by Maya Banks
“I love you,” she blurted out.
Mortified by the brash way it tumbled out of her mouth, she closed her eyes and prayed he hadn’t heard.
“Tyana,” he said in a quiet voice.
She opened one eye to peek at him. In that moment she wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him senseless. He seemed to understand how difficult it had been for her. He didn’t demand she say it again. Didn’t make a huge deal out of it. But she could see the stark relief in his eyes, and in that moment, she’d tell him a hundred times over if it meant he’d never look at her with insecurity again.
“I love you too.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t told you before now,” she went on in a rush. “I assumed you knew, I mean—”
He hushed her with a kiss. Long and slow. Gentle yet demanding. She emitted a little sigh as she melted into his arms.
“I do know,” he said as he pulled away. “But it’s damned nice to hear.”
“Eli, chopper’s here,” Mad Dog called from the other side of the door.
“Be right out.”
He glanced back at Tyana as he made a grab for his bags on the bed.
“Well, that’s my ride, sugar. I’ll see you in a few days. Try not to drive Mad Dog and Jonah too crazy, okay?”
She smiled but thought it was a rather weak attempt. He slung a backpack over his shoulder then leaned in to give her a quick kiss before he threw open the door and hurried out.
As she watched him go, she was struck by the thought that a few days ago she’d wanted this reprieve. Wanted room to breathe. And now, suddenly, the two people she loved most in the world were gone.
Hollow achiness invaded, stretching and invading her veins like poison. Alone. She was alone. And it felt horrible.
Chapter Twenty
“What the hell do you mean, they changed safe houses on us?”
The furious words swarmed in Katie’s ears even as she couldn’t quite force her eyes open. There wasn’t a muscle in her body listening to what her brain was telling it, and so she continued to lay there like a limp noodle. Wherever there was.
“No, I don’t like it, Eli. CHR still has places for us to crash. Why are we relying so heavily on Falcon?”
Ian. Ian was talking to someone, and he was pissed. He made a rude noise before continuing on.
“We need a doctor as soon as we hit the ground. Katie’s hurt. No, it’s not too serious, but she needs stitches.”
Vaguely, other sounds began to register. The low hum vibrating her body. The whir of an engine. A jet?
Shit. She was on a goddamn plane.
And then the events of the day, or yesterday, because who the hell knew how long she’d been out, stormed through her bruised mind.
She was on a plane with a bunch of wild animals.
She lurched upward and nearly passed out when pain ripped across her abdomen. Almost as quickly, a big hand planted itself over her chest, the palm a little too close to her breast for her liking. She found herself shoved back down on the couch. Couch? On a plane?
Her head was about to explode with confusion.
Braden loomed over her, his expression grim. “Stay your ass down. You trying to open up your wound again? You’ve already bled like a stuck pig.”
When she didn’t immediately respond, his expression tightened, and his eyes glittered with challenge. He pulled a syringe out of his pocket and held it where she could see it.
“You’ve got two choices, sister. You can stay down or I can knock your ass out. Makes no difference to me, and quite frankly, you’re less of a pain in my ass when you’re out cold.”
She forced herself to relax, and slowly he took his hand off her body and stood to his full height.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice cracking. God, she was thirsty. And so damn hungry her stomach was going to start eating itself.
“We’re landing in Austria in about an hour and a half,” he said.
“Austria? What the fuck?” She started to raise her head, but he gave her a warning look and hovered menacingly.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t our first choice either,” Braden muttered.
“How is she?” Ian asked as he shoved his way past Braden.
Katie stared at him and shrank back against the seat. How could he look so normal? Had what happened been the product of her twisted mind? Had she finally lost her grip?
Ian’s eyes flashed and then he spun around and stalked out of her vision.
“You deal with her,” he tossed back to Braden. “Apparently she’s not afraid of you.”
“Bullshit,” Katie refuted.
Braden raised an eyebrow. “What the hell did I do?”
“So what’s your little trick?” she demanded. “Lion? Wolf? Hyena?”
“Very funny,” he growled.
“I wasn’t joking,” she said, her voice deadly quiet. “What the fuck are you? All that bullshit about a seizure disorder. Is that a codeword for turning into wild animals?”
Again his eyebrow went up and his eyes twinkled with amusement. “Seizures?” He turned in the direction Ian had walked. “You know anything about seizures, Ian?”
Ian muttered something unintelligible.
“Can I get up?” she asked. “I don’t like lying down where I can’t see. I want to be able to defend myself if the need arises.”
Braden’s gaze narrowed. “Defend yourself from who?”
“You,” she said evenly.
He shrugged and bent down to help her up. “We can eat you sitting up just as well as lying down.”
She went to slug him, but he caught her fist in his firm grip. He stared levelly at her. “You’re starting to get predictable.”
He picked her up, and even though he was extremely gentle, she let out a low moan.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he set her in one of the larger chairs independent of the couch.
She sucked in several breaths and waited for the fire to subside in her gut. She glanced down to see that all the blood was gone, she was wearing a fresh T-shirt way too large for her, and she was still barefooted. For some reason that amused her.
When she let out a shaky laugh, Braden shot her a concerned look.
“What’s so funny?”
“My feet.”
“Your feet?”
“Yeah. No shoes. I’ve run across God knows how many states with no shoes.”
She said it almost mournfully which was stupid. To be hung up on shoes when she was damn lucky to be alive at this point was absurd.
“We’ll get you shoes when we land,” Braden said gruffly. “You need to rest.”
“I’m starving,” she said. “And thirsty. I’d kill for about a gallon of water.”
He froze for a moment, and then he let out a rush of scorching expletives. Then he turned. “Hey Ian, do we have anything to eat on this damn thing? Katie still hasn’t eaten. Hell, I haven’t eaten.”
Ian reappeared a few moments later with a handful of snacks and some bottled water. “Sorry,” he said as he thrust them at her. “It’s all we’ve got.”
She latched onto them gratefully. First she ripped off the top to one of the water bottles and slugged the liquid down like an alcoholic falling off the wagon.
“Slow down. You’re going to make yourself sick,” Braden said gently.
She managed to slow herself just as she drained the last of the first bottle. Then she turned her attention to the array of food she’d dropped on her lap. There was a box of crackers, a bag of chips, a couple of cereal bars and some sort of fruit shit.
She opened the chips and the crackers then ripped open a cereal bar.
“And she calls us wild animals,” Braden said with an amused snort.
Both Katie and Ian glared at Braden who simply shrugged with a distinct I-don’t-give-a-fuck air.
As she devoured a cereal bar, she glanced up at Ian who hadn’t yet retreated. She tried to see a glimpse of the jaguar, and then she wondered at the sheer idioc
y of her thoughts. People couldn’t change into animals. They just couldn’t.
“Eat first, Katie,” Ian said in a low, stiff voice. “We’ll talk afterward.”
She stopped chewing, frozen as she stared back at him. Finally she nodded and resumed eating.
She polished off the cereal bar, scarfed the bag of chips and ate half the crackers before she even considered slowing down. The other cereal bar she held was tempting even though she felt the urge to puke.
Only the idea of having to barf and the agony it would cause her because of her injury made her put it away with regret. She contented herself with another full bottle of water and finally leaned back with a sigh. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten. Ricardo hadn’t concerned himself with making sure she was fed and those days were a big blur anyway.
Through it all, she watched Braden and Ian suspiciously, looking for any of the erratic behavior they’d displayed before. Ian’s lips were tight, but Braden stood in a defiant posture, clearly inviting her to fuck off.
“What are you?” she demanded.
Ian’s lips curled in irritation while Braden continued to stare her down, his eyes as unfriendly as his posture.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of pond scum,” she burst out. “I’m not the problem here.”
Braden snorted, and she glared heatedly at him.
“You came after me,” she pointed out. “Things have been bizarre since the day you kidnapped and drugged me. You act strange, like you’re hanging on to control by a thread. The next thing I know, Ian turns into some kind of damn big-ass cat and tears Ricardo’s throat out. And then you want to get snotty when I run like hell and act worried about the fact that I’m trapped thirty thousand feet in the air with two wild animals?”
Ian lost some of his surliness. He dragged a hand through his hair and walked over to flop into the chair across from Katie.
Braden remained standing, but he turned to include Ian in his view. The two brothers exchanged what could only be described as looks of resignation. There was more there. A deep sorrow. Katie’s chest tightened even as she damned herself for feeling anything for these two men.
“Did Gabe ever tell you anything about our mission to Adharji?” Ian asked.
Her brow puckered, and her eyes narrowed in confusion.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said dryly.
She shook her head.
“We were on a hostage recovery mission when we got gassed. We were captured behind enemy lines and were prisoners until we escaped several days later.”
“Gassed? What kind of gas?”
“That’s just it. We don’t know. But whatever it was turned us into a bunch of shifters. In my case a jaguar, as you’ve seen.” He gestured toward Braden. “He turns into a panther. Eli is more elemental. He can turn into shit like vapor, or smoke, steam, funky shit.”
“And Gabe? Was he affected?” she asked hesitantly.
Ian nodded.
“Wow, he never said—I mean he never told me.” She twisted her hands nervously in her lap. She’d always thought she and Gabe were close, but now she wondered how much of his interaction with her was solely based on obligation. “What was wrong with him?” she asked as she looked back up at Ian. “I don’t understand how this happened. It’s like something out of science fiction.”
“Gabe could become invisible,” Braden said.
“Invisible? Why something so different? That doesn’t make sense. The rest of you change physical forms, become something else entirely and he merely became invisible?”
“None of it makes sense,” Ian said tersely. “We were some scientific experiment gone wrong. Or at least Braden and I were. There was one other guy, our guide, and apparently he fared the worst. While Eli and Gabe were stable, the rest of us have no control over when and how we shift, and we retain no human cognizance when we’re in animal form.”
“Shit,” she breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Braden muttered.
“So Gabe could become invisible at will? And you and Ian have no control?”
She couldn’t hold back the surge of fear at being at the mercy of unstable shifters. She’d seen what Ian could do in jaguar form. He’d gone for the kill with no hesitation, and it hadn’t been pretty.
“We carry an inhibitor,” Ian said. “It’s in aerosol form. Most of the time it works to prevent shifting. Lately though…”
“Since we met you it isn’t as effective,” Braden said bluntly.
“Me?” She reared her head in surprise. “What do I have to do with anything?”
“Braden,” Ian growled in warning. “There’s no point.”
Braden ignored him. “I have no idea, sister. I’d love the answer to that. All I know is that ever since we got around you, our shifts have been more erratic, and the only thing that’s worked has been knocking ourselves out.”
“Seems like it would be a damn good idea to stay away from me,” she said sweetly. “Funny I suggested that from the beginning, but you didn’t seem to listen.”
“Look, Katie, I know it has to freak you out,” Ian said. “If it makes you feel better, we’ll give you the inhibitor so you can keep it on you at all times, and we’ll give you preloaded syringes with a sedative that would knock an elephant out. Worse comes to worst, you stick that in our ass and run like hell. Believe me when I say we’re not any happier about this situation than you are.”
“Is there nothing you can do? No cure? Who gassed you? And why?”
“You don’t ask the hard questions, do you?” Braden said mockingly. “If we knew all that, neither of us would be feeling the urge for scratching posts and kitty litter.”
“You’re not funny,” Ian snarled.
Despite herself, Katie burst out laughing. She wiped at the corners of her eyes as tears gathered. She sucked in a breath and kept laughing.
“Apparently Katie thinks so,” Braden said smugly.
She swiped at her eyes again and wheezed as she tried to regain her composure. When she looked up, though, she saw a glimmer of amusement in Ian’s eyes. She relaxed a bit in her seat and then groaned when the movement sent a fresh wave of pain through her gut.
“You okay?” Braden asked gently.
She closed her eyes briefly as she ran her hand over the thick bandage covering her wound. “It hurts like a bitch.”
“You need stitches,” Ian said. “There’ll be a doctor to see you when we land. It’s a pretty bad cut.”
“You dressed it?” she asked.
“Yeah, it was full of dirt. Needed to be cleaned or you’d get one hell of an infection.”
She glanced down. The whole reason her wound had been so nasty was because she’d run fast and hard. Neither man had said anything about the fact she’d taken off again, but what else was she supposed to do when faced with a bloodthirsty predator? Still she felt guilty—for what, not trusting them? The funny thing was she did—well, when they weren’t snarling cats.
“I’d like the inhibitor and the sedative,” she said quietly.
“I’m not as keen to give it to you as Ian is,” Braden said dryly. “I want some assurances before we just hand that shit over.”
Her gaze jerked back up to his. “Assurances? What kind of assurances do you want? You sure as hell can’t offer me the one I need most, mainly that you won’t turn into kitty cats on steroids and make dinner out of me.”
“How ’bout that you don’t use the sedative unless it’s a last resort,” Braden said. “Seems to me we’ll be handing you the perfect weapon for you to escape whether we shift or not. I think we’ve proven that we have your best interests in mind here. I want your word this crap is going to stop.”
“And you’d accept my word? That’s pretty stupid,” she taunted. “I’d lie in a heartbeat to protect my interests.” Why, oh why couldn’t she just shut up? She was fully prepared to offer them something—an olive branch? But she just couldn’t keep her fear, her insecurity
, from surging up, and then she became a defensive, surly bitch on wheels.
“Thanks for the warning,” Ian said.
She moved her gaze to him, searching his expression, for what she wasn’t certain. Earlier, her fear of him seemed to bother him, and even now his eyes were guarded. Had she hurt him? It seemed odd that she’d have that kind of power. Did she like this man? Did she trust him? Before he’d changed into a freaking jaguar, she’d found herself softening toward him, and yet by shifting, he’d saved her. He hadn’t come after her. His ire had been directed at Ricardo. Coincidence? She couldn’t decide.
“What were you saying about a safe house a while ago? And now that you’ve got me out of the country, what next?”
“Just a change in plans,” Ian replied. “We had a place set up in France but we’re going to Austria instead. As for what’s next, we go there and lay low until Eli and Falcon nail Esteban.”
“Esteban is the man after me?” she asked.
He nodded. “He’s the one responsible for the chemical agent that turned us into shifters.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why does he want me? What could he possibly want with me now that Gabe is dead and he can’t use me against him?”
“That’s a good question,” Braden interjected. “We don’t have any idea. But we promised Gabe we’d make sure you were safe.”
“And what then?” she asked. “What happens when there is no longer a threat to me? I can’t go back and pick up where I left off. I may have gotten away with killing Paulo, but now there is a vehicle with my fingerprints all over it and several dead bodies that I’m sure the police wouldn’t have to work hard to pin on me.”
“We’ll figure it out, Katie,” Ian said quietly. “We aren’t going to let you go down for that scumbag de la Cruz.”
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. It was tempting as hell to take that promise and hold it close, but she couldn’t afford to be such a moron. No matter that Ian and Braden wanted to look out for her, she’d be a damn fool to place her trust so implicitly. But hadn’t she already? The whole saying about leaving the barn door open came readily to mind. The fact was, she did trust them. She didn’t want to. She thought she was dumb to, but it didn’t alter the fact that deep inside, she knew, she just knew that they weren’t out to screw her. Did that make her an even bigger dumbass?
