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My claws dug into the armrest as the plane landed.

"Feeling nervous?" the tiger seated opposite him asked, looking amused.

"I don't like flying, okay? It doesn't matter how often I do it, I don't like it. If we were supposed to be in the air, we'd be birds."

"You don't think the fact we can use magic to fly makes it something we're supposed to do?" The tiger looked smug. "That's interesting."

"What I find more interesting is that you did sleep with anyone on this plane. I thought you Orrs couldn't resist sex." Tom had even told Damian he wanted to be fucked by him, but the tiger had turned him down.

The tiger shook his head. "Sahataan demands sacrifice."

"Wait, you sacrificed sex?"

"I didn't choose. I said Sahataan demands, not asks. He sets the terms, just like your god did. I have to abide by them."

"So no sex? Ever?"

Damian shrugged. "There are rituals I can perform to temporarily build my sex drive, but I don't see a point. Sex should be spontaneous, right?"

"I'll take sex any way I can get it."

"So I noticed," the tiger replied dryly.

My private jet wasn't like Max's. It was more business-oriented than sex-oriented. It was only one level, without a bedroom, or a giant shower. I was regretting the absence of that one. I'd bought it because I couldn't convince any of the families to come to Denver so I could hand them their secrets back. Max had gotten a dozen to come, before word spread he was doing it for me, and they stopped accepting.

Yay for being a Rasia.

So I'd had to go to them, and that meant flying since I wasn't taking weeks to cross the oceans by boat.

It meant that the cabin was crowded. Not a problem for sexually active men like us, but since Damian hadn't taken part, it had left him the lone person to watch a never-ending show. Even the pilot and copilot had joined in.

Martin was here, against my protest. Magdee had showed up at the airport screaming at me for not asking for her help, she'd chuckled when the sex started and took out her phone to read. Stephan wanted to come, but even with the healing phrase having down its work, I told him he needed the rest, but the truth was that I wasn't comfortable having him around while going after his old masters.

Tom had brought Kevin, also over my protest.

"He needs to get back into it, if you want him to be able to do the work," the badger said. And Kevin had told me he wanted to come. Mikael had wanted to come until Tom explained how time would be passed during the flight. Mikael was one of the straight men who worked for me. Jasmine would have come if her husband had, but the look she gave Tom was interesting. I suspected that if Tom ever considered trying to convert Mikael, she might be able to kill him, if Tom didn't see her coming.

Chimbo was another of Tom's pick, the Capybara was already trained, and his speed ability too useful to ignore. Dinaar, Pateiros, Balay and Ranjit rounded his picks. Dinaar and Balay weren't society, but they'd accepted that magic was real easily enough. They seemed to appreciate the sex phrases quite a lot.

Jeroen Lewiston was here at my insistence. He'd barely began his training, but his privacy power was too useful to pass up on. He'd readily joined in the sex, but the number of powerful men seemed to make him uncomfortable.

We debarked and tiger left the terminal and headed for us.

Damian leaned in. "Can you do me a favor and not mention my name yet? I don't think now is the time to explain my switching to a different god to my family."

"Won't he recognize you?"

"My brothers kept me apart from my nephews so I wouldn't 'corrupt' them."

"That's fine, the introductions can wait until we're at their place."

"Brislow," the approaching tiger greeted me frostily.

"Adam," I replied.

He looked everyone who was there over, raising an eyebrow at Magdee.

"My sister," I said. "If you don't want her here, you're welcome to try to convince her to leave, just tell me which hospital you want your unconscious body shipped to first."

"It's your life," Adam replied in a tone that made it clear he thought I was insane for keeping a woman around. "I have the cars, but no one told me you were bringing your very own army. I don't have enough free drivers to chauffeur everyone."

"We can drive ourselves."

"Do any of you know the city?"

"That's what phones are for."

The tiger snorted. "Follow me."

Adam lead us through the airport where airport security quickly started moving passengers out of our way. Or rather out of Adam's way, we were just along for the ride. We went through an Authorized Personnel Only door and downstairs to a rental car parking lot filled with new, expensive-looking, cars.

"Pick one and I'll send you the codes for it," Adam said.

"Just like that?" Martin asked.

Adam grinned at the cougar. "Why? You don't think they can measure up with whatever you drive back in Denver?"

"I'm more wondering who's going to come chasing me for having stolen one of their cars, since I doubt you're asking anyone's permission before freely handing them to us."

"One," the tiger said, "This is my city, by definition, the cars in it are mine. I just let other people drive them, so no one has a reason to bitch if I need to take one of them back."

"Somehow I doubt they feel the same."

"And two," Adam continued, "I am the owner of record for every car in here. I run movement logistic for my family, just what do you think that means, Cormoran? My fleet of cars can move anyone and everyone my brothers need moved. So why don't you stop complaining that I have better cars than you do and pick one already."

I left the two of them to glare at each other. Martin knew where we were going, he should have stayed home if he couldn't handle being around Adam again.

Tom was lovingly running a hand over a gray Arrow.

"I thought you were too old for a sports car," I commented.

"You're never too old for one. I just don't want one as my main car anymore. This is a special occasion. Adam, I'll take this one," The badger called. "Hop on it, Brislow."

"No thanks, I get enough of your nagging as it is. I'll ride with--" I looked around for someone I trusted behind the wheel. Normally I was fine riding with Martin, but I didn't trust him to not try to outdo the tiger.-- "Kevin." The otter was looking at a four-door sporty model I didn't recognize.

"I'll drive this one," Kevin said.

"How about you ride with me D--"

"I'll ride with Kevin too," Damian cut him off.

"Jeroen," I called the rat. "You're with me too."

"So you're forcing me to ride with a stranger?" Magdee asked.

"This is tactical, and you know Tom; ride with him."

"I'd rather have a guy," Tom replied.

Magdee eyed Jeroen. "What's tactical about this shrimp?"

"Well, as I don't work for you, that's my business and not yours. How about instead of making my life difficult, sis, you deal with your own problems? That Elk is still on my back to get you to talk to him."

"He wants me to--"

"I don't want to hear it, deal with it. Fuck, you're smart enough to come up with a compromise. Stop running away from your problems."

The car beeped, and I got in instead of listening to her answer.

Kevin joined me and slotted his phone in. Jeroen and Damian sat in the back.

"How can a cow be your sister?" the rat asked.

I glared at him, "You do know Brislow is my adoptive parent's name, right?" I snapped. He raised his hands defensively, and I went back to looking ahead.

"Where are we going?" Kevin asked.

"We're following him," I pointed to Adam who was getting in a sleek car. Martin was getting into another Arrow. I sighed, he was going to be a problem, I just knew it.

"Wow," Kevin exclaimed. "That's a Ferrari. I never saw one off the net before."

"Are you a car lover?" Damian asked.

"I've started learning about them since working for Mister Brislow."

"Denton," I said. "My name is Denton."

"You should take to Adam," Damian continues as if I hadn't said anything, "if you have a chance. He can teach you a lot of about them."

"Cool." Kevin got the car moving smoothly as we followed the Ferrari out of the parking lot.

* * * * *

The swerving brought me back to myself, and then I heard the cursing. With nothing to do during the ride, and nothing I wanted to talk about with Damian, I'd stepped out of my body and let the half-mile limit drag me about as I looked for indications of magic.

Kevin slammed on the breaks and a car nearly missed colliding with us.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Were you asleep for the last five minutes?" Damian replied. "This is the fourth time in that time someone tried to force us off the road."

"Carjacking?" I looked around just as someone fired at us. I ducked as streaks appeared in the windshield, but it didn't break, or even crack.

"No, this is more of an attack."

I looked at Kevin. "Are you okay?"

He gave me a tight nod, eyes darting left and right. Great, I told Tom he should have stayed in Denver. A car slammed into us from the back and the car skidded. Kevin brought it back under his control and accelerated. Then swerved out of the way when the brake lights on the car in front of us came on. It and the car that was chasing us collided.

I looked at Kevin, who was still focused on the road. Okay, maybe he was okay.

"That was good driving," came Adam's voice over the speakers.

"Who?" Kevin asked. "How are you talking to me, you didn't call my phone?"

"My car, my overrides. So, otter, how good are you at following instructions?"

Kevin glanced at me and I shrugged. Until I know what Adam was up to, I wasn't going to stop him.

"I'm okay at it."

There was a sigh. "I really hope you're more than okay at it because when I tell you to I need you to slam the breaks on hard."

"Why?"

"Cheetah, open your door."

"Adam, what are you--"

"Are you going to tell me your underlings are better at following instructions than you are?"

I opened the door, and it stayed opened in spite of the wind.

"Now otter!"

Kevin slammed the breaks on and the door exploded as a car rammed it to it.

"Floor it!" Adam said from his missing door and through mine. He kept up with us. I noticed there were holes in the other side of the car and he had bloody scrapes. "You, in the back seat."

I climbed into the back and Adam straddled the gap, staying there and looking behind us. I followed his gaze. Two cars were catching up to us, neither of us was one of ours.

As they tried to pass us Adam yanked on the Ferrari's steering wheel, sending it into one of them and he sat.

"That was cool," Kevin said.

"Cool? Really?" Adam reached under the dash. "How old are you? Forty?" He pulled out a gun and took the safety off. He leaned out of the car and fired three shots at the other car. It veered out of control. And Adam sat back down.

"That was badass!" Kevin explained.

"That it was." Adam smiled and put the safety back on. "Is everyone properly impressed?"

"Yes," Jeroen squeaked.

"So that's two out of four, I'll take it since the other two are old. I hope you were also impressed by your driver, he's good."

"Thanks," Kevin replied. "Martin's been teaching me."

"Really? The cougar?" Adam's tone became speculative. "He taught you to do that?"

"What happened to the others?" I asked.

"Don't know, don't care. Maybe you should call them and see if any of them survived?"

* * * * *

The place Adam directed us to was a building downtown, and not the Orr house I'd been to before. As Kevin eased the car into a spot, and the others did the same-- the only cars that had gotten damaged were Adam's Ferrari and ours-- Arnold walked toward us. Considering the surroundings, I'd expected a suit on him, but he wore his usual jeans and tank top.

"Since when do you let someone drive you?" He asked his brother.

"Since I haven't figured out how to make a Ferrari bulletproof. Those Nasa people have got to go something with carbon fiber that can stop a bullet while still being light. You'd think rocket scientist could do that."

"So the car chase Alex told me about, that was you?"

"No, it was whatever goons the dads hired to try to off these people. I just got stuck in the middle."

"And we all know how much you love that position," Arnold replied sarcastically. "Brislow, glad to see you made it through. Did you lose anyone?"

"Bumps and bruises from being tossed about."

"Bruises will happen when you bump too hard, or so the guys I fuck keep complaining about."

"Stop trying to be funny, Arnold," Adam said. "You already have enough to do."

"And who did you bring?" Arnold said, ignoring his brother. "I only recognize the badger."

I did the introductions, finishing with the tiger. "And that's Damian Orr, you might remember your uncle from when you guys saved him from me in Belize."

I smiled at the look of surprise on both their faces.