Magical Menages 1: Shifters' Captive (13 page)

“Wait. I think the three of us should stick together as long as possible,” she protested. “Splitting up now wasn’t what I had in mind. The combination of the three of us seems to be an important part of this.

We haven’t even discussed what happened in the ravine.”

“We shared power. And I’m ready to use my share of it.” Grant’s naked body began to shimmer; his face grew long and catlike.

“How do you even know where to go?” she called.

“Fucking cats!” John cursed as Grant loped away. “They never listen and they never plan ahead.” Sherrie watched the mountain lion’s tawny body bounding from rock to rock as it disappeared up the slope. She shivered, and a feeling of dread filled her. Intuition told her splitting up was the wrong thing to do. Evidently, Grant’s intuition said something else.

Time would prove which of them was right.

It felt good to stretch his muscles and push his body to its limit. Grant raced uphill, finding precarious footing on the slippery shale before leaping away as it crumbled beneath him. The usual sense of power he experienced while in animal form was even stronger now, enhanced by the sex he’d shared with Sherrie and Walker. The compounded energy had given him a jolt like a caffeine fix. Now he wanted to use that energy to rend Janus limb from limb. Whatever he was, whoever he was, he was going to pay for what he’d done to Marina and the others.

He counseled himself to use caution. Killing the man before they learned the extent of his power over the individuals in comas was not the plan. But knowing that didn’t ease the bloodlust pumping through Grant’s veins.

Reaching the top of the ridge, he padded along with his nose to the ground, inhaling all the delicious aromas of the forest. He was starving. The gopher snack earlier hadn’t stuck with him, but there wasn’t time to hunt now. He could feel his target getting closer. In his subconscious, the dream traveler guided him where he needed to go, his own innate knowledge sending him along the ridge toward the caves that honeycombed this part of the mountain.

Janus’s dark aura drew him. Grant wanted to see him face to face, needed to see he was solid and real, a being with a body that could be mauled and shredded. He was so focused on his goal he didn’t register his attacker until the other panther leaped on him from its perch on higher ground. Claws raked his back, and teeth dug into his neck before he could twist around to fight. It was a full-blooded wild animal, not a shifter, and therefore smaller than him, but that didn’t make its bite any less lethal.

Grant yowled in pain and surprise, a resounding cry that echoed across the valley. He shook his body, trying to dislodge the other cat, but its fangs sank deeper into the back of his neck. The unprovoked attack wasn’t natural. This was no fight over hunting grounds. The mountain lions tended to stay out of the shifters’ way and vice versa. Grant knew in his gut the panther, like the rockslide, was controlled by Janus.

He rolled onto his back, crushing the other animal’s body beneath his. The cat’s jaw loosened, and Grant ripped away, leaving a chunk of flesh behind. He twisted and landed on his feet. Claws extended, he leaped toward his opponent. If he could pin the other panther on the ground, his superior weight would hold it no matter how it twisted. Then all he had to do was bite its throat.

The other beast regained its footing, and they came together with a clash of claws and fangs. Grant became one with his animal side as he bit and ripped and growled in rage. They clashed, the smell of blood and fur rising. Locked in a lethal embrace the two cats rolled over the ground, still snapping and snarling.

Jagged stones stabbed Grant, and sharp claws tore into him.

They landed at the edge of a steep drop off with his attacker on top. Jaws open wide, the animal bit down on Grant’s throat. Fangs slipped through his thick ruff of fur and punctured his neck.

He shook his head, trying to break the animal’s grip again, but the cat clung like a burr. Grant’s vision grew hazy and dimmed around the edges. Bested by a common mountain lion? Not going to happen. With a mighty flex of his muscles, Grant twisted and rolled. His opponent loosened its jaws and Grant pulled free again. He slashed with razor sharp claws at the other panther’s belly just as the ledge of rock crumbled from beneath him.

Both animals plunged off the side of the mountain, down the steep slope.

John held Sherrie’s hand and pulled her up the rock face. “Not much farther to the top.” The hair on his nape prickled at the sense of the dangerous entity nearby. His body felt electrified as if a big thunderstorm was coming. Part of the feeling was the pending confrontation with the unknown enemy and part was the aftermath of the threesome with Sherrie and Perron. Yes, there’d been the purely pleasurable sensations of sex, but also an incredible energy flowing among them, magnified as if each were contributing to it. The power filled him still. How he could use it he had no idea, but it seemed their combined strength might be enough to defeat Janus. Why else would Sherrie have been indicated as the necessary element in their battle against him?

“We’re getting close. Can you feel him?” Sherrie panted as they reached the top of the rocks.

John nodded and clasped her hand tighter as he led her into a stand of trees. Through the branches, he glimpsed the dark, open maw of a cave in the side of the mountain. It abruptly dawned on him that he should’ve brought guns from the sports shop. Coming here unarmed except for some possible mystical powers suddenly seemed like a vastly stupid idea. Maybe he couldn’t kill their enemy for fear of hurting his victims, but there was no reason he couldn’t take him down with a shot to the leg.

He pulled Sherrie down behind a thick tree trunk. “You stay here while I run ahead and take a look.”

“Wait. What?” She grabbed for his hand and held on, stopping him from leaving. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’ve already lost Grant from him going off half-cocked. I think it’s important the three of us stick together.”

“That’s why I’m not going far. I’ll circle around to the other side of the cave where I can get a better view, but I’ll be right back.”

Before Sherrie could protest again, he tugged free from her grip and trotted through the brush, staying outside the clearing by a good distance. Even in human form he could move through the woods nearly silently, and his hearing was keen enough to catch the slight rustle of a bird flying from branch to branch.

He looked through the green fringe of leaves at the black mouth of the cave. Was this a man or something else? Where had he come from, what was his plan and why had he decided to target shifters?

John heard the snap of a twig a moment before he felt the crackling jangle of lightning enter his body.

His body jerked and his brain went numb as electricity fired through him. He spun around to catch a glimpse of his attacker.

You!
Recognition crashed over him before another jolt of the taser stole his consciousness and sent him crashing to the ground.

Stupid men
. Sherrie peered around the trunk of the tree, trying to catch a glimpse of anything other than foliage. The woods were silent except for the tiny rustles of chipmunks or birds and the shrill of tree frogs. A deerfly buzzed around her head and she swatted it, flattening it against her neck with a slap that stung her sweaty flesh.

A little bit ago, she’d heard something large moving through the underbrush some distance away, but the sound had stopped. For the past God knew how many minutes, there’d been no movement. She wished she wore a watch. She wished John would come back. Or Grant. She wished she dared move from this spot and take control of the situation. But the truth was she was afraid.

She was all alone in the wilderness near the cave of a psycho. What if she simply left, went back down the mountain, found her way to the road and hitched to the nearest town
not
inhabited by werewolves? Would that be so wrong? Any sane person would do the same. She was no hero, hadn’t asked to be a savior. Perhaps saving herself was the best thing she could do.

But even as the very viable possibility flashed through her mind, she knew she wouldn’t abandon John and Grant. She had to find out where this road led and what secret Janus claimed to know about her.

Sherrie rose, took a deep breath and shook off her anxiety as if she was about to walk onstage. She could do this, adopt another persona, perhaps a cross between Indiana Jones and Xena, and march into the jaws of danger with bravery and panache.

Still, it would be nice to have a weapon. She pawed through the backpack and found a jackknife which she slipped into her pocket, then she shouldered the pack and headed through the trees following the path John had taken. There were no broken branches or bent ferns to mark the way, and she soon gave up trying to track him. Instead, she looked toward the mouth of the cavern, keeping it always in sight through the branches as she walked. Her face prickled with sweat, and she wiped away a slick of perspiration on her throat as she slapped a mosquito this time.

Sherrie stopped stock still when she came upon a spot in the woods where the underbrush was flattened. It looked like a fight or worse had taken place here. There was a narrow path where something heavy had been dragged away. Her chest was so tight she could scarcely breathe, and her heart pounded deafeningly in her ears. The path couldn’t lead anywhere good, but what was her other option, to wait for one of the men to return and tell her what to do next? She’d never been much good at waiting or at taking directions.

Sherrie followed the path that led straight to the clearing outside the cave entrance and there Janus stood. Their meeting was almost anticlimactic. He didn’t raise a weapon to threaten her. No minions rushed to seize her. Suddenly he was simply there in front of her, an average-looking man with thinning brown hair who stood with his hands crossed primly at his groin. He wore a charcoal gray sweater with a snowflake motif, a pair of brown trousers and black boots.

Sherrie fought a ridiculous urge to give him fashion advice about the sweater as she stepped into the clearing and faced her nemesis in the flesh. “Hello.”

“You came alone.”

“You didn’t give me much choice. Where’s John?”

“Unharmed and safe. I can’t vouch for the other one.” Her stomach did a slow barrel roll at the news—one of her would-be protectors imprisoned, the other one possibly injured or dead.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “What do you want with me? What’s your big secret?”

“Come inside, sit down and have some tea.” He gestured toward the mouth of the cave. “The place is a bit primitive, but it suits my needs for now.”

Sherrie weighed her options. She’d be safer outside the cave with more chance to run away if necessary, but if she went inside she might learn something that would lead her to John. She followed Janus into the darkness.

Beyond the wide opening was a rocky chamber from which several pitch-black holes indicated tunnels leading in various directions. In the center of the space was an incongruous sitting area, a couple of canvas chairs and a camp stove on which a kettle of water steamed.

Janus waved her into one of the chairs. “This is only temporary, a base of operations, so to speak.

Someday I’ll have a house in the mountains overlooking the entire valley.”

“Mm,” Sherrie murmured, feeling as surreal as Alice down the rabbit hole. “What would an arch villain be without a lair, right?”

“Not the villain here, Ms. Stoltz.” He frowned as he filled a cup with hot water, setting a teabag afloat. “You of all people should understand that. The wolf clan kidnapped you, but I haven’t hurt a single human being and never would. Shapeshifters aren’t people. I don’t feel any qualms about siphoning off some of their power.”

Whatever you say, Dr. Evil.
“What do you hope to gain from all this, Mr. Janus?”

“I’ve already gained it—a power source that makes me untouchable and the respect of all shifters.” Sherrie had known plenty of guys with damaged egos, struggling to be heard by the world. They despised those they considered average or inferior, but deep inside it was their self-doubts that made them weak. Plenty of her fellow actors suffered from the syndrome. Janus wanted to “be somebody”, and she could work with that by feeding his ego.

“So you’re not one of them, a shapeshifter?” she asked. “Just a regular guy who’s figured out a way to use their energy? That’s amazing. How did you find out about the shifters and how did you discover how to harness their power?”

“Am I one of them?” He laughed bitterly. “There’s a story, and it’s the point where your life intersects with mine. You see, my father was a shifter, but my mother was human. She didn’t know what he was until it was too late. After he revealed his true face to her, he left her. My mother gave birth to me and brought me to the town where he’d told her he was from.”

“Browning,” Sherrie said.

“Yes.” Janus fished the teabag from the water and handed her the cup. “Needless to say my paternal grandparents and the clan weren’t happy about it, but she left me with them and went off to live her own life.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherrie said automatically. “It must have been hard to be raised as an outsider. Did you inherit any of your father’s qualities? Can you shift?”

“No. Can you?” He gazed at her intensely with his dark eyes.

“What are you getting at?” Her heart beat faster, blood surging through her veins. “Are you suggesting my father was…?” She couldn’t even say it. The thought was too preposterous. And yet, she knew absolutely nothing about the man. Her mom hadn’t had any details to share, claiming he was a one-night stand after a bender she’d prefer to forget, an incident in her sordid youth.

“Didn’t you ever feel there was something different about you, Sherrie? Didn’t you ever long for something you couldn’t put your finger on but which you desperately needed? Perhaps a birthright that had been denied you?”

“You’re claiming I’m some kind of half-breed shifter like you.” She pressed the rim of the teacup to her lips, but didn’t drink.