wish to discard your shoes," he recommended mildly.

She did so and set her pencil skirt to straining as she hurried up the stairs. "Mr Cohen," she said, slightly out of breath. "What is your response to our proposal?"

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"I have twenty minutes until I am required to answer that," he replied.

Up the stairwell, Ashlynn could hear the deep voices of the gargoyles. They were enough ahead of them that they were out of sight, although their conversation and laughter drifted down to them echoing off the concrete walls in deep tones, the seduction in their Other raising the hair along her arms.

Looking up, she saw Nate peer down the hollow between the banisters, gauging their location.

"Ten minutes," Elior said on the eighteenth floor. "That is approximately one stairwell per minute, Ms Devereaux until our time is up."

"Mr Cohen!" The woman was red faced and gasping, her hair tumbling from its bun, and her shirt plastered to her with sweat. The seam of her pencil skirt had split at the vent extension, and her jacket had been discarded six flights before. "I protest!"

"Nine minutes," he smiled.

She put the final push in, trotting up the stairs, and burst out onto a roof busy with gargoyles and Elior's three children wincing as the rough concrete under foot tore through her stockings and into the pads of her feet. Rebecca stepped over to Elior and handed him a phone with calm indifference, as if there was not time frame to their flight.

Elior passed it to the ambassador, who was doubled over, her hands braced on her knees, as she fought for breath. "There you are Ms Devereaux. You may report in."

"Your answer Mr Cohen!" She pleaded, dialing the phone and holding it to her ear as someone literally clutching at a lifeline.

The gargoyles began to take shift and take flight, their wings catching the air, the whomp of their strokes impressively loud, causing them to lift their heads to watch the spiralling flight as they rose into the sky.

Ashlynn saw Nate clinging to the broad shoulders of a monkey gargoyle, his expression miserable. Jacinta looked happier, born aloft like a child in the arms of a dragon gargoyle who murmured seductively into her ear as he lifted her aloft. Laughter followed them.

Rebecca stood on the lip of the roof, waiting for Elior to conclude his conversation. Dior waited at her side ready to carry her into the air.

"My goodness!" Ms Devereaux exclaimed watching as the gargoyles filled the sky around the building, deliberately circling like birds of prey in order to impress upon the humans below with their number and ability. "What are they!" "Gargoyles, Ms Devereaux," Elior told her, his face lifted to the sky. His smile was broad. "Isn't it a magnificent sight? It has been a long time since I have seen so many gargoyles in flight."

"Wings," Cael murmured to Ashlynn, taking her by the elbows and easing her towards the lip of the building's roof.

"Oh, yeah." She had been so taken by the sight of the gargoyles, like Elior, that she had forgotten. She tensed as the wings pushed out of her skin and groaned in the pleasure of their release flicking her feathers out.

"Oh my god," Ms Devereaux breathed, the extension of both Ashlynn and Cael's wings catching her eye.

"Two minutes, Ms Devereaux," Elior prompted, drawing her attention back to him. He smiled sweetly. "And as to what my response is... You can tell them that they can go f-k themselves." He stepped up to Cael, and the devil put his arms around him, winked at the astounded woman, and stepped off the edge of the roof.