Chapter Twenty-One

Paige moaned. Her entire body hurt, and her left hand tingled. It was asleep. No wonder. Why was she lying on her arm?

She pulled it out from under her to shake it out. Her eyes shot open as she came fully awake. It took her only a fraction of a second to realize she was in serious trouble.

The first thing she saw was that damn reporter, Kelly Smith, standing several yards away, her back to Paige. However, she saw her through some sort of bars. What the hell? Her entire body hurt. Shit, she was lying on a hard metal surface.

Paige held her breath to keep from making a sound so she could assess the situation as her memory raced to fill in everything it could. She’d been sitting in her car texting Wyatt when Kelly yanked her door open and pressed a white cloth to her nose.

Fuck.

She’d drugged her.

Paige glanced around. She was in a cage. A cage big enough for a large animal or a gorilla. Not long enough for her to stretch out in or stand up, but still big.

She must have made a noise because Kelly spun around to face her. “You’re awake.” She exhaled. “Finally. Geez.”

Paige didn’t respond. You’re the one who drugged me, you bitch. She wondered how long it had been since Kelly had taken her. Where were they? It looked like a cabin. Clean but old. Maybe some sort of rental property. The small windows on two walls had faded yellow curtains that probably had once been darker and happy. The light coming in the windows indicated it was late in the afternoon.

Kelly plopped down in a chair next to a cheap table for two and crossed her arms. She was smiling as if the two of them were on a girls’ trip instead of Paige being the victim of an abduction.

Paige didn’t see a weapon. That was a plus.

Kelly was wearing jeans and a dark green T-shirt. Her hair was its usual mousy mess of stringy brown unsecured locks that hung down her back and fell over her shoulders. It was tucked behind her ears. Her glasses made it difficult for Paige to read her eyes.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I brought you here?” she asked.

Paige didn’t move or speak, but she kept her gaze on her kidnapper. Had she acted alone? Was it possible someone helped her? Paige opened her mind to see if she could detect anyone else in the vicinity, especially helpful would have been a shifter. No such luck. They were alone.

Kelly frowned. “You’re no fun. Fine. I’ll just tell you.” She dropped her arms and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees as if she had a secret to whisper. “I wasn’t assigned to follow you around and report on your boring research. I’m working on my own research project.” Her eyes widened as she smiled. “I know all about you and your friends.”

How much did she know? And how? Paige kept her mouth shut, deciding it would be better, for now, to let Kelly fill in the blanks. As much as the woman liked to listen to herself talk, Paige was fairly certain she’d have a lot more insight in a few minutes.

“You’re werebears.” She giggled. “I’ve seen you. I’ve seen several of you.”

How? There was no way in hell anyone had shifted in her line of sight. Everyone in town who had reported Kelly spying on them had been vigilant to make sure she saw nothing.

When Kelly didn’t continue, Paige finally decided to pull more information out of her. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s a werebear?”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Don’t play stupid. I already knew you could become a bear even before I came to town. I’m going to be rich, you know. The first person to out your existence to the world.”

Paige flinched. Was it possible for Kelly to accomplish what she planned? How much damage had she already done?

“You think I’m a bear?” Paige asked, playing dumb.

“I know you are. And you can drop the innocent act. I have pictures of your friend Wyatt and several others. And don’t even try to pretend that guy you came to Silvertip with is your boyfriend. It’s obvious you’re in some sort of relationship with Wyatt Arthur. Does your boyfriend know?”

Paige changed the subject. “You have pictures of bears, and you think they are me and my friends?”

“Stop trying to deny it. I’ve seen a man switch to a bear before. Right in front of me. He’s the one who told me all about you and your people. Best fuck of my life too. He was smokin’ hot.” She fanned herself.

“Who?” Paige asked before she could stop herself. If there was a rogue shifter out there exposing their existence to humans, he needed to be taken into custody.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Kelly retorted.

“Some guy you met told you he was a bear?”

“He did more than that. I told you he changed forms in front of me. Not that I could have avoided it if I’d wanted to. I was…tied up at the time.” She cackled, leaning back and slapping her thighs with her hands.

Tied up?

Kelly stopped laughing and continued her tale. “Met him at a club. You know, a fetish club. He was stalking me. It was so hot. I get wet just thinking about it. That man was all Dom. Brought me to my knees at his feet the moment I met him.” She fanned herself with a hand again. “When I told him I had a rape fetish, he agreed to do a scene with me.”

Paige winced. “A scene?”

“Good grief.” Kelly rolled her eyes. “Have you never been to a club before?” She kept talking, apparently assuming the answer to her question was no. “BDSM. You know. Bondage and stuff. It’s fucking amazing. You should try it sometime. Though I advise you try it with Wyatt Arthur instead of that skinny boyfriend of yours.”

Paige held her breath, trying not to picture Kelly or anyone else acting out a rape. The vision in Paige’s mind was all too real. She didn’t need a demonstration.

“Antoine was the hottest Dom I’ve ever been with.”

Paige’s head started spinning, her chest seizing. She couldn’t draw in a breath. She had to force herself to keep listening as she pushed to sitting.

“If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was truly raping me that night.” Her face turned red as if she were embarrassed to share these details. Her voice lowered. “Honestly, I think he was disappointed that I was enjoying myself so much and that’s why he forced me to watch him change into an animal. I’ll admit, I was fucking scared of him after that. But when he switched back to human and then fucked me, it felt so good I didn’t care.”

Paige couldn’t even blink. This could not be happening. There couldn’t possibly be more than one Antoine running around raping women. But he was in custody now. She licked her lips, trying to find her voice. “When?” She cleared her scratchy throat. “When did this happen?”

Kelly shrugged. “About a year ago. Took me a while to sort my shit and make my way to Silvertip. Worked out perfect when I found out you were coming here for the summer to do your stupid research.”

“Me?” Kelly had specifically followed Paige to Silvertip?

“Oh right. Forgot to tell you that part. After Antoine was done with me, while I was still tied up, I asked him about a dozen questions. I thought I had imagined him changing into a bear. But he told me he was from Silvertip, and there were lots of bear people here. He called you guys shifters. And then he told me about you and your parents at the university. I looked you up and started following you.”

That fucker. Ten years after he raped her he was still thinking of her enough to blab to some random woman from a club? Renewed rage filled Paige’s system, giving her an adrenaline rush that threatened to tear her apart. “You followed me?”

“Yep. And you’re damn boring. All you ever did was go to the library, that stupid coffee shop, and your apartment. Even your relationship with that boyfriend is boring. When I found out you were going to spend the summer in Silvertip, I knew it was destiny. And here we are,” she declared as if everything were cleared up.

“What do you want?” She cringed, hating to hear the answer already. Her body was stiff from lying on the cold, hard surface, and she tipped her head from side to side to work out the kinks in her neck. Her head was pounding, probably from whatever Kelly drugged her with, and her body felt heavy. How long would it take for the drug to fully wear off?

“I want you to shift, of course. So I can finalize my research. At first, I doubted myself so many times, thinking my mind had been playing games with me every time I thought of Antoine changing to a bear right in front of my eyes. But when I got here and set up those cameras on your friends’ properties, I knew I had struck gold. I have so many pictures and videos of your people that no one will ever doubt my research. But it would be nice to have a real-life shift on camera up close and personal to seal the deal.”

Kelly had to be certifiable if she thought Paige would ever shift in front of her in a million years. “I don’t know what you think you’ve seen, but I’ve never heard anything so preposterous in my life. I could no more change into an animal than I could fly to the moon, Kelly.”

She cackled again, the noise grating on Paige’s nerves. “Don’t lie, you stupid fool.” She stood and headed for the small refrigerator in the tiny kitchen area. The cabin was all one room. Paige wasn’t sure if there was even a bathroom. If there was, it was behind her. But from the cage sitting against one wall, she could see a love seat and chair situated around a narrow fireplace, a small table for two and two chairs several feet away in the kitchen area, and a dresser at the foot of a narrow bed. That was the only furniture in the cabin.

When Kelly turned back around, she had a cold bottle of water, dripping with condensation. She took a long drink and set it on the table.

Paige’s mouth was dry. She couldn’t remember when she’d ever been as thirsty.

Kelly reached into a black bag next to the kitchen table and pulled out a camera. Next, she grabbed a tripod. For several minutes, she fiddled with the arrangement until she had the camera angled toward Paige and seemed satisfied with her view through the lens. “There. See? It’s simple. I’m sure you’re super thirsty, and soon your stomach will grumble too. As soon as you shift for me, I’ll let you eat. I’m sure you can handle changing into a giant bear inside that cage.” She clapped her hands together as if her entire plan weren’t completely preposterous.

“You’re going to be waiting for an eternity, Kelly. Because no matter how hungry I get, I still won’t be able to become a bear.”

Kelly smiled. “Oh, I think you’ll change your mind eventually. I have enough food and water here to last me weeks. I can wait.”

Paige groaned inwardly. There was no way she was going to shift in front of Kelly if she could avoid it. The woman didn’t even appear to have a weapon. Of course, she could shift, and possibly even break out of the cage, depending on how strong the bars were. But Paige would only do so as a last resort because the cleanup for the Arcadian Council would increase incrementally.

The irony was that it didn’t seem to have occurred to Kelly that if Paige shifted into her grizzly form, she could tear Kelly limb from limb in less than thirty seconds if she chose.

Hell, as thirsty as Paige was, maybe in a few days she would actually choose door number two and not even flinch at taking a life. It seemed the cage was sturdy, but it was built to hold an animal without cognitive reasoning. Even in grizzly form, Paige would still have the ability to find the weak spots and break free.

»»•««

“What do you have for me, Dale?” Wyatt asked his friend when his cell rang after several wasted hours of driving around and finding no evidence of Paige, Kelly, or the car.

“I haven’t managed to figure out where they are yet, but I wanted to give you the lowdown on what I do know.”

“Go ahead.” Wyatt straightened his spine and put the phone on speaker so his father could hear as he pulled the truck to the shoulder and put it in park.

“Kelly Smith isn’t her real name. It’s Kelly Sharply. She changed her name when she moved to Calgary two years ago. She’s older than she looks. Twenty-nine. Computer science degree from the University of Toronto. Get this. She graduated at nineteen. Her IQ is off the chart, and her test scores match.”

“Shit.” Wyatt gripped his phone tighter. “Have you…ever heard of her before?”

“No. Sorry. I’ve never run across her or worked with her if that’s what you’re asking.”

“’K.”

Dale continued. “The problem is she’s impossible to work with, and she’s been fired from several companies. Probably moved to Calgary and changed her name to get a fresh start. Things haven’t panned out better for her there, either.”

“I’m betting she’s hoping to turn things around and make a buck off releasing a story about bear shifters.”

“Exactly,” Dale confirmed. “Somehow she must have learned of our existence and perhaps even specifically Paige. The good news is she has no criminal record. No arrests. No warrants. Not even a parking ticket.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“Also, she has plenty of proof already. Those pictures weren’t the only evidence she has. She’s been using wildlife cameras on several properties. She’s got footage of several people shifting.”

“Dammit.” Wyatt gritted his teeth. They needed to find this woman fast. “Can you figure out where she might have taken Paige?”

“Still working on it. I need to get into her credit card statement and her email. I’m getting close.”

Wyatt held back the urge to insist that Dale hurry. He knew his friend was doing everything he could as fast as possible. No one was better at hacking and tracking than Dale. Not even Kelly Smith.

Dale continued. “George and Henry are finished here. Gavin helped them remove all evidence of shifters. They say two other members of the council have scoured Kelly’s apartment in Calgary. Now we just need to find Kelly herself.”

“And Paige.”

“Of course.” Dale’s voice was lower. “You know that’s what I meant. And we’ll find her. I’m going to get back to work on it. Okay?”

Wyatt inhaled slowly. “I can’t thank you enough. Call me when you crack into something.”

“I will.” Dale ended the call, and Wyatt focused his gaze out the front windshield. His father had driven down every street in Silvertip and then expanded the drive to include a wider radius. There were so many dirt roads leading to properties all along the highway that it would take an eternity to cover all of them.

And Wyatt didn’t have an eternity. He was slowly losing his mind with worry.

“Dale will find her,” his father stated as if Dale were the one out searching for a needle in a haystack instead of Bernard and Wyatt.

“I know.” Wyatt didn’t glance in his father’s direction. They both knew Dale had the capabilities to make this happen. Everyone just needed to be patient and let him do what he was best at.

Patience wasn’t something Wyatt currently had an abundance of.

Silence ticked by.

Bernard cleared his throat. “I just communicated with Charles and Lawrence. They were the two members of the council sent to her apartment in Calgary.”

Wyatt glanced at his father. Bernard was the leader of the Arthur pack, and as alpha, he could reach out to members of the Arcadian Council from great distances. Wyatt didn’t like the tone of his father’s voice, though. “What’d they say?”

“They found pictures there also.”

“She’s been taking pics of shifters for longer than this week? That can’t be good. The council is going to have a hard time containing this problem if she gets drunk often and tells people the world is filled with grizzly shifters.”

His father took a deep breath.

Wyatt turned fully toward him. “What?”

“They weren’t pictures of shifters.”

Wyatt stiffened, his gaze narrowing. “What were they pictures of?”

“Paige. And Gavin. Lots of them.”

Wyatt could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He swallowed. “And?”

“Looks like she’s had surveillance cameras in Paige’s apartment for months. There were hundreds of still shots and videos…from every room.”

The pounding in his chest climbed up his throat until it lodged there, threatening to leave him hyperventilating. “That crazy bitch has been spying on my mate for months? Taking nude pics of her?”

“Yes. And she’s also been following her. She had pictures of Gavin and Paige on campus, at the coffee shop, at her parents’ home. Everywhere.”

Wyatt closed his eyes and pressed his palm to his forehead. It made his blood boil to think there were hundreds of pictures of Paige floating around, especially if she was naked in some of them. His voice came out as a growl. “Please tell me Charles and Lawrence got them all.”

“Yes. And the cameras and every piece of equipment.” Bernard grabbed his son’s biceps and squeezed. “It’s all contained, son.”

Wyatt still couldn’t think straight. All he could imagine was how violated Paige was going to feel when she found out.

“And I know you don’t need to hear this because it doesn’t matter at all and would change nothing, but none of the pictures include Paige with anyone else. She put on a show for the world to see in order to convince everyone she was in a relationship with Gavin, but behind closed doors, she and Gavin were clearly just friends, and there were no other men.”

Wyatt lifted his face to stare out the window. “You’re right. It wouldn’t have mattered, but I know her inside and out after only a few days. I know she wasn’t with anyone else.” He turned to face his father. “Dad, she was never with anyone else.”

Bernard nodded. “I figured that was the case. Antoine Tarben molested her, didn’t he?”

Wyatt furrowed his brow. “How did you know?”

“Allister called me. After you two went there for lunch. Told me Paige had a breakdown when she saw a picture of Antoine in their house. Dropped it. Ran. He and Beth feel awful. It’s so hard on them every time they learn about another victim.”

Wyatt nodded slowly. Of course, the Tarbens would have been able to put two and two together and figure that out. And since their two families were in the stages of reconciliation after a century of feuding, it wasn’t hard to imagine Allister would have called Bernard. The two of them were the respective leaders of their packs and also owners of the town’s rival breweries.

“Is she…” Bernard started, “…okay? Paige I mean.”

Wyatt swallowed another rush of emotion. “No. But she will be. I have to believe that.”

Bernard squeezed his arm again. “You know your mother and I will help any way we can.”

“I know that, Dad. Right now what I need is to find my mate so I can make her life okay and help her repair the damage.”

His father released his arm and started the car again just as the phone rang in Wyatt’s lap.

Wyatt grabbed it. “What’cha got, Dale?”

“An address.”

“Thank God. Text it to me.”

“Already did. Should come through any second. Sent it to your dad too. Looks like she rented a remote cabin for the summer also. The woman is paying rent at three addresses. She must have been super desperate. She probably thought she could break this story and make a mint.”

“Not today,” Wyatt responded as his father hit the gas, turned the car around, and sped down the road. Whatever Kelly Smith had in mind for today, her world was about to get turned upside down.

“Gavin and I are heading that way now. Also informed George and Henry. We’ll see you in a few.” The call ended, and Wyatt braced himself on the dashboard as his father drove faster than anyone should be driving on this rural road. Thank goodness, because if he hadn’t, Wyatt would have insisted they switch spots.

Hang on, babe.