PrimalFlavor (22 page)

“The game warden,” he growled just as Willis reached him.

“What?”

Zach looked up at the older man, meeting his sharp purple
eyes. “The game warden was here. He’s a wolf shifter,” he added as he climbed
to his feet and started down Colette’s hall to her gun room. “Colette and I met
up with him on the bayou a couple of days ago. I recognize his scent.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Willis muttered darkly as he
followed. “Unless she’s finally in her right mind about you and seein’ someone
else.”

“Yeah, but a game warden?” Alcide piped up behind his dad. “And
that guy’s creepy. We seen him watching the bayou a couple of weeks ago, out by
Colette’s camp.”

That halted Zach in his tracks, his hand on the doorknob to
the gun room. He looked back at Alcide and Daniel. “What? When?” The questions
punched through the air like bullets.

Colette’s younger brothers looked at each other and
shrugged. “I dunno, it was that day she took you on the tour, I think.”

The wolf had been watching them, following them from a
distance. And now he’d been in Colette’s house. Fear turned Zach’s stomach sour
and made his hands sweat. His tiger roared, demanding to be freed so it could
find its mate. Zach opened the door to the gun room and saw the message on the
wall.

I hope you’re as good at tracking as you are at baking,
cat. Your mate’s gonna need it.
Beneath it was a streak of blood that was
definitely Colette’s.

Willis and his sons stepped back when Zach roared in rage,
but when they read the message, the humans and shifter were finally united
under a single cause. To find Colette and to kill the bastards who had her.

* * * * *

Cold water hit Colette’s face, going up her nose until it
nearly drowned her. Automatically rolling to her side, she coughed to clear her
lungs, her eyes blinking open in shock and pain because her head felt as though
someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

“Rise and shine, hunter,” a singsong voice called out from
somewhere nearby.

Her head shot up, eyes tearing from the throbbing and
hammering going on in her skull. At first she saw what looked like a crowd of
people, but the more her eyes adjusted and her focus returned, the better she
was able to see four men looking down at her through a set of bars. Her vision
snapped to the bars for a moment and followed them to the top of the cage she’d
been placed inside. Her heart, which was already slamming from her abrupt
wake-up call, threatened to leap out of her chest as fear hit her hard. She was
in a cage. Her gaze dropped to the floor, but she forgot about that the minute
she realized she was naked as a jaybird.

Colette curled into a ball, shielding as much of her body as
she could, while squinting through the bars at the men watching her. The
Schumacher brothers leered at her, the glitter in their eyes a combination of
hatred and lust that made her shudder with repulsion. Next to the Schumachers
stood a man who looked familiar, except she couldn’t put a name to him. He didn’t
look like the kind of man who’d be seen with scum like the Schumachers. His
salt-and-pepper hair was brushed back from a noble face with heavy-lidded brown
eyes. He wasn’t overly tall or burly, but he carried himself like a commander
and leader. Next to the familiar stranger was the game warden. Unlike the other
three men, his face was blank, his frigid gaze steady and calm as he looked at
her.

“Well, hello, Miz Robicheaux,” the stranger said in the same
singsong voice that made her stomach twist. It sounded evil and cold despite
the pleasant tone he used. And why was he so fucking familiar to her? “Ah, I
see you nearly recognize me.” He smiled, displaying pearly-white teeth and long
fangs. Colette felt her eyes widen and he laughed with a suave bow. “Senator
Dustin Duet at your service, my dear. I hope you voted in the last election,”
he said with a laugh. “Oh, this is going to be fun.” He leaned forward and
whispered, “It isn’t often I get to play with people from my jurisdiction, too
much chance of being caught. But I prefer my prey to know who’s hunting them.
It makes their death more…personal, don’t you think?”

Horror and terror battled for dominance. She definitely knew
who he was now. Everyone in Louisiana knew who he was. One of the most powerful
shifters in the state, Dustin Duet was hailed as a politician for the common
man. A tiger shifter like Zach, Duet was a stout supporter of equal rights of
all. His name had been linked to the most powerful humans in the country and it
was being said he’d run for the presidency soon. Yet here he was planning to hunt
her. Her stomach turned sour and every instinct she had urged her to drop her
eyes from his, especially when his eyes began to glow a bright yellow. But she
didn’t.

“You’re gonna regret this,” she told him with as much
confidence as she could muster.

He laughed, the sound bouncing off the warehouse walls, not
stopping until he had to wipe tears away from his eyes. “Oh that’s rich. I
adore the stubbornness of my Cajun constituents. Hardheaded and loyal to a
fault.” He crouched in front of her, his head cocked to the side. “You think
the tiger you fucked is gonna save you, Miz Robicheaux?” He inhaled, his lip
curling. “I should find him and put an end to his perverted ways, dallying with
humans, but even kings have been known to dirty themselves with peasants now
and then.”

He rocked on his heels, his tailored suit barely wrinkled
from his position. “No matter, but I can promise you, you’re not even a blip on
his radar. Women like you, human women like you, are about as much enticement
as an ice-cream cone to an Eskimo. You’re good for getting off, sort of like
one of those inflatable sex dolls, and just as easily forgotten. Unimportant
and nothing more than a convenience.”

Colette tightened her jaw. It wasn’t true, she knew it as
surely as she knew she was going to die tonight.

“You don’t believe me.” He threw his head back with another
laugh, the heartiness of it sounding so warm even as it made her skin pebble
with
frissons
. “You’re a smart woman, Miz Robicheaux. Think about it
this way. If he cared about you, he would’ve marked you like a mate, not used
you like a condom. Because isn’t that what he did? Rubbed his scent into your
skin? He probably even told you it was so no other man would go near you, but
it’s really his way of saying how little you mean to him. You would’ve been
better off wearing a scarlet letter, my girl, because we can all tell you’re
nothing but his cum whore.”

Colette recoiled at that, forgetting to cover herself for a
moment.

Duet winked and tapped his nose. “In my younger days, I did
the same thing, but that’s our little secret, eh? And those girls sure won’t be
talkin’ any time soon.”

He laughed, the others joining him, the sounds of their sick
merriment bouncing around the room, but Colette was too numb to comprehend what
Duet was telling her, her mind a maze of pain and disbelief.

She’d known shifters could smell Zach on her skin, but she’d
stupidly thought it was a warning to them not to go near her. A sign of
possession that came before a full marking. If Duet could be believed—and why
would he bother lying to her since he obviously planned to kill her—Zach never
intended to mate her. If she hadn’t been terrified of what these men were going
to do to her, she would’ve fallen apart at the seams, her heart torn to shreds.

“Besides, I’ve heard Mr. Trahan isn’t fond of humans either,”
Duet continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully. His face lit up and he snapped
his fingers at Agent Roscoe. “Find out if Trahan is a possible candidate for
initiation. When you’re promoted to full membership, we’ll need a new
recruiter. If he was able to get this female to trust him that quickly, he
might be useful for the future of the group.”

The game warden nodded without taking his eyes off Colette.
She glared back at him, the fucker who’d apparently stalked her for a hunt. He
gave a subtle shake of his head as though warning her, but Duet drew her
attention again as he turned to her. His mouth opened, the sick glee on his
face suggesting he couldn’t wait to continue his monologue. But Vernon shuffled
his feet with a sigh as though bored. Something dangerous flitted across Duet’s
face.

“As much as I enjoy chatting with you, there’s some unfinished
business I have to attend to. I do look forward to hunting you, my dear. I
believe you’ll provide Fang and Claw with our best game to date. Don’t go
anywhere,” he joked as he stood.

He smiled and Colette shrank away, terrified by the quiet
insanity gleaming in his eyes. Duet wasn’t the kind of crazy that was apparent
unless he let you see it, the way he was revealing it to her now. He reminded
her of those man-eating tigers that popped up in the news, ones who’d been
raised and trained by humans who suddenly went apeshit and bit their trainers’
heads off. Duet couldn’t wait to sink his claws and fangs in her and it showed.

He turned away from her and addressed the Schumacher
brothers, who were eyeing Colette as if they were starving men at a buffet. She
cringed back to the far corner of the cage until the bars dug into her back. If
they came after her… Her stomach cramped. There wasn’t a goddamn thing she
could do. There were four of them and one of her. On top of that, they were
shifters. She’d never felt so helpless in her entire life.

No one knew where she was. Zach was the only one who
expected her tonight. And if Duet was right about Zach’s intentions toward her?
Would lust be enough motivation for him to go looking for her? She really didn’t
think so. Remembering his insistence that she dress up for dinner, her heart
broke again. He’d probably wanted to let her down gently, or maybe he wanted to
shame her more. Suddenly, all the things they’d done together, the previously
taboo pleasures he’d helped her explore seemed tawdry and dirty, as though she’d
whored herself to him.

But something, probably the same stubbornness that made her
work harder than her cousins in order to become the best marksman, or the
undeniably hardheadedness that wouldn’t let her quit working even when her body
ached down to the bone, rose to the fore. Whatever it was, her heart told her
to have faith in Zach. Yes, he was emotionally scarred, had no real foundation
of affection the way she did with her family, but he cared.
God, please let
him care enough to look for me or to call the cops.

“You’ve done a good job, boys,” Duet was saying in his
hearty, politician tone. The Schumacher brothers puffed up with pride, but they
kept stealing looks at her. “Ah, yes, she is sort of attractive for prey, isn’t
she?”

Icy-blue eyes appeared between Colette and the three
shifters talking about her as though she were a horse at auction. It was the
warden and his face was still blank, but his gaze burned with urgency.

She curled her lip at him, feeling about as effective as a
kitten against a pack of pit bulls. “
Bon rien
,” she spat at him, because
he was a good for nothing. He’d brought her here, handed her over to this crazy
bastard. “
Le Bon Dieu descend pas pour.
You’ll get yours,
fils
de putain
.”

His eyes blazed and he leaned forward. “You’re not so brave
without your gun, are you?” he whispered harshly, his drawl dramatically
reduced. The other three men didn’t even look over. “You might want to watch
where you step when they let you run. There might be something waiting for you
on the ground.”

Colette cocked her head to the side, not sure what the hell
that meant. She already knew she was going to be hunted, why was he warning
her?

“Look for the gun in the moss,” he mouthed, his eyes intense
and not nearly as cold as they were before.

Puzzled and wary, she shook her head. He was playing some
kind of game with her. Maybe he got some kind of sick enjoyment from tormenting
her with the possibility of freedom, but she wasn’t playing along. “Fuck you.”

He snapped his teeth at her, his fangs suddenly longer, his
eyes gleaming bright blue and reached up to run his hand through his hair. He
used the move to dart a look over his shoulder at Duet and the Schumachers.
There was something weird going on with them, the tension palpable, but then
Roscoe looked back at her and pressed his face to the bars.

“Listen to me, you crazy coonass, I’m an FBI agent,” he
hissed between clenched teeth. “Run to your left when they release you. There’s
a .40 caliber hidden in the moss next to the tree. Use it only if you’re
attacked. Some of my guys are out there.”

Her jaw dropped, astonishment, but he reached into the cage
as though to grab her. She squeaked, an embarrassing sound that made the other
three men laugh derisively. Roscoe nodded and mouthed, “Act scared and weak.
Then run.”

“Now, Roscoe, my boy, I know it’s your first hunt, but don’t
go scaring the prey until she’s too scared to run,” Duet said with a laugh,
chest puffed out. The warden, or FBI agent, or whatever the fuck he was, turned
and stood with the others as Duet turned his attention back to Vernon. “It
takes time to earn your way into the group, Mr. Schumacher. Roscoe’s been with
us for several months now, worked his way up from the very bottom as a transporter,
then as a handler of our prey. It’s taken a lot of time and patience, but he’ll
finally be inducted into the group tonight.” He glanced at Colette, who watched
the men with wide eyes. She really didn’t need instructions to act scared
because she was terrified. “He’ll be the one who gets your heart tonight, Miz
Robicheaux.”

Vernon pushed forward with a scowl. “The deal was, we got to
play with her first,” he snarled. “That little bitch has been raining hell on
our heads for years. Y’all ain’t doing anything with her until we get to have a
little fun with her.”

“Of course, of course,” Duet said in a soothing voice. “I
would never begrudge two shifters the right for revenge.” He looked over at
Roscoe. “Let ’em at her.”