by Liza Street
“Shh, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay. I’ll get you out of here.”
She hadn’t realized she was crying, but now she buried her face in her arms, ignoring him. Because despite the cage, despite the giant shapeshifting man-cat, Quentin lying to her was the worst thing of all.
eleven
Quentin kept himself pressed as close to the edge of his cage as possible. The pain of hurting Emma was less, the closer he was to her. Probably a mate thing. Shit. He wasn’t ready for a mate. Well, he was, but he didn’t have territory or a place to call home, or a pride. If she wanted a family, they’d need a support network to help raise the kittens and keep them safe.
He was getting way ahead of himself. First he had to get her out of this mess. “Hey,” he said.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
How could she possibly love him after this? Maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe he’d be on his own, truly, forever. His chest tightened uncomfortably at the thought.
Well, he had her now, until he could come up with an idea for escape. If he had her now, he’d make the most of it.
“I guess you heard what that asshole said about my family,” he said.
Emma didn’t respond, but he noticed her breathing change slightly. She was listening.
“We’d been pushed so far off our territory by the nearby pride that we barely had enough room to roam. See, when other prides tell the story, they leave that part out, but it’s important. We had three acres, that’s it, and it was my parents and me, my uncle and his mate, and my grandfather.”
Thinking about his family, his pride, made his throat close up with emotion. He’d never told anyone this story.
Emma’s posture had loosened, but she still wasn’t looking at him.
“I didn’t know what they were planning,” he continued. “Probably a good thing, because I was fifteen and I would’ve insisted on joining them. So I didn’t see the fight. Before they left that morning, my mom had told me they’d be gone a while, and that she’d put some leftovers in the fridge for dinner. I did jigsaw puzzles until dark and waited long past dinner. I was anxious, but finally I got hungry, or maybe I knew to look. So I opened the fridge. Taped to the lid of a container wasn’t reheating instructions like I’d expected, but a note to say that if it was dinnertime and they weren’t home yet, it meant they’d lost the battle for more territory, and I needed to run as fast as I could.”
Emma looked up through a curtain of red hair. “You were only fifteen?”
He nodded. “I heard the other pride coming. I didn’t have time to gather anything, no photos of my family, no clothes, no food. I ran.”
She blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s over. It was the worst right after it happened. But still nobody will take me, like Bryan said.”
“I would take you,” she whispered. “You would never have to run again.”
They each leaned out of their cages, their arms outstretched between the bars, fingers touching. Eventually, Emma lay down and Quentin followed suit, and she fell asleep, her fingers linked with his.
*
All night he had stayed awake, trying to figure out a plan, but nothing came to him. If Tyler came back, Quentin guessed he could convince him to let them out, but when he didn’t return, Quentin had to guess that Bryan had used his power to keep Tyler away.
His broken arm had healed, at least. It was sore, but he could flex it and move it all around without much pain.
Footsteps thudded downstairs. “Fee, fi, fo, fum.”
Emma sat up suddenly, and grinned shyly at Quentin. Despite all that they were going through, she looked gorgeous and even happy. He wanted to warn her not to speak, because she wouldn’t know that shifters had extra powerful senses of hearing, but she put a finger to her lips and shot him another smile.
Maybe it was the bond between them, but she seemed to know what he was thinking.
Bryan came in and stared at them. “What to do with you two, what to do.”
Emma gave a long, purposeful stretch that lifted her white tank top and exposed a pale stretch of her tummy. Quentin shot her a look—what the hell? You don’t seduce the potential rapist.
“I wish you’d put a bed in here or something,” she said, stretching again. Thrusting her chest out. “I’m so sore.”
Bryan’s nostrils flared and his eyes took on an intent look. He was buying whatever Emma was selling. She was up to something, although damned if Quentin could figure out what.
Now that she had Bryan’s complete attention, she laced her fingers behind her, pushing her chest forward again. From his perspective, Quentin could see her reach into her back pocket. Bryan’s attention wasn’t on her back pocket, but on her cleavage. When she bent forward again, she dropped her wallet on the floor.
“Oh no!” she said, lunging toward it. In doing so, she kicked it closer to the bars, and several cards flew out.
She scrambled, but Bryan reached the wallet first. He shuffled through the cards, looking at her driver’s license, tossing aside credit cards. He shuffled through the thick stack of cash.
“You a waitress or something?” he asked. Then he tugged out a folded piece of paper.
“Give it back,” Emma said. “Please give it back.”
She sounded frantic, but Quentin couldn’t smell any fear on her or anxiety. Bryan was too distracted to notice.
He unfolded the paper and showed it to Quentin. “She’s a goddamn stripper! Dude! Did you know this, Q?”
Quentin shook his head, not trying to lie, but disbelieving. What was Emma thinking?
“Show me what you can do,” Bryan said. “Look, you’re already in a cage. You could pretend you’re one of those dancing females in a club, the ones in cages.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not going to dance for you.”
“Yes, you will, bitch.”
“You can’t make me,” she said.
“I will make you if I have to move your fucking arms and legs myself. Show me how you dance.”
She sat down on the floor and shook her head.
He made a show of taking the key out of his pocket and unlocking the padlock on the chain that wound around her cage door.
Quentin knew she had some kind of plan, but did she realize just how strong shifters were? Quentin was powerless in his cage—he wouldn’t be able to help her, and the lion inside of him was roaring with rage and frustration. His mate was in danger, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her.
As soon as the chain was free, she leaped up faster than Quentin would have thought possible and launched herself at the door. It swung out to knock Bryan in the head. Falling to the ground, he swore and grabbed at Emma.
Where could she go? She’d never outrun a mountain lion, and if she managed to get upstairs, Bryan would shift and chase her. Quentin gripped the bars of his cage, feeling helpless.
Bryan was still on the floor, and he got to his feet.
Instead of running up the stairs, though, Emma pressed herself against Quentin’s cage. She was right next to one of his hands.
“What are you doing?” he hissed in her ear.
Bryan lunged and grabbed Emma, and Quentin saw his chance. He yanked Bryan’s arm through the cage bars and snapped it. Bryan howled and cursed. Quentin took advantage of his pain and distraction to grab the key.
twelve
Emma whirled away while Quentin swore, fingers fumbling with the key. Bryan’s good arm scrabbled at her shoulder, but she ducked. She was fast, and light on her feet, and she was not going to let this asshole keep her in a cage any longer.
Within seconds, Quentin was out of his cage, and he had Bryan’s arms trapped in his own. He shoved Bryan into Emma’s cage and locked the chain in place.
Bryan swore and screamed, banging on the bars with one of his fists. His other arm was limp at his side.
“Is he going to get out of there?”
“Probably eventual
ly,” Quentin said. “But we’ll have time to get Cora, at least, and find our way out of here.”
They rushed out of the house, hand in hand. The ranch was exactly like it had seemed from far away when Quentin watched it earlier in the week. Pristine. Well-landscaped. The land was cared for meticulously, both the yard and the nearby fields, the cattle that dotted the pastures.
As they emerged from the house, a man stood up on the front porch. Emma’s heart jumped into her throat. It was the other guy.
“I’m Tyler,” the man said, holding out his hand to shake.
“I don’t care who you are,” Emma growled. “Let us go.”
“I’m forbidden from freeing her, just like I was forbidden from freeing you,” Tyler said. “But now that you’re out, I can tell you where she is.”
“Is this a trap?” Emma asked.
Tyler smiled thinly. He looked Native American, almost, with his dark eyes and dark skin. His eyes were full of sadness, and Emma thought he looked like he’d been through one tragedy too many.
“No,” Tyler said. “It’s not a trap, but take all the precautions you want. Just don’t hurt Cora. She’s in the barn over there. An old stable office. Bryan turned it into an apartment for her when she first came, but he added locks on the doors and windows. He…” Tyler’s voice changed with emotion. “He wasn’t kind to her. I don’t think he assaulted her, as far as I know. But he hasn’t been kind, either.”
“Why?” Emma asked.
“He wanted to convince her to be with him. He kept lying to our father, saying everything is going all right, and he forbade me from telling Dad anything different. I challenged him—too many times—and now I can’t ignore what he tells me to do.”
He wore a regretful expression as he faced the barn. Emma didn’t understand what Tyler was saying about challenging, but she could tell from his face that he was hurting inside for what Cora had been through.
Quentin shook Tyler’s hand. “Call your father. Tell him what happened. You don’t have to tell him whatever Bryan forbade you from telling, but you can tell him to come home immediately. Don’t go into the basement, though, or Bryan will keep you from making the call.”
Tyler nodded. “Please…don’t tell anyone I helped. Don’t even tell Cora.”
Quentin looked puzzled, but he nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
Tyler shrugged out of his clothes and turned away, but not before Emma saw more of that pain in his eyes. Shimmering as he walked, he turned into a mountain lion before he hit the tree line.
Emma put her hand to her mouth. When Bryan had changed into a mountain lion, it had seemed cruel, unnatural. But the way Tyler had done it—it looked graceful. A dance, in a way.
“Is that how you do it?” she asked Quentin in a quiet voice. “It looked…nice.”
He nodded. “It’s a gift. We’re people who have an extra ability.”
She felt shy. “I’d like to see you as a mountain lion sometime.”
“I’ll show you whenever you want. Well,” he said with a laugh, “maybe not right now.”
They walked to the barn and stepped inside. Quentin cocked his head one way and the other, as if listening for things beneath Emma’s hearing. She strained her own ears.
“I can smell her here,” he said. “She’s close.”
Emma pointed to the door on the far end of the barn. “I bet that’s it.”
“Cora?” Quentin called, striding forward.
“Help!” a faint voice said. “Help me!”
Quentin shouted, “It’s me, Cora. Quentin Armstrong. I’m here to get you home.”
“Oh, thank you,” the voice said on the other side of the door.
A key hung by a string on the wall. Quentin unlocked the deadbolt and a short, skinny woman stumbled out of the room. She grabbed onto Quentin’s neck and shoulders and sobbed.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Quentin soothed.
Emma stood awkwardly off to the side. “I hate to rush this, but we really shouldn’t hang around.”
Quentin nodded. “Cora, do you know how we can drive out of here? We don’t have a car anymore.”
Shit. Emma would need to buy a new car. There was no way. Maybe Nathaniel could drive her home from work for a few months.
“Tyler keeps his truck behind the barn,” Cora said. “Keys…sometimes he leaves his keys in it.”
Emma wondered if Cora knew how much Tyler had helped them. It had seemed like Tyler really cared, but then why wouldn’t he want to come with them while they freed Cora?
Cora’s light brown hair was up in a ponytail. Her face was heart shaped, but she looked too thin, like she hadn’t been eating. Emma didn’t blame her—being held like this would stress her the hell out; Emma wouldn’t have had an appetite, either.
“Hi,” Emma said, as they walked. “I’m Emma.”
“Are you Quentin’s mate?” Cora asked. “You’re not a shifter.”
“Yes, she’s my mate,” Quentin said.
Emma stopped walking. “I’m—wait, I’m what?”
“Well, obviously you have a choice in the matter,” Quentin said with a hesitant smile, “but I don’t. Something about you—it’s like I can’t ever belong to anyone else. My parents had this. They were only for each other and they were wrapped up in love until their deaths.”
“This is pretty fast,” Emma said.
Cora patted her shoulder. “I know it sounds scary to humans, but it’s actually quite normal for us.”
A large, beat-up Dodge truck squatted in the weeds. Emma tried the door and climbed in. “I’ll drive so you two can talk,” she said.
Quentin grinned at her. “Only if I can sit by you.”
Quentin sat in the middle of the bench seat. Although Cora leaned against him, she was quiet. As Emma peeked around Quentin from time to time, Cora’s eyes would fill with tears and she’d turn to stare out the window. It would be a long while before she got over her ordeal.
epilogue
One month later
“Emma,” Quentin growled, “are you going to get out of the car on your own, or do you need help?”
“I can do it,” she said, her eyes on the Fourniers’ ranch home in front of them.
The place looked just as he remembered it—cheerful blue siding and crisp white trim. Big picture window in the living room on the lower level. A patio off to the side, coming from the kitchen and living room. The furniture on the patio was new—he guessed Maverick and Cora had been busy with their carpentry hobby.
He focused on Emma again, watched her fiddle with her hair, pulling it up in a ponytail. She straightened her blouse, giving him a playful flash of the teal bra she was wearing. Which he knew, for a fact, matched her panties.
If she hadn’t been waiting all month for the chance to come to the Fournier ranch to see Hera and meet the new twins, June and Jasper, Quentin might have started the truck back up and driven farther down the drive to where Gabe had said a cabin was waiting for him and Emma. His cabin. Because this was his territory now.
The Sierra Pride—it was his pride, too. His and Emma’s.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Stop looking at me like you’re going to push me against the truck and do me.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” he drawled.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She took one deep breath, then another.
“Why are you so nervous?” he asked. “You and Hera have talked. There are no more secrets between you two.”
“I know, I know. It’s just hard. It hasn’t been that long since I saw her, but it feels like twenty years.”
He climbed out of the truck and came around to open her door. “I’ll be right here with you,” he said.
The front door of the house opened, and a petite brunette barreled out toward them. She snatched Emma out of his arms and pulled her into a hug. The two of them made such high-pitched noises of glee that Quentin thought about covering his ears.
“Come on, come
inside,” Hera said. She turned to look over her shoulder at Quentin. “And you must be Quentin. Hi!”
He followed them, amused, as they walked into the house together. Emma gushed over Hera’s newborn twins, and Quentin watched her with a tenderness that, a little over a month ago, he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of. This woman had turned his life completely upside down. Everything was better, thanks to her.
He shook hands with Gabe and Blake, and met Gabe’s mate, Miranda—a tall, black-haired woman whose eyes sparkled with mischief every time she swiped Gabe’s beer. They moved out to the patio to talk about the upcoming ceremony where Quentin and Emma would be formally welcomed into the pride.
“Where’s Cora?” Emma asked.
“She’s out,” Gabe said. “She was excited that you were coming, though, so we’ll see her soon, I expect.”
Quentin watched Emma and Hera talk and laugh while Hera nursed Jasper. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but he overheard Hera saying, “I’m so glad you’ve come back to me.”
Blake was already holding June, but Hera needed to grab some food, so she passed Jasper over to Emma. Emma held the baby close to her face and cooed to him, “Who has the handsomest eyes, huh, mister? Do you? Do you?”
“I know I do,” Quentin said, coming up behind her. He pressed himself along her back, breathing in the vanilla scent of her red hair.
“Rowr,” she said, laughing. “You don’t have much of an ego, do you?”
He laughed and helped her make funny faces at Jasper, who simply gazed back at them with wide gray eyes.
A few minutes later, Cora approached from the woods. Her hair was mussed and she smelled strongly of pine; Quentin suspected she was just returning from a run. She greeted everyone and remained quiet, but smiling. According to Gabe, it had been hard for her when she first came back, and she had to spend a lot of time roaming around as a cougar. Eventually, though, she’d fallen into a routine and grown comfortable with her family again. She and Emma had grown close, too, and in between Emma’s training and auditions for a new company, they exchanged lots of texts and phone calls.