Shortly after they concluded their bargain, Baldwin had hustled her into a large white carpool van with multiple rows of seats. Then they drove around town, picking up the rest of his team.
Eventually, Cassie found herself sitting with the highest-ranking members of her former pride. Tom Lowenzahn, the Pride Second, was behind the wheel, with Alfonzo Tigredientes riding shotgun. Cassie sat in the row directly behind Tom, with Baldwin in the seat next to her, but an arm's length away across a narrow aisle. Behind them, in the third row of seats at the back of the van, were Lionne Katzenberg and her mate Paul Katzenberg.
Once they had finished gathering all the sabertooth shifters who had accompanied Baldwin, Lowenzahn turned onto the highway and headed north through the valley.
The highway followed the course of the Salmon River for the most part, crossing and recrossing the river over narrow, low bridges whenever the waterway meandered in big bends.
They drove through pastures dotted with sheep and cattle and the occasional alfalfa field with tall Sandhill cranes picking their way elegantly among the green rows as they hunted.
From long habit, Cassie had fastened her seatbelt as soon as she sat down. This had occasioned the usual barrage of snarky "fraidy-cat" comments from the others.
She had reacted the way that they had expected, shrinking back into the corner formed by the back of her high-backed seat and side of the van, but she wasn't nearly as intimidated as she acted.
A strange, cold calm had settled over her as soon as she had concluded her bargain with Baldwin. Her heart was still pounding with an overdose of adrenaline, but she was no longer afraid.
Instead, she felt detached from what was happening, listening while the rational half of her brain assessed the situation and her inner cat began whispering suggestions.
About fifteen minutes into the drive, Baldwin leaned over and put his hand on her knee. Like the other shifters in the van, he had disdained the seatbelts, and now he turned to face her across the aisle.
"You know," he said conversationally, "I've always wondered what it would be like to take another shifter's mate."
Baldwin squeezed her knee, and Cassie heard the others sniggering. Still wrapped in the armor of her detachment, she just looked away.
But he was determined to get a rise out of her. "The struggle would be real excitin', I'm sure." He leaned across the aisle and took a deep sniff of her scent. "Oh, yeah. Since you're really mate-bonded to that bear, even a puny little kitten like you would be forced to fight me. Your cat wouldn't allow you to cheat on your mate, would she?"
Cassie didn't bother to answer him. She stared blindly out the van's window, watching the passing cottonwoods along the river's edge.
"I gotta tell you, I'm lookin' forward to tonight, when I can start the business of sirin' some cubs on you."
That made her finally look at him.
Of course he’d never meant a word of his bargain, she realized, with deep disgust.
She wasn't sure what expression showed on her face, but he smirked at her.
"Oh, yeah, Cassie. I changed my mind about doin' this in a doctor's office. I'm an old-fashioned kind of shifter, and I'm lookin' forward to gettin' a real fight out of you at last. I had a lot of fun tryin' to tame you last time, but it was over too soon. This time, things will be different, won't they?"
Baldwin went on to describe in graphic detail what he planned to do to her once she was safely back at his home in Wildcat Springs.
Her stomach churned in revulsion at the mental images he conjured with his threats, but she still felt too numb for real fear.
"—and then, once you're good and pregnant, I'll give you to Tom, Alfonzo, and Paul, and let them do whatever they want to you."
Lowenzahn and Tigredientes both whooped and laughed at this promise.
"Not me, boss. I just mated Lionne, remember?" Paul called from the back of the van, and Lionne giggled.
As Baldwin, Lowenzahn, and Tigredientes continued to taunt her, making increasingly crueler and viler suggestions, Cassie hunched over, trying to conceal the volcanic rage that she knew had turned her eyes to shifter gold.
Were they expecting her to cry and plead with them, or would it satisfy them if she simply huddled in a shaking ball? She wasn't sure that her acting abilities extended to pleading.
He needs to die, her cat said to her, as Cassie's skin prickled with the urge to shift. They all need to die. It's the only way to keep Thor and the others safe. It's the only way to keep us safe.
In the past, whenever her cat had made suggestions like this, Cassie had always pushed her away with all her strength. But now…
You're right, she agreed. I don't have anything left to lose. Help me. Please.
The icy calm surrounding Cassie deepened, clearing her thoughts and covering her soul like a coat of crystalline armor.
For the first time in her life, she opened herself fully to her inner cat. In response, strength poured through her, feeding on her deep rage and her desire to protect her mate and her new family.
Everyone had always assumed that Cassie's cat was a weak creature. They couldn't have been more wrong.
It had always been strong, so strong that she'd spent her entire life trying to keep it under the tightest control, not knowing what might happen if she ever released it and let it taste blood.
Her solution had been to keep it throttled back, to deny it the chance to be blooded, because that was the only thing that kept her from turning into someone as violent and sadistic as Ed Baldwin.
When he'd forced himself on her, she had been so shocked and in such disbelief about what he was doing to her that the anger had only come later…after it was too late to be of any help to her.
Not this time. If she didn't fight back now, then no matter what happened next, she was screwed. There would be no happy ending for her.
And I want my happy ending, damn it!
In three days, she wanted to wear the beautiful white dress she'd found and say the words that would formalize her union with Thor in the eyes of the Ordinary world.
She wanted to go to sleep every night in Thor's arms and wake up every morning with the cup of coffee he always brought her in bed. She wanted to find out if their children would be bear shifters, or sabertooth shifters, if they would have some of each.
In order to win her happy ending, Baldwin had to die, along with as many of the other shifters in this van as she could manage.
Cassie's heart was still hammering with adrenaline overload, and she knew that Baldwin was enjoying himself because he thought she was an utterly terrified and cowed victim.
She couldn't afford to tip him off that underneath the veneer of fear, she and her cat were just waiting for the right moment.
They all thought that she was li'l ole Miss 'Fraidy-Cat, the weakest member of the pride. Someone that no self-respecting sabertooth shifter should take seriously.
They were wrong. She was the essence of an ambush predator, just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Not yet, she whispered silently to her cat.
She huddled in a fetal position around her seatbelt as she kept an eye on the road ahead. They were still driving along the relatively straight stretches of highway along the river bottom. But she could see mountains rising up ahead. When the van began to climb, that was when the game would change.
Soon. Very soon.
Cassie analyzed the situation, thought about possible actions, and realized that she couldn't lose. If she died in the attempt, she'd be out of Baldwin's reach forever, and Thor would be free to find another mate someday.
But if by some chance she succeeded in her plan to kill Baldwin, then she would be free to plan a life together with Thor. She wouldn't ever need to run or hide again.
Not more nights would be spent wondering when…if…Baldwin would find her.
She still didn't know whether she'd be able to control her cat if by some miracle she survived this, but for the first time in
her life, she was willing to take the chance and find out.
So Cassie cowered under the stream of ugly threats and derisive laughter and let them think she was frozen. All the while, she kept an eye on the road as the highway began to climb up into the mountains, twisting and turning up through thickly forested slopes.
Now? asked her cat, as they ascended and trees closed in on either side of the narrow ribbon of highway.
Not yet, Cassie answered. Soon.
The laden van began to labor and slow as it climbed through hairpin turns.
Then, up ahead, Cassie saw what she'd been waiting for: a blind curve with just a thin sheet metal guardrail separating the narrow gravel shoulder of the road from a steep plunge down the side of the mountain.
Now!
She uncurled and leaned forward, moving almost languidly to keep the seatbelt from grabbing and locking into place.
Sliding her arms over the driver's seat in front of her, she grasped Tom Lowenzahn's chin with her right hand and braced her left hand against his left shoulder, just as the van entered the curve.
"What the hell are you doing?" Baldwin shouted, lunging for her an instant too late.
With all her strength, Cassie yanked Tom's head around. She heard the sickening pop and snap of his neck breaking and then the wet sound of tearing flesh before she let go and flung herself back in her seat.
Alfonzo Tigredientes, taken unaware in the passenger seat, grabbed for the van's steering wheel.
But it was too late.
"What the fuck—?" Cassie heard Baldwin shout an instant before the van plowed through the guardrail and plunged off the edge of the highway.
* * *
When Thor's phone rang, he, his brothers, and his mother were still trying to work out a plan for how to catch up with Cassie when she and her abductors had established such a huge lead.
Hoping against hope that it was Cassie, Thor glanced down at his phone. Disappointment surged through him when he didn't immediately recognize the number…but it was from a Colorado area code.
He hit Answer and heard Kara Latrans's cheerful voice. "Thor, buddy, we just landed! Would you happen to know where we could pick up a rental car around here? This is the dinkiest airport I've ever seen, and that's saying something!"
"Hey Kara," he greeted her, a crazy plan beginning to form in his head. "Did you say that the Hot Shots flew to Bearpaw Ridge? What kind of plane did you use?"
"It's Darren's King Air," she explained cheerfully. "He offered to fly us all up if we pitched in for the fuel."
Yeah, this might actually work.
Darren Shelby, the Hot Shots' pilot, had picked up a used King Air 90 last year with the intention of returning to his home in San Diego in the off-season and starting a skydiving school. His plane could take 13–15 passengers and their gear, and it had the right kind of exit door for skydiving.
"Kara, we've got a big problem," Thor said. "And I'm hoping that you guys can help me out."
"Sure thing," Kara said. "What's up?"
"It's about Cassie," Thor said. "She's missing, and I think she's been kidnapped by someone in her pride."
"Pride?" Kara sounded startled. "She's a lion shifter? I thought she smelled funny…"
"Something like that," Thor said. "Anyhow, my brother is tracking her phone, and the signal is just crossing over into Montana on Highway 43. There's no way we can catch up to her in a car, and if that signal reaches the Missoula Airport, I'm royally screwed. I'll never get Cassie back if those bastards force her on a plane back to Texas."
"Are you asking what I think you're asking?" Kara sounded wary now. "Why haven't you gone to the cops? There's gotta be some shifter cops up your way…"
He took a deep breath. "I tried. Our local sheriff is a shifter, and he won't do anything to help because he doesn't believe that there's really a problem."
"Damn, that sucks," she commented.
"Yeah, it does. Kara, I really, really need your help. And Darren's plane. And the rest of the team."
"Hold on a sec," she told him.
He heard her repeating what he'd just told her for the benefit of the Hot Shot's two Ordinary members.
"Oh, hell yeah, we'll help him," Thor heard Darren say. "We still got half a tank of fuel, and we've got enough chutes to go around. Who all's coming?"
"Me and my three brothers, so we'll have to do a tandem jump for them," Thor told him. "We'll meet you at the airport in half an hour."
"Thor," Mark asked in a dangerously quiet voice as Thor ended the call. "What the hell is a tandem jump?"
Hopeful for the first time in hours, Thor grinned at his older brother.
"So, remember when you told me last year that you'd like to try skydiving someday? Well, this is your chance."
Mark's eyes widened. "Oh, no way…"
Ash, who was standing next to Mark, perked up. "Really?" he asked in an excited tone. "We're really going to parachute in like the 101st Airborne?"
"Oh hell," Dane groaned. "You know how I hate heights."
Chapter 20 – Plummeting Down
The next few moments passed in terrifying, lurching, tumbling chaos as the van tumbled down the steep slope.
Cassie, held securely captive in her seat by her lap and shoulder belt, put her head down and tried to protect her face with her arms.
The accident seemed to happen in slow motion, as the van rolled over and over, breaking every window. Tree trunks whipped by, many of them snapping loudly upon impact with the van.
The violent motion flung the unbelted shifters around inside the van like dice shaken in a cup.
Cassie heard shouting and screaming, and screamed herself when she felt the bruising impact of heavy bodies against her seat, and more painfully, her legs and shoulder.
After an eternity of rolling, bouncing descent, the van finally came to a violent stop on its left side, the roof bowed around the trunk of a large pine tree.
Still held by her seatbelt, Cassie hung sideways in her seat. The air was filled with the heavy iron scent of blood laced with the sharp fragrances of pine sap and leaking coolant.
Panting, she braced herself against the side of the van, which was now its floor, and looked around the mangled interior. She saw bloodied, groaning bodies sprawled all around.
I actually survived this. Holy crap. My crazy plan worked, she thought, stunned.
She was badly bruised and shaken up but still in much better shape than the others in the van, who had disdained the seatbelts because they were big, strong sabertooth shifters.
Idiots.
As Cassie began to try to extricate herself from her seatbelt, she looked around and did a quick headcount.
Lionne was missing, probably flung free of the van somewhere upslope. Tom was dead, of course, and still wedged in the driver's seat, where the dashboard and steering wheel had apparently held him in place.
Everyone else seemed to be still alive but injured in varying degrees.
I have to get out of here, and fast! she told herself as she saw one of the others move with a groan.
The last thing she needed was to be trapped in here with three angry shifter males.
Once she managed to escape the van, she needed to find a safe place to hide for the amount of time it would take her to shift.
And then it would be time to deploy the second part of her plan.
The old Cassie would have shrunk from doing what was needed. The new Cassie, with her cat firmly in the upper hand, knew better.
* * *
"Hey, here comes our little lost sheep!" Michael Nakano called when he saw Thor crossing the tarmac at the Bearpaw Ridge Airport, trailed by his three brothers.
Thor waved at the group clustered around the King Air 90 plane, cases and duffels piled neatly under one of the wings.
"Dude, how are you feeling?" Michael asked when Thor got closer.
Michael was a Japanese-American grizzly shifter. His lineage was Ussuri Brown Bear, originally from Hokkaido, th
ough his family had lived and farmed in California's Central Valley for several generations.
"I've been better," Thor answered, gripping Michael's hand and looking around at his teammates. "But I'm really glad you're all here."
The entire Rocky Mountain Hot Shots crew had come to his wedding, bringing along all of their gear in case they were called away on an emergency.
Thor's memories of his teammates were still a little spotty, but he was relieved to find that he could put faces to names for the seven shifters and two Ordinaries.
Kara greeted him with a hug. Like Thor’s, her broken leg had healed quickly, and she no longer wore a cast.
Thor spent the next few moments being hugged and backslapped by the rest of the Rocky Mountain Hot Shots.
In addition to Michael, Thor, and Kara, the shifters on his team consisted of a cougar shifter, two wolf shifters, an eagle shifter, and a jaguar shifter. The two Ordinaries were their pilot, Darren Shelby, and Pete Brinkley, who served as their base manager and operations coordinator.
Pete, an experienced firefighter in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, had been studying a big paper map when Thor arrived, conferring with Darren about the best locations for a jump, based on the information that Thor had given them over the phone.
Thor introduced his brothers, and then it was time to get down to business. With every moment that passed, Cassie was being taken further and further away from him.
"All right," Pete said. "Give us the sit-rep, and we'll figure out the best place to intercept."
Thor gave a concise recap of what he knew so far, and Ash chimed in with the latest updates from his GPS app. "…but they don't seem to be moving anymore. The signal's coming from the same location as it was five minutes ago."
"You think someone figured it out and tossed Cassie's phone out of the car or something?" Kara asked, leaning over to peer at Ash's phone, which displayed a map.
Thor really hoped not. He needed to be able to find his mate! But what other explanation could there be?
Pete and Darren conferred, then Pete said, "Okay, we can do a jump here," and poked his finger at a place on the map he was holding.
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