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.
Except. She was. He'd known she was a trap the minute he saw the tableau. The idea that whoever was taking shifters was willing to use innocents in the process didn't surprise him.
No proof she was innocent. How long had robberies been committed by people playing at being broken down on the highway?
What surprised Holden was that she'd warned him. She'd tried to help him by shouting him away.
He still hadn't turned back when she spoke from behind him, sounding cross. "What part of I'm fine and run did you not understand?"
Holden turned back, trying to quell his surprise. "You're welcome for my coming to your aid." Jeez, what kind of bitch doesn't even notice the nobler instincts?
The kind who gets you trapped in a cage.
What if trying to warn him off was part of the act? What if far from being an innocent pawn she was a plant? A spy?
Only, a spy for what? They already had him. Theoretically his captors now believed that whatever they wanted from him they could get. People who stuck other people in cages didn't seem the kind to go all tenderhearted at the idea of torture.
What they'd torture him for was a good question, but the thought alone was enough to cause heat to rise along his spine. His hands thickened and his senses began to heighten. He fought the shift. There was nothing to battle here. Locking the girl in a cage with an enraged bear wouldn't help anyone. His captors may even have left her in the cage with Holden to keep Holden from shifting for fear of hurting her.
If that were
true, even if she was part of the plan, she wasn't a valued member of team anti shifter.
He believed the girl was as much a victim as he was.
Only he wasn't a victim. Wrong place wrong time. And since he'd been trying to get caught, right place right time.
He turned around and looked at her. She'd tucked the ragged shoulder strips of the tank top under her bra strap, weaving them in and out so they'd stay there. The braid was a mess, bits of hair escaping, and her bruised eye looked bloodshot. The makeup she'd been wearing was rubbed off or, in the case of her mascara, smeared.
She was amazingly beautiful. Luminous, fey, otherworldly, and any other word he could think of that would make the rest of the clan snort laughter at him.
Yeah, well, the rest of the clan wasn't here.
"What's your story?" he asked. "You don't have enough sense to let someone help you when three thugs are tearing your clothes off?"
She made an inelegant sound and rolled her eyes. "Dude, I was a part of it. It's not like they were going to – "
He interrupted her by nodding. "It's exactly like they were going to. They were enjoying themselves. And then there's – " He nodded at her and indicated his own face.
She touched her cheek tentatively and winced. "We've done this a whole bunch of times. They just got carried away." She glared at him and said unconvincingly, "I was fine. I was trying to get you out of there. If you'd run, you could have gone to the police."
He saw what she'd just said hit her eyes and she shut her lips tight.
"Yeah, you and I both know cops respond to shifter in distress calls with great haste." Even through his boots the square bars on the bottom of the cage were uncomfortable. He sat back down on the hay. "Why did you warn me?"
Her expression was sour. "I was trying to stop it this time." She waved a hand as if he'd said something she wanted to dismiss. "Not just send you away. I was trying to get a photo or a recording or both. Then I could go to – "
"The police, provided they're not in the pockets of whoever this is?" He'd seen that knowledge hit her.
She knew he knew she didn't trust the police either. She gave him a sour look that accused him of treating her like an idiot. "I was going to go to the FBI."
When he raised his eyebrows, she nodded. "It's interstate. Bears are taken – all over." She swallowed hard and Holden wondered what condition they were in when they were taken.
He thought he knew. And even though he'd gotten himself into this on purpose, and even though he had a burner phone tucked into the boots he still wore – and even though he was a bear – for the first time he swallowed over bile and fear.
He didn't like how it made him feel.
"Why you?" He looked her up and down. She was beautiful, which was never beside the point in his opinion. He thought she was probably smart. Maybe she'd needed money, or had a run in with another shifter, or had gambling or drug debts – something that had put her into their power?
"Damsel in distress, at your service," she said, and made a mocking bow without bothering to get up from her own hay bale. "Big strong shifters try to come to my rescue and." She waved a hand again, this time indicating the end of the sentence.
"I got the concept," he said. "I meant, why you specifically? How did you get mixed up in this?"
"Oh."
He thought she might have already known he meant that.
Didn't stop her from answering. She just sighed and hesitated for a second before she finally flipped her braid off her shoulder and behind her, met his eyes and said, "My father's one of the men behind it."
* * *
Chapter Three
By the time they'd been in the cage – with Holden awake – for about 20 minutes, he'd already come to respect Dani Sjoberg. Raised in the tradition of every rich bitch anywhere, she was down to earth, funny, smart, conniving and angry as hell at her father.
And if her plan to try and get evidence and take down at least her father's part of the league of anti shifters was a trifle lame, so was Holden's. Between the time in the arena and the abduction, being out and the conversation with Dani, Holden had been down here long enough Jacob should have checked in.
Not that Jacob checked in often. Not that Holden hadn't told everyone to stand down.
Not that Holden got great reception wherever they were. He assumed the cavernous room was underground. And not that Holden had anything much to tell him. He just wanted to touch base. As in, Got myself kidnapped. This is what I know so far. Alert someone!
What he knew so far was the names of the thugs – Dave, Jeff, Sam and Stuart – and that Dani's father, Walter Sjoberg, was the head of the movement in southern Arizona.
He also knew why she'd moved as slowly as she had. A number of the missing shifters had apparently vanished via her father and Dani hadn't acted, had waited until now to even come up with the piss poor plan she had.
Holden didn't know that he would do things much differently if it were up to him and the life of a 7-year-old little sister was at stake.
It didn't hurt that Dani was beautiful. Tall, built, confident. The ability to take care of herself radiated out of her. This wasn't a woman who would wait for rescue and if her plan was stupid, at least she'd made a plan and in her case, made it by herself.
In Holden's case, it had taken all of them to come up with a not very good plan.
She got impatient then, rattled the bars and kicked them, to no effect. "We have to get out of here."
"No offense, little one, but I spent a lot of time and energy getting in here."
She looked impatiently at him like he'd made a stupid comment that didn't deserve a response. "You can't stay here. Let me stay here. They can't hurt me. My father—"
"Isn't the head of the league," Holden interrupted, quite sure by now. Her father would fit into the picture as middle management if they were discussing corporate affairs rather than probable murder.
She looked surprised. "I didn't say that. I don't even know how many – "
"You would if he were the CEO, so to speak." He had her attention. "Your father postures and he's got the money and he has his own minions working for him, right?"
She nodded.
"But he's taking orders from somewhere else and for all you know, they might be local too."
She nodded again. "Maybe. I think he's closer to the top than that. Like getting your orders from Washington, not from state level that got it from Washington. If that makes sense."
In better circumstances he'd have teased her for the lousy explanation. She was straightforward and goofy, all at the same time. And hot.
Which wasn't where his head should be right now. But in all honesty, in better circumstances he'd be hitting on her by now. Hard.
"Maybe you're right. But he's still not the head of it. That means maybe your father runs his own hired muscle and maybe he doesn't."
He wasn't sure how to convince her. She seemed to think being a boss's daughter kept her safe.
Holden thought boss's daughter or not, she was a pawn being manhandled by men as part of the assignment given to those men. And if they liked the assignment – which they seemed to – they were hot, bothered, excited men.
Holden knew what men were like. He worked with them. He was unmarried and hadn't had anything more serious than a two week hookup in the last year and a half, he spent his days surrounded by guys in work and after hours beers at the bar. He'd seen the men manhandling her and he knew what they were thinking.
Bear Anchor (BBW Shifter Romance) (FisherBears Book 2) Page 24