ZACHARY
He prowled the property, furious. He tracked and memorized all the scents of the people who took her. Tigers, cougars, leopard, an ocelot, and a lioness. He could only scent them from that one day. He found them no where else. They had gotten lucky and stumbled on her from where they went through the gap in their fence at the stream as it entered the property. It was the only hole in their fence. He would need to try and fix that.
He was there when Gabe briefed them on everything they had found but it got them no closer to finding exactly where Riley was. At this rate, the trade would happen and they would have to search all of Cameron’s holdings to find her. That could take months. They had to find her before the trade. Which could be any time in the next fifteen hours.
He sat in the spot where she had sprawled out by the stream and soaked in her scent. He needed her back. They all did. She was fire and they wanted to huddle around it. And it was stolen from him. He wanted to chain these assholes up to a rock eat their fucking livers for stealing that fire from them.
He needed to calm down and he knew it and then he caught a scent on the wind. The lioness? What the fuck?
He growled viciously towards the scent and began moving. She was coming through the fence at the gap and didn’t see him. He was downwind and had the advantage. He watched her cautiously enter the property and watched patiently. He could be very patient.
She was nearly past him when she realized he was there. He could destroy this female and he saw the fear in her eyes when she figured out who was near her.
*Wait!*
Her voice pierced his skull as he prowled slowly to her. She was backing away from.
*Why?” He snarled, both mentally and physically.
*I’m here to help!* She shook her head and then dropped into a submissive pose. *I don’t like how she’s going to be treated so I cut a deal with her. I want to speak to Brenton!*
*How about no?* He snarled over her.
*I know where she and I am not saying anything until my safety is guaranteed. And you are wasting her time.*
He glared at her.
*Fine. You will come back to the house. If your information is good enough, we’ll honor Riley’s deal with you. If not, we expect you to just leave and never fucking come back.*
*I’ll take that.* she nodded and he forced her to take the lead, directing her back to the house. It was a slow walk, since she was nervous. He could deal with that. He was telling a woman to enter the home of several very pissed off males.
Brenton was on the back porch and stiffen at the sight of the lioness with him. Zachary took the lead and ran up to him, shifting as he got close. The lioness stayed near the treeline, a smart move.
“She’s one of the group that took Riley. She’s coming to our side,” Zachary snarled at Brenton. “She says she knows where Riley is but only will speak to you.”
“Take her to the den. I’ll gather the guys. We should all be there for it,” Brenton hissed and turned into the house.
Zachary waved the lioness closer and grabbed a robe from the chest for her. Since Riley moved in, they started keep a few there just in case she wanted one.
He threw the robe out and the lioness shifted smoothly, grabbed it and wrapped herself in.
“Well?” She asked wearily.
“Follow me. He’ll talk to you inside.” Zachary motioned into house and she stepped in. He took her elbow and led her directly to the den and pushed her onto a couch. She didn’t fight back, not a single sound came out of her.
Troy and Gabe came in first, followed by Andrew and Breton. Zachary could smell the fear coming from the lioness as Brenton locked them in the room. The den had no windows, she was going nowhere.
“Name,” Brenton snapped.
“Jessie Eriksson,” Zachary was impressed that she kept the shake out of her voice. And now they knew who had been calling Cameron before Trevor’s number took over.
“Tell me everything,” Brenton snarled softly. None of the pride sat down, all watching her. Troy and Gabe were both pacing behind her, moving like agitated cats ready to pounce. Andrew and Zachary stood back up for Brenton, quiet and ready for the order to kill her.
“Four days ago, we saw the contract come out for one Riley Stern, half-breed.” Jessie took a deep breath. “We ignored it. We didn’t have the resources to do a search and capture. The contract didn’t put her last known location or anything.”
So, Cameron hadn’t given over her pride or her location… He wasn’t so stupid as to say she was a member of the Kingson Pride.
“One of our bottom rung guys, Trevor Laursen, a real piece of work, said he knew where she was. He had a friend track her down over a month ago since they had history he wanted to settle. No one liked the guy, but it was hard to pass up two million and an easy drive to a location that Trevor already found. His only stipulation was to be on the team. My Alpha allowed it, against my recommendation.”
“Are you his second?” Andrew cut in. She nodded and looked bitter over it.
“Yeah. Now I’m no one’s second though. I’ll get to that.” she smiled ruefully at Andrew and turned her eyes back to Brenton. “We weren’t expecting to catch her when we did. We had barely had any set up time and we still were working on the holding house. We got lucky and she didn’t. We were just going to scout and see what kind of terrain to expect on your property if we needed to do it here.”
“I fucking figured that,” Troy snorted. They all knew he felt like this wasn’t a very planned grabbed. Zachary had agreed with him since there was no way the group could have had the information to catch her when she did.
“We only had the tranqs in case we ran into one of you,” she hissed at him. “But that’s not important. We got her. She’s in our safe house that we established about two hours by car from here. I had to run the entire trip because shit went down right before I left. Trevor had already gone in and beat up her up pretty roughly once and was planning on doing it again. I went in and told her I would get her out for ten million. Five million just to tell you guys where she was. I was about to try and tell my Alpha of the deal when the client pushed up the trade time,” she took a long breath and looked between the guys. “To six am instead of six pm, twelve hours earlier and we still hadn’t got any word on payment from the guy.”
“Fuck,” Zachary snarled viciously. That was in four hours.
“just let me finish. Trevor was going to go ‘have fun’ and I tried to put a stop to it. My Alpha and I never allowed that shit to go down in our pride. We were snatch and grab only. We didn’t fucking beat chicks and rape them, it’s not our MO. Normally we were hired to find fucking missing kids, we had a good reputation. Trevor was supposed to be learning our ways, going clean,” she was talking with her hands. Zachary knew she felt the need to explain all of it and they let her since it was important to know what was going on in the safe house. “My Alpha was going to stop him and Trevor put two bullets in him. I bolted after a small scuffle with a couple of the other guys. It was a coup. They wanted to do shit like Trevor wanted to, completely turned their backs on everything my Alpha and I built up. You make more money as a feline being a monster.”
“So I’ve been trying to get here. As fast as I could which meant being in lioness form but then I had to avoid the roads and I had sneak in through your fence.”
They all watched her deflate after she finished. Shit, this lioness had been through it. She just lost the an Alpha she obviously respected, the Alpha she was second to. Zachary could only imagine what he would be like if he’d lost Brenton.
“You’ll point her out on a map, give us the address, and tell us everything about who and what is there,” Brenton hissed. “I’ll give you five million for that. I’ll give you another five million if you stay here, in this room while we get Riley. If she’s alive, then I’ll give you another ten million just to disappear until I call you back.”
“Call me back?” She looked at him, confusion written all over her face.
“I want to use you as a contact in the militia prides. I’ll hire you through on my companies if that’s alright.” Brenton waves a hand at her dismissively. “We can worry about that later. Either way, once this is over, you’ll have twenty million in a bank account offshore and you can disappear.”
She nodded and stood slowly, wrapping the robe around tighter. Zachary watched her careful as the leopard brothers hissed.
“Give me a map, you guys are running out of time. They lose the deal if they don’t agree to the client’s terms.”
They moved into the war room. They never used it until Riley was taken. It was apart of the basement with a code needed to open the door. Only Brenton and Zachary could get into the room.
“Jessie,” Brenton whispered to her. She looked over at him. “Thank you for doing this.”
She nodded slowly and looked over several maps they had of the region and finally pointed.
“The house is here. Just a shitty two bedroom hut in the woods. An old hunting cabin that was in good enough shape that we… Commandeered it for this.” she circled her hand around in a wide circle. “We have no tech security around it, but two guys are always roaming this line, opposite of each other. They patrol in cat form.”
“Good, we can take them out.” Gabe grinned at the other guys and Zachary chuckled.
“They won’t know what fucking hit them.” He could already taste it.
“Wait,” Jessie snapped. “You’re going to kill them?”
Zachary met her eyes with his own and smiled viciously. He knew she considered some of these guys friends but that wasn’t going to save them from the pride.
“Of course,” he growled at her happily. “No one fucks with the Kingson Pride and lives through it. The only reason you’re alive is because you defected and came to cut a deal. Fucking remember that.”
She was pale and he was pleased by it. She nodded slowly.
“I knew messing with you guys was a bad idea. Your reputation proceeds you.” She tabbed the table with a finger, leaning with palms on the maps. “I fucking knew this was a bad plan but…”
“But what?” Brenton snarled at her.
“Two million might not mean a lot to you guys but it would change our lives, we thought it was worth the risk.”
“And now your getting twenty million to run away with,” Brenton smiled at her and Zachary knew he had her in the palm of his hand. “You and your men should have just come to us. We would have paid you handsomely to leave.”
“I see that now,” she whispered.
“Continue,” Brenton waved to the maps. “We don’t have time for the guilt and shit.”
“All the windows are boarded up so she can’t slip out of them. We’re keeping her in the back bedroom.” She grabbed a pen and a map they weren’t using. She flipped it to the empty side and began drawing out the basic floor plan. “She’s here. We slept in shifts here, in the other bedroom. The kitchen and the living room is where anyone not sleeping or on patrol stays. With me and Robert gone, there’s only eight left. Two will be sleeping, two will be on patrol. But those two sleeping might be awake for the trade so you’re looking at six guys in the house between you and her. The front door enters in the living room on one side. The back door is on the other side, out the back of the kitchen.”
“We can do this,” Zachary looked to Brenton, who nodded. He turned back to Jessie. “What kind of weapons can we expect? And do we finally call in Sheriff?” That last question went back to Brenton.
“Fuck no, we are not calling Sheriff,” Brenton growled. “Don’t fucking need him in feline affairs.”
“Sheriff?” Jessie looked confused.
“A bear shifter who’s the actual sheriff of Wild Junction,” Zachary waved his hand dismissively at her. “Tell us about fire power.”
“Nothing big. Tranquilizer guns for each of us but those only get one good shot and then are hell to reload quickly. Trevor had a 9mm and so do four of the other guys. Not enough stopping power for a four hundred pound cat. Hell, not enough stopping power for a cat my size and I’m two hundred and fifty pounds in feline form. I know two guys have AK-47s on hand but not a lot of ammo.” She sighed. “Only Robert and I weren’t cocky enough to think any of it would stop a fight with you guys if you found us. That’s why we hide so deep in the woods instead of trying to move her. I wanted her out my hands before you guys even knew we ever had her. I wanted the client to move her and take that risk.”
“Thanks. That’s all we’ll need,” Zachary growled softly. They were decently armed but they were expecting human trouble by the sounds of it. Like if something went down during the trade off. They weren’t ready for a full on assault on their little hide away.
They had three hours until the six am trade time. It was a two hour drive to the house. They had to move.
“Troy and Andrew, arm up. You’ll be our live fire,” Zachary pointed to both of them. “Gabe, you will be our scout. It’s still dark enough you will be just another shadow in the woods.”
“Zachary and I will with take out the patrol,” Brenton nodded. “Once we take out the patrol, you guys with guns will breach the doors, front and back simultaneously. Feel free to open fire if you don’t see Riley in the room. We will follow you in while Gabe holds look out. Gabe, if you see anyone, let us know and we will grab her and fall back. We don’t need to fight two groups back to back. We can have her shift-”
“No you can’t, “Jessie snapped. “It’ll kill her.” They all looked at Jessie, ranging from furious to confused. “We… we put a shock collar on her in human form. It’s tight enough to strangle her if she shifts. And you’ll need the key to get if off her. If you try to cut through, you risk electrocuting her and yourself.”
“Who had the key?” Andrew hissed.
A fucking shock collar. Shifters only used those on fucking criminals of their kind. It was a horrific way to be tortured and controlled. Zachary was snarling mindlessly as he listened. They fucking put a shock collar on their girl.
“My Alpha had so I’m assuming it’s in Trevor’s possession now.” Jessie’s voice sounded defeated. “I’m sorry. I’m so… fucking sorry.”
“You fucking better be,” he roared at her. “What the fuck is wrong with you fucking militia prides? Do you not realize how fucking awful that is?”
She stepped back several times from him, eyes wide and full of tears. She was nodding slowly.
“I do and it wasn’t my idea either,” her voice broke. She looked genuinely afraid he was going to kill her and everyone in the room would let him.
Instead, he turned and stormed out. She had brought them everything they needed to fix this and he would fucking fix it.
They mobilized in minutes and with two hours and forty-five minutes until six am, they tore out off the property, ready to go to war.
Zachary was good at war.