Dangerous Prey

by Erika Masten

  Shifter mates, Kendra chastised herself. What were you thinking, girl? But she hadn’t been thinking; she’d been wanting. Wanting so hard. She realized that now and knew she of all people would have been wary of wanting and wishing for what she didn’t have—a mate like Mama’d had with Papa, true, a bond with a man who didn’t impose his will on her despite the power that the mating ritual gave him to do so.

  Bradley Wilbanks had been courting Kendra so doggedly and trying to convince her that the mating was a matter of choice, not of love or destiny. That it made sense to bring strong Hennessey blood into the ruling Nacey—and Wilbanks—line for the unity and protection of the clan. That waiting until her mating call had gone too long would only cloud her judgment and make her pine for some soul-mate connection that was just pop culture bullshit. But Kendra, thinking she always knew better just because her parents had actually loved one another, had insisted she wasn’t feeling the mating call yet and let it go. She’d find another way, she kept telling herself. She wasn’t going to end up under the thumb of a man like her stepfather. She wasn’t going to lose control and….

  And fool herself into thinking she was dreamwalking her way to her fated mates, these mystery lovers. Government men and shifters. Hell, they were probably all in it together. How had she ended up at that campsite, anyway? Rory and Martin charging in to ‘rescue’ her. They had delivered her to the government men, and Kendra had suspected nothing because they’d spun her a tale about hunting some shadowy Agency and a shipment of weapons intended for use specifically against supernaturals.

  Sweating, starting to wheeze, Kendra tossed restlessly, then slammed the side of her fist against the concrete wall beside the cot in frustration. Stupid, stupid, stupid. All the shifters had to do was wind her up good, turn her on like some high school girl all starry-eyed for the least affection. When all along they’d known, always known. The morning she’d fled raced through her mind, all the way back to the kitchen and loud clack of picture frames in her purse, giving her away. Her mama had to have known and told Kendra’s rancid little creep of a stepfather. Him and Mama and Sage, they had all….

  It was only when Kendra’s paranoid delusions brought her mama and little sister into her twisted fantasy of betrayal that the woman’s roiling thoughts abruptly settled. There was no way that had happened. And yet a moment before, she been so convinced that her own family had turned her over to government men that tears were still running sideways along her cheeks to the pillow under her head.

  Her Tallan. It was—she was—coming apart at the seams. First the erratic discharges of energy whenever she got too excited or stressed. Now paranoid fantasies. Was it even worse than she suspected? Was this cell even real, or had she already lost her mind and made all this up, too? Had she—?

  Kendra. A voice whispered inside her head, and male, at that. Yes, she was insane.

  “Kendra, are you awake?” That question at least sounded like it might have come from the speaker. “Miss Kenner?” Yeah, that was Bright Eyes.

  Kendra. That one wasn’t Bright Eyes. Kendra, if you can hear me, reach out with your mind. Please, sugar, it’s Rory. I’m trying my best to find you.

  Rory? A swell of relief engulfed Kendra like an embrace, and she had to suppress a gasp to keep her observer from figuring out for sure she was awake. Assuming she was awake instead of dreaming or hallucinating.

  There you are, sugar. We’ve been looking for you for almost two days. We must be close if you can hear me. Does the Agency still have you? Do you know where?

  Why can I hear you? Kendra chuckled grimly under her breath at the thought that it was only because her Tallan had broken her and she was crazy.

  Because a very few werehorses like me still have the old powers, to guide people to and from dreams and….

  And?

  Different states of consciousness, that’s all. Kendra, where are you?

  Was it her imagination that made him sound so urgent, so desperate? Kendra bit her lip to keep from tsking herself aloud. A male horse shifter was talking to her telepathically. Of course it was her imagination.

  Kendra, answer him. We have to know so we can come for you.

  That voice was different, deeper, insistent like a stern father, a steely guardian. Martin?

  Tell us, the wolf insisted.

  When Martin pushed, a dam of emotion broke inside Kendra, and tears began seeping from the corners of her eyes again. I don’t know, but I’m scared. They have me locked in a concrete cell.

  Shh, sugar. We’ll get to you. A concrete cell? Kendra, they took you less than forty-eight hours ago. That gives us a radius. Even if they travelled most of that time—.

  Kendra pushed her thoughts forward to interrupt. They didn’t. I’ve been in the cell at least a day, I think. I don’t know exactly. They drugged me.

  Then you have to be very close to the campsite we were at in the first place, Martin interjected.

  Why can I hear you, too? The horse shifter is psychic, but Odin Wolves?

  How do you know that, Kendra? Who told you about us, about Odin Wolves?

  She paused to think. No one said it. I just… felt it from you.

  Then the horse is right about you, about us. Even telepathically, the werewolf sounded somber, weary. We have to find you. You can hear me because Rory is connected to you, and he’s connected to me after using his abilities to pull me back from wilding when my shift went to far.

  Wilding? Not a familiar term for Kendra. Something, perhaps, particular to shifter breeds beyond the Appalachian region.

  That’s not it, not all of it, Rory insisted. You both know what we are to one another.

  Stop. Shut up. Don’t you say it. Overcome with panic and dread, Kendra turned over in the cot and pressed the pillow over her head like she could block out the voices already inside it.

  Rory trilled softly to her. Why are you afraid of being mated, Kendra?

  Shut up! She wasn’t the only one who wanted the horse shifter to stop saying that. Martin’s repulsion to the idea was there for her to feel, too.

  Shh, sugar, Rory insisted again.

  Then the connection, the delusion, changed. Hulking and blond and impossibly handsome, Rory Galloway was bodily there with Kendra, kneeling over her on the cot and making her turn over. Lord, he was bare-chested and tanned, with the same light dusting of tawny hair over his pecs as shadowed his unshaven face. If Kendra was going to fantasy or dream or hallucinate, this was the way to do it. As the pillow fell to the floor of the cell, the walls of her prison blurred behind a haze like concealing, comforting darkness pressing in around a campfire. The glow of warm, subtle light centered on Rory and Martin and Kendra standing together now in the middle of that room.

  This isn’t really…?

  No, sugar, only in our minds. Just be calm. Let us hold you. Let us center you.

  It was only in her mind, one way or another, Kendra told herself as she let her own emotional fatigue well up. Her exhaustion spilled over into the arms of the shifters as dark wolf Martin embraced her from behind. Rory stepped forward to press her tight to his chest. All that muscle and strength wrapped around Kendra made her feel small, helpless, but protected. Like she could let them protect her. It was like all those dreams. No, it was better.

  Now Kendra could smell the shifters and feel the heat and solidity of their bodies. Now each caress drew goose bumps to the surface of her skin. She could have sworn she really felt the wolf shifter’s teeth tracing a hot, sharp line down the side of her neck while Rory’s breath warmed her temple as he sighed deeply into her loose hair. His own long blond strands, so silky and cool, tickled her cheek.

  And Lord, when the horse shifter’s huge hands slid up under the cotton of her top, just as the werewolf’s kneading caress delved into her shorts…. Kendra mewed again like she had at the lodge, tensing. This time it was only partly from anxiety, partly from the agonizing need thrumming through her every nerve.

  Shh, let us do this, sugar
. Let yourself. Focusing on us and on the pleasure will keep you steady. Stay with me, Kendra. Stay with us.

  Rory, she groaned and couldn’t be sure if it was in her mind or aloud. With his lips just below the sensitive curl of her ear, he snorted at this like the satisfied stallion shifter she could sense he was, at the sound of his name in her moan.

  Not to be forgotten, the wolf shifter used both his battle-roughened hands to rub her flushed mons and sex, fingertips teasing and scratching. When he flexed his knees, it put the demanding ridge of his erection in line with the crevice of her ass. Martin nudged his hips forward with the ravenous insistence of the stunningly primal beast he was. As inexperienced as Kendra was in being taken from behind, anally, her body itched and throbbed with the urgency to try.

  When we have you with us again, Kendra, Martin warned, we will have you. Do you understand? Completely.

  For the first time, the suggestion and its implications beyond sex did not deter Kendra from giving herself to the moment. Whether it was because she didn’t truly believe this was happening or not, she couldn’t have said and couldn’t have cared just then, with what her shifters were doing to her. Rory had dragged the tank up over Kendra’s heavy, aching breasts and was teasing each tingling nipple with the softest of kisses and nips. He urged one of her hands to the bulge in his pants, and the woman gasped. Inhuman, purely inhuman. She couldn’t imagine taking in a cock that hard or that huge, but the sheath of her sex rippled and tingled and burned for want of it.

  With canines beginning to extend and pressing little by little into the base of her neck, Martin skillfully divided her attention between the stallion and himself. Oh, and when his fingers found her clit!

  “Kendra.”

  The commanding voice meant nothing to her. It could have been in another language.

  “Kendra.”

  Not until someone slapped her face did Kendra’s eyes fly open.

  She was alone on the cot again but not alone in the room. Bright Eyes stood over her, demanding she wake.

  The agent snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Are you hearing me now, Miss Kenner?”

  After a moment’s pause, Kendra lashed out at her captor with clenched fisted and then clawing nails. He’d broken the spell of her dream, taken away… taken away her shifters, her mates. She needed them right then, so so needed them. Kendra screeched and struggled with the dark stranger. The bastard just let her fight, holding her back enough to keep her from doing him any real injury. Stars streaked through Kendra’s vision along with flashes of rage red, with her pulse racing and blood pressure pounding in her veins. Only once did he even look surprised or concerned, when the LED lighting flickered and went black for several seconds. He obviously had no idea the power of Tallan when it was going wild. No idea!

  Kendra struggled as long as she could. Her energy gave out long before her anger did. Bright Eyes laid her back down on the bed and leaned over her, checking her vitals again. This time, his want was so pronounced that she couldn’t help but sense it. His muscles tensed despite his mental objection to the desire, and his cock strained in his fitted black pants. Kendra’s head and pulse, nipples and clit, all throbbed with the psychic and sexual pressure built up inside her. Her body needed to be fucked, but by her mates, not some government man, not this kidnapper holding her there for who knew what. More concerned with the nauseating flashes of hot and cold wracking her body and blurring her thoughts, she closed her eyes and turned her face to the wall.

  “Miss Kenner,” he said again.

  Fuck off, she thought but refused to actually say it. She was on the brink of unconsciousness, teetering.

  Then he said aloud, to whoever was listening beyond the room, “She’s definitely suffering the effects of her mating call.” With the back of his hand, he felt the clammy skin of Kendra’s cheek, and she didn’t have the will to shake him off. She just wished his touch hadn’t given her shivers. “Symptoms are advanced. Subject is highly volatile. Did you see the lights? She shouldn’t have been able to do that. Christ, the electrical charge raised the hair on my arms and the back of my neck. This is prefect.” He laughed low, she might even have said appreciatively. “She’s perfect. Prepare her for transport. Keep the tranquilizers ready, but I also want three agents with live ammo in case we have to take her down. Avoid termination as long as possible.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rory heard it all, every damn word said in the cell, despite the interference to his connection with Kendra. The Agency was moving her, putting her into play somehow, and he was running out of time to do something about it. Only knowing she needed him calm, knowing that he couldn’t leave her surrounded by people who killed supernaturals as a matter of course, kept him focused. The effort to hold onto her took more energy than he’d let on to her or to Martin, but the wolf could probably tell Rory was sweating more than the heat justified and breathing harder than the incline of the terrain demanded. Of all the times he resented the characterization of his breed as prey animals, this was the worst, feeling like it was true. If he was able to lead Martin to her, would Rory be any use at all in rescuing her?

  The horse shifter left the remote, unmaintained mountain trail he and Martin had followed at the insistence of Galloway’s instincts. He braced himself against a tree for balance before pouring all his concentration into holding the tenuous thread of emotion anchoring him to the psychic. Fragments of what Kendra was hearing and feeling flew through Rory mind, some too fast to catch. The shifter snorted out in pain and slumped against the rough bark of the trunk.

  “What is it?” Martin demanded. “What are they doing to her?”

  “I can’t get….” Rory shook his head, trying to the clear the thick-headed sensation that felt like sleeping too long or being underwater.

  “Galloway! What is it?”

  In a matter of a split-second, Rory had come up off the tree and taken hold of Martin by the front of the werewolf’s t-shirt. “It’s you and all that damned anger, for one thing.” So much anger all the time, and now even the natural calm of Rory’s breed could not insulate him from it. In just a couple weeks, he was so far from himself it wasn’t funny. In just the last few days. His first physical confrontation with a human and then… then his first kill. Kills. That was just another day for a warhorse, but for a psychopomp it was like slow suicide, losing a little bit of himself with each act of violence committed in true anger or bloodlust. And yet, how else was he going to save Kendra?

  Rory panted through this strange confusion, the conflict between remaining true to his nature and… and wanting to slaughter every human hunter who had touched her.

  It wasn’t like Martin to hold his tongue when confronted like that, to let a challenge lie. And it wasn’t like Rory to keep pushing, but he couldn’t help demanding, “Do you even know where all that anger and hatred and bitterness comes from? ‘Cause I’ve been in there with you, in your skin, in your head. I can tell you.”

  Wincing, the dark-haired wolf shifter shook his head no. “You don’t need to.”

  I know, Martin was thinking, and Rory heard it whether or not that was the intention. I know my failings.

  Failings. It was a word heavy with meaning for an Odin Wolf, paired with this concept of a True man never being able to lie to himself. Yet it failed to separate perceived truth from fact.

  “You are True,” Rory breathed in agreement, feeling remorse for how he’d wielded his own anger and frustration at his comrade and now companion. The horse shifter was glad he could still feel shame for that. It gave him hope he could make peace with the portion of himself that was now part of the wolf and vice versa.

  “Yes, I am. True.” Martin’s tone was flat, sullen, if not defeated then deeply humbled. Was this the effect of losing Kendra to the Agency? That had to have been downright dishonoring for a wolf. But was it also perhaps Rory’s mitigating effect on Falk’s stubborn pride, on the wolf’s usual obstinate insistence on traveling a violent course alone?
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  “Trust our connection, Martin.” Saying this, thinking this, Rory was also reminding himself.

  “I do, honestly,” the wolf said nodding, another difficult admission, for certain. “This thing between you and Kendra is—.”

  “And you, Martin. Me and Kendra and you. I know you’ve made peace with the idea that you have no mate and no salvation from the wilding outside of death, and I know why you can’t even let yourself hope you’re wrong.”

  “Don’t.” Martin took a step backward onto the trail, starting to turn away. He stopped himself, though, not looking at Rory but still facing the stallion shifter. “Just find her again, okay?”

  After a tense and silent moment, Rory huffed out his breath and rolled his stiffened shoulders. “Yeah.” He paced back and forth once, a short distance, pulling the band from his long hair and smoothing the strands before binding them back from his face again. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  More focused this time, Galloway found his way to Kendra as soon as he closed his eyes and thought of her. Kendra.

  Rory? Even her thoughts sounded lost, disoriented. It only just occurred to Rory to wonder if his strange disorientation was at all related to hers.

  I’m here, sugar. I need you to look around so I can see where you are right now. Can you do that for me?

  You can do that? Okay, okay, I’ll look but…. My head hurts. Can’t think.

  That sounded—felt—all too familiar.

  Why, Kendra? What did they do to you?

  It’s the mating call. My time. It drives a psychic to choose her mate and bind herself to his body and his will. That or it drives her crazy. And it’s liked to killed me already. I can’t think straight. All these wild ideas—wrong ideas—start spinning around in my head, and I start believing that….

  Little by little, everything was making sense. This mating call, Kendra’s need, that was what had drawn the shifters almost two thousand miles across the country. But how were the Agency and this weapons shipment related to their mating? Was it possible there was no connection? The randomness, the incongruity of the possibility, grated on the inherent equine belief that all of nature was a single thinking being so large that the parts just could not strain wide enough become aware of the whole.