Savage Claim: Lion Hearts Book Two

by Lane, Cecilia

  Sage’s scent turned to a slow boil of anguish and despair. “It’s too late for us.”

  Sage had always been the brave one. The quiet, sad woman before Kyla made her angry. Not at Sage, no. The ones who hurt her, who treated her like she was a toy to break and then wobble unevenly on a shelf until they were ready to throw her away. Those were the ones she wanted to gut and bleed.

  “Are you breathing?” Kyla asked, maybe a little too harshly. But heck, she was hopped up on her anger and will to survive.

  Sage barely lifted her eyes.

  “Sage. You’re breathing. That means you’re alive. That means it’s not too late.” Kyla planted her hands on her hips and glared at the door. “We just need to keep moving.”

  Letting Jasper and Roland win was not in her plans.

  She turned back to her friend. “Now, do you know where they might have been taken?”

  Sage chewed on her lower lip for a long moment, then nodded and met Kyla’s look. “I… I think so.”

  Chapter 25

  Lindley woke to bright lights cranking his already splitting headache up to eleven. Vague shadows moved just past the unsteady orbs, but he couldn’t even scent them out with blood clogging his nose.

  He reached for his lion and winced at the sharp pain behind his eyes. Fur slipped through his fingers before the beast sank away deep in his mind.

  No shifting. At least for now.

  Soft sobs made him bristle.

  “What do we do with her?” someone asked.

  “I don’t know,” Garrett answered testily. “Put her with the others. We were told to bring these two right away.”

  “Fuckin’ Zombies,” another voice muttered.

  Feet shuffled and harsh breaths blew into a snarled demand, “You want to fucking go?”

  The lights whipped away and Lindley blinked. He recognized Garrett and the others who’d taken them in Heatherglen. More lions surrounded the back of their van. Just off to the side and behind the line of assholes aching for a brawl was a woman with a silver collar around her neck and another big male keeping her close.

  “Hey. Hey! Cut the shit!”

  The order pulled the beginnings of a fight apart, but Lindley locked the words away. Wherever they’d been taken, tensions ran high. Too many lions close together tended to do that. Prides liked their independence.

  Footsteps crunched against gravel and the blinding lights returned. Arms reached out of the darkness and hauled him to his feet. A second later, Trent stood next to him. The press of weapons against their backs urged them forward without words.

  Lindley swung his head from side to side to take in as many details as possible. Even in the dead of night, the house they walked toward was a hub of activity. Lights glowed in nearly every window and people moved in and out of the front door.

  They were taken inside before he had the chance to spy anything useful like a mountain of weapons or a giant mineshaft perfect for hiding bodies. Not that the last was a necessity. He’d gladly let the fuckers rot where they fell.

  Hard jabs in the center of his back forced him into a room filled with other lions. Dominant beasts, too. His own animal surged past the ache in his head with the desire to slice through them like a hot knife through butter.

  Lindley grinned madly as he was forced to take a seat next to Trent.

  The other alphas and enforcers shifted and sidestepped to make room for first Jasper, then Roland to push through. Both men crossed their arms and stared down their noses in twin poses of intimidating pageantry.

  Lindley rolled his shoulders. Trent yawned.

  Jasper’s jaw tightened. He lifted his gold eyes to bore into someone behind them. “And the others?”

  “What others?” Garrett asked.

  Jasper’s expression darkened. “There are more than two in their pride. We have one of their females. You didn’t think to look for more?”

  Garrett tongued his teeth. “We didn’t have time! Cops were coming.”

  “You idiot,” Jasper sneered. “Who do you think made the call?”

  Trent snorted and all eyes in the room turned to him. “Good help is hard to find, ain’t it? Garrett here, he was always better with the action than the thinking. Might want to give him something else to do.” He leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. “You know, from one alpha to another.”

  Lindley didn’t begrudge the man his taunts. Trent’s uncle was a piece of work. Killing his own brother and his pride, letting the blame fall on hunters, and trying to murder his nephew’s mate all competed for Most Fucked Atrocities. That somewhere, maybe even in that same house, Sage had been taken and claimed against her will made Lindley’s lion want to tear the asshole apart.

  He had his own target. The monster who’d laid the foundation for all his fucked up attitudes stood at Jasper’s side, unapologetic smirk splitting his face. Jasper took Sage as his mate and Kyla as his captive, but Roland Levine was the man who put those acts into motion.

  Ten years had passed since he’d last laid eyes on his father. Ten years since he shouldered his mother’s death, his sister’s hatred, banishment from the only pride he’d ever known. He’d bounced from job to job, town to town, trying to figure out how to cope with his new reality and hold back the press of dark fury that was his legacy.

  And wasn’t that just a crock of shit?

  He glared at Roland and Jasper. One a Levine, the other a Crowley. Between them, they’d committed terrible acts and would gleefully commit more, given the chance. The only thing standing between them and victory was… a Levine and a Crowley.

  Blood was thicker than water, but Trent was more his family than the man sharing his name.

  “We’ve already burned you to the ground once,” Lindley said, eyes still locked on Roland. “Why don’t you make this easy on yourselves? Hand over Kyla and Sage and we’ll let you get back to whatever you’re doing to make yourselves feel important.”

  “You think you can come in here and make demands?” Roland growled.

  “Listen to your boss. He’s already worried about the rest of our pride. Think of how many others we’ve called in to help us. This is your only chance.” Lindley shrugged. None of his words were a lie. Rhys and Dash were left behind, but he’d bet good money they’d heard the scuffle and trailed them to the camp. Between the two of them, their shared brain cell would have summoned backup. He wanted Kyla and Sage out of harm’s way before everything exploded. “Give us who we want and we’ll be gone.”

  Roland’s lips peeled back and his eyes churned with the copper of his inner beast. “I could slice right through you.”

  “Care to try?” Lindley asked in a low voice. “Or do you still need all your best fighters to take on teenagers?”

  Hatred flashed through Roland’s eyes. His entire body tensed and Lindley braced himself for the hit that never materialized.

  “Take them to the cells,” Jasper ordered. “I want them kept alive. Let them see our people returned to their rightful ways.”

  Garrett and the others hauled him and Trent off the couch and towards the door.

  “I want the camp relocated to our other site,” Jasper commanded. “And get the teams on the phone. We begin tomorrow.”

  * * *

  “They haven’t done this before?” Kyla asked.

  She watched the commotion below, Sage at her side. The activity had started not long after Lindley and Trent were loaded back into the van they’d arrived in and carted off to a different location. Across the river, Sage thought. That was where Jasper penned all his prisoners until he had a use for them.

  That use varied, from what she understood. Some were women waiting to be paired off as rewards for service to the consortium. Others were hostages to guarantee the good behavior of the prides sworn to Jasper.

  With both groups, he held the power. The mates and hostages tied the consortium under his control. They jumped when he ordered, and didn’t stop until he said otherwise.

 
Right then, they hurried to break down the camp and tear off into the night.

  “Not to this scale. They come and go at all hours, but never anything like this.” Sage paused and glanced her way. “You’ve really been with the Crowleys?”

  "What can I say? I'm simply the best at stumbling into trouble." Kyla met Sage's side-eye with one of her own. "You've really been talking to Lindley this whole time?"

  “Only for a few months. Roland slipped up less than a year ago while he was threatening Sable with what happened to Mom. I don’t know if he stopped caring about hiding it, or if he just forgot, but he told her he’d put her down the same as his first mate. I made contact with Lindley a bit after that. He was the one who got me thinking we could get out.” Sage winced. “I wanted to tell you, but I figured keeping it to myself was safer. The last thing I wanted was to put either of you in danger.”

  “And now here we are, trying to save his ass,” Kyla joked.

  “If we ever get out of this room,” Sage murmured with another wince.

  Thump.

  Then again, a second later.

  Thump.

  Kyla turned from the window. Head cocked and eyes narrowed, she watched the knob slowly turn.

  Sage gripped her arm hard as the door swung open.

  “Hurry,” a dark-haired woman ordered between clenched teeth. She had her arms under the pits of one guard and heaved herself backward into the room. “Grab their feet.”

  “What is happening?” Kyla demanded as she sprang across the room. Together, she and the woman muscled two unconscious guards to sprawl over the floor.

  The woman dusted her hands as she stood, then fixed Kyla with a hard look. “You’re with the Crowley pride, aren’t you?”

  Kyla folded her arms over her chest. A quick glance at Sage found her friend utterly frozen by the window. Kyla stole another look of their surprise visitor. Dark hair, sharp nose… Realization dawned on her and she relaxed slightly. “I am.”

  The woman nodded. “You’re going to take me with you when you run.”

  “You’re Priscilla, aren’t you?” At her nod, Kyla continued. “I met your friend Maya in Bearden.”

  Relief flickered across her face before she schooled her expression. “She’s alive?” she asked in a careful tone.

  “And worried about you.” That worry was all too familiar. If push came to shove, would they have started down the same road to find each other, the same as what drove her to look for Sage? “You can—”

  She bit back her words when a hand landed on her arm and spun her around.

  “What are you doing?” Sage demanded. “We can’t trust her. She’s one of Jasper’s!”

  Kyla grimaced. “I mean, technically, so are you?”

  “I can hear you, you know.” Priscilla toed one of the guards. “We don’t have much time. I put sleeping pills in their drinks, but I don’t know how long the drugs will last.”

  “See? Perfectly trustworthy.” Sage frowned, but Kyla grabbed her arm and dragged her further away from Priscilla. Dropping her voice, she said, “We don’t exactly have options. She cleared a path for us. We need to take it.”

  Sage shook her head, but her shoulders slumped. One inhale and exhale later, she leaned around Kyla. “Why are you helping us?”

  Priscilla folded her hands at her waist and regarded them coolly. “Because I was there the last time the prides suffered a defeat. I don’t want to be the punching bag left behind again.”

  Truth.

  Kyla locked eyes with Sage. Her friend’s nostrils flared, testing the air the same as she’d done. Once again, familiar emotions warmed her chest and set her inner cat pacing through her mind. Punching bag? Yep. Left behind? Check. Unless the woman suddenly sprouted extra arms and heads and carved ‘I’m a danger’ on her forehead, she had zero objections to snatching another lioness out from under consortium noses.

  Mouth pressed in a thin line and stinking of fear, Sage dipped her chin once.

  “Okay,” Kyla said, whirling around to Priscilla. “Let’s go.”

  Sage took one look at the guards and clambered over the bed to avoid going near them. Priscilla marched right between them. Unease building inside her, Kyla edged around their still bodies.

  Something brushed against her ankle. Kyla glanced down to see one of the guards open his eyes into a narrow glare.

  She jumped away, but his hand latched around her leg. She tripped forward, then crashed hard on her knees. Biting her cheeks locked away the howl of pain trying to rip out of her lungs along with a cry of shock.

  They couldn’t afford to bring the entire house full of lions running up the stairs.

  Nor could they afford to let the guard call for help.

  Priscilla pounced on him, with Sage right behind her. They twisted and turned, fighting for control, as Kyla darted into the closet for anything that could help.

  Nothing. Nothing! Not a belt or a scarf or anything a desperate lioness could use as a makeshift set of cuffs.

  She ran back into the room to find Priscilla and Sage draped over the guard’s back, desperately trying to contain the jerking, clawing movements as he crawled his way toward the door. Part of the blanket was stuffed into his mouth, but that wouldn’t last for long. His eyes glowed with the gold of his inner beast and a snarl slipped past his lips.

  “Your collar!” Kyla hissed.

  Sage’s eyes blew wide. Her hands went to her throat as her mouth set in a grim line. She worked the clasp at the back, then snapped it around the guard’s wrist.

  He stilled for three seconds before he began bucking all over again.

  High-pitched whine lodged in the back of her throat, she grabbed the lamp off the table and quickly stuffed it inside a pillowcase to muffle the sound in case it broke.

  Then she slammed it over the man’s head.

  Both women scrambled off his limp body. Kyla stared, horror and shock churning inside her, until she saw his chest rise and fall.

  “We need to go before the other one wakes up!” Priscilla urged, herding them toward the door.

  She pressed her ear against the wood, then twisted the knob wide enough to squeeze through. Kyla followed her, with Sage right on her heels. Panted breath blew against the back of her neck as her own anxiety shot through the roof.

  This wasn’t sneaking through a window while all the males in the pride were worshipping at the altar of their flawed master. They needed to sneak out of the epicenter of the pride.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and swung away from the front of the house.

  Upstairs, a door banked against the wall and they all turned wide, fearful eyes to each other.

  “Go!” Priscilla mouthed, pushing them toward the kitchen at the far end of the hall.

  “Stop!” Someone shouted, words slurred in a fight against the sedative in his system. He thudded against the railing. “Get them! Stop!”

  They spilled out the back door just as the guard tripped and tumbled down the stairs, Priscilla breaking away first and running into the darkness.

  Voices shouted to one another inside the house. Kyla grabbed Sage’s hand and pulled her into motion. Together, they raced after Priscilla.

  Chapter 26

  The cell door clanked closed with Garrett leering at them from outside the bars. Smug satisfaction coated his scent with sticky, gagging sweetness. “This is even better than I’d hoped,” he gloated.

  Lindley rolled his eyes as he took in the rest of the accommodation. They were in an old cellar, though he couldn’t tell if there’d been a house or barn above them at any point. The previous occupants had laid down stone floors and walls, which were recently bored into for the thick bars of the cell. Two other cells lined the room, but neither looked occupied.

  He turned back to Garrett. "So what's the plan, big guy? You just going to sit there, eye fucking us until the end of the world?"

  “Of course,” Trent added. “You heard the boss. He was told to take us here. Nothing els
e. You know he can’t process more than one thought at a time. They won’t trust him with what they’re actually planning.”

  “Probably not where they’re heading, either.” Lindley leaned against the cold, stone wall. “Enjoy your tiny, tiny victory, asshole. You’ve been cut loose to watch us starve in here.”

  Garrett lunged forward, slamming his fists against the bars. “Shut your fucking mouths,” he snarled.

  The one who seemed halfway in charge put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Like a disobedient dog, Garrett stepped back, but only after he rattled the bars again.

  “You’ll live long enough to see the world turn right again.” He pointed to Trent. “And your human is on the top of my kill list when we blast the enclaves into obscurity.”

  Trent snarled. He pushed off his place against the wall and stalked Garrett from one end of the cell to the other, eyes locked on his prey when the wall cut off his path. Even then, he craned his neck and glared murder at the men disappearing up the stairs.

  “I’m going to kill that man,” Trent muttered. “I never should have let him live in the first place.”

  They paced like caged animals. Each bar of their cell was tested, each brick in the wall tapped. Nothing jiggled in place enough to force their way out. They were stuck waiting for whatever the assfaces in Jasper’s consortium had planned.

  “Assuming Rhys was quick enough to follow,” Trent said on his third circuit of the cell, “they’re already here. Also assuming he called someone for backup, we’re a handful of hours south of Bearden. Dawn would be the earliest they’d arrive.”

  “If anyone is still here,” Lindley answered. “You heard Jasper. They’re pulling up stakes like cowards and running.”

  Above, vehicles rumbled. He couldn’t hear any of the distant shouts of orders, but he could only assume they were of the hurry the fuck up variety.

  “Also heard Garrett.” Trent frowned. He took a seat with his back against the wall and a clear view of the stairs. “Whatever they have planned, it isn’t good.”