Rafe's Mate

by Rianne Thaxton

  “Now,” Rafe growled, with Slater nodding and pulling out onto the road. The sun was beginning to set, but Rafe was glad to see Slater kept his headlights off as they followed at a good distance.

  Soon, they pulled onto a main thoroughfare where traffic was heavier, but Slater managed to keep them close to Flagg. Luckily for them, Flagg was a stickler for giving signals, giving them plenty of warning to when he was turning. With each turn, a certainty grew inside Rafe as to their destination. The next turn confirmed it.

  “Javier’s.”

  “What?” Slater asked, giving him a quick glance.

  “The bastard has them at my brother’s home.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Bash said on a hiss while Max let out a low growl.

  “We’re going in a different way.” Rafe pointed ahead of them. “Take that turn and it’ll bring us to the backside of the property.”

  “Will do,” Slater said.

  The drive to the edge of Javier’s estate didn’t take long. Soon the four of them had shifted and had made it to the back of the house where Rafe shifted back to his human state. Thankfully this transition was effortless to him.

  He listened at the door, but only heard low murmurings from inside. He couldn't detect any of the voices belonged to Aubrey or Dex, but he told himself that didn’t mean anything. He searched around the base of the back door leading into the kitchen and found the obviously fake rock he was searching for under a real one.

  “Catherine thought this was the greatest thing,” he whispered with a sad smile as he picked it up. He slid the false bottom open, and the faint, lingering scent of his sister-in-law filled him along with the memory of the sun glinting off her shining red hair as she’d bent and put the fake rock outside the door, saying, “See.” She’d straightened and dusted off her hands. “You can’t even tell.” Rafe and Javier had shared a skeptical look before his brother had given his wife a smile and wrapped her up in a hug, whispering in her ear, “Of course you can’t, my love.”

  The key fell out into his hand. “Thank you, brother,” he murmured, “for indulging your wife.”

  He turned to the animals behind him. “Max, go to the front and wait for Flagg. Once he’s inside, give us a roar and then crash in through the front. When you do, we’ll be ready to come at them from behind.”

  The bear nodded his great head and took off, disappearing around the side of the house.

  “We’re going in here at the kitchen. After that, I only have one plan.” He gazed into the intelligent eyes of the jaguar and panther. “To get my mate and cub.” He turned and unlocked the door, quietly opening it before beginning his shift. His last words of, “It’s about to get bloody,” ended on a hiss as his panther slipped silently into the house with his companions behind him.

  10

  A low moan left Aubrey as she came to with her aching head bowed, her thoughts fuzzy, and her hands and feet almost numb from the bindings cutting into her wrists and ankles. What had she been hit with? She grimaced at the throbbing pain that had settled in her mid-back as she slowly opened her eyes. She barely lifted her head to a darkening room lit only with a few portable lanterns scattered about. No one was close by, but the murmur of conversation just out of sight told her she wasn’t truly alone.

  She had to think. But it was hard to make sense of what was happening. She had left the movies with—

  Dex!

  Where was he? Her heart stuttered as she frantically searched what she could see of the room. Being tied the way she was, she couldn’t really maneuver, and her position in the corner of a large sofa obstructed most of her field of vision. God, what if they’d hurt him? She would never be able to live with herself if something had happened to him.

  Never.

  She tugged at the bindings at her wrists and was about to call out his name when the voices grew louder. So she bowed her head again right as two men entered through the arched opening.

  “Why should we wait? I’d just as soon get it over with.”

  She remembered that voice. He had been the handsy one with her butt as he’d carried her to the truck.

  “Well, we aren’t killing anybody right now,” said another one of the men she recognized from earlier. “Besides, he told us to wait.”

  Her shoulders sagged in relief.

  Okay. Dex has to be alive. Calm down. Now think—just not about the waiting to kill us part.

  She peered up through her lashes and sections of hair falling across her face and then took a deep breath of hot, stale air as she attempted and get a better look around. The room was spacious but nearly barren with the few pieces of furniture covered with white dust cloths. Whoever’s house this was, it hadn’t been lived in for a while. The whole place held a sense of abandonment—despair.

  But how long had she been here? Wherever here was.

  Dim light filtered across the floor through one of the heavily curtained windows. They’d left the late matinee at a little after four o’clock. But what time was it? As hungry as she was, that had to be at least a couple of hours or more ago. Popcorn never stuck with her long.

  “And don’t you go getting any ideas about the woman.”

  Ideas?

  “You didn’t get a good feel of that ass like I did,” the first man said on a chuckle. “And I betcha that animal bastard has had a taste of it anyways. So since she’s already been mounted, why not—”

  “That’s enough, Norman.” The other man let out a disgusted breath before muttering, “And we call them animals.” The one she figured was in charge passed in front of her and sat in one of the armchairs. “Just sit your ass down. If you’d just done what the boss told you the last time and killed the kid when you did the woman, we wouldn’t have to be in this hot damn house waiting for him.”

  A small whimper sounded behind her.

  Is that Dex?

  “And now we’re stuck cleaning up your mess because you couldn’t even get that right.”

  The one he’d called Norman huffed and threw himself in one of the covered chairs. “I couldn’t find that damn kid.”

  “Of course you couldn’t. You were too busy getting your dick wet.”

  “Wasn’t that wet,” Norman muttered. “And where’s dumb and dumber?

  “Larry’s in the john and Sonny’s outside waiting on the boss.”

  “I wish he’d hurry his ass up,” Norman said. “I’m gettin’ damned tired of waitin’. Gotta be a fuckin’ hundred and twenty degrees in here. And you,” he said hollering toward Aubrey, “Quit yer squirmin’ around.”

  She hadn’t moved a muscle. So hopefully he was yelling at Dex. Okay, she could… Could…

  Who was she kidding? She could do nothing. A door opened from what she assumed was the front of the house, with a man’s booming voice coming closer. “…and then it’s finished.”

  That same, strange, kittenish growl she’d heard from Dex outside the theater came from behind her. She didn’t dare look up, but she could make out two sets of male legs—one in what looked she assumed were suit pants—who were joined by another man.

  “So, that’s her,” the man who must be the boss said with some disgust. “Filthy animal lover.” She closed her eyes as he slowly approached her.

  Okay, Aubrey, just pretend you—

  The unexpected hard slap across her cheek snapped her head to the side as she cried out.

  “Yeah,” he laughed as she raised her watering eyes to a gray-haired man who in other circumstances might have reminded her of someone’s grandfather. But this wasn’t other circumstances, and the man’s contemptuous gaze was anything but kind as he wiped his hand on his pant leg. “Figured you were awake.”

  An even louder, deeper growl sounded.

  The man glanced over her head and sneered before raking his gaze up and down her bound body. “What do you expect,” he said. “It’s what you get when you breed with a soulless abomination.”

  She cleared her throat and glared at the man. “I have no i
dea what you’re talking about.”

  “Navarro.”

  She glared up at him. “What does Rafe have to do with any of this?” And then realization hit her. “You’re Flagg. You killed…” She shook her head in disbelief. “Why?”

  “Why? She asks,” he said turning and laughing, with the men behind him joining in. Then he sobered and gave her a hard speculative look. “You really don’t know. Do you?”

  “No. I have no—”

  A sudden crash followed by a terrible roar sounded from the front of the house seconds before a giant black bear rushed into the room on all fours. He then stood on his hind legs with a bellow that rattled the windows. Curses filled the air as Flagg’s already scrambling lackeys grabbed five-foot poles stacked on a nearby coffee table, each with a small black box attached to the end. The bear’s massive jaws opened in what could only be described as a growling sneer as he swiped out with his claws and knocked the device from the first man jabbing one at him.

  “Don’t just stand there! Get him,” Flagg yelled as two of the other men rushed the bear. One connected to the bear’s flank, the box sparking blue. A pained scream left the bear as the other man set his to the animal’s chest with the same effect, sending the bear to the ground where they continued to press the taser-type weapons hard into his body and laughing.

  “Not so tough now. Are you?” the first man who’d attacked the bear jeered as he picked up his tasered weapon and held it to the animal’s head.

  “Stop it,” she yelled as she struggled with her bindings and her frantic gaze went back and forth between the bear and Flagg. She scooted to the edge of her seat and attempted to stand. “They’re killing him!”

  Flagg chuckled, “That’s the—”

  Yowls and hisses came from the hallway, and Flagg quickly tensed as his men backed away from the bear.

  What’s going on?

  “Watch out!”

  Aubrey wasn’t sure which man had shouted, but her heart stilled as a large jaguar leapt from beyond the room’s entryway and took down one of the men who had been tasing the bear. The man shrieked as the animal’s strong jaws locked onto his forearm and his pole clattered to the floor. “Ahhh… Get this thing off me,” he hollered. The other two men lifted their tasered weapons toward the jaguar with Norman rushing forward with his own weapon.

  But then Norman quickly stopped and took a couple of steps back, as did the other men still standing. Two black panthers appeared in the archway, their sleek bodies prowling around the bear. The biggest of the two stopped to sniff the downed animal before chuffing and focusing his narrowed gaze on the three men.

  “Oh my…” Aubrey’s quiet gasp of recognition was drowned out by the man screaming incoherently as the jaguar shook him by his arm. Flagg barked orders for his men, “Kill the abominations!”

  “How is he here?” she whispered as the panther from her dreams joined the second one and closed in on the three men standing ready with their weapons in front of them. The horrific crunch of bones sent bile racing up the back of her throat as she pulled her attention to where the jaguar had the man pinned beneath him. The man beat his free fist against the jaguar’s head but then let out a blood-curdling scream as the flesh of his lower arm tore and then ripped away. With a final twist and pull from the jaguar, it separated from his body.

  Aubrey swallowed hard as her mouth watered with the need to vomit as the jaguar carelessly dropped the man’s severed limb beside his head and left him there. Her eyes remained transfixed on the gruesome sight as the man screamed and held his mangled arm to his chest while he writhed on the floor in a spreading pool of his own blood.

  “Get back!”

  She whipped her gaze around at the man’s yell. The jaguar had joined the panthers, and the one she thought of as her own culled Norman from the others, cornering him against the fireplace. Her eyes lifted to a giant portrait of a family sitting in a sunlit field hanging over his head. Her nose and eyes stung at the smiling image of Dex sitting on the lap of a radiant, laughing, red-haired woman holding him close while a man similar in looks to Rafe had his arms wrapped around the two from behind as he kissed the woman’s cheek.

  Dex and his parents.

  Suddenly the dying man’s last gasping cries meant nothing to her and she blocked them out.

  “That’s right, you hairy bastard,” Norman said as he shoved the electrified ends of the taser at the panther without connecting to the prowling, hissing animal. “You ain’t gettin’ me.”

  Too much was happening at once as she reluctantly pulled her gaze to where the jaguar and second panther had backed the other two men into the entryway. One of them dropped his weapon as he tripped and fell over Max’s naked body…

  “Max?”

  She stiffened and scooted almost to the edge of her seat.

  Beside her Flagg muttered, “Idiots,” as the fallen man scrambled backward in a crab crawl before turning onto his hands and knees. Then he stumbled to his feet before running toward the front of the house with the jaguar giving chase.

  “You fucking coward,” the man who had been in charge earlier yelled toward where the man had disappeared before once more facing the growling second panther who never got close enough to be touched by the taser. What could have been a laugh sounded from the animal as he taunted the man who backed away some more while keeping his footing as he stepped over Max’s legs.

  The man’s terrified gaze went to Flagg as screams came from outside. His features hardened before finally saying, “Fuck this.” He too dropped his weapon and ran but not toward the now-silent front of the house. He ran in the opposite direction with the panther taking off after him. The man obviously didn’t get far as his pleas for mercy ended on an agonized shout of “No, d—”

  “Navarro,” Flagg said, still standing next to her. The man hadn’t budged, except to pull a gun he held by his side she’d been too busy to notice. It now glinted in the corner of her eye. “If you’re going to kill him, kill him.” He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Really, hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s not polite to play with your food.”

  Her gaze went back to her panther. Then her eyes widened as Norman froze and turned his hate-filled eyes on Flagg, saying, “What’re you doin’?”

  “Rafe,“ she whispered,

  The panther’s ears perked but he didn’t move his focus away from the man in front of him.

  “This is on you,” Flagg said. “All because you couldn’t do one simple job. Besides,” he said, his tone bored, “this saves me the trouble of killing you myself.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Norman said as his eyes darted to the archway and then back to Flagg. “I ain’t dyin’ for you or no stupid cause. It ain’t worth it.” He threw the tasered weapon at Rafe and took off in a sprint. But he only managed a few feet before the panther leaped after him and took him down from behind while grabbing his head in strong jaws. The panther bit his incisors deep into his skull—effectively ending Norman’s screams and his life.

  The panther shook Norman’s lifeless body back and forth before dropping him and turning to Aubrey, his narrowed gaze going to the side of her still-stinging face before letting out a growl.

  She traced her eyes over the panther she had captured hundreds of times in her art. And while surreal, this was no dream. A tentative smile spread over her face, but it was cut short when cold metal pressed against her temple. The panther crouched, ready to spring as the other panther and jaguar prowled into the room. Both of them were bloody and moved to flank Rafe.

  “None of you will get to me before I blast a hole in her head.”

  Her panther chuffed and then gazed into her eyes as his body tensed, grew, and then changed. But not into a human Rafe—the man from her dreams—but into something more than a human.

  More than an animal.

  Her gaze lifted higher and higher as the man beside her choked out, “It’s true,” before pulling the gun from her head and pointing it with a shaking hand at the massi
ve creature stretching out his long-limbed body and giving himself a full body shake.

  “Holy crap,” she murmured as her wide eyes took all of him in—from the hard angles of the creature’s panther-like face, down his body covered in a sleek coating of fine black fur, to the oversized paws at the base of his elongated and lifted feet. At a height dwarfing the size of an average human and almost touching the nine-foot ceilings, he was a lot to take in.

  The creature flexed his long fingers tipped with razor-sharp, three-inch claws as he moved forward. “You touch what’s mine. You kill my family,” he said low as his bright amber gaze raked over the other man. “You die.”

  Her eyes widened even more at the fact the creature—no Rafe—could talk. It was almost a guttural rasp and spoken through teeth reminiscent of something from the Jurassic era. While she should have been frightened, she wasn’t.

  I’ve got silver bullets in here,” Flagg said, his false bravado evident in his tremulous voice as he jabbed the gun at Rafe. “Not all the legends are based in fact, but we know this one’s true.”

  “Shoot me. You still die,” Rafe growled as he moved even closer. The jaguar and panther prowled further out to surround Flagg. “My mate. My cub. They live no matter.”

  I am his mate.

  Aubrey didn’t have time to process what that meant or why her heart told her it was the truth, because at that exact moment Rafe’s eyes flashed to hers, determination in their amber depths. He was going to sacrifice himself for her and Dex. His pointed ears twitched and the other animals moved closer with his low chuff.

  She couldn’t let him die. Dex needed him.

  “No!” she cried out and bounded up from her seat as movement from all sides rushed toward her and Flagg. The distraction was enough, as Flagg’s attention went to her for that split-second she needed to fall into his gun arm he had raised.

  Rafe’s roar split the air as several shots rang out, and she tumbled to the floor while growls and bedlam went on above her.

  “Don’t kill him,” Max’s weak words sounded from across the room as she turned on her side. “We need him alive.”