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From where she knelt on the hard floor, Siofra held her breath as Hector walked around his desk and put a hip on the front of it. She peeked up to find him staring hard at her. Lowering her gaze again, she considered what to say next.
She couldn’t outright lie, not with all these Black River pack shifters standing close, but she’d learned by age ten how to do a damn good two-step around the truth just to survive.
She did not have shifter-level heightened senses, but the smell of fur overwhelmed her even with them all in human form.
Hector asked, “You would help us hunt down this man the Cadells tell me you were friends with?”
“Yes. I don’t see him as a friend.” That was true only because she considered Baatar a brother, so much more than a friend. But she’d had to sound confident even if her heart hurt just saying those words.
She was in a compound deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Convincing Hector she told the truth was her only way out of here and she had slim hope of that.
“That is not what I hear, chica. They tell me you two were close. That Baatar sometimes protected you.”
She huffed a dry laugh. “Of course he did. First of all, he liked me. I’m very likable,” she quipped.
Hector said nothing, so she added, “Baatar is a wise planner. He said he’d help me escape. He needed me to help him understand things that confused him here.”
“What things?” Hector demanded.
“He wasn’t born here and hasn’t had a lot of time to acclimate to this country. He needed a guide.” Also the truth. While Baatar was very intelligent and resourceful, everyday things and slang terminology sometimes tripped him up. She added, “I knew all the guards and their schedules where he’d only arrived in the camp six months ago.”
Not slowing down, she shrugged. “He made it clear he would help me escape and I took him up on his offer. Why wouldn’t I? The Cadells were probably planning to sell me to your pack to be used like a guinea pig. Baatar orchestrated my escape. He told me exactly how to get out of the camp and find a highway. I didn’t even know there was a highway. That was key in making it out of their territory.”
No one could question that. Every bit of it came from reality. Some wolves she could peek at studied her with confusion, but no one appeared ready to condemn her words if their alpha did not.
Hector said nothing for a while. She could feel him staring at her, probably in a dilemma.
He asked, “You would deceive him after he helped you escape?”
She had never thought of herself as a siren, but she tried for a sly smile. Giving another lift to her shoulder as if to dismiss the importance of her giving up Baatar, she said, “I’m a woman. We don’t see things like that as deceit so much as ... creative thinking.” She bluffed, hoping she sounded like a cold bitch willing to use a man to get whatever she wanted.
Baatar would roll his eyes at her if he stood here.
Low growling started and someone muttered, “Puta.”
Mission accomplished.
Hector lifted a hand and the room quieted at once. Stepping around to the front of his desk, he paced back and forth, muttering to himself until he paused. “Do you know the price of lying to me?”
“No, but I can probably figure it out,” she muttered, sure her imagination was up to par after having lived around jackals.
Hector’s sick smile came through in his words. “I promise you that you have no idea. If you lie to me and even if you escaped—which is impossible while surrounded by shifters—I would send teams everywhere to find you, even if it took years. They would bring you back to face the consequences.”
Okay, so she had no imagination equal to that of a monster who probably tortured kittens to relax.
“Why would I lie to you?” she asked, trying to lock down a deal. “I met Baatar six months ago. Why would I put my life on the line for someone I’ve known almost no time when I’ve known others in the Cadell camps for years? I’ll be very clear. Baatar said he was the greater prize than I am, which is true. He was treated better than even the shifters who guarded us. He will do whatever it takes to remain free. It seems only fair that I do whatever I must for my freedom.”
“How will you do this?”
Her heart flipped with hope. “Give me two of your shifters and I will lead them to Baatar. Once we find him, you let me go. No tricks or double cross. You give me a day head start before you tell anyone, like the Cadells, and no one will ever hear from me again.”
“You would accept my word for this?” he asked, amused again.
It took so little to entertain a lunatic.
Still talking to the floor, which actually made this easier, she said, “Of course not. I would require you to announce the terms of our agreement to your men with me standing next to you and to give me a blood oath. Your men won’t follow someone whose word counts for nothing.” She could sense the smiles in the room. Those guys would only be disappointed in Hector if he did keep his word to a captive female.
But it was the best bargaining chip she could come up with when her pockets were empty.
Baatar would be proud of her if she pulled this off. He’d laugh about all the things she’d done to get this pack to lead her to him. He’d said if they were ever free, there was only one thing she should never mention around strangers.
All she needed was a chance to get close to Baatar. He always told her not to worry about anything except staying alive and sticking to the plan.
Hector acted as if he considered her proposition. “I believe we can do this, but I need to make some arrangements first. My men will show you to a private room where you will be given food and time to rest.”
Not the answer she’d been hoping to get immediately, but he sounded as if he just might give her a chance to find Baatar. She’d also avoided being sent to one of their labs, at least for now.
Nodding at the shifter next to her, Hector said, “Take her ... what is your name?”
“Siofra.” She could have lied, but he had to know her name and wanted to test her.
“Take Siofra to her room.”
The guard hooked a hand under her arm and lifted her like a twig. When she pulled away, he released her, allowing her to turn and walk at his side.
She took being treated better than when she’d arrived as a positive sign, too. This might just work.
She enjoyed only a brief moment of relief, because now they headed for the exit into the scary darkness, and she trusted none of these guards.
Three steps outside the front door, chaos erupted on the side of the building with men shouting and wolves howling.
Someone ran by her guard and spewed orders at him in Spanish.
They must have decided she was not a threat, because both of them tore off in that direction. She could hear Hector bellowing orders in Spanish inside the building.
Moving cautiously, she sidestepped until she reached the edge of the building and stepped into a black void. No windows on this side where light could spill out to illuminate her way along this narrow strip of ground that had been cleared.
She kept her hand on the wall of the building and continued moving, not at all sure where she was going since she’d been brought here hidden inside a van.
But the road they’d traveled on had been smooth until the last half mile. She could run that far without too much trouble.
She’d escaped once by finding a highway. She could do it again.
What crappy timing for some rival group to attack this place when she had Hector convinced to let her take a pair of shifters to track down Baatar. She knew her brother well. He’d outwit the two wolf shifters, take them down and free her.
Now, she was back to starting over again.
She just hoped Baatar would wait for her before he gave up hope of her finding him and disappeared permanently. She also hoped he was not suffering bad physical and emotional problems without her around to watch his back.
Another possibility dawned on her.
Could the attackers be a faction of the Cadells coming to take her back so they could sell her after all?
That would be her freaking luck.
Whoever it was, she needed them to keep the wolves busy until she reached the road. If she couldn’t flag down a car fast enough, a shifter from one of the groups would catch up to her quickly.
She hesitated.
If she ran, she couldn’t return to face Hector.
He’d never believe her again.
Better to take her chance at freedom and finding Baatar on her own than place her hope for the future on Hector honoring his word.
At the back corner of the building she paused before stepping away from the building where lights were on, which would make her visible to anybody.
Easing around the corner, she saw a man fighting with a guard. When the light hit his face, she recognized him and those flashing gold eyes.
What was he doing here?
He fought hard, but he limped around on a bad leg. Why wasn’t he shifting? He’d heal and be stronger to fight.
She looked to her right where a path with two rutted lanes led into the woods. That could be the way to the highway or maybe ... where they’d parked a vehicle.
With keys in the ignition.
There was her fantasy imagination. She’d never been behind the wheel of an automobile, but might as well wish big.
A grunt of pain jerked her head back to the fight.
The guard had knocked Golden Eyes down and had his foot crushing the injured leg.
That turned her stomach.
The guard shouted to someone else who came walking over, grinning. He held a syringe.
Oh, no. They were going to inject the shifter on the ground, the one who had saved her from jackals. The wolves wouldn’t kill a shifter they could knock out and take captive.
Baatar was going to kill her himself if he ever found out about the decisions she’d made, but she couldn’t walk away from this.
Baatar would tell her it was shifter-on-shifter, so who cared?
She did, dammit.
When the second guard stepped around the first one to inject Golden Eyes, the wolves had their backs to her. She had her opening.
She rubbed her hands together, hoping for her rogue energy.
Nothing but sweaty palms. Damn!
Go to Plan B.
As the guard bent down to stab the syringe, she ran at top speed and plowed into the standing guard. It all happened so fast. She hit the first one, he knocked into the second guard and she landed on top of both of them.
A claw swiped her side. She cried out, but a hand gripped her arm and pulled her off those two.
“What the fuck are you doing again?” Golden Eyes yelled at her.
She yanked her arm away. “That is it! I will never save your sorry ass again, you ungrateful jerk!”
He shoved her behind him and faced the two guards, but another man showed up and growled loud like a bear. He lifted those two wolf shifters by their necks and slammed their heads together.
Looked as if Golden Eyes and his buddy had everything under control.
She started easing backwards and bumped into someone who grabbed her arms. Shit.
“You lose something, guys?” the one who had her in his grasp asked.
Golden Eyes turned to her with a look of disbelief. “Were you going to run again?”
“What do you think? You didn’t need me with all your shifter friends,” she shot back.
Golden Eyes grabbed his head. “Have you not realized how dangerous it is out here alone? If you are this determined to get yourself killed, then it shouldn’t take long.”
She gave him a pissy look. “Well, thanks for the encouragement, Mr. Doom and Gloom.”
The one that had growled like a bear, now spewed a breath trying to stop laughing as he mumbled, “She’s got your number.”
“Stuff it, bear,” Golden Eyes said, confirming her guess. She snatched her arms from the loose hold of the guy behind her.
The bear spoke softly as if talking to someone not here, but she didn’t think he was communicating with ghosts. Golden Eyes had been wearing a communication device when he rescued her from the bounty hunters, so the whole bunch probably wore them.
Golden Eyes stalked over to her.
A muffled boom shook the ground, stopping him in his tracks for only a moment before he continued to her.
She took a step back and hit that wall of muscle behind her again. The man grunted and moved away. Lifting her nose to her grouchy white-knight shifter who kept turning up like an unwanted houseguest, she said, “Who the hell are you and your friends?”
“We’re part of a domestic counterintelligence group. We protect humans and shifters from the Black River pack. We were told you might be here, and if so, we had to extract you before they harmed you.”
“What agency?” She pinned him with a fierce look, then realized she was showing her eyes and immediately dropped her gaze.
“None you’d know and why are you hiding your eyes?” he asked. “I already know they don’t match.”
She was suddenly tired of being asked, pushed and ordered. Lifting her gaze to his face, she said, “Fine. It no longer matters anyhow. You’ve pretty much screwed any chance I had of getting free.”
“We’re here to save you, dammit,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Maybe I didn’t want you saving me ... dammit.”
The bear shifter came over and said, “We’re clearing out.”
Golden Eyes asked, “Did we get the leader?”
“No. He and some of his guards fled through a tunnel booby-trapped with C-4 to implode the path. None of ours were hurt, but we can’t follow them.”
“Got it.” Golden Eyes turned back to her. “Let’s go.”
“No.”
“Shit. What now?”
She slapped her hands on her hips. “You expect me to go with you and I don’t even know who you are?”
“I told you, we’re ... ” He took a couple of deep breaths and said, “I’m Rory. What do I call you?”
His change of tone from snarling to something nicer surprised her and softened her irritation. She said, “Siofra.”
The guy she’d bumped into said, “Sheer-uh?”
“No. Sheef-rah,” she said, exaggerating it for him. Then she asked, “How did you know to look here for me?”
Golden Eyes answered, capturing her attention again. “After we saved the shifters you were captured with, the same person who had sent us after the bounty hunters found out you were in a hospital and wanted you picked up. By the time we got there, our contact learned you’d been kidnapped. Between that original resource and our ability to track almost anything, we ended up here. We have specific instructions to rescue you and deliver you to headquarters.” He paused with a thoughtful look.
Headquarters? Where was that? She asked, “Are you accusing me of a crime?”
“No.”
“But you’re not going to let me go free, are you?”
“We have orders to bring you in, but it’s for your own safety.”
She was supposed to be happy about that? She didn’t even know these people.
Some new concern entered those golden eyes. He said, “Wait. You just said maybe you didn’t want to be saved. You were a captive, right?”
Oh, crap. She’d said that in the heat of the moment, because she couldn’t seem to keep her thoughts straight around this guy. She had been a captive at first, but at the end she’d been negotiating to work with Hector’s shifters.
Admitting that would probably land her in jail.
She had to be careful how she replied to get around this shifter who would smell her lie, but she also had to avoid being locked up at all costs or she’d never find Baatar. “Those wolf shifters sent two magic users to the hospital to grab me, then they brought me here and these shifters threatened me.”
Golden Eyes and his friends said nothing.
This was going downhill fast. “I-I want a lawyer.”
“You’re not getting one,” Rory said with absolute certainty. “We’re taking you in, then you’re talking to our boss before you go anywhere else.”
“Is he a shifter ... like you?”
“No.”
Thank goodness. She felt her chest relax until Rory added, “He’s a far more powerful shifter than any of us.”
She’d thought Hector was her greatest threat ... until now.
