Collector's Item

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Collector's Item Page 4

by Denise Golinowski


  Massey jerked his arm and Peyton let him go. “Okay. Point made.” He touched the back of his head gingerly. “What the hell did she hit me with any way?”

  Peyton jerked his chin toward the backpack where it leaned against the wall. “Laptop.”

  “Damn.” Massey looked around. “Where do you think she keeps the aspirin?” He stopped and looked at Peyton. “Your kind does take aspirin, don’t you?”

  Peyton ignored the dig and glanced around. “Course we do. We’re human.” He gestured toward the hallway. “Bathroom’s probably back that way. Check the cabinet. I’ll check the kitchen.”

  He and KT had cleaned up all signs of their fight. The hand towel he’d used and empty salipen were stuffed in a suitcase in the bottom of her bedroom closet. He headed for the kitchen while Massey headed for the bathroom.

  Peyton opened and shut cabinets until Massey shouted out he’d found the aspirin. Peyton opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Bottled water, yogurt, a couple of white Chinese take-out boxes and an assortment of deli meats and cheeses filled the shelves.

  He looked at the door and grinned. “Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Micro-brew stouts, lagers, and ales glittered in the narrow shelves. He selected a pale ale for Massey and a stout for himself. He flipped the door closed and smiled at the muffled chiming of the bottles.

  Who would have guessed a princess like KT would enjoy a good brew? Stephanie and her friends had preferred champagne and fruity high-alcohol concoctions. Many a time, he’d had to haul her, puking and incoherent, from some hoity-toity club. Those were days he didn’t miss.

  He carried the two bottles into the living room and set them on the coffee table. The fall of hair across KT’s bruised face shifted ever so slightly with every breath.

  What kind of princess uses initials instead of an elegant name like Katarina? Or lets herself be used as bait in a “just crazy enough it might work” kind of plan? Even unconscious on the floor of her apartment, KT Marant continued to surprise him.

  The toilet flushed. Massey sauntered back down the hallway, a couple of prescription bottles in his hand. He held them up and rattled them in Peyton’s direction.

  “Looks like our little Collector’s Item’s been feeling a little stressed.” As Massey read off the names of the prescription drugs, Peyton winced inwardly.

  “Just like a princess, taking a pill instead of just dealin’.” He turned to reach down for Massey’s beer and give himself a moment to think.

  If KT’s metabolism was suppressed by prescription drugs, the sedative may be more effective than planned. Of course, if everything went according to plan, it might actually work in his favor. She might not wake up until after the arrest. His impression of KT did not include her sitting by passively during the take-down.

  His stomach tightened. Conversely, if things went wrong, then it wouldn’t matter when she woke up, would it?

  Max’s snarl of denial matched Peyton’s own feelings.

  Peyton wiped all emotion from his face before he turned to hand the beer to Massey. “Well, at least she has good taste in beer.”

  Massey grinned, twisted off the cap and took a long swig. He flipped the cap toward the trash basket, but it clattered on the floor far short of target. Unconcerned, he dropped onto the couch and slammed his heels on top of the coffee table.

  He gestured toward the flat screen TV. “Find the remote. With her bucks, she’s gotta have everything. May as well get comfortable. Gonna be a long wait ’til midnight.”

  Peyton stepped over KT, instead of going around her like he would have preferred. He had to treat her like furniture or Massey’d notice. He fished the remote out of the wicker basket beside the cable box and tossed it to Massey before he crossed to windows. Closing the curtains, he shut out the early twilight.

  It was going to be a long wait.

  Chapter Five

  KT drifted on a float in the middle of the pool. Overhead, a twin-engine plane droned low across the sky, a dark silhouette against the high cirrus clouds. Strains of Latin music floated to her from somewhere and the thrum of the plane’s engines rumbled against her skin.

  Mighty big engines for a twin prop, she thought, lifting one hand to shade her eyes. Or she tried, but her hands were tied behind her back.

  The rumbling resolved itself into the sound of a powerful V-8 while the bite of plastic ties into her wrists drove the last of the dream from her mind. Andi sprang into pure panic mode, until KT remembered what was going on.

  We’re okay. She struggled to control her breathing, and kept her eyelids closed. Thank heavens, the salison dose had worn off. She had missed Andi’s familiar presence.

  Though she tried to play it off, the plastic ties had freaked her out more than the injection or the microchip. Peyton had refused to budge.

  “They’re standard for Collectors,” he had said, pulling a packet of them from his coat pocket. “Captured weres are too much for humans to handle unrestrained. Even the double dose of sedatives doesn’t always keep us down.”

  Rationally, she understood, but instinctively, she hated them. Andi’s vehement second bordered on hysteria. KT chanced a soothing deep breath. The scents of Massey and Peyton drifted to her from the front, mingled with gasoline and exhaust fumes. KT tried to ignore how far the scent of Peyton went to calming Andi.

  From the sound of the engine, and the fact that she wasn’t stuffed in a trunk, KT guessed the vehicle was an SUV. In route to the airport? The high hum of the tires could only be highway travel. Seemed things were going according to plan.

  Massey’s voice pulled the tension back into her. “Mind if I change the station? This Latin shit is making my headache worse.”

  “My car, my music.” Peyton said, though the music did soften. “Besides, if you’d been paying attention, she’d never have gotten the drop on you.”

  “How could I pay attention to her with you pounding the hell out of me?”

  “Had to make it look good.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t missed her in the first place.”

  “Who stood in the stairwell, instead of pushing harder for an invite in?”

  “Shut up.”

  Pissing off Massey didn’t seem like a good move to KT. Peyton had better know what he was doing. If they were as close to the airport as he said, he’d portioned that injection a bit too fine for her comfort. As it was, her mind wanted to skitter off into la-la land, and the inside of her mouth felt like a desert.

  Andi retreated into the background, a low growling rumble in the recesses of KT’s mind. Calmer, KT could now focus on pretending to be unconscious, taking long, slow breaths.

  She had watched Massey for a while to get a feel for how someone breathed when sedated. When they moved him onto her couch, she had taken note of just how limp he felt. It was going to be hard to let her neck and limbs relax enough to pretend to be unconscious.

  Massey’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Take this exit.”

  The sound of the pavement changed as they completed the turn followed by another long period of driving between stops, for traffic lights she assumed. Then a final wide turn before the vehicle stopped and the engine shut off. With the radio off, she could hear the muffled sound of engines, jet engines. The airport.

  Locks clicked and doors opened. The vehicle rocked, and then shuddered when the doors slammed shut. Footsteps moved along both sides of the SUV toward the rear. She controlled her breathing and worked hard to look unconscious.

  The back door opened. Fresh air, tainted with exhaust, flowed over her. Andi bristled. Someone was watching them. KT shoved her into the background.

  “Good. She’s still out.” The hard tone of satisfaction in Massey’s voice held no trace of the warmth he’d shown in the foyer of her apartment building. “I’ll go ahead and finalize things with Parker and the client. You get her packed up for transport.”

  “Right.” Peyton’s voice sou
nded flat and bored.

  Footsteps moved away from the car. Hands gripped her ankles and pulled her toward the bumper.

  “He’s gone,” Peyton said, his voice just above a whisper. “Are you with me?”

  KT opened her eyes. Peyton stood beneath the lifted rear door. Harsh light coming through the windshield of the truck sharpened the angles of his face and darkened his eyes to black. A shiver slid up her back and her hands flexed against the plastic ties.

  Had she made a mistake? Had she allowed Andi’s instinct and her own frustration about Aunt Patricia’s disappearance to override her own reason? Yes, he was Protector-trained, but he was working with a Collector. All she had was his word.

  He’s Alpha, Andi insisted. Trust.

  “The team’s here, waiting on my signal.” He leaned over and pulled her closer to the bumper of the SUV, concern mixed with strain in his expression. “You good?”

  She took a deep breath and caught the scent of weres; a lot of weres. Her pulse calmed and Andi’s “told you so” huff melted the last of KT’s momentary panic.

  “Yep.” She jerked her chin in the direction Massey had gone and strove for a light tone above the pounding of her heartbeat. “Man, he sounded cold. I really thought he and I shared a moment back at the apartment.”

  Peyton’s mouth curved in response, softening his face and further soothing her. “Not any more. He really holds that whack with your laptop against you.” His smile flattened out. “I barely managed to keep him from giving you a taste of your own medicine while you were out.”

  “I guess we won’t be picking out china patterns,” KT said. She tried not to imagine what might have happened.

  Peyton rolled her onto one side. When he bent over her, she noticed, again, his scent of jaguar and male. Andi purred and KT squashed that down hard, again. She wouldn’t fall into that trap again.

  Peyton grasped the plastic tie around her wrist. She felt something metallic touch her skin. Snick. “I’m going to cut through the ties just enough so you can break them if you need to. But leave them in place until we’ve got things under control in there.” Snick. “Now, don’t exert any more pressure on them than you have to and they should hold.”

  He rolled her onto her back and helped her up into a sitting position. Taking hold of her shoulders, he bent down to stare into her eyes, his expression stern. “Remember, don’t move until we’ve got them under control.”

  KT tensed, uncomfortable beneath the restriction of his hands or the authority of his voice. However, he was the professional. “Right.”

  He glared at her. “I’m serious. It could get dicey in there and I, the team doesn’t need any distractions.”

  Speaking of distractions, KT found herself way too aware of his hands cupped over her shoulders, fingers splayed over her shoulder blades; his thumbs just brushed her collarbone. The heat of his palms, were-warm, soaked through her shirt and into her skin. Startled, KT took another deep breath, and his scent rushed to her head.

  Without thinking, her gaze dropped to his mouth as she relaxed beneath his hands. When his lips tightened, she imagined moving forward to test those lips against hers. Startled, she blinked and looked away, but not before she saw the pulse in his neck quicken to match her own. He let her go and straightened up.

  Not wanting to think about what that might mean, she focused on squelching her own reaction. Andi’s behavior aside, KT knew she had better control than this. Ignoring the jag’s amusement, KT reasoned it had to be a leftover effect of the pheromones.

  “Sorry. You were saying?” She shook her head and took a hard grip on herself. They had too much going on now without all this—distraction. Another shiver coursed through her, only this one, colder than the first, reminded her again of the dangers ahead. Focused, she looked up to meet his gaze. “Oh. Right. I’ll stay out of the way.”

  He had moved enough that his face was in shadow, his expression impossible to read, though the signals she read from his body shared her own sense of confused denial. He took a firm grip on her ankles and dragged her closer until her legs dangled over the bumper. “Okay, now comes the fun part.”

  KT struggled to get her hormones under control and focused on his eyes. “Oh?”

  “Make like a sack of potatoes.”

  She did not have a chance to react before he grabbed her around her waist and slung her up over his shoulder. She muffled a grunt of pain when his shoulder slammed into her gut. Upside down, she had a very close view of his butt, and a tiny part of her mind could not help thinking it was a rather nice one at that.

  He straightened, one arm around the back of her knees, and slammed the door shut with his other hand. Her nose bumped against his back with every step, and with her wrists tied behind her back, her shoulders objected to the angle. All the blood in her body began a bum’s rush into her head, making her pulse throb in time with his every step.

  Eyes closed, she strained to hear anything that would give her a clue about where Massey and Peyton had brought her. Kennedy or LaGuardia? She rolled her eyes against her eyelids. Just how did she expect to be able to tell the difference by sound?

  The roaring engines faded and the voices rose as Peyton entered the hangar. From beneath her eyelashes, she glimpsed the edge of metal doors as they passed inside. Voices echoed around her, but the sound of Massey’s voice focused her on a conversation somewhere off to her left. She strained to hear over metallic clanking, hurried footsteps, and other sounds she could not begin to identify. The scent of jet fuel, oil, and rubber filled her nose and, to head off a sneeze, she brushed the tip of her nose against Peyton’s shirt. I hope he didn’t feel that.

  An unknown male voice interrupted her thoughts. “Trouble?”

  Massey’s voice responded. “Nothing we couldn’t handle. Peyton’ll get her locked up and then she’s all yours.”

  “Excellent.” A voice like silk-covered steel flowed over the background noise without strain. KT knew that voice—Douglas Torne. “I still can’t believe Anton let her out of the compound without protection.”

  “Well, his mistake is your gain,” Massey said. “Now, about the finder’s fee?”

  Peyton stopped and dumped her onto the ground. She bit back a cry of pain and surprise, grateful that his hand cupped her head to keep it from banging on the concrete floor. He moved away, and she heard metallic clicks behind her.

  The first voice said, “Here. Everything we agreed on.”

  Peyton hauled her up, hands under her armpits, and dragged her a short distance. She tried to stay loose in his hands, her head lolling on her shoulders. Her heels bumped over a raised edge before he dumped her on the floor and moved away. She heard a metallic clink followed by a rattle. She chanced a peek through her eyelashes, and even though she expected it, her pulse sped up another dozen notches.

  She was inside a metal cage!

  Andi leaped into panic mode. KT scrambled for control. The effort not to shift drove a stifled groan through her clenched teeth and strained tears from beneath her eyelids. She teetered on the brink, fought Andi back, and collapsed against the floor, panting softly.

  “Sssh!” Peyton hissed beneath his breath.

  She peered through her lashes. His brown eyes narrowed with strain as he watched her through the bars. With his back to the others, he adjusted the padlock, banged it against the frame and then left it hanging. From her position, KT could not be certain, but she told herself it was not fully locked, just positioned to look that way. That was the plan.

  He looked at her again, the question clear in his eyes. Could she keep it together? She gave him a short nod and closed her eyes. He waited a moment and then his footsteps moved away.

  Lying on her side, she chanced another look around. Massey stood off to one side with two men while jump-suited mechanics bustled in and out of her view. Most wore grey jumpsuits with some kind of logo, but several wore different uniforms of dark blue. Private crew, she guessed. Wooden crates, tall metal toolboxes, an
d portions of parked jets filled the rest of her view.

  The man closest to her had his back to her. All she could see of him was sandy blonde hair, cut short, above a nicely tailored grey suit. She guessed he was Massey’s contact; she didn’t have to guess about the second man.

  Darkly tanned, with thick black hair, Douglas Torne stood in profile to her, but she’d know him anywhere. She’d met him several times while accompanying her father to political gatherings. Her skin crawled, remembering his cold stare above his magazine-cover smile.

  She barely heard Massey over the pounding of her pulse. “…enough, Parker.”

  “Not enough?” the blond man, Parker, said.

  Massey began to tick off his reasons on his fingers. “She’s Alpha Female of the Marant Line. She’s in perfect physical condition. And she’s a fighter. She’s probably trained in more forms of martial arts and self-defense than I can name.”

  “Yeah, she put up quite a fight,” Peyton added as he joined the group. He stopped just behind Massey and crossed his arms; hired muscle, expression stoic, gaze distant but alert.

  “I wondered.” Parker’s voice carried a note of amusement. “Got the drop on you, eh?”

  Massey bristled. “Lucky hit. Bitch.”

  “Do you know they call her ‘Little Anton’? A chip off the sire’s block,” Douglas Torne said. He turned and KT closed her eyes. “Poor Anton’s having a bad month. First, his sister-in-law disappears and now his daughter. And to think, they’ve both found their way to me.”

  KT’s stomach churned at the satisfied tone in his voice. So, he did have Patricia! For years, the paranormal community had heard rumors that Torne trafficked in abducted paranormals, but no one had found any proof.

  Until now.

  “Freeze! Hands up!”

  The words shot into the air and KT’s eyes flew open. Everyone froze for a precious second before scattering, the airport employees scrambling in confusion for any shelter, the hired guns seeking cover and better lines of fire. Two of the dark blue jump-suited mechanics yanked guns out of their suits and fired a shot or two while they sought cover.

 

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