Page 90 of Red Boar's Baby

Needing to see better, she leaped into the air and landed on the hood of one of the SUVs with a thump. The metal dented under her feet.

From here she could get a better look at the fighting going on around her. To her amazement, they did have reinforcements now. She saw a horse—Jessie—rearing and kicking someone, and another of the invaders was being chased by a crocodile.It was total chaos now, with people scattering, being attacked by animals, and running into traps whenever they left the road. Diana smelled blood and saw one guy down with what looked like a spear through his leg.

She spotted someone else lining up a shot on Costa. Diana leaped at him, stabbing him in the back with her beak and knocking him down where she could stomp on him a few times.

And then suddenly it was over, the noise and wild commotion dying away to groans and the sound of someone—that was definitely Caine’s voice—barking orders.

A light snapped on. Headlights were illuminating them again, but this time it was Delgado climbing down from the driver’s side of the SUV where she had just lit up the scene. Diana saw both of the interns—Fifi looked terrified as she held a gun on a prisoner up against the side of the Hummer, while Jessie was gleefully kneeing someone in the back while she cuffed him and read him his rights.

“Diana!” Costa shouted.

Diana started toward him without remembering what she currently looked like, until she realized she was looking down at him, and Costa was staring at her.

“Whoa!” someone said.

Diana cocked her head to the side, looking at Costa, who reached out a careful hand and touched the side of her beak. For an instant it seemed as if she had forgotten how to shift, and then she did it in a rush. The transformation was different when she was this big; rather than the world suddenly shrinking around her as she got much bigger, her change in perspective was negligible, except that Costa had his hand on her cheek and she was naked.

He seized her in his arms, and she clung to him, shaking.

Caine arrived out of seemingly nowhere, shrugging out of his dark suit jacket. He held it out, and Diana untangled from Costa’s embrace and put it on. It was big enough to hang over her hips and provide at least some semblance of coverage.

“Where is everyone else?” Costa asked. “Who’s here?”

“I brought all the available personnel I could get together on short notice, and we came in the fast way,” Caine said. “The sheriff’s department is coming by road, because they had a cruiser a lot closer than the SCB, so better get the shifters buttoned up. SCB backup will be here later tonight. Your, er, informant was very clear on the need for prompt action, and I can see why.”

Vic appeared, naked except for a borrowed jacket. So that had been the crocodile, Diana thought. “Sorry, boss, I know we were supposed to stay at the ranch house, but it looked like some help was needed.”

“Thanks,” Costa told him. “How’s everyone at the house?”

“Fine when I last saw them. One of your aunts is keeping watch over the kids with a shotgun, and another one is—uh, around here somewhere, in her shifted form. She seemed to be having a good time trampling people.”

Right, Diana thought, Costa’s whole family were boar shifters, and it seemed the females weren’t that much smaller than the males.

“Well, I’ll give him this—Farley came through for us,” Costa admitted. He looked at Diana. “Jenny and Jay?”

Diana grinned. “Just fine. They’re in the storm cellar.” Her whole body was thrumming with adrenaline, and she never thought she’d be this willing to admit that she didn’t really mind being injected with an experimental shifter drug if it did this to her.

“Everyone else is okay?” Costa asked, the question more or less generally directed to Vic and Caine.

“Everyone’s okay,” Vic confirmed.

Costa put an arm around Diana, and she leaned against him. “Okay, let’s get this mess cleaned up, send someone up to Jenny’s to give them the all-clear, and find out what on Earth just happened.”

CHAPTER29

“They’re hired mercenaries,”Caine said.

He, Costa, and Diana were sitting on the porch of the ranch house with cups of coffee as night began to fade, the sky lightening to gray above them and details beginning to emerge from the darkness.

The ranch was a whirlwind of activity as SCB agents cleaned up the scene and ushered handcuffed suspects to two vans. The aunts and Uncle Rodrigo had gone to bed after being debriefed—very eagerly debriefed, as they were happy to talk about their part in all the excitement. Uncle Roddy had been especially delighted and vindicated by the success of his traps.

Costa was starting to experience the adrenaline crash that usually came in the wake of frantic activity, and could feel weariness creeping up on him, a reaction to the last few days as well as the previous night.

“Mercenaries hired by whom?” he asked, realizing that his attention was drifting. Diana’s hand rested on his arm; she had moved her chair close to his. That was distracting, as well.

“Still working on that,” Caine said. “But it’s definitely related to the underground shifter fights.” His gaze, behind the sunglasses he was wearing in spite of the fact it was barely dawn, dropped to Diana’s hand resting on Costa’s arm and then flicked away. “Oh, and with everything else going on, I haven’t had a chance to tell you this yet. You will be interested to know there’s been some headway on getting information out of the scientists and other personnel arrested at the lab in Alamagordo. Specifically, they know what the substance is that Diana was injected with. Maybe not its exact composition, but what it’s meant for.”

There was a small gasp from Diana, and her hand tightened on Costa’s arm. “What is it?”

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