Caged

  Beneath my palms, Lauren’s shoulders stiffened. I rubbed at them to help me focus on controlling my brewing growl.

  “Please.” Although the wolf held onto Brook, his eyes were directed to me. “I can help. You won’t regret it.”

  Famous last words … “Think you can manage one more?” I asked Lauren.

  The speed at which his door unlatched hinted she’d already begun working on it before I’d given the okay. Maybe she wanted to attract unnecessary attention even less than I did.

  With mostly bare feet, our group made little noise as we congregated outside Brook’s cage, just out of sight of the double doors.

  Lauren twisted within my grasp. From peering up at me, she turned to Kyle, to Brook, to the other wolf and to Gabe before she stared back up at me. “Tell me you have a plan for the dodgy clothes situation.”

  26

  Lauren had a point about our clothes situation, given three of our six-member party wore nothing, but the bigger issue of getting past the double act beyond the steel doors took precedence.

  We turned away from the bothersome vamp after a last check assured us his eyes were still closed. How we hadn’t disturbed him puzzled me. Something told me the beings’ hearing held as much acuteness as my own, yet not even an eyebrow twitch affected his features. It took a lot to turn my back on him when so much rode on us getting to the exit unhindered.

  With each additional step, we drew one supernatural after another to the front of their cage, their knuckles white as they gripped the bars—the could-be-witch, shifter, wolf, shifter, another possible witch.

  Those who spoke kept their voices low. The ones who didn’t emitted a quiet rumble, probably of frustration.

  As much as I wanted to swear I’d return, to ensure justice would be carried out, and to set them all free, I clamped my lips shut and ignored them as best as I could. I’d always been taught not to make promises I didn’t know I could keep.

  Admittedly, I hesitated outside the wolf’s bars. No more than a kid, his rigid jaw and shining stare suggested beseeching his lips didn’t vocalise. His being a kindred kind almost urged me to take him with us, but our party already had more members than I wanted.

  Only the vampire in the last enclosure failed to come forth. Like the one who resided beside Lauren’s cell, he stood with an unnatural stillness that prickled the nape of my neck.

  Did vampires sleep standing up?

  Damn beings gave me the creeps.

  Silence carried through from the other side of the double doors when we reached them. I didn’t know whether to take it as a good sign or not. Even the mumbles from the cages dwindled until only breaths and heartbeats remained.

  I steadied my own breathing, tried to lessen the pound of my pulse whirring through my ears, and took my lips down close to Lauren. “They out there? You feel them?” When she nodded, I turned to Brook. “I want you to look after Lauren whil—”

  “Stupid idea,” Brook hissed.

  My hackles rose, and my eyebrow twitched up.

  “Do not try to protect me for being female.” Fire blazed in her golden eyes. “And do not underestimate me for that reason, either.” Her levelled tone did nothing to disguise her fury. “In case you had not noticed, other than the girl, I am the only one here unaffected by vampire venom. Would you care to risk your friends being bitten at this point, Ethan?”

  I’d been chauvinistic without even realising it; I blamed it on my responsibility to Jem and Mum, and my natural instinct to look out for them. I’d not even considered that Brook should make up a quarter of the fighting pairs—two of us against each vampire.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, before looking to Lauren. “I want you to stand over there,”—I inclined with my chin—“beside the door on the left.” That way, she’d be behind it when it opened. “I want you to face this way. And I do not want you to move until I come tell you it’s clear. Understand?”

  Her nod arrived as a jerk, and she took her position in silence, grabbing a fistful of denim and dropping her gaze as she twisted her hands in the fabric. Sweat drenched her scent to the point I questioned how she’d cope with the breakout.

  I swung to the right and found Gabe’s attention already on me, and a subtle point of my finger drew it to the girl. “Stay with her.” He opened his mouth, to protest no doubt, until my hardened stare cut him short. “Not a request, Gabe.”

  Although his jaw tightened, he gave a curt nod, and padded behind me to join Lauren.

  Her head whipped up as soon as he stood in front of her, and her eyes fluttered toward the ceiling as her fiddling fingers went into overdrive on her shirt cuffs.

  “Plan?” Kyle mumbled to my right.

  Damned if I know. “Take them out.”

  His quiet chuckle rumbled from him. “Good plan.”

  “I thought so.” My lips twitched.

  “Do you two never take serious issues seriously?” Brook’s harsh reprimand dragged a ‘Sorry’, from Kyle and me.

  I scanned from the shifter to Kyle, to the young wolf with his flexing hands and ready posture, and tried to make a rapid assessment of who to pair with whom. Given the choice, I’d have opted for Kyle at my rear any day. If not him, I’d have gone for Brook, but leaving Kyle with backup whose abilities I hadn’t witnessed offered too much concern—at least I’d seen firsthand that the panther could hold her own.

  I switched position until I met the wolf’s side, and sent a nod to the other two. Kyle wouldn’t need telling of my game plan, but Brook’s quizzical expression suggested she’d thought I’d stay beside her. I offered her a smile. “I’m counting on you to hold his hand.”

  Amusement brightened her eyes as Kyle’s growl grumbled in my direction.

  Without waiting to hear what he had to say, I took one stride forward, grasped hold of the door handle, but hesitated at a whimper to my left.

  Lauren stood with her face turned as far toward the wall as it could go, and I realised the sound had come from her—just as quickly as I recognised Gabe’s proximity had to have been the cause.

  With one hand braced against the wall over her shoulder, his flared nostrils followed the curve of her neck.

  My heart stuttered a beat. “Gabe!” I thrust toward him a step with my barked command.

  As though unbothered, his face made a slow twist my way. One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Sorry,” he said with a lazy drawl.

  Even beneath my glower, his expression didn’t alter. At least he pushed away from towering over the girl. I guessed I still had an element of control over the pup.

  At a hiss behind Gabe, my head whipped up in time to catch the very awake vampire’s lunge of his arm through his bars—toward Lauren.

  Gabe twisted before I’d even growled.

  I pounced forward for the vampire at the same time as Gabe, and would have reached him if the damn doors hadn’t shot open and smashed into my side.

  The power of the collision knocked me sprawling through the air. I hit concrete with a grunt. Roughness tore at the skin of my shoulder as I skidded along the ground.

  “Look out!” The warning arrived from the caged werewolf.

  Following a pop, a dart soared toward me.

  I rolled just in time to avoid sedation, flicking over onto all fours and kicking out at the missile before it could ricochet off to affect anyone else.

  My head snapped up to see Gabe grabbing the caged vamp through the bars.

  He twisted his neck with a force I’d never seen in him before.

  The body dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

  My gaze flitted to the right, to both guards in the open doorway, their weapons directed on me.

  Bollocks!

  “You’re starting to become more trouble than you’re worth,” the stocky one said.<
br />
  The curl of his companion’s lip suggested he held me in the same regard.

  “Only just starting to be a bother?” Gabe’s stance altered to the side, but I kept my attention on the threat before me, blanking out the frozen bodies of the other four of my party. “Damn, I must be losing my touch.”

  Spotting the tightening of the Eastern vampire’s finger against his trigger, I bounded to the left a second before another dart homed in on my vacated spot.

  I whirled back into a crouch.

  How many rounds did a dart gun hold?

  Impulse told me one, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Without waiting for the vampires’ next move, I thrust forth into a dive that smacked my shoulder against Stocky’s torso.

  He stumbled backward, taking me down on top of him, and his head hit concrete with a solid thud.

  A growl rolled free behind me as I scrambled to my knees.

  Scuffles brushed the floor at my rear.

  Fingers clutched at my shoulders like claws for a brief instant before vanishing.

  A shout rang out from Gabe, but before I could catch the words, the doors crashed against the stone walls behind me, echoing with enough resonance to bring the two vampires reinforcement.

  If we didn’t get a move on, we’d end up back behind bars.

  I drew back my fist. Drove it down. Aimed for Stocky’s nose.

  Cartilage splintered and blood sprayed on impact.

  At a grunt and bump to my right, a quick glimpse showed Kyle tussling with the other vampire. When Kyle flipped onto his feet, my instinct to pounce in and help him dulled, and I focused back on my own issue by ripping my arm back for another hit.

  “Goddammit!” Another roar came from Gabe—one that merged with the crunch of bone on bone as I punched Stocky.

  The second spurt of blood coated my forearm in a gory tattoo.

  Around me, the sound of flesh smacking flesh, of heavy breaths and rapid heartbeats, of Gabe yelling whatever the hell he kept yelling seemed to represent a bongo drummed alert that had to be pounding through the walls like a Morse code.

  Kyle stumbled past me.

  I tensed to pounce after him—until the outside wolf hauled him up on his way to toss a punch at Mr East.

  As Kyle righted himself, Brook’s glossy black feline coat slithered across my periphery. Her jaws clamped around the vampire’s shin at the same time that a second throw from the outside wolf took the undead dick back another step.

  Pain exploded through my jaw with enough sting to vibrate my teeth.

  When I blinked my eyes into focus, the ceiling stared back at me around the leering glower of one pissed off Mr Stocky. His fingers grabbed my throat. His arm yanked me upright with enough force to cripple a human.

  “Their necks!”

  The shout seemed to come from Gabe, but the ringing in my ears made pinpointing his location difficult, as did the lengthening of Stocky’s fangs.

  His body jostled right before he could duck in for a bite, and his face twisted in what looked like pain. As he dropped his gaze, I followed and found Brook hanging off his left thigh, feline growls humming through her as she tugged at the flesh.

  Joining in whilst she had him distracted, I struck my right fist against his torso—one, two, three—before switching to jam my left into his jaw.

  “Their necks!” Gabe’s voice bellowed again. “You have to snap their necks!” Gabe flew past toward the other scrap in the corner. “Get out the way!”

  Stocky kicked the leg Brook had latched onto and thumped his fist on her head whilst his fingers dug deeper and deeper into my throat and each judder of his body rattled my skull against the solid wall at my back. As he booted and punched himself free of Brook’s teeth, and turned his smiling attention back to me, hands grabbed his jaw and forehead from behind.

  A rapid jerk of Stocky’s head resulted in a neck crack.

  His hold on me slackened.

  He dropped to the floor.

  Gabe stood, chest heaving, sweat coating the pup’s body. The grey of his eyes had darkened around his dilated pupils. He pointed at the supine body beneath him before bringing a finger to tap at his own neck. “S-s-cerebral s-severance.” He nodded, blew out a breath. “Seems to w-work.”

  My gaze shot to the other corner, where Mr East lay in a similar state of sorry-end to his comrade. I stared hard at Gabe when I turned back to him. Instead of allowing any concern over what he’d just so easily done, I gave him a nod. “Good to know.”

  With the first threat out the way, the volume of interest from the other captives increased in the form of murmurs, growls and banging.

  How long would we get away with that kind of noise before someone arrived to investigate?

  I looked to the outside wolf, where he stood poised as though still ready for action, and at Brook, her sleek black body prowling left and right. “I doubt we have much time,” I said.

  Brook came to a standstill, a shimmer tugging at her coat for a few seconds before her flesh and long dark hair moved in to surround her golden eyes. “Then, let’s get out of here.”

  “We are. Just as soon as we have some clothes for you guys.” I pointed to the Eastern vampire in his crumpled heap across the hallway. “Strip him, Kyle.” I prodded Gabe away from Stocky and unfastened the buttons on the vampire’s jeans, twisting to look at the outside werewolf. “You have a name?”

  “Samuel.” He stepped forward and began yanking at the dead vampire’s shirt.

  I worked the jeans over Stocky’s thighs, the name prodding at my brain for a few seconds before my brow winged up. “Samuel Toulsen?”

  His eyes widened a tad. “Yes.” The vampire’s arms stretched over his head as his shirt was hauled up and off.

  I stared harder at the wolf. His matted hair, the filth across his face, and the hollowed expression to his eyes had altered his appearance way beyond the image Jack Brosen had shared of his missing pack member, but the resemblance beneath all that was strong enough for me to accept. “Your Alpha’s been worried about you, Samuel.”

  He blew out a breath, his shoulders deflating with the expelled air.

  “Jack’s son here, too?”

  Returning home with only half the cargo would not bear well for the amicable relationship between our two packs. No way could I take one without the other.

  Samuel’s headshake told me everything I needed to know—just as the dart away of his eyes told me he didn’t look forward to explaining that to Jack.

  I patted his shoulder before tossing the vamp’s jeans to Gabe. “Dress.”

  “But—”

  “Not asking, Gabe. It’s an order.” I glanced across at Kyle holding Mr East’s trousers against himself. “Not a chance.” I turned to Brook.

  Her body was way too slim for the narrow waist.

  “Here, swap,” I said to Kyle, exchanging Stocky’s shirt with Kyle before handing Mr East’s to Brook.

  She shook her head. “I cannot shift in clothing. I would prefer that option not be taken from me just yet.”

  “At some point, when we get out of here, you’ll need to get dressed, Brook.” I tucked the jersey T to hang from my back pocket. “It’s there when you’re ready.” I didn’t wait for Kyle’s face to pop out of his T-shirt before I told him, “I’m going for Lauren. Head up and see what you can hear through the upper door. We’ll meet you up there.”

  He nodded and made for the stairs as I stepped across to the steel double doors.

  The noise level, though not quite as extreme, seeped through the opening at the first opportunity. I ignored it—just as I refused to meet any of the eyes I knew would be aimed my way.

  Rounding the door brought me directly to Lauren. The girl had curled into a ball, arms enfolding her head. If she realis
ed I’d entered, she showed no acknowledgement.

  I dropped to my haunches before her, tapped her arm and waited until her eyes peeked through a gap between her forearms. “Time to go.”

  The tremble of her tiny frame seemed to hinder her movements as she unwrapped herself at the speed of a geriatric. When her eyes fully appeared, they held the circumference of an eagle owl’s—without the focus.

  Not good.

  “Okay.” I wriggled my arm beneath her bent knees and slid the other around her back. “I’ve got you.” She didn’t protest as I drew her close to my body and straightened. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  The others had waited in the hallway when I ducked back out with Lauren. As soon as the doors closed at my rear, the noise from within the cages diminished to a more bearable level.

  I didn’t speak—didn’t see the need. When I rounded the corner and started up the stairs, three sets of footsteps trailed behind.

  On the landing, I made the full U-turn and mounted the second set of stairs. At the top, Kyle leaned into the doorway—one he held open with his head stuck through.

  “Thought I told you to listen through the door,” I whispered when I reached him.

  “I did.” A twist of his head brought his eyes into view as the following scuffles of the others came to a halt at my rear. “And I heard nothing, so thought I’d check if it was because the door was too thick, or if I really couldn’t hear anything.”

  “And?”

  “Nobody out there,” he murmured. “Which is a little concerning, don’t you think?”

  “Let’s hope not,” I said, a jerk of my chin telling him to move.

  He stepped aside, nodding at Lauren in my arms. “She okay?”

  I bobbled my head in a maybe-maybe-not gesture. “You bring up the rear if I take the lead?”

  “Sure.”

  Lauren made peering around the doorframe awkward, but a quick glance and inhalation in each direction brought no concern—not that I’d have smelled anything above the ever-present stench of rot and gore.