“I may be on the quiet side, but I don’t handle rude well. If you can’t
not
be rude, then don’t speak.”
“Like you could do anything about it.”
Sarai rolled her eyes. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
“No.”
“I do. Want me to test them out on you?”
She wasn’t winning Corrie over as a friend, but she suspected the younger woman already had it in for her. She didn’t have time or patience to deal with behavior issues.
Silence greeted her question. “Good. Let’s get in position outside the larger room.”
“Why there?”
“Because I think that’s where they’ll take the captives.” If it was what she thought it was, then she was about to see the location of her original vision, only in person. A reality she’d tried with such desperation to avoid was about to happen.
Corrie led. Both girls carefully felt their way down the narrow passage. More than once, Sarai bumped into a sharp outcropping of rock, but didn’t react with so much as a muffled oath. They only slowed as light started to filter into the darkness, an indication they’d were neared the end.
Finally, Corrie stopped. She plastered herself against the wall and then stuck her head around a similar lip in the rock which hid the entrance to their hiding place, to check the room beyond. She waved Sarai forward. They swapped places in order for Sarai to take a look. She held in a gasp. This
was
the room she’d seen, which stood empty for the moment. She was even positioned at the angle she’d see it from. Hopefully, that meant she was in the right place.
They didn’t have to wait long in their little hiding spot between the rooms. The thick stone walls had to muffle sound because they had no clue anyone was close until the first person entered the room. The first of many.
They led the polar bear shifters in last, all with iron shackles around their necks connected to a set around their wrists by a thick chain running down their backs and through their legs. Even George and Shane were chained. Sarai knew it was to keep them from shifting. The tight bindings would cut into their necks, choke them, possibly crush their windpipes. Zac was the last captive to enter the room.
Sarai held in a silent gasp at the condition of the men who’d clearly been beaten and starved. Her cougar’s senses picked up the scents of blood and sweat. They looked drenched. A flash of a vision told her fire hoses had been involved.
Then there was Zac. As often as she’d seen this in her mind, she was still shaken by his appearance. He was almost gaunt as he’d lost a reckless amount weight in just a few days, his cheeks hollowed out, his skin sallow. Old wounds crisscrossed new ones. Blood poured from a particularly ugly gash at his temple and another just under his ribs. She could taste the blood in the air, the copper penny bite of it strong on her tongue. He swayed on his feet, his eyes unfocused. They led him to the center of the room, where, thanks to a well-placed kick, he fell to his knees.
Kyle Carstairs stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of Zac. Just behind him, she could see Scott. Only Scott wasn’t wearing any chains.
This
was the image that had burned into her mind with such indelible horror. The vision that would not change no matter what she did, said, thought, tried.
She knew what was supposed to happen next—Kyle’s order to kill. Damned if she was going to let it go down like that.
“What do you want?” Zac asked through cracked, swollen lips. His voice sounded weak, thready.
Sarai’s heart broke to see him beaten down, broken. But, she thought, just maybe, she detected a fire in his dark brown eyes that gave her hope.
“I want your Timik, and I want her.”
“No.”
“You don’t get a choice in the matter. When Scott returns to the rest of your people, after all of you here are dead, of course, he’ll take over from you as the Alpha. It will only be a matter of time before he brings me Sarai. Soon after that a
new
alliance will be made.”
Sarai sensed Corrie tense behind her. Scott’s betrayal, though Sarai felt it like a blow, went much deeper with the shifter behind her. She hoped they hadn’t been close friends.
She looked back to Zac and realized his stare was directed straight at her. Her eyes widened as he snuck a wink. Pride and hope surged. He wasn’t completely beaten. He was going to fight. Then, soft as Zac’s caresses, a new vision replaced the old in her mind. Zac breaking free of his chains. Zac pulling the key from around Kyle’s neck.
Sarai smiled. With slow, deliberate movements, she pulled out her MP3 player and put on the headphones. She slipped a knife out of its pocket on her arm. No way was she letting Zac have all the fun. She owed Kyle Carstairs for a lifetime of terror.
Careful that the dark of the passageway hid her motions, she stepped sideways to get in a better position. She realized she couldn’t hit her mark because the lip of the tunnel got in her way. Which meant she’d have to step out into the room, exposing her presence.
She glanced at Corrie, who shook her head, but Sarai was set on her course now. “Stay here,” she mouthed.
Before she could change her mind, she spoke. “You don’t have to send Scott for me. I’m right here.”
She stepped out into the wide room to face her worst nightmare head on. Kyle whipped around, then froze at the sight of her. He started to smile. Sarai closed her eyes on the skin-crawling sight.
Solid in her stance, she took a deep breath. In and out. In. Hold. Wham. She released her knife, putting all the force she could into the throw…but Kyle’s henchman, Mick, jumped into the path of her knife. He took the hit directly in the chest and slumped to the ground.
Damn!
The room erupted into chaos, many of the coyotes and wolves headed her way, some shifted, some pulled out guns and started firing. Meanwhile, with a mighty yell, Zac managed to snap the chain binding his wrists to his neck. Quick as a striking snake, he snapped the key off the chain around Kyle’s neck.
Sarai was occupied with protecting herself until Zac and the others could fight. Not that most of them waited to be released, instead charging their captors while still bound. One after another, she threw her knives with unerring accuracy.
There were still way too many of them. Only about fifteen of Zac’s men were pitted against a good forty or more adversaries. Kyle, that lowdown rat, was working his way to the door. She’d never be free of him if he got away. Sarai followed as best she could, her focus on the man who’d tormented her since childhood.
Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, a wolf shifter she hadn’t noticed leapt at her. She swiveled to face it, and only just had her knife in hand when a massive polar bear jumped between them. She watched, stunned as, with a speed that belied his size, Zac plucked the animal out of the air, and shook it like a rag doll. He spat it out on the floor before he turned to face her.
She knew exactly what he was communicating with that look. Without conscious thought or plan, Sarai resumed her trek through the fray. She could feel Zac right there with her, keeping their attackers off her. They worked together in tandem, like a dance. She’d step. He’d move. She’d clear a path with a well-placed knife. He’d defend her backside.
The beat of the music got into her blood, pounded a rhythm that matched the pace of the fight, every move almost choreographed to the sounds in her head. Every move calculated to bring her closer to her target—Kyle.
A fist flew, aimed at her face, only to be stopped as Zac’s jaw snapped closed around it like a steel trap. She heard the scream of pain even over the music. Sarai ignored it, kept moving. She mentally searched for Kyle until she found him across the room. With a curse, she moved fast—pulled a knife from her belt and hurled it at him, but he ducked in time. Her weapon pinged harmlessly off the wall.
Zac was in the middle of dealing with two wolves at once when she noticed a third behind him.
“Drop,” she called.
He didn’t hesitate. He threw one wolf at the other, smashing them both into the wall with a force that had to have injured if not killed, and then flattened to the floor. Just in time. Her knife found its mark and dropped the third wolf to the ground.
Seeing a coyote headed at her from behind, Sarai pivoted around Zac in a move like a ballerina. He swiped a mighty paw, slammed into the chest of the charging animal mid-leap, to send it flying. It smashed into the wall with a yelp of pain.
Yet again, Sarai searched for Kyle amid the turmoil. In her mind she saw him make a break for the door, but he wasn’t there yet. She didn’t pay attention to anything else, focused solely on the fight before her. Sarai moved from man to beast, anticipating every move, every counter move, every moment as she made her way through the room, with Zac’s continued protection, on a trajectory to cut him off.
Unexpectedly, there seemed to be more people in the room. People and…cougars. Even Sarai heard the cacophony of sound over her pounding music. It wasn’t until Jaxon flew by in cougar form that she realized what was happening.
The cavalry had arrived.
But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not until Kyle was dead. She kept moving. Luckily, the arrival of her friends cleared a path. Sarai stopped where she was in the room, set her stance, and took a deep breath. Pulling her arm back, she waited, waited, then, like a tightly coiled spring, released. Her knife flew true. She’d timed it to strike just as he pivoted through the door, trying to escape like the coward he was.
But, instead, she hit her mark with supreme accuracy. Kyle stumbled and fell to the floor, her knife jutting out of the base of his skull.
She stood there for a moment, stance wide, ready in case anyone else came at her, music still pumping, eyes still closed, panting with her efforts…hardly able to believe it was over. The horrible future she’d been seeing for months was not going to materialize. Her constant hiding from Kyle Carstairs was finally at an end.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump. She hadn’t seen it coming. Zac pulled the earphones out of her ears. “It’s over now, kuluk. They’re all down.”
Sarai’s eyes snapped open to look around the room. They were, indeed, safe. With a half-sob, half-laugh she threw herself at Zac.
He stumbled back a few steps, and she realized how weak he was. They’d starved him, beaten him, and still he’d fought. She rewound the fight, which was now fully in her vision, and saw with shock that, despite his chains, he’d fought hard, taking out man and beast alike, one after the other. How he’d managed to do that in this state was unbelievable.
She released him as fast she she’d flown at him. “Sorry!”
But he wrapped his arms around her to pull her right back into him. “Don’t ever apologize for wanting to be in my arms.”
She huffed a little laugh as he used her own words from their first night together against her. She rubbed her face against the warmth of his bare chest, overwhelmed and grateful he still stood there, alive if not well.
“You’re okay?” The implications of what that meant and what she’d just done started to set in.
“Nothing a little extra food won’t fix.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she heard one of his men, Oliver maybe, say.
“He’s talking about you.”
“What?”
“You should have seen yourself. It was a terrifying, beautiful thing to watch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so amazing.”
“Oh.” Sarai didn’t quite know what to say. She buried her face in his neck, a little embarrassed.
“Who killed Kyle?” Andie’s voice broke into their little moment.
Sarai lifted her head to look over her shoulder at Kyle’s prone body, still lying half in, half out of the room. “I did.”
She waited to feel something. Guilt at having taken a life. Relief that he was dead. Elation that he was finally gone. All she felt was…nothing. That didn’t seem right. Maybe she was in shock or something.
She released Zac, who accepted a pair of sweats from Jaxon, and moved to Andie’s side to give her friend a hug. “Thank God you got here in time.”
Andie raised her eyebrows and glanced at Zac over Sarai’s shoulder. “You didn’t need much help. You guys had taken out a good majority of them by the time we got here. In fact, we captured a few trying to escape on our way in.”
Sarai’s mouth formed a small “o” of surprise. She glanced at Zac, who pulled her back against him, seeming reluctant to let go of her.
She looked up at him. “Scott?”
His jaw hardened to granite. “I took care of him.”
She didn’t ask for more details. The betrayal cut deep. As Alpha, Zac had meted out immediate punishment. Enough said. Then she remembered Corrie. Before she could search for the other Seer, she heard her voice. “I’m here.”
Corrie stepped out from behind Zac. “Remind me never to piss you off,” the younger woman said.
Sarai grinned and received a brief answering smile.
“Time to mop up, I think,” Andie said. Jaxon nodded.
“Time to get everyone out of here first. They need medical attention and food,” Sarai said.
The bears took a moment to get out of any bindings they hadn’t been able to break or unlock earlier. Andie and Jaxon led them out of the cave system to a clearing where several helicopters waited.
Once inside one of the aircraft, they couldn’t really talk over the noise, so Sarai tucked herself in close to Zac, careful to avoid the multitude of cuts and bruises all over his body. She laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and, for the first time, welcomed sleep, hopeful for the future and unafraid what visions slumber might bring.
“How much longer?” Zac was tempted to growl but managed to keep his tone polite.
JoLynn, the Healer who lived with the Keller Dare, ignored him as she worked. A sweet little thing, she didn’t deserve his impatience while she fixed the various wounds inflicted by the fights and his time in the cells.
They’d returned to the Keller Compound about six hours earlier. JoLynn had been working steadily since then to heal them all. She looked pale with her efforts. Zac had wanted to wait in his apartment, but the Healer insisted all injured persons stay where she could monitor them.