Everything inside Shaya screamed at the sight of him lying there like that, unconscious and vulnerable. Her wolf froze in panic, howling. Drowning in emotions she couldn’t even understand right then, Shaya ignored reason and rationality as instinct took over; she climbed down and raced through the maze of trees. With only Nick’s safety on her mind, she hadn’t registered the presence of three unfamiliar scents until an arm looped around her waist, a hand was clamped over her mouth, and the gun was yanked from her hand. Shit!
She struggled like crazy, hitting and head-butting and scratching, but her attacker—a shifter, she sensed—didn’t release her. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement: Amber’s wolf was finishing off a fleeing human. She caught sight of Shaya and froze in what was most likely surprise. Shaya appealed to her with her eyes, hoping that for just once, Amber would do what was right instead of what suited her.
She didn’t.
The bitch loped away, leaving Shaya at the mercy of God-knew-who. Then the butt of her gun smacked into her head, and everything went dark.
“For God’s sake, shift! Now, Nick! I can’t heal you until you shift!”
It was not the voice of the Alpha female that woke the gray wolf. It was the feel of his mate’s fear, her anger, her determination to be free of the danger she was in. Danger. He had known the danger was coming for her, had felt it just before the blackness came.
There was the sound of the Alpha female’s voice again. But the gray wolf had no interest in her. His only concern was his mate. She needed him, and he would not, could not, ignore that. He tried jumping to his feet. His leg crumpled beneath him. He yelped with pain, unable to rise. He could feel Nick’s panic, knew that Nick wanted dominance right then. Accepting for his mate’s sake that Nick was the strongest at that moment, the wolf backed down.
The shift was agonizing; Nick clenched his teeth against the pain, worried he’d pass out again. His leg had not only taken a bullet, but it was broken in two places. He was bleeding badly in several places, had taken a hard blow to his head, and had knife wounds in his sides.
“Roll onto your back now!” ordered Taryn.
“Shaya,” he panted. “She’s—”
“Now, Nick! If you die, Shaya will kill me!”
Carefully positioning himself on his back, he again tried to speak, but Taryn’s mouth was locked on his and she was healing him. It was the oddest feeling; each time she breathed out some of what she called the “badness,” he felt lighter yet stronger, relaxed yet galvanized. The pain got worse before it got better as his leg snapped back into place. But then there was only calm and peace and power. Done, she sat up. Trey was instantly at her side, holding her.
Nick shot upright and turned to Derren. “Shaya’s been taken.”
“Taken?” growled Derren. “Taken by who?”
“I don’t know.” But whoever it was, they would soon be dead. “Where’s Logan?”
“We can’t find his body, but he was badly injured—there’s no way he could have kidnapped Shaya when he could barely walk. She’d have easily overpowered an injured human.”
Nick could agree with that. “What about the shifter? I haven’t scented an unfamiliar shifter.”
“Neither have I.”
That meant the shifter was most likely the kidnapper. His panic increased at the thought of it, at the thought of anyone hurting this female he’d come to love more than he believed he was capable of loving anyone. He didn’t fear the realization, didn’t fear the all-consuming feeling or view it as a weakness. All he feared was anything happening to her. “I need to shift again. I need to find her.” This would be the perfect time to have another one of his knowings, but oh no, fate had apparently decided that this was a situation he and his wolf would have to fight their way through alone.
“We can’t come with you, Nick,” Taryn told him, tears in her eyes. “I need to stay here. A lot of these people are injured.” Nick nodded in understanding. “You make sure you bring her back,” ordered Taryn. The tears were in her voice now too.
Oh, he’d bring her back. He’d never before let anyone keep him from Shaya, and he wouldn’t start now. “Count on it.” With that, he swiftly returned to his wolf form.
The gray wolf darted to the spot where his mate should have been waiting. He needed to follow her scent in order to find her. Near the tree, he picked up four scents: one belonged to his mate, two belonged to humans, and the last scent was that of a shifter. It was a scent that the wolf knew…a scent that belonged to a wolf who should be dead.
Shaya knew Nick would come for her. Knew it. But she truly didn’t want him to. Not when it was obvious that she was bait—a bait that was sitting on the floor with her wrists tied behind her back, held captive in the “hut” on the other side of pack territory by a trio of mentally unhinged males. Worse, one of said unhinged males was pointing her own rifle at her.
Pissing Shaya off even more, Amber was sitting opposite her in the exact same position. The only good thing about that was that the bitch had a broken leg. No, it wasn’t because she had tried to help Shaya after all. The trio had taken Amber so that she couldn’t alert anyone. They had even injected Amber with a drug that stopped her from shifting—the same drug they’d used in the game preserve. Had they known Shaya was a half-shifter, they would most likely have done the same to her.
Was Amber now on Shaya’s side? No, she was trying to bargain with the trio for her life, claiming she would heal their wounds if they agreed to free her. The bargaining didn’t appear to be working. Shaya wouldn’t have cared if it worked; the only thing she could think about was getting to Nick. But there were three of these shitheads and one of her. She had to wait for the right moment, or they would most likely put her unconscious again. She couldn’t escape if she was unconscious. And she would escape. It went in her favor that none of them knew she was a half-shifter. They didn’t know she was much stronger and faster than she looked, nor that the knot tying her wrists might not be as effective as they’d hoped.
Her dad had taught her the trick of freeing herself from knots a long time ago, but it was a little different trying to do it when it was a life-or-death situation. Just thinking about Nick unconscious had the adrenaline pumping more rapidly around Shaya’s body and her heart pounding even louder.
Stay calm, her father would have told her. Be observant. Okay. Well, two of the three males were human, they had all been visited by the Ugly Fairy—one was so ugly it was almost fascinating—and the one in the center was clearly the shifter behind the creation of the game preserve.