Chapter Nine

“Austin? Austin?” A voice was calling him from far away.

Then ice-cold water splashed over his face. Austin leapt to his feet with a snarl, claws curving out of his fingertips. He shook his head, trying to clear his blurry vision, and the forest swam into focus around him.

“Whoa there, cowboy!” Savannah cried, standing back and holding her hands up defensively. She dropped the empty water bottle she was holding. It clattered on the rocky ground next to Roy, who was lying crumpled on his side.

There was a rifle slung over her shoulder, and a wary look on her face.

Austin sucked in a breath of warm, dry mountain air. He could feel pain from his healing wounds, four slash lines going down the side of his head.

“How long was I out?” he groaned.

“Maybe ten minutes. You all right?”

“My head feels like a herd of elephants ran over it, but other than that, can’t complain.” He winced, looking down at Roy. Drool leaked from Roy’s mouth, and he was completely still, face slack. The gentle rise and fall of his chest was the only clue that he was still alive. “How did you knock him out?

“I shot him with a tranq.” She walked over to Roy and nudged him with her foot. “Actually, I shot him with two tranqs. And these are extra strength and double the size of what I normally use. That would’ve killed any shifter I know.”

Austin looked at her in confusion. “I thought tranqs didn’t work on him. I shot him with four tranqs, and it didn’t work at all.”

“And I thought you weren’t going to use them! You said so yourself! They were just decoy tranks, you idiot! I left them where they’d be easy for you to find, just in case. I have a backup plan for everything. And then I have a backup plan for that backup plan.”

“You sent me with fake tranqs?” Austin said furiously. He touched the claw marks on the side of his head; they were sticky with drying blood. “He nearly ripped my head off!”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes flashed with anger. “Nobody made you take them! You stole them from me and left me handcuffed to a bed in a hotel room, and you planned to leave me there for eight hours. And you trashed my car.”

Austin glowered at her. She was right, he just felt sour about having her outwit him, yet again. “All’s fair in love and war.”

“Awww, you looove me,” she crooned at him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re cute when you’re mad?”

His anger receded, and he stifled a laugh. “Okay. Okay. This round goes to Savannah Orman. How long will that tranquilizer last?”

She flicked a glance at the unconscious shifter. “I wish I knew. He’s like nothing I’ve ever come across. Are you asking because you think you’re going to steal him from me and take him in yourself?” Her tone turned sharp as she looked at him suspiciously.

“Something like that,” he admitted. “But I’ll give you a huge chunk of the reward money. Come on, Savannah, you know me. You know I’m good for it.”

She strolled up to him, and he felt his heart do the familiar thuddy thing that happened every time she was close. And every time he thought about her.

“I really, desperately need the money.” Her gaze bored into him. “It’s not that I don’t take your word for it, I just can’t hang my family’s future on a promise. Not only that, but frankly, after what I just saw, I know you can’t bring him in by yourself. I propose a truce. We take him, together, back to the pack, and we split the bounty.”

“Split it?” Anthony hurried from behind a boulder. “Wait, does that come out of my portion?”

Austin groaned. “Oh, great. You brought him?”

“Technically, he followed me to the motel and asked to tag along.”

“Why didn’t you just say no?” Austin squinted at the skinny, freckled fox shifter. Anthony gave him a wounded look. “He’ll just get in the way.”

Savannah shot him a sidelong look. “Because I can’t do this on my own either, but I’m not so stupid and stubborn that I refuse help when I need it.”“

“It’s not me being stupid and stubborn. I have an agreement that says I have to deliver him on my own,” Austin told her. “And if I welsh on the agreement, then my closest friends are going to pay the price. I’ve got to at least try.”

“Trying’s not good enough, Austin!” she snapped, looking frustrated. “I have a proposition. I travel with you until we reach the general area of the Washborn Pack. We take turns sleeping and keeping him tranqed. That’s the only way we’re going to make it. You can’t do this on your own. When we get close, Anthony and I get out of the truck. I let you take him in on your own, and I take your word for it that you will give me half of the bounty. And I don’t need to tell you what would happen if you screwed me out of my half of the bounty.”

Austin snorted. “Yeah, yeah, the same thing your mother threatened me with if I break your heart. Every fox in the country will come after me.”

“Oh God, she said that?” Savannah looked horrified. “I am really sorry about that. I wouldn’t let her do that. Whatever is between you and me, is between you and me.” Then she hugged herself, and her expression softened. “I know you wouldn’t try to run off with the bounty. I’m just really stressed out about the whole loan thing. I’m sorry. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a thief.”

What kind of things am I? Austin wanted to ask. An incredible lover? Completely irresistible? Those were some answers he’d definitely accept.

“What is between you and him?” Anthony asked, suddenly looking way too interested. “I’m a young man and I never had anyone teach me about the birds and the bees.”

Austin stalked over and cuffed Anthony on the side of the head, wrenching a pained yelp and a reproachful glower from him. “As far as you are concerned, Savannah is a nun, and you do not think about her in that way, ever. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.” Anthony scowled. “Geez, I guess I’ll just die without ever getting a date.”

“Works for me,” Austin said briskly. “Okay, let’s start hauling him back to the car while he’s still out.”

Austin grabbed Roy by the feet and started dragging him downhill as fast as he could.

“He faked it before when I shot him with the darts, to get me close to him,” he grunted. “We’re going to need to keep a really close eye on him this time, to see when he starts waking up again.”

Savannah trotted along next to him.

“Do you want me to help?”

“Nah, I got this.” Austin glanced up at her and winked. “I want to impress you with my macho manliness.”

She laughed, and it made his heart sing. He loved it when she laughed. He loved it when he made her laugh. It was like a little gift she wrapped up just for him.

“Well, color me impressed, big boy. Very impressed. Also very angry about the fact that you handcuffed me, but we’ll deal with that later.” She nimbly leaped over a falling branch, and he admired the bounce of her full breasts, smiling as he remembered how sensitive they were.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing at all.”

Anthony was trotting along with them, panting for breath. He was nowhere near as graceful as Savannah in navigating the treacherous downward slope. “I’m taking notes!” he sang out.

“Well, stop it!” Savannah snapped at him. “You’re creeping me out.”

“I thought you loved me like an annoying cousin,” he protested.

Savannah punched his shoulder, hard. “I think I said incredibly annoying cousin, just to be clear. And I’d say the same thing if you were my cousin. You little weirdo.”

“Savannah said she loooves me,” Anthony sang, then promptly tripped when a loose rock flipped up under his weight, and Austin laughed out loud and didn’t offer to help him up.

When they made it down to the bottom of the mountain, Austin pulled the hard cover off the bed of his pickup truck, reached in, and yanked out a bag full of chains. He had restraints of every kind. He put several pairs of maximum strength, reinforced handcuffs on Roy’s wrists and ankles, along with thick steel chains wrapped around his entire body. He wrapped Roy up like a mummy with chains instead of bandages, then tossed him into the back seat.

He looked down at Roy, who was still unconscious, thankfully. It had been about half an hour now since he’d been tranqed, he estimated. He glanced at his watch. He’d have to time him, see how long the sedatives lasted.

“You watch him and keep that rifle pointed right at him,” he told Savannah. “The minute he wakes up, we’ll know how long the tranqs last. It should be at least a few hours per round, if he reacts anything like a normal shifter does when he’s sedated.”

“We can hope,” she said doubtfully. “I brought several dozen darts with me, and I’m going to be honest with you, I can’t promise they’ll last us for two full days.”

“Is there any possibility that you could get your mother to bring us more?” Austin winced at the idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Aside from the fact that she’d never agree to letting me do this, no. We don’t usually bother to grow a big batch of the stuff, because we don’t need that much. We have another crop that’s about halfway ready, but it’s not full strength yet. We’re on our own here.”

Savannah climbed in next to Roy in the back seat, and Austin shot her an uneasy glance. Normally, he knew, Savannah was more than capable of taking care of herself, but he’d just seen what Roy could do. He didn’t want his mate – that is, he didn’t want Savannah – anywhere near that crazy bastard. But they didn’t have much choice.

He climbed into the front seat. “If he even twitches, holler.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Anthony got in the front seat with Austin and promptly feel asleep, letting out low snores that fluttered his lips.

Austin pulled out onto the main road, then made his way down a long, skinny back road, then crossed private property owned by a shifter pack, until they reached Rural Route 7. All the access routes to the road were through private, shifter-owned property.

Scowling, he tried to concentrate on the bumpy, pot-holed road, instead of on the fact that he’d just called Savannah his mate – in his head, at least.

She wasn’t his mate. She couldn’t be his mate. He wouldn’t do that to her. For God’s sake, what if his madness was hereditary? What if he survived long enough to get her with kit, or with cub, and then he went crazy and left her to raise a cub that was cursed to go mad?

And when had his thinking progressed from “Damn, she is one fine piece of fox flesh, I’d like to lick her from head to toe” to thinking about putting his claiming mark on her?

He bumped over another pothole, and Anthony groaned and stirred in his seat.

“How’s he doing back there?” he called out to Savannah.

“Still sawing logs. Don’t worry, babe, I’m fine.” She paused. “I didn’t mean babe. I’m tired. I meant…buttface.”

Austin cheered up a little. “Yes, because babe sounds exactly like buttface. They practically rhyme.”

They’d only been driving for another half hour, crawling along the narrow potholed road at a frustratingly slow pace, when Savannah cursed. “Sonofabitch.”

“What?” Austin asked.

“He’s stirring. His eyes are fluttering.”

Alarm jolted through him.

“Damn it. I wish I could tell you how long it’s going to be until he’s fully awake and able to rip our throats out, but I can’t. Normally, we calculate this on shifter species, level of dominance, and body weight, and I have got a pretty close idea. But not with him.”

“How did you figure all this out?”

“Volunteers. We been testing this stuff out for ages. We started out testing it on each other, and then we got other species to let us test it out on them, to the point where we all have a pretty good idea of how much we need to use.”

“Wow,” he marveled. “I underestimated all of you.”

He heard the smile in her voice. “You wouldn’t be the first person to do that.”

* * *

They only made it about another fifteen minutes before Roy lunged at his chains with a howl of rage.

“Don’t tranq him yet! Pull over!” Austin yelled.

She pulled to the side of the road immediately, her heart pounding. She shouldn’t let Roy freak her out like that, but she couldn’t help it. The combination of complete psychosis, history of murder, and insane, off-the-charts strength was really freaking her out. He was the scariest shifter she’d ever met.

Austin hurried around to the back and yanked the door open.

“Quit it, or we’ll knock you out again!” he yelled at Roy. Roy’s response was a blood-curling howl of fury.

“Okay,” Austin said to Savannah. “You take over and start driving. I’m going to sit in the back right next to that motherfucker. I don’t want him close to you in case he breaks free.”

Savannah slid out and handed the rifle to Austin as Ray slammed against his chains, his eyes glowing with rage.

Austin quickly climbed into the back seat and slammed the door. “So chivalrous of you, my knight in shining armor.” Savannah smirked, pulling onto the road.

“Chivalrous? How dare you? Shut up and drive. How’s that for chivalrous?” Austin grinned. “Damn, I can’t believe I’m trusting my life to a woman driver. I’d almost rather have Roy driving. How am I doing now?”

“That remark will cost you,” Savannah said coolly.

“Is this how people flirt?” Anthony piped up, opening his eyes and sitting up.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Austin snapped from the back seat, over Roy’s howls of rage.

“I am not flirting! I am threatening!” Savannah yelled over the din. Roy was clanking his chains and screaming wordlessly, his cries reaching ear-splitting heights. She raised her voice to be heard. “It’s important to know the difference!”

“This is how she flirts,” Austin shouted. “She thinks she’s bad at it, but actually she has me very— Well, let’s just say it works on me. However, this is not how you should flirt, and generally speaking, if a woman threatens to murder you, she means it. Except for Savannah. When she’s talking to me.”

Then she heard the spitting sound of the rifle, twice. And Roy’s howls and clanking faded to nothing.

The two tranqs she’d shot Roy with back on the mountainside had lasted a couple of hours. Well, fuck me very much, she thought. That’s not good. Not good at all.

Anthony twisted around to stare over his seat at Austin. “You don’t make any sense,” he said.

“That’s because Savannah and I don’t make any sense, on paper,” Austin said. “But we just work, somehow, don’t we, baby?”

“Well, now you’re just trying to piss me off. Don’t worry, I’m adding it to my list.” But Savannah was smiling to herself as she drove.

She loved the banter with Austin.

And she loved how he managed to be protective of her without making her feel diminished at all. The men she’d grown up with were usually too intimidated to make a move. They’d let her know very clearly that they saw her as a dude who just happened to be born without a dick and balls. Some men tried to go the opposite route, out-machoing her to the point where they were abusive and threatening.

But Austin was different. Austin openly admired her for what she was good at. Even when he was teasing her and giving her a hard time.

Was it possible that there could be something more? Was it possible that after they dropped off this mark, after she collected the money and saved the restaurant, she and Austin could somehow work out?

Austin had made it sound as if he was never going to come back. Was that because he thought that Roy would kill him? Or did he just have no interest?

She realized that the answer was painfully important to her.

She’d never seen Austin flirt with a girl. For the few months he’d been living in Greenville, she knew that plenty of women had pursued him, and he’d chased them all off with a snarl. But Savannah – he’d always looked at her like she was a meal that he wanted to devour, slowly. And he’d come to her house to spend time with her right before he went on what was probably going to be a suicide mission. He could have any woman in Foxhaven, any woman in Greenville…hell, any single woman on the west coast, but he’d chosen her.

Did that mean that Savannah was something special to him?

Well, there was no point at all in discussing it right now. Not in front of Anthony and Roy. Not when they were in a truck with a murder machine who was primed to explode at any moment.