by Maddy Barone
“Yeah.” His older cousin’s voice was its usual light, uninflected tone, but all the wolves knew fury roiled under that surface calm.
“Taye, I’m leaving you with Stone and Snow to guard their mates.” Sky jerked his head to indicate Mikey, Standing Bear, White Horse and the men he employed as guards. “The rest will guard outside. Be careful. This could be a ploy to get us away and leave The Limit under-defended for an attack.”
Taye nodded. “I’ll take care of your den and your Pack.”
“Okay. Joe.” He surveyed the man who had served as his lawyer and accountant for over five years. The bitterness of the other man’s grief and remorse were strong in the air. “You’re fired. I’ll let you live, but that’s all the mercy you’ll get from me.”
“I understand.” Joe was subdued. “They would have taken Mrs. Wolfe out through that secret passage. You remember where it comes out in the park over in back? I would start looking for their trail there. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” His wolf strained to be set free. Sky shoved him down with an inner promise of freedom later, when they found their mate and rescued her. “Let’s go, everyone.”
“What about me?” Tasha screamed as they filed out.
Sky scarcely glanced at her. He couldn’t bear to look at her. “You should start packing your things. You’re not welcome here anymore.” He deliberately turned his back. She wasn’t worth any more of the time he should be spending finding his mate.
Still in his most expensive and elegant business suit, he led the way out of the house, determined to find his mate and punish the men who had stolen her from him.
Chapter 23
Her head hurt. Rose gradually became aware she was lying on something hard, and it was dark. But mostly she just knew her head hurt. Then she became aware of one more thing. A voice, low and wavering and oddly uninflected, said, “Rose. Are you awake? Rose. Wake up.”
Katelyn. Rose was quite pleased she had identified the voice. Since Katelyn was deaf, she couldn’t hear her own voice, so she often sounded a little odd. “Katelyn? Where are we? Why is it dark?”
No, Katelyn couldn’t hear her. Rose tried to sit up and hissed as pain zapped through her head. She explored with her hands, feeling a hard, cold floor beneath her. The basement. She remembered going down into the basement with Tasha. And…dang it, she couldn’t remember anything after walking down the stairs. Did she fall? Hit her head? Nothing made sense.
Katelyn grabbed her hand. “Rose? Are you okay? Squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no.”
Could she do one and a half? She squeezed once.
“Good.” There was genuine relief in Katelyn’s voice, clear in the wavering onset of tears. She sniffed inelegantly. “You’re probably wondering what happened.”
Rose gave a mighty squeeze.
“Ouch. Not so hard. I don’t know exactly what happened to you. I went downstairs after Tasha was gone and you were already halfway through the tunnel.”
Tunnel? She was about to ask when she remembered Katelyn couldn’t hear her.
“One of the men was still in the basement. Maybe he heard me come down the stairs. Anyway, he grabbed me. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. I was too scared. And then he hit me. He had a knife. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t do what he said.”
Knife! Rose let go of Katelyn to slap her hand against her side. Her breath came out in a whoosh when she felt the handle of her knife under her shirt. At least she was still armed. Her brain moved less sluggishly now, and she was able to think. They had been stolen, she and Katelyn. She remembered that escape tunnel. That was how Taye and the others had gotten into the house. Hadn’t they nailed boards over the door to keep anyone else from coming through? Someone had found it and broken the boards to get inside the house. Or had been let in. Tasha? Rose’s stomach churned as her head pounded. She remembered more now. Tasha had been with her in the basement. Tasha had betrayed her. She had known men were waiting in the basement. Oh, God, what would Sky do?
Katelyn groped and took her hand again. “I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Maybe an hour. I’m not sure where we are. I think it’s a big house, so it must belong to one of the mayor’s rich friends, but I don’t know which one. The two men who took us brought us here in the wagon, and they wouldn’t let me sit up, so I couldn’t see. They stopped the wagon at the back of a house and took us downstairs. It’s a lot like The Limit, but the basement here is really big. It seems like we walked a long time before they put us in this little room. One of the men had a lantern, but I didn’t see very much before they closed the door and locked it. No one has come around since they left us here.”
Rose wanted to tell Katelyn she had done well, and everything would be okay. Sky would find them. Paint was probably already looking for them. Whoever had stolen them couldn’t possibly understand what a stupid mistake they had made. With so many of the men from the Pack and Clan in Omaha, there was no way they would escape the vengeance the wolves would take on them for having stolen Pack women. Those fools might think she and Katelyn were the victims here, but they were in for a surprise.
In the dark, time passed with no markers. It might have been ten minutes or two hours before the door opened. Even the weak glare of an oil lamp hurt Rose’s eyes and sent fresh pain slicing through her head. She squinted and watched two men come in. One, the younger, had shoulder length blond hair and a familiar face. After a second she recognized him as Tony Askup, the rude man Sky had thrown out of The Limit the night she had waitressed. The older man was not nearly so handsome, but there was a family resemblance. Was this Tony’s infamous Uncle Terry? Beside her, she heard Katelyn’s breath turn to almost soundless sobs.
The older man smiled with gloating malevolence. “Welcome to the dungeon, ladies,” he said cheerfully. “Tony, run out to the hall and turn the light on. Let’s see just what we’ve paid extra for.”
If the glow of the lamp hurt Rose’s eyes, the stark glare of electric light almost blinded her. By slitting her eyes she was able to see the two men step further into the room. She dared a quick glance around and was astounded to see a sturdy four poster bed against the wall. She’d read the phrase ‘her blood ran cold’ in books before, but now she knew what it felt like. Each of the bedposts had a set of handcuffs around it. Swallowing, she snapped her gaze back to the men.
“Uncle Terry, we were overcharged,” the younger man said derisively, flicking his fingers toward Katelyn. “I’ve already had that one. She’s no fun. She cries, and she makes noises, but she doesn’t scream. She barely even bothers to fight.”
The chill in Rose’s blood was burned away by a flare of anger.
“That’s all right, boy,” the uncle said, still jovial. “She’s just extra. We have the real prize right here.”
Rose jerked her head back from his reaching hand. “Sky is going to eviscerate you.”
Both men laughed. “No, he won’t,” Terry said. “Not if he wants you to live. We’re just going to keep you here in the dungeon until he leaves Omaha. Then we’ll send you out to him.”
“Mostly in one piece,” the nephew added.
Katelyn made a thin sound of terror. Rose shifted until she stood half in front of the other woman. They would never let her go. It was a certainty that sank like lead into her belly, but she played along. “Sky and I are leaving Omaha soon. We’ve already planned it. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
Maniacal rage contorted Terry Askup’s face. Spittle flew from his lips. “Not soon enough. You’ve nearly wrecked everything for us,” he snapped. “Wanting to change the laws! Giving women the same rights as men! Trying to take away our source of funding! The things he wants to do will ruin us. And the stupid sheep in Omaha just follow after him like he’s the second coming. I told Tim we had to get rid of him years ago. But no, Tim thought Sky was good for business, so he put up with his crap for years. Now, finally, when things are ready to crash down around us, he’s given me the green light
. It’s not too late. I’m going to stop this rebellion in its tracks by cutting off the head. Sky will come for you and when he does, I’ll kill him.”
The man was totally whacked. He needed an entire team of mental health professionals. Or a bullet to the brain. Yeah, a bullet would work wonders. Rose managed a pitying smile. “You're not playing with a full deck, are you?”
His cheeks went purple. Rose didn’t know a face could actually turn such a dark color. Rage did not become him as well as death would. Maybe he would have a heart attack. A girl could hope.
He gave an ugly laugh. “Feisty. That’s what we like. Say anything you want, but I promise I’ll make you scream.”
“We have better things to do than talk, don’t we, Uncle Terry?” Tony cupped his hands at the front of his pants and massaged himself. “We don’t have to wait for Andy, do we? He won’t be here until supper.”
“No, no need to wait,” the elder Askup proclaimed. “If your brother wanted to go first he should have found an excuse to leave his job early.”
Had she actually thought Tony Askup was handsome? The expression on his face now made him the ugliest man Rose had ever seen. “Wolfe won’t get here for hours, maybe days,” he said, gloating. “Andy will have plenty of time to take his turn. Should we flip a coin to see who gets first go at Mrs. Wolfe?”
“If you can handle her without manacles, you can have her first. I’ll chain this little honey up. When your brother gets here, he can take his pick of which one he wants first. They’ll be well used by then, but he can’t complain if he chooses to come to the party late.”
He grabbed Katelyn with a viciously tight hand around her upper arm. Rose made an abortive movement to try to stop him, but she had the nephew to worry about. She had to separate the two men. That way she could kill one without the other being close enough to interfere. She sidled along the wall, angling herself so she could still see Katelyn struggling as Terry dragged her toward the bed.
Against the backdrop of Katelyn’s terrified sobs and mindless moans, Rose stopped and faced Tony Askup. He thought he had backed her into a corner, and he didn’t expect her to put up much of a fight. Oh, he wanted her to put up a fight, because that would make it more fun for him, but like Zoe, he had no clue she had been training for years with deadly fighters. He himself was no fighter. He didn’t move like a fighter, did nothing to protect his belly or throat, and the hand he caressed his genitals with would do little to protect him from her knee. This fool thought she was easy pickings. She rubbed her elbow against her side, loosening her blouse to allow easier access to her knife. She was going to prove him wrong.
She shifted her gaze slightly to look over his shoulder at Katelyn and Terry, wanting to gauge how much attention Terry was paying to what was happening behind him. She saw Katelyn do an incredibly brave thing. Askup had her on the bed and was kneeling above her, trying to catch one of her flailing wrists to attach the handcuff. The girl let him pin that hand and grabbed a handful of the man’s hair with her other hand. She jerked his head down so she could sink her teeth into his throat.
Terry gave a gurgling shout of pain. Blood washed over Katelyn’s face in a crimson stream. Tony made the mistake of forgetting about Rose for a moment when he snapped his head around to stare at his uncle. All the lessons Taye had given her crowded into Rose’s head. Her knife was sharp, but she didn’t have enough room to put much force into her strike. The blade could bounce off of a rib or his breastbone. Her best target was his belly. Just as she had practiced hundreds of times, she pulled her knife from the inner sheath and plunged it sharp side up into his side. With all her strength she dragged it diagonally up across his belly.
One thing training hadn’t prepared her for was the warm gush of blood over her hands. Dummies didn’t scream or punch her. They didn’t stagger or go down on one knee or use both hands to try to keep their guts inside their skin. Rose’s hand was slippery on the hilt of the knife. It took effort for her to pull the blade free. She thought dimly that it must’ve caught on his rib. Oh, God. Was she going to throw up?
No, she had to go help Katelyn. Tony was trying to grab her around the knees, gurgling about his brother, but that left his intestines unattended. She stepped back and kicked him in the face as hard as she could, then turned and rushed to the bed. Askup had both hands around Katelyn’s throat, squeezing with single-minded attention. He never even saw her coming. Rose leaned down, slipped the bloody knife over his shoulder to his throat, and slashed right over the bite marks Katelyn had inflicted.
Katelyn continued fighting and crying even when Terry Askup’s body fell over her. Rose took a minute to lean over and hurl the contents of her stomach onto the cement floor. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist and made herself look around. Tony Askup was still alive, but he was too busy trying to gather his guts together to cause any trouble right now. Terry Askup must be dead. Katelyn was covered in blood from the top of her head to her waist. Rose brushed at the blood on her own shirt and jeans. Fighting in real life was not as pristine as practice made it seem.
“Katelyn!” Of course Katelyn couldn’t hear her, and with all that blood on her face the other girl couldn’t see Rose either. Rose tried to shove Terry off the other woman, but he was too heavy. She grasped Katelyn’s arm and tried to pull her off the bed. Poor Katelyn was so terrified and confused that she fought to get away. Rose paused for a few moments to let her pounding head settle down, then she took a firm grip on Katelyn’s arm and dragged her off the bed. She let go and leaned her back against the wall, panting while she waited for Katelyn to calm down. Finally, the other girl wiped enough blood from her face to be able to open her eyes. Under the blood her skin was bone white, and her pale green irises, which had always seemed eerie to Rose, were almost totally eclipsed by her dilated pupils. Rose waited until she looked up, and forced a reassuring smile.
“Katelyn,” she said forming her words carefully so the other girl could read her lips. “We’re okay. The bad men won’t hurt us anymore. We have to get out of here. Okay? Can you walk?”
“Yes.” Katelyn struggled to her feet and stood wavering for a minute before staggering toward the door. She picked up the lantern and turned the knob. “Hurry!”
That sounded like an excellent idea. Rose hurried. The hallway was dark and spooky, like something from a haunted house. She looked left and right, trying to decide which way to go.
Katelyn caught her arm. “Lock the door,” she said urgently. “Lock the door so they can’t come after us.”
Rose didn’t think either Askup would come after them, but she found the lock by the light of the lantern Katelyn held up and slid the deadbolt home. When it settled into the locked position, Katelyn let out a long, deep sigh.
“Let’s go home, Rose. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Me, neither. Here, hold my hand so we don’t get separated.”
Like frightened little girls, they gripped each other’s hands, Rose holding her knife in her free hand and Katelyn carrying the lantern. Rose looked down each end of the hall and started walking to the left.
“It’s a maze,” Rose said after they had walked for what seemed like an hour, although it was probably only ten or fifteen minutes. She released Katelyn’s hand long enough to scratch at the dried blood flaking off her blouse. She wanted a shower. She wanted to be home at The Limit. She wanted to feel Sky’s arms close around her and hold her close. “Every time I think we’re getting somewhere we hit a dead end.”
“There’s not much oil left in the lantern,” Katelyn whispered. “I’m scared. I don’t want to be in the dark.”
Rose didn’t tell her that she wasn’t the only one scared. She took Katelyn’s hand again. “Sky and Paint won’t stop looking until they find us. No wolf would stop looking until he found his mate.”
Katelyn cocked her head as if listening, laying a hand on the wall. “I feel something. Like footsteps above us. Is it someone looking for us
? Paint?”
“Maybe.” She didn’t add that the someone could be Terry’s other nephew. She concentrated on Sky. Her finding magic zeroed in above them.
Relief bubbled up in Rose’s chest and threatened to come out in a fountain of tears. “It’s Sky and Paint! Yell, Katelyn. Yell as loud as you can!”
Their screams were answered by frantic wolf howls. But before the wolves found them, somebody else did.
*
Sky had never felt the fear-fueled fury he felt at this moment. He had brought his mate to Omaha and now she was in the hands of his enemies. Don’t let her be dead, he silently begged. Wounded, scared, or even raped, but not dead. The wolf inside him was frantic to find Rose and kill her kidnappers. Sky held him back by strength of will alone.
Tracker got up from his examination of the ground in the park behind The Limit. “The ladies were here,” he confirmed. “Katelyn was walking on her own power. Rose was dragged. There was a wagon. See the wheel impressions? Looks like the wagon came and went, over a period of several hours.”
“Waiting to make a pick up,” Paint growled. “Then driving off when they didn’t show.”
Sky clenched his fists. “And coming back again and again to see if they were here yet.”
“Wagon went this way.” Tracker started off in his long-legged lope. He stopped at the edge of the park, where it joined the paved street. “After this, I don’t know. Too much traffic, and too many smells. Since the ladies were in the wagon instead of touching the ground, I got nothing after this.”
Shadow growled a curse he’d learned from his mate. “Joe said a name. Do you know where this Terry Askup lives?”
Sand quivered, hate twisting his face. “I am going to kill him,” he promised.