Twenty-four hours of relentless scrabbling for another solution turned up no new leads, so we arrived at the farmer’s field the next afternoon with very little hope but with an outsized dose of determination. Surely Hunter would have simply moved the ceremony to another location after being busted for complicity. Or perhaps he was busy setting up a trap to reel us back in and would be thrilled when we stupidly showed our faces right where he expected us to be.
But the online front for the SSS that Ginger had tracked down the day before was sketchy at best, suggesting that perhaps the uber-alpha didn’t have a direct line of communication with his underlings after all. Perhaps the loose-knit group of shifters hadn’t learned how to build a phone tree and thus had no way of getting in touch with each other save turning up every Friday evening to howl together at the moon. And perhaps Hunter, like us, would simply be forced to arrive and hope he’d be able to take down as many halfies as possible in the face of our clan’s moderate show of offensive strength.
Perhaps I’ll start answering to the name Pollyanna too, I thought uncomfortably as I stepped out of our clan’s car. I couldn’t quite believe that I was leading my pack mates into danger with my eyes wide open to the stupidity of the endeavor. But I also couldn’t imagine staying home and ignoring the chance—no matter how slender—that Lia would be gutted tonight on this very field. No, as stupid as it was to show up, it would be stupider to stay away.
“I’m coming in with you,” Cinnamon said as the other three shifters joined me outside the vehicle’s metal walls. As directed, the male trouble twin had parked down a narrow lane that was nearly invisible from the main road but that was only a short jaunt upwind from the location Quill had scouted out the day before. This was the moment of truth, ten minutes before sunset...and already my pack was rebelling.
“You’re our getaway driver,” I reminded Cinnamon, but the male trouble twin—who was usually gentle and humorous—just growled a rejection of my reiteration of his role. He wanted to be part of the strike force and he didn’t seem willing to take no for an answer.
The truth was that Ginger’s brother was doing better after two days of forced rest. He’d healed enough that sitting upright was no longer a struggle, and his wounds had stopped oozing every time he moved an arm or a leg funny. Still, everyone but Cinnamon himself knew that the male trouble twin would be a liability rather than an asset on the mission ahead.
So I elaborated, trying to smooth the shifter’s ruffled fur. “You have an important job to do,” I reminded him. “If we can tear Lia and Savannah away from the SSS and get them to you, then at least we’ll know the two innocents are safe. The rest of us can take care of ourselves. But you saw the video—Lia might not be able to walk. She needs you to be ready to spirit her out of the line of fire.”
“I can do that and still come in with you,” Cinnamon argued. But he hadn’t risen from the driver’s seat yet, clear evidence that the male was still too weak to join us on the battleground.
I sighed, preparing to muster a little alpha dominance and force the malleable shifter to toe the line. But Ginger took her brother in hand before I could speak up again.
“Do I have to handcuff you to the steering wheel?” the female demanded, dangling the restraints that we’d brought along for an entirely different purpose through her brother’s open window. The young woman was revved up and ready to rumble, and her wolf was so rampant that I could almost see its image superimposed over her human skin as she spoke. Neither Cinnamon nor I doubted that she really would cuff her brother to the wheel if he didn’t toe the line.
So I didn’t have to expend my weak powers to get Cinnamon to play it safe after all. “No, ma’am,” the male trouble twin said, eyes submissively trained on our feet as he backed down. Then he muttered, “Be careful.”
“Always am and nothing bad’s happened to me yet,” Ginger agreed. She shed clothes as she spoke, and then the female trouble twin fell onto paws with a speed that nearly rivaled the traitorous uber-alpha’s. Beside her, Glen’s wolf form caught my eye and then nudged his current partner to get her moving away from the car. The pair curved into the trees as a unit, moving into place as planned so they’d be ready when the enemy shifters arrived.
Quill, Cinnamon, and I, on the other hand, remained resolutely human. It was hard for me to wait two-legged even though my weak wolf would provide little additional offensive power, but she and I both knew this was an integral part of our plan.
So I forced myself to unclasp the sword belt from around my waist and hand the weapon into the car to Cinnamon for safekeeping. In for a penny, in for a pound.
And now I’m both unarmed and thin-skinned. I shivered, knowing the unvarnished assessment of my current state was far too true. Without the aid of my katana, I had no chance of fighting free if the enemy saw through our little charade.
Focus. The word breathed from wolf to human mind and back to animal again. Inhaling deeply, we calmed our pounding pulse together. Then, through the trees, we heard the first car door slam.
One door, then another. A crunch of tires on gravel, then more metal on metal. Two vehicles, I thought. One for Lia and one for Savannah.
I reached toward my wolf, hoping to borrow her nose to gather a little additional olfactory feedback. It would be handy to know how many enemies we faced and whether both of the kidnapped halfies were present before I donned the handcuffs that Ginger had threatened her brother with a few minutes earlier.
“Only two enemies,” Cinnamon murmured. “Lia’s there, and one other female—young, weak, probably Savannah. We could take them down with a frontal assault if you’d let me help....”
My pack mate’s words trailed off as I shook my head and turned around so my back was facing Quill. “We can’t risk Lia getting injured before we reach them,” I disagreed, mouth muffled against the side of the car.
Then, allowing the cowboy shifter to fasten hard metal handcuffs around my unresisting wrists, my own partner and I strode together toward the meeting grounds of the enemy who held our pack mate’s life in their unyielding hands.
Chapter 21
I could neither smell nor see Hunter, but I got the distinct impression that he was out there four-legged, watching and waiting as my pack and I moved into position. His presence was akin to a tingle at the base of my spine, the same sensation that I’d experienced over and over again during the last twenty-four hours of jittery anticipation. I’d kept looking over my shoulder all day long, in fact, expecting Hunter to return for his clothes, wallet, and SUV. But instead the uber-alpha appeared to have turned wolf and disappeared from our lives as quickly and as thoroughly as he’d come into them.
And yet, if my overactive nerve endings were any indication, Hunter hadn’t really abandoned us at all—just taken a step back until we couldn’t quite see him out of the corners of our eyes. Whether the sensation was the work of the pack bond or just wishful thinking on my part, though, didn’t really matter. Either Hunter really was my mate and we were in good shape—with five able-bodied shifters and a recovering getaway driver toeing off against two SSS members—or the uber-alpha was merely waiting to turn the tide of the battle in the opposite direction and ensure that we all perished.
Regardless, I couldn’t do anything about it now. In fact, as soon as I set eyes on my youngest pack mate, I immediately forgot everything except the urge to rush closer to the girl as quickly as possible.
Lia had already been pulled out of one of the cars by the time I caught sight of her and she was now being dragged over to where the other outpack male waited with his hand firmly clamped onto the shoulder of a second prisoner. Our youngest pack mate had every right to be cowed after days of confinement, but Lia was instead holding her shit together with a strength of will that would have made her cousins proud. The girl’s cheeks were tear-stained, but her chin jutted skyward as she dug her heels into the dirt and roundly refused to give in to her captor’s attempts to move her along.
Sav
annah, on the other hand, looked nearly comatose. Or at least I assumed the other girl was Savannah. I wouldn’t have recognized the teenager from her photo, smiles and youthful charm having been completely obliterated by dirt and bruises. And unlike Lia, Savannah was hunched over as if her kidneys hurt. Her wolf was clearly too quiescent to give the girl the boost she needed to survive any further ordeal.
I wanted to swear and then tear into the two males who were manhandling the kidnapped girls with such disregard for their captives’ humanity. But that wasn’t the plan. Instead, Quill and I paced forward, purposefully coming upon the group aslant and from downwind, so the enemy wouldn’t notice us until we were almost close enough to touch.
The night before, the pack and I had gone back and forth over the issue of Quill’s presence on the front line of the upcoming showdown. Would the outpack males who we were hoping to ambush have been in the bar Tuesday night, meaning they would have seen the cowboy shifter leave with us? Or could he pass as just another SSS member that Lia’s captors didn’t happen to know personally?
“I’ll make them believe,” Quill had promised, raising one eyebrow at me as if asking my future permission to knock his new pack leader around. Now he made good on that past promise, loudly rebuking me for my supposed dilly-dallying, then shoving me so hard that I nearly fell to the earth at his feet.
The abrupt greeting appeared to have worked. I couldn’t actually see the SSS males’ faces since my bound hands prevented me from catching myself before I slammed into the side of the nearest car. But the strangers’ voices were congratulatory as they greeted what they assumed was another halfie-hunting shifter showing up with his catch at the usual Friday night watering hole.
And even though I’d banged myself up good during our introduction to the scene, I was glad that Quill’s quick thinking had kept my face averted from the SSS crew. Unlike the cowboy shifter with his impressive acting skills, I has having a hard time maintaining a disheartened demeanor. Instead, I felt triumphant as I realized that our plan was actually going off without a hitch.
This was it. We’d edged ourselves close enough to Lia and Savannah so we could now pull the girls out of harm’s way before the rest of our pack mates joined in the fight. Soon, both kids would be tucked away in bed with soup and hot chocolate and whatever else we could think of to lull them back into a very real sense of security. Soon, our entire pack would once again be fully united.
But then the shifter holding Lia burst my bubble with a single word. “Nice work, Talon,” he said. “I didn’t really think you could do it, but you managed after all. A halfie alpha!”
Talon! Absurdly, I wasted a split second thinking I must have been mistaken. Quill was a nice guy, a thoughtful member of our crew. He was here to help Lia escape.
To help Lia who had formed a supposedly irrational dislike of our newest member as soon as he entered our lives? No, Quill/Talon was present for one purpose and one purpose alone. To increase the SSS’s weekly haul, bringing in not only two weak girls but also a third half-blood shifter whose wolf was equally lily-livered but who had been granted an unusual power by a friendly pack leader.
If, as I suspected, the SSS was somehow stealing their prey’s lupine capabilities each time they murdered a half-blood, then I was the holy grail. A halfie weak enough to easily sacrifice on the altar, but with a hidden strength that would boost the outpack males’ own wolves far more effectively than the spirits of the other two girls currently in their grasp.
“Glen, Ginger, attack!” I screamed, struggling against my captor’s grasp and hoping my pack mates would be able to descend upon the enemy quickly enough to wrest the two teenagers out of the outpack males’ control. But instead I heard Lia’s shriek of rage becoming muffled as a car door slammed and shut her away from the outside world. Then I felt the prick of a needle invading my bicep as the world turned fuzzy around me.
“You were so easy to manipulate,” Quill whispered in my ear. “So easy to catch.”
And then the world went black.
Chapter 22
I awoke in a hole in the ground. And, in case you’re a Hobbit fan, let me assure you—it was a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell. Plus, my prison was as dark as the grave.
Perhaps it was my grave.
The image of dying there, with no pack mates around to mourn me, filled my mind. I’d rot alone in this hole, my bones jumbling together as carrion beetles rolled my flesh into tiny balls to feed to their offspring. Snakes would slither down to capture the tiny critters drawn to feed upon my decomposing flesh and tree roots would eventually invade the pockets of fertility left behind.
At least then I’d be good for something.
I shuddered, my head pounding as I tried to push through the drugged fog and remember what had happened back in that farmer’s field. The turncoat, the needle prick, the car doors slamming...I’d obviously been captured, but surely Lia and Savannah had gotten away?
No, I distinctly remembered my youngest pack mate’s screams as she was forced into the vehicle nearest me. Thought I might have recalled her cradling my comatose body against her own slender form as we sped out of the lot, my head jiggling nervelessly on my neck just before unconsciousness fully claimed me.
If Lia and Savannah were prisoners like I was, then I needed to find and help them.
“Is anyone there?” I whispered into the darkness, reaching my hands out in search of other living beings. One arm grazed a skinny, damp object that might have been a root...or a severed finger. I jerked away, hitting my head on a protruding rock in the process of reeling backwards into the void.
My stomach was too queasy to risk opening my mouth even so far as to swear. Instead, I held perfectly still, listening to the way my breathing echoed within my ears. Hyperventilation was soothing in its own way, I decided. The heaving breaths proved I was still alive, that the earth hadn’t yet swallowed me whole.
Get it together.
My wolf’s whisper shook me out of the mindless terror I was falling into, and I didn’t even care that she’d joined me behind our shared eyes without invitation. It wasn’t as if there was anything for her to see in the pitch black hole anyway.
“Look for escape,” she whispered aloud with my lips. And I nodded, proving that I really was crazy—not only talking to myself but replying as well. Right, escape.
I patted myself down first, finding that I was still wearing the clothes I’d started out the day in. Or perhaps that had been the day before? With no light in my hole, I didn’t know if it was today or tomorrow—and now I was just confusing myself with my own words. The pounding headache didn’t help matters either.
Focus. Surely I have some weapons left.
My trembling fingers brushed across jeans and t-shirt, found Crew’s collar still stashed away in one bulging pocket. I’d never gotten around to examining the item, I now realized, never taken the time to decipher the source of the rotten-banana odor that had allowed the SSS shifters to break through Hunter’s iron grip.
Well, now I’ve got all the time in the world. That wasn’t really true—even in my somewhat altered state, I realized that Quill wouldn’t just leave me down in this hole to molder. No, the outpack male had likely stashed all three of us halfies away for safekeeping until the time was ripe to rip out our hearts like he’d harvested organs from the unfortunate Daisy Rambler. I might have days, hours, or only minutes alone. Best get to the task of escaping.
This would have been easier in daylight, I grumbled. But the wolf only snorted within my skin and brought our shared hands up so we could sniff at the collar while running light fingers down its length. There was the faintest hint of rotten banana yet present, the odor emanating from a little plastic indentation that currently held the smallest iota of moisture.
What do you think? I asked my animal half, then waited what seemed like an eternity for a reply that never came.
She was gone, I realized. Even the barest essenc
e of rotten banana remaining had been enough to momentarily banish my wolf. Which meant I did have the tiniest ace in the hole—a way to force myself out of an alpha compulsion, if necessary.
Assuming, of course, that I was able to pull the collar out of my pocket and bring it up to my nose while a shifter stronger than me tried to force my muscles to act otherwise. Not likely.
Pushing the collar back into my pocket, I fought down the terror that threatened to rise back up in my throat now that my animal half had gone missing. Wolf or no wolf, I wasn’t a damsel in distress and the collar wasn’t my only possible escape hatch. There was the tracking device for one....
Fingers slipped down toward my left sock, seeking the tiny sliver of plastic and metal that Glen had purchased as an auxiliary safety measure. “We’ll be able to find you anywhere there’s satellite reception,” my stalwart second had promised, his veiled eyes doing their best not to ask me to think up a strategy that didn’t involve being taken back to the enemy’s lair as bait.
In all fairness, that hadn’t actually been my plan. The tracking device was for backup only.
Or it had been for backup. Because my frantic fingers found no bump beneath my left sock. And when I tried the other ankle, hoping my drug-addled brain had just forgotten precisely where I stashed the device, no chunk of plastic turned up there either.
I closed my eyes, allowing the voluntary darkness to erode away the newfound rush of adrenaline that was threatening to turn me into a quivering mass of jelly. Breathe, I reminded myself, wishing my wolf would show back up to keep me company.
It was no big surprise the tracking device was gone. After all, Quill had been privy to its installation just as he’d been privy to every other aspect of our planning process.
Won’t Ginger be pissed when she realizes she went after the wrong outpack male after all?
I tried to smile but was pretty sure the expression on my face was closer to a grimace. Okay, so no one will be riding to the rescue. No biggie. I’ll just find my own way out.
Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1) Page 30