Liam was getting damned sick and tired of people trying to kill him. For one thing it hurt; not death itself, well, not that Liam could remember, but the process leading up to it was fucking painful. He was stuck, in his lion form, in a freaking cage barely big enough to turn around in. Unable to shift, probably something to do with the fuzziness in his head, he struggled to remember what happened without giving away the fact he was awake.
His captors, none of whom had voices he recognized, were sitting around a battered table playing cards and drinking heavily. They were loud, raucous and stunk of cheap beer. Surely, I would’ve smelled them coming near me? But that was the problem. He didn’t remember much about being captured at all. The sun had been beautifully warm, and he’d been dozing, thinking about dinner when he felt a sting in his shoulder. The next thing he saw was the damn bars of the cage.
Clearly, even drugged Liam hadn’t been a willing captive. The scent of human blood mixed with the dusty, dank smell of the room they were in, so he knew he’d fought capture. Internally checking his own body, he knew his shoulder was likely dislocated which would make shifting almost impossible and there were what felt like cut marks down his back that stung every time he so much as twitched. He’d been bleeding; Liam could feel it in his matted fur, but he didn’t dare turn his head to look.
He was playing possum. Liam had never understood the expression, but Brutus explained it a few months ago, when baby Michael had frightened the shit out of Seth. So that’s what he was doing - playing dead, or in his case drugged. The rifles lined up against the one wall he could see were worrying enough but the way the men talked and laughed about other captives they’d taken, Liam wasn’t sure he would be breathing much longer.
The ringing of a phone cut through the raucous chatter like a knife through butter. “Is it done? Is he dead?” Liam would have recognized the snooty tones anywhere. Beau’s father was behind his abduction. Surprise, surprise.
“Now, now, Mr. Ferris, we don’t discuss our methods with you. We captured him, took him away from his location. That’s what you wanted.” Liam wished he could see who was talking but he didn’t dare turn his head.
“I’m paying you to kill him.”
“And me and my friends think we can sell this mangy beast for more money than you’re offering, so you’re out of luck.” Liam clamped his jaw shut. The human hunters had no idea who they were dealing with. “Of course, his pelt would need cleaning and gluing if someone wanted to use him as a rug, but we have a buyer interested in taking him as is.”
“You won’t see one more cent out of me, until his head and tail are delivered to me.” Eww. Liam tried not to twitch the parts mentioned.
“He’s not worth much in parts.” Liam heard the voice getting closer to the cage and willed his eyes to remain shut. “Besides, as I said, your offer’s been trumped by another and you will pay us the rest of our money, or my friends and I will go back to that beach and see who else we can find.”
“You’ll be fried before you get within ten feet of my son.” I suppose it’s good Ferris thinks his son can protect himself. “Don’t mess with things you don’t understand and kill that damn lion.”
“You know, I don’t think I will, simply because it’ll piss you off so badly if we keep him alive.” The hunter laughed. “I might even keep him as a pet. He’d be invaluable in tracking others of his kind.”
“He has to be dead. That was our agreement. Now fucking kill him and bring me the evidence.”
“You’ve got no right to get snarky with me,” The hunter said. “I might not know what animal you turn into asshole, but I know you’re one of them too. I don’t take orders from you. I don’t take orders from any abomination. You are the worst kind of shifter; one who preys of others of his kind. I suggest you keep your mouth shut and be thankful I’m not tracking you. Fuck off, Ferris.”
“Shit, was that a good idea, boss?” Someone else said above the clatter of the phone landing on the table. “Ferris has seen us, sniffed us. He could track us.”
“Bah, no shifters can win against our guns and tranqs. You saw him. He’s a poshed up pouf with more money than brains. Nah, we’ll see what mood our little kitty is in when he wakes up. Baron will buy him, if he proves difficult. If he’s malleable, I’ve got a big assed collar with his name on it, drugs to keep him from shifting and he can work for us. Our own personal tracking cat.”
“Someone could be looking for the lion, boss,” a different voice sounded this time. “Don’t they live in prides or something?”
“You heard what Ferris said when he ordered the hit. This one’s a fag. No decent pride would have him,” the boss laughed. “And what if someone does try sniffing him out? We used vehicles. No shifter’s good enough to track a car.”
“Hey, you’ve got to admit that’s true,” a fourth voice laughed as well. “Without scent those shifters have got nothing.”
“Exactly, now deal the cards,” the boss said. “Baron’s coming up tomorrow to look over our prize kitty. He should be awake by then. One way or the other, this one better get used to living in his fur or I’ll skin him from the tail up and make him watch.”
The conversation took a turn for the worst after that and Liam tuned out, not sure if he’d be able to control his vomit even in lion form. Since paranormals had come out roughly fifty years before, acceptance had been remarkably swift in coming. But there were always small pockets of radicals, both in the human and paranormal community, who viewed the other side with distrust and loathing.
From the conversation that was getting louder by the minute, Liam guessed he’d been taken by a mercenary group of human hunters. They hated shifters but didn’t see anything wrong in making money from them; either through selling them to fighting rings, where shifters battled to the death against others for their next meal; or killing them for their highly prized skins. As much as he hated to do it, Liam knew it was best if his captors thought he was still drugged. Hunger and thirst, he could conquer; getting shot at like a duck in a barrel, not so much.