by Abigail Owen
Zac raised his eyebrows.
“So…” she murmured. “You think a set of throwing knives and strappy things are the way to a woman’s heart?” She kept a straight face. With difficulty.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “I think a set of throwing knives and sheaths are the way to save a woman’s life. If she happens to be you.”
“Well, let me tell you exactly what I think about that,” she said in a voice she hoped conveyed some kind of anger.
She stalked across the room to stand in front of him. Zac held himself very still, watching her closely. His expression guarded.
Taking advantage of all her training, Sarai reached out and shoved. Hard. Not expecting it, Zac landed on his back on the bed with a muffled oomf. Before he could say anything, she was on top of him. Taking his face in her hands, she got right down to his level.
“I love them,” she whispered, before she angled her lips across his in a scorching kiss.
****
They found George at the kitchen table eating when they finally emerged from the bedroom. He glanced at them, face blank.
“Found the food on my own. I was too hungry to wait around.”
Zac held in a chuckle as Sarai’s cheeks stained a deep red. “Uh…okay, George,” she mumbled. Then she hustled over to dish up some for herself.
Zac followed at a slower pace. He still couldn’t believe a simple gift had triggered that reaction from Sarai. What woman went gaga over knives, anyway? But he unexpectedly found her actions both adorable and incredibly hot.
He’d sort of expected her to be offended. She graced his bed each night now, and the first gift he’d ever given her was throwing knives. He didn’t count her e-reader. At the very least, he’d thought she might think of it as coming from her protector, rather than from her lover. He’d never expected her to jump him.
Without a doubt, she kept him on his toes.
Their stolen time together had even let him forget, just for a moment, the bigger issues plaguing them. As soon as he sat down at the dinner table, Zac wasted no time in getting straight to the point.
“I caught Kyle Carstairs’s scent today.”
The next instant, he wished he’d been a little less abrupt in his delivery. Sarai’s spoon clattered to her plate as her face leached of all color.
George glared at him.
“Are you sure?” she whispered through chalky-hued lips.
Zac held her gaze as he slowly nodded. “I caught it across the way from our building. He’s been close.”
“How do you know it’s not some other cougar?”
Zac hated to extinguish the small light of hope in her eyes. “I caught his scent the day Carstairs challenged Andie and Jaxon. Even chased him down when he ran like the coward he is. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
Sarai’s expression fell. After a moment she pushed away her untouched food. She jerked out of her chair to circle the room. “What do we do?”
Zac moved to intercept her pacing. He held her shoulders with his hands. “It’s not clear if he knows you’re here or not. He may just be watching me.”
Sarai’s expression went all vague. He recognized her attempt to access a vision. After a few minutes, her focus returned to him.
“Any luck?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It involves me, so it’s a black hole.”
Dejection was written in the pull of her lips, the slump of her shoulders. He pulled her in close so he could wrap his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. “I won’t let anything happen to you. He’ll have to go through me first.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered into his shirt.
Zac leaned back from her a little bit in order to see her face. “What is it about that creep that scares you so much?”
As far as he could tell, Kyle was all bark and no bite. Or, for a cougar shifter, all scream and no attack. The coward had run away after Andie had killed his father, despite the fact that he was still in the middle of fighting his own challenge against Jaxon. Zac had zero respect for Kyle Carstairs.
Sarai pulled out of his arms. She walked over to the piano where she trailed her fingers over the smooth contours of the keys cover. “I don’t know what drives him. That’s what scares me.”
“You want to explain that a little bit, darlin’?” George asked.
Zac was focused on Sarai so intently, he had forgotten for a moment that his old friend was even in the room.
“Walter Carstairs, sadistic asshole that he was, was still someone I figured out quickly in terms of how to deal with him.”
She looked at both men. “You know cougars aren’t naturally community animals. We’re loners. A male cougar will fight everything that comes into his space, and we like a lot of space. Walter became Alpha because he was the strongest male in the territory willing to join the Shadowcat Nation at the time, proven through years of fighting off all comers. He ruled the only way he knew how…with an iron fist and a lot of violence. As long as you stayed out of his way or did what he wanted, he left you alone. Most often what he wanted wasn’t necessarily bad. It kept the dare together and protected. It’s partly why he remained Alpha as long as he did without serious opposition. That and he’d kill anybody who opposed him.”
This last she said with an ironic roll of her eyes.
“And Kyle?” Zac asked.
“Kyle was the catalyst for a lot of Walter’s bad decisions. He was the little boy who would pluck the wings off flies or use a knife to cut open an animal in such a way that it suffered but didn’t die, just so he could sit there and watch it squirm. He was just as power-hungry as Walter, but it was never to rule over just the dare. It was to have the resources to do whatever he wanted. Total power. Total domination.”
“And he wanted you.”
Sarai sat down at the piano bench with a shrug. “No. Not me. The Seer baby I had the potential to provide him. I would’ve been dead…” Sarai shook her head at her own thoughts. “I will be dead the second I give birth to any child he conceives with me.”
“We’ll just have to make sure he never gets close enough for that to happen.” The thought of Kyle even laying a finger on her made him want to snap the guy’s neck.
Sarai sent him a sad smile. “Don’t underestimate Kyle. I know that after seeing him run off, you don’t respect him. He’ll use that perception against you. He’s not stupid. Just obsessed.”
Sarai shivered as if bugs were crawling over her skin.
In a moment of clarity, Zac grasped what it must be like to have a stalker. Somebody so intent on you, he would sacrifice all else in order to get you. Only Sarai wasn’t being stalked. Her unconceived child was.
CHAPTER 28
Sarai’s eyes snapped open. She blinked, trying to adjust her vision to the dark room, but realized she wasn’t seeing the room. Instead, she was seeing a vision, looking at a familiar stairwell, the one in their building. She was looking through the eyes of whomever she was following. Seeing what they saw, feeling their deadly intent. Quick and silent, they moved up the stairs.
With a gasp, she jerked upright.
“What is it?” Zac mumbled, woken by her abrupt movement. He’d moved into her room after their first night together. It hadn’t been a conscious move. They just couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“They’re here,” she whispered.
His expression moved from questioning to fearsome. “Wolves? Or cougars?”
Sarai frowned. “Can’t tell. Wolves, I think.”
“How many?”
Sarai ran through the series of visions that were coming to her faster and faster. “Best guess, five.” She looked at Zac suddenly. “They don’t know George and I are here. They’ve come for you.”
Zac smiled grimly. “Their mistake then. Got your knives?”
Sarai nodded as she opened the drawer in the bedside table. She started
strapping them on over the tank top and shorts she’d worn to bed.
“Good. You get ready while I get George. How long?”
Sarai was standing by now, tightening the strap on her armband, and slipping the knives into their pockets. “Less than ten.”
“We’ll be back before then.” And he was gone.
Sarai finished getting her weapons ready. Then she grabbed her MP3 player, cranked it up, and popped in the wireless headphones. Those damn wolves weren’t taking Zac without a fight. In less than two minutes, he reappeared with George right behind him. Both had thrown on a t-shirt and jeans.
Sarai pulled her headphones out.
“Do they have guns?” Zac asked.
“No.” She tipped her head to the side as she double checked. “I take that back. They have tranquilizers. At least I think that’s what those are. They’re loading unusual dart-shaped bullets into them.” She frowned. “I don’t think they want to kill you.”
Zac and George exchanged a look.
“You’ll run point,” Zac said to Sarai. “Put yourself right in front of the door. It’s their only way in. Take out as many as you can with those knives. We’ll be right there to block any who get by.”
Sarai’s heart thundered. Sure, in theory she was good with knives, and, now that she had a way to deal with the visions, was even a decent fighter. But there was a giant chasm of difference between hitting an unmoving target and actually trying to kill a man.
Some of what she was thinking must’ve shown on her face, because Zac stepped up to her. “Kill them before they kill you. Fight or flight, honey. Since you’re not a falcon shifter that I know of, and we can’t get past them, it’s them or us.”
Sarai hardened her heart. “Us.”
Zac gave a sharp nod. “Good.”
Despite her thundering heart and the adrenaline pumping through her system, Sarai moved with a calm she didn’t feel to position herself in front of the door. Unfortunately, because this put her as the primary target in the vision, it also wiped out all she could see of her opponents. That was, until she switched her MP3 player back on, closed her eyes, and got the first of her knives ready to go.
She didn’t have long to wait. The wolf shifters must have somehow managed to get a key, because they didn’t bust through the door or break in, they simply unlocked it. The first man to step through that door regretted it as her knife ended up buried deep into his chest. He dropped right in front of the door, making it harder for the others to enter. The next man, who had been behind the first, managed to move as she threw. She only hit his shoulder. Still, he wouldn’t be fighting very well with one arm out of commission.
Two down, three to go, Sarai thought.
Her heart pounded to the beats of music in her ears. She tried not to think about the fact that she’d just buried knives into two different human beings. Instead, she let anger at what they were forcing her to do—run, hide, defend her life and that of her lover—rule her head and her heart.
Using their still standing companion as a human shield, the other three men pushed their way through the door, then scattered. She caught a snapshot image of a tranquilizer with her name on it just moments before it was fired. With a gasp, she dropped and rolled sideways, out of the way.
She ended up right in the path of another man, but it had been a deliberate move. She could’ve gone the other way, behind Zac, who was already engaged in hand-to-hand combat with yet another. Neither he nor George had shifted into their bear forms. Their bulk would not lend well to this particular environment, being much more effective in the wide-open spaces of the wilderness.
Sarai came to her feet to face her opponent. He swung. She blocked, then blocked his next move. With both of his hands trapped, he tried to pull back only to receive a series of rapid punches and finger jabs, which pushed him back further. At which point she delivered several well-placed kicks in his ribs and, finally, his head.
He fell to the ground, dazed but not out. Sarai took advantage of his momentary distraction to check on George and Zac. As she watched through her mind’s eye, Zac managed to get his opponent from behind. He squeezed his arms, muscles bunching with the effort, until the man dropped, like a limp rag, to the floor. George knocked his adversary out with a hard kick to the face.
She swung back to the man on the ground, who was now trying to get up. Picking up a vase nearby, she smashed it over his head. She didn’t know if she’d killed him or knocked him out. She didn’t care.
Only one foe remained in any kind of conscious condition. The guy with Sarai’s knife still sticking out of his shoulder sat on the floor, his back up against the wall. He held up one good hand in surrender as Zac approached him with menacing intent.
Grabbing the guy by his upper arms, Zac yanked him to standing.
“Who sent you?” he demanded with a shake.
The shifter stared at him, mute resolution in his cold eyes.
“Was it Kyle Carstairs?”
All that elicited was a sneer, though it was hard to tell if the curled lip was derision or respect.
“You’re part of the group that attacked Jaxon Keller and his wife out in Montana last spring. I can smell it on you.” Zac pulled his lips back in disgust, baring his teeth. “Why?”
“You’ll have to kill me, because I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“That can be arranged,” Zac growled.
“Wait,” Sarai called just as Zac went to snap the man’s neck.
Zac paused to look over his shoulder at her, frustration written across his face in a fierce frown and a clenched jaw.
Sarai ignored him and walked over to address the man he held in a quiet voice.
“You tell Kyle Carstairs I’m off limits. So is Zac.”
Another nasty smirk. “I don’t take my orders from Kyle Carstairs.”
Sarai tipped her head to the side. “You know who I am?”
The man looked wary at the change in questioning. “Yeah.”
“Then you know what I can do. Of course you don’t take your orders from Kyle. The people behind him…that’s who’s calling the shots. You’re just a soldier. Those orders come down the chain. Now I want you to send this message back up the chain…”
She gave him the nastiest smile she could muster, glaring at him with eyes full of dark purpose. “Any vision of mine that leads back to you, your pack, Kyle, or his backers…every person I can see in the chain is dead. Do you understand? I highly recommend you all stop your plans immediately. I wouldn’t want to wipe out…” She tipped her head again. “Your wife, Larissa. Your mother, Betty. Or your Alpha. But I will. I can find them.”
The man, still held up by Zac’s grip on him, paled. “You tell them,” she said.
Then she nodded at Zac, who slammed a fist through the man’s face, knocking him out.
He glanced at her. “You’re seriously scary when you want to be. You know that?”
CHAPTER 29
“Hey, kuluk,” Zac said softly. “We’re here.” He jiggled his shoulder, the one Sarai had commandeered as a pillow.
“Mmmm?” She gave a sleepy murmur but didn’t open her eyes.
“We’ve made it. We’re at the bus stop.”
He watched as her eyes fluttered open. She levered up, still leaning against him, and looked out the window.
They’d just spent the last four days hopping across the country via different forms of transportation. Sometimes they used public transport—trains, buses, airplanes. Sometimes they traveled by foot. Their animal forms all navigated long distance well. They’d also backtracked and retraced their steps several times in an attempt to lose or confuse anyone following.
This bus stop was supposed to lead to the final leg of their journey.
Sarai sat up and rubbed at her eyes, reminding Zac of a small child. Not that she was remotely childlike, but something about the sweet image tugged at his heart. Or maybe it was the fact that only a few weeks ago, she never would have lain in his arms
in such peaceful sleep. His feelings toward her had moved way past protective, or even possessive, to something deeper. Until this was over though, he didn’t know what to do about that.
“Okay,” she mumbled.
They all exited the bus with the rest of the riders, most of whom were taking a break before going on to the next stop. But they were stopping here. Sarai had surprised him and George with a rather ingenious ace up her sleeve. One Andie, who had come through in a big way, had provided.
They got off the bus with bags in hand—only what they’d been able to pack before they’d departed the New York apartment. They trouped across the wide parking lot into the diner located beside the bus stop. An all-night diner, thankfully, because four in the morning was early even for most breakfast places. They halted just inside the door where they blinked in the harsh fluorescent lighting as they looked for the person they’d planned to meet here.
They checked the counter, where several truckers sat on stools, hunched over large platters of eggs, hash browns, and pancakes, coffee steaming in mugs beside them. They scanned the booths with their red plastic seats and laminated tabletops. The air was filled with the scents of grease and frying meat. Zac’s stomach rumbled.
“Do you see him?” Zac asked, ignoring his hunger pangs for the moment.
Sarai shook her head. “Not that I’d recognize him, but Andie gave me a pretty good idea.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Well, from her description, I’d say a wirier version of George.” She grinned up at his old friend and ribbed him with her elbow a little.
“What exactly does that mean?” George grumped, but Zac caught a small smile under his thick mustache.
“You know…” Sarai grinned again. “Crusty. Weathered. Handsome of course. Kind of an old cowboy-on-the-range type.”
George lifted a single eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
Sarai shrugged as she looked around. “Yeah. But I have a thing for crotchety old cowboys.” She winked at him.
George smirked. “Well, that’s all right then.”
Zac shook his head. “I seem to remember the last time I called you old, you cuffed me in the ear.”
