by Lewis, Lexi
“Well, well,” he said, and Camilla could hear the smirk in his voice. “My little flower is home again. Did you think you were going to get away from me that easily, Camilla, my pet? Did you think that I wouldn’t find you?”
She growled low in her throat, snapping her teeth at him. The light dimmed, and her vision cleared enough that she could see him standing there. On either side of him were Adam and Thomas, both shifted into their lion forms and standing guard. She was outnumbered and cornered, and she was starting to panic all over again.
“What did you think you were going to accomplish by shifting, my dear?” he asked her. “Were you going to overpower me? Tear my throat out and escape into the night?” He laughed again. “I really don’t think so. Let me tell you what is going to happen. I am going to outfit this cellar with a lovely pallet and perhaps a blanket or two and I will lock you in here every night if I have to. When you come in the house, you will be at my side at all times. I even have a nice new collar and lead to make sure that you can’t run away from me.”
There was no doubt in her mind that he would do what he was threatening to, either. He had to be upset with her for being gone. Even just three days without her was enough to make him lose business more than likely, and if there was one thing Paul hated, it was losing business. He was terrible at reading people without her help, and it didn’t help matters that there were enough rumors about what went on in this place that people didn’t really trust him. And who could blame them, really? Paul was a crook through and through. He didn’t even do his own dirty work, just pulled the strings from his chair and made other people handle the things he was too weak to handle. Sure, he had a stunning capacity for cruelty, but if they all banded against him, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
But that wouldn’t happen. People were too afraid of him. Even if Thomas and Adam were the ones who usually ended up handling the people Paul wanted to disappear, the credit went to their leader.
Camilla dropped her head, mind racing as she tried to think of some way out of this. She had to get out of the cellar first and foremost. It would be much easier to get out of the house than the cellar, and she was sure that Paul wanted to flaunt the fact that he had her back. Her heart clenched at the thought of giving up the only thing that seemed to be an advantage, but she didn’t know what else to do. Swallowing hard, she concentrated on willing herself back into her human skin, shifting everything in reverse until she was huddled on the cold ground, arms wrapped around herself.
“There’s a good girl,” Paul praised in a sickly sweet voice. “I knew you would see reason eventually. I really am the only one who can care for you properly, you know. Even your own parents went off and left you. Any friends you might have made when you ran off from me like a bad girl would have found out how much blood is on your hands and run from you, too. You belong here, isn’t that right?”
It wasn’t the first time he had said things like that to her, and usually a pit opened up in her stomach because she’d always assumed that he was right. But now…now she knew that he wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault what had happened to those people. True, she had helped, but Paul would have found a way to hurt them with or without her because that’s the way he was. She knew that there were people out there who would accept her, and an image of Karic’s face, those bright green eyes gleaming as he smiled at her flashed in her head. He knew better. He knew that she wasn’t a tool or a monster or a killer. And that was enough to keep her going and help her through this.
“I…I’m sorry I ran away,” she said, keeping her voice low and shaky. Most of the fear was real, but there was surely no harm in playing it up just a bit. Paul wouldn’t be able to detect a lie if she did this right. “I was just…I only wanted to…”
“There, there,” Paul said, and he snapped his fingers and turned back to the door. “One of you got get a robe or something for her cover up in.” The sound of retreating paws distracted them both for a moment, and then Paul was crouching down next to her. “You’re a very bad girl, and you will have to be punished for defying me, but you home now, and that’s what matters.”
Camilla just nodded, working hard not to let her disgust show on her face. He had always talked to her like this, like she was no better than a child and a stupid one at that, and she was sick of it. The anger building in her made her want to shift again, but she kept it down. Not yet. She had to bide her time.
One of the other women in the pride, Shelly, came in holding a silky robe. “Oh, you poor thing,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand when she saw Camilla. Shelly had always been kind to her, and Camilla had a moment to feel terrible about the fact that even if she left there would still be good people who were stuck with Paul. He made it so that they couldn’t see any other way to live, and then they stayed with him, even though he was awful.
“She’s fine,” Paul snapped, taking the robe and holding it out to Camilla. “Cover up and then we will go inside. I have a few people lined up to speak with. Some of them want to get protection from the pride, and I’m not sure I can trust their motives. You’ll help me, won’t you, my pet?”
Shelly cringed and looked away, and Camilla didn’t blame her. She had to swallow down the urge to vomit, but she nodded. “Yes. I’ll help.”
“Good girl. I knew you could be good if you wanted to be. Come. Let’s get you out of this nasty cellar for right now.” He turned away to walk back to the door, grabbing Shelly by the arm and towing her out as well. When it was relatively private, Camilla uncurled herself and wrapped the robe around her, tying it tight. Paul had never shown any interest in her body or anything other than her power and what he could use it for, but she didn’t want to give him any ideas. No matter how sweet he was talking to her now, she knew that there was something nasty being planned as a punishment.
When she was as decent as she was going to get, she stepped out, coming to stand at Paul’s side. He’d released Shelly, and his hand bit into her arm when he grabbed it. There was no way she was going to get free from him as they walked back to the house, so she didn’t even try. Instead she just let him haul her back to the house that had been her prison for her entire life. It felt like such a step backwards, being dragged back there, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that this would be the last time. She was going to make sure of it.
Chapter 11: The Hunt
Karic’s paws pounded the earth hard as he ran. It would have been faster to take his car, but haste wasn’t what he needed on his side right now. He needed power and stealth, and his wolf form was going to have to be the best thing for that. He had never been in the woods on this side of the bridge before, but he could smell lion through and through it, so he knew he was heading in the right direction.
It wasn’t the smartest thing he had ever done, chasing after Camilla and her captors on all fours like this, but he hadn’t known what else to do. He wasn’t just going to leave her with them. Not when the smell of her fear had been so strong and the look in her eyes had been pure misery as they were leading her away. The first thing he had done was go to the police. There was no way that he was just going to accept that it was over and she had to stay with them, not like that. And the police could offer him back up in case something went down, which there was obviously a very high possibility of. From what Camilla had told him, her pride wasn’t made up of good people, and while he was pretty sure that they weren’t going to do anything too bad to Camilla, since the leader obviously wanted her back, other people would probably get hurt once Paul went back to making her use her talent to help him.
At first, the police hadn’t wanted to hear him out.
“We’ve been sniffing around that pride for years,” the sheriff had said, shaking his head and drinking his coffee. “Never can get anything that sticks. So either they’re a damn sight smarter than us, or there’s not much going on.”
Karic glared. “That’s the lazy answer and you know it, Sheriff Parks. There is something goi
ng on out there. People are disappearing. They say they want to make a deal with Paul, the leader, and then they’re never heard from again. There’s enough there to work with, to at least get a search warrant.”
“We’ve searched,” the sheriff insisted. “Took the dogs in and everything. Nothing solid enough to count as real evidence. Now, I’m sorry. I don’t know what kind of grudge you have against them, but—”
“They kidnapped my…friend.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Karic said, thinking fast. “They kidnapped her. She was a member of the pride, and she got away. She told me about the things that Paul used to make her do to manipulate people, and if we get her out of there, then she can give you all the damned evidence you need.”
Parks seemed to be considering it, scratching his fingers through his close cropped beard and thinking hard. “She’ll talk, if we get her?”
“Yes. She wants to be free of them.” At least he was pretty sure she would if it meant that she didn’t have to go back to the pride ever again. “Look. I only stopped here because it would be nice to have some help. I’m going in either way. So you can come with me, or send a team or whatever and get credit for this, for finally taking them down. I’m not looking for credit; I just want my friend back.”
“Friend, huh?” Parks asked mildly, looking skeptical. “Alright, alright. We’ll put a team together. But I told you, the dogs didn’t find anything worth looking for the last time.”
Karic’s answering grin had been sharp. “Don’t bring dogs to do a wolf’s job, Sheriff.”
He had waited until nightfall to make a move, even though it had been a struggle to do so. But with his dusky grey and black fur, he blended in much better in the darkness than he would have the afternoon sun. It had been months since Karic had shifted. He had gotten very good at ignoring that itch under his skin that told him he wanted to be on all fours, tearing through the trees and seeking prey. He prided himself on his control. On the ability to see a full moon and have no compulsion to slip his human skin and howl at it. But control was not going to get Camilla found and safe. Control wasn’t going to bring down the bastards who had dared to take away what was his.
The anger was both surprising and not. Obviously, his beast felt just as strong a pull to Camilla as Karic himself did, and the fact that anger and possessiveness were the results of her being taken, just proved that there was something more than ordinary attraction going on here. His wolf wanted to rend the flesh of whoever dared stand between him and the woman he had chosen, and Karic was unmotivated to hold himself back.
The more powerful the lion smell got, the quieter we was. He already knew that it was going to be impossible to completely take them by surprise, especially if any of them were shifted. They would smell him coming, and from the strength of their scents, it was a wonder they hadn’t already discovered him. All he could hope was that they were secure enough in the fact that they had what they wanted back that they wouldn’t be on their guards and he could at least find Camilla.
The sheriff had agreed to wait at least an hour before he and the team showed up. That was plenty of time for him to get in, find Camilla, and try to get the pride on the offensive. That would be the easiest thing.
He paused behind a cluster of trees, dropping his nose to the ground and inhaling. A sharp burst of recognition went through him when he picked up Camilla’s scent, laced with sadness and fear, and he had to clamp down on the growl that wanted to rip its way out of his throat. Keep it together, Karic scolded himself. He needed to have at least some of his wits about him if he was going to do this right.
The trees started to clear out and become less dense the further Karic ran along the trail, and the pride house loomed large and impressive in the distance. He had heard the stories about this place. It had been an old plantation house some people said, a holdover from a different time. Paul had paid to have it renovated and restored and then had moved his pride in, but that was before Karic had come to live around here. To him, this had always been the pride house, even though he had never seen it.
It was all dark brick and wood, large glass windows with light spilling out to illuminate the grass of the lawn and the curving gravel driveway. There were three cars parked outside the house, and judging by the scent, Camilla had come out of one of them and ended up somewhere in that monstrosity of a house. It seemed quiet, and he couldn’t hear any sounds of a fight going on inside, which soothed his worries even as it made new ones pop into his head. Karic liked to think that Camilla would be fighting this captivity; that she wasn’t just going to allow them to have her again without a fight. He also hoped that it wasn’t too late and he had already missed the fight. From what he could tell about the way this situation worked, Paul would rather see Camilla dead than away from him. But thinking about that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He had to focus on something more productive than his fear for her.
The question was how was he going to find her and not be seen? He wasn’t so idiotic as to think that they wouldn’t notice a wolf just roaming around their house. Someone would see or smell him before he had the chance to do anything, and he had to hold out until the sheriff arrived. If it came down to a fight, human police officers at least had guns. There were special measures in place when it came to dealing with shifters since there were so many of them these days, and Karic could only hope that they would be enough to make a difference in this case.
Thinking about his options, he crept back into the woods a bit. So far, no one had noticed him, and there wasn’t much movement from inside the house. He didn’t know what that meant, but it was clearly not the time to act. He needed some kind of signal, some hint as to where to even start looking, and he didn’t dare get close enough to the house to follow Camilla’s scent. Not yet, anyway. For now he was going to have to wait and watch and hope this was the right plan of action.
The night was still young, but he couldn’t tell how much time had gone by since he’d arrived on the property and still nothing was going on. He’d dug his claws into the earth to hold back the urge to bound closer and try to find Camilla right away. Just when he was really starting to get antsy, one of the side doors to the large house swung open and Karic watched as a tall man with dark hair, flanked by two male lions came out. He slung back as far as he could and still see, not wanting his scent to be picked up.
It was easy to see from the way he carried himself that the tall man was the leader. Paul. The one who had caused Camilla so much pain and suffering. There was something determined about the way he was walking around to what had to be the cellar, and Karic’s stomach clenched at the thought of Camilla being in there. It was dark and probably cold, and she was no doubt alone. But she was tough, and Karic had to trust that she was alright.
From his spot in the darkness he watched it all play out. Watched Paul shine a bright light into the dark cellar, watching him step further in. He could barely make out the words he was saying, and he couldn’t hear Camilla at all, though her scent and the scent of lion was stronger suddenly. Had she shifted to give herself a better chance of running away? Clearly that plan had not worked out all that well, and there was no way she was going to get past the other two lions and escape.
He watched one of the lions break off and come back with a woman carrying a robe, and Karic growled a little in the back of his throat at the thought of them seeing Camilla undressed. She must have shifted back, then. Mine, his inner beast raged, and Karic sucked in a deep breath and focused on control. This was not the time.
It took a supreme act of will power to keep him stationary when he saw her. Camilla was wrapped in a purple robe and being half dragged across the short section of lawn that separated the little cellar from the house. He couldn’t really see her face from this distance, but somehow he could sense her distress. Paul was saying something to her, and Karic could see Camilla drop her head and nod, and there was just something so dejected about her posture that it made his
heart ache. What was Paul planning to do when they got into the house? There was no doubt in Karic’s mind that the leader was going to punish her or do something awful as a warning that she should never try for freedom again, and he wanted so badly to rush in there and protect her before that could happen. It would be smarter to wait for the police. It had to be close to the appointed time that they were going to arrive, didn’t it? It had taken him a while to get here, and then he’d spent time hiding in the trees and waiting.
Time was harder to calculate when he was in his wolf form, and Karic gave up on it, instead trying to think of a plan. The door had already closed behind Paul, Camilla, and the other two pride members, but there had to be another way into that house. If there was a window low enough then he might be able to get through that way…
Shifting back wasn’t really an option since he didn’t have a change of clothes with him, and he didn’t really think anyone was going to take him seriously if he burst in naked.
Debating it over and over wasn’t going to get him anywhere though, that was for sure, and he exhaled and padded forward cautiously. The scent of lion was sort of overwhelming, and he put his nose to the ground, trying to figure out if it was safe. He could move fast, keep to the shadows… Once he was in, it would only be a matter of time before the police showed up. Even if they caught him, he’d just have to stall for a bit until they came. Simple enough.
With that decided, he darted out from the trees, running as fast as he dared to the long shadows at the side of the house. A quick look around proved that there was no one nearby, and Karic set to looking for a way in. Doors were no good since he couldn’t open them, but if there was one left slightly ajar somewhere then he might be working with something.
He made his way around the house slowly, trying to be careful to stay out of sigh, and fuck how big was this place? He had no idea how many members the pride had, but this manor had to have a lot of rooms if they all stayed here. There had to be some kind of central room where they all gathered, otherwise he had no idea how he was going to find Camilla before someone booted him out.