Bounty Hunter- Ryder

by Kim Fox

  Her heart jolted awake. This monster had killed eighty-six people at least, and now he had his cruel eyes set on a couple of eight-year-old girls.

  Tempest squeezed her hands into fists as she narrowed her eyes on him. This was why she had become a bounty hunter. Not for the money or for the action. But to stop evil men like him from harming the innocent.

  “Up there,” she said, clenching her jaw as she pointed out the about-to-be-dead mark.

  They all turned and spotted him, including Maximus and Lachlan who were in the pickup truck behind them.

  Grant immediately jumped into his alpha boss mode. “Let’s keep an eye on him while we wait for the kids to disperse.”

  They all kept one eye on the murderous polar bear shifter and one eye on the school buses as they got loaded up with kids.

  “Come on,” Ryder said impatiently under his breath. It felt like it was taking forever for the buses to leave.

  But finally they did, over a dozen yellow giants, lumbering away. Most of the parents were gone as well, and there was just a small spattering of children left, including the three girls playing on the swings.

  Grease was still watching them like a hawk watching a couple of oblivious mice scurrying below. The predator never took his eyes off of his prey.

  “Mack,” Grant whispered. “You take Bryce and Logan and circle around the back. Stay together and make sure he doesn’t slip away.”

  Mack nodded. “Let’s go, twerp,” he said to Bryce as he jumped out of the flatbed. Tempest grabbed the edge as the truck wobbled back and forth. She watched as the three of them silently raced behind a nearby house and leapt over the fence.

  Maximus and Lachlan got out of their truck and Tempest swallowed hard when she saw the size of them. Those two men were huge and Ryder had told her on the way over that they had full-grown grizzly bears hiding within them. She was breathing a little easier knowing they were on her side.

  Lachlan’s brow furrowed when he spotted Tempest and saw the handcuffs attaching her to Ryder.

  “Isn’t it a bad time for your sex games, Ryder?” he asked.

  Ryder was about to give him an earful, but Tempest spoke first. “It’s never a bad time for sex games.”

  Lachlan laughed. “I guess you’re right.”

  “He’s distracted now,” Grant said as he stepped out of the truck. “Let’s just sneak up and try to grab him. Lachlan you climb up the chimney with me, and Maximus you stay down here with Ryder and Tempest in case he jumps down.”

  Maximus was watching Tempest carefully. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to have a civilian here?”

  “She can handle herself.” Ryder said it in a tone that meant it wasn’t up for discussion. Tempest blushed with pride. She could handle herself!

  “All right,” Maximus said, not looking too sure. “Just be careful, lady.”

  “Tempest,” she said. “Badass bounty hunter.”

  He gave her a quick up and down look. “I hope so.”

  “Mount up,” Grant said and they all moved. They were all huge guys but they moved as quiet as lions.

  Tempest was trying to be quiet too, but her sexy black leather hooker boots kept clip-clopping on the cement. Damn. Should have worn my sneakers after all.

  Ryder picked her up by the waist and put her on the grass where her steps were a little quieter.

  “Thanks,” she said, blushing in embarrassment.

  They arrived at the house and Grease hadn’t noticed their approach. He was too focused on watching the poor little girls who would be his dinner if they didn’t execute this properly.

  Tempest and Ryder hid behind the rock wall at the edge of the property with Maximus as Grant and Lachlan silently scaled the chimney as planned.

  Everything was going perfectly until the old man who lived in the house walked out with a coffee and his newspaper and spotted the two large men on his chimney like wannabe Spider-men.

  “What in the bloody heck?” he shouted, spilling his coffee on himself as he jumped back in shock.

  Grease immediately lowered his binoculars and leapt off the house. He landed in the front yard with a thud, his thick heavy feet leaving two deep imprints in the coffee splattered man’s lawn.

  He took off like a mutated bullet, running down the driveway and right toward the school.

  Maximus jumped in his way, but Grease lowered his massive shoulder and plowed right into him like a beefy linebacker and sent him flying backward into an oak tree. Every branch on the tree shook as Maximus slumped below it. He groaned as acorns rained down on his head.

  “Oh, hell no!” Tempest shouted as she jumped up and raced after him with Ryder by her side. They sprinted as fast as they could, but Grease was faster and the distance between them was increasing.

  He yanked open the side door of the school and ran in. Tempest and Ryder raced after him.

  She pulled the wand out of her hair and squeezed it as they entered the door, which was the emergency exit of the gymnasium. Luckily, the gym was empty inside.

  “Stop!” Ryder shouted, but the killer didn’t listen. He ran toward the open door that led into the hallways, but then stopped short when a familiar face popped in, blocking the way.

  It was Mack. Staring at him with a fierce glare.

  “You’re not getting away this time, porcupine,” he said as he slapped his own shoulders hard.

  Grease skidded to a stop on the gym floor with a squeak and then looked back the way he came, but Ryder and Tempest were there. He glanced at the wand in Tempest’s hand and his jaw tightened.

  Bryce and Logan ran in behind Mack just as Lachlan, Maximus, and Grant ran in behind Tempest and Ryder. Grant closed the door and locked it, and Logan did the same with the other door.

  Grease was surrounded and he knew it. He started shaking for a second and then his mutated and enhanced polar bear exploded out of him.

  “There are kids around,” Grant said in a firm voice. “This doesn’t have to get violent.”

  The white bear clenched his jaw as the shifters surrounded him. His body tightened and six large spikes flew out of his back with a shling.

  “Looks like it’s going to get violent,” Logan muttered.

  Mack grinned. “Good.”

  He yanked off his shirt and let his lion come forward. Tempest looked around with wide eyes as men popped into animals all around her.

  The two grizzly bears were almost as big as the polar bear, but they looked normal whereas Grease’s bear looked like it spent its lifetime hooked up to an IV of steroids.

  And there were snarling lions all around her. Grant and Ryder were the only ones who hadn’t phased.

  Tempest gripped her wand with white knuckles as Ryder started shaking beside her.

  “Oh no,” she gasped as golden hair sprouted out of his body in patches. She was about to be attached to a mother-freaking lion!

  His tattooed body burst open with a bone-chilling tear and a giant lion ripped forward. Tempest got shoved to the ground as the chain tightened and the momentum of the phase yanked her down. She was handcuffed to a lion’s paw.

  Holy crap! This is not good.

  She swallowed hard as she looked up past the flowing golden mane to the lion’s snarling mouth as it glared at the killer in the middle of the gym.

  “Ryder?” she whimpered.

  The huge cat turned its flowing golden head and looked down at her. She winced as its hot breath washed over her face, but when he saw her, his glowing brown eyes softened. Ryder was in there. She hoped.

  They all turned as a key slid into the lock and fumbled about. A clueless teacher walked in and stopped short when she saw what was waiting for her inside the gym.

  Her eyes widened and the files that she was holding fell to the floor.

  “I’m just going to…” She quickly stepped back out and shut the door, locking it behind her. Tempest heard heels fleeing down the hall. At least I’m not the only one with loud shoes.

  They turned b
ack to the fight, and Mack was the first to move. He bounded forward on huge paws and pounced on the polar bear with his deadly jaws opened wide.

  Grease turned his back so that Mack would land on his spikes, but the lion had learned that lesson the hard way and was ready. He jerked his body in the air and landed on the side of the spikes, digging his long black claws into the bear’s pink flesh. He roared in pain and then they all took off, surging forward at the murderous beast.

  “Wait!” Tempest said as she tried to climb to her feet in a panic.” The chain was only so long and she couldn’t stand up without bending her spine over. “Don’t…” Ryder’s lion pounced forward, sending Tempest crashing back down to the ground. “…run.”

  He dragged her along the gymnasium floor and she lost her wand somewhere near the foul line.

  It was a blur of fur and claws and teeth as she got jerked around by the lion she was attached to. There were furry bodies everywhere, flying backward and snarling like it was a feeding frenzy.

  “I don’t like this,” she gasped as a grizzly bear lunged over her body and onto the polar bear who was thrashing wildly, fighting for his life.

  A lion came flying out of nowhere and rolled over her leg. “Ow, fuck!” she screamed. Luckily, it was a little one, Bryce maybe? She didn’t know. They all looked the same and the only one she could distinguish was Ryder because she was chained to his fucking leg.

  He leapt in the air, bringing her flying with him. She crashed into a lion’s ribs and then face planted into a grizzly bear’s ass. Tempest cursed as she ping-ponged against animals as Ryder sunk his claws into the polar bear’s shoulder. She heard an angry roar and didn’t know what happened next, but it wasn’t good. Ryder was suddenly flying through the air like a rocket and she was streaming behind him, going along for the ride.

  The lion smashed through the blue double doors of the storage closet and they landed against a mesh cage that was holding up dozens of bouncy dodgeballs. It broke to pieces as they flew through it with an ‘oomph.’

  Tempest took a deep breath as she pushed up to her feet with the colorful dodgeballs bouncing all around her and rolling into the gym. “Stop running!” she snapped at the lion, feeling the anger swell up inside of her. If she had ever found Ryder rude or inconsiderate before, he had nothing on his asshole of a lion. That thing had dragged her around like a Saint-Bernard pulling around a two-year-old who was holding onto his leash.

  The big cat tilted his head as he looked at her. “Thank you,” she huffed. “Now let me find my wand and—” The cat took off. Again. Dragging her along the ground. Again.

  You got to be fucking kidding me!

  As she was bouncing along the hard gym floor, she spotted her wand. I’ve had enough of this shit.

  She planted her sexy-yet-not-so-practical boots into the ground and grabbed the chain with both hands. With a grunt, she yanked the lion to the side and managed to steer him off course for a second. “Yes,” she said, diving to the ground. He swung her around in an arc and she reached out, grabbing her red wand as she sailed forward.

  Tempest turned on her back as she fumbled around with the wand, making sure it was pointed in the right direction. She had made that mistake before and it was one you only did once (or about seven times in her case).

  Ryder was heading straight for the polar bear who was holding his own against seven vicious shifters. One grizzly bear was bleeding heavily from the shoulder and a couple of the lions were moving a lot slower than when the fight first started.

  Grease, however, was moving faster than ever as he threw a lion into the wall with a crunch.

  Ryder lunged on him, sending Tempest swinging right at the bear. He saw her holding the wand out of the corner of his eye and snarled as he turned.

  Tempest raised the wand and let the magic fly.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ryder

  Ryder watched hopelessly from the inside of his lion. His animal was being way to reckless with his girl.

  Poor Tempest was flying around, crashing into animals and bouncing along the ground.

  “Calm down!” he shouted at his lion, but he wasn’t listening. The cat was in fight mode and seeing nothing but red.

  The frustrating lion leapt off the ground, taking poor Tempest with him when all of a sudden, Grease froze. The polar bear’s enormous body lifted off the ground and straightened as tight as a board. His eyes widened as he looked down and to the right.

  Ryder’s lion followed his gaze and he saw Tempest holding the wand, pointing it right at the murderous bear.

  Let me come out! Now!

  He was furious at his lion and the cat seemed to sense it because he slunk back down, letting him come back out.

  He phased back and immediately dropped to his knee beside Tempest. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

  “I’m fine,” she said through a clenched jaw. She was clearly doing that female thing when she said she was fine, but was anything but fine. “It was a pleasure meeting your asshole lion.”

  The boys started phasing back all around her now that their mark was contained. They were all hunched over, groaning, cursing, and breathing hard. They hadn’t run into a fight like that in a long time. If ever.

  Lachlan was bleeding heavily from a hole in his shoulder that probably came from one of Grease’s spikes. He was holding it as he fell to his ass, gritting his teeth and cursing as a purple dodgeball slowly rolled over and hit his leg. He looked furious. “My shoulder, you fuck!” he growled as he palmed the bouncy purple ball and launched it at the polar bear in frustration. It bounced off his back leg as Lachlan cursed again.

  Grant and Maximus walked over, looking like they needed a vacation. “Who the hell is this guy?” Maximus asked, staring at the frozen bear in shock. “If I knew he was this bad I would have brought Kneecap.”

  “I told you!” Grant shouted in frustration. “Luckily, we have one bounty hunter here who knows what to do.”

  They all looked at Tempest who was glaring at the bear. She stood up, pointing the wand at him as her bushy eyebrows smooshed together in an angry frown.

  “Let’s get some answers out of this guy,” Grant said. He walked right up to the bear with his hands on his hips. “When we release you, phase into your human form immediately, got that?”

  The bear’s eyes slowly made their way down to Ryder’s alpha.

  “You make one move and our badass bounty hunter bitch here will keep that on you until October. Got that?”

  Grease couldn’t move, but the bear got it. By the way his eyes were bulging, he would be willing to follow any order. Ryder knew that because he had felt that wand before and it was no picnic.

  Grant turned back to Tempest and nodded. “Release him.”

  She took a deep breath and then reluctantly released the hold.

  The bear fell to his big paws and then started shaking. A few seconds later, he was back in his human form.

  He sat down on the gym floor and looked around at all of the shifters. He turned to Lachlan who was still wincing and swearing with every heavy breath. Lachlan gave him the finger.

  “We’re taking you in,” Grant said in a dominant voice. “You killed eighty-six people.”

  He just lowered his big head and closed his eyes.

  “And you were going to murder those little girls, weren’t you?” Tempest shouted as she charged forward. “You monster.”

  He slowly raised his head and looked at her with the eyes of a broken man. The sadness in them was unnerving.

  “What were you planning on doing to them?” Tempest snarled.

  “I was just watching one of them,” he said in a voice that seemed to crumble with every word.

  “So, you’re a pervert?” she said, thrusting the wand at him again. Ryder put his hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down.

  Grease shook his head that he couldn’t seem to hold up anymore. “She’s my daughter. I was looking at Lily.”

  His big round shoulders
slumped forward as the tears started coming. He dropped his face into his hands and sobbed.

  Tempest took a step back, stunned by the sudden swell of emotion. Ryder and Grant glanced at each other with an uneasy look.

  “I haven’t held her in over three years,” he said between sobs. “They took me from her. They took me from my girl.”

  “Who took you from her?” Grant asked.

  Grease shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” Tempest said, the fierceness in her voice suddenly gone. “Tell us what happened. Tell us why you killed everyone in the town.”

  He wiped his eyes with his big palms and sniffed. “I didn’t kill anybody.” He raised his head and looked at Tempest than at Ryder.

  Ryder felt an uneasiness settle into his body. This guy had just tried to kill all of them, but somehow his gut was telling him that he wasn’t lying.

  “This is bullshit,” Mack said, swatting the air. “Let me finish him.”

  “Let him talk,” Grant snapped impatiently.

  Mack huffed out an angry breath and walked away.

  “What do you know that we don’t?” Grant asked.

  The bear shifter had his head lowered with his watery eyes squeezed shut.

  “Tempest,” Ryder warned when she approached.

  Tempest just ignored him and dropped to a knee in front of the broken man. She took his hand in hers and he lifted his head and looked at her with a softness in his eyes.

  “Tell us what happened,” she whispered.

  Grease took a deep breath and then told them everything.

  He spoke of a secret military program that kidnapped shifters and forced them to be mercenary slaves. “They take the people you care about,” he said, “and use them against you. They’ll kill your mate or your children if you don’t do what they say.”

  Ryder’s heart was pounding as he listened to the man. If anyone was threatening to hurt Tempest, well, Ryder would do anything to stop that from happening.

  “They take whole crews and force them to fight overseas,” he explained. “They’ll make you do horrible things.”

  Grant was listening closely. “And those spikes on your back?”