by Liza Street
She blushed and closed her eyes.
“Come on, look at me, Cora Belle. Tell me how you do it.” His cock ached, so ready to be inside her, but this was her first time and he wanted to please her before anything else.
“Back and forth,” she gasped as she wriggled down, trying to get more of his finger inside her.
He licked her in that way, back and forth, while fingering her, and then he reached up with his other hand and feathered his fingers over one of her nipples. She was so wet, so ready for him, and when she shouted out his name and gripped his head in her hands, he didn’t stop but instead brought her to the brink again. She squirmed, but he held her fast, and soon she was moaning again, whispering his name.
This time, though, he quit licking her before she could finish. She mewled in protest, but he crawled up her body to kiss her mouth, skimming his chest over her hardened nipples as he went. His erection pressed into her leg, and he whispered, “Do you want more, still? Are you ready?”
“Yes, please, yes,” she gasped.
He pressed against her entrance, glorying in her heat. She hooked a foot over his knee, encouraging him closer. Using every ounce of self-control he possessed, he slowly slid into her, carefully watching her face for any signs of pain or discomfort. When she winced, he stopped moving until her face relaxed again.
“I’m okay,” she said, and rocked her hips beneath him to prove her point.
“Cora Belle,” he whispered, bending to kiss her again. They moved together as he thrust gently within her, but she wasn’t coming yet. She needed something else, maybe a change of position. He pulled out. “Flip over for me?”
Once she was on her stomach, he pressed kisses all over her shoulders, watching the goosebumps that rose on her skin. “You comfortable?”
“Yeah.” She raised her ass slightly, tempting him.
She was so fucking sexy. He lifted her hips and pressed into her again, and this time he reached around and touched her clit while he thrust, moving his finger in circles, alternating with back and forth strokes like he knew she liked, until she tensed up and screamed into the pillow. Then he flattened her with his body and bit gently on the back of her neck, emptying himself into her pulsing heat.
“Cora Belle,” he whispered, “I love you. I always have.”
Chapter Nine
Cora smiled shyly over at Tyler in the car. He was just so handsome, so hot. She couldn’t believe how great last night had been. They’d slept late and made love again in the morning, and now they were getting a later start than they would have liked, but there was no set schedule. They’d be arriving at Val Brigg’s property in the afternoon, where they’d prowl around to figure out the next part of the plan.
“Maybe she won’t even be there,” Cora said, “if she travels a lot.”
Tyler smiled over at her. She loved the way the morning sunlight graced his face.
“She used to, at least,” he said. “I feel awful—if my dad had known what she and Al were up to, they could have been stopped a lot earlier. My dad’s too damn trusting. Al and Val…and then leaving my brother in charge…”
“Your dad’s a good guy,” Cora said, squeezing his hand. “The bad things other people do aren’t his fault.”
“Yeah, I know. Just, everything would have been easier if he hadn’t left you and me up there alone with Bryan.”
“He had no idea. Bryan even fooled me, at first.” She tried not to choke when she said his name.
The conversation was taking an icky turn, and Cora struggled to find a new topic. “How did your parents meet?”
“My mom was an Exchange from a pride in Mississippi. She was apparently really happy to get away from them—something about arranged matings and marriages. They wanted some allies in the west, I guess, so they shipped her out to Nevada. Dad said she’d been ‘strongly encouraged’ to find a mate here, and it was damn good luck that the two of them felt bonded.”
“Wow. Did she ever miss her home?”
“I don’t know.” He gave her a sad smile, and Cora’s heart ached for him. He’d lost his mother when he was so young.
After they stopped for gas, she took a turn driving so he could rest. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the passenger seat, but he kept his hand tucked beneath her thigh. How had she gotten so lucky? It didn’t seem fair that love could have seemingly fallen from the sky like this, right into her lap. She’d endured a lot to get to this point, but now it was as if all those terrible things had been cleansed away.
When she pulled over to the side of a wooded dirt road a couple of hours later, Tyler woke up, blinking sleepily at her. He grinned. “I knew you couldn’t resist another chance to jump my bones.”
“Ha. We’re here.”
He sat up taller, looking around. “I slept that long? Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You needed the rest.”
“Only because you kept me up all night.”
“Rowr,” she said, and they laughed.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said seriously. “It means a lot.”
They drove a little while longer, hoping to get farther from any roads or people. Even though this was a deserted access road, they didn’t want to take any chances of being seen by anyone.
Soon they were up in the mountains, high enough that there was still snow in piles along the roadside and in drifts against boulders. “Doesn’t feel like spring at all here, does it?” Cora asked.
He shook his head. “Did you bring a sweatshirt?”
“Yeah.”
Cora parked and they grabbed sweatshirts from the back of the Jeep. They hiked toward Val Brigg’s property, not speaking so they could listen to the woods. Cora’s lion wanted to roam, so Tyler held her clothes while she shifted. They walked next to each other, man and lioness. The forest smelled uninhabited, and it smelled like stale snow. No one had been out here in weeks, at least, and Cora wondered about the territory. Where were they, anyway? Why hadn’t anyone claimed this area? Had Val Brigg claimed it, and if so, why was there no scent of a shifter living here? It was beautiful. If this was Cora’s territory, she and Tyler would be out every day, exploring, hunting, and napping in the forest.
She rubbed up against his leg as they walked. She hadn’t even meant to include him in that thought—but already she felt bound to him. If a territory was hers, it would be his, too. Naturally. That’s what this was—it felt natural between them.
“I think that’s their house, just over there.” Tyler pointed to an expansive lodge-style home, barely visible through the trees. It looked like a giant wood cabin, at least three stories high with soaring windows. It was impossible to tell from here, but she bet there were even more windows on the other side, overlooking the valley and facing another ridge of mountains. Expensive house, expensive view.
The fur on Cora’s back bristled. That fancy lodge had probably been paid for with adoption fees from kidnapped shifter kids. She didn’t care how pretty that house looked—she’d love to see it go up in flames.
Her nose twitched, and she scented the first hint of other—Val Briggs must come here sometimes.
“Something smells off,” Tyler said.
Cora got closer to him, and felt his fingers trail through her fur. She used every one of her senses, spreading her awareness outward. Maybe they were being watched.
Tyler tensed next to her, and they took another step. A loud cracking noise rang out and the world tumbled upside down and sideways as she and Tyler flew high, pressed together by rope mesh.
They were caught.
Chapter Ten
“Cora? Cora, are you okay?”
The lion next to Tyler huffed. They were mashed together way too tightly, but she sounded all right. He shoved at the net encasing them, but the thick rope only gave enough to pull it tighter from the other side of him, probably putting more pressure on Cora. She smelled like fur and anger.
He looked through the net, struggling to see if anyone was coming. T
hey might not have long before Val appeared. He should have insisted Gabriel join them, or that they get Maverick to come along. They should have come out here with a team, not only the two of them, but he hadn’t expected fucking booby traps.
He couldn’t hear anything except his and Cora’s labored breathing. From his vantage point, he could see the branches of the trees they were suspended between, as well as a reflection from something nestled into the trunk of one of them. A video camera.
“We’re being watched,” he said. “Can you claw or chew through the ropes?”
Cora’s shoulders pressed hard into him while she maneuvered.
The wind shifted—someone was coming. Someone was already here, but he couldn’t see who.
A sting in his arm. He saw the barb of a tranquilizer dart, and then his eyes closed.
*
He fought for consciousness, but the world passed by in blacks and grays. He vaguely noticed being lowered onto an ATV, Cora next to him. She was alive, at least. If they were alive, they had a chance, still.
In a dark room, he felt himself shoved off the ATV. Again, Cora was right there. They were pushed and pulled on the floor. Scents of metal and oil. Scents of dust and fear. He couldn’t open his eyes, and instead curled his fist into Cora’s fur, trying to take comfort in her nearness.
*
When he finally awoke, he was shivering. Cora was up, pacing the length of a large cage. A blanket-covered mattress was shoved in the back corner, and a bucket sat in an opposite corner. The bars were vertical, but too close together to push more than a forearm through. A horizontal opening broke across the bottom of the door, wide enough for one of the food trays that sat stacked on the counter outside. Just inside the opening were Cora’s clothes that he’d been carrying when they’d gone up in the net.
Tyler’s dad had a couple of cages in their basement, but those had been for interrogating any rogue shifters who landed in their territory. Given the mattress and blankets, Tyler guessed this place must be where Al and Val had kept kidnapped kids, storing them here while they hypnotized them to get them ready for adoption.
The room opened to a large garage door, and the ATV sat inside. Beyond, the forest was dark, but he saw the glow from the big house nearby.
“Cora?”
She turned her light brown lion eyes toward him, then immediately looked away and went back to her pacing.
This was probably her worst nightmare—captivity. Again. Although Bryan wouldn’t let Tyler visit her in the barn apartment, Tyler had heard her in there—sometimes growling as a lion, sometimes crying as a human. Always pacing. Her footsteps hadn’t been loud, but he’d heard them anyway, until he’d had to shift into his own lion and bolt for the woods where the sound wouldn’t torture him anymore.
Here she was again, trapped in a small space, pacing.
Now, at least, he could help.
“Cora,” he said.
She ignored him.
“Cora, it’s Tyler. I know you’re freaking out. Can you shift back so we can talk? We can talk together and figure this out.”
The lion continued to pace. He didn’t know how to reach her, how to remind her that even though they were in danger, they were together. How could they plan an escape if she was in her lion form? He could plan something, sure, but together they’d work better and smarter.
He tried to remember the songs his mom used to sing to him, but the words weren’t there, and the melodies were fragments. Then he remembered what Cora had said about her mom, how she told stories. He didn’t know many, but he’d figure one out. Maybe the shapeshifter creation story his dad used to tell.
He cleared his throat. “Once upon a time, the earth was still new and humans were more in touch with their animal sides than they are now. They ran like the cheetahs and traveled like the grazing bison. In the cold seasons, they slept like the bears. They spent so much time with the animals, that the Great Father gathered them all up in his arms and gave them the power to shift. Some, he allowed to shift into birds. Others became wolves and lions. Others became bears. There were great snakes, and swimming beasts, and the earth rejoiced in its diversity.”
Cora had stopped pacing. She sat next to him, listening, as he made up more stories about different shapeshifters until his throat was raw.
Her breath was slow and even, her eyes closed. He’d gotten her to sleep. While he watched, her body shimmered and changed as she shifted back into her human form. He was overcome with the need to protect her, to make her happy. He didn’t want to disturb her by dressing her, so he grabbed one of the blankets from the mattress and tucked it around her body. He huddled next to her, watching her breathe, overcome with protectiveness and tenderness.
He wouldn’t sleep, not while she was so vulnerable. His lion wouldn’t let him.
Chapter Eleven
She awoke to Tyler gently shaking her shoulder. “Cora, wake up,” he whispered.
Someone was coming. She opened her eyes and saw the lock on their cage, and immediately her breath quickened. No, she couldn’t be trapped again. She couldn’t handle it. She had to walk, had to move. It was like in Nevada. Someone had the key to her cage and she’d never get out.
“It’s going to be okay,” Tyler whispered.
Her lion fought inside her, wanting to come out. It was cold, and the landscape visible beyond the garage door was still dark. How long had she been sleeping? That was time wasted—time she could have used to try to escape.
“Shhh,” Tyler said. “We’ll come up with something. Let’s just talk to Val and see what she wants.”
Cora put on her clothes. The footsteps coming from the house got louder, and suddenly a woman was before them, standing tall in the center of the wide garage doorway. “Smart lion,” the woman said. “Unfortunately, the only thing I want is for you two to disappear.”
Cora squinted at the woman. She seemed familiar. When she got closer, Cora’s scent memory kicked in, coupled with the visual of a tall, regal-looking blonde. “Lynn?”
“No, that’s Val,” Tyler said.
The woman smiled. “You’re both right. Lynn is one of my names, and Val is another.”
“You stayed with my family for a little while.” Cora had seen a few pictures of a blond-haired woman in one of the family photo albums. Cora and Justine had been small, maybe three, in the photos, so they hadn’t remembered her. Gabriel had explained once that she was a friend of their parents. One day Lynn had abruptly left, puzzling everyone.
“That’s right. I stayed long enough to map your property and learn about the siblings, figure out which of you were the most susceptible to hypnosis. The goal had been to take you and your twin, actually, but Al said Starla was so easy, wandering off like she’d done.”
“You steal children,” Cora said. “You betrayed my family, and you’ve betrayed many more.”
Val shrugged. “And that’s all it was supposed to be. But now you two have shown up. It was Al’s job to deal with anyone who got too close.”
“What are you going to do with us?” Tyler asked.
“Tranquilize you and dump you in the lake. It won’t feel as much like killing that way. But it’s too close to sunrise,” she added, touching a tranquilizer pistol that rested on the counter next to her. “There’ll be people fishing on the lake, and we can’t have any witnesses now, can we?”
The woman spoke so casually, it was chilling. Cora gripped the bars of her cage, wishing she was strong enough to pry them apart and step through. She wanted to kill this woman, to rip out her throat and watch her bleed. “My family will keep coming after you.”
“Not if I disappear. And I’m good at that.”
She shimmered in front of them. Cora watched with dread, wondering what Val would become. In moments, a large bat, maybe two feet tall, stood in front of them, its fangs bared. The bat kicked away the clothing Val had worn, flapped its wings, and flew out of the garage.
“Creepy,” Cora said. “Of course she’s
a bat.”
“I know a bat shifter,” Tyler said. “He’s not a bad guy. Don’t let her give them all a bad name.”
Cora nodded. “She’s trying her hardest to be evil, isn’t she? How soon do you think my family will know something’s wrong?”
She let Tyler pull her in close to him. Already her lion was freaking out again, panicked at being caged, but with Tyler holding her, she could keep from acting on that panic. She could breathe. They would find a way out of this—they had to.
Chapter Twelve
As soon as Cora’s breath was even and calm, Tyler grabbed two metal bars and pulled. He strained as hard as he could, but whatever these bars were made from was too strong. He ran his hands along the lower portion, trying to find weakness where the bars met the frame, but they’d been soldered and he couldn’t budge them. Still, he twisted and pounded and yanked until he was sweating.
Cora ran her hands along the floor, as if wondering whether she could dig them out. It would never work—the floor of the cage was made of the same kind of metal as the bars and frame.
Then she stood up and ran directly at the bars. She smashed into them with her body and fell back. Tyler reached for her, but she was already backing up to do it again. This time she jumped higher against them.
“Cora, calm down. Don’t tempt her into killing us early—we need time to think.”
“I’m done thinking,” she said, taking another running leap. She got more air this time, and pounded into the upper side of the cage. The metal didn’t move.
“I’ve tried the bars for weaknesses already,” Tyler said. “The metal’s too strong. Let’s come up with something else.”
She smiled at him. “I have come up with something, you handsome idiot. Help me out, here.”
She took another leap at the upper side, and Tyler felt it—the cage rocked slightly.
“It’s not bolted to the floor,” he said.
“Nope.”
