Beth almost shouted with glee as she watched the massive puma stagger and fall. Her first day in the woods, and she’d gotten the biggest, most beautiful mountain lion she’d ever seen. What a find. And in the middle of the day.
Turning her head, she called, “Tim. Where are you?”
“Coming. I heard you fire. Did you really shoot something?”
“Yes, hurry up.”
“Seriously?” He crashed through the undergrowth, sounding like a herd of bison. “Damn. Ouch. How do you get through this crap so easily?” he grumped as he trudged into the clearing next to her.
She grinned and pointed. “Look. Isn’t he pretty?”
Tim’s interest visibly piqued when he spotted the downed cat a few dozen yards away. “Oh! Wow, Lizzy. I thought we were just scouting the area today.”
“We were, but…” Beth was so thrilled with her catch, the silly nickname her friend insisted on calling her didn’t even crack her smile, though she did playfully swat him on the shoulder. “Come on!” Eager for a closer look, she headed toward the beast.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and a sheen of sweat coated her forehead. She thought it would be cooler here in the mountains, but this early June day was in the mid-eighties.
To find a cougar out and about in the middle of the day wasn’t unheard of, but they were mostly nocturnal. She and Tim had planned to scout around, see if there was a spot where they could pick up some fresh tracks, set up a blind and wait for one. She’d only brought the dart gun along just in case, more for personal safety than anything. Was she ever glad she did.
Their grant from Washington State gave them enough money for at least two months of research in the Wenatchee National Forest. She’d been hopeful, but hadn’t let herself get overexcited. A small part of her suspected she’d be chasing tracks and scat all summer and never get to touch a live, breathing, beautiful cougar. Especially this close to town.
“Careful,” Tim warned, and she responded with a nod. As they neared the animal, he searched for and found a stick long and thick enough to use as a poker. With it, he nudged the beast’s butt, looking for a response. When the cat didn’t budge, she slipped around Tim, adrenaline making her laugh with glee.
“Would you look at him! He’s so big.” She knelt at the cougar’s head and reached out to feel for its pulse. What the…Oh, crap.
“Is that a collar?” Tim bent and touched the black strip of leather around the cougar’s neck. “I knew we should’ve waited for the professor to arrive. Didn’t I warn you?”
Yes, she’d listened to his dire warnings after they’d set up the mobile lab and she’d suggested scouting some of the trails. He’d wanted to check into the hotel, take a dip in the pool and relax until the professor arrived on Saturday. But he’d caved when she told him she’d just go alone.
“How was I to know we’d even see a cougar today,” she challenged, “or that when we did, it’d have a collar?”
“Point taken.”
She nodded, pushed up her glasses and inspected the collar further. A small, pewter medallion twinkled in the sun, and she slid her fingers over it to take a closer look. An oval with a teeth-bearing cougar head embossed on it. No identification tag.
“It’s a damn pet,” she snarled. “But no ID. Who in their right mind keeps a cougar for a pet?”
“There are people in the world that think having exotic cats for pets is vogue,” Tim said, adding quickly when she scowled at him, “Not that I agree it’s a wise thing to do. I’m just sayin’…people do crazy things.”
“People are idiots.”
“So, do we tag ’im anyway?” he asked.
Pet or no pet, she had a job to do, and until the owners were found, she’d do her job exactly as planned. “Yeah.” She felt for the animal’s pulse. Strong. Good. She glanced over her shoulder, back toward the trails. “But we can’t let him go or leave him here defenseless. That tranq should keep him knocked out for a while. We need to take this big guy to the lab while we search for its owner. He’s out here running wild, and that’s potential for disaster with all the kids and pets around Leavenworth.”
She shook her head in disgust. The professor hadn’t even arrived yet, and they’d already have to move locations. With a damn pet roaming the area, there wasn’t likely to be any wild pumas around. They were too territorial and had too wide of a range. Damn it all. She’d liked the fact she was doing research yet had a nice, cozy hotel room to sleep and shower in. They’d have to move deeper into the forest, which meant pitching the tents and digging a latrine.
There went her happy mood. “Go get the four-wheeler. We can’t carry this guy. He’s two hundred pounds if he’s an ounce.”
“There’s no way to get the four-wheeler up here,” Tim said with a frown. “I could barely walk through it.”
“Try over there.” She pointed to a slight break in the trees. “It’s probably just a deer trail, but I’m sure you can get the ATV up it. The locals do it all the time.”
“So, that’s how you did it.” He gave her a little smile, which she returned with a look of wide-eyed innocence. “I see how you are. ‘Let’s split up,’” he quoted the suggestion she’d made when they first arrived. “Send Tim into the thicket while Beth takes the easy trail.”
Beth chuckled, watching him trek toward the trail.
“I’ll remember this,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes when he turned his back. Day one of their two months working together. It was going to be an interesting summer.
Kelan smelled a female.
He couldn’t quite open his eyes for some reason, and his legs were too heavy to move, but he could smell a woman.
Not perfume. The sweet tang of warm flesh. He breathed in deep and purred, wishing whoever she was would come closer so he could taste her.
Then he realized how dry his tongue felt, how thirsty he was. The ground felt awful hard, and flat, and cold. Where had the sun gone? Had he lain here the rest of the day?
“Hey, big boy.”
His ear twitched toward the sultry voice. It seemed familiar.
“You finally waking up?”
His right ear stung like hell. The back of his neck ached, and his butt cheek hurt too.
It all came rushing back to him. The tranquilizer dart in his ass. He growled and finally pried open his eyes. Steel bars surrounded him.
“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”
The hell he was. He forced himself to his feet and turned a circle, spotted the door to the cage and bumped his nose against it. God damn it! How had he let himself get captured?
“Hey there, don’t hurt yourself.”
He turned again to face his captor and growled.
Beth? He almost couldn’t believe his eyes, but the sexy grad student stood on the other side of the bars, and part of him was tempted to take a swipe at her. He didn’t only because she had such a sweet voice. And those kind emerald-green eyes he’d all but drowned in the other night. But she was supposed to be out hiking somewhere, not staring at him like an oddity on display at a Ripley’s exhibit.
Anger simmered beneath his skin, and he let it show with a vicious snarl.
Was this all a set up? Did he and Reidar miss something, some kind of sign, the other night in the pub? Fuck. He was usually a better judge of character, better able to read people, but this woman had him doubting himself.
“Hey. You’re okay,” she murmured, pushing up her wire-rimmed glasses as she bent to peer into his eyes. She wore a lab coat with University of Washington embroidered above the pocket on her more than ample chest.
At least she’d told the truth about her college.
Where the hell was he? Was all that talk about hiking with friends in Wenatchee just bullshit?
“Looks like the drug finally wore off. Didn’t think you’d be down so long.”
She shot him with the dart? The bitch!
A gorgeous one, but a bitch nonetheless. He bared his teeth and hiss
ed. Let me out of here!
She stumbled back and landed on a chair. “Whoa,” she whispered as she shook her head and touched her temple.
Damn, he must not be all with it yet. He might have sent that thought to her. In catamount form, he and his brothers had the ability to send their thoughts to humans. Not a good thing in this case. Not if he was some goddamned lab experiment.
“That was weird.” She tilted her head and muttered to herself, “Get it together, Beth. You start acting like Dr. Dolittle and the professor might reconsider letting you participate in this field assignment.”
Field assignment? So maybe she hadn’t hauled him back to the university. He glanced around the narrow room. A door centered on one of the long sides. No windows, although an A/C unit hummed high in the short wall straight ahead of him. Behind him sat an ATV. And beyond that a set of big double doors like those of a tractor trailer. A mobile lab? What the hell was going on?
A bank of computers took up the top of one table. He was in the only cage, and it was big—the right size for a full-grown cougar. A stainless steel freezer-looking thing occupied one wall, along with some storage cabinets and more countertops with a microscope and a bunch of other equipment he couldn’t begin to identify. On the desktop near one of the computers lay a tranquilizer gun and three red-and-white-tailed darts.
He snarled again.
“I wonder. How long have you been on your own?” Beth stood and lifted a bowl off the floor. As she approached his prison, she moved with more caution than before and whispered, “It’s okay, big boy. Really. We’re not gonna hurt you. I promise.”
She stared at him as she came closer, and she damn near mesmerized him. Her eyes were so light they were almost unreal—so intense. At the pub, they’d sparkled with humor and what he was sure had been lust. Now they showed tender caring. Her voice was husky, sexier than all hell. And her scent. He licked his chops, wanting a taste. That chaste, almost nothing kiss they’d exchanged at the hotel had left him hungry for more. And now, in his catamount form, he could smell her and knew she’d taste like heaven.
Before he realized what she was doing, she opened a small door at the bottom of the cage and slid the bowl of water inside. He glanced down at it as the momentum made a few drops splash over the side of the dish. The tiny door clinked back into place.
“See there? It’s okay, big fella. It’s just water. You must be thirsty. Right?”
Should he trust her? Would she drug him again?
“Go on. It’s okay,” she murmured, her forehead furrowed. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, strands of spun gold shot through her deep auburn hair. It must be amazing to see in the sunlight. Like the night before, her tresses were pulled back into a bun, but this one drooped a bit, and he could see a few pieces of what looked like twigs stuck in them.
She gave him a tentative smile. So damn eager and friendly. As if she didn’t mean him any harm.
He bent his head and sniffed the water. It smelled clean. He took one lap to test it, then more and more, trying to quench his thirst and bring moisture back to his throat.
“That’s a good boy. Tim’s out getting you some food now. We’ll take good care of you until we figure out where you belong.”
That brought him up short.
All he had to do was change into human form and unlatch the cage to free himself; she hadn’t used a padlock on the cage’s slide bolt. But he couldn’t shift in front of her. What if she never left? He glanced around again looking for sleeping bags or other camping equipment but found none. How long would he have to sit in this prison? How long before his family, or at least Reidar, realized he was missing and went looking for him?
Shit. All they’d find was his clothes strewn on the path behind Axel’s house. Not good. So not good. Kelan sat on his haunches, his head drooping. As pissed off as he was at Axel, he didn’t need his brother worrying about him. And his dads. Damn it. He couldn’t have them thinking he might’ve run off.
The anger returned, this time aimed at himself. How could he have been so fucking careless?
“Hey there, big guy. What’s wrong?”
He looked up at the woman who stared at him with obvious concern. Caught by a girl—a pretty girl, but still no excuse. He tried to glare a hole through the floor.
“You’re probably not used to being locked up, huh?”
He huffed and wanted to roll his eyes.
She made a sad face. “I know, but I swear it won’t be long. I just need to locate your owner and get this all figured out.”
Great. Even worse. She’d find his family, and they’d tease him mercilessly for the rest of his life for getting shot in the ass by a city slicker. He had to get rid of her and get the hell out before anyone went looking for him.
Her expression changed to one of guarded mischievousness. “Would it help if I tell you a secret?”
He didn’t budge. He didn’t breathe.
“I’ve always found cages and collars to be a little sexy.”
Whoa. She was into cages? And collars? He wanted to grin. The sweet-smelling lady in a dowdy lab coat had a kinky side. Maybe he had read her right before and she would have accepted him and Reidar into her bed. She hadn’t looked too sure of herself, so he hadn’t pushed it.
“Not that I’ve ever been in a cage, or worn a collar for that matter, but I read a lot of erotic romance, and…I don’t know. I guess the idea of danger can be sort of titillating.”
He’d respected her for not inviting them to her room—more often he and Reidar had women throwing themselves at them—but at the same time welcomed the challenge she’d embodied, and he’d hoped to see her again.
Just not like this.
He blew out a breath and laid his head on his paws. As much as he might love to switch places with her and have some fun, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do right now to titillate her kinky side. That revelation made his imprisonment all the more hellish.
She chuckled. “Don’t agree with me? Well, that’s okay. You’ll be out of there just as soon as I can track down your owner.”
He huffed again, his tail swishing with agitation. Nothing he could do until he was alone, so he might as well get comfortable and enjoy the view. He wished she’d help him out and take off that coat so he could get another look at what lay beneath. She’d looked sexy the other night in her faded jeans, T-shirt and adorably quirky glasses.
She pushed those same spectacles up her cute nose and returned to a chair in front of the computer monitors. “Sure would help my search if I knew your name.”
Kelan didn’t dare give her that information telepathically, so he met her probing gaze with silent regard.
She turned her back on him and started typing. From his angle, he couldn’t see the computer screen.
Why did his cat-napper have to be Beth? It left an awkward mix inside his gut—elation at seeing her again and dismay over the revelation that she used pumas as lab experiments.
He pawed at his stinging ear then yowled at the pain that caused.
“Oh, hey, what’s—” She spun around. “No, don’t touch that. It’s just an ID tag. The pain will go away soon. I promise.”
A tag? A tag? Son of a bitch.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a fierce frown. Then she closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. “I didn’t just hear that. Really, I didn’t. I think I need some coffee. It’s been a long day.”
He chortled and laid his head on his paws again. She heard him all right. He’d never tried to drive someone mad with his abilities, but obviously he could if he wanted to.
He and his siblings could communicate telepathically with each other, and he liked messing with his brothers’ mate now and then. Dakota took the silent chatter well, for a human who hadn’t grown up around a litter of telepathic shifters. But he’d never let a stranger hear him, until now. It was forbidden. He could get into a lot of trouble, but she was too cute. He could almost forget that she’d shot him in the ass with a dart
and put him in a cage.
“Laugh all you want, pussy cat,” she said with a small grin.
She recognized his laugh? He blinked at her, but she wasn’t looking at him any longer.
“I’m not really insane. I might talk to animals, but I don’t expect them to talk back, and I usually ignore the voices in my head.” She cast him a sideways glance and laughed. The sound went through him like an arrow, straight to his heart.
Damn him if she wasn’t dangerous. He reminded himself that she’d shot him, caged him and planned to do God-only-knows-what to him.
She sobered when the side door opened and a tall, lanky, black-haired guy stepped inside. He carried two large paper sacks. “Hey, Lizzy, how’s he doing?” he asked, eyeing Kelan as he passed the cage, keeping to the far wall as if afraid Kelan would attack through the bars.
Kelan obliged him with a hiss.
“For a pet, he doesn’t seem too friendly.”
The scent of grilled meat wafted to Kelan, and his stomach growled.
“He’s ticked off about being caged,” she said, “but wouldn’t you be?”
“Guess so.”
“He seems fine now that the drugs wore off, and he’s healthy. He drank his water too. Did you find something for him to eat?”
“Yeah, and us too, though I’d love to take you to dinner. This town is really neat. I found the perfect—”
“Thanks, Tim,” she said, cutting him off and taking the bags from him. She pushed her keyboard to the side and opened one of the bags, then the other, and pulled out a butcher paper wrapped package.
“I’m serious. Since we’re here, we should get to know the community, don’t you think?”
The schmuck sounded so hopeful, Kelan chuckled. A sound more like a cross between a sniffle and a sneeze, but enough to gain the man’s attention.
Tim turned and stared, his eyes wide.
Directed toward Beth so only she could hear him, Kelan whispered, He doesn’t know a brush-off when he hears one, does he?
The woman stopped and studied Kelan, who dipped his head to lap at what remained in the water bowl. After a moment, she shook her head and finished unwrapping the package in her hand. When she approached his prison, he saw she held a chunk of raw roast. Oh, great.
Falke’s Captive Page 3