Turned by a Tiger

by Felicity Heaton

  He frowned, struggling to make out what she was telling him on repeat. Three words. No. Two.

  His head turned, and he waited for the darkness to swallow him as it had that awful night all those months ago, the last time he had been exposed to this drug after a long bloody fight and taken into captivity.

  He shook that memory away, a pressing need to know what she was telling him as she closed in demanding his focus more.

  Two words.

  Play.

  Dead.

  The four males were suddenly on him.

  Talon’s first instinct was to fight them with all the strength he had left.

  He fought it and closed his eyes, gave a pathetic growl and did as the huntress had ordered.

  He played dead.

  Or at least, unconscious.

  But he was aware of them as they shackled his hands behind his back. Aware of them as they hauled him onto his feet, struggling with his dead weight. Aware of them as they dragged him through the park and loaded him into the back of a van.

  And aware of the fact the huntress had messed with the dosage of the drug in the dart, only giving him enough to weaken him rather than knock him out.

  Maybe she was on his side after all.

  He sat quietly with his head hanging forwards, bent over his legs, lolling around as the van manoeuvred through the city streets. Whenever he bumped into one of the males, they huffed and pushed him away. Weak little things. He wanted to snap their necks with his bare hands. Might have given in to that dark urge if his hands hadn’t been shackled behind his back.

  Talon thought about the others who were waiting for him, and Sherry, using them to keep his head and their plan on track. If he lost it now, chances were he would wake in a cell heavily guarded and the others would be forced to fight when they mounted a rescue, placing them all in danger.

  Sherry included.

  That was enough to have his tiger side calming down, settling within him. Waiting.

  It was a strange unnerving sensation.

  He didn’t really do patient.

  He had been doing it a lot since meeting Sherry.

  She was changing him already.

  He just hoped it was for the better, and it would help him win her.

  The van hit a downwards slope and rounded a corner, and pulled to a halt.

  Some fucker had the audacity to slap his left cheek, sending him swaying towards the male on his right. He growled and flicked his eyes open, glaring at the female.

  “Good. He can walk himself.” She rose onto her feet and removed the dart gun from her thigh holster. “Don’t think about getting feisty.”

  He continued to glare at her.

  The males on either side of him grabbed his arms, pulled him onto his bare feet and shoved him towards the rear doors. The other two were waiting on the tarmac. One of the hunters behind him shoved him in the back and he dropped to the parking lot floor, landing silently.

  “Think he always lands on his feet?” The male prodded him in his left shoulder, and he obediently walked forwards, fantasising about what he would do to the bastard if his hands had been free, not locked in solid reinforced restraints.

  It would be bloody, and beautiful.

  Another grinned at him. “We could take him to the roof and find out.”

  Talon bared his fangs at the bastard and clenched his fists behind his back, his arms tensing as he tried to break the restraints.

  “Settle down,” Emelia said, and he wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to him or her unit. “Since you’re all insisting on pissing me off… you can all piss off. Go on. It’s past knocking off time.”

  One of the males, a fair-haired youth who looked as if he had zero experience in the field and would get eaten alive if he crossed a non-human without a team to back him up, looked back at her. “You’re sure? I mean… he’s a lot of guy to handle alone.”

  “Are you saying for a woman to handle alone?” Emelia snapped, all warmth leaving her voice. “You want me to write that up in my report, Carter?”

  He quickly shook his head.

  “Jesus, you’re all fucking annoying. Get out of my sight before I write you all up for that little stunt you pulled the other night. I’m sure the higher ups would love to know about you visiting that fae bar to bet on the illegal fights in the basement.”

  Carter’s face blanched. The other three looked as if they might piss in their pants.

  Emelia was one fiery little female.

  Talon liked her.

  The four males hurried into the building ahead of him.

  Emelia came up beside him, grabbed his right arm and huffed. “Men. Always doing something stupid and reckless.”

  Now Talon felt certain she was talking about him.

  He glanced down at her.

  The troubled edge to her emerald gaze said he might be wrong again, or at least he might not be the only stupid and reckless male she knew.

  “Move.” Emelia nudged him forwards and he obeyed, trudging through the plain metal door in the concrete wall of the underground parking facility.

  She pulled on his arm before he could shoulder the next door open, stopping him in the small space between them. He frowned down at her as she looked around, inspecting all the corners of the ceiling and then closing the door to the car park, shutting them in.

  “Hold still.” She opened the pocket on her left thigh, pulled out a syringe and tugged the plastic cover off with her teeth. He eyed the needle, every instinct screaming at him to knock it away. He must have tensed, because she paused with it close to his arm and looked up at him. “It’s an antidote… but you’ll need to act like you’re still shaking off the drug.”

  He nodded and turned, offering his arm.

  Stung like a bitch when she stabbed him with it, but the relief was instant, the haze lifting from his mind and strength returning to his body.

  Emelia capped the needle again and slipped it back into her pocket. “Sable owes me for this.”

  And he owed them both.

  She pulled down a sharp breath, exhaled it and sucked down another before taking hold of his arm again. He could feel her shaking, but she did well to hide the tremble as she opened the door and pushed him through it. He staggered for effect and weakly growled at a passing pair of humans dressed in white clothing.

  “Fucking torturers,” he slurred in their direction and they both gave him a wide berth.

  “Try to keep it more under control,” the male said to Emelia.

  She nodded and shoved him again, and Talon wanted to rip the shit out of the bastard with his claws.

  It?

  Like fuck he was an it. He was more male than that pathetic bastard would ever be.

  He shot her a black look. She hit him with one in return and pushed him harder.

  “Try to remember who’s helping you here, Buddy,” she muttered and then in a louder voice added, “Keep moving or I’ll hit you again.”

  He growled and stumbled forwards, finding it hard to play the role of a weak little cub now that his head was clear and his hunger to find the others and deal Archangel a blow was rising, seizing hold of him.

  They reached the main cellblock and he staggered to his right, trying to lead the way to the service lift he had used to escape.

  Emelia pushed him in that direction, fielding a few questioning looks from several hunters as they passed her by with other prisoners. She glared at them all, her green eyes fierce and full of fire, a dare for them to speak to her. A few of them saluted, revealing the female was above them. He supposed it made sense as they followed the white-washed corridor around a corner. Sable had mentioned Emelia was due to take over her squad.

  The little human acted like a pro as she spotted the service lift ahead of them near a branch in the corridor. She struggled with him, pretending he was misbehaving, and shoved him against the wall next to the panel beside the lift doors.

  A flicker of nerves showed in her eyes as she pressed th
e button and waited, keeping a watchful gaze on the people coming and going along the corridor. One of the science types slowed, a female with greying hair.

  “You brought him in?” The female looked him over and he had a flashback of her standing outside his cell, watching him for the first few days he had been in their hands.

  She had been the one responsible for deciding what course of study he had been subjected to, and had been responsible for all the tests and torture they had inflicted on Jayna.

  He snarled at her through his emerging fangs.

  “Keep back.” Emelia held her palm out in front of her, towards the other human, and pressed her other forearm against his chest. She pushed his back against the wall and held him there, her weight hardly anything, and definitely not enough to restrain him. He played along though. Emelia lowered her hand and reached for her gun. “He’s coming around quicker than we expected.”

  The lift to his left pinged and the doors slid open.

  For a heart-stopping moment, Talon thought the scientist would demand to know what Emelia was doing going down the service lift with him, how she knew about the secret facility, and would call others to take both of them into captivity.

  The grey-haired female withdrew a small device from her pocket, swiped across the screen several times and then typed something.

  When she was done, she looked up at Emelia.

  “What are you waiting for? If he’s coming around, I want him contained as soon as possible.” The female pocketed her device, and relief swept through him, but it lasted only a second. “I’ve notified the others. We’ll be ready to continue our research on him before the hour is up. Well done, Commander Emelia.”

  No.

  He wasn’t going back into the cage.

  Fur rippled over his skin and he launched forwards, knocking Emelia into the opposite wall. The scientist backed away, narrowly avoiding his fangs as he snapped at her.

  “Damn it.” Emelia barrelled into him and he grunted as another hiss sounded and cold spread across his left side.

  Talon staggered backwards, hit the wall and sagged against it, breathing hard as he fought the drug again and cursed himself for being so stupid and forcing Emelia’s hand.

  Sound warbled in his ears as the corridor spun, and then he was moving, falling downwards. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The light around him dimmed as he was marched forwards, into a familiar gloom.

  The facility.

  Voices swam around him as he stumbled forwards, Emelia’s hands a constant pressure against his arm and back. Bile rose up his throat as he tried to breathe but kept catching the scent of blood, vomit and bodily fluids.

  He couldn’t be back here.

  He couldn’t.

  He struggled but Emelia said something, lightly patted his back and guided him onwards, and he thought he caught a word in there.

  One that brought light into the darkness of his heart and soothed his primal side.

  Sherry.

  Talon focused on her, conjuring an image of her in his mind. He could almost feel her, knew that she was close, and that meant the others were close too. He wasn’t alone this time. He had been an idiot, had forced Emelia’s hand so she’d had to drug him again, but everything would be alright.

  He would escape this Hell again.

  And this time, he wouldn’t be alone.

  Familiar scents reached his nose as the gloom brightened to white and his vision started to clear, the fog in his head lifting with it as the remains of the antidote in his system went to work, purging the drug all over again.

  The sickening whoosh of a glass panel lifting had his instincts firing again, and he fought Emelia as she pushed him into the white-walled cell he had called home over the last seven or eight months. She jerked on his arms as she unlocked his restraints and then backed off.

  His knees gave out as the barrier dropped and he looked over his shoulder at the brunette huntress.

  Her green eyes issued an apology and asked him to be patient at the same time.

  He slowly dipped his chin, just enough for her to see that he understood and would somehow do as she had asked, but not enough that the people watching the feed from the cameras positioned around the cellblock would pick up on it.

  The witch held in the cell opposite him, a diminutive female with platinum hair that faded to black, wearing a dull black dress that had seen better days, came to the front of her cell opposite him.

  “Talon, what the hell were you thinking?”

  She had an irritating little talent, one that the suppressors installed in the cells couldn’t quite negate.

  She could read minds.

  He shrugged, pushed on to his feet and moved to the glass wall of his cell. “Who said I was thinking at all, Aggy?”

  She scowled at him.

  It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that the way to get her to stop probing his head was to call her Aggy rather than her given name. She always quit poking around his thoughts in exchange for him calling her Agatha instead.

  “Your funeral,” she muttered and walked over to the right wall of her cell, and gave it a hard kick. “Hey, Grognak… have you seen what cat just got dragged back in?”

  The demon mercenary that Agatha had termed Grognak due to her inability to speak the demonic language, something which Talon had repeatedly picked her up on since she hated it when anyone shortened her name, grunted in response and muttered something.

  Talon had figured out that his name wasn’t Grognak, and that Agatha called him it because she had a problem with demons in general. Most witches residing in the fae towns did, but Agatha’s issue with them seemed to run deeper than the usual clash between demons and witches over trade rights and the apparent stealing of business.

  He had also discovered in one enlightening conversation that Grognak was a fictional barbarian in a video game.

  Agatha apparently preferred playing those to socialising with other witches, all of whom she deemed boring and dull, and lacking the excitement and adventure she craved.

  When he had mentioned leaving the fae town and finding some real adventure, she had clammed up and hadn’t spoken to him for almost a week. Apparently, leaving home was a definite no for her. He didn’t think it was because she lacked the courage either. He had seen her give Archangel hunters and those bastards they employed to torture captives with their studies absolute hell.

  Something else was holding her back.

  “I might have got caught on purpose. I have a plan.” Talon looked both ways along the corridor, and focused on the exit to his left.

  Klay, the big shifter in the cell to his right, the one he was sure was a bear, let out a low whistle. “Let’s hear it then.”

  He focused and frowned when he counted only three with his senses. “Where’s the wolf?”

  Everyone tensed, and he sighed as he hung his head, not needing to hear them say it.

  “He went out fighting… after he heard about Jayna… he just flipped when they tried to take him from his cell and attacked them. Managed to kill one of their hunters before they—” Agatha cut herself off.

  Talon lifted his eyes, met hers and forced himself to keep looking into them as tears lined her dark lashes and pain shone in their lilac depths.

  This was his fault.

  He should have come for the others rather than escaping alone.

  But what good would he have been to them?

  He had been injured, weak from blood loss before he had even made it out of the secret facility. Getting out as quickly as possible had been imperative. He had been in no condition to fight his way through the hunters that would have come down on him if he had lingered long enough for someone to raise the alarm.

  They would have had him overpowered and back in the cell in no time, and Jayna’s sacrifice would have been for nothing.

  The demon said something. Talon liked to think it was complimentary, a sort of ‘don’t beat yourself up about it’, but it might ha
ve been derogatory. He only knew a smattering of words in the demon tongue, and he was doubting those since meeting the merc. The male hadn’t used any of them, and when Talon had attempted to speak with him, he had simply given Talon a disinterested look and moved off to the other side of his cell where Talon couldn’t see him.

  “So I hate to break it to you… but you’re in a cell again and they’ve doubled the guard since your escape… I really don’t think you’re going to be escaping anytime soo—” Agatha fell deathly silent as a roar sounded above them, followed by the muffled grunts of humans.

  Talon sharpened his senses, straining to hear through all the layers of stone, steel and wood.

  “What’s happening?” Klay hissed and he felt the big bear move closer to him.

  He shut him out and focused harder, closing his eyes to block out any distractions.

  A familiar female voice. Dim, but it was up there.

  And it wasn’t Emelia.

  Another roar. Something broke, several hunters let out garbled cries, and the female shouted again.

  Ordering the hunters to back off and hurling an insult at her foe.

  A demon apparently.

  Talon flicked his eyes open and grinned at Agatha, relief sweeping away all the doubts that had been trying to sink their poisoned teeth into him. “We’re getting out of here.”

  She looked sceptical.

  Until the lights suddenly went out, dropping the cellblock into pitch darkness. His eyes rapidly adjusted, revealing Agatha’s stunned expression.

  Talon looked up to his right, at the camera mounted there, and his grin stretched wider. The red light was off. Someone had disabled it.

  “Ready to get out of here?” he said.

  “Fuck, yes,” Klay muttered, sounding more relieved than Talon felt. “Just tell me I get to rip the bastards a new arsehole on my way out.”

  Demon merc laughed low at that, a sinister sound that said Klay would have to beat him to each hunter in order to bloody his claws.

  This was going to get messy.

  A shadowy figure appeared in front of his cell.

  Flicked long black hair over her shoulder and curled a lip at the barrier between them.