ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection)

by C. J. Ayers

  Lillian slumped down to the ground and started to listen intently. She closed her eyes, because they weren’t useful in the pitch-black darkness anyway. Lillian strained her ears to try and hear in the faraway distance. At first, she noticed the drip drip drip of some water on the far side of the room. That was good information. Then, Lillian was startled when she heard groaning nearby.

  Very quietly, Lillian stood back up, and made her way over to where she thought she heard the groaning noise. She felt her way along the stone wall and was surprised to find that the texture of the wall changed into plywood on that side. Someone on the other side of the wall was groaning. Maybe it was a trick her captors were using to try and get more information out of her, but it could also be someone in a similar predicament.

  Lillian leaned her ear up against the plywood and started to listen quietly. The moaning was so garbled that she couldn’t quite make out of the voice belonged to a male or female. Yet, for a moment, terror shot through her body. For a second, she imagined that it was Caleb moaning on the other side of the plywood wall. Lillian wanted to say something. She needed to know if it was him. Her mind was starting to play tricks on her in the darkness, and Lillian needed to have some sense of certainty about her environment, no matter how small.

  Instead of speaking, Lillian raised her fist and softly knocked on the plywood wall four times in a row. The groaning stopped immediately. The person on the other side of the wall seemed to be listening, or waiting for her to make a second move. Lillian took a deep breath and knocked decisively again. Then she heard some kind of movement on the other side of the wall. It wasn’t walking—no; the person on the other side was crawling over to the plywood. This time, four knocks came from the other side of the wall. “Caleb, is that you?” Lillian whispered. There was no response.

  After a long while, she knocked twice and the person on the other side of the plywood wall copied her. Lillian’s heart sank and leapt for joy all at once. Caleb would not have reacted that way. If it were him over there, surely he would have said something to her. Inwardly, she felt despair—yet she forced herself to try and be glad for him too. It was a good thing that he hadn’t also been kidnapped. Yet, a part of her selfishly had hoped that he was there with her. She could face almost anything with Caleb by her side. Yet, he wasn’t by her side. He was probably back in bed, or sitting on the front steps wondering why she had left him without so much as an explanation. He was probably heart-broken or feeling regretful about their little make-out session.

  Finally, Lillian worked up enough courage to try and say something to the person on the other side of the wall. “Hello,” Lillian whispered. There was a pause on the other side, and then a cough. “Hello,” a male voice answered cautiously. Lillian could tell by his accent that he wasn’t a native English speaker. His voice reminded her of a friend she’d met from the Honduras. “Who are you?” Lillian asked. The man on the other side of the wall took a deep sigh, as if he had to consider how to answer this question for a long time. Lillian could hear him sucking at the air. Then slowly, he answered her. “My name is Armond,” he said in his beautiful accent. “Armond, do you know what this place is or why we’ve been brought here?” Lillian asked.

  Armond surprised her with a chuckle. “I took my wife on vacation in Brazil three years ago and she had a heart attack while jogging on the beach. Soon after, some men showed up in the hotel room, and then I woke up here. No explanation—no nothing. I’ve been in here for over three years.”

  Lillian’s face twisted. All this time she’d assumed that they were in a basement located in Kansas City, but in reality they could have been anywhere in the world. There was another thing that terrified her about Armond’s story—he’d been there for such a long time, and no one had found him.

  Lillian looked around; her eyes were unable to see in the darkness. She wondered if Armond had spent those three years in the same impossible darkness. “My wife was a beautiful woman,” Armond added, almost as an after-thought.

  Lillian got to work. “We need to figure out why we’ve been captured, Armond. Do you have any ideas? What kind of work do you do? I need you to tell me as much as you can about this place.” Lillian whispered. There was another pause on the other side of the wall as Armond considered Lillian’s words. He too worried that this could be some kind of trick—yet at this point, it didn’t really matter. They had already taken everything from him, and he had nothing left to lose.

  “I’m no one special. I’ve never done anything remarkable during my entire life.” He said, sounding defeated. “Why do you think these people took notice of you?” Lillian pressed him. She could hear his voice crack slightly on the other side of the wall—something about it made her think of Caleb and long for his touch. He would know what to do. He would have at least formulated some kind of plan by now. “I never did anything special. I just fixed cars for a living and kept to myself mostly,” Armond said. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I guess it doesn’t matter much because she’s dead anyway…my wife worked for the Secret Service. She was the smart one. She was brilliant.”

  Lillian nodded to herself—now they were getting somewhere. So, perhaps this was an attempt to get information out of them, or maybe ransom from the United States. “Has anyone else come and gone, since you’ve been here Armond?” Lillian asked. He made a slight sound before answering, and Lillian could tell that the topic pained him greatly. “There have been a few that have come and gone from the room you’re in now, and a few that have come and gone on the other side of my other wall. I’m in the middle of two rooms. There might be more, but I know there are at least three.”

  Lillian nodded, making a mental note of this information. Now, she had at least some kind of an idea of the layout of the place. She had only one plywood wall, which meant she must have been at the end of some kind of corridor. There were at least three rooms to her left, and probably nothing but solidly packed dirt to her right.

  “How do they give you food and water, Armond?” Lillian asked. “It comes from a trap door above us,” he said. “When do they feed us? Is there a schedule?” Lillian asked eagerly. “There seems to be no pattern to it at all,” he said sadly. “What do you think this place is?” Lillian asked. Armond paused for a minute. “I think it’s two things actually,” he said. “I think it’s some kind of a betting ground—some kind of an illegal ring to make money, and I also think it’s a convenient way to murder the people you need to get out of the way,” Armond spoke sadly.

  Lillian was surprised by his answer. “If this were some kind of a killing ground, I’d think the turn-around would be pretty high. You’ve been here for three years,” Lillian said, trying to sound confident. His voice grew quiet, “You haven’t heard the things I’ve heard. This is a bad place,” Armond said—more to himself than to Lillian.

  Suddenly a slot opened up in her ceiling and a small bag dropped down. The bag contained a bottle of water and some kind of sandwich. “I just got some food,” Lillian said to Armond. “Smell it first,” he said. “Sometimes they use the food to drug you, and when that happens people don’t usually come back.”

  Lillian lowered her nose to the sandwich inside the plastic baggie. It smelled like some kind of disgusting bologna. There was no mustard and no mayonnaise—just a single piece of lunchmeat slapped between two dry pieces of stale bread. Lillian could smell the preservative in the meat, and the salt…but there was nothing that had a decisively chemical scent to it, and so she bit into the sandwich impulsively.

  The water was a bit more suspect. The plastic seal around the lid of the water bottle was already broken, and the water had a strange taste to it. Had Lillian been able to see in the darkness, she might have been able to read the brand of the water—thereby helping her make some determinations about her location.

  As Lillian munched down on her sandwich, she asked more questions. “Do they ever turn the lights on?” she asked. Armond coughed in the darkness. His cough sound
ed faraway and desolate. “Don’t eat all of your food at once. I know it’s tempting, but you need to ration your food and water. It could be days before they come back,” he said. His words seemed to spring her back into reality. She had already consumed over half of the sandwich, but she stuffed the remainder back into the plastic bag. “If you leave a little piece out, you might be able to catch a rat for extra protein,” Armond sighed again. Lillian thought of Caleb. Surely, he would know what to do. At the very least, she would feel safe enclosed in his muscular arms.

  When Caleb saw the envelop with the photo of Lillian inside of it, his mind went into a panic. Obviously, she had been kidnapped—but who had done this, and why? Was all of this happening because of the stupid Chachi mystery? It didn’t make any sense. There had to be something more. Lillian hadn’t done anything to anyone. Was someone using her to try and make him suffer? A multitude of questions whirled through his head.

  Caleb sat down at the kitchen table and clutched the photograph. She’d only been gone for a few hours, which ruled many places out geographically speaking. Even if they had traveled away by plane, only a smattering of places were so nearby. This ruled Europe and various other continents out.

  Caleb studied the photo. His eyes kept being drawn back to Lillian’s battered face. Though her eyelids were slightly parted, she didn’t look conscious in the photo. The photo had been taken outside. There were a few plants. Maybe if he could identify the plants that would give him a better idea of her location. Also, in the photo it was dark—yet 2 hours hadn’t been enough time for Lillian to cross into a different time zone. Moreover, it was a Polaroid—which meant that the photograph had been taken at her exact location, and then brought back to the kitchen table. She was nearby. The round-trip had been made in less than 2 hours, which meant Lillian was probably somewhere very close, and more than likely still alive.

  Caleb racked his brain thinking of solutions. In order to find out where Lillian was, it would certainly help to know why she was taken. Caleb brought the photo into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa. Why would someone kidnap her? The word “checkmate” at the bottom of the photo definitely hinted that the motive was personal. Was there someone who had a recent grudge with him? Maybe an old adversary? Caleb’s stomach flipped over and seemed to turn sour. He didn’t have many enemies in this dimension, but in the ghost-world, he had made more adversaries than he could even count. There was something about the timing of it that didn’t sit right with him. First, the little boy—the mess with Chachi, and now this? Was it possible that everything could be related somehow? Caleb reached over to the telephone. He was going to have to call in a few friends at the department for help with this one, and he didn’t want to waste any time. The experts needed to start analyzing the photograph right away. Caleb pulled the phone up to his ear.

  When he did so, the line was dead. Caleb looked around, scanning the room for a weapon. He’d assumed that the kidnappers had meant to take only Lillian…yet now a terrible possibility slowly descended upon him. The word “checkmate” might have been intended for him. He might be the one in fatal danger. Caleb’s heart raced.

  Caleb usually carried some kind of Department 99 weaponry. It was very rare for him to be in any situation without at least a gun holstered around his waist, yet here he was. No gun downstairs. The gun was upstairs next to a pile of crumpled up clothes, and had been thrown off and tossed aside in the heat of passion last night. Caleb held his breath for a moment as the sound of soft footsteps approached.

  Lillian had learned more about Armond than she had ever known about anyone. Unfortunately, there was really nothing to do in collective basement cells except to talk. Mostly, Armond seemed happy to have a kind ear. Though he’d been in the basement for over three years, he’d seen other guests come and go. Unfortunately, he’d spent the better part of the last six months locked up alone.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Lillian. “Who was in this cell before I was brought here?” She asked him through the plywood wall. Armond paused a while, and for a minute it didn’t seem as though he was willing to answer her question. “It was a young boy,” Armond finally said. Lillian’s stomach flipped over. A young boy? What kind of ruthless organization would capture a young boy and keep him in such horrible conditions? “They said they were releasing him into the killing fields and then, he was gone. I heard him screaming as they were carrying him off. It was terrible. He was shouting for his father and for me. I never heard his voice again after that.” “Do you remember the boy’s name?” Lillian asked. She felt guilty for pressing Armond for more information. Talking about this situation was clearly bringing him a great amount of pain, yet she had no choice. If they were going to survive, she needed as much information as possible.

  “The boy told me that his name was Lucas. He said that his mother had worked for some kind of department, hunting supernatural entities, but in reality, I think he’d gone insane. Something like that couldn’t possibly exist,” Armond stated blandly. Lillian’s stomach leapt up into her chest. She doubled over and threw up the few bites of sandwich that she had managed to swallow earlier. Whoever had kidnapped her, almost certainly had some kind of connection to Department 99. The connection to Department 99 and Armond’s wife, made Lillian think that this was related to Chachi somehow. Lillian lay back on the cool floor, trying to put all of the pieces together. She could hear Armond humming a tune to himself on the other side of the wall.

  Lillian closed her eyes. Her thoughts wandered back to Caleb. His body had felt so good pressed against her own. She wondered what he was doing. He was probably rallying the troupes at Department 99, perhaps getting a team ready to come and find her. Then, Lillian’s eyes blinked open. She thought about the phrase that Armond had used earlier to describe where the young boy whose cell she now occupied had been taken: the killing fields.

  Caleb grabbed a paperweight up off of the table. He clutched it in his strong fist, ready to kill whoever rounded the corner and entered the living room. The footsteps were moving slowly and had almost reached a stop near the entrance to the room where he was located. Caleb’s back was pressed up against the wall and his heart hammered away within his chest. Finally, the footsteps stopped. It was now or never.

  Caleb leapt from behind the wall and tackled the figure in the frame, sending him clattering to the floor. Caleb was drunk with fear and just started to punch the person’s head repeatedly, until eventually, a vague sort of recognition took hold. It was Killian Marshall—one of Department 99’s best agents. Killian was also a vampire. Killian pushed forward, knocked Caleb off of him, and sent him sprawling onto the ground with a loud thump.

  “If you’re behind this, vampire,” Caleb spat. “I got called out here because the department has been trying to reach both you and Lillian for the last hour. The agency is on lock-down. Someone stole a disease sample from the lab.” Killian barked.

  Caleb had never liked Killian, but his story certainly made sense. In addition, even though Caleb couldn’t stand him, there was no question that Killian was always on the up and up. He cared about human beings more than anyone Caleb had ever met.

  Caleb shoved the photo of Lillian into Killian’s hand. Killian made a panicked face for a moment, and then brought the photo up to his nose. Caleb hadn’t noticed, but there were a few drops of blood on the back of the photo. Killian started to sniff the drops of blood intensely. “You’re looking for two separate guys. One is a snake shifter, and the other is human…but he’s dying of liver failure.” Killian reached down to the radio at his waist and called a few orders in to those back at the base. The hunt was on.

  Caleb wasted no time. Even if he didn’t really have much of an idea of what was going on, snake shifters tended to live near small bodies of water. He had a hunch that he knew where to look.

  Lillian’s face still ached, but strangely enough, she forced herself to smile. If anyone could find her, it would be Caleb. She closed her eyes again, envisioning hi
s touch. She had felt so safe, so perfectly content in his arms as her body writhed beneath his muscular frame. She never imagined that she’d fall for a bear shifter, but Caleb was unlike so many of the other shifters. Sure, he was tough and strong, but he also had a sensitive side—a certain kindness about him.

  Caleb ran past Killian, almost knocking him over. “You douche-bag!” Killian called back as he struggled to regain his footing. Caleb was sprinting towards Killian’s black car, which was still running. He jumped inside and sped away, leaving a trail of brown dust, and a cussing Killian spitting in his direction. “You stupid cave-dweller!” Killian screamed, as Caleb sped away.

  Theft wasn’t really Caleb’s style, but if he wanted to save Lillian, he needed to act quickly. Caleb tried to access the touch-screen in Killian’s car. All of the agents had electronic address books, which could be accessed via email. If he could hack into Lillian’s email account, he might be able to take a peek at her address book, and maybe even her calendar. Finally, the miniature computer connected to the Department 99 server. Caleb typed in Lillian’s email address and then paused when he reached the password line. He had no idea what Lillian might use for a password.