Night Hungers (12 page)

Bradley Wolfe nearly got his head removed and would have too if Zane had not recognized him from the bar. As he tumbled to the floor with her weight thrown against him he never shifted or retaliated, but waited for her to make the first move. Zane thought he was smarter than he looked.

~CHAPTER 13~

Bradley waited. He wasn’t just afraid of her, but terrified. He was an alpha of his own kind, but she was a cat and not wolf. And she was fucking huge. He knew he could probably kill her, his wolf was actually snarling at him to do so, but he needed help.

When she shifted to human he’d never been so happy in his life.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here? I could have killed you, you moronic jackass. Ever hear of break and—”

The back door flew open and crashed against the wall, breaking glass and panes in it.

Bradley found himself being tossed against the wall this time. For the second time in five minutes someone was trying to kill him. Aiden wasn’t as easy to calm either.

Aiden’s mate had been challenged. And she had probably been scared. Bradley knew just how he felt. If anyone had done anything like he’d done to his mate, Bradley knew that he’d kill them.

Bradley looked into the vampire’s blood red eyes and tried to remain calm. “Your brother sent me here to find Zane and you. Someone has taken Emma. I’ve come to ask Zane to help find her.”

“Damn it, Aiden! Look what you did to this door. You’re fucking paying for it. And to have this mess cleaned up.”

Bradley couldn’t figure out why she was going on about that when a child was missing, but Aiden suddenly seemed to snap out of it. She was distracting him, calming his beast. When Aiden let Bradley go, he leaned back against the cabinet even as his own mate reached out to him.

“You do know how to stir up trouble, don’t you? I told you to call her. I knew this
was going to happen, didn’t I tell you that?”

Bradley bristled. He didn’t need her to start in on him too. He looked over at the couple standing arguing about the door and smiled. Damn but they were a furious pair.

“Hush, woman. I won’t bring you home any apple dumplings if you don’t behave. I
have it on good authority that Cade has been baking since she and Kyle came into town.”

That shut her up. Bradley cleared his throat as the two in front of him seemed to have forgotten about him. He had to clear his throat twice more before they looked at him.

“I’m going after the kid. You stay here and guard the door since you broke it. And when the repair—”

“She’s my niece and I’m going. You stay here and guard the door. You’re too hurt to go out anyway. Just tell me what you know.” Bradley thought Zane was going to hit Aiden, but wisely shut up.

Just when they looked to start on each other again Bradley spoke up. “I have a pack pup that’ll stay with the door. I’ll pay for the repair. Just please, for the love of all that’s holy, just stop bickering at each other! Christ, you act like you hate each other.”

Zane glared at him before she spoke. “I’m going as a cat. If you can keep up then you can go.” She turned to Bradley. “If you let me sip your blood, I’ll—”

The growl emanating from Aiden had his wolf stir. Mates could be dangerous.

Especially this close to another alpha. But Zane didn’t get it or, more than likely, didn’t care.

“Oh grow up, you oversized ape. When we need your pack I’ll contact you. Deal?”

Bradley looked at Aiden. He knew what the vamp was going through. But Zane was right; she had to take his blood. She could take his blood without causing a conflict with Aaron, Aiden’s master. At Aiden’s nod and Zane’s eye roll, Bradley held out his finger for her to prick. A quick swipe of her tongue and she shifted. A graceful move, from human to panther in an instant. Aiden shifted as well. His panther was twice that of Zane’s, but both were muscled and dangerous. When Zane touched his mind she was already out the broken door with Aiden looping after her.

“There’s a pager on the counter I left for you. Call the number on the screen and tell
him I’m engaged. If he asks you to verify you have to say, ‘the rain in Spain falls mainly
in the plains.’ Tell him what I’m doing and that I search.”

“Are you kidding me? If he asks me to say that with an accent, you’ll pay.”
Bradley could feel her laughter as he dialed. He recognized the voice at the other end immediately. “Griff?”

“Yes, my lord. How are you this fine evening? Well I hope.”

Bradley thought this night couldn’t get any more surreal. “Fine. And yourself? Zane asked me to call this number and tell you she was engaged.”

Laughter greeted him. Bradley sat in one of the kitchen chairs and waited. He didn’t have long.

“The child? She goes for it then. Good. The family is frantic and has called the queen. I will need for you to verify, sire. It is important.”

Bradley repeated the line from one of his favorite movies and wondered how Audrey Hepburn would feel about its current usage. Then realized it was as good as any in its password usage.

When the two of them hung up Bradley called his friend and master of this vampire realm, Aaron. And within a few minutes, the two men were sitting in the living room enjoying Zane’s big screen television, confident in the two people who were searching for the small child.

~~~

Aiden followed Zane as she raced through the woods. She was beautiful as a woman, but as a panther, she was magnificent. Even as a matched panther, he wanted to cover her. But he had to find Emma.

“Do you know who has her and why? My brother Tristan is pounding against my
head for information. Any information.”

“I’m going to have to wait on the queen to give me permission to give him anything.

She isn’t...I’m not able to contact her. She has to contact me first,”
Zane whispered back to him.

Aiden frowned at that. She could reach anyone she wanted with just a drop of blood, but she couldn’t contact the queen. That didn’t make sense to him.

“Why not? Why can’t you contact her? You should have taken her blood long before
now, I would think.”

Aiden felt her anger. It was hot and sharp. For some reason the scent of her anger aroused him and he could feel his beast, the vampire, respond to it.

“Is sex all you ever think about? Christ! I can’t contact her anymore because
I...because I was a bit of a nuisance when she first ordered me to go work for her. Now if
I try, she...she can be a real bitch when she wants to be.”

Aiden found himself smiling at that. That was twice now that people had warned him about the queen. Remembering that she had contacted him once before Aiden visualized her and reached for her. He didn’t expect it to work. Vampires could only contact through blood. It was a more intimate path for mates, but he tried anyway.

“Hello, Aiden. Yes, I’m aware of what’s going on. And I’ll talk to my employee in a
bit. You should know that the man who has your niece is the one who shot up your
master’s home. I’m sure that Zane knows it already. If you would just mate with her then
you’d—”

“No. She is going to have a choice in this. I’m sorry, my lady, but I’ll give her this
for as long as I can. I believe it is important to her. To us.”

“Well, don’t wait too long, Aiden. I don’t like to see her like this. Did she tell you
why she works for me?”
Aiden could feel her frustration.
“No, don’t answer that. She
wouldn’t unless I let her. I’ll contact her, but Aiden? You need to at least exchange blood
with her. It’s important.”

Aiden could feel her move out of his mind, but not completely. There was a small touch of her still there that he’d never felt before. He was about to speak to Zane about it when she stopped suddenly.

“I don’t know the little girl’s scent. But I know that Sinclair has been this way. Can
you scent her?”

Aiden raised his head and struck out his tongue to hopefully pull more of her in. Just as he was about to say he couldn’t, he found her.

“Yes. I can smell her this way. I can—”

“Wait! Aiden, it’s a trap. Don’t go that way. She isn’t that way. Sinclair went this
way.”

Aiden turned to look at Zane.
“I know my own niece and she is this way. I’ve been
around her a lot longer than you, Zane. I think I’d know a trap if I saw one.”

Zane’s anger hit him again. This time, he felt it was unjustified.
“Oh! So just
because you’re as old as rock and as thick-headed as one, you are naturally right? I’m
telling you it’s a trap. If you go that way, I’m leaving your sorry ass there.”

“And I’m telling you we’re going this way. Come on. We have to get her back. It’s
nearly dawn.”
Aiden decided to ignore the rock and his head reference. She was hurt and obviously in a great deal of pain.

Aiden didn’t turn to see if Zane followed, confident in his ability to make her listen to him. He loped over a felled tree just as the first dart hit him. Then another. He felt his body stagger even as three more darts hit him. His last thought before he fell to the ground was that he was never going to live this down.

~CHAPTER 14~

Zane knew the exact moment that Aiden fell. She didn’t turn back to get him, but reached into the earth and asked it to pull him to safety. The part of her that was fae worked to save the arrogant idiot and she could feel the soil respond to her request. No one would find him either.

Zane could almost see the trail that Sinclair tried to hide. That was actually what Zane was planning to follow. She knew that is where the little girl would be. She came upon the child tied to a tree as soon as she cleared the forest. Zane stayed her cat and circled the area several times looking for the secondary trap. She had already spotted the first one. It was tripwires set all over the ground.

All around the tree in different intervals were small incendiary devices attached to branches and trees ready to trip if she made a wrong move. She could see them well enough, almost too well. The little girl crying was getting to her so Zane shifted to try and calm her.

“Look, kid, I need to try and get you out of this. My name is Zane. I know your parents. They sent me. Your Uncle Aiden too. I have to figure this out so I can get you.

Understand?” The kid nodded, the gag in her mouth preventing her from speaking. “See the wires all along the ground? They’ll blow if I trip them. But I think there’s something more. Do you know what else he did to stop me from getting over there?”

The kid looked up with her eyes. That’s when Zane noticed the wire around her throat—a garrote. Zane looked up into the tree and saw the pulley system then. Moving to around the back again Zane had it figured out.

“Okay, kid, here’s the deal. The wire around your neck is to remove your head if I try and cut it. But if I cut it, then the one around your wrists will sever your hands. My first instinct would have been to cut the one at your throat. But your wrists slit would mean an instant death.” Zane realized she was scaring the kid and tried to think of how to keep her from crying again. “Don’t, okay? I’ve got it. You’re not gonna lose any parts.

Just stop fu...stop crying, okay?”

Shifting back to panther, because it was easy for her to hold the shape as she was familiar with her, Zane leapt over four of the trip wires. As the cat, she could also jump further. Leaping the last five feet Zane moved slowly toward the kid as she shifted. “I’m not going to take your gag off yet. But I will cut a slit in the tape for you to talk. Don’t make me regret doing it, okay? I have to think.” Pulling the blade at her ankle, Zane knelt down in front of the little girl. “Pull your tongue all the way back in your mouth. Then open your lips as wide as you can for me.” When Emma did that, Zane cut a slit in the tape for her.

“You’re very rude, did you know that? Momma said people should say ‘please’ and

‘thank you.’ You never say either.”

“Well, this isn’t a tea party, kid, so we do it my way. Am I going to have to tape your mouth back up? Good. What were you doing when he snatched you anyway?” Zane walked around the tree. “You should be more careful. There are a lot of sick people out there.”

“I was in my bed. I want my momma. Can’t you just let me go, please? I need to pee and I want to go home.”

The wire around Emma’s wrist was cutting her. Blood was beginning to trickle down her small wrists. The lead wire went up the tree then around her throat. If Zane cut the one around Emma’s throat, the weight—in this case, a huge boulder—would drop and take both her hands off. If Zane cut the one around her wrist, the weight would still fall and cut through her throat. Emma was never meant to live.

Zane had to do something about the counter weight. Going behind the tree, this time to shift, Zane turned into a small jay. Going to the branch just above the boulder, she could now see what she wanted. Flying down to the ground, she landed again behind the tree and shifted to human. It was extremely difficult to hold the shape of something so small and Zane’s exhausted body couldn’t hold it that well anyway.

“Okay, kid. This is what we’re going to do. I have to cut the boulder down. It’s going to come down really fast so I need you not to move. If you move when I have to come down fast to catch it, I might trip over you, then you and I both are screwed. I need to know where you are all the time. Get it? If you do what I tell you, you’ll be fine and I can get you home.”

“I’m afraid. What if you fall anyway? Then I’ll be smashed and you won’t tell my momma where I am.”

“I’m sorry, kid. I don’t know any other way. We have to do it now. I still have to save your stupid uncle’s butt yet.”

“My Uncle Aiden is not stupid. You should be nice to people. I’m nice.” Zane raised a brow at that. “Okay. I’ll sit really still. But if you get me dead, I’m not going to like you very much.”