Tempted by the Jaguar #3: Ramification (Riverford Shifters) (3 page)

Relativity sucks
, Hunter thought irritably as he stared at the
unmoving man, willing him to open his eyes with every fiber of his being.
However, the man’s eyelids didn’t so much as twitch.

A quick glance at the large, round-faced clock that hung on the wall
facing the hospital bed told him that he had been sitting by the wolf shifter’s
bedside for only an hour when it had literally felt like days. Sitting still
and doing nothing was practically torture. While he knew how important it was
to be the first person the wolf saw when he finally woke up, Hunter felt
completely useless, especially given the task Maxim had taken up while he sat
twiddling his thumbs.

The idiot that he was, he couldn’t even try calling Kylie because his
phone was currently lying somewhere in the dirt in the forest, and he couldn’t
remember her number. No doubt everyone under the sun was trying to call him and
wondering why he wasn’t picking up. He expected a barrage of phone calls to the
clinic any second now.

He hoped to fuck Kylie hadn’t been one of those missed calls. He also
prayed that Maxim would be able to locate her before the Elders started asking
about her whereabouts. He would have to tell them the truth, and right now, he
wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was the right thing to do. With the life of
a woman he had come to care for a great deal on the line, he damned well better
be one hundred percent sure.

Hunter winced at that last thought, realizing what he had been refusing
to admit to himself. Why else had her very likely betrayal have pierced him so
painfully rather than just stoke his anger?

He dropped his head into his hands. No matter what truth was revealed,
he was utterly screwed either way.

Suddenly, a sharp gasp sounded to his left, and Hunter jerked his head
up in enough time to see the wolf shifter practically leap from the bed with a snarl
of warning, his blue eyes glassy with confusion and panic and darting from side
to side as if frantically searching for an escape route. Hunter immediately
froze in his chair, not daring to move as the man used the bed as a barricade.

The high-pitched sound of the heart monitor signaling a flatline filled
his ears. Not surprising as the wolf’s IV tube and finger pulse oximeter were
now dangling off the edge of the bed next to him. He could both smell and see
blood trickling from the back of the man’s left hand where the IV needle had
been ripped out.

He had to do something to calm the fear-crazed man quickly before
either he tried to shift or the medical staff responding to the flatline signal
made it to the room. Hunter slowly rose from his chair, immediately capturing
the wolf’s attention.

“Stay back! Stay back!” the wolf shouted, his voice cracking. His eyes
were still wild and clearly seeing enemies everywhere. “I’ll fucking bite your
hands off if you so much as
reach
for me, I swear…!

Instead of wasting time with reassurances of safety that would never be
believed, Hunter folded his arms against his chest and said in his most
authoritative voice, “Listen, buddy. You were the one who came looking for
me
in
my territory
. We just saved your ass, so why don’t you calm the fuck
down before you reopen all your wounds and waste all my clansmen’s efforts.”

The wolf stopped snarling at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing
suspiciously for a split-second before they widened in disbelief.

“I—remember,” he rasped. “In the forest—you’re Ryder’s brother!”

Hearing that name made Hunter’s chest tighten painfully with a
maelstrom of emotions. He forced his face into a neutral expression and nodded
with a calm he absolutely did not feel.

“Thank God,” the wolf said, collapsing to his knees with something like
a sob, letting his forehead fall against the edge of the mattress. “I thought
the Retrievers had caught me.”

“Retrievers?” Hunter questioned with a frown. “I had the lioness on
your tail pegged as one of their assassins.”

The wolf looked up sharply, a flash of fear in his eyes, before he
shook his head. “No, they—”

The door abruptly burst opened and both men growled at the sudden
intrusion almost in unison. Gerald, the young doctor in the forefront of the
entering staff, instantly stopped after only moving a couple of strides into
the room, causing the two nurses behind him to nearly collide into his back. He
looked from first his would-be patient crouching in a defensive position on the
other side of the bed, his hospital gown halfway open and barely covering his
crotch, to the still-wailing heart monitor, to Hunter.

“Good timing,” Hunter lied, struggling to keep his irritation at the
interruption from his voice. “You can help him get back into bed. He was still
disoriented and in danger mode when he woke up, but…” He turned his attention
to the wolf. “…you’re okay now, right?”

The wolf shifter stared at Hunter for a couple of seconds before slowly
nodding.

Still looking a bit wary, Gerald approached the injured man as
cautiously as if he was a wounded, cornered animal. After a moment’s
hesitation, a male nurse whose name Hunter couldn’t remember followed. Once the
wolf was back in his bed, Gerald picked up his bleeding hand and
tsked
after examining it more closely.

“You’ve definitely blown out this vein,” Gerald said. “Shawn, grab some
supplies to clean and bandage the wound while I examine the rest of his
bandages. Sidney, I need you to start another IV in his other hand.”

While the three attended to the wolf, Hunter stepped away to lean
against the far wall, observing them in silence. He was dismayed to see blood
seeping through one of the wolf’s bandages along his back, wondering if the
doctor would decide that the injured man needed rest and kick him out.

If that happened, he would have to get the Elders involved, something
he had been hoping to avoid until he’d had a chance to talk with the wolf
privately. He was already walking a thin line as it was not calling Gaither the
moment the wolf shifter had awakened as the Elder had requested. He couldn’t
afford any more delays.

“It hurts, but nothing that warrants you pumping me full of more
drugs,” the wolf was saying, drawing Hunter out of his thoughts. “The last
thing I need right now is to be fuzzy headed and on the verge of passing out
again.”

“Yes, it’s important that I talk to him as soon as possible,” Hunter
cut in, deciding a little nudge was needed. “The Elders are expecting my call.”

Gerald looked over at him and frowned. “Just make it quick, Hunter. We
may heal fast, but we’re not immortal.”

“It’s okay, Doc,” the wolf assured him. “He has every right. It was his
territory I breached, after all.”

Clever. For a jaguar, a breach of territory was the one thing others
could not interfere with, not even the Elders. He would have used the excuse
himself, but he felt the less everyone knew about the incident, the better. At
least he was guaranteed privacy now.

Gerald sighed, but nodded. “I resealed your wound. Just try not to move
any more than what’s necessary. You may have only reopened one of your wounds a
small bit this time, but next time you may not be so lucky. I’ll be back in an
hour to re-examine them.”

Only when the door closed behind them did Hunter move to reclaim his
seat next to the bed.

“For future reference, I would rather you not mention breaching my
territory to anyone else,” Hunter said.

“He wouldn’t have left us alone, otherwise,” the wolf replied. “What
I’m about to tell you is for your ears only. Your brother seemed to think that
you were our best chance, and given what he sacrificed to ensure that I had a
chance to escape, I’m inclined to trust his judgment with you.”

Hunter stared at him for a long moment, trying to process what this man
was telling him. However, right now he only wanted to hear the answer to a
single question.

“Ryder was alive when you last saw him?”

One beat, two, and then his heart began to drop to the pit of his
stomach when the wolf didn’t answer right away.

“He was when I last saw him,” the wolf finally answered, “though from
the beating he was receiving, I can’t with all honesty say that’s still true.”

It took every ounce of will in Hunter’s being to keep from shifting and
going for the injured wolf’s throat.
It isn’t what it sounds like. He didn’t
run and leave Ryder behind. He wouldn’t have dared come to me, otherwise.

Over and over he repeated those thoughts in his head until he could no
longer feel his muscles rippling.

Taking a final, deep breath in order to calm his lingering anger,
Hunter finally fixed the wolf with what was probably still a hard gaze. “Maybe
we should start at the beginning. I’ve never seen you running with the
Riverford packs before. What’s your name?”

Hunter was pleased that his tone sounded normal rather than tinged with
hostility. The last thing he needed to do was to cause this man to clam up.

The wolf’s body was visibly tense as he met Hunter’s gaze without
blinking. No doubt he had sensed how close he had come to getting his throat
ripped out.

“That’s because I’m from one of the suburbs—Parker Grove. My name’s
Jack Bray. I only have cousins here.”

“So you’re part of Tanner Bray’s lot.”

Jack’s shoulders relaxed a bit as he nodded.

“Although I really would like to know how you ended up bleeding in my
part of the forest, answer me this first. Were you and Ryder being held against
your will by the lions?”

The look in Jack’s eyes turned from wary to bleak. “We were their
personal lab rats is what we were.”

Hunter sucked in a sharp breath. “Explain.”

Jack turned his head, his gaze fixing on some point along the far wall
in front of him. “About a year ago, my mate, Maya, and I were heading south out
of Parker Grove to our favorite hunting spot when we were pulled over by what I
thought was a highway patrol car. Two human patrolmen ordered us out of the car
before I could even say a word, telling me that our license plate matched one
of a suspected drug runner and they planned to search it. However, once we both
had gotten out and had walked to the rear of the car where they had directed us,
the sons-of-bitches Tased us, and it must have been set at a really high
voltage because I blacked out almost instantly.

“I woke up as the same men—only now they were dressed in normal jeans
and t-shirts—were pulling me out of the back of an SUV parked behind a large
two-story brick house. It was surrounded by cattle pens as far as the eye could
see.”

His face suddenly contorted into a look of disgust. “The smell was
probably what woke me. It was like I’d been chucked into a lake of cow shit, it
was so eye-wateringly bad. Just thinking about it now makes me want to hurl. Only
when I escaped a few days ago did I find out it was a cattle ranch pretty much
in the middle of nowhere, about a couple of miles west of Amarillo. At least
that’s what it is on the surface, but below, it’s a medical research facility
several floors deep right out of a horror movie.”

As Jack talked, Hunter felt his body grow stiffer and stiffer with
barely contained rage. It was only when his palms started to sting that he realized
that his nails had started to elongate into claws and had stabbed into the pads
of his tightly-fisted hands.

“Did the same thing happen to Ryder?” Hunter growled, unable to keep
the anger from his voice this time.

Jack shook his head. “He said he was taken down by a tranquilizing dart
while out on a run in his forest territory. I imagine it was the same one where
you found me. He did say that once he had been missing for a while, you would
have taken it over. We knew that all the roads leading into Riverford were
being watched by the Sniffers, so that’s why I aimed to get into Riverford
through the forest along the southern edge. I figured if I didn’t run into you
within the forest, itself, then I would try looking for you at some of the
places Ryder mentioned.”

“Did those bastards take anyone else other than you three?”

“I only know of twelve others—all female. A couple of cougars, an
alligator, a gray wolf, a tiger—”

“That tiger,” Hunter cut in, nearly falling out of his chair as he
unconsciously leaned closer to the wolf. “Do you know her name?”

Jack’s gaze suddenly became hyper-focused. “Anna.”

Hunter slowly let out the breath he had been holding. He didn’t know
whether or not to feel overjoyed or stricken to finally hear someone speak that
name.

“Twenty-two? Blonde hair, blue eyes?” He had to make sure before…

“Yeah.” Jack’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “She looked
about that age, though I only saw her once, about six months ago, as we were
both being dragged down a hall. It was probably when she was first brought in
because boy did that tiger fight the bastards who had her with everything she
had in her. You see, once the lions’ scientists get a hold of you and start
pumping their shit into your veins, you’re lucky to even lift a finger without
breaking a sweat.”

Hunter stared at the wolf in horror for a long moment before he closed
his eyes in renewed pain. “
Fuck
.”

“You’re a jaguar, but—” Jack began hesitantly.

“Anna Barkova. She’s my best friend’s mate-to-be, not mine,” Hunter
finished for him. “Too many things match up for it not to be her. Just what the
fuck were those bastards doing to all of you?”

The sadness and weariness on Jack’s face suddenly melted into something
unreadable. “Like I said, we were lab rats,” he replied, his voice deepening with
renewed tension. “The hell if I know what those sick bastards hoped to
accomplish doing what they did to us. It was painful and debasing, and if I
ever get my hands on those fuckers, I will enjoy slowly tearing out their
throats!”

It was apparent that he wasn’t going to get any more details other than
that from the wolf, not when the horror of what he had been through was so
fresh, so Hunter decided to try a different angle.

“You said that my brother helped you escape,” Hunter said, watching the
other man’s face carefully. “How did it come about? From what you’ve told me, I
got the impression that everyone they abducted were kept separated.”

“The females at least,” Jack confirmed. “Sometimes they would inject
shit into me that would either force me to shift or turn me into a raging
lunatic and put me in a room with Ryder or another guy—a coyote shifter—for a
day or two.”

A look of rage abruptly flashed in his eyes, and for a split-second,
Jack was one hundred percent wolf. “I don’t know the coyote’s name or where he
was from. By the time I met him, his human soul was completely gone. Only a
scared, crazed coyote remained. I get the feeling that those lion bastards put
us in there with the intention to induce us to fight. Sometimes we could resist
the urge to attack, sometimes we couldn’t. Afterwards, they would measure our
brainwaves and draw blood…and other things.”

“I can’t believe you actually managed to hatch an escape plan in those
kinds of conditions. No doubt you were being watched closely.”

“That’s just where we met each other,” Jack said. “It was where we
formed a bond where we knew we could trust each other. You see, sometimes we
would be put in that room without the rage juice or with us both in our human
forms. We would talk, mostly about random shit like hunting or football, but
every so often we would reveal important stuff to each other, a word at a time.

“When we talked about hunting, he would say phrases like ‘trust a
hunter to,’ ‘Riverford’s hunters are pretty tenacious,’ or ‘hunting with my
clan brothers has saved my ass more than once.’ It took me a couple of
conversations to realize what he was doing. I wasn’t sure if he meant a literal
brother, but judging by how many times he brought up the word ‘hunter’ in a
single conversation, I figured it was probably a name. He also exclusively
mentioned the forest along Riverford’s southern border as well as bitched about
how there were now too many apartment complexes built right up to the forest’s
edge.”

He smiled self-deprecatingly. “I talked about braying donkeys a lot.”

Hunter almost smiled, but the atrocities being revealed made certain
that he wouldn’t be smiling anytime soon.

“In this way,” Jack continued, “we managed to come to an understanding
that if an opportunity ever opened up to escape, we would make sure at least
one of us got away.”

“Hence your earlier comment about Ryder being beaten when you last saw
him.”

To his credit, Jack didn’t look away from the steel that was probably
in his eyes. “Once a month, they would bring us to the surface into an outside
pen, for the sunlight, I suppose. Who knows what those sick bastards were
thinking. It was surrounded by ten feet of electrified fence. Then a few days
ago, a miracle happened. I happened to kick a rock at the fence and it didn’t
spark. Ryder threw another just to make sure the bastards weren’t fucking with
us—remember, everything seemed to be an experiment—but nothing happened again.

“Without the electrical current, the wire was laughably weak. We waited
until a couple of the guards closest to where we were standing started talking,
and I ripped a hole large enough for us to squeeze through. We transformed and
made a run for it, but Ryder was shot in the leg. I don’t know if it was a
bullet or tranq dart, but he roared and turned back to charge the guards. As I
maneuvered around the pens, the last glimpse I caught of him was in his human
form on the ground being kicked by three of them.

“It took me half a week to cross the state. I stole a car in the first
small town I found and drove as far southeast as Temple. I figured being so
close to Riverford that traveling in wolf form and avoiding the highways was
best. I made it to about a mile outside the city when that bitch found me.”

He looked down at the bandages down one arm and grimaced. “As you can
see, I was seriously getting my ass kicked, but luckily we tumbled towards the
edge of a cliff with about a sixty foot drop. I somehow managed to shove her
over. It was then that I realized how hurt I was. Frankly, I’m shocked I
actually managed to drag myself so far. When I heard the female jaguar with you
say your name…I was afraid that I had already passed out from the pain and
blood loss, it was too good to be true. I think I was even hallucinating at
that point, seeing faces from other victims. That’s why I freaked out when I
woke up and saw myself connected to tubes again. I was certain that Retriever
or assassin or whatever she was had managed to climb back up that cliff and had
found me collapsed somewhere. I hope she broke her neck and is rotting in hell
right now!”

It was probably best not to tell him about his own run-in with the
lioness just yet, especially when Jack’s eyes now held a hint of desperation. “Do
what you want with what I’ve told you. Tell your Elders everything, some, or nothing.
Ryder believed that you could find a way to help all of us so much that he was
willing to risk being killed to give me the chance to get to you.”

Hunter felt a weight equal to the mass of the earth drop onto his
shoulders. He closed his eyes, not wanting the other shifter to see his
turmoil.

“It’s because Ryder knew that only I, and our tiger friend, Maxim, are
stupid enough, insane enough, to try to take on the lions head on in order to
save him,” Hunter said quietly. “Did he know about Anna?”

“I don’t know. I only learned her name a few weeks ago when a couple of
my tormenters were discussing the female tiger shifter over what they thought
was my unconscious body. Ryder knew one of the kidnapped shifters was a female
tiger, but whether or not he had ever seen her wasn’t something he ever told
me.”

“That they mentioned her recently gives me some hope that she’s still
alive.” Hunter opened his eyes and met Jack’s eyes. “There aren’t enough words
in the universe to thank you for crawling through hell just to find me, but I
promise you that I’ll do everything possible to get our loved ones out of that
cesspit even if Maxim and I have to charge in alone. In the meantime, is there
anything I can do for you right now?”

“Can you bring me a phone?” Jack asked. “I need to call my father, my
Elders.”

“Of course.”

Hunter picked up the cordless phone sitting on the nightstand beside
the hospital bed from its charging base and handed it to the wolf. He then
stood up.

“I’ll give you some privacy. Just holler when you’re done. I’ll keep
the doc busy if he comes before you’re finished.”

“Thank you.”

The genuine gratitude in his voice was almost painful to hear. As
helpless as Hunter was feeling at the moment, it wasn’t something he thought he
deserved.

“And Hunter,” Jack called out just as Hunter was opening the door. “You
and Maxim won’t have to go at it alone. The Parker Grove wolf clan will stand
with you. I’ll make sure of it.”