Tane's Mate: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifter's on the Run Book 1)

by Serena Simpson

  He could feel his vision go red as anger suffused his face. All it took was a casual look at Tane and Dai to know they were feeling the same. They needed to turn away or all three of them may shift again from the rage pouring through them.

  Dai climbed into the passenger seat while Jay took the wheel allowing the tension in the back of the camper to bleed out. Leza leaned over and gave Tane a kiss on the cheek before leading Amy to the bedroom in the back. Leza closed the door and motioned for her to sit on the bed.

  “Tell me what happened, Amy.” Leza sat on the bed beside her.

  Amy looked at the closed door. Leza smiled and nodded. She knew the males would be able to hear, but this way she wouldn’t have to tell them later.

  “It was so stupid. There was this new website that was popular in school. Everyone was on it except for me. My mom took one look at it and said no. She said ‘I don’t have a good feeling about it.’ That’s what my mom always says when she doesn’t want me to do anything fun. So I sneaked on. At first it was a lot of fun. I was meeting boys who went to different schools and they were even planning a huge party and were going to invite me.

  “I was going to be the envy of my school. Me, the not so popular girl going to a party. Then I met this really cute boy he said he went to a school across the river. Across the river was a keyword for inner city school. He sent me a picture. He was hot. I wanted to meet him but I knew if I asked my mom ‘she would have a bad feeling about this.’ So I put it off stalling him. No matter what I came up with I knew my mom wouldn’t buy it.

  “Eventually he told me he didn’t want a girlfriend who couldn’t stand up to her parents. I was old enough to make my own decisions and they should respect that.”

  Hysterical laughter came from her. She laughed until she rolled up in a ball crying. Leza soothed her, running her hands up and down her back until the tears finally receded.

  “It amazes me that I was ever that young or innocent.” Her voice came out in a tremble as her hand went up to try and mop up her face.

  “I agreed with him. What could happen? I snuck out the house one night leaving a message in case my mom came in to find me missing. I didn’t want her to worry. I told her where I was going. That was the first time I ever did anything like that.

  “Getting there was scary all on its own. He wanted to meet in the city, there is this section that caught fire years ago and has been demolished. I wasn’t a city girl and the city at night can be frightening. I was so proud of myself that I made it. I got there but no one was around. I called out for Todd letting him know I was there. I remember hearing a noise behind me and I spun around thinking it was him. That’s when I was hit. I fell and the next thing I knew I was in a trunk tied up. I’ve been with those two ever since.”

  “Why don’t you think they’ll want you back?”

  “I didn’t listen to my mom. Good girls listen. They…they did things to me, dirty things. I don’t even want to be me. Why would they want me back?”

  Leza gazed into her dull eyes and looked for something to say that would assure her. She came up blank, nothing but the loving arms of her mother would assure her. Would her mother’s arms be loving?

  “Are you hungry?”

  She nodded her head vigorously. “They didn’t feed me a lot. Said it was a waste of food when all I needed to do was lie on my back.”

  Leza slid her hands behind her so Amy couldn’t see the claws that sprang out of her fingers. She wished she could have been the one to end their worthless lives. She gulped hard and forced her claws to recede.

  “Come on. I smell food which means Tane is cooking, I don’t want to miss that.”

  Leza plastered a smile on her face and waited for Amy to follow her out the door.

  *~*~*~*

  Tane was driving while Leza rode shotgun. The roads were close to empty this late at night. No one was out but the few that needed to be there now, which included them.

  “Do you think we should have called her parents? Let them know we found their daughter.”

  “No. They would have told someone, probably the police. Then we would have had to try to explain what happened to the monsters that took her. There would most likely also be reporters and the last thing we want is our faces in the paper or on television.”

  “You’re right but I keep asking myself what happens if they don’t want her back. Has their life moved on and they are content with the memory? What if they can’t deal with the trauma she’s been through? It’s not like she could go back home and assimilate like nothing’s happened to her. And then I think what if it were my parents. My parents would be ballistic everyday even when they learned to hide it deep inside of them. That’s how I think her parents will be. Crazy with hope and desperate to get her back. What do you think?”

  “We’ll know soon enough what will happen, but we won’t leave her with people who no longer want her.”

  Leza felt the acid eating at her stomach calm down. There was no way she could leave Amy if her parents didn’t want her or looked at her like she was a bad girl. Everyone makes a mistake at some point in their lives and sometimes those mistakes are lethal. She shook her head needing the action. She doubted her parents wouldn’t want her back; she’d simply spent too long in the hands of a corrupt government but knowing Tane wouldn’t let anyone hurt Amy went a long way to calming her down.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Omaha,” he answered with a puzzled frown.

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it. What’s our final destination.”

  He looked over at her. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “You don’t trust me?” She kept her voice neutral as she asked.

  “I trust you. Do you know the easiest way not to spill a secret?”

  “Not to know it in the first place.”

  “Yes. We have a long way to go, and I don’t know what we will encounter, but I do know that if you don’t know there’s no reason to try and torture it out of you.”

  She thought he was being a bit optimistic knowing who the men where who held them previously, but she allowed him to cling to that hope for now. The truth was it wouldn’t matter if she knew where they were going or not, if she was recaptured she would be tortured. Keeping the new location away from her would save the others and that sat well with her. There was no way she wanted to be their downfall.

  Placing her hand on her belly, her mind went back to Amy. She could hear her tossing and turning on the bed. They fed her four times before Leza finally insisted she get some sleep. Tane had cooked her a hamburger and threw together a small salad for her when they came out of the bedroom.

  Amy’s stomach was so small she hadn’t been able to finish the burger or touch the salad. Leza had smiled and thanked Amy for sharing with her like they did it every day. It garnered the first real unprotected smile from Amy.

  After that the others took a turn cooking having just enough left over that they needed someone to help them eat it. Amy knew what they were doing but the tears she blinked back let them know she appreciated it.

  Leza rubbed her flat belly. What if she had a child that someone abused? We would kill them, her animal answered swiftly. Yes, she acknowledged they would kill them, if Tane didn’t get to them first.

  “Are you sleepy?” he asked her softly.

  “No, I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “I was thinking about Amy and then I started thinking what if I had a child and someone abused them.”

  “I would kill them.”

  “Yeah, that’s actually what I was thinking. Of course you would have to go around me to get to them.”

  “Uh huh keep thinking that.” He teased her.

  “Tell me how you ended up in the program?”

  “Such an innocent word for what was done to us. Dai and I didn’t live on the military base with the rest of our team, but we each had a bunk there for emergencies. One night we came in late, n
eeded to give a report and decided to simply bunk down there. Early the next morning, one of the generals came in himself to wake us up. That should have sent red flags flying. My only excuse was the two hours of sleep we managed in the previous forty-eight hours combined with the fact that a lot of our missions were so classified that sometimes no one lower than a general knew what we were doing.

  “He told us about a new terrorist threat. We had just finished infiltrating one. We took it apart from the inside. He assured me that I was needed. I tried to leave Dai behind, but he wouldn’t be left. He refused to let me go in alone.

  “We collected our orders and left. It was a simple mission. We were to watch and see if there was anything suspicious. It took us outside of the city which was unusual because we excel in urban warfare. The drive was long; it took us several hours to get there. We talked nonstop and took several stops for coffee to keep ourselves awake.

  “When we finally got there the small town looked deserted. We walked through it finding several bodies hidden behind doors. It was a trap. We turned and ran back to the jeep that we were assigned. I remember Dai reaching for his phone to call it in while I turned the jeep around to speed out of town. They hit the back tire making it spin out of control. The next thing I know the glass beside me was breaking. I felt a pinch and lost consciousness. When I woke up I was chained to a wall.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leza looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost seven a.m. and she was clueless on the day of the week. They were close to the address Amy had given them. Soon they would know if bringing her here had been the right thing to do. She could hear Amy talking to Dai and Jay, her voice high pitched with nerves.

  Tane parked the camper a block away in an empty lot. They didn’t want to drive up to the house. It was too easy for someone with good intentions to cause them a world of hurt. Something as simple as their license plate leaking was a danger to them.

  Unbuckling, Leza stood and made her way to the back of the camper.

  “Are you ready?” Amy was dressed in a pair of leggings and a cami that belonged to Leza. She looked like she was playing dress up in her mother’s clothes because Amy was so thin.

  Leza shook her head wanting to feed her again but knowing her stomach would be too upset right now to accept food.

  “I’m ready,” Amy said with a show of bravado that made them all smile.

  Jay opened the door to the camper and indicated they were to follow him with a flourish of his arm.

  “Come Princess Amy, we are all waiting for you.” The smile on Jay’s face was happy.

  Amy gave a little girl giggle. Jay had started addressing her as Princess Amy letting her know it didn’t matter what she went through she was more than worth their efforts.

  Leza would have kissed Jay he was so brilliant but then Tane would have tried to kill him and well it just wasn’t worth it.

  They all exited the camper and allowed Amy to take the lead. Leza watched as the emotions played over her face. There was joy and sadness along with fear and anticipation.

  They stopped in front of a beautiful two story brick house before Amy wiped her face and started up the steps to the porch. She raised her hand to knock then settled on ringing the bell.

  “Coming,” a female voice inside the house called.

  Leza could hear the tiredness in the voice. The lilt that said I will smile just for you but in reality I’m crying inside. Her heart went out to that voice as she wondered if it was Amy’s mother.

  The door opened to reveal a tall female with jet black hair and a face that reminded her of Amy’s. She stood there mid-smile unable to move. Her hand that was still on the door fell to her side.

  “Hun, who is it this early in the morning?” a male voice called out from the house.

  When he didn’t get a response, Leza could hear him walking towards the door. When he got close, his mouth opened and he stopped just like his wife and stared.

  “Amy?” The wife asked tentatively not knowing what to do, as if this was a dream.

  “Mom?”

  That one simple word did it. The mother snatched her into her arms like she was afraid she would disappear. Tears rolled down her face as her hands touched everywhere and her lips kissed as if nothing but physical contact would make it real.

  The man reached over and pulled Amy into his arms giving her one of the biggest hugs Leza had ever witnessed.

  “I’m so sorry!” Amy’s voice came out in a tortured cry as she ping ponged between the two of them.

  “No, baby,” her mother cried. “It was my fault! You should have been able to tell us anything. I’m so sorry we weren’t there for you.”

  “Do you still want me?”

  The look of shock on her mother’s face was priceless. The air being forced out of her father’s lungs was something that Leza would remember forever, because it resembled a love that was so real and deep they were struggling to put it into words.

  “Mine,” her father growled. “My daughter, I’ll kill whoever touched you.”

  Amy buried her head in her father’s chest and cried until her tiny shoulders were shaking.

  “How’d you get away?” Her mother asked her. “They said you ran away but we knew better. We’ve had someone looking for you every day since you’ve been gone.”

  Amy turned around and grasped Leza’s hand. “My friend, she helped me.”

  “Thank you,” her mother said raising a tear stained face to look at her. She reached out to touch Leza’s arm with shaking hands.

  Her father wrapped her in his arms in a bear hug. Leza held him for a minute grateful that this family was making her believe in humanity again.

  Amy’s dad went over and shook the hands of Tane, Dai, and Jay before asking them to please come in.

  They walked into a living room that was cozy. It was done in blues and greens and the colors meshed well together. They were told to sit anywhere they pleased. Jay and Dai took the couch one on either side. Tane took an armchair and placed Leza on his lap.

  “Thank you for helping our daughter. I’m Mel and that’s my wife Marion. We will have to call the station to let them know you have finally been found and they can stop the piddling efforts to bring you home. Can you tell me where I can find the bastards who hurt my Baby?”

  “Daddy,” Amy’s voice was so small it broke Leza’s heart.

  “Precious?”

  She smiled at her nickname. “They’re dead. We were in the forest somewhere and a panther and what looked like wolves came from nowhere and tore them to shreds.”

  “Thank you, God.” Marion said hugging her daughter again. “Sorry Baby, I just can’t believe you’re here and real.” Her mother ran her hands over her again.

  “You’re so tiny, you must be hungry. Oh my where are my manners. You all must be hungry, let me fix you something.” Marion raced off to the kitchen not letting go of Amy’s hand.

  “Ma’am you don’t have to do that,” Tane said, trying to stop her.

  “Please,” Mel said. “We insist. If there’s anything we can do for you. There’s a reward for Amy’s return, it’s not much but as soon as the bank opens…”

  “No. We don’t need or want a reward. Use it to help Amy,” Tane said letting his eyes take in the room.

  Leza stood and walked over to Mel directing him to a chair. “Please sit. I know this must be a lot for you.”

  He sat before he raised his eyes to look at her. There were tears tracking down his cheeks that he didn’t try to stop.

  “I never gave up hope, but I still didn’t think I would ever see her again. All I could do was pray that one day she would be free and live a good life. Now she’s here. Already I find myself straining to hear her voice in the kitchen. We were devastated when she went missing. Every hour that passed was a weight on our hearts. I can’t…I can’t tell you what it means to us to have her back.”

  Leza reached out and gave him a spontaneous hug. “I need you to know it
won’t be easy. She was with two men who abused her and kept her by saying if she tried to run or get help they would find you and your wife and kill you. She’s going to need help. The recovery time may be long and she may never get back to the person she was before they abducted her.”

  “I know. I should be saying the hard part is just about to start, but I’ll do anything she needs. The hard part was waking up every morning and looking into her room, knowing she wasn’t there. We would pass the school and watch her friends laugh and wonder where she was. Was she hurting? Did she need us?” His throat convulsed.

  “She’s home, that is the good part.”

  Amy walked into the living room.

  “Dad, Mom said bring everybody into the dining room for breakfast.”

  Mel just stared at her, love brimming over. “All right, Precious, I’m on it.”

  Amy smiled and turned haunted eyes to them. Eyes that would never be young and innocent again. Eyes that would be safe with her parents, even though they had a hard road to walk.

  They followed Mel into the dining room sitting at the table as Marion served them like they were royalty.

  “Your room’s the same,” her mother said between bites of food.

  Amy stopped trying to eat and looked at her mom. “Can I go see it?”

  “Of course you can,” her father’s voice rumbled. “This is your house.”

  “Can I go now?” She looked up waiting quietly.

  “Don’t you want to eat some more?” her mother asked.

  “I’m full.” Amy’s voice was full of regret.

  Her mom nodded, “Go see your room, Baby.”

  She rose leaving the table to move quickly into the front room.

  “They fed her just enough to stay alive. We found that making her eat plenty of small meals got more food into her,” Leza told them quietly.

  Mel’s hand made a fist before he pounded it on the table. Marion tried not to cry as she hid her shaking hands.

  “She needed permission to do anything and if that permission wasn’t given and she did it anyway she was beaten.”