“The geneticist is still at home,” Hunter announced. “We may have to storm the house and abduct him if he doesn’t plan on going to the ranch today.”
“We’ll give it another couple of hours,” Maxim replied. “That’ll give all the various groups more than enough time to get into position.”
Kylie’s stomach lurched with renewed nerves. She was really beginning to regret eating breakfast.
Hunter squeezed her hand, and she turned to him questionably. “It’s not too late for you to back out,” he said. “You know that I’d rather you had stayed back at Lev’s place with Sasha, anyway. Maxim and I could easily create another kind of distraction.”
Kylie scowled. “You can stop right there. Me going in as a lioness is the best way to make sure both you and Maxim get into the ranch without having to run through a rain of bullets.”
“If the bobcats do their part well, then all of us may be able to get inside without being shot at even once,” Hunter argued.
“Yeah, if,” Kylie said dryly. “I’m not willing to make that bet with either of your lives just because I’m a little nervous.”
Maxim snorted. “A little? I can smell your fear all the way up here.”
“Even so, I’m still doing this,” Kylie retorted stubbornly.
Hunter sighed. “It was worth another shot.”
“We’re almost to Amarillo,” Maxim announced. “We’ll park and wait for the others to pick us up with the doc’s car at the Westgate Mall as planned.”
Kylie sighed. The next two hours would no doubt be the longest in her life.
***
“They’re here,” Maxim said abruptly, making Kylie jump.
She had been staring out the window at the sea of cars surrounding them, thinking about Molly and her mother and what she was going to say to them when she finally saw them. And she would see her mother today. She refused to believe otherwise.
A silver Audi slowly drove by before parking in a slot at the end of the lane.
Hunter opened his door and released her hand. “This is it.”
Kylie swallowed hard against the huge knot that had suddenly formed in her throat and nodded sharply at him. Time to implement the next stage of her disguise.
She took her mother’s charm bracelet off and snapped open the small charm with the stylized “L” engraved into the silver on each side. She quickly rubbed the pad of her index finger along the inside walls of both halves just to be sure before closing the charm and stuffing the bracelet deep into her pants pocket.
Once the smell of lion reached her nose, she pulled the thick, leather hood attached to her vest over her head until half her face was concealed, the edges of the material touching the tip of her nose. Then with a deep breath to steady herself, she climbed out of the vehicle where Hunter was already waiting for her. She saw his nose flare once, but he said nothing as they followed Maxim down to the silver car.
Maxim exchanged keys with the driver of the Audi, a wolf Kylie didn’t recognize, but it was the man in the backseat with a split lip and a swollen, darkening eye trying to glare a hole through the window and into the side of Maxim’s head that had her complete attention. She felt a wash of hatred flow through her at the blatant look of outrage on the bastard’s face. She couldn’t fathom the type of evil a person would have to have inside to experiment on and torture another living creature without batting an eye and then feel outraged that someone had dared taken offense to his work and would attack him like this. At least his mouth was duct taped shut so they wouldn’t be forced to listen to his vileness the whole way to the ranch.
It was in that moment that Kylie’s fear and nervousness disappeared completely. It was the first time she was glad that she had been born a Polyshifter, that because of her unique ability to shift into a lion, she could contribute to the operation that would bring down the lions’ ranch and all its horrors, but more importantly, all their loved ones would be saved.
“Be careful back there with that piece of trash,” Kylie told Hunter as she moved to circle around the front of the car as far away from the three wolves that had exited it as possible.
They had all been told that Kylie would be wearing the scent of a lioness curtesy of the assassin they had taken prisoner as part of their deception, but she didn’t want to get too close and allow them to get a good whiff of her and realize that the scent of lion was too strong and fresh to just be coming from her clothing.
“Follow us until you get a quarter of a mile away and then hide the SUV at the designated spot,” Maxim instructed. “We’ll be counting on you three to run interference should any of us have a tail once we’ve rescued all the captives.”
Kylie waited until the three were nearly to Lev’s brother’s SUV before walking over to the front passenger door and slipping into the front seat. Hunter was already seated next to the geneticist and was sticking a piece of tape lightly over his mouth. Kylie winced internally, hoping he wouldn’t have to rip it off or he would be losing a good portion of his facial hair.
Through the rearview mirror, Kylie saw their lion captive’s eyes widen in utter shock, then narrow in rage, the word “traitor” practically radiated from them. Muffled screams that were probably expletives broke the silence, but none of them paid the geneticist any mind. He finally subsided once they were back on the highway heading west out of the city.
Kylie kept her eyes looking straight ahead and her body alert, doing her best to mimic what she remembered of the body language of the lioness assassin. No one said a word the entire ride to the ranch, the silence only broken when the geneticist abruptly gasped. Her eyes flickered to the rearview mirror again in enough time to see him slump over, his seatbelt the only thing preventing him from falling over completely.
Hunter pushed him back until his back and bound hands rested against the seat and positioned the lolling head to rest against the man’s own shoulder. He then tucked the empty syringe in his hand into the pocket of the seat in front of him and settled into a similar position, playing the part of a captured and unconscious co-conspirator.
“It’s show time,” Maxim muttered. He turned the car onto a single-lane dirt road that cut through a mini-forest of mesquite trees.
Kylie suddenly felt the uncanny sensation of dozens of eyes on her, and she had to fight down a growl, not sure if they were indeed being watched or if it was just her imagination because she knew their allies were out there somewhere.
About a half-mile down, a metal gate came into view that stretched across the road, the gate, according to Jack, connected to an electrified fence that spanned the entire perimeter of the property. A small, white building sat on the side of the road outside the fence about a meter or two out. A guard station.
Maxim pulled up to it without any hesitation and rolled down his window. Some of the bobcat sharpshooters had been tasked with taking care of the guards that had been posted all along the entrance road before they could alert the guard station of the Audi’s approach, and given that no one had shot at them yet, they had been successful.
However, the real test was now.
Kylie turned her head towards Maxim’s window just as the guard barked, “Who the hell are you?”
She knew the exact moment the man saw her because he suddenly went utterly still and his heart literally stuttered in fear. It was said that even members of the lion clans feared their assassins, that they lived in constant fear of pissing off someone in a higher echelon and finding one of the Alpha’s assassins on their doorstep.
“It appears we have a little problem,” Kylie said casually, staring intensely at the lion shifter even though her hood kept him from seeing her eyes.
“I-I—” the security guard stammered, his demeanor screaming how desperately he wanted to flee.
“Imagine my surprise when our Alpha pulled me from another job in order to clean up your colossal fuck-up a few days ago. Then I come here and find that it wasn’t so much as a fuck-up but likely a deliberate act of
treason.” She gestured with her head towards the backseat, and the lion finally noticed the geneticist and Hunter.
Kylie didn’t think his face could become any paler. “I—I see.”
“A word of warning,” Kylie continued, proud that her voice remained strong and deadly. “Although I have thus far found you and this station’s other workers innocent of this man’s treachery, that will change if you alert those in the compound that I am coming.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kylie didn’t release the breath she was holding until their car had rounded the house and parked right next to a wide, steel door between the attached garage and the house she had seen in the photo with Molly without a single shot being fired at the car.
“Keep sharp,” Maxim muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “There’s a couple of armed lions heading our way, so we’ll unfortunately have to go with plan B.”
Hunter cursed. That meant Kylie’s little act was over, and she would now have to accompany them down into the bowels of the ranch.
“As soon as they reach the car,” Maxim continued, “the bobcats’ll tranq them. Once that happens, the gig will be up, and we’ll only have a few seconds to reach the door and get inside before any guards within eyesight will likely start shooting. Let’s just hope my guys were able to disable all the electric locks or this’ll get real ugly fast.”
Although Hunter remained slumped against the seat, and kept his eyes closed, he had already removed the tape across his mouth, and one hand was beneath his sweatshirt, no doubt curled around his gun.
The next few minutes happened in a blur.
Kylie remembered seeing the two approaching men drop almost in slow motion before she was scrabbling out of the car, nearly bumping into Hunter as he moved past his opened car door. Hunter reflexively grabbed Kylie’s arm as the two of them made a beeline for the metal door. Gunfire sounded loudly behind them, close enough that it could have been Maxim firing, but then a bullet hit the bricks near Hunter’s right shoulder just as she reached out for the doorknob.
She nearly sobbed when it turned easily, and she was able to pull it open. Hunter shoved her inside so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell to her knees. Hunter grabbed her arm again to steady her as the door slammed behind them.
“Come on!” Maxim exclaimed, gesturing towards a lone door at the far end of what turned out to be a completely empty room no larger than a wide corridor. “I can’t lock the door, and there’s at least a dozen of them only minutes behind us. I’m not sure even the bobcats can pick them all off before one or two can get inside. I’m afraid we don’t have time to wait for the rescue group coming through the front to meet up with us here like we planned. That door at the end should open to the emergency stairwell Jack mentioned.”
Hunter pulled Kylie tightly against him and threaded their hands together tightly. “Don’t leave my side unless you absolutely have to! Maxim, we’ve got your rear.”
“Maybe I should go first,” Kylie said as they raced to the stairwell. “They might freeze just like that guard when they smell—”
“Absolutely not!” both men snarled in unison.
“As soon as we get in the stairwell, you need to change back into a jaguar,” Hunter said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Soon our guys will be down below helping us look for captives and mining information. If we get separated, there’s a good chance they might attack you without realizing who you are if they smell lion.”
Once through the door and they were descending a narrow set of industrial, metal steps, Kylie dug out her bracelet and began fumbling with the charms in the poor lighting.
“We’ll go down three levels first,” Maxim said. “That’s the only place we know for sure other than the lowest level labs that they were holding the captives. Hopefully they won’t have moved your brother somewhere else as a precaution after Jack’s escape. Then we’ll search the other floors one by one, room by fucking room, until we find everyone. With the locks in the whole building disengaged, some of them may even be trying to escape on their own.”
Kylie completely expected to hear the sound of the door crashing open above, bracing herself for the exchange of bullets that were sure to follow, but before she knew it, the door to the third basement level was before them without a single shot being fired just as she finally managed to find the right charm and pop it open. Then she nearly dropped the bracelet with her finger still pressed against the hollow inside one of the halves when a crash sounded above them and Hunter yanked her hard through the door.
A young man in a lab coat stood frozen in the brightly illuminated hallway lined with closed doors they found themselves in, his chest heaving, and staring at them as if they were some type of hideous monsters birthed by the stairwell. Maxim was on him before Kylie could even gasp in alarm, punching him square in the face. The guy’s head snapped back with a cringe-inducing crack, and he instantly crumbled to the ground.
“You two take the doors on the right,” Maxim said and immediately hurried over to the first one on the left.
The first room was completely empty except for a couple of suspicious dark stains along one of the walls. The second appeared to be jammed. Hunter kicked it open, but this one, too, was empty. The fact that they were empty really didn’t surprise her. If these rooms were where they locked up their captives when they weren’t being tortured, then she didn’t think those types of monsters would bother to provide their victims with a blanket, much less a bed.
Then Maxim let out a startled noise, and Hunter and she were immediately at his back where he was looking into a darkened room with an expression of pure horror. Kylie nearly gagged at the smell coming out of that room, an unholy mixture of animal waste, death, and something she had never smelled before. Certain she didn’t want to see what lay within that darkness, Kylie forced herself to look anyway. Even in the darkness, she knew that the blob that was a lighter shade of darkness curled against the far wall was the body of an animal.
Kylie hastily got out of the way as Maxim backpedalled and shut the door. “That was probably the coyote shifter Jack mentioned,” he said, so angry that his words were barely more than a series of growls. “We can’t help him anymore.”
She grabbed onto Hunter’s arm, feeling both sick and furious. How awful it must have been, to have died all alone in the cold darkness after you had lost your mind to the point of completely losing your humanity, terrified and in unimaginable pain. That all of their missing loved ones must have been forced to live locked up like this for months, for years…
A snarl fell from her lips. She wanted to go back to the young man in the lab coat Maxim had decked and rip out his throat with her teeth, to go back above and do the same to the piece of shit geneticist they’d left in the car. But then Hunter said one word that instantly snapped her out of the killing rage she had inadvertently fallen into.
“Ryder.”
Kylie shook her head violently. What was wrong with her? She had to get it together, dammit! There were people counting on her right now.
Without a word, Kylie followed Hunter to the next door and then to the next, moving down corridor after corridor until they had all been opened and searched and they found themselves at a different stairwell than the one they had left with no sign of another living soul.
“Up or down?” Maxim asked.
“Down,” Hunter said immediately. “The others are probably searching the two floors above us as we speak. While this floor reeks of various shifters, none of the scents are particularly fresh. Either they were moved because of Jack’s escape, or we tripped a silent alarm that your people didn’t catch and they were forewarned to move them somewhere deeper and likely more protected.”
“Then maybe we should wait for the others to catch up,” Kylie said. “We could very well step into a room full of lions with guns rather than needles.”
She fully expected Hunter to at least argue with her—she could practically taste the urgency to find his brother roll
ing off him—so she was shocked when both men nodded.
“Let’s return to the other stairwell,” Maxim suggested. “Once we meet up, half can follow me down this one while the other half continue down the other with you two.”
Retracing their steps, they had nearly reached the door to the stairwell when a hail of gunfire erupted from somewhere above, freezing them where they stood for a few, heart-pounding seconds. Unfortunately, the door didn’t have a window as some stairwell entrances did.
“Get into that room!” Hunter hissed, steering Kylie by the elbow towards the first room they had inspected, his Glock clutched tightly in his right hand.
Then the stairwell door exploded open before she could move more than a couple of steps, and a mass of bodies spilled into the hall.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Shit!” Hunter snarled, bringing his gun around to face these newest invaders—only to let out a surprised laugh. “You guys fucking scared the shit out of us!” he hissed.
Kylie turned around and saw several familiar faces. Her shoulders sagged in relief.
“We’d hoped you all had gotten down this far when we didn’t run into you topside,” one of the tigers whose name her frazzled brain couldn’t remember at the moment said.
“How many are shooting at you?” Maxim demanded.
“At least a dozen. They came from somewhere within the house, itself, I think. As far as we could tell, the bobcats took out all the security guards outside before we even made it in.”
“I guess we’ll all have to use the other stairs,” Maxim said. “Follow us. We were just waiting for you all before heading down to continue the search.”
Tempted by the Jaguar #4: Infiltration (Riverford Shifters) Page 8
