Zach

by Catherine Lievens

The car moved in the night, going god knew where, with a creepy-looking Tom driving. Zach didn’t know where they were going. It seemed to him that they had been driving for hours when Tom finally stopped and turned the car off before getting out.

  The small lights the car had provided disappeared, plunging everything into darkness. The sky was covered and the moonlight barely managed to pass through the thick layer of clouds. The silence was tense as if the night around them knew what was going to happen in only a few minutes and broken only by the small noises Zach was making as he tried to get free.

  He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t see much. He could see the profile of a building in front of them, but from where he was in the back of the car, he couldn’t see much more. Trees surrounded them on the sides, weeds grew through the cracks in the asphalt, and added to the broken windows Zach could make out as his eyes got used to the darkness, it was obvious that the place was abandoned and had been for a while. It made it very unlikely that Zach would get any help at that point.

  The silence was broken by the rumbling noise of an approaching car, gravel shifting under its tires as it got closer. Beams of yellow light illuminated the darkness and made Zach screw his eyes shut to avoid them. The car stopped next to Tom’s car, but it wasn’t turned off, not even when Zach heard someone open the door and slam it shut.

  Squinting his eyes, he looked out the window. Two men stood in front of the second car, lights illuminating their legs and not much more, making it impossible for Zach to see the man Tom was going to dump him off to. He could only see the guy was tall, definitely taller than Zach, and built like someone used to fighting, so fighting him was definitely out of the question, even in the remote possibility that Zach somehow managed to get free.

  He was really starting to think that he wouldn’t get out of the situation he found himself in. Tom had kidnapped him a little less than twenty-four hours before and he had made no progresses toward freedom. Clearly the pack didn’t know where to find him, and unless Kameron had managed to get one of Tom’s friends to tell him where Tom was—if they even knew where he was, and Zach wasn’t counting on that—the pack wouldn’t be able to rescue him. It made Zach feel like a damsel in distress, and he was.

  He was too weak to do anything to right his situation, too weak to escape or to fight Tom. Too weak to resist anything that was going to happen to him and because of that he was going to end up in a lab, used like a guinea pig for who knew what experiments. He would be hurt and tortured, and he had never felt so helpless and fragile.

  Before the tears that had been gathering in Zach’s eyes could fall, he heard someone walk in his direction. He angrily wiped the moisture from his eyes as well as he could on the seat under his head, not wanting Tom to see how affected he was.

  The door swung open and Tom sneered down at Zach. He leaned toward him and grabbed him around the waist, sliding Zach on the seat until he was sitting with his legs outside the car, then hauled him up on his shoulder.

  The only thing Zach could see from that point of view was Tom’s ass, and he would gladly have done without it.

  “Did you really have to tie him up like a turkey on Thanksgiving?” the other man asked, and Zach was surprised at how smooth and pleasant his voice was. Obviously, the good guys didn’t have the exclusivity on nice voices.

  “Hey, at least he didn’t escape!”

  “Right.” The second man’s voice dripped disdain, and Zach felt oddly gleeful that for once Tom was on the receiving end of that tone. The glee didn’t last long, though, because Tom dumped Zach into the waiting arms of the company’s man. At least this one was carrying Zach bridal style and not like a sack of potatoes thrown on his shoulder.

  Zach felt a bit dizzy being passed from one position to another so fast, but it didn’t last long. The strong arms of the man held Zach tight against his chest, in a way that felt oddly reassuring and safe. Uh. Maybe the lack of food was making Zach hallucinate. His wolf clearly also had problems because instead of whining in fear like Zach would have expected, he laid down in Zach’s mind and sighed deeply.

  “You have the money?” Tom asked.

  The man put Zach down on his feet. “Don’t move.” Zach nodded and watched as the man opened the back door of his car, reaching down and coming out with an envelope. He threw it at Tom and Tom caught it with ease, immediately opening it.

  The man grabbed Zach again and helped him in the car, taking the scarf that was around Zach’s mouth off and putting it next to Zach before patting his knee and turning back to Tom. He closed the door and walked around the car, getting in as Zach watched Tom doing the same. Tom turned the car on and drove away, leaving Zach to his destiny.

  His heart was beating so hard in his chest that he could have sworn it was trying to wrench free of it. “What... what are you going to do with me?”

  The man looked at Zach in the rear mirror. “I’m waiting to be sure that bastard has driven away before untying you.”

  Zach felt his mouth hit his chest and his eyes widen in surprise. “Untie me?”

  The man nodded. “I’m Craig.”

  “Um, I’m Zach.”

  They waited another handful of minutes in silence before Craig turned to Zach and quickly cut his ties with a knife he had taken out of his jeans’ pocket. Zach was a little wary when he saw it, but Craig never made a move that would make him feel in danger. It was weird, really, but then it was obvious Craig wasn’t what Zach had thought he was.

  “Lie down on the seat and try to rest. It’s going to take at least three hours to get to Whitedell, and we have to stop somewhere before we go.”

  “Whitedell?”

  Craig nodded even as he started the car. “I know a group of shifters there. The Alpha will help you to get back home.”

  “You know Dominic?”

  Now it was Craig’s turn to be surprised. “You know Dominic? Are you a member of his pride?”

  Zach shook his head. “No, I’m the, uh, Alpha mate of a nearby pack of wolf shifters, but I know Dominic well enough.” Then something dawned on Zach. “Wait, you’re Craig? The Craig Dominic has been worried about?” Zach remembered Derick saying something about it during their phone call, but he hadn’t paid that much attention to everything his friend had been saying at the time. Derick always talked an awful lot, and he had been overexcited to hear that Zach was fine, which hadn’t helped his usual verbal diarrhea.

  Craig’s eyes never left the road as he smirked. “The lion’s been worried about me?”

  “Yes. I know you’ve been helping him to liberate shifters from the labs. They haven’t heard from you in a while, and they’re worried.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve had a bit of a hard time lately, and I had to, let’s say, take my leave from the company. The fact that I was sent by them to retrieve you was a good opportunity, so I knocked a few guards out and grabbed as many shifters as I could before getting out of the lab I was stationed in. We’re going to go get them and drive to Whitedell.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Close to Riverton.”

  “Gillham is closer. It’s only a two hours’ drive.”

  Craig looked at Zach in the rear mirror as if he was trying to read him. “The shifters will be safe there? I know you guys used to sell shifters to the labs.”

  Zach nodded. “Kameron has been Alpha for six months, so the pack is safe now. We’ve raided labs and we even found the wolves the old Alpha sold to the company. They’ll be safe, I promise, and you can contact Dominic from there. He’s Kameron’s friend.”

  Craig took a few minutes to think about it, but in the end, he nodded. “Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  The sound of angry voices coming toward Kameron’s office made him feel better, even if only slightly. He still couldn’t believe he had been stupid enough to think Zach would leave him again, and he knew he would have to grovel to make his mate forgive him. He was more than ready to do just that, bu
t he had to find Zach first.

  That was where Nick came in. The Beta had gone to retrieve the last two members of Erskine’s inner circle apart from Roland and Rick, and Kameron was going to interrogate them until they answered every question, the most important one being if they knew where Tom was. Roland’s interrogation hadn’t revealed anything, and Rick hadn’t known anything either.

  The door opened, and Kameron had to resist growling at the two men Nick pushed in. They clearly weren’t happy to be there, but Kameron could also see they were scared. They had that gleam in their eyes, the gleam that said they were afraid but trying not to show it.

  Nick pushed Harvey onto one of the chairs, then Renaldo onto the other and took a stance behind them, hands on the men’s shoulders as if to prevent them from jumping up and running away, which they would probably do if they thought they could get away with it.

  “Where’s Tom?” he asked, not actually expecting an answer from them, not the first time he asked it at least. They didn’t have the time to play those petty games, though, so he also showed them a bit of teeth as he snarled.

  Harvey tried to stay still when he answered, but Renaldo visibly cringed and tried to make himself smaller in the chair. “I—we don’t know.”

  Kameron put his hands on his desk and shifted his nails into claws, making sure the men in front of him saw it. “Things are like this, boys. I know Tom was the leader of what remains of Erskine’s old inner circle. We already have Bud and Stan, and if you don’t want to join them in the council’s jail, you had better talk. My patience is reaching an end, and things won’t be pretty after that.”

  “But, you can’t hurt us! You’re the Alpha!”

  Kameron grinned wickedly. “Oh, but even the Alpha would do anything to protect his mate, and no one would miss the two of you.”

  Renaldo blanched, and Kameron knew he was the one he had to push if he wanted fast answers. “Obviously you didn’t know, which leads me to think Erskine and Tom didn’t consider the two of you important enough to tell you. That should make you think, boys.”

  “Zach can’t be your mate. He’s a man!” Harvey said loudly.

  Kameron raised a brow at him. “Do you really think it makes a difference? Zach is my mate, and I’ll do anything I have to do to get him back. Anything.” He made sure his eyes conveyed just how serious he was.

  Renaldo cracked. “We don’t know where he is!”

  Harvey shot him a dirty look, but they both knew they had to talk if they wanted to make it out in one piece. Kameron hadn’t been kidding—he would do just about anything to get Zach back, and he knew that Nick and his friends were behind him. They wouldn’t say anything, not even if he had to hurt the men in front of him to get an answer.

  “Does he have contacts outside the pack? Family somewhere else?”

  Harvey stubbornly tightened his lips, but Renaldo peeked at the other man before turning back to Kameron, and Kameron knew he had won. “Tom still has contacts with the Glass Research Company.”

  “Shut up!” Harvey bellowed and Kameron nodded at Nick. Nick grabbed Harvey arm and pulled him up from his chair before pushing him out of the room still yelling at Renaldo that he was a traitor. Renaldo looked downright terrified, but Kameron didn’t care.

  “The company?”

  Renaldo’s eyes snapped back to him. “Are you... what are you going to do with me if I talk?”

  “I’ll ban you from the pack, but you’ll be free to take all your things and go wherever you want.” Kameron couldn’t keep the man in Gillham, not after what he had done, and he didn’t want to anyway. He knew Renaldo wasn’t regretting his actions—he was just scared that Kameron would hurt him.

  The fact that he wouldn’t be hurt seemed to solidify Renaldo’s resolve. “Tom never cut the contacts with the company. He said that we might need it someday. I think he was planning to start selling people to them again once things had calmed down.”

  Meaning once Kameron had given up on trying flushing the old inner circle out of the pack. Like that would have happened.

  “You think he’s going to sell Zach?” Kameron was trying to keep his temper under control, but it wasn’t easy, not when he had seen what those people did to the shifters they used. He couldn’t even think about what would happen to Zach in there, not if he wanted to be able to keep a straight head and rescue him.

  “I—I don’t know, not for sure, but I do know Tom, and it’s something he would do. He’s running away, so he needs as much money as he can find, and if he has Zach, he can sell him. It makes sense.”

  Kameron ground his teeth together. Nick was back in the room, standing behind Renaldo and looking ready to wring his neck. “Who would he contact?”

  “I don’t know. They never trusted me with those details. I was more the errand boy than anything else, I swear!”

  Kameron believed him. Both Erskine and Tom weren’t the type of men to trust easily, especially with things that could provide them with money and power. They were selfish bastards, and they wouldn’t hesitate to use their supposed friends when they could without caring much about what happened to them later on.

  Kameron nodded at Nick, who had come back in the room after disposing of Harvey. “Have Thomas take him back home. Tell him to give Renaldo the time to pack, then to take him to the border of our territory and leave him there.” Kameron looked at Renaldo. “You’ll leave Gillham. I don’t care what you do after today or what happens to you. You’re not part of the pack anymore.”

  Banning a wolf from his pack was a terrible thing to do, but Kameron couldn’t bring himself to care. He watched as Nick pushed Renaldo out of his office and waited until he was sure the men were gone to get up and walk out of the room.

  They had nothing.

  Kameron had even called Dominic, and even with Isaiah working on it, they had no idea who Tom would have called. Isaiah was trying to get access to the numbers Tom had called from his cell phone, but until he managed to get them, they had nothing.

  Kameron wasn’t sure he could stay home and do nothing. His wolf was howling and snarling at him for giving Tom enough time to put distance between them, for not believing Zach had been taken. He wasn’t even sure he would be able to shift if he tried, and he had no intentions of trying. It could lead to a disaster if Kameron shifted and his wolf took control. He would go after Tom, and Kameron would have no way to stop him, no way to know if in the end, he would be able to go back to his human form.

  Duncan and Andy were in the kitchen, their voices low as they talked. They looked up when Kameron entered, but it was clear Nick had told them what had been said in the office. Their eyes said it all. Kameron could see worry, fear and helplessness in them, and he was sure all of it was reflected in his own eyes.

  “What now?” Duncan asked, but Kameron had no answers for him. He had no answers period, not even for himself.

  “Kam! Kam! Move your ass and get on the porch! Now!” Nick’s voice came from the front of the house, and Kameron didn’t lose time thinking about what had happened. If Nick was yelling that way, it was something big, something important, and Kameron had to be there.

  He just about ran through the house and yanked the front door open. Nick was standing on the porch, his eyes fixed on a car that was slowly driving along the main path that led to the Alpha’s house. Kameron didn’t recognize the man who was driving, but he could swear he felt his heart stop and restart when he saw who was in the passenger’s seat.

  “Zach.”

  Chapter Six

  Zach held the small shifter tightly in his arms. Neither he nor Craig knew how he or any of the other shifters Craig had grabbed before running would react at being suddenly thrust into a large group of predators.

  Zach had been stunned when Craig had drove to a motel—thankfully not the one Tom had rented a room in the night before—to get the shifters. He had expected to find wolf shifters, felines, maybe some local herbivores, but he had b
een so far off the mark that it wasn’t even funny.

  It seemed that the lab Craig had been stationed in specialized in exotic shifters. Those shifters that were rare in the States and Zach hadn’t known what animals more than half the group were. Luckily for him, Craig had known, and he’d had no problems explaining to him.

  So now, Zach was in the car, nearly in front of the Alpha’s house in Gillham, holding a small rat-type animal that Craig had told him was called an Elephant shrew, with a white lion lounging on the back seat and another thirteen shifters lying around and on each other, all of them in their animal forms. It looked like the beginning of a joke, or maybe a zoo.

  Zach was still stunned that all of them had actually fit in the car, and Craig had only managed to rescue the smaller shifters and the lion. He didn’t even want to think about what other shifters were still in that lab and what they were doing to them. They were probably treated even worse than the common shifters the pack had managed to rescue until then, just because they were different and rare. It was a frightening thought, and Zach held the Elephant shrew a bit closer.

  Most of the shifters hadn’t shifted to their human form yet, or at least not that he had seen, but then both the motel room and the car were small, too small to accommodate fifteen adults.

  Still, even with the menagerie in the car, Zach had eyes only for the tall man standing on the porch of the house they were approaching, illuminated by the lights someone had turned on.

  When Craig stopped the car, Zach helped the small shifter he was still holding to get on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, no one will hurt you. All of them are my friends, and Kameron is my mate.”

  When Zach was sure the shifter was holding tight, he opened the door and exited the car. He didn’t even have the time to take more than a step before he was engulfed into two strong arms and the scent of his mate surrounded him.

  Zach let go, finally releasing all the fear and worry he had been feeling since Tom had taken him. He shook in Kameron’s arms, his body raked by sobs and shudders, tears flowing down his cheeks. Kameron didn’t say anything, at least not anything of importance. He just murmured soothing nonsense into Zach’s ear until Zach finally calmed down.