Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2)

by Becca Fanning

  Impossible to believe Lisa was seven. It was a reminder that time moved fast. Five or six more years to get away from a madman and his hater agenda. It should have seemed like all the time in the world.

  From outside, her father shouted, his voice dropping into rage. She saw Lisa flinch at the sound and knew even if her sister didn't have any idea about the shifter agenda or what her father was doing, she was already being affected. Dani and her mother didn't have any more years.

  They had do something now.

  Once they were in the town car Walter settled beside her going through his texts. Dani put her earbuds in but left her music off. The earbuds were window dressing, buying herself time to try and think of a way free. She was determined that today's abduction was going to fail. That she'd have the proof she needed to take to the authorities. This time she was going to the FBI. She was so close to having proof the shifters were being taken out of state.

  Get the proof and free the shifter. If she had to, she'd leave whoever Walter targeted behind. Just long enough to bring down her father and that part of the organization.

  If she got the proof and freed this shifter, bonus.

  If she failed? If she failed, Teresa had promised to take Lisa and run. It wasn't a great solution, but at least Lisa would be out.

  If she failed, though, her mother would be in danger. Dani hadn't told her about the plan. Christy was too unstable anymore and usually too drunk.

  Christy would be in danger. And so would Dani.

  She glanced at her father as he went through his texts, those missives sent to and from his hired thugs and the other anti shifter league men. If she could get his damned phone away from him, she could go with that to the cops. Provided the cops were clean. Bad cops would just say she'd done it herself, all those texts, because who the hell would be so arrogant as to put all his plans in text?

  Her father. That's who.

  Dani looked out the window and watched the Arizona landscape slide by as the town car drew her closer to whatever the day held in store.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Holden Tyrell let himself out of the arena facility, slamming the double steel fire doors behind him. Early Monday morning, summer in Arizona. The sun was already high, the heat was already desert hot. Sometimes he had daydreams about running away from the rodeos and the Wild West shows and going somewhere like Hawaii. Hanging out all day in the jungle shade and dipping into the ocean whenever he got overheated, that sounded like heaven.

  Then he'd saddle up a horse, ride out across a sandy, cactus-studded desert or a high desert with sage leading to cottonwoods along water and pines in the mountains and he'd give up the idea.

  Rodeo was in his blood. So was the desert. So was the shifter gene.

  So was a headache. It pounded in his veins, every heartbeat driving a spear of pain from his shoulders through his skull. So didn't need that right now. This was the last show in the area before the Chaudett Wild West Shows and the Chaudett Rodeos moved back East for a while.

  His brothers and cousins were looking forward to a break in the constant vigilance. Even Jacob could relax, and he'd been on edge ever since teaming up with Gemma the journalist, the two of them scoping out what they could find about the disappearances and Gemma releasing the information to the media. Holden hadn't been quite ready for that move. No one had asked.

  He'd thought they might, because Holden had been looking into the disappearances of shifters throughout the rodeos and just out of the shifter population for longer than anyone else. More than a year since he'd asked Eddie to hold down the fort while he checked into things. Nothing had come of his ramblings and searchings.

  Gemma's articles, though, had turned attention onto the crimes being committed against shifters. Exposing the disappearance of a faction of society that made people nervous might not get them tons of support. But exposing hate crimes – that got everyone's attention.

  And recently Gemma had uncovered a link between abandoned rural properties and disappearances from rodeos and shows that happened less than five miles away. Not just the Chaudett events but all rodeos and Wild West shows across the country.

  Someone was targeting shifters. Someone else wanted to make certain they got their hands on any shifters or shifter allies in rodeo.

  One of his own horses came over to the fence around one of the outdoor stalls, whickering quietly and asking him for sugar or carrots or just to have him scratch up and down the velvet of her long nose.

  "Hey, girl." He clicked his tongue at her, leaned his forearms on the railing and held out a cut up apple. She took it delicately off his palm, chewed thoughtfully and head butted him, knocking him back several steps.

  It was easy to forget how strong animals were when he wasn't one.

  "Very funny."

  Nothing was going according to plan. Once Colby had been snatched outside a Las Vegas rodeo venue and taken to one of the abandoned ranches in the desert, they'd been keeping an eye out for anyone offering promotional contracts or any other inducement to meet after the event ended and before heading out of town.

  Nobody had contacted Holden, and he'd been counting on it. The whole clan had separated, leaving Holden prime snatch-and-grab material. Jacob was purposefully AWOL from this performance, to make it look like Holden had zero backup. Eddie and Colby were riding in a rodeo in Northern California, and Owen's wife Marybeth had just had their first child – he was definitely AWOL if one didn't count the 99 texts an hour all bearing pictures of the cub. He'd have his hands full – the child was a child except when hungry or frustrated or wet or – well, bear.

  With the rest of the clan – his backup – somewhere else, the field was wide open for anyone who wanted to snatch a tall, rangy, copper-haired guy with liquid golden eyes. He, Holden Tyrell, was the lone bear on the scene at this show as far as anyone watching knew. Jacob knew about the plan and was backup at a distance. Eddie knew about the plan and thought it damned stupid but he was in California. Not much he could do about it.

  The plan was simple: For Holden to get himself caught, then Jacob would come after him. They'd find out who the hell was behind the disappearances, at least the ones operating outside events.

  No offers though. No one wanted to meet with him outside the performance. No one even pretended to.

  He felt like a wallflower.

  A year had passed since he'd started looking into the disappearances. Back then he was researching obviously, finding out everything he could about anyone who was said to have vanished. He'd found a couple and made some interesting enemies among men who were ducking out on child support and one set of dealers selling speed. He'd uncovered one cowboy out on a drunk who didn't even know anyone considered him missing.

  He'd only found one missing bear, though, and the man was so rattled and drugged he couldn't tell anyone anything. Something had happened during his kidnapping and he woke up in Bishop, California, with a headache that sounded like the one Holden had now.

  Seriously, if the headache didn't stop it wasn't going to matter if he never got kidnapped. His head would just explode and the haters would have one less bear to hate.

  "Boss?"

  Holden turned. Fight or flight was already bringing up ursine chemicals in his blood. He forced himself to take a breath. If he turned before they had a chance to grab him –

  Wasn't them anyway. Just one of the stable workers. Big guy with a still healing scar on one side of his face. Holden had asked him – Terry? Terrance? Jeff? Sucked at names – and the guy said bar fight.

  Paranoia said bear claw.

  Probably not. Holden was just – paranoid.

  "What's up? Terry, is it?"

  "Dave."

  Holden nodded. Yeah, great at remembering names.

  "There a problem, boss?"

  Holden frowned. All facilities had their own rules. Where riders could be. Where audience could be. Where fans could congregate if they wanted to get autographs or try thei
r luck at going home with somebody.

  But show was over and Holden was the owner of a bunch of the animals here. "Maybe I should ask you that." His fingers curled, threatening to become claws.

  Dave spread his hands. "Just offerin' help if you need it."

  Didn't sound that way. Or look it. The guy was big, muscly in an intimidating way. "Nope, I'm fine. I think there are some trucks over at the loadout could probably use a hand." He didn't look away from the horse, waiting to see what Dave would do.

  Not much, as it turned out. He clicked at the horse, who actively ignored him, prancing away, then ambled back across the arena. "Give a shout if you need me."

  Sure. Point me to the kidnappers, would you?

  Fact was, nobody was planning on attacking him. Time to start his own loadout, then, and on to the closest watering hole. If nothing happened there, face it, probably nothing was going to happen in his vicinity until he got back from the right hand coast.

  "Hey, Honey. Time to pack you and the others up and hightail it." He dusted his hands together and turned. He'd bring the truck round, load the girls, call his brothers and cousins and get ready to get out.

  Long early sunlight came through the arena door. He ambled to it and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, pulled out his phone and called Jacob. Easier to text, he could let everybody know at once, but Jacob often didn't bother to read texts.

  "Giving up?" Jacob asked. He'd been opposed to the plan on no other grounds than if someone wanted to get kidnapped, it probably wouldn't happen. And maybe a little bit on the grounds that he thought it was a stupid plan with too many variables that could go wrong.

  "Yeah. I'm going to load up and head out. I'll text everybody and tell 'em to stand down. I should be out of here in about two hours."

  "Great," Jacob said. "I'm heading out, then, with Gemma. We're gonna stop in Reno, let her gather some more of her stuff from home and then head to Redding."

  He'd forgotten Jacob and Gemma meant to get in a couple days of honeymoon. They'd still be on this coast, then. "I'll catch you in Philly."

  And that was that. He turned and surveyed the arena. Honey Girl, Cody and Black Bart paced around various parts of the arena. He'd bring the trailer around, load out from here. Quickest way to where the trailer was stored was through the facility itself, down a long dark hallway with dirt floors and stalls on either side, and out the back into the bright light of morning.

  He shoved off the doorframe and headed back inside, watching Honey Girl as he went by, taking a sharp right and heading down the dark hall. The outside door was a good distance off, maybe a hundred yards. Stalls branched off the hallway, and narrow aisles between them led off either side, deeper into the dim. He smelled hay and horses and dirt and sunlight beating on the roof of the facility. He'd just broken into a slow jog when the scream came from down one of those dark aisles.

  Instinct instantly dove Holden down that aisle. From ahead he could hear sounds of a scuffle. He shifted, just enough to supercharge his hearing, little sounds directing him which way to turn without even a second's hesitation.

  Three twists and turns, from horse stalls to tack rooms, and he found them in a maintenance storage area right before a door that would lead outside into the bright summer morning.

  Two guys, big guys, muscle bound and every bit as threatening as the guy named Dave who'd called him "boss" back in the arena. Between them, a girl, golden brown hair, smeared mascara, tears in her eyes. She was screaming again, tearing against their hold, her tank top ripping and her hair coming out of a thick braid as she fought.

  The instant she saw him she shouted. "It's a trap! Run! I'm fine!"

  He didn't hesitate. Of course it was a trap. All his instincts said it was.

  But she wasn't fine. Her cheek bloomed with a handprint where someone had hit her, hard, and her clothes were torn and the men weren't going to stop once Holden was either down or had run. She didn't think she was in trouble, but Holden did.

  As for Holden himself being in trouble, he knew that. The second he'd seen the girl surrounded by guys big enough to have picked her up and thrown her over a shoulder but who were still fighting her? He'd known right then it was a trap. They were waiting for him to come.

  Didn't change that he had to help. He was already shifting, all the way, teeth and claws and raw power.

  The men holding the girl were waiting for something. They continued to fight with the girl, never quite overpowering her, but they hadn't moved toward Holden and they weren't pulling away and running off even though there was an aisle they could take.

  They both looked like the jackass from the arena.

  Just that fast he realized they probably were the same as the jackass from the arena and where was he, anyway?

  Holden spun, just a second too late.

  Dave was behind him. Not close enough to be grabbed. Not close enough that Holden's wild swipe with one clawed, enormous paw was able to connect.

  Close enough to sink the tranquilizer dart solidly into Holden's thigh as he turned and started to charge.

  He wasn't bear yet. He was still half human. The drug, formulated for bear, hit him hard. His heartbeat doubled, tripled and threatened to flat line as the world went dark, spun in a nauseating blur and dropped him to the dusty dirt floor at Dave's feet.

  He heard someone laugh and then everything was dark.

  When he woke, he was in a cell. And the girl was with him.

  Holden scrambled up to his feet fast. He'd been laying on a bale of hay, nothing else. Around him metal bars created a cage of sorts. Not a cell after all, because the cage wasn't attached to anything. Should be something he could tear his way out of, except the bottom of the cage was complete – square metal bars underfoot.

  The cage itself was inside some structure. Overhead old fashioned florescent lights of the blinding variety focused down on them. The ceiling, walls and floor were all concrete. That suggested underground or basement to Holden.

  Across from the cell a window was set high on the wall, small and oblong. Sunlight angled through it and fell a few feet from the cage. The window didn't offer any information at all as to where he was. It could face any direction. It could be any time of day.

  No idea how long he'd been out. But he wasn't alone.

  The girl sat across from him, her hair back in a braid that looked like she'd done it without aid of a mirror. She had scratches on her arms, and a black eye starting on the left side where the handprint had marked her face. One of the straps of her tank top was torn, hanging down in font, exposing the lacy black bra on the right side.

  As soon as he was up, Holden's head began to throb and the world spun. He grabbed hold of the bars to keep himself upright. That was automatic, the need not to show weakness. Automatic, and pointless. There was no one else in the big empty room, just featureless walls, concrete floor, the overhead lights, huge doors he bet were locked. And the cage, with them in it.

  He didn't want to show that he was powerless in front of the girl, either. She might be more than a pawn in the events. She might be actively dangerous. But whoever had put him n the cage had already seen Holden out cold. The girl had shared his cage while he was unconscious. Didn't get much more powerless than that.

  No food, no facilities. There was a plastic gallon jug of water.

  He still faced out into the room, his eyes scanning for anything that might help. His roommate he'd taken in with one glance. The girl from the arena facility, she was beautiful, with big dark eyes and that thick hair the color of a lion's mane.

  He hadn't bothered to look again because she wasn't the point.