Dressing in my old combats, I geared up and went to meet Lucas at our rendezvous point. The location had been sent to us by the phone we had stolen with the invite. Lucas drove. I was grateful, too, because my muscles wouldn’t stop rolling. My damn tiger wouldn’t stop trying to force the shift. I didn’t understand his apprehension. I would follow his instincts, but I had my own agenda. I was going to this auction, breaking it up, killing the men responsible, and for fun, killing the man who dare lay his hands on Winifred.
We pulled up to an old abandoned factory. A few other cars were already parked outside the building. Two rhino shifters blocked the doorway. One held out his hand for the invite which Lucas handed over. The rhino looked at his friend sideways before nodding us through. I didn’t relish the idea of taking those two beasts on. Rhinos had some thick hide, but if they got in the way, I would do what needed to be done.
My tiger slammed against the mental wall I had up to keep him from taking control. Missing a step, I made sure the rest of the steps were calculated. Lucas watched me. His gaze went to my arm where the muscles rolled in an unnatural way.
“What the hell is goin’ on?”
“I don’t know.” My teeth clenched as I tried to hold back the shift of my canines.
Then it hit me.
Salt. And the sweet scent caramel.
Winifred.
I roared and my tiger burst from my skin.
Blood dripped from my muzzle. I still shook in a blind rage.
Lucas, working during my fit of rage, had finished torturing one who had Winifred’s scent all over him. He had given us the information we wanted.
Winifred had been brought here the night before. One of the benefactors, Terrance, had paid them off to bump up her sale. He wanted less competition and promised the sellers exactly what they wanted. This second night was going to be sloppy leftovers. The bidders had fled the moment my beast burst from my skin. The workers had attacked. Lucas and I dispatched them. They had been unorganized street fighters. Terrance had put the whole thing together—we had tortured the information from one of his goons. Terrance had to keep his name clean because of his family and acted as a participant under an alias.
The bastard was going to die. Slowly.
Lucas had tortured Terrance’s location from the last living worker. Lucas gave me the okay and I lunged forward. He was the last to die, and the freshest blood that wet my muzzle.
Managing to get control of my tiger, I shifted back. I had brought an extra set of clothing knowing there was a good chance I would be shifting. Lucas had extra sweatpants and plain shirts that came in a pack in the back as well. He had a twenty-four bottle case of water, with one of which I cleaned off, and a box of nonperishable foods. I eyed the food.
The shift had drained me and I needed the food, but it also looked unappetizing. I didn’t have any other choice. I grabbed a box of crackers and took it to the front seat with me. Lucas didn’t speak much once we got out to the car. He got behind the wheel and started to the location we’d received from the worker. I debated calling Dominic in for assistance, but he would come in guns blazing and potentially kill, my kill. No one was taking down the mutt but me.
The drive to Terrance’s hideout took too long. My teeth grew uncomfortably tight; my gums started to ache. Lucas drove as fast as he could, but my skin stretched thin and fur sprouted and retreated as I tried to control the shift. My nails curled and sharpened.
I arched my back, the muscles and bones changing and shifting back. My animal wouldn’t hold on much longer, and it became painful holding him back. I didn’t think I wanted to try to stop him anymore.
“Hold on, we’re almost there,” Lucas whispered. He might have been speaking to me or his car, I had no idea. Either way, it fell on deaf ears. My nose twitched as whiskers grew from my cheekbones. I gripped the door handle, ready to throw it and run as soon as the car stopped.
We traveled on a residential street, and it irritated me he would pick such a human residence. It would make our work harder. There were laws all shifters lived by. Like don’t expose ourselves. Terrance might have done this so none of his enemies would attack, but he didn’t know me. He didn’t realize how far I would go for my mate.
Lucas made a right turn into a small, partly developed subdivision. We were getting close. I could almost feel her now. My tiger wanted out more than anything, but I tried to remain in control until we knew what we would be walking into.
The other houses were in different stages of construction. Some had walls up, doors installed, and windows. Others were vacant lots. The only finished house was our destination. The McCullen Pack operated a construction company, and it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if this was the model house he had borrowed from another pack. I’d read up on McCullen before the auction.
Terrance was a younger son of the great pack leader. He lived apart from the rest of the pack on the other side of the country. When Mazy had told Lucas about Winifred running, she never said where she had been running from. Made sense she tried to put as much distance between her and the wolf, but Terrance didn’t know when to let go.
Finding out that he had orchestrated the entire auction, I’d seen red. I didn’t know how far his reach went in Winifred’s abduction, but I believed he would have ensured that she was caught. I didn’t know why he chose to go this route. If he knew where she was, why not just snatch her up?
I would have to live without the answer to those questions. His death came first, and then I would worry about the whys. The house wasn’t lit up, but there were people in there. The moon was full tonight, brightening the darkened building. I could smell fear. I could smell her. The generic, one-story, basic human house. There wasn’t anything special about it. I took note of the different windows and visible doors.
The garage was shut. Lucas parked about a mile out, but my vision at night was incomparable. My muzzle started to shift getting longer than a human nose but not as narrow and long as a wolf’s. I couldn’t hold the shift for much longer.
“Luc …”
He turned to look at me and cursed. I opened the door, stumbling out. There was no stopping my tiger now. The rest of the shift overtook me. Muscles stretched, tightened, and reformed. Bones cracked, popped, and repositioned. My back elongated and my powerful legs bunched, ready to take off. My front legs gained more ground, while my back propelled me faster. My ears perked up, listening to the sounds of the house. Lucas turned the car off as soon as I climbed out. I didn’t have time to turn around to see what he decided to do.
If he shifted, it would only benefit me, but Lucas liked to fight in his human form for whatever reason. It was honorable for a shifter to fight in their animal form. After all, we were animals at our most basic level. My paws pressed hard into the concrete, and I couldn’t move fast enough.
Once I got into the driveway, I slowed. I took in the scent of the area. It was perfumed with a mixture of wet dog, a few different shifters, and Winifred’s scent, tainted with her fear and pain. A low rumble started in my chest.
I crept around back, and sure enough, there was a back door. My lips curled over my teeth. I stalked toward the front again, trying to get an idea of where they were keeping Winifred. The house was quiet for the most part. Then I caught the scent. A trail leading into the woods. Winifred’s scent and Terrance’s. I bolted after them. Something was different about her scent, though.
Once I made it into the woods that backed the house, I slowed and listened. My ears twitched. There was rustling, a sort of hoarse barking sound. I headed toward it. It didn’t take me long to find the intermingling scents of Winifred and Terrance again.
Terrance was tall, but not nearly as tall as me. He towered over the animal he stood in front of, though. His teeth had lengthened to sharp canines, his nails black. My teeth ached with the need to rip out his throat.
The strange hoarse, scraping sound again, and I looked to its source. I cocked my head.
Medium
in stature with long, muscled legs, the back ones higher than the front. The fur held the familiar tawny color with faded spotting. It had a short tail, with long ears, and long tufts of hair extended their length. Then the scent floated to me and those eyes caught mine.
Winifred.
She was a lynx. A gorgeous, beautiful cat.
I stepped out of my hiding place and circled behind Terrance, releasing a loud roar. He turned to me then, his eyes shot back to Winifred.
“You little bitch, have you been screwing this cat?” He spat the word out as he stared at me.
My muzzle parted and I hissed. He whirled and growled at me. His body began to shift into his wolf form. Winifred jumped backward. Her first shift, and she was in the middle of a fight between me and a wolf.
I circled the wolf so I could better protect her. She stepped backward, awkward on four legs verses two. Her ears twitched as she listened to the other sounds of the forest. I didn’t have much time to focus on her before Terrance lunged forward, barking and showing off his teeth. I swatted my paw out, making sure he kept his distance from Winifred.
He dodged in close, nipping but never biting. He started to draw me away from Winifred for reasons I couldn’t understand. I would be faster than him in a sprint, so if he tried to run with her, it wouldn’t work. If he tried to hurt her at all, I would kill him in a second. I followed his movements, trying to understand his game plan.
Terrance lowered his head and launched onto my hind quarters, he dug his claws in to get a strong grip and locked his jaw on bone. I growled. I turned and snapped at his back legs, but the way he was positioned, I couldn’t get a good grip.
A blur of fur flew over me, knocking him off my back. Winifred chirped at him, goading Terrance to pay attention to her. Her mouth opened in a pant as she revealed smaller but just as deadly teeth. Her heavy paws moved with ease against the terrain.
She’d learned quickly.
Slowly, while he fought off Winifred, I made my way around him. Her wide grey eyes made contact with mine, and she took a step back. I leapt forward slashing Terrance’s side wide open. He howled, turning his head, his muddy-brown eyes filled with pain, but he snapped his teeth. I roared as I clamped my teeth down onto his neck. He snarled and growled until he stopped moving.
Winifred watched closely, her facial expressions too hard to read while she still learned how her other body worked. I saw the sadness there, though, and the relief.
I released my hold on his neck and padded over to her. She wasn’t very long, body wise, but she almost matched my height. I pressed my forehead against hers and rubbed. A content purr rumbled through me. A soft purr came from her, moments later. I led her away from Terrance’s limp wolf body and back to the house.
Lucas stood in a new pair of sweatpants, sweat dotting his brow. I lifted my nose and smelt the blood of other shifters.
“They took off when they realized they couldn’t take me. No clothes in there but a little slip, so I brought more sweats and a couple of shirts inside.” He nodded and started the mile walk back to this car. I was grateful he had brought us clothes to change into, but the idea she had been dressed in only a slip before hadn’t left my mind. It wasn’t her fault though. It was mine for leaving her.
As I herded her into the house, she glanced back once more to the woods where I had left Terrance’s body. In the house, I shifted and grabbed a pair of the pants and pulled them on. Winifred sat waiting. She cocked her head, and I could see the worry starting to filter in. She stood only to sit again, probably unsure what to do in her new body.
I wanted to tell her to shift back, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. I had never had to teach anyone how to shift. It had come naturally to me, to most shifters. She let out a little whine.
I walked over to her and pressed my hand against her head. She leaned into my touch, rubbing her head under my finger. Getting on my knees so I could be eye level with her, I cupped her cheeks.
“Come back to me,” I whispered.
Chapter 15
Winifred
“Come back to me,” he whispered.
His voice was a siren’s song I couldn’t ignore. My fur melted away to skin, my bones and muscles shifting, popping, and reforming. The human skin I knew so well and trusted filled out, replacing the new inexperienced body of my lynx. Collapsing in Quentin’s arms, I couldn’t get my mind to stop racing. I was glad to be back in his arms, safe. I thought to Terrance’s unseeing eyes and shuddered.
New world. New laws. I had to remind myself.
I had to remind myself he deserved it, but I didn’t dare think back on my time with him. Quentin held me close as he pulled over the extra clothing that Lucas had mentioned. His words had been warbled and drowned out by everything else I heard, but I had caught enough. Quentin pulled the sweatpants over my legs and gently slipped the shirt over my head. The clothes fit, the pants a little too long and the shirt a little loose, but they worked for now. Much better than the slip I had been wearing.
Quentin put his arm under my knees, wrapped his arm securely behind my back, and lifted. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would have told him to put me down. I wasn’t tiny, and I couldn’t imagine carrying me like this was easy. He showed no signs of struggle as he took me out of the house and walked to Lucas’s car waiting in the driveway. Lucas got out and opened the back door for us.
Fluidly, Quentin bent so he could slide into the back with me still in his lap. Once the door shut, I took in the scent of my mate. I knew I was safe.
***
“The suede couch is coming.”
“It is not coming, Winifred.”
“It is coming, Quinn.”
He growled. He hated when I called him that, but it made me smile, getting a rise out of him. It had been two weeks since Terrance had bought me at the auction. I was quiet for the first few days, refusing to tell Quentin about what happened. He threw a fit, quite literally. I came out to find he had trashed his fancy, modern couch. He insisted he could just buy a new one, but I told him I had a better option.
After that I had told him about the auction and the kidnapping. A compromise. My couch for the information. He didn’t fight me on it after that, just accepted my terms. I told Quentin how Terrance had beaten me, punishment for running from him in the first place. I had been so scared and overwhelmed that the shift took over me and I couldn’t stop it. Terrance got even more pissed when he saw what I shifted into and shifted himself. His goons apparently never told him the specifics on what animal I was. I managed to dodge most of his attacks in my animal form, but I grew tired, and he shifted back and locked me in a room. I managed to escape during the night, but he found me.
I left out the crude things Terrance said about my relationship with Quentin, and what Terrance had planned on doing since he had me back. I never wanted to relive those moments again.
Quentin’s muscles started to shake and roll under his skin, even with the small parts of the story I revealed. I reassured him as best I could, and reminded him he had saved me. That night we lay in each other’s arms for a very long time.
Quentin refused to let me move back into my, as he put it, “shit apartment.” I hadn’t planned to fight him on it anyway. He was my mate and my animal liked him around. I hadn’t attempted to shift since that night, but Quentin told me he wanted to take me to his favorite swimming hole the next weekend, and I was excited to try to shift again.
For now, we were moving all my things into his penthouse. I told him I wanted to liven it up, make it less museum-like. He scoffed at me, as if I was I joking. I wasn’t. The couch was coming. Quentin winced at the couch.
“You promised.”
“I did no such thing. You assumed.”
“It will make me happy.” I fluttered my lashes.
“It’s hideous.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“It smells.”
“Stop hurting its feelings!”
Quentin blinked slowly at me
a couple of times. “It has feelings now?”
“Well ever since you started to insult it, yes.”
“I am going to regret this,” he muttered.
I squealed and ran toward him. He opened his arms, already softening to the idea. I skated around him and hugged the couch.
“You’re coming home with Mommy!”
A sharp smack to my butt had me looking over my shoulder.
“You’re going to be punished for that.”
I wiggled my butt at him, knowing it would rile him up. His eyes darkened with desire and he took a step forward so his already-hard member pressed against my backside.
“Tonight, I claim you.”
Warmth slipped through my body, and my legs twitched as my desire grew. He reached upward, his finger trailing over the exposed skin on my neck.
“Right here.” His other hand trailed much farther south and cupped me through my jeans. “And here.”
I was frustrated for the rest of the day. He had teased me back at my old apartment, and now that I was settled—the couch in its new home—I just wanted to attack my mate. He seemed fine, though, cool, detached … I gritted my teeth and thought of all the different ways I could sneak attack him, but he caught me every time.
“What are you thinking so hard about, Winifred?”
“Your promise earlier.”
He raised a brow.
“Oh, and what was that?”
“Don’t mock me, or you aren’t getting any,” I said from the kitchen where I had been plotting. He arrived there in seconds, pressing me against the counter.
“Don’t threaten me, Winifred. You won’t like the consequences.”
Quentin’s chest pressed against my back and I leaned forward, my backside pressed hard into him. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. I could feel it, and he felt so good.
He cupped my breast and tweaked the already-hardened nipple, my insides clenching. A sweet sigh rushing outward. He trailed his hand down, farther and farther. My breathing went ragged as his fingertips brushed the waistband of my leggings. I had changed when we got home, hoping he would think tighter the pants, the quicker they needed to be removed. It hadn’t worked until now.
Hired: Mercenary Shifters (Mercenaries for Hire Book 2) Page 8