Authors: Katie Reus
east, toward wolf territory.” Ethan’s words were clipped.
“Did you plan this? How did you I’d be at the diner?” No
one had known she was coming back early. A slow trail of
fear travel ed down her spine.
He rol ed his eyes, as if she was stupid, and that fear
dissipated. “Of course I didn’t plan this, but I couldn’t pass
up the opportunity to take you.”
Opportunity?
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you
doing this to me? I just got back in town. Al I want is to see
my parents and brothers.” She tried to keep her voice calm
but it was difficult when al she wanted to do was shout at
him. She shuddered, remembering the last time she’d been
shot. It had been in Colombia as she’d escaped a drug
lord’s compound with vital information for her team. Even if
she could heal at supernatural speeds, a bul et slicing
through her body stil hurt something fierce.
“Quiet,” he snapped. “I’m taking you to my brother.”
At the mention of Owen, Gabriela had to focus on
keeping her heart rate steady. On top of al this, seeing the
man who had broken her heart when she’d been a fragile
sixteen-year-old?
Terrific.
Even though he’d told her to be quiet she couldn’t resist
asking one more question. “Seriously, what is this about?”
Ethan leveled the gun at her, his eyes angry. “I can shoot
you, dump you in the bed of the truck and drive the rest of
the way. I know you’l heal but it’l stil hurt. Your choice. Stop
with the questions or…?” He tipped the gun slightly, making
his point clear.
* * *
knew it hadn’t been more than an hour since Ethan had
kidnapped her. And no one would be missing her right now.
Her parents didn’t know that she’d managed to jump on an
earlier flight for her last connection and they weren’t
expecting her home until tonight. That psycho Ethan had
been tight-lipped the entire drive into wolf territory. It wasn’t
until they’d passed a cluster of log cabins she knew the
majority of his pack lived in that he’d told her to stop in front
of the only two-story cabin. Then he’d snapped metal cuffs
on her wrists and dragged her inside. They weren’t silver so
they didn’t chafe her skin, but they were titanium. Shifters
were stronger than humans, but titanium was stil titanium.
Sniffing the air around her, she had a feeling Ethan had
dumped her in his brother’s office because she could smel
his familiar pine scent. She could also hear Ethan on the
phone downstairs talking to who she assumed was Owen
and knew her time alone was limited. Since she had on
cuffs he probably didn’t think she was much of a threat. It’s
not as if she could shift to her jaguar form like this. Wel , she
could, but her arms and legs in cat form were a lot bigger
and she wasn’t positive the change would break the cuffs. If
it didn’t, she’d be in serious pain.
She didn’t plan to stick around long enough to see why
this crazy wolf had kidnapped her. Thankful y Ethan had
cuffed her hands in the front so she had some mobility.
Quietly riffling through the top drawers of the giant oak
desk, she smiled when she final y found a very slim letter
opener. It was as long as a screwdriver but much thinner
and flatter. The cuffs on her wrist were thicker than normal
and so was the lock opening. Picking up the end of the
opener with her mouth, she slid the shiny tip into the circular
opening.
A slam sounded from downstairs. Shouts fol owed. Her
heart beat erratical y. She recognized that voice. Owen.
No, no, no.
Forcing her hands to remain calm, she began twisting
the opener with her mouth. She’d done this before—of
course she’d had better tools then but she knew
exactly…
click
. The tiny lever inside sprung free, releasing
her manacles.
As they fel from her wrists, the door flew open, slamming
against the back wal with a sickening crash. She felt as if
her heart actual y stopped for a moment. Everything around
her funneled out as she stared into the clearest blue eyes
she’d ever seen. Owen had always been big, but he’d
grown even tal er since she’d last seen him. He was
probably six-foot three now. And he had that GQ thing
going on. Tal , strong jaw, incredibly broad shoulders and
muscles that couldn’t be disguised by a mere T-shirt. His
blue-black hair and blue eyes gave him an exotic,
appealing look. Of course she could see the wolf lurking
beneath the surface. Just a hint of danger that even humans
wouldn’t be able to ignore.
“Gabriela,” he whispered, some foreign emotion injected
into that one word.
That broke the spel . Fisting the cuffs, she chucked them
at his head and turned, diving for the glass window. Unlike
wolf shifters, her change to animal form was seamless. Her
clothes and shoes shredded as she became a jaguar.
Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she heard Owen
cursing behind her, but she didn’t pause in her escape.
Drawing on the strength of her hind legs she used the
window frame as a springboard—and tried to ignore the
pain of the glass slicing into her paws—to propel herself to
the oak tree.
The sun had risen farther in the sky, il uminating
everything for her, not that she needed it with her
extrasensory abilities. Nimbly, she jumped from branch to
branch until she hit the dirt running. She could hear the
sound of a growl behind her, but ignored it. If Owen or
Ethan thought they could kidnap her and hold her hostage,
they’d have to catch her first.
As a jaguar, she was a heck of a lot faster than them. Her
family wasn’t native to this area, and with the exception of
the local doctor, they were the only jaguar shifters living in
Montana that she knew of. Stil , she could travel these
woods blind. First she needed to know she had outrun her
pursuers. Then she was going to figure out why a member
of the Wright pack had kidnapped her in broad daylight.
And there was going to be hel to pay.
* * *
heading down the stairs.
“I’l radio the guys on perimeter duty to track her,” Ethan
said as he hurried after him.
It took al of Owen’s restraint not to knock his brother out
right now. He’d actual y kidnapped Gabriela in some
misguided attempt to force her family to reveal who had
been behind the recent jaguar kil ings in the area. It didn’t
matter that Ethan had admitted the gun hadn’t been loaded.
Gabriela hadn’t known that.
Owen barely kept from snarling. “Radio everyone and tel
them to give her a wide berth. No one is to go after her.”
His inner wolf was clawing at the surface and right about
now he was ready to slice his brother to shreds for putting
shackles on Gabriela.
“But—”
Owen whipped around and had his brother slammed up
against the outside wal of the cabin before he even
realized he’d curled his fist around Ethan’s neck. “I’m your
Alpha and you’l do as I say. Anyone touches her, they’l
answer to me. And I’l punish you for it, too.”
With wide eyes, his brother coughed out an “okay.”
Not bothering to wait and see if Ethan fol owed his
orders, Owen finished stripping and shifted to his wolf form.
Unlike the beauty of Gabriela’s shift, which he’d seen
hundreds of times back when they’d been friends, his was
more brutal. He held in a growl as his body underwent the
change. Bones broke, shifted and realigned with a painful
burst as fur quickly grew, covering what had once been
skin.
Then he was running. He raced through the forest,
tracking her sweet honeydew scent. When he’d received
that cal from his brother tel ing him what Ethan had done,
Owen had seen red. He hadn’t seen Gabriela in about nine
years and hadn’t spoken to her in ten. Not since he’d been
seventeen years old and stupid and had screwed up the
best thing in his life.
She’d been his best friend and he’d hoped they’d be
more. But he’d lost even her friendship. It had made his
decision to join the army at eighteen easy. Some days it
was hard to believe so much time had passed since he’d
spoken to her.
He bounded over icy patches of dirt and grass, barely
feeling the cold. As a shifter he had a higher body
temperature anyway, but right now al his focus was on
finding Gabriela. He felt practical y numb as he strained to
run faster,
faster
.
That familiar sexual hunger he’d experienced when he
was a teenager was back, only this time it was stronger,
needier. His entire body craved her in a way he didn’t quite
understand. Or didn’t want to.
Back then he’d been too stupid to realize what she was
to him. Then he’d somehow hurt her and it had been too
late to explore what might have been. She’d refused to see
him. Absolutely wouldn’t talk to him or take his cal s and
hel , at seventeen he’d been ful of pride. He hadn’t been
wil ing to beg her to explain what he’d done wrong.
Now he had to talk to her. To see her and convince his
inner wolf she was real. Her honey-brown hair was shorter
than it had been years ago, fal ing a few inches below her
shoulders. She was stil tal , about five-feet ten, and lean
and lithe. The way she moved as a human mirrored her
movements as a jaguar and it had always fascinated him.
Now her speed and agility frustrated him.
The deeper into his territory he went, he realized where
she was headed. Owen’s father had been Alpha before him
—right up until the day he’d died five years ago—and had
given the Segura family an area of the forest to hunt. With
the growing attacks against humans lately, Owen had
rescinded his father’s offer and taken back his pack’s land.
It had been a difficult choice, but he’d needed to calm his
pack’s growing anger.
But she wouldn’t know that. She probably assumed the
cabin her family had once used to store extra changes of
clothes and food was stil protected.
Instead of fol owing her trail toward the river bed where
he knew she was headed in an attempt to try to cover her
scent before doubling back to the cabin, he ran west
toward the cabin in her family’s former territory. Why fol ow
her when he could just beat her to her final destination?
Once he neared the smal building, he slowly circled,
making sure he was alone. Then he rol ed around in pine
boughs to mask his scent before he shifted to his human
form. Using a side window that was unlocked, he climbed
inside and found himself in one of the guest rooms. The
place had the bare minimum of furniture but he found
clothes that fit him and settled down to wait, bracing for the
coming confrontation.
Gabriela waited until she was on the front porch of her
family’s cabin before shifting to her human form. Breathing
hard from the run, she glanced around the surrounding
forest but didn’t see anyone lurking in the trees. She could
faintly scent wolves but the smel didn’t seem recent.
Not surprisingly the front door wasn’t locked. People
rarely ventured out here and there was nothing to steal
inside, anyway. The first step she took inside, she realized
her mistake. The scent of wolf and pine subtly hit her.
Inwardly cursing that she hadn’t smel ed it sooner, she tried
to move back.
Before she could run, the door was slammed shut behind
her and she found herself pressed up against the door by a
very large, very angry-looking Owen. Thank God he was at
least clothed, though it didn’t matter because she wasn’t.
She could feel the heat and muscles of his body through the
shirt and pants she was pretty sure he’d stolen from one of
the closets.
When she swung out at him, he easily caught her wrist
and pinned it against the door above her. Angry at his
strength, she let out a growl. Faking a blow with her other
hand, she slammed her knee into his groin when he went to
grab her other wrist. She wasn’t afraid he’d physical y or
sexual y assault her but she wasn’t going to let him hold her
hostage. And she’d fight him to escape.