In Like a Lion (24 page)

Chapter 29

Jake roared, the sound far louder than anything his human chest could produce, and launched at the man who’d burst through the door seconds earlier, triggering Jake’s change.

The man from the desert, dark-haired and thin, with a face like brown leather and icy pale eyes, tried to raise his rifle to get off a shot, but Jake slammed him against the wall, claws unsheathed, piercing the man’s shirt. Blood tainted the air. His instincts called for a single, almost gentle bite to the hunter’s neck to cut off the blood supply to the brain. Jake lowered his head to deliver the kill, but the sound of breaking glass in the bathroom tore his attention from the man.

Anjali!
he called to her mentally.

No answer.

Fear stopped his heart. He abandoned the man he held and leaped at the bathroom door, smashing into it with the full weight of his huge body and breaking the cheap lock.

He was just in time to see Anjali’s limp legs disappearing out the broken window.

He snarled and jumped at the window. Glass pricked his pads as he braced his paws on the sill, but he could never fit through. All he could do was helplessly watch them carry Anjali away.

Anger warred with relief. If she were dead, they wouldn’t bother taking her away.

He spun to go out the front door to chase her captors down, but a streak of fire burned his hide, and he whirled to confront the man he’d left standing.

The wound incited the lion to rage. He struggled to keep his focus though every particle of the lion wanted to destroy.

He bounded to the door, but the man fired again.

The bullet hit him like a fist to the chest, knocking his feet from under him, and bringing him crashing to the floor. The man pointed his rifle and prepared to unload into Jake.

Unable to move, Jake quailed inside at what might happen to Anjali if he died. He screamed her name inside his head and dug deep for the strength to change.

Except for after the snakebite, he’d never had so much trouble transforming. It was like slogging through mud, and seemed to take forever. He could hear the click of the trigger as he reformed into the dragon. The slug in his body dropped to the floor. The repeated crack of the rifle deafened him. Bullets ricocheted off his scales and plowed into the drywall and the bed.

Ping.

Another ricochet
.

Jake followed the bullet as it bounced off his scale directly back toward the shooter.

The man gasped and clutched the spreading stain on his tan cotton shirt. His eyes lost the spark of life. He crumpled.

Jake squeezed his eyes shut. Another body to add to his count.

The dragon was too big for the room. He couldn’t even fit through the door. He tried to change so he could go after Anjali, but nothing happened. Though he’d removed the bullet by changing, he was still weak from shock and loss of blood.

He couldn’t transform.

Kyle’s shoes crunched on the gravel surrounding a construction site as he followed his brother’s scent away from the strip. The scent had drifted, pooling around the base of buildings, and diverging in open spaces, and he damned the time he’d wasted sleeping. After arriving back in Las Vegas he’d called John to check the status of their guest, and his friend had reminded him he couldn’t help his brother if he was too tired to hold human shape. So he’d bowed to his body’s needs and checked into a hotel to get some shut-eye.

The scent trail was old. For all he knew Jake was already out of town. But the woman’s scent was still entwined with Jake’s and it was colored by the same shadings that distinguished Jake from the rest of the population.

Dr. Mehta was a chimera.

So Jake had found his mate
. Ky shook off a twinge of envy. He was glad his brother would have an anchor, would never lose himself to the beasts inside him.

And more importantly for his search, Jake would want to protect his mate. He would make sure she was rested before moving on.

Knowing his brother wouldn’t have many resources, he’d figured Jake might have to come to the strip to get cash, so after he’d awakened, he’d trolled the casinos until he found his brother’s scent at the MGM Grand.

He adjusted for drift and followed the trail around the corner. Jake’s scent led him to a cheap two-story motel.

His pulse picked up speed in anticipation. Was Jake still here? Was he finally going to meet his brother?

Pop. Pop. Pop
. Gunfire. The sound prodded Ky into a run. His heart pounded in rhythm with the strike of his feet on the pavement.

An SUV peeled from behind the motel. Kyle leapt out of the way. The smell of burned rubber filled the air as he watched the vehicle skid around a corner. The breeze carried the smell away and another odor sent a shaft of fear through his chest.

Blood.

Jake expected more assailants to come through the door any second. The dark-haired man’s blood soaked the low-pile carpet and spread toward Jake.

He tried to move, but the space was too tight. He had to change back. Though his scales gave him protection, if he couldn’t move, nothing would stop his enemies from marching right up and shooting him in a vulnerable area.

Outside, a car engine revved. Tires squealed on the street. He stretched his senses. They were taking Anjali away.

He pictured Anjali at Kincaid’s mercy and dredged deep for the energy to change. Finally human, he braced his hands on the floor to get his equilibrium and attempted to stand.

His legs buckled.

Suddenly a man was there, supporting him. Jake’s hand shot out and collared the stranger around the throat, jerking him down to his level so he could see the man’s face. “Who are you?”

A band of gold rippled through the stranger’s green eyes. He exuded a powerful sense of leashed menace, but something about him seemed familiar.

“Jake, it’s me, Kyle. Your brother.”

Chapter 30

At once, Jake recognized the voice from the phone.

And the face, except for the color of his eyes, was similar to his own.

He dropped his hand.

Ky studied him, eyes narrowed, and rubbed his neck. “I guess you’re not as bad off as I thought.”

Jake accepted his brother’s help to the bed. “Bad enough. Some of the bullets were in me.”

Ky handed him the clothes Jake had flashed out of when Kincaid’s man came through the door. “You need some food. Changing will heal wounds, but it won’t replace blood loss.”

Jake finished dressing and grabbed his new sneakers. “I’ll have to eat on the way. They’ve taken Anjali.”

“Lost them again, Gareth?” Clara leaned on his desk, a smirk lit her eyes. She tilted her head. “All because you don’t want to waste a drop of your precious ‘formula.’”

Gareth placed his phone on his blotter. “There’s no reason the hunter shouldn’t have been able to take Finn.”

Clara arched a carefully pruned brow.

“And for your information, I sent some of the drug with Anders. They have Dr. Mehta.”

“But not the chimera.”

The smirk was back, and Gareth took great satisfaction in her ignorance of Dr. Mehta’s transformation.

He smiled. “I’m told the hunter was killed and Finn likely survived, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll come here after his mate. And we have plenty of my ‘precious formula’ to ensure he never poses a problem again.”

Jake stared out Kyle’s rental car window without really seeing the road. The need to get to Anjali tugged at his body like a magnet, while worry, fear, and anger swirled through him with disturbing magnitude. Was Anjali all right? What would Kincaid do if he discovered she could change?

He forced himself to eat another burger. He’d already disposed of five and could feel his strength returning. But the surge of energy was a mixed-blessing. He could feel the lion stirring, awakened by his turbulent emotions. The car suddenly felt like a prison cell.

He gripped the door handle, sweat chilling his face. His newly won control seemed to be slipping.

The looks Kyle kept shooting him were sharp. His eyes glowed green. “Master it, Jake. If you change, it might trigger me, and a dragon won’t fit in this car.”

Jake wrestled the lion back into his cage, focusing hard on taming his emotions. “Not a lion?” His words were short as he fought back the urge to change.

“The dragon is my primary shift. I take it yours is the lion?”

Jake nodded and swiped his forehead with his sleeve. He gritted his teeth and redoubled his fight for control. He forced himself to ignore the pull of his connection to Anjali, reaching for anything to keep his mind off it. “So, how come I never heard of you before?”

Kyle’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “It’s a long story.”

The road hummed beneath the tires. Silence settled over them.

Jake took a swig of water from a bottle. “We got time.”

Kyle’s eyes were intent as he maneuvered around a slow-moving truck. He was silent for several long seconds and Jake could almost feel the other man fighting to suppress his emotions. “I’ve searched for you and the others since I was sixteen. I was in foster care myself until then.”

“And now you own a restaurant?”

“Several.” He named a number of well-known establishments sprinkled throughout the country.

Jake whistled. “You’ve done well.”

Kyle’s cheekbones colored. “I got my stake at Belmont racetrack. Our superior sense of smell helped me identify the horses that were at their peak.”

Jake examined the gray vinyl of the dashboard. “It’s better than robbing people.”

“Is that what you did?”

Jake glanced at his brother. “How much do you know about me?”

Kyle shrugged. “Just what my private investigator could find out.” He rubbed the nape of his neck. “You were still a baby when Mom died, so you were adopted really quickly, but the adoption fell through and you ended up in foster care.” His face was stark. “I know about your foster father, but after that you disappeared until three years ago. If my P.I. weren’t a witch, I don’t know if she would have found you at all.”

Jake adjusted the AC vent. “That was the idea. Kincaid was always a step behind me.” He laughed, though there was no humor behind it. “When I moved to Hollywood, I actually felt safer. I figured the last place he’d search for me would be his own backyard.”

Jake shook his head. “He had me convinced I was sick, but I spent every second I was caged fighting against the need to escape.”

“Yeah, we don’t take captivity well. Probably why none of us lasted in foster care very long. I think I hold the record.”

“What I don’t understand is how Kincaid knew about me.”

“I don’t know, but LA was where we were when our father died.”

The information stopped Jake cold. “You knew our father?” The words seemed to stick in his throat.

“I was lucky enough to have two parents for six years of my life.”

Jake couldn’t even imagine what that might have been like.

He supposed he’d had it easy. He’d never known anything else, but Kyle had been wrenched from a loving home, and thrust into the indifferent care of the foster system.

He’d seen kids like that, bewildered, lost, perpetually waiting for someone who never came. But he couldn’t deny a hint of jealousy.

When he was growing up he would have given both arms for even the slightest bit of information about his parents, and Kyle had known both. “What happened to them?”

Kyle’s eyes narrowed, searching the horizon for a moment. “Chimeras don’t last long without their mates. After our father was killed, Mom followed within the year.

“Mated chimeras can live hundreds of years unless their mates are killed. Our paternal grandparents were born in the Seventeen hundreds and died during the blitz in World War II. Unmated, we rarely make it past thirty.”

While Jake processed the ramifications of this, Kyle continued. “We need our mates to root us in our human form. Otherwise our feral natures can take over.

“There was a case in Kenya, in a place called Tsavo, of two lions preying on railroad workers. They terrorized the men for months and then disappeared for six months before returning and killing again.” His mouth tightened as he met Jake’s gaze. “They weren’t lions at all, They were chimeras.”

Jake glanced at his brother. “And how old are you?”

Kyle stared at his hands. “Too old.”

Jake set his teeth. He was only twenty-seven, but now he could see he’d been hanging on by a thread.

Without Anjali he might already have surrendered to his lion. But Kyle was clearly unmated. Even sitting there just driving, the sense another larger creature lurked inside hung like a shadow over him. If anyone gave off the sense of being a loaded bomb, Kyle Mara did.

Chapter 31

Anjali sat up, took stock of her surroundings, and groaned.

She’d hoped her last memory had been part of a bad dream. No such luck.

Her surroundings were very familiar, although she’d never been on this side of the bars.

She was in Jake’s cell. Someone had put her on the bed. That was something, she supposed. At least they hadn’t dumped her on the floor.

Gareth Kincaid’s face beamed down on her from his position outside the cell. His hands buried deep in his suit pockets, he rocked back on his heels. “Awake at last.”

Her newly enhanced sense of smell detected a flowery cologne she’d never noticed he wore. Then she realized what she smelled was the sweet scent of triumph. Coming from her former boss, the odor made her want to gag.

Anjali refrained from commenting on his statement of the obvious. She stood, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’d better re-think this, Mr. Kincaid. Maybe you could get away with holding Jake, a runaway foster kid with no family, but people are already searching for me.”
There.
She thought she’d done a bang-up job of hiding her frustration and fear.

Yeah, Anjali. Why don’t you stick your tongue out at him, too?

Gareth tsked. “Yes, I heard rival gangs had a shoot-out in your apartment building and some fool brought a pet lion. No one will be surprised when they eventually find your body.”

Terror wrapped cold arms around her. “If you wanted me dead, why am I still alive?”

“No, no, no. I’m not going to tip my hand, my dear, except to say, you make lovely bait.” He left Anjali gaping at him, as she tried to understand what he might still be hiding. The whole bait thing could hardly be more obvious.

She was struck by the feeling she had fallen into a strange new world where everything appeared the same as the old, but was subtly different—subtly evil.

She had trusted Gareth Kincaid, liked him, but she’d been nothing more than a pawn to him. A pawn in a convoluted game with rules only he understood. His betrayal stung.

Anjali went to the bars and put her hands on them. They were too thick for her smaller hands. She remembered how Jake had wrapped his hands around them the first time they’d met. The power and strength in him made her shiver in memory.

He was alive. Kincaid’s words about bait made that clear.

A wave of fear rolled over her. He intended to draw Jake here. Here, where they had held him for so long. Here, where they could kill him.

I guess I shouldn’t break it to him the big fat-headed
lallu
was coming here anyway.

A fist squeezed her chest with crushing force. She would rather die herself than see him hurt.
Damnit. No matter how hard she had tried to resist he’d still become vital to her.

She had to find a way to warn him off.

But how?

The connection between them had weakened to a light tugging sensation. Perhaps due to Kincaid’s drug or maybe things had changed now that they’d mated, there was no way to know.

They’d been able to speak telepathically in lion form. Maybe she could reach him now?

Jake
? she called with her mind, praying he could hear her, but there was no answer. The drug? Or was he just too far away?

She tried again and again, tapping her head on the cell with each failure. The icy bar seared her heated forehead on contact. Equally cold tears glazed her cheeks. She dashed them away and began to pace.

Her agitation opened the door for the lioness. She roared within, begging to be let out. Anjali toyed with the idea of letting go, but ultimately shoved the thought away. If Kincaid didn’t know she could shift, it would be the height of stupidity to give him the information.

She strode to the mirror over the sink, a metallic reminder that Jake had been a prisoner here, that they hadn’t even dared trust him with a tiny piece of glass.

The woman in the mirror seemed like such a wimp. Her hair was a tangled mess down her back, her eyes dark with fatigue and worry. She growled at her reflection.

Despite her appearance, she was strong. She didn’t need rescue.

If she could escape, Jake wouldn’t have to come near this place.

She called out again with her mind.
Jake?

Anjali.

She could hear the relief in his voice and it warmed her.

Don’t come here, Jake. It’s a trap
.

I know. But I can handle it. Just sit tight. Don’t give them a reason to hurt you.

I’m a chimera, Jake. I don’t need Prince Charming to come to the rescue.

Good. Because we’re all out of Prince Charmings. All we’ve got left are Beasts.

“She cut me off.” Jake turned to Kyle. Anger tussled with relief at hearing her voice. “I can’t believe it.”

Kyle smirked. “Maybe I don’t want a mate after all.”

“Turn here,” Jake directed his brother.

“This is a stupid idea, you know?” Kyle focused on the road as he turned. “Traps 101.”

Jake only grunted, too caught up in his spinning emotions to speak.

“I’m sorry. Is my planning getting in the way of your brooding?”

Jake grinned reluctantly. He was coming to like his brother. “The place is a fortress. I should know. I tried to escape enough times. A frontal assault is my best bet. With so many cameras around these days, he can’t do anything to me on the street. In order to kill me, he’ll have to let me in.”

“Us.”

“What?” Acting alone was second nature for Jake. It’d never occurred to him to ask his brother for help.

They’d had a long talk in the car. Kyle had shown him video he had of Jake as a child and told him stories he remembered of their mother and father. This family of his was suddenly real.

“Let
us
in.”

“I appreciate the offer, but it’s not your fight.” At first, as Kyle had shared the details of their childhood, Jake found himself getting angry. Angry at his parents for dying, his mother for putting him up for adoption, his brother for abandoning him. But despite the fact that Kyle had been little more than a child himself, Jake could see that his older brother’s vow to rescue and protect his brothers was a sacred trust Kyle couldn’t forgive himself for breaking.

Moreover, past thirty and unmated, his brother held onto his human side by little more than a hairsbreadth. “Kincaid is a human virus. No way are you going anywhere near him.”

“Hey, I’m the big brother here. I’m not losing you now.” Kyle’s features were set. “I’ve got your back.”

Jake opened and closed his mouth, unsure of what to say.

After being alone for so long, the idea of having someone to back him up was almost beyond his comprehension. He studied his brother’s resolute face, a face strikingly similar to his own.

They were blood, and though fate had stolen his chance to grow up with his brothers, he knew in his heart he would brave the devil himself to save them.

A gleaming bit of fang peeked out from under Kyle’s upper lip. “It’s not open for debate.”

Besides, how the hell could he stop Kyle from coming, anyway?

Jake stuck out his hand. “Glad to have you, brother.”

Jake could see several guards standing outside the front doors of the Kincaid building as Kyle drove toward the structure.

One of them spoke into a phone, his keen gaze on the approaching car.

Kyle pulled over, then eyed Jake. “You sure you want to do this now? We could at least wait until dark and take out their electricity.”

Jake shook his head. “You don’t know Kincaid. I can’t leave Anjali in that bastard’s hands for a second longer.”

Kyle inhaled deeply. “All right then. You ready?”

Jake’s heart was doing drum rolls in his chest. All he could think of was Anjali. What had Kincaid done to her? He’d never felt so afraid.

Summoned by the emotion, the lion stalked his prison. He struggled to keep that side of him restrained.

Changing in the street wasn’t part of the plan.

Mastering his emotions, he nodded at last. “I’m ready. You remember what I told you?”

“Every word.”

Jake nodded again, put his hand on the handle, and opened the door.

Kyle drove off, leaving Jake alone in front of the Kincaid Building, the harsh light of sunset striking his face.

Standing there in the street, dread swept over him. The facility with its sleek modern lines seemed poised like a vulture over him, ready to swoop down on him at any moment.

This place, this building, had been his jail for so long. He’d never wanted to see it again. He steeled himself as the guards approached.

“Would you come this way, Mr. Finn?”

Mr
. Finn. They were minding their manners for any witnesses or cameras. The nearest guard reached out to touch him, and Jake flinched away.

The lion prowled eagerly in his cage. The slightest provocation might set him off.

Jake cast a glance behind him at the street and then allowed them to lead him inside.

Ky’s phone rang as he shut off the car’s engine in the nearby parking lot where Jake had told him to wait.

Seeing it was John, he answered, a jolt of fear running through him. “I don’t have much time. How is our guest?”

“Same as when you left.”

Ky ran a hand through his hair, relived. “Good. When I saw it was you, I was afraid something had gone wrong.”

“That’s not why I’m calling. About Jake—”

Ky groaned. “Damn, John. You should see what they’ve done to him. He barely even looks at me.”

“Maybe he has good reason.” John spoke slowly, as if measuring his words.

“What do you mean?” Ky tensed.

“They’ve started releasing information about what happened at Dr. Mehta’s apartment.” John’s voice was grave.

“Yeah?”

“Ky, it was a bloodbath. He ripped those men apart.”

“You think he’s lost?” Ky shook his head. “No. I’ve spent time with him. He was having trouble staying in human form, but he was rational.”

“You know as well as I do that chimeras who go feral are capable of hiding it. They can even have long periods of lucidity. I’m just saying, be prepared.”

“He’s mated, John.” Ky stared out the window at the darkening sky without really seeing it, his chest tight. The implications of John’s words made the confines of the car seem to constrict. “If I have to take him out, he’s not the only one who’ll die. We’ll lose her, too.”

“Better to lose them both than an innocent. You know that.”

Ky swallowed and bit back a low growl, closing his eyes against the grim truth. “I do.”