The Girl and the Lion (Sanctuary Book 1)

by Stella Night

  Sadie smiled grimly. “You know damn well this isn’t just going to blow over. This only ends if we put a stop to this. Whoever is behind this, we need to take them down. For you, for me, and for your friend.”

  Dimitri looked down at the ground. “What’s going to happen next, it’s going to be ugly. People are going to get hurt. I’ve done this before. Hurt people before. I know how to deal with it. But you, once you get your hands dirty, you can never get them clean again.”

  She moved over to him and took his strong hands in hers. He looked up at her, pain shining in his eyes. “Whatever you’ve done, you had to do it. You were a soldier. It was your job.”

  “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

  Sadie squeezed his hands. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get my life back. These assholes are the ones who started this. Not us. If people have to get hurt, if people have to die, it’s justice. My hands and my conscience will be clean. And so will yours.”

  “You say that,” he said. “But you don’t know.”

  “I know that if we’re going to have any chance of success, it’ll be together. I’m in this. All the way. And I’m not leaving your side until it’s done.”

  Dimitri exhaled a deep, heavy breath. “Fine. But I do the dirty work.” She nodded. “And you have to follow my orders. No hesitation.”

  She met his eyes with hers. “No hesitation.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re really something, you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “And I’ve told you this already, but I have to say it again. Your father would be proud of you.”

  The words sent a thrill rippling through her. Some deep emotion throbbed in her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked with feeling. She cleared her throat. “Alright, well now that we’ve settled that. What now?”

  Dimitri turned to look at the men in the cages. His eyes took on a hard cast. “Now we wake them up and get some answers.”

  ***

  Sadie dumped a bucket of cold water through the bars of the cage, onto the unconscious figure lying there. The man sputtered awake, coughing and flailing around in a panic.

  The drenched man blinked in surprise at Sadie where she stood by the cage door. The man was balding and overweight. Despite that, there was a layer of muscle beneath the fat. He looked like he could handle himself in a fight. Sadie was glad the cage door separated them.

  “Wake up, sleepy head,” Sadie said in a singsong voice.

  The man’s eyes narrowed at her as he grabbed a hold of the bars and climbed up to a standing position. “You dumb bitch. I’m gonna rip your fucking head off.”

  The man’s hand rocketed from between the bars, reaching for Sadie. She deftly sidestepped the clumsy grab, laughing as she did. “Is that any way to treat your host? I go through all the trouble of giving you a nice place to stay and this is how you repay me?”

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll show you how I can treat a lady.”

  Sadie grinned. “That doesn’t sound very respectful. I don’t like it when people disrespect me.”

  “Like I give a shit what you like,” the man snarled at her.

  “More importantly,” Sadie said, not responding to the man’s comment. “My friend doesn’t like it when people disrespect me.” She tipped her head, indicating the space behind the man in the cage.

  A vicious growl cut through the air from behind the man. He froze, his eyes widening in terror. He turned around slowly, coming face-to-face with the hulking black lion at the back of the cage. Dimitri sat there motionless like a shadow except for the bared teeth jutting from between his snarling lips.

  The man quivered with fear. All of his bluster and bravado had vanished.

  “Now,” Sadie said. “I’m going to ask you some questions. I expect you to answer them. I expect you to be polite. And I expect your full cooperation. If I think you’re holding back, if I think you’re lying, or even if you just piss me off, I’m going to let my friend eat you. Is that understood?”

  The man shot her a glance over his shoulder, his eyes terrified. He nodded. Then he turned his gaze back to the lion standing a few steps away from him.

  “Very good. We’ll start simple. Do you know who my friend is?”

  “Yeah, he’s one of those freaks.”

  Dimitri snarled at him. Sadie chided the man gently. “They prefer to be called shifters.”

  “Yeah, fine. Shifters. Whatever.”

  “Do you know any other shifters?”

  The man nodded. “Just one.”

  “Garrett?”

  “Yeah. That’s the one.”

  “Does Garrett work for you?” Sadie asked, noticing the strained look on the lion’s face. She knew Dimitri was in intense pain maintaining his animal form. But they’d decided this was the best course of action for getting answers.

  Dimitri said it would be easier to get the truth if they didn’t have to use force. Torture wasn’t the greatest interrogation tool. A man being tortured will say anything to make it stop. Even if that meant lying.

  But a scared man would tell the truth.

  “He doesn’t work for me. I’m not the boss.”

  “But he does work with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s hired muscle. Like me.”

  “Excellent,” Sadie said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What is it that you all do? Why do you need muscle?”

  “You don’t know?” The man asked, turning around. He looked at her with a cocky little grin.

  “Just answer my question,” Sadie said.

  “You really don’t know,” he said chuckling. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Let me give you some advice. Let me go. You don’t want to know who I work for. And you don’t want to be here when they come looking for me.”

  Sadie arched her eyebrow at him. “Do I look scared to you?”

  “No, but that doesn’t make you brave. That just means you’re stupid.”

  Dimitri growled at the insult. The man’s cocky demeanor evaporated.

  “I told you to be nice,” Sadie said.

  The man scrubbed sweat from his balding head, but he looked at her with a spark of defiance. “Whatever. This freak won’t eat me. They don’t eat people. They have a rule against that.”

  “You’re right. He’s not going to eat you. But that doesn’t mean he won’t kill you.”

  “You can’t kill me. You need answers.”

  Sadie grinned. “It’s funny. That’s what your friends said. Right before they died.” She pointed at the two cages next to his. In each lay the still, bloody forms of his two compatriots.

  The man gulped at the sight of them. All of the fight drained out of him. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just take it easy.”

  “Who are you people?” Sadie demanded.

  “It’s not like we have a name. We just smuggle shit into the country. Guns, drugs, people. Whatever pays.”

  “From Canada?” Sadie asked.

  “Yeah. Nobody gives a shit about the Canadian border. The feds are so busy with the Mexican border, we can get away with whatever we want up here.”

  “And Garrett? What’s his part in all this?”

  “I told you,” he said, leaning his forehead against the bars. “We’re just muscle. We make sure everybody behaves themselves when a deal is going down. Or somebody owes us money, we collect.”

  “Did he tell you he was a shifter?”

  “I mean, I heard about it once they brought him on board. I thought it was bullshit until I saw it for myself.”

  “Do you know anything about a poison that affects shifters?”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Tell me the truth,” Sadie urged.

  “I am. That’s above my pay grade. I guess the boss would know.”

  “And who is your boss?” Sadie pressed.

  “I don’t know who the big bos
s is.”

  “Stop jerking me around,” Sadie said, slamming her hand against the bars.

  “I’m not. I swear. I report to a guy who reports to another guy who gets his orders from somebody else. It’s all really secretive.”

  “You gotta give me something. Unless you want to end up like your friends.” Dimitri growled again to emphasize her threat.

  “Okay, look. There’s something big happening tonight. Garrett will be there. Hell, even the boss is gonna be there.”

  “I thought you said he’s really secretive.”

  “He is, but I guess this deal is important enough for him to poke his head out.”

  Sadie nodded. “So where is this big important meeting happening?”

  “The warehouse. Although you don’t want to go there tonight. Or go, I don’t give a fuck.”

  “The warehouse?”

  “Yeah, it’s kinda like a central facility where we keep our stuff before we send it off to customers. Garrett’s almost always there, guarding the place.”

  “That’s good. Give us an address.”

  The man told her the location. “Listen, you can’t tell anyone I told you. If they find out, I’m dead.”

  “As long as you’re not bullshitting us, your secret is safe.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear.”

  “For your sake, I hope so,” Sadie said, moving towards the table off to the side. A silver case rested on the table top. She opened the case, keeping her body positioned so the man in the cage couldn’t see what was inside.

  “Hey, so you’re going to let me go right?” The man asked, his voice nervous. “I told you everything. Just like you wanted.”

  “Yeah you did,” Sadie said, not turning around. “But you know we can’t let you go.”

  Sadie turned around with the tranquilizer rifle in her hands. The man in the cage flinched back with his hands held up in front of him, as if he could ward off the shot. “Hey, what is that? With the hell kind a gun is that?”

  The man stopped backing up when he bumped into Dimitri. The man let out a little yelp and jumped. His head turned back and forth from the lion on one side to Sadie with the gun on the other.

  “Nighty night,” Sadie said, raising the rifle. She squeezed the trigger. The dart seemed to blossom from the man’s chest. He looked down at it dumbly, as if not understanding what had just happened.

  His eyelids blinked. It seemed they got heavier with every blink. The energy seemed to leak from him and he collapsed to the floor. He was out.

  Sadie tossed the rifle on the table and fished the keys to the cage from her pocket. She opened the door just as Dimitri shifted back into human form.

  He stumbled, weak from spending so much time in his animal form. Sadie was there to catch him. She held him up, keeping him from joining the unconscious man on the ground.

  He threw his arm around her shoulders, and together they exited the cage.

  “How was that?” Sadie asked.

  “That was great,” Dimitri said. “You were pretty convincing. I think he was more afraid of you than he was of me.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. I think it helped that he thought his friends were dead.”

  Dimitri chuckled. “Yeah, amazing what some animal blood and tranquilizer darts can do.”

  Sadie laughed. “I’m sure he’ll be surprised when they all wake up. Anyway, let’s get you back to the house. You need another dose of tea.”

  “That’s for sure. I didn’t think I could stand to be in lion form a minute longer. It feels like the poison hits me harder when I’m in that form.”

  “You did great,” she said, patting him on the arm. “Now you can get some rest.”

  “I wish. But there’s no time. We have to get moving.”

  Sadie frowned at him. “You’re in no state to be taking on a bunch of drug dealers right now.”

  “We don’t have a choice. At some point, someone is going to check in on these fools. When they don’t answer, they’re gonna know something is up. If they don’t already. And tonight might be our only chance to find Garrett.”

  “So then we go to the warehouse.”

  “Yeah, we find Garrett and get the antidote. Then we’ll figure it out from there.”

  Chapter 12

  The warehouse location turned out to be a cluster of buildings and warehouses located in the industrial district just outside the city. Sadie and Dimitri had taken the bad guys SUV. Broken window and all.

  Even with the minor damage, the vehicle was much less conspicuous then the Sanctuary’s van.

  Dimitri had found a side road that looped around the industrial area to a nearby hill which overlooked their target. In the dark, the pair were invisible. Unfortunately, the cloudy night didn’t offer much in the way of detail for the buildings.

  “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” Sadie said, frustrated. “Do you really think this is the place?”

  “I think he was telling the truth,” Dimitri said.

  “But doesn’t this seem too, I don’t know, exposed?”

  Dimitri shrugged. “It’s kind of genius, really. It’s hidden in plain sight. No one would notice trucks coming in or out. It’s as good a place as any.”

  “Kind of like a needle in a haystack.”

  “More like a needle in a stack of needles. We know the address and we still can’t confirm which one is the target. Whoever is running things here is smart.”

  “Can you see anything?”

  “My night vision is pretty good,” Dimitri said. “Even in human form.”

  “Great, but do you see anything?”

  Dimitri squinted in the darkness. “The place is pretty dead. But there seems to be some movement around one of the buildings.” He pointed.

  Sadie looked in the direction he indicated, but she still couldn’t see anything. “What kind of movement?”

  “Just a few guys hanging out in front of one of the warehouses. But they look like they’re carrying.”

  “How many is a few?” Sadie asked, hating not knowing what he was seeing.

  “Enough to be a problem. Although whatever deal is going down tonight, it doesn’t look like it’s started yet. There’d be more people. More activity. I think we showed up just in time.”

  “It looks like luck is on our side for once,” she said.

  He turned to Sadie. “Listen, I know I can’t convince you to sit this one out. Just promise me you’ll stay by my side.”

  “I promise.”

  “When we get close enough, I’m gonna need you to use that tranquilizer rifle. It’s our best bet of getting in quietly. Can you handle that?”

  Sadie smiled. “Yeah, I can handle it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve taken down scarier things than these thugs. I got this.”

  The way he looked at her then made her insides flip. It was a turbulent mixture of emotion. Amusement, pride, desire. And above all, she thought she saw affection. No man had ever looked at her that way.

  He saw her as the woman she’d always wanted to be. Strong and brave. Sexy and fierce. When he looked at her like that, she believed she was all those things. Maybe she was that woman at the moment. If so, it was because of Dimitri.

  Around him, she wanted to be better. She was better. He gave her a reason to be the best version of her she could be. Sadie cared what he thought about her. She didn’t want to disappoint him or fail him. She wanted to be the woman he believed she was.

  “You’ve got a warrior’s spirit,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

  She blushed at the compliment. It was almost like he could read her mind or sense her emotions. She stood up straighter, drawing on a well of strength she didn’t know she had. “I fight for what’s mine. You threaten me, you threaten my home, you better watch out.”

  He brushed his fingers over her cheek, sending little jolts of warmth through her. “My little lioness,” he said, almost purring. “Are you sure you don’t
have some shifter blood in you?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Well, you’re as ferocious as any shifter I’ve ever met. Let’s go put an end to this.”

  ***

  They moved quietly through the shadows, flitting from building to building, making a beeline for their target. Sadie’s heart hammered in her chest. All her tough talk earlier felt like lies now that they were on the move.