She closed her eyes and tried to reach out to Kyle with her thoughts, but her mind was still too foggy from whatever Amy had used to poison her. She took a deep breath, trying to clear her head enough to concentrate. When she opened her eyes, everything was still a big blur. She knew that with her high metabolism, her body would burn off the poison eventually, but she wasn’t sure that she had time to wait. She didn’t know where she was or who all was involved, and that meant she was a sitting duck waiting on her captors to come back to inflict more harm on her. Natalie wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Amy had acted on her own. She may have been the one who had found a way to quietly get Natalie away from her pride, but there was no way she did all of this for herself. This had something to do with Cain. Thinking back, Amy had been right in the middle of things the night that Cain and his men had ambushed the mansion. Natalie had assumed that they had gone after Amy, but maybe Amy was the one who had let them in.
Natalie heard a door creak open, and when she looked in the direction of the sound, two figures were walking in the room. Her vision was still blurry, but combined with her sense of smell, she knew who they were: Cain and Amy. For the first time, she realized how their scents were mingled together as if they were one, and she wanted to slap herself in the head for not realizing what was obvious now. Cain and Amy were mates.
“Well, look at the mighty pride leader. Everyone said you were too strong and that no one would ever be able to take you out. Ha! Just look at you now. My dear Amy caught you without any trouble at all. Looks like everyone was wrong about you after all, Natalie.”
Natalie growled. Even through the fog in her brain, she could feel her lion trying to break free, but she wasn’t healed enough yet. “Cain, you truly give new meaning to the word coward. You couldn’t get the job done yourself, so you seduce Amy and have her poison me. Clearly, you knew that you don’t have a chance against me or you wouldn’t have needed me poisoned to take your shot at my position.”
Cain’s scent changed, and Natalie knew that she had hit a nerve and he was livid.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head. Once I have what I want, I will make sure you are fully awake when I kill you. First, we wait for your mate to show up.”
“You leave Kyle out of this!” Natalie’s anger was helping her fend off the poison, and she was sure her lion would be breaking out very soon. Cain was playing with his own life by threatening her mate.
Cain laughed, and she even heard Amy giggle. Her vision was getting better, and she could tell that Amy was standing with her arm looped through Cain’s. What she found interesting was that Cain’s wasn’t actually hooked around Amy’s arm. His arm hung loose at his side like he could care less that his mate was touching him. Amy seemed to be the one who was really into their mating. If Natalie was right, Cain only used the mating bond to ensure Amy’s loyalty to him. If he got what he wanted, Natalie imagined Amy would wind up dead soon after.
“Why would I settle for owning one pride when I could have two?”
Natalie’s eyes bugged out, and she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her when the realization of what Cain planned to do hit her. She was bait.
“Kyle will come just as fast as he can once I let him know where his precious mate is being held captive, and when he gets here, I’ll be waiting. Don’t worry, I will make sure you get to see the whole thing right before I kill you too, securing my position as the pride leader of the Anastas and Cervella prides.”
“No!” Natalie screamed, but it sounded more like a great roar. “Kyle! Kyle!” She was screaming inside her own head while she desperately tried to reach Kyle with her thoughts, but she knew that she wasn’t reaching him. She could always feel it when her mind connected with another lion, and that connection was missing.
Cain laughed, and before she knew what was happening, she felt a prick in her skin and looked over to see Amy’s silhouette standing beside her. She was pulling her hand away from Natalie’s arm, and she held something in her hand, but Natalie wasn’t able to make out what it was. The weight that she’d felt holding her down began growing stronger, her vision grew blurrier again, and within a minute, her eyes drooped shut, and she found it impossible to open them again. She felt a tear run down her cheek, and the last thing she remembered before everything went dark again was Cain’s mocking voice telling her to have sweet dreams.
***
“Natalie. Natalie, please answer me.”
Natalie rolled over with her arm stretched out, looking for her mate. She was too tired, so of course, the one time she wanted to sleep in was the one time Kyle woke up early. “Kyle, honey, just let me sleep a little longer. Okay?”
She felt all around on Kyle’s side of the bed, but he wasn’t there. She opened her eyes and looked around the room, expecting to find him standing over her, but he was nowhere. Looking around the room, Natalie soon realized that she was not at home in her room but somewhere dark and dingy. It took a minute, but memories from earlier when she had woken up slowly began filtering through her mind. Amy and Cain, poison, needle, kidnapped. No! Cain was keeping her drugged while he worked on luring Kyle wherever they were. Cain was probably keeping her alive in an attempt to lure Kyle here alone, and if she knew her over protective mate, Cain’s plan would work if she couldn’t find a way to stop him.
“Natalie! Please answer me.”
Kyle’s voice filled her mind again, and this time she could hear the panic in his voice. She wasn’t dreaming. He must know she was missing by now, and from the sounds of slight hysteria in his voice, he had probably been calling out to her for a while. Natalie had no idea how long Amy and Cain had held her captive so far.
“Kyle, I’m here.”
“Oh, God. Natalie, I thought …” Kyle’s voice broke off inside of her head. She could hear him choking back his own emotions, and she didn’t need to hear anymore to know what he had thought.
“Honey, I’m alright.” She wasn’t exactly sure if that was true, but for the moment, she was alive and she needed Kyle to calm down so she could tell him what had happened and convince him to think straight so he wouldn’t end up getting himself killed.
“Natalie, where are you? Our bond, I felt it disappear like you weren’t alive anymore. How can that be?”
Natalie shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to tell Kyle what was happening, but she had to make sure she didn’t set him off and wind up with him falling right into Cain’s trap. “Kyle, I need you to hear me out. I don’t know how much time I have, so please, just let me tell you everything I know, and promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m here. I promise to hear you out.”
Natalie was aware of the fact that Kyle hadn’t exactly promised what she’d asked him to, but she was also not naïve enough to think he was going to give her any more than what he had, so she would take it. “I don’t know where they are holding me, other than that it is not on our pride lands. I don’t recognize any of the smells around me.”
“Who has you?”
“Amy and Cain. I’m not sure how I missed the mixture of their scents, but when they both came in together, it was obvious that they are mated. Cain’s scent is all over her. She poisoned my dinner and somehow managed to sneak out of the mansion with my unconscious body in the middle of the night.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him!”
Natalie could imagine Kyle pacing back and forth, his face distorted with anger. “I need you to listen to me, Kyle. Cain plans to keep me drugged so I can’t fight back, but he doesn’t want to kill me until he has you, too. He’s trying to lure you here alone, and then he’s going to ambush and kill you. Once you’re dead, I’m next. He came up with the idea that he can lead two werelion prides if he kills us both, but you can’t let him win. I know I can’t talk you out of coming to find me, but I need you to make sure you don’t come alone, no matter what he says. He isn’t going to kill me until he has you.”
“If that
is his plan, then why hasn’t he already contacted me? He’s had you for a week already.”
Natalie felt like she had just been blindsided. She’d been gone for a whole week? How had she lost so much time? It seemed like it was just last night that she was at home waiting for Kyle to get back from the Anastas pride.
“Natalie, are you still there?”
She must have let more time pass than she realized, lost in her own thoughts. It was just a lot to process. “I’m here. I guess I just needed a minute to wrap my mind around you saying I have been gone a week. They’ve kept me knocked out, and I had no idea so much time had already passed.”
“Can you tell me anything about where they are keeping you?” Kyle asked. She heard a shift in his inner voice. His panic being replaced by determination. He was letting his lion take over, and she knew that Kyle would stop at nothing to find her.
“I’m in a room inside of a cave, but they have fashioned some kind of door blocking the entrance so I can’t see out.”
“Can you hear or smell anything that might help us find you?”
She closed her eyes and willed her lion senses to take over. “Water. I hear rushing water like the rapids or a waterfall might be nearby. I can’t really pick up on any smells, though, other than the mildew in this cave. They must have it sealed off too good.”
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to gather Craig and the others now. I promise, we will find you. I love you.”
“I know you will, honey. I love you, too.”
She knew the minute Kyle left their inner conversation. She felt an emptiness where his voice had just filled her mind. The good thing was she could also feel the drugs or poison Amy kept giving her wearing off. She prayed that it would wear off enough for Kyle to pick up on their mated bond again because that would make finding her a much easier task. Just when the invisible force that had been holding her down began lifting, light filtered in from the entrance, and she knew without looking that her hopes were in vain. Amy had shown up just in time to put her back into a deep, fitful sleep.
*
Kyle
Kyle punched the tree in front of him. He felt the bark break through the skin over his knuckles and the warmth of blood trickling out of his wound, but it was nothing compared to the pain he felt in his heart. It had been four days since he’d managed to make contact with Natalie, and they’d found nothing. He had tried repeatedly to connect with her again, without any results. They were running out of places to look, and if they didn’t find her soon, Kyle worried that Cain would grow impatient with his plan and go ahead and take her life. For all Kyle knew, he’d already gone through with it and that was why he wasn’t able to reach her mind. The one thing that kept his hopes up, even if it was only slightly, was the fact that Cain had not shown up at the Cervella pride mansion to prove Natalie’s death and take his place as the new pride leader. Kyle was sure that Cain wouldn’t wait one minute longer than he must to claim Natalie’s position.
“Kyle, we are running out of places to check that are near water,” Craig interrupted Kyle’s inner monologue. “Huh, brother, I just…”
“What, Craig? If you have something to say just spit it out.”
Craig locked eyes with him. “I see how badly this is wearing on you already. I’m worried about you.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. It’s Cain you need to be worried about.”
“You aren’t yourself, brother. What happens if we can’t find her, Kyle?”
Kyle bared his teeth at his brother and growled. He refused to even consider such a possibility. “We are not going to stop looking until we find her! Do you understand?”
“No, of course not, and I will be right by your side until we find her. I just want to make sure that you understand this might take a lot longer than you want it to.”
“It might take longer? Are you serious right now, Craig? It’s already been far longer than it should have been! I have to find her.”
Kyle’s voice broke, and Craig laid his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “I know you do, brother. I know you do, and we will find her.”
“I need her back, Craig.”
Kyle felt something warm and moist on his cheek. Reaching up, he rubbed his cheek and realized he was crying. He wiped off his face and took a deep breath. They had combined teams from both the Cervella and Anastas prides to form search parties to find Natalie, and Kyle couldn’t let the Anastas pride members see him lose his shit. Then again, if they weren’t successful in finding and saving Natalie, it wouldn’t matter because a lion could not survive long without his mate.
The next possible location was only twenty miles away, and they could make the journey in no time in their lion forms, so they gathered everyone and set out to search the second location of the day. They were about five miles away from the waterfall they were going to check out when Kyle felt a shot of pain across the side of his face. Assuming it was just a bug bite of some sort, since there wasn’t anything near Kyle, he just shook his head and kept going. A minute later, he felt it again, only harder. This time, there was no mistaking the pain for that of a bug bite. Something bad was happening, and Kyle was certain that the pain he felt was actually Natalie’s. On the plus side, that meant they had to be close, and Natalie must be fully awake for once. Whenever a lion was within a certain proximity to their mate, they could feel any pain or pleasure that their mate experienced. That brought him to what was bad about being able to feel Natalie; someone was hurting her.
“Natalie! What’s happening?”
Kyle picked up his speed while he waited for Natalie to respond. They were getting closer, and he needed to get to her, fast. Whoever was hurting her was in for a world of hurt when he finally found them. “Craig, she’s close.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I can feel her, and some asshole keeps hurting her. I’m going to fucking...”
Kyle was cut off when Natalie’s frantic voice filled his mind. She was definitely not okay.
“Kyle, please hurry. Cain decided he doesn’t want to wait anymore. I’m trying to fight him off, but I am still so foggy from all of the poison they’ve been pumping into me that I don’t think I can keep him held off for long.”
As if to emphasize her words, Kyle felt a sharp pain in his side, and he knew Natalie had just taken a devastating hit. Pain lanced through him, but he knew that what he was feeling would be nothing in comparison to the first-hand pain Natalie was enduring. When he got to her, Kyle wasn’t just going to kill Cain. He was going to make sure the bastard felt every bit of the pain he was putting Natalie through before he took his life.
“Ahh!”
Natalie’s scream inside his mind had him running even faster than he had ever run in his life. He hadn’t even realized he was capable of running so fast.
“Brother?”
At Craig’s questioning tone, Kyle looked to the side where his brother was running with him but soon realized that Craig wasn’t beside him anymore. In fact, none of the pride was running beside him because he had taken off so fast that none of them were able to keep up. They were trailing a good thirty feet behind him, and if he kept up at the same pace, that gap was bound to continue growing. He was also aware of the fact that he was now much further away from the ground than he had been only moments ago. Apparently, his lion had gone through its growth spurt again because it was obvious he was much larger than the rest of the pride following behind him. Kyle considered that to be a good thing. It would make ending Cain’s life that much easier.
“Cain’s making his move, and Natalie’s too weak to fight him off. We’ve got to hurry!”
Kyle heard a lot of growling behind him, and when he turned to look, his brother was urging everyone to pick up their speed. He turned back and worked on focusing all of his senses on Natalie. He knew she was close by, but he needed to figure out exactly where she was and quick. He could feel the strength of their bond growing, which told him that he was getting closer by
the second. When the waterfall came into view, the strength of their bond had increased enough to indicate that Natalie had to be very close by. Kyle closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hoping to catch even a hint of Natalie’s scent in the air. If he could catch her scent, he could follow it to her. Natalie’s scent was nowhere, but he did smell someone familiar. He took another deep breath, and it hit him—the scent belonged to Amy.
Thanks to the few times he’d been able to mentally reach Natalie, he knew that following Amy’s scent would lead him to Natalie. Kyle took off, following Amy’s scent, which led him straight to the waterfall.
“Behind the waterfall,” he sent the message to Craig. He had wound up gaining a considerable lead on the rest of the lions, and he didn’t want to risk them not seeing where he was heading.
The waterfall itself distorted Amy’s scent, but there was no doubt it had led him straight to the plunging water. He ran for the water, falling over the side of the mountain head on, praying that he was right and that there was a cave behind the fall. When he passed under the heavy spray of water and didn’t come crashing into the side of the mountain, Kyle knew he had made the right decision.
Promised To The Pride Page 11
