“Oh my gawd, really?” Dallas huffed and rolled his eyes, then promptly whimpered and cupped his temple. “You had to hit me right where that psychotic hijacker did. My head hurts. Don’t you have destined mates?” He covered his face with his hands.
Destined mates sounded very serious.
Very
serious. “Ah. No?”
Dallas peeked at him through his fingers. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I haven’t done—” Tiago caught himself. “I mean, I did. Obviously. This mate business, though, I didn’t do it. We don’t have mates. Jaguars are solitary creatures. We fuck and move on.”
“Think to me,” Dallas demanded. “Do it. I reached you through the mental bond destined mates have. Fated mates. Call it what you like, we were apparently made for each other.”
Tiago was suddenly afraid to try. He knew he’d heard Dallas in his head. Even so, it didn’t seem nearly as scary or prophetic to hear him as it would if Tiago could speak to Dallas the same way.
But he’d never been a coward.
“My full name is Tiago Henrique Silva de Souza. I was born in nineteen eighty-three. I am still considered a young one. Jaguar shifters can live for a very long time.”
“So can we. If we aren’t shot, hit by a car, killed by another wolf or shifter, things like that. There aren’t many diseases that get us. And we are conversing, telepathically. Shit. We really are mates.”
Dallas burst out laughing. “Ah, dude. You’re stuck with one of
them
and I’m stuck with someone who is a great big, bigot! Someone messed up. This can’t be right.”
“I am not a bigot,” Tiago tried again. The mate part he would have to deal with later. And he wasn’t even going to think about the whole telepathy thing. “I am not. What I have said, any ecologist will tell you—any environmental specialist. I am not objecting to the existence of wolf shifters or humans, but of the introduction of them to this area.”
“Wolf shifters aren’t newly introduced,” Dallas argued. “That pack has been here for a long time.”
“Not in rainforest years.” Tiago shook his head. “I have seen them build homes and install electronic equipment, traipse through and destroy plants without thought or care. For everything brought in, something is lost. I am afraid, Dallas. I am afraid that my home will be taken from me.”
It was his biggest fear, and he’d admitted it to a virtual stranger. Tiago would have been astounded, but after Dallas’ revelations, he was just tired—and still horny.
There were other emotions he would have to deal with later. Dallas’ story about his upbringing was going to haunt Tiago. Dallas might not think much of him, but Tiago believed Dallas to be a fine man.
“My full name is Dallas Edmond Tearman,” Dallas said. He swallowed and looked up at the ceiling of the cavern. “I’m twenty-nine. Not old in wolf shifter years. I think maybe instead of trying to run Ryder’s pack out or whatever you might be planning, you should try talking to them. Educating them. Forming an alliance, maybe. I’m not sure if you’re a nice person, and I have a problem with that. I can’t stand bigotry of any type. I don’t see how we fit together.”
Tiago felt Dallas’ anguish and confusion. It was the oddest thing. Every molecule in him wanted to sooth Dallas and ease his troubles. Again, nothing Tiago had ever felt before.
And he didn’t want Dallas to leave. If he did, Tiago would have to follow him.
Gods, Dallas was right about them. Jaguars didn’t have destined mates, but wolves did, and apparently, that trumped Tiago’s shifter nature. All of his bitching about invasive species, and Tiago was affected in a manner he never would have suspected possible.
He was well and truly involved in something he had no control over.
Chapter Five
They found Maarten’s car fifteen miles from the beach house. The small beater vehicle smelled of humans and of Maarten.
“I’ll kill all of them,” Ryder vowed, clenching his fists against his denim-clad thighs. They’d had to run as humans, unable to find sufficient cover as wolves. “I don’t care about the why of any of it. Robert Butler is dead. The same goes for anyone who had a part of taking my mate.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I can feel his heartbeat.”
Marcus cupped Ryder’s shoulder. “Maarten’s smart, and he’ll get through this. We’ll find him, soon.”
“At least we know Butler doesn’t have a plane,” Nathan said. “He has to be traveling by car since he destroyed Marcus’ jet. I know yours went missing before you ever got here, Ryder, but—” Nathan stopped, his eyes widening. “Maybe we should get to the airport.”
“Because there’s no proof the private jet belonging to my pack was ever crashed,” Ryder added. “Butler got here quickly.”
Marcus checked the car out again. “The keys are gone. Shifting is out of the question, and we aren’t very fast in our human forms. If they’re planning on escaping using a plane, we won’t be able to catch them in time.”
“We might,” Ryder snapped. “You don’t know what could happen. Standing here wasting time isn’t going to help.” Ryder gestured to his guards. “Let’s go.”
Marcus was used to taking command, leading the way in everything except the bedroom with his mate. Stepping back, allowing Ryder, as Alpha Anax of South America, to take his rightful place in this endeavor, was proving difficult.
Marcus vowed to himself to do it, though, and only protest if he truly believed he had a better suggestion for doing things. He’d have to make sure it wasn’t just his pride speaking up, either.
“He’s doing well,” Keegan said, jogging to Marcus’ side. “I can steal a car. That’s one thing I learned in my misspent youth.”
Marcus nodded. Whatever would get them to the town the fastest. “Tell Ryder.”
* * * *
One minute he’d been driving along, singing about being fancy, and the next he was groggy, a stinging in his neck preceding that sensation.
Maarten woke up knowing exactly what had happened to him.
Motherfuckers. Ryder will kill you all.
He opened his eyes to total darkness. A cloth covered them. The small, tight space he was in had to be a trunk, and he was being jostled regularly, enough so that it’d helped wake him from his drugged stupor.
His wrists were bound with what felt like multiple cuffs behind his back. Not only that, but his arms were bent up, with his hands between his shoulder blades. It was a very uncomfortable position. Shifting was out, then. He’d wrench his arms and shoulders out of socket at the least. A wolf’s arms didn’t bend that way.
But he had his link to his mate. Maarten’s heart thumped heavily as he reached for him.
“Ryder!”
A wave of relief washed over him.
“Maarten! Where are you? Tell me so I can—”
Ryder didn’t finish the thought with words. Instead, images of violent promises flashed through his mind.
“I’m in a trunk. I think. I can’t shift. My hands are cuffed behind me in a weird way. I should have been paying more attention. Too cocky, thinking these humans wouldn’t dare to come at me in broad daylight. Jesus, I was stupid.”
Ryder’s snarled refutation of that claim warmed Maarten but he didn’t believe it. He should have felt himself being watched. No, he’d been too busy thinking about Ryder and jumping his bones when they got together, too occupied with singing a mindless song and seeing his friends Marcus and Nathan again. Gods, he was a fool.
“Stop it,”
Ryder demanded.
“That kind of thinking won’t help you at all. Try to concentrate on anything you can to clue me into where you are. Smells, sounds, anything.”
Maarten closed his eyes—stupid since he was blindfolded, but it helped him concentrate. His ears felt weird, and his ability to scent was being screwed with by something odiferous close to his nose.
“Ear plugs,”
he realized.
“I have plugs in my ears! We wondered if this guy knew what we really are, and he must, because my arms are cuffed in a way that makes shifting impossible, my senses are all blocked. There is something that smells strongly of chemicals and citrus in front of my face. An air freshener, perhaps. Whatever it is, it’s
all
I smell.”
“Okay, so Butler knows we’re shifters—or at least suspects that you are. What he doesn’t know is we have a bond he can’t break.”
Maarten could tell Ryder was trying not to panic. Even so, he heard the traces of it in Ryder’s thoughts.
“He can’t find out about that. I’ll track you through it. I can feel you, Maarten. I will find you. Aidan found Zane when Zane ran from him. No one can take you from me, not for long.”
That was possibly the most romantic thing Ryder had ever said to him, and it was silly to get teary-eyed over it considering the circumstances. Good gods, he was a man, not some emotional teenager.
“Did you see any of them?”
Ryder asked.
Maarten felt even more like a failure.
“No. I was driving, the window was down. The AC in the car didn’t work. It was so humid and the breeze was nice but not enough. I slowed down at a curve in the road, then my neck stung and I knew what had happened before I passed out. They used a dart gun, a tranq gun, whatever you want to call it. They weren’t close to me.”
“Now the question is, how did they figure out you were with us?”
Ryder silently cursed himself, though Maarten heard it through their link.
“Of course he knew. He had the jet hijacked. He’s been watching us. He knows we’re shifters, but he only knows what he can see. We’ll need to discern how many others he has told.”
Maarten took comfort in Ryder slipping into analytical mode. He tried to relax his muscles as he was bumped around in the trunk. He’d be bruised all over by the time they got wherever they were going.
That was okay. As long as he was alive, he could handle bruises and horribly sore muscles from being bound so atrociously.
Ryder would find him.
Maarten couldn’t have slept had he needed to. The drugs in the dart he’d been hit with had worn off completely by the time the car came to a stop. Maarten guessed they’d been driving for almost three hours since he’d come to.
He was drenched in sweat, and dangerously close to overheating. The trunk was very hot and he was dizzy from it.
Only Ryder’s constant thoughts and reassurances had helped him to remain calm. Dying of heat stroke was a very real risk and a terrifying one. Maarten found that locking his mind firmly with Ryder’s and letting his breathing slip to a slow, deep state, helped somewhat.
The trunk was opened from the outside. Maarten didn’t even have the strength to yelp when his arm was grabbed and jerked. Hot, agonizing streaks of pain burst out from his shoulder and elbow.
“I thought you might be dead,” a man said drolly. “I’m quite pleased that you aren’t.”
Maarten grunted, the best he could do considering his arms were about to be yanked off. That was what it felt like as he was hauled up out of the trunk.
“Hmm. The restraints have worked well. Get the bar, and we’ll make some adjustments there.”
Maarten knew the man speaking was Robert Butler. He had a slight northern accent, as if he’d come from Maine or Rhode Island, somewhere like that—cultured, too, at least to Maarten’s ears.
A hand gripped his chin forcefully.
“My, you are a big man, aren’t you? You’ll come in handy once I’ve convinced you to work for me.” He clenched Maarten’s chin tighter. “I am assuming your boyfriend wants you back. He will have to learn to do without you or come to my flock. No, pack. That’s what you’d call it.” A deep, rich laugh followed. “I am, after all, the alpha here. Clearly.”
Maarten tried biting his tongue but it didn’t work. “No, you clearly are
not.
You are simply a dishonorable man who— Umph!”
That wasn’t a fist slamming into his stomach. It was much larger and harder than a human hand.
Maarten’s breath whooshed out of his lungs as he started to double over.
“Leave him alive, at least barely,” Robert Butler ordered. “Not comatose, but I am fine with him wishing he were dead. After you’re done, chain his arms to the bar.”
Hearing what was planned for him added to Maarten’s anger and fear. He couldn’t draw a deep breath, and he scrambled to keep in touch with Ryder, who was shouting at him in his head.
But the next blow was even worse than the first, and Maarten felt something crack inside him. A rib, he thought, as his knees hit the ground.
After that, he couldn’t keep track. His entire body shrieked with pain as he was beaten until finally unconsciousness carried him away from the torture.
* * * *
The next time Maarten woke up, he was chained to a wall somehow, his arms stretched out parallel to the ground. Again, he couldn’t shift, not without seriously harming himself. His legs were splayed open as well. He was wearing his pants, so that was something.
Everything hurt, and he couldn’t move his head. That sent a jolt of panic through him. Maarten snapped his eyes open and saw nothing at first, only darkness. Slowly, his eyes came into focus and he could make out a brick wall across from him.
There was no light on, but he could see. His senses were all functioning, and they kicked in at once. He heard voices coming from another room, smelled spicy food and rank men, and the trace of a cologne that was actually quite nice. He saw the bare wall but couldn’t turn his head. Before he could freak out over that, he realized a band over his forehead kept him from being able to move. He was strapped to the wall with enough metal and restraints that he was lucky he could breathe.
Maarten reached for Ryder.
“Ryder? I…”
His mind blanked on a wave of relief as Ryder’s presence flowed into him.
“I’m here, babe. I’m here. I’ve been with you through it all, and I promise you, they will die slowly.”
“I don’t care if they die at all. Find me. Find me, Ryder. I can’t move. I can’t move at all and I… It’s horrible, a nightmare I’ve had before. Like this Butler saw into my mind and pulled out the one thing that I’ve always feared.”
“You’ve never cared for restraints,”
Ryder acknowledged.
“I didn’t realize you were this—”