She hadn’t left soon enough, or run far enough away.
* * * *
Jason and Michael arrived in Clear Springs and parked next to Drake and Caine Prentiss’s truck. Drake was standing by the truck, waiting for them. Samson was only five minutes away, although how he’d got this far in one piece, driving so fast, was a miracle in Jason’s opinion.
“It took a while to find her, but we did,” Drake said as they approached him. “Caine went in a while ago to sit with her.”
They entered the diner together. Jason was anxious to have Bethany back in his arms. When he’d received the call from Cooper to say that Bethany was gone, he’d been incredulous. He’d even checked her room on the way to notify Michael, just in case there’d been some sort of mistake.
Discovering her gone was a shock, but then finding out from Michael that she’d inadvertently put herself even closer to her pursuer had been horrifying.
As relieved as they’d been to have heard from Drake that they’d found her safe, Jason and his cat would both be satisfied with nothing less than holding her.
He was surprised to find Bethany and Caine both absent from the diner. Swiveling his head to search the room, he caught the scent of her blood. Michael’s low growl sounded as he ran. He’d also found the honey-sweet scent of their mate’s blood.
Following the scent took them to the back door of the diner. There was blood smeared on the door to the ladies’ restroom, and a trail of blood leading out the back door. Bethany’s blood. Jason had never felt such rage. He knew his eyes had to be changed, as they burned, and his vision was as acute as that of his cat.
When they ran to the alley outside, it was to find it empty, the blood trail ending abruptly.
“They took them both,” Drake stated. “I can scent Caine’s blood.” Jason watched the big man pull his cell phone from his pocket and activate an application. “Caine has GPS in his cell. I’m tracking him now.”
He and Michael leaned in to watch the movement of the red dot on the phone’s displayed map. “They’re heading for the airfield,” Michael said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I’ll tell Samson to meet us there.”
He called Samson as they ran around the diner and got into their respective trucks. They followed Drake as he drove at high speed toward the airfield outside of town.
“What if he gets off the ground?” Jason said softly, voicing his greatest fear. “He could take her anywhere.” His cat was furious, and for once, he had no intention of reigning in that feral part of himself.
“If you imagine that Samson is going to let that scum take his mate away, then you don’t know our brother at all,” Michael said, “and then there’s me.”
Jason looked at his brother in the light of the dashboard. He wondered if he looked equally transformed in his anger as Michael now was. Fierce, glowing eyes, long, pointed canines and extended claws on his hands.
Looking down at his own hands, he saw blood dripping onto his fatigues where his claws had emerged from his fingertips. He hadn’t even felt it when the hands that had been trained to save lives had turned into lethal weapons. For you, Bethany, I’ll do anything.
Samson’s truck roared past them. “Fuck, he’ll kill himself. How fast are we driving?”
“We’re doing about ninety,” Michael said. “If we don’t get to her in time, we’re dead anyway.”
Jason knew he was right. If Bethany died, they would follow soon, and it would be a blessing. None of them would want to live without her now. She was their hearts, their very souls. Their future. Their everything.
* * * *
Bethany sat handcuffed in the backseat of the van and watched as the town disappeared. Her face was a throbbing torment, her right eye already swollen shut, her face sticky with her drying blood.
There were three of Cristian’s men in the van. The one with the aversion to bathing and deodorant, who’d carried her, was seated in the back with them. He had a large gun pointed at her. The other two men were in the front, one driving and the other turned toward them, his gun against the back of Caine’s head.
Caine was silent, the blood from his broken nose dripping onto his shirt. She guessed he’d be trying to think of a way to escape, certain he didn’t just look like a soldier. The moment he made his move, she’d be ready.
When the lights of a runway came into view, her heart sank. It’s too late.
Driving into the gates of the airfield, the van drove across the runway to the stairs of a small aircraft. There were two men wearing black suits and carrying machine guns at the foot of the stairs.
One of them opened the back door to the van and reached inside to jerk Caine roughly from the vehicle. As he sprawled onto the tarmac, one of the suited men brought the barrel of his machine gun down sharply onto the back of Caine’s head. The sound of the gun hitting his skull sounded like a gunshot in the still night air.
Bethany just gaped at his unmoving body, the attack so unexpected and so violent that it rendered her immobile.
“Get out,” the malodorous man in the back with her said.
She didn’t want to get on that plane. If she did, she’d never see her men again. One of the suited men on the tarmac reached in and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled her roughly from the van and she fell to the ground on her knees next to Caine. With her hands cuffed in front of her, she couldn’t fight him off. The engines to the airplane started, the noise increasing until it was painful.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to Caine, before she was hauled roughly to her feet.
She turned away from the plane and tried to run. She was caught around the waist before she’d taken two steps. She threw her head back and kicked her legs, but the man was too big. Her head hit his chest, not his face, and her kicks to his shins didn’t even cause him to break stride. He chuckled as he carried her up the steps to the plane.
“I like it when they put up a fight,” he said in her ear, and licked the undamaged side of her face. “Makes it more exciting.”
By the time he had her in the cabin of the plane, she could clearly feel that he’d meant it. His erection was pushing into the small of her back. She shuddered involuntarily in revulsion.
“Leave us,” said a smooth, familiar voice. “Make the arrangements to leave as soon as possible.”
She had to turn her head to see, as her right eye was useless. She was dropped onto her shaking legs to stand in front of Cristian Renta.
“You have made me chase you for quite long enough, ratoncito. You are in my trap now.”
The man who had carried her into the plane left and closed a screen partition behind him.
“We have much to do on our short flight, Miss Granger. Come.” He gestured for her to walk in front of him. Was he insane?
She turned and ran for the exit. Cristian grabbed her hair and dragged her backward.
“Now, now. We’re good friends, you and I.”
She reached up with her cuffed hands and scratched at his hands. He let her go and she fell backward onto the cabin floor, the breath leaving her lungs on a gasp.
Taking hold of the handcuffs, he dragged her down the plane. She tried catch her feet on something, but he was dragging her too rapidly, and with only her left eye working, her aim was off. Her wrists felt as though they were breaking as he pulled her into a room at the rear of the plane.
She refused to beg, or plead, but she would fight. She’d continue to fight until she was dead.
He dropped her hands and bent to pick her up by her waist. She brought her head forward sharply in an effort to strike him in the face. He moved his head back, smoothly avoiding her blow and succeeded in lifting her. He then tossed her onto a bed.
“I am from the streets, ratoncito,” he said, laughing. “No one fights dirtier than me.”
As she bounced once on the bed, she attempted to sit up. His backhand to her face was sudden and painful. He’d struck her on the damaged side of her face, and the renewed pain had her limited vision
blurring as she screamed in pain. She felt her mind and body begin to shut down. If I pass out, I can’t fight.
By the time she had fought back to full consciousness, he was standing by the bed, fully naked. He had his erection in one hand and a knife in the other.
She struggled to roll away from him, but found she was secured to the bed by her hands and feet.
I will keep fighting.
Chapter 27
Samson was driving at breakneck speed, he would not lose Bethany. He just thanked God that, at three a.m., the roads were deserted and that he hadn’t had to slow down.
When he’d driven past Michael and Drake in their trucks, they’d picked up the pace and were now following right behind him. He knew the airfield well. He’d used it countless times when leaving on missions.
He also knew that the tower was notoriously slow in its flight clearance. That gave them a precious few extra minutes to reach Bethany before the plane took off.
I’m coming for you, Bethany. He didn’t know if she could hear him, or feel him through their bond, but he told her anyway. She would be terrified, and he needed her to keep fighting.
Finn had contacted them by phone while they’d been en route and forbidden them from shifting in their attempt to rescue Bethany. Hunter had contacted all the government agencies interested in Cristian Renta, and reinforcements were on the way. There was too much human involvement to risk their exposure as shifters. Samson understood and accepted this. He personally didn’t need to shift in order to be deadly.
However, what he didn’t so readily accept was Finn’s edict, as Alpha, that forbade them from using lethal force. Despite Renta being human and falling under their laws, Samson wanted him dead.
Michael had told him that her blood had already been spilled. That was a capital offense, as far as he was concerned. But he was also incapable of disobeying his Alpha. I’ll make you safe, Bethany. Trust me.
As they drove alongside the airfield, Samson saw that there was a van on the tarmac and the stairs to the plane were still down. “Thank fuck for that,” he murmured.
They’d already decided on a full-frontal assault, so they barreled down the runway at full speed.
Samson threw his truck into a spin and it pulled to a stop, sideways, directly under the nose of the plane. Drake drove past and blocked the rear of the plane with his truck. The engines were running, but they couldn’t take off now.
Samson leaped from the truck and scented blood immediately, not all of it Bethany’s. A suited man was running toward him with a machine gun. Using his preternatural speed, Samson disarmed him and knocked him unconscious before the man had even squeezed the trigger.
Another man was firing on Drake as he exited his truck at the rear of the plane. Samson could see Caine lying prostrate on the tarmac, blood pooled under his face.
Michael pulled to a stop directly by the plane’s door. He and Jason ran up the stairs and straight into the plane.
Samson ran unseen and silent to stand behind the man firing at Drake. With economy of movement, he wrenched the gun from the man’s grasp and slammed the butt of the weapon into his face. Samson was running up the stairs after his brothers before the man had even hit the ground.
* * * *
Michael ran up the stairs to the plane and straight into the cabin with Jason on his heels. The plan had been for Samson and Drake to stop the plane from taking off, and deal with any threat on the ground, while he and Jason went directly inside to prevent Renta from harming Bethany.
He knew his brother, and Drake was a highly decorated army ranger, so he hadn’t hesitated to leave them to deal with Renta’s men outside. No one would be coming up behind them.
On entering the plane, Jason was to secure the cockpit, and he was to head aft. They moved at full speed and Jason disappeared into the cockpit.
Michael saw the screen to the main cabin was closed. He stopped to listen. He’d be no help to Bethany if he ran straight into the barrel of a gun.
“You will have time to heal before you are shipped to your buyer. He will be glad I have broken you in like this.” Renta’s words had his blood boiling in his veins.
By the time he moved, he was no longer fully human, and he didn’t care if a gun was waiting for him. The screen tore apart as he ran straight through it.
He found the cabin empty, but a door at the rear of the cabin was opening, and he ran straight for it.
Michael had seen surveillance images of Cristian Renta, so he recognized the naked man for who he was as he strode through the doorway. He was covered in fine drops of blood and holding a bloodstained knife.
The air was rich with the honey-sweet scent of Bethany’s blood. Michael could not shift, as his cat demanded, and rip this man’s throat out. He wanted to wear Renta’s blood on his skin as Renta wore the blood of his mate. But he couldn’t. His Alpha had forbidden it.
Renta’s face showed surprise at seeing Michael there, but his expression quickly turned deadly as he waved the knife in front of him with a practiced ease.
“More practice for me,” Renta said with a sneer. “It has been too long since I have had the chance to do my own killing.”
This man was stopping Michael from getting to his mate. The most expedient way to get to Bethany was to simply kill him, but that thought had Michael frozen. Finn’s edict was making him useless, paralyzing him. He could think of nothing else except killing the man to get to Bethany.
A movement at his back and the scent of Samson told him his brother was here, and Michael found he could move again. Samson was trained in dealing with humans using non-lethal methods. He would deal with Renta, and Michael could see to Bethany.
“You have made a grave mistake in taking what belongs to us,” Samson said. He didn’t sound like himself. His voice was calm and arctic. Renta had the good sense to look a little less confident.
Samson moved with a speed and grace that surprised even Michael. One instant, they seemed to be at a standoff. The next, Renta was screaming in pain as he stood impaled to the wall of the plane. He was impaled through the palm of one hand with his own knife, the handle still red with Bethany’s blood. The other hand was impaled with a hunting knife. One of Samson’s.
Michael didn’t wait to see what Samson did next. He didn’t care. He had to find Bethany.
He nearly fell to his knees when he entered the back room of the plane. If the thick scent of so much of his mates spilled blood wasn’t enough of a blow, the sight of her was.
She lay still on the bed, but he could hear her breathing, and see the flutter of a pulse at the crook of her neck. “We need Jason,” he said softly. Samson would hear him, and send his brother in, as soon as the cockpit was secured.
Moving to the bed, he spoke softly to Bethany, as he had the night she’d nearly died. He was glad she was unconscious this time. This close, the scent of her fear was also strong in the air.
He freed her hands and feet from the restraints Renta had bound her with. He caressed her skin with just his fingertips, not knowing where was safe to touch her.
“You have to come back, darlin’. There’s nothing to fear anymore. We have you.” The words were rough, the need for vengeance burning his throat.
* * * *
Jason took only a few minutes to secure the cockpit and stop at the door to the plane to make sure Drake had the area outside secure. Drake was helping Caine to his feet, the man’s head wound making him unsteady on his feet.
Jason could hear the sound of approaching sirens as he ran through the plane in search of Bethany and his brothers.
Samson was standing in front of an incapacitated Renta. “Michael says he needs you,” Samson said, nodding to the back room, but not taking his eyes off his captive.
Jason could scent Bethany’s blood in the air and it was driving his cat crazy with the need to go to her. Jason knew Samson would be suffering, too, but he wouldn’t leave Renta unguarded.
Running into the room Samson had indicat
ed, he staggered, the scent of Bethany’s blood and fear so strong it was an insult to his senses.
The sight of her was a waking nightmare.
“Fucking hell. What the fuck did he do to her?”
“I think it looks worse than it is,” Michael said on a growl.
If Jason didn’t know his brother adored Bethany, he would have punched him. But he really was trying to be reassuring, not flippant.
His cat was going crazy inside his head. The man who had perpetrated this horror was just outside the door. He desperately wanted to give his cat free reign. But that was not possible. Not only was it against pride law, it would not be useful to Bethany.
So, drawing on more than fifty years of medical experience, he went to her and began the triage of Bethany’s injuries. He spoke aloud so that Michael would know exactly what he found. It would ease his mind, and stop him interrupting.
“The blows to the right side of her face have caused probable fractures to both the orbit of her eye and her temporal bone.” He was unable to open her eyelid to examine her eye, as it was too swollen and caked with blood.
“The laceration to her temple will heal without stitches.”
He ran his hands over her skull and found no swellings or abrasions.
He moved lower to her neck and chest. She was naked from the waist up, her skin covered in blood, but there were no free-flowing wounds.
“He appears to have made a series of lacerations down her throat and across both breasts. This seems to account for the bulk of the blood we can see, but her accelerated healing from our mating has already stopped the bleeding.”
He heard a low growl emanate from the cabin of the airplane. Samson was also listening to his cataloging of Bethany’s injuries.
“The bruising and deformities to her wrists indicate displaced fractures. I’ll need to perform a closed reduction when we get her home, so they can heal in the correct alignment.”
Bethany [Eminence Shifters 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 15