Jaguar Pride (16 page)

Huntley still wondered how Phil had been able to leave the States without being stopped after nearly murdering Jackson's sister.

Huntley risked opening one eye to see what he could as they carried him over to the angry big cat's cage and set Huntley's next to it. A small adobe home was about a half acre away, high wooden fences surrounding the yard and tall trees towering over them from all sides. Four cages were empty. One held an ocelot, another, a margay.

A larger cage held a pacing male jaguar. Huntley studied his rosettes and recognized the pattern as Avery Carrington's. Unfortunately, the Avenger agent had no clue that Huntley or Melissa were shifters and there to help him. What alarmed Huntley the most was that Avery's wife, Kathy, wasn't there. Phil had claimed that she had been sold off, which had to mean they'd already shipped her off somewhere else. Judging by Avery's pacing and roaring, he would rip every human to shreds that got anywhere near him.

Huntley figured it wouldn't matter now if Jackson and his men knew he was awake. He lifted his head and looked around for Jackson, but he was gone. Maybe he had taken off to meet with Huntley and Melissa's buyer and it was one of their fellow agents. At least Huntley hoped that was the case. The men moved Melissa's cage next to Huntley's.

“Jackson's sure pissed that the buyer didn't want the male because he was way too aggressive,” Phil said.

Huntley couldn't blame Avery when he had to be worried to death about his wife. As soon as he could, Huntley had to let Avery know that his babies were fine and headed back to the States. And that he and Melissa would help him get free, then do everything they could to learn where Kathy had been taken. Avery probably wouldn't realize that all the branches were working on this.

Avery glanced in their direction for only a moment, too agitated to be interested in the new jaguars, so Huntley couldn't get his attention.

Melissa was still doped up and sleeping, and Huntley kept worrying about her. She wasn't stirring at all. Concerned they had overmedicated her, he watched her chest rise and fall. She was still breathing, her heart still pumping blood, but at a slower rate.

Wanting her to show him she'd be all right, Huntley growled at her. He poked his nose a short way through the steel bars of his cage, trying to get her attention, to wake her.

Phil said, “As long as the two new ones keep up the courtship and they behave, I believe we've got real money in them.”

Huntley stuck his paw through the cage, trying to reach Melissa's cage. They were too far apart.

“Hey, let's move the female's cage closer to the male's. If the male cat is still trying to connect with her when the buyer arrives, it'll help seal the deal,” Huey said.

Huntley backed off to avoid getting his leg caught between the cages. As soon as the men finished moving her cage against his and lined the cases up so the steel rods bumped against each other, Huntley poked his paw between the two cages again. Phil and the other two men watched in fascination.

Huntley couldn't reach her. She was lying in the middle of the cage and still fast asleep. But he noticed Avery wasn't roaring any longer.

Huntley glanced back at him. The cat watched Huntley curiously. Huntley raised his brows and grinned. To the humans, he was certain his reaction looked like he showed off his very wicked teeth in a primal way, saying to stay the hell away from his mate.

“Would you look at that,” Phil said. “The badass cat isn't so big and bad now that there's another male here.”

“Good. Maybe he'll calm down enough that we can sell him and don't have to shoot the bastard.”

Huntley padded over to the other side of his cage, nearer to Avery's, and did something so uncharacteristic for a male jaguar under the circumstances that he hoped he could clue Avery in that he was a shifter and not all jaguar.

Huntley truly hated to do it because it was so demeaning. The shifters didn't just wear their jaguar coats from time to time. Being a wild cat was part of the whole of who they were. He lay down on his stomach, then rolled over on his back and exposed his belly and throat. No grown male would do that with another grown male when the one had claimed the female as his mate, even if they were in cages.

Avery grinned and his sharp teeth looked just as deadly as Huntley's. But at least he thought Avery had gotten the message.

“Well, hell, what's that all about?” one of the men asked.

“Maybe they're brothers.”

Yeah, brothers in different branches of the Service and ready to kill a bunch of poachers.

The cat sat down and looked at Melissa. Huntley nodded. Then she growled softly and Huntley was on his feet—and so was Avery. Huntley rushed to her cage and roared. Her ears and whiskers and a paw twitched. Huntley tried to reach her through the cage again.

Phil said, “Jackson's going to love the way these two act toward each other.”

“Maybe the buyer will take all three off our hands, since the first male seems to get along with the other,” another man said. “The new male has sure calmed him down.”

If the buyer was their own man, the situation couldn't be better. Except for the fact that Kathy Carrington was gone.

***

Huntley hated to have to bide his time to break out of there, wanting to learn where Avery's wife was being kept pronto, but they had to wait until night fell. As soon as it got dark, the rains came. One dim security light fluttered on and off at a corner of the house, and the fence had a locked gate. Phil and the other men had retired inside. All but one of the lights finally went out inside, cloaking the house in darkness. Jackson had never returned, as far as Huntley could tell.

Melissa had been lying on her stomach for about an hour, her head up. She had tried to stand a couple of times, but the effort seemed to take every ounce of her energy. Each time, she collapsed on her belly. And each time she growled softly. He was dying to help her up, but he couldn't. Then on the third try, she finally made it to her feet, but she swayed a bit. Huntley was feeling back to his normal self. And glad of it. But he needed Melissa to be in better shape before they attempted to escape.

He examined the latch on the cage. A snap lock, easy to open as a human but impossible as a cat. Many big-cat rescue facilities used them. He recalled the story of the chimpanzees that had watched their keepers opening the gate to their enclosure. One of the large chimps had learned to open the gate, and several escaped and killed the owner. But the cats couldn't manage such a thing.

The cages were shadowed in darkness and the rain was coming down lighter now. Huntley assumed anyone in the house would be sleeping, and even if someone looked out at the cat enclosures, he wouldn't be able to really see what was going on. Only the cats could with their night vision.

Time to make an ally. He shifted, moved next to Avery's cage, and said, “I'm Huntley Anderson with the JAG, and that's my partner, Melissa Overton, JAG also. Your kids are safe. They're on their way back to the States in the care of a couple of Guardians who are providing for them in the meantime.”

Avery shifted and frowned at him. “Thank God the babies are safe. But these bastards said they've sold my wife to some guy named Pierre Beaufort. He wanted us both for a breeding program. Then I lost my cool when he was poking around at Kathy, and he wouldn't buy me. Said I would be too dangerous.”

Huntley nodded. “Understandable. We weren't sure what we'd find. So we have to wing it. Our best chance is to storm the house, shift, and take them out—no witnesses, no leaving them for the police like we'd first planned. I'll notify my boss, and then we'll locate your wife. We do have an agent who's supposed to be buying Melissa and me, but we can't risk that he's the one who arrives here first. If he did, he'd buy you too. If someone else shows up instead, we might end up getting separated or in a worse situation.”

“I agree. I'm damned glad to see you. Kathy said she left the cubs in a jaguar shifter's tent and had smelled both a man and a woman. It must have been your tent.”

“It was.”

“She prayed the two of you could handle the girls and alert our people that we had gone missing.”

Huntley smiled a little. “It was kind of a shock. I came to your rescue, but they fired a shot at me, and I was knocked unconscious. I sure as hell wish I'd been able to rescue you before you had to go through all of this hell. I think Melissa was a little more shaken since she was a lot clearer headed than me at the time. She just missed taking the bastards down before they took off with the two of you in the boat.”

Avery sighed. “Would have saved everyone a lot of grief. But I could see where your partner wouldn't have been able to handle all the men on her own. I'm just grateful you're here now and the kids are safe.”

“Two of your Avenger buddies are helping out also—the Whittaker brothers.”

Avery smiled a little at that.

“I want to wait a little while longer until Melissa is more herself,” Huntley said.

“I want to get the hell out of here and find my wife.” Avery glanced in Melissa's direction. She was curled up in her cage sound asleep.

Damn.

“But we'll do it your way. We can't risk it with your partner still so out of it.”

Huntley hated to have to wait as much as he knew Avery did, but otherwise one of them would have to carry Melissa. It was much too dangerous.

Both men shifted back into their jaguar forms. Huntley headed to Melissa's cage and grunted at her. She grunted right back at him.

He smiled, knowing she was aggravated that she couldn't shake off the drug. Then he lay near her cage, breathing in her relaxed scent, and waited. After what he suspected was another hour, Melissa stood and yawned, then grunted at him, letting him know she was awake and ready. Well, maybe not completely ready, but enough that she was able to escape. Huntley was immediately on his feet. So was Avery.

Huntley shifted at once and worked on unfastening the latch to his cage. So did Avery with his, then they dropped the latches on the ground and closed the gates to the cages, in case anyone chanced to look out and saw the gates wide open. Though Huntley suspected it was too dark to see.

Still in her jaguar form, Melissa leaned against the bars of her cage, waiting for Huntley to get her out, and he worried then that she still felt a little loopy or she would have freed herself. He unlatched her gate. When she moved out of the cage, he ran his hand over her head in greeting. She nuzzled him in the crotch. He was sure his face turned a little red, and he thought she wasn't quite with it.

He closed her cage and then shifted, and the three of them sprinted in jaguar form for the house. Standing by one of the open windows, Huntley peered through the screen. It was a bedroom, with a man sleeping on a full-size bed, sprawled out on his belly, arm slung over the side, face toward the opposite wall. An empty tequila bottle sat on the bedside table. The room smelled of liquor, sweat, and body odor—which could be a disadvantage for the shifters with their enhanced cat sense of smell.

Huntley went around to each of the windows, avoiding the one nearest the security light, though it shuddered and stayed off more than it stayed on. He finally found an open window to the kitchen, which he hoped was far enough away from anyone who might hear them entering. Still, the window looked to be situated over the sink, and that meant leaping in through the window and trying not to make a big racket. But with all the dishes and dirty food in the sink, Huntley opted for the first bedroom he'd investigated.

With everyone still in their jaguar forms, Avery stuck close to Melissa, guarding her, for which Huntley was grateful. Even though she had a viciously strong bite, he wasn't certain she could attack that well in her current condition.

Huntley inserted his fishhook claws into the screen mesh on the bedroom window and tugged, making a racket, his heart drumming. He yanked the screen out quickly with his powerful claws. The man on the bed was too drunk to wake and didn't stir. Huntley leaped inside and then shifted into his human form.

Melissa and Avery jumped through the window and waited while Huntley woke the man to question him about Pierre Beaufort's whereabouts. Huntley had his hand on the man's throat, threatening to strangle him. “How can I reach Pierre Beaufort?”

“Who…?” the man said, looking up groggily and then beginning to stir. “What the hell.” He couldn't see Huntley in the dark, which was to Huntley's advantage because he didn't believe the poacher would think a naked, unarmed man was too dangerous.

The man was still drunk and half asleep. “Huh?”

This wasn't going to work.

Avery quickly moved into the living room in his cat form, and Huntley assumed he would question one of the other poachers. Melissa stayed close at hand, protecting Huntley, he thought. Or she still wasn't able to shake off the effects of the drug and wanted to stick close to him until she could. Either way, he was glad she stayed with him.

“How can I get in touch with Pierre Beaufort?”

The man began to reach under his pillow, as if some of his tequila-soaked brain cells warned him to kill the man towering above him before it was too late. Huntley assumed he was reaching for a weapon.

Huntley took hold of the man's head and twisted with a swift jerk, breaking his neck. Maybe the next guy would be more cooperative.

Melissa jumped onto the bed and checked out the dead man. Huntley smiled at her tenacity, then peered into the living room. A man was sleeping on the couch, a leg hanging off it, lying on his back and wearing only a dirty tank shirt and a pair of boxers. He was snoring, so Huntley figured Avery was in one of the other bedrooms. Maybe he'd have better luck.

Huntley hurried across the bare wooden floor, the darn thing creaking with his footfalls. Melissa moved into the room but remained in her jaguar form, protecting his back.