“Yes, I used to date a cop and got all kinds of firearm lessons.” Jacyn reached out to take it.
His fingers were cold and clammy when they brushed against Logan’s hand. Even so, a slow fissure traveled through his body and he suddenly became aware of the woodsy, clean scent coming from Jacyn. Forget it. He’s Mitchell’s brother and the last thing you need is that kind of trouble. “Will you be able to shoot someone if necessary?” He cleared his throat as he jerked his hand back.
The paramedic nodded, then gave a quick glance to the dead woman.
By the way his eyes filled with grief, it was obvious he had liked her. Then Logan saw a flare of anger flash through the male’s eyes. One he recognized well. The look of fury and the need for vengeance. Good, he needed Jacyn angry. Nothing like that and adrenalin to get you jacked up enough to fight your way out of situations like this.
Jerking his head to the door, indicating it was time to move, Logan gripped his sword tighter, the handle slick with sweat and blood from the Raven he’d killed. He caught Jacyn eyeing up the mess on the blade, the paramedic turning a bit pale.
Logan could only imagine how hard it must be for Jacyn right now. First someone shooting at him, then to find his friend’s body and now having to trust a complete stranger waving around a bloody weapon. All in all, he was handling it pretty well. Most others would have curled themselves up in a fetal position, praying to whatever God they worshiped about right now. Either Jacyn was in shock, stupid or the bravest son of a bitch Logan had ever met.
The familiar way he held the Glock said he hadn’t been lying when he’d claimed to know how to use it. That gave Logan some comfort, but not much. Although he’d wounded two of the shifters, the odds were still two against three and Jacyn had no formal battle training when it came to fighting other shifters.
Okay, time to move. If they stalled any longer, the Ravens would come in to get them. Logan knew the only reason they hadn’t already was that they had a healthy respect for his sword and what it could to do to their necks. That would only buy a little time though. Ravens had never been known for their smarts or patience.
“Move!” Logan yelled to Jacyn. Hoping that the paramedic was following, Logan burst through the door. With a battle roar, he swung the sword around in a wide circle. Gunfire ripped through the air, bullets hitting walls, windows and display cases. Just as he clipped a Raven in the arm with his sword, a sharp pain in his lower leg told him he’d been hit.
To pause to acknowledge the wound would be his and Jacyn’s death sentence so Logan pushed on. A Raven clutched his gut and fell, blood spilling over his hands. Pride pulsed though him with the realization Jacyn had shot the son of a bitch. Logan twisted his sword and sliced the midsection of the third. “We need to run.” He tugged on Jacyn’s arm. “They may be down now, but not for long.”
“You’re crazy,” Jacyn sputtered, looking even more pale than before. A fine sheen of sweat dotted his upper lip and he trembled from head to boot.
Logan could smell the rank stench of fear rolling off him in waves and he knew he had to get Jacyn to safety before the events of the day hit him any harder. “No I’m not. Now let’s go.” Logan tugged on his arm, but the male didn’t budge.
“I shot that one in the stomach. Even if he’s not dead yet, he’ll bleed out before too long,” Jacyn babbled, his eyes going from fearful to the glassy look one gets when they’re shutting down. “If he does survive, then he’ll die from secondary infection. The first one you hit with your sword, you cut him in a major artery. I think he’s already bled to death. As for the second—”
“Snap out of it!” Logan growled as he pointed to one of the Ravens. “Does it look like he’s out for the count?”
The Raven Jacyn had shot stumbled to his feet. The blood continued to pump out of the wound and drip to the floor. The bright red drops making loud smacking sounds as they hit the ground. “Ouch.” The Raven grinned, his teeth bloodstained. “The kitty stung me a bit.”
“No! No! No!” Jacyn shook his head, his eyes so wide with fear they looked ready to bug out of his head. To his credit, he didn’t drop the gun in shock. Instead, he leveled it on the Raven again. “There is no way you should be talking, let alone standing.”
Before the Raven could respond, Logan pulled out a throwing dagger and launched it, burying it up to the hilt in the Raven’s throat.
The male let out a gurgled protest as he brought his hands up to claw at the weapon.
“It’s time to leave,” Logan ordered.
This time Jacyn obeyed, running at a breakneck pace as he followed Logan out of the remains of the store. A burst of gunfire behind them told him one or more of the other Ravens were up and kicking again.
They ran to the parking lot and Logan reached out to grab Jacyn before the paramedic tried to take off. Just as his fingers were closing around the male’s wrist, half a dozen dark shadows came from the sky. Larger than their regular animal counterparts, Raven shifters were the size of a large dog and they were ten times as mean. They swooped down and just before their claws touched the ground, they shifted to human form.
“This is not happening,” Jacyn stammered under his breath.
His eyes were wide and wild and Logan knew he’d lost him.
“I’m just stuck in one of my crazy nightmares again.”
Logan brought up his sword to fight back, but several of the Ravens shot at once. They aimed all of the guns at him and not Jacyn, so it was Logan who took a couple of hits. His body jerked from side to side before he felt his legs give out from under him. He landed face down on the hard, cracked asphalt.
The sounds of Jacyn’s yells hit Logan’s ears and he craned his head up enough to see three Ravens lift the paramedic off the ground. Even though he fought and cussed for all he was worth, they still managed to get him over to the ambulance. The Glock he had been holding was a few feet from Logan on the ground.
Logan snarled, outraged, the jaguar in him fighting to get out. A strange surge of protectiveness that he’d never felt toward another went through him. It took every bit of self-control he possessed not to give into instinct and shift right then. He fought it since he was out in public. It would be damn hard to explain a huge jungle cat walking down the streets, even in LA.
The Ravens were shoving Jacyn into the back of the ambulance, one of them pausing long enough to give Logan the finger. Then another loud snarl came, only this time it came from inside the ambulance. The vehicle shook back and forth and the sounds of screams and yells echoed through the night. There was another snarl—the sound of the unmistakable pitch of a jaguar. The eyes of the bird-flipping Raven were so huge they nearly bugged out from his pale face before he jumped into the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors closed.
“Not a good time to have your first shift, Jacyn,” Logan muttered under his breath as he watched the ambulance race away. He tried to get back up so he could chase it, but his knees gave out and he landed heavily on his ass. To make things even better for his crap hole of a day, it started to rain. Hard.
“Fuck!” he yelled. A sense of panic hit him at the thought of his jaguar being at the mercy of their enemies.
My jaguar? Now where in the hell did that thought come from? He’s a mission, nothing more. Cocking his head to the side, he picked up the distinct sound of sirens coming. Lots of them. And from the sounds of it, company wasn’t far off, with him being right in the middle of a warzone and carrying some weapons that would never be legal in this country.
Biting his bottom lip to keep from crying out, he managed to get to his feet. It was hard going and hurt like hell, but he somehow staggered back to the abandoned house that he’d been hiding beside earlier. If anyone in the surrounding houses saw him, they didn’t offer to help. But then again in this neighborhood, they all tended to duck for cover and stay away from the windows when they heard gunfire.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, he was back in his previous hiding spot. He groa
ned as he realized he was two seconds from passing out and lying on a ground covered with the grossest rubbish imaginable.
His body shivered and trembled, partly from the shock of blood loss and partly because the shift was coming on him. The jaguar was now demanding to come out so his body could heal. As Logan closed his eyes and gave in to it, he only prayed that some cop didn’t decide to search the area too carefully. Because he or she would be in for one hell of a surprise.
When Logan regained consciousness, the rain had passed and the sun was out, high in the sky, letting him know he’d been out for a while. He was still in jaguar form and curled up in a tight ball. With a yawn, he stretched out, then shifted back into human form. A quick pat down told him that, while his clothes were full of tears and crusty from dried blood, his wounds had all healed themselves.
Which meant he could no longer put off the inevitable. He closed his eyes and sighed with disgust. The most degrading task lay ahead of him. The most vile and gut crunching thing he could think of, but he had no way to avoid it. Not if he wanted to get to Jacyn before the Ravens killed him. With all the time that had been lost while he was unconscious, Logan would be lucky if they hadn’t already done so. Taking his cell phone from the inner pocket of his coat, he flipped it open and called home base. Whoever said that home was sweet was one seriously delusional idiot.
“Where in the hell are you?”
Not a hello, not a how are you, not even a go fuck yourself. Yeah, he loved his life at moments like this. Made him wonder if the rogue shifters didn’t have it all right. “Hey, Rat. I miss you, too.” Logan winced when he noticed his foot was resting in the remains of a rotten orange. At least he thought it was an orange. So far gone, it had lost all of its shape and most of its smell.
“You report that you may have found one of the lost shifters and then go completely off the radar. Not cool, dude,” Rat drawled slowly. “Mitchell has been trying to get in touch with you for hours.”
“Well tell our holiness that I’m so sorry to keep him waiting. Inconsiderate me got shot and was unconscious.” Although Logan truly admired and respected their leader, not even he was safe from Logan’s rancor at times like this.
“Shot?” Rat’s voice registered disbelief. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Do you really care?” Logan grunted as he got to his feet.
“No, but I have to put up appearances,” Rat shot back, his words dripping with hate. A cheetah shifter with an attitude a mile wide, he’d never made it a secret he despised most everyone around him, especially Logan. For some reason though, the jerk was undyingly loyal to Mitchell.
“I need you to do me a favor.” Logan winced. Having to ask for anything from this asshole was bad enough almost to cause physical pain.
“I already told you, I don’t fuck jaguars,” Rat deadpanned. “I especially wouldn’t do a black one. I have a white comforter and you guys shed like crazy.”
Logan heard a clacking noise in the background that told him the ass was typing away on his keyboard. While Rat may be a jerk, he was the best hacker they had and never more than two feet from a computer. “Just as I was closing in on the lost shifter the Ravens attacked. They shot up a store and killed a human before capturing Jacyn.”
“You let them take Mitchell’s long missing brother?” Rat let out a low whistle. “You are seriously screwed once he finds out and not in a good way.”
“It gets even worse. The reason the Ravens and I were able to track him down so easily was because his jaguar scent was strong. As in about to have a first shift strong.”
“Shit,” Rat breathed. “Are you saying that we are about to have a feline shifter turn for the first time and the poor sap is going to do so while in enemy hands?”
“Yeah and I think the stress of the attack brought it on even sooner. He was starting to show signs of shifting as they grabbed him.” They both were silent as the implication really sank in. Not only did Jacyn not have any idea of who he was, but he was about to be bitch-slapped with his animal side without any warning. If a shifter society had raised him, he would have gone through years of schooling on what to expect during his first shift. How to handle it so it wasn’t so painful. Not only was Jacyn going to have to do it under fire, but it was going to hurt like a son of a bitch because he would be fighting it. “They took him away in his ambulance. Don’t those things have GPS tracking on them?”
“Yes, they do. Give me ten and I’ll find you the location.” Rat sighed.
Logan could almost see the jerk running his hand through his dyed hair in frustration. The cheetah usually kept it jet black with bright blue highlights running through it. Maybe the vain asshole did it because he thought it contrasted so nicely against his white comforter. “Thanks,” Logan gritted out between clenched teeth. It sucked having to be nice to the jerk.
Rat just grunted in response before he disconnected the call.
While Logan waited, he peered around the house, checking out the store. Yellow police tape surrounded it and several official looking cars and vans were parked everywhere. The fact they hadn’t stumbled on him last night was a damn miracle. Must have been because of the storm. It wasn’t very often things swung his way, but for once, he’d managed a bit of luck. After exactly eight minutes, his cell went off. Flipping it open, he barked, “Tell me you got something.”
“Yes, I do, I was able to pinpoint the location of the ambulance. You do realize they probably already dumped it. Not only that, but I’m sure the cops have already tracked it down, too. I don’t think they’ll be any help for you. Unless you plan on walking up to them and explaining that you are a soldier for a feline shifter general who ordered you to hunt down his missing brother.”
“Your sarcasm sucks,” Logan growled.
“Hey, you never know,” Rat went on as if he hadn’t heard him, “maybe they’ll even be willing to help you out with your problem. Of course you may want them to bring along Animal Control since you’re going to have over two hundred pounds of pissed off jaguar on your hands.”
“Just give me the damn location.”
Rat did, but as he was finishing up, he just had to add one more zinger. “Oh by the way, Mitchell knows and he’s not real happy right now.”
“Is he on his way?” Logan asked, trying hard to hide the fact his stomach was flipping in panic.
“He’s all the way across the country following a lead on another one of his brothers so he sent someone else to come help you,” Rat informed, sounding way too cheerful for Logan’s liking.
“Who did he send?” Logan clutched the phone so tight it was a wonder the thing didn’t splinter into pieces.
“He’s sending Dumb and Ass,” Rat chuckled, using his nickname for Kevin and Jared, a mated couple of panthers.
Logan closed his eyes with a groan. Could this mission possibly get more F-U-B-A-R?
Chapter Three
F-U-B-A-R—Fucked up beyond all recognition. That was how his whole life seemed right now. Jacyn moaned in pain as he sat up and tugged on the long chain connected to the wall. The captors hooked the other end to a leather collar wrapped around his neck. No matter how many times he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to find a clasp or buckle to take the damn thing off.
So here he was, cold, hungry, scared and tied up like a frigging dog. Not exactly what he had planned for the weekend. Not that he ever had any real plans, but they sure as hell never consisted of being kidnapped by a group of psychos. Trembling from fear, he wondered what exactly had they planned for him. Jacyn eyed the steel door with apprehension, wondering when they would be coming for him.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to push the anxiety back. While he would love nothing more than to curl up into a fetal position and give into the fear, that wouldn’t get him out of here. He was going to have to get his head together and figure a way out.
Scanning the area around him for escape exits, he found none. The only light was coming from a window that was so high up he cou
ldn’t reach it even if he was standing, there were more shadows than sunshine in the room. It was a prison cell and it looked it, right down to the gray concrete walls and floor.
The only furnishing was the dirty mattress he was sitting on and a bucket in the corner for him to use to relieve himself. He shivered, this time not out of fear, but from cold. He still wore his uniform, but they’d taken his jacket. They’d also snagged his boots. Maybe it had been because he had kicked them so many times while they still had him in the back of his rig. Once he’d missed and totally destroyed one of the cabinets lining the inside of the ambulance.
He frowned about the damage. Surely, his company wouldn’t dock his pay for that, would they? It did happen while they accosted him so it wasn’t as if he’d done it on purpose.
He realized he was pondering something as trivial as damaged work property when he probably wasn’t going to live long enough to see tomorrow, let alone next payday. A hoarse laugh burst past his cracked and swollen lips. He must be losing it or the drugs they used on him were still in his system.
He didn’t doubt they’d doped him up either. What else could explain the hallucinations he’d had last night. First, the guys switching from birds to humans, then the whole trip in the ambulance. The memory of the ride still only came to him in snapshots of brief flashes of pain, fear and horror.
He remembered fighting and screaming. He remembered them strapping him down to his own damn cot. Then he remembered how scared and angry he’d got and how he had—roared and slashed at them with his claws?
Impossible. No, it was the drugs messing with him, although he couldn’t remember when they could have slipped him something. Maybe they had snuck in before he’d got to the store and put stuff in the coffee. Jacyn shook his head, the collar rubbing painfully against his raw skin. That still didn’t make sense. He was a nobody, had no real friends, no family, so why would anyone want to target him?
Primal Passions Page 2
