Sawyer's Hope

by Shelby Lynn

  Excerpt from Cody’s Nine Lives

  Panthera Agency - Book One – Coming soon!

  by Rae Brewer

  Prologue

  “Hey Felix, how many heat signatures did you say you were registering?” asked Markus. They were on their way to rescue Cody, the twin brother of Brody. Their brother Arturo was back at the hotel with Brody, his new mate, who was recovering from being poisoned.

  Using a conversation overheard by Arturo in his jaguar form, and the help of Cody’s coworkers at the place where he bartended, they had discovered the name of the man who had poisoned Brody and had most likely kidnapped Cody a week earlier.

  Luckily, Arturo and his brothers were owners and agents of the Panthera Agency. A security agency founded several generations back by their family.

  David Kern, their office manager had used his skills on the computer to track the guy down.

  The reconnaissance they’d completed earlier in the day had shown several unmoving heat signatures, they believed were additional captives.

  “The signatures overlapped a little so it was hard to tell. I’d guess four though at a minimum,” said Felix.

  They were approaching the back of the property belonging to Chaz Spellman as Oscar pulled the van off the road and into the trees. Mr. Charles Spellman, a.k.a., Chaz, lived in a rural area of Marin County, just north of San Francisco. They were sure that Chaz, who had inherited piles of money from his family, loved the privacy of his ten acre, walled, estate for his nefarious deeds. Now, that privacy would work against him.

  They had made a trip to the home improvement store earlier, as well as a security store, to pick up supplies. They didn’t need weapons, only supplies for breaking through the alarms and other estate security.

  Oscar disabled the interior lights earlier so when they opened the doors to exit the van, no lights came on. From this point, until they breached all the security and secured the house, they wouldn’t speak. As soon as they’d gotten a backpack of supplies over the wall, Felix and Marcus removed their clothes and shifted. They knew there wasn’t any overt security on the grounds—no dogs—no guards.

  Felix and Markus led the way with Oscar following behind with the supplies and their clothes. Oscar wasn’t merely acting as a pack mule, he was the head of the Panthera Agency and the eldest brother, and he directed the operations. Right now, he was watching his brothers’ backs. If there was any passive surveillance they’d missed, it would be his face, not theirs caught on film.

  Of course, as soon as they were in, it would be his pleasure to get the details of Mr. Spellman’s possibly, additional security measures out of the man—if there were any. Just thinking of it put a smile on his face. Anyone seeing that smile would know to run very fast and very far away.

  It took about ten to fifteen minutes for them to reach the house through the small wilderness at the back of the property. They hadn’t come across any additional security measures. Felix and Markus crouched down, holding perfectly still so as not to set off the motion sensitive outdoor lights. This is where their earlier surveillance and planning paid off.

  They knew where Chaz’s security installers failed. There was a slim gap where two sensors didn’t overlap. Using the slow stop and start movement associated with their shifter species Marcus moved forward, sliding in between the two sensors. When he reached the right spot, he leaped up to the overhanging eaves. Once there he moved around the side of the building, quickly shifting and disabling the motion sensors from above before shifting back into his jaguar form.

  He worked his way back to where his brothers stood waiting. Shifting back to human just in time as Oscar threw up a small bag of tools. He would need them to disarm the alarm system. Inside the bag, each tool was kept in its own elastic slot with a half-inch slice of foam keeping the two sides of the kit from touching. There was no rattle of tools or clinking of metal to bring them notice. Marcus slowly and silently climbed up the highest roof peak; the alarm box was at the apex of that wall.

  It’s a little chilly up here without the fur coat, Marcus thought as he lay down on the cold Spanish tiles to hang over the edge. He was still nude. He heard Felix make a quiet chuff sound as he dealt with the alarm, telling him to speed it up.

  David’s background search had been deep and thorough. Luckily, the house had been purchased only a year earlier, after the death of Chaz’s parents. David had been able to pull up the survey the company had done of the property before installation, so they were confident the new system was the only one. Of course, they’d still check, since they had been and would be shifting on the property, they couldn’t take the slightest chance of that being caught on tape.

  After the alarm had been dealt with, both Felix and Markus leapt back to the ground. Felix shifted and Markus stayed in jaguar form. Felix took a moment to put his clothes back on. Moments later, they were entering the house through a sliding door in the back. They split up, Oscar heading toward a part of the house where he could hear music playing with Markus following behind to back him up and help search. They didn’t think Chaz would be difficult to deal with—Oscar would easily subdue him. Then Markus would sniff out any of the poison he liked to use.

  Felix went down the hallway toward the room that held the single heat signature. If it held a victim then he would help, but there was the possibility it held an accomplice. In that case, Felix would make sure he was subdued before he freed the captives from the other room at the end of the hallway.

  Even in his human form, he walked softly, so he knew the person in the room would not hear him. When he reached the door, he tested the doorknob, and realized it was locked. The odds of finding an accomplice just went down. He pulled out his lock picks and went to work. Eleven seconds, a personal best, he thought as he slowly turned the knob.

  When he got the door all the way open he was shocked at what he saw. He couldn’t see the man’s face so he didn’t know if it was Cody, but he cringed at what he did see. The man was naked, bent over the end of a thin bed at the hip, his arms stretched up over his head, and his legs spread, resting on the floor near the bottom corners. He had chains linked to shackles on his neck, wrists, waist, and ankles. He had lash marks on his back, buttocks, and thighs.

  Even as Felix stood there in the doorway shocked at what he was seeing, he saw the man struggle against his restraints. The rattling of the chains brought him out of his stupor and he rushed forward.

  “Don’t be afraid, I’m here to rescue you,” said Felix as he approached the bed, “I’ll have these chains unlocked in a sec.” He wanted to touch the man’s shoulder to let him know things would be okay but was afraid to cause him any further pain.

  Cody heard what the man was saying and he could hardly believe it. He was trying to hold still as the effects of the paralytic poison that Chaz kept injecting him with wore off. He felt as if his skin was crawling with ants. As glad as he was to be rescued, he almost wished this guy hadn’t shown up. And just as soon as he could speak coherently, he would tell this guy that.

  He knew Chaz wouldn’t be back tonight, and within an hour, he’d be able to shift. He was looking forward to getting some revenge on that asshole.

  It only took about five minutes for Felix to unlock all of the shackles. When he helped the man up onto the bed, he saw that it was Cody.

  “Cody, am I ever glad we found you. Your brother has been really worried about you. Lucky for you both, he met his mate earlier in the evening,” Felix recognized Cody’s symptoms because they were the same as Brody’s symptoms had been. He pulled a flask out of his pack and had Cody swallow some brandy. The brandy acted as a counter agent to the poison.

  “Cody, do you think you could shift?” he asked.

  Cody looked into Felix’s eyes, “Not…yet…in a bit,” he whispered.

  “There are at least four more people in a room at the end of the hall, maybe six. Are you going to be okay for a couple of minutes? Oscar and Markus, my two brothers, have taken care of Chaz.
He won’t ever hurt you again,” Felix hurriedly added when he saw the panic in Cody’s eyes.

  “Don’t tell,” said Cody in a stronger voice.

  Felix didn’t have to ask what it was Cody wanted kept secret. He had no problem with promising his silence. He stayed another ten minutes telling Cody how their brothers had met and how Arturo and Brody were now mated. He filled Cody in on his brother’s condition, plus how they had found him, while he waited to make sure Cody was breathing steadily and regaining control of his body.

  “Go, help the others,” said Cody after a while, “I’ll be okay now. I’m going to shift and take a quick shower. Then I need to scrounge up some clothes or keep my fur.”

  “No worries, we’ve got some extra sweats you can borrow,” said Felix, “I’ll be back in a few.”

  Felix left the room and headed down to the end of the hall.

  At the other end of the house, Markus and Oscar were stalking their prey. They found him in a large living room watching a video. He was sitting sprawled over the couch as he faced the screen. There was a glazed look in his eyes as he lay back with his hands between his legs.

  They couldn’t see the screen but judging from his posture and what he was doing, he was probably watching some porno flick. Markus slowly inched across the carpet in the start-stop crouch of a stalking cat. He eyes never left the target as he made his way through the room. Oscar stood in the doorway, looking around for weapons and any other hazards that might be nearby. Markus had reached the front of the couch, just a couple of feet from his prey when Oscar spoke up.

  “I don’t think he likes you very much so you should probably avoid splattering your spunk all over him,” said Oscar.

  Chaz had thrown back his head and had picked up the speed of his strokes. At the sound of a voice, he turned his head.

  “Huh, wha—” he mumbled looking around. Just then, Markus let out a low growly howl and the man looked down and saw him. He froze in terror and immediately lost his erection. He made a startled movement when Oscar took a couple of steps into the room and then froze again when Markus made a slight movement toward him.

  Oscar walked around the back of the couch. He wasted no time as he clipped the man behind the ear with the side of his hand and knocked him unconscious. It only took a few moments to tie the guy up with plastic cable ties that he had ready in his back pocket. While he was careful not to cut off his circulation, he also wasn’t very concerned with being gentle as he remembered the suffering of his brother’s mate. He didn’t bother tucking and zipping, he wasn’t going near that guys junk with a ten-foot pole.

  Neither he nor Markus had paid any attention to the video on the screen, now that they had secured their objective, Markus shifted and reached for the pack holding his clothes. His back was to the screen and he wondered why Oscar wasn’t handing over his clothes. He looked into his face and saw the anger there.

  Turning around, Marcus looked at the screen and was shocked at what he saw there. It seemed Mr. Spellman was providing the evidence needed to convict him of his crimes. The video showed him in a room with several men tied up in various positions, and Chaz Spellman walking from man to man, viciously tormenting them. He was naked and they could see by the evidence between his legs that he was turned on by his actions.

  Markus reached over and turned off the television, then walked over and found the video player, stopped that too and ejected the disc. Turning to his brother he said, “If he recorded once, there are likely other recordings,” he said.

  “Put on your clothes and then a pair of gloves. You should probably put the disc back in unless Cody is on it. It will be good evidence for the cops. Don’t forget to wipe your fingerprints off the TV and DVR,” he said as he walked over to a cabinet and started searching. He agreed with Markus’s assessment, where there was one, there would be more. Luckily, the cabinet was unlocked. They would prefer not to leave too much evidence that they had been on the premises. They were being careful not to leave any trace evidence. The police would know someone was there—no way to avoid that. They just wanted to make sure the trail of questions didn’t lead back to them.

  Oh sure, the police would quickly discover they were involved in the case. They hadn’t actually been quiet in their search for Cody. They planned to make an anonymous call to the police before leaving. A person like Chaz Spellman would be able to hire the best lawyers. They didn’t want to have evidence thrown out because of accusations of tampering. Therefore, it was important that their fingerprints and DNA not be found on any of the evidence. The police would likely know they’d been there—they just wouldn’t be able to prove it.

  They wanted Cody to decide how involved in the case he wanted to be. And if he chose to mete out shifter justice on his attacker, they would help him and the courts would be saved a costly trial. Markus and Oscar went about collecting any recorded evidence that featured Cody. Luckily, they didn’t have to view all of the discs; Chaz Spellman had clearly marked each one. They would think of a way to safely dispose of the discs on the way back to San Francisco.

  At the other end of the house, Felix was entering the other room that held multiple heat signatures. He was disgusted with what he found there. Six men were restrained, tied to beds, racks, and other apparatuses. All of them appeared drugged. Backing out of the room, he went and found a linen closet. He grabbed a stack of sheets and blankets and went back into the room. He freed each of the men, wrapped each one in a sheet and a blanket, and then laid each down as gently as possible on the floor. He knew he was destroying evidence, but he couldn’t stand to see them like that. Taking out a sharpie, he wrote on the sheets “aconite poisoning” so they would get the correct treatment.

  As he finished releasing and wrapping the last man, Felix heard the scream of a cougar, Cody had shifted. He ran back to the other room. He opened the door and stepped back inside the room with Cody.

  Cody was in his cougar form and paced back and forth in an agitated fashion. He was fully recovered from his wounds now. Feline shifters had the ability to quickly recover from nearly fatal injuries if they could shift. And in their shifter state, they recovered from injuries very quickly.

  “Cody, I need you to shift. I need to talk to you,” said Felix.

  Cody let out another howl and began to pace back and forth again. Felix just stood quietly—he knew Cody needed some time. From the condition he found Cody in, he knew the man had experienced endless torture and degradation. As a shifter, with a shifter’s dominant personality, being helpless would be many times harder to deal with. Felix knew Cody would need a lot of time to recover from his captivity. As he waited quietly for his calm to penetrate Cody’s haze of anger, he took a closer look at the room he’d been held in.

  As Felix had walked through the house, he’d noticed hardwood floors, Persian carpets, and original artworks. However, the rooms where he kept his captives were utilitarian and stark. The only things the men could look at during their time were the instruments of torture used by their abuser. Felix felt his own anger increasing as he took in more and more of the surroundings. What a sick fuck, the asshole, Chaz had turned out to be! He worked to keep his calm as Cody finally stopped pacing and began his shift back into his human form. When Cody finished his shift, he sat back on the floor, his knees up, his forehead resting on his knees with his hands wrapped over the top of his head. He was fully healed from his injuries, but he was breathing heavily as if he’d run a race.

  Suddenly he tilted his face up and looked at Felix, “I claim shifter justice,” he said in a low voice, a haunted look in his eyes.

  “Then you shall have it, come with me,” said Felix. “Oscar has the backpack. There is a pair of sweats in there for you to put on.”

  The two of them strode through the house to the room at the other end where Oscar and Marcus had gone. When they entered the room they saw Chaz Spellman on the couch, he was just regaining consciousness. Cody let out a low growl and Chaz started to pee himself at the s
ound.

  “Cody has claimed the right to shifter justice,” said Felix to Oscar.

  “There is a great deal of damning evidence here. He will go to prison for a long time. Are you sure?” said Oscar.

  “Oh, hell yeah, I’m sure,” said Cody with a grin on his face that was really scary.

  “Remember, Cody, take the justice you deserve. But try not to lower yourself to his standards,” said Felix.

  Oscar explained that first; he had a few questions for Mr. Spellman. Cody, shaking his head at the offer of clothing walked over to the French doors leading outside and stepped through the doorway. Twenty minutes later, Oscar pulled a tool out of his pack and clipped the zip ties he’d used to bind Chaz. Then he pulled him up by his arm and dragged him to the door.

  Wild eyed, Chaz looked at the three angry men. He didn’t even notice his pants were still unzipped. Hearing Cody, he turned toward his voice.

  “Chaz?” said Cody standing on the tiled patio. “Run!”

  Chaz took off through the French doors and out into the yard. He ran to the right, thinking to get into his garage when all of a sudden a huge cougar leapt in front of him and growled.

  The cougar began stalking him, and turning, Chaz fled into the trees, away from the cougar. Cody gave him a small head start, just enough time to move away from the house and into the wilder acreage behind the house. It only took him a few minutes to catch up to his prey. Jumping onto his back, he took some comfort hearing Chaz shriek. The sound cut off abruptly as he pushed him to the ground and snapped his neck with a killing bite known to his wild species. Using one large paw to flip the body over, he then used his longer rear legs, tearing the pelvic area to ribbons.

  Justice accomplished —he turned back toward the house, he scented two panthers coming toward him. The two of them led him quickly to the rear of the estate where their vehicle waited. Oscar brought up the rear, carefully wiping their tracks.