Tempting the Tiger (3 page)

She was terrified when Clara told her it was time to part ways. She wanted to beg Clara to take her along, but she knew she couldn’t. Clara still didn’t trust her. For the first time in her life, Amia was on her own. So she moved, kept traveling, using roadside parks and keeping away from major traffic roadways as much as possible. She had no idea where to go. She’d never been far from the mountain that held Blane Farms.

She managed to succeed for six weeks before the Blanes found her. She was too malnourished to put up much of a struggle when they forced her into the truck and took her back to the farm. It was hard to realize nothing had changed since she’d left. Nothing but her, and how they viewed her.

She was thrown from the truck into the yard as soon as they arrived. Her father was there, and his eyes showed nothing but cold rage as he kicked her hard in the belly with his boot. She gasped, heaved and curled in a ball trying to protect herself.

“The traitor has been found,” he screamed. “We’ll need to teach her a lesson about what happens to those who betray hunter code, to those who break hunter law.”

Screams and shouts echoed around her, and fists flew in the air as the ones she’d once been a part of now took pleasure in her capture. It brought her back to the day her life had changed, the day they’d dragged Clara in. She couldn’t hold back the shudder of fear as she recalled vividly the state Clara had been in when Amia saw her chained to the wall.

Marcus squatted down by her, and for the briefest of moments, she thought he meant to forgive her, to stop whatever was already in motion. She should have known better.

“There is no crime worse than betraying family. You’ve shamed me for the last time. I had such plans for you. Now you’ll serve as an example to anyone else who might think of betraying us. You will be punished until you beg for death, until you wish for it with every gasping breath you take. And it will be denied. You can run. You can hide. But we will always find you, and you will always be punished.” He stood, facing the crowd once more. “No mercy,” he yelled.

“No mercy!” the crowd answered back.

“Kellan, I trust you to see she learns her lesson well.” Her father didn’t even spare her a glance now, as if the kiss of his boot had been enough of a farewell.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Kellan stated with a nod. “You two.” He pointed to a couple of the men gathered watching. “With me.” The look in his eyes when he finally met her gaze promised her pain and retribution.

They dragged her to the barn by her hair, with her kicking and screaming the whole way. She used both hands to try and yank the hands from her hair and felt several strands rip free of her scalp along the way. She was pinched and scraped with ragged fingernails as they stripped her clothes from her and chained her to the wall. She was naked and exposed, and Kellan made a point of letting his gaze rake over her leisurely as he ran his hand over the display of weapons. She braced herself, waiting for the floggers, recalling the bloody welts they’d left on Clara’s skin. But Kellan reached for his favorite weapon instead, and the blood drained from her head.

“No,” she moaned in terror. “Please, Kellan. Not that one.”

A grin tugged at his lips, and she realized she’d just made her first serious mistake. Now he knew for sure which of the weapons she feared the most.

“No mercy.” Kellan said, flicking the whip out so it cracked in the air right beside her.

“No mercy!” the two men with him repeated.

He pulled the whip back and with a snap of his wrist sent it flying at her this time. She felt the vicious bite followed by a searing, burning pain as the skin split and the blades sliced deep gashes across her skin. He gave her two more lashes with it, each landing perfectly atop the other so she would carry the scars of this punishment always. If she managed to live.

She felt ripped apart from his strikes. Each had caught her just beneath her left breast and sliced across her stomach to the top of her right hip. She could feel the blood dripping from her and blinked several times as she dropped her head to stare at the coating of red on her skin. But Kellan wasn’t done.

Now came the floggers, and no part of her was safe from their reach as the three men closed in a semi-circle around her. She was barely conscious by the time they finished. Her voice was almost gone, broken from the screams they’d ripped from her, and now she was reduced to animalistic moans and grunts. She fell into Kellan’s arms when her bonds were released. She had no idea where he was carrying her or what awaited her now.

His touch was gentle as he lay her on a firm surface, and that gentleness alone should have warned her. But her lids were firmly closed as she hovered somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. She didn’t even flinch as he stroked his hands over her skin rubbing some type of ointment onto her many marks. She no longer felt the pain from the whip, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“I could have made you moan with pleasure,” he vowed as he ran his hands over her breasts and thighs. “You could have had everything a woman needs,” he grunted, rubbing something on her stomach where she knew her flesh was torn apart. The burn was immense, and she jerked with a silent scream her voice was unable to release. There was only the sound of her moaning in pain while he wrapped something around her stomach, binding her wound tightly. “We could have been happy.”

She would have never been happy or taken pleasure in his touch. He offered nothing she needed.

“Let me die,” she groaned, her voice barely a whisper as pain unlike any she’d ever known consumed her. But he heard her anyway.

“You won’t die. But you will learn a lesson you’ll never forget.”

She felt him move away from her.

“Open your eyes, Amia.”

She shook her head and was rewarded with the crack of his palm across her cheek.

“I said open your fucking eyes!”

She blinked them open slowly, feeling her defiance start to die away at the possibility of more pain. Instead, her breath caught in her chest as she realized where she was and what he had planned. She lay still, her entire body seized by terror as the lid slowly lowered closer to her face.

“No.” She wanted it to be a scream. In her head, it was. In reality, it was a barely formed sound of denial even as the lid closed, and she heard the bolt slam into place.

Her heartbeat galloped, and strength she thought had deserted her reappeared with a vengeance as she bucked and fought. Too late, though, too late to change her fate. Strength quickly faded, and she began whimpering as reality set in. She was buried alive beneath a layer of concrete and at the whim of people she had betrayed. Would they ever let her out? Or was this where they would keep her until either her fear or hunger killed her?

Later, she would realize she’d spent three days in the chamber that first time. They made her clean it when they released her. She was their prisoner for three weeks before she’d healed enough to look for an opportunity to escape again. It took them six months to catch her the second time. During those six months, she managed to slip in and free two people right from under their noses. They never knew she was there.

She was taught another lesson and learned it hurt even worse when scar tissue was ripped open. She learned there was no torture more guaranteed to break her than a stay in the chamber. And she learned what strength was. She discovered how it felt to be beaten and shocked, how it felt to have a knife blade slice deep and what a gunshot felt like as it pierced her shoulder. That one had taken a while to heal, and the raised scar where the bullet still remained was just one more to add to her list.

But she found out what she was made of, and how far she was willing to go to rescue those who needed her help, those with an unmistakable glow just as Clara had displayed. Amia vowed she would always escape, always find ways to rescue anyone she could from the Blanes. And she learned no matter how well she hid, how cautious she tried to be, no one ever really escaped the Blane family, especially the former daughter of Marcus Blane.

Chapter Two

Current Day

“How are you feeling?” Reno asked Abby as he walked into the living room to join the group.

Diane was there, though he knew she’d been reluctant to leave her lab even at Tah’s request. Reno had almost expected her to argue with their pride leader, but even Diane wasn’t that clueless. Tah got what he wanted. And right then, they all wanted answers.

“I’m good.” Abby rubbed her hand over the mound of her belly.

She was only ten weeks and already looked as if she was more than halfway through her pregnancy. Diane was concerned the baby was growing more along the lines of a lion’s gestation period, which was only around fifteen weeks on average. So Abby’s body was changing too drastically in too short of a period of time. According to Tah, Abby was starting to show the wear and tear in sleepless nights and aches and pains. The man was on edge and worried, and they couldn’t afford to have him that way. Not when they were trying to beef up security and prevent another breach.

Tah snorted at Abby’s reply and met Reno, clasping arms and leaning in for a hug. They had been best friends and confidants long before his buddy had discovered he was a lion shifter and the supposed leader of a tribe of people just like him. They would always remain that way as far as Reno was concerned.

“Where’s the pup?” Reno asked, taking in the fact their other best friend, Logan, was missing from the room. Logan had been shot not too long ago, and Reno still worried about him, though he’d never admit it.

“He’s running perimeter with Finn,” Tah answered.

Finn and Murphy had joined them the day after a group of hunters had managed to infiltrate the house and get to Abby. Reno had still been cleaning up when the brothers had arrived. Finn and Murphy hadn’t even batted an eye. The former Marines, who’d been part of a team with Reno, Tah and Logan in the desert, had just jumped in and helped out. They hadn’t batted an eye the first time they’d witnessed Tah shift into a full-grown lion, either. Reno sensed there was more than their Irish heritage that made them accepting, but he hadn’t pushed for answers yet.

Zane, Holt, Vic and Kenzie had joined them over the last few months and become an integral part of their household and growing pride. Abby was happy to have two more women around, even if Vic and Kenzie treated her with kid gloves in deference to her place as Tah’s wife and mate as well as the fact she was pregnant.

It was a good group, and if the information Professor Mueller had gathered was correct, they would soon be growing by leaps and bounds as the other members of the legendary
Paka Watu
pride found their way to Tah.

Reno had his own reasons for believing in the legend, and it wasn’t just because he watched Tah shift several times a day. Hell, he’d never known Tah not to have a pack of men and women around him, obeying his every order. And Reno had always been his second-in-command. Until they’d left the desert and gone their separate ways. Reno and Logan had been headed in the same direction and had ended up drifting along together until a night in a seedy bar when Reno had interfered with an attempted rape and had died for his trouble. Several times in fact. Or did they refer to it as dying when you kept coming back?

He’d understood there was something different about him when he’d awoken in the hospital, already healing from a gunshot wound to the chest. Healing faster than he should have. He’d felt something inside him then, stretching as it woke, but not pressing to do more than watch as if waiting for something more. And that’s when he’d felt the unstoppable urge to find his friend Utah Jones, better known as Tah.

Now here they all were, part of an awakening legend that brought danger with every new tidbit of information they learned and more questions. Plus whatever was inside him still just watched and waited. Even though Reno was ready and willing to accept whatever it was. Nothing.

“Sit, sit, sit,” Professor Mueller ordered, entering the room and pushing at Reno as if his short frame could move Reno’s six and half foot mass. “We’ve stuff to go over, and then Abby needs to go to the lab with Diane and me for some more tests.”

Abby sighed, and Tah’s chest vibrated with a muted roar of displeasure.

“Hush, both of you,” the Professor said with no fear. “We will do what needs to be done to protect Abby and the baby.”

And he was right. They would. Reno wasn’t sure Tah would stay sane if he lost his mate or unborn child. His gaze met Diane’s. She was in agreement with Reno and Tah that Abby’s life had to come first. A child would be mourned, but if Tah lost Abby? Well, it just wasn’t something any of them wanted to contemplate. Hell, the man couldn’t even stand to have his mate out of his sight for very long. Losing her? Never going to happen if Reno could help it.

“Now then, Abby’s been looking through some journals I acquired over the years, in particular those from a hunter named Uriah Blane. We’ve been able to trace part of his family to a group of farms in Montana, still called Blane Farm. I don’t think it’s an active farm anymore, but it is most likely used for the family business—hunting.”

“How do we know that?” Reno asked.

“We don’t for sure,” Abby answered while Professor Mueller glared. “Not yet anyways.”

“We’re thinking about sending a group to check them out,” Tah said. “Maybe if we get the opportunity, we could take one of them and find out what we can. It would definitely be in our best interest to know what they know.”

“Who do you have in mind?” Reno asked.

“Not Tah,” Abby stated, looking straight at her mate and making Reno’s lips twitch in a grin.

He could tell this discussion had instigated one hell of an argument between the mated couple by the way the room seemed to fill with the tension pouring off them.

Tah did that rumble thing in his chest again as he turned to her. “We’ve discussed this, Abby.”

“I agree with Abby.” Reno interrupted what was sure to be an entertaining round two of their argument.