They had her tied to the seat in the small plane. It’d been hours since they’d thrown her inside under the cover of darkness, taking off from the small airport in town. There’d been no security around…no one to see her being taken.
She felt the descent and cursed when she caught a glimpse out the window. The sun was just coming up over the horizon when the plane banked to the left, showing her an island in the distance. If that was where they were taking her, she’d have one hell of a time getting away. It didn’t matter that her panther loved water, and frequently swam, there was no way she could swim the ocean waters to get to the mainland.
The males surrounded her as soon as the plane landed, one of them removing handcuffs from his back pocket. She looked up into their eyes and frowned when she saw that they were vacant. None of them held any expressions as if they were robots, but she knew they weren’t. There was something off about these males… but what?
She was officially scared. Two men held her arms tightly as she was led into a hillside bunker. The walls were concrete and the lights that hung overhead were bright enough to hurt her eyes, but she kept them open to pay attention to her surroundings. She dug deep inside and cried for her alpha, but he never answered.
Talon! Help! Please!
Cries of others could be heard as they moved further into the corridors with doors that were not marked. The males holding her were supernaturally strong, but they were not of her kind. She tried to break free, but the guards only tightened their hold and rushed their steps. The cuffs on her wrists were unlike any she’d used in training. Those she could break with her strength. These felt the same, even weighed the same, but they wouldn’t budge.
At the end of the hallway sat a metal door with a small window. When it opened, several men inside turned to look at her. Their faces were covered with masks like her healer wore when he was working on his patients.
“Ah, what do we have here?” one asked as his eyes roamed her body.
“Female black panther,” a guard said. “Careful, she’s a fighter. Carlin wanted her for mating with a lion.”
The guard uncuffed her wrists and pushed her into the arms of the other men, slamming the door behind her. She twisted and kicked out like she’d been trained, knocking one of them to the floor. The second, she punched in the jaw. Her fangs thickened and she pulled at her beast.
Another male shoved her against a wall, but she took that moment to bounce back and attack him. A fist caught her face, spinning the female to the side and directly into the arms of the male who looked at her like she was going to be his next conquest.
Talon!!!
“You cannot call for your leader,” the dark-skinned man in the lab coat chuckled. “He’s probably dead.”
“He’s not dead,” she spat, hoping to get them to fight her, because she was angry as hell at being taken, again. She knew what to do this time. These men wouldn’t hurt her like the wolves had. “I would know if he was.”
She would feel the loss of her alpha if he’d died. The feeling was said to be like your chest was being ripped to shreds. She’d been conscious the entire trip to this place. She’d have known if Talon was gone.
Or would she?
She’d been paralyzed by them. Maybe he’d died and she hadn’t felt it. Gritting her teeth, Evie knew to not let the enemy get inside her head. She had to think straight.
Focus!
She’d already remembered the path they had taken to get to this room since they entered the underground facility. The one thing that kept her from panicking was knowing that the tracker in her arm was active. They’d be there soon.
The door opened and a large man entered. His gray eyes bounced as he chuckled around a half-smoked cigar, “This one will do. Mate her with that lion.”
“Mate me?” she gasped.
“Yeah,” the scientist smirked. “Time to see if you all can cross-breed.”
“I’ll have to reward the warlocks with their choice of a female for bringing me this one,” the large man said. Why the hell was he using warlocks? It didn’t take but a second for her to realize that was why they’d been so much stronger than her, and the reason why the Watcher could still see them coming. “Maybe they’ll borrow this one when you’re done with her.”
“Not happening,” she snarled, putting her left leg forward as she took her stance. “I’ll take every single one of you out if you even try to force me to mate.”
“You do not scare us,” another male replied as the big man left the room, locking the door in his wake. This was the asshole that had punched her when she had tried to fight. The male was big, but nowhere as large as her Guardians. “Even if you did get out of this bunker, you wouldn’t be able to get off the island. We have wild shifters out in the forest. They’ll do worse than what we are requiring from you.”
“Wild shifters?” she questioned, not moving from her position.
“Fucking wolves,” he cursed, leering at her body. “They’ll like you.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she replied, getting ready to launch herself at the biggest guy in the room and the one who’d struck her when she had arrived. Yeah, he was going out first.
“We’ll see,” he shrugged, lifting a syringe from the table beside him.
“Not again,” she whispered, readying herself for the fight of her life.
Harold wiped his brow and looked up from Talon’s baby brother with a grim expression on his face. “I’ve done all I can.”
Talon’s mate cried at his side, holding his arm with all of the strength she had left. If it wasn’t for her love, he’d have cracked by then. Liberty’s strength kept him going as he continued to force his Guardians to shift to save their lives. As he looked around, the ones who were unharmed hovered over the males who were in their panther forms. Some of them slept, others just lay there, panting with exhaustion.
“You need to force his shift,” Harold begged. “Kye needs your help, alpha.”
Talon pulled in the ancient magic that had been bred into him by his father. His skin prickled as a cool breeze skirted through his body. His beast was right there, guiding him as he used all of the power he had in his body, directing it toward his baby brother.
“Shift, Kye… shift now!”
Kye’s body shivered as his beast fought for release. The shift was slower than usual. Hair sprouted on his brother’s body. His ears reshaped. His tail slowly grew to its full length. A low moan escaped the male’s lips as his face morphed into that of his cat.
“Kye,” Liberty said softly, dropping to her knees beside the panther’s head as soon as he’d completed the shift. His brother’s beast barely opened its eyes. Talon noticed the amber was fading and tiny blue flecks of his human side were there.
“Do not fight to come back yet,” Talon ordered. “You need to heal. We will go get her and bring her home to you.”
The panther cackled low in his throat at the alpha’s words. It was obvious Kye was at his weakest point. Liberty donned her gloves and stroked Kye’s head when a lone tear leaked from the animal’s eye. “We will bring her home.”
Talon turned and focused on the others as he surveyed the chaos that was his home. He couldn’t look his brother in the eye anymore and tell him lies to keep him calm.
In all honesty, Talon had no idea when his Guardians would be healthy enough to go after Evie. He didn’t know why he hadn’t heard from her yet, either. Garrett had promised she’d call for him, but in his vision, Evie was unable to contact him. They all thought it was because Talon had died.
Well, he was good and alive, and he needed to find his brother’s mate.
“Talon,” Noah called out from the hallway leading to his office and the security room.
Talon turned at the sound of his brother’s voice, using his body to block the sight of their baby brother laying in his own blood. The look on Noah’s face was one of fear. “What is it?”
“I’ve found her,” Noah admitted. “And you’re not going to like where she is.”
Talon moved with speed down the hallway, following his middle brother to the room. When he entered, Noah pointed to the screen. A satellite image was on the larger screen, a blue dot pulsating on a wooded area.
“Zoom out,” Talon ordered, his heart thundering in his chest as Noah grabbed the mouse and did as he’d been told. As the image cleared, Talon cursed so loudly, the monitor vibrated. “She’s on a goddamn island!”
“I know a guy with a plane,” Noah offered, scooping up his phone. “Get the available Guardians armed and ready. I can have them in the air in thirty minutes.”
“Do it,” Talon ordered.