“They had to have had cubs nearby, Monty,” Jackson said, sounding aggravated.
“What about these two?” Monty asked.
“No. If they had cubs, the male wouldn’t be hanging around the female. Don’t you know anything?” Jackson turned away from him and said, “Danny!” He paused. “We got to get out of here, damn it. The park rangers nabbed my other men. We don’t want that to happen this time.”
A cage door opened. Huntley was shoved into the cage and the door slammed shut. The same happened to one close by. All he could think about was Melissa, and he prayed she was all right.
“Danny,” Jackson called out again. “You got two minutes to finish what you’re doing and get your ass back here.”
No response.
Huntley waited to hear a reply, but the boat’s engine started and then the ropes were thrown across the deck. The boat was pushed away from shore and took off. So much for waiting two minutes.
If Danny was still alive, which Huntley doubted, he was stranded. If he wasn’t alive, good riddance. Then Huntley wondered if Luke and Jason had something to do with it. Had one of the brothers found the boat and taken care of Danny? Hell, could they have had time to put a GPS tracker on the boat?
Hot damn, if they did. They hadn’t discussed doing such a thing, but he could see the brothers winging it if the opportunity availed itself. They wouldn’t let Melissa and Huntley take all the risks without another backup plan.
Feeling a little easier that Martin might soon learn where they were, Huntley was about ready to drift off to sleep again when Phil said, “So what are you going to do about that other male?”
“If we can’t get a buyer by tomorrow, he’s dead meat, as much as I hate that it might come to that after all we went through to get him. But we can’t risk having him around much longer.”
Huntley knew he and Melissa were going to have to kill the whole lot of them. No turning this bunch over to the police.
***
The motor roared on as the boat sliced through the water, and Huntley was certain the men wanted to get to where they were going as soon as they could. It was bound to get light out before long, and if they got caught transporting a couple of cats in cages, they would be arrested.
That made him think again about the cubs and how glad he was that he and Melissa didn’t have to worry any longer about getting caught while caring for them. He couldn’t wait to tell the Carringtons that their babies were safe and on the way home.
Water splashed up into the boat as they sped along, the boat bouncing and slamming into the rough water. The boat smelled of cats—margay, ocelot, puma, jaguars. Different boat, though. The other must have been confiscated. Jackson had been a busy bastard.
Huntley didn’t remember much after that, only that the men were moving around on the deck of the boat and he could hear water lapping at the sides, rubber rubbing the exterior, the sound of ropes hitting the dock, then the dock lines being tied from the boat to the dock cleats.
“Okay, get the cages into the truck pronto, and Phil, you get the boat out of the water. Huey and Monty, you help.”
Four men grunted as they hefted Huntley’s cage out of the boat, then jarred him as they carried him down the wooden dock. He was shoved into a dark enclosed truck, and then he heard and felt Melissa’s cage bang against his.
Then the door was rolled shut. He listened for the sound of anyone in the back of the truck with them, but the men seemed to still be working on getting the boat out of the water. He suspected no one was going to ride in the back. No need to.
He grunted at Melissa, but she didn’t stir. He felt dead to the world too, unable to move a damn muscle to lift his head. How the hell was he going to rescue anyone now, let alone himself and Melissa? He sure hoped like hell he could throw off the drug and do what he was supposed to do.
And he prayed again that Luke or his brother had attached a GPS to the boat and that it would lead Martin’s men to their location before long.
Then the truck began to pull forward, the engine grinding and clattering, the cages rattling and shaking as the truck rolled over the uneven ground. Huntley closed his eyes. Maybe if he could sleep just a little, he would be ready to wake up when they arrived at their destination.
At least he hoped so.
Truck doors slammed and Huntley didn’t know if the truck had driven very far from where the boat had docked or not because he hadn’t noticed when the truck had actually pulled to a stop. He must have dozed off again. A latch on the back of the truck was opened, and then the door rolled up. Huntley kept his eyes closed, but he could tell it was getting to be dawn, just a hint of light in the sky. Then he heard a male jaguar roaring and hoped it was Avery Carrington. The cat was agitated, and from the sounds of his roars, he was moving from one side of his cage to another.
The men carried Melissa’s cage out first and set it on the ground with a thunk. Then they pulled Huntley’s cage out of the truck and carried it to its final resting place.
“Get the truck out of here,” Jackson ordered.
An engine started up and then the vehicle drove off.
“Where’s Jackson going?” Monty asked.
“To meet with the buyer? Hell if I know,” Phil Gorsman said. “He’s sure pissed off about the other male cat, though, and how he couldn’t sell him and the female off at the same time.”
Huntley still wondered how Phil had been able to leave the States without being stopped after nearly murdering Jackson’s sister.
Huntley risked opening one eye to see what he could as they carried him over to the angry big cat’s cage and set Huntley’s next to it. A small adobe home was about a half acre away, high wooden fences surrounding the yard and tall trees towering over them from all sides. Four cages were empty. One held an ocelot, another, a margay.
A larger cage held a pacing male jaguar. Huntley studied his rosettes and recognized the pattern as Avery Carrington’s. Unfortunately, the Avenger agent had no clue that Huntley or Melissa were shifters and there to help him. What alarmed Huntley the most was that Avery’s wife, Kathy, wasn’t there. Phil had claimed that she had been sold off, which had to mean they’d already shipped her off somewhere else. Judging by Avery’s pacing and roaring, he would rip every human to shreds that got anywhere near him.
Huntley figured it wouldn’t matter now if Jackson and his men knew he was awake. He lifted his head and looked around for Jackson, but he was gone. Maybe he had taken off to meet with Huntley and Melissa’s buyer and it was one of their fellow agents. At least Huntley hoped that was the case. The men moved Melissa’s cage next to Huntley’s.
“Jackson’s sure pissed that the buyer didn’t want the male because he was way too aggressive,” Phil said.
Huntley couldn’t blame Avery when he had to be worried to death about his wife. As soon as he could, Huntley had to let Avery know that his babies were fine and headed back to the States. And that he and Melissa would help him get free, then do everything they could to learn where Kathy had been taken. Avery probably wouldn’t realize that all the branches were working on this.
Avery glanced in their direction for only a moment, too agitated to be interested in the new jaguars, so Huntley couldn’t get his attention.
Melissa was still doped up and sleeping, and Huntley kept worrying about her. She wasn’t stirring at all. Concerned they had overmedicated her, he watched her chest rise and fall. She was still breathing, her heart still pumping blood, but at a slower rate.
Wanting her to show him she’d be all right, Huntley growled at her. He poked his nose a short way through the steel bars of his cage, trying to get her attention, to wake her.
Phil said, “As long as the two new ones keep up the courtship and they behave, I believe we’ve got real money in them.”
Huntley stuck his paw through the cage, trying to reach Melissa’s cag
e. They were too far apart.
“Hey, let’s move the female’s cage closer to the male’s. If the male cat is still trying to connect with her when the buyer arrives, it’ll help seal the deal,” Huey said.
Huntley backed off to avoid getting his leg caught between the cages. As soon as the men finished moving her cage against his and lined the cases up so the steel rods bumped against each other, Huntley poked his paw between the two cages again. Phil and the other two men watched in fascination.
Huntley couldn’t reach her. She was lying in the middle of the cage and still fast asleep. But he noticed Avery wasn’t roaring any longer.
Huntley glanced back at him. The cat watched Huntley curiously. Huntley raised his brows and grinned. To the humans, he was certain his reaction looked like he showed off his very wicked teeth in a primal way, saying to stay the hell away from his mate.
“Would you look at that,” Phil said. “The badass cat isn’t so big and bad now that there’s another male here.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll calm down enough that we can sell him and don’t have to shoot the bastard.”
Huntley padded over to the other side of his cage, nearer to Avery’s, and did something so uncharacteristic for a male jaguar under the circumstances that he hoped he could clue Avery in that he was a shifter and not all jaguar.
Huntley truly hated to do it because it was so demeaning. The shifters didn’t just wear their jaguar coats from time to time. Being a wild cat was part of the whole of who they were. He lay down on his stomach, then rolled over on his back and exposed his belly and throat. No grown male would do that with another grown male when the one had claimed the female as his mate, even if they were in cages.
Avery grinned and his sharp teeth looked just as deadly as Huntley’s. But at least he thought Avery had gotten the message.
“Well, hell, what’s that all about?” one of the men asked.
“Maybe they’re brothers.”
Yeah, brothers in different branches of the Service and ready to kill a bunch of poachers.
The cat sat down and looked at Melissa. Huntley nodded. Then she growled softly and Huntley was on his feet—and so was Avery. Huntley rushed to her cage and roared. Her ears and whiskers and a paw twitched. Huntley tried to reach her through the cage again.
Phil said, “Jackson’s going to love the way these two act toward each other.”
“Maybe the buyer will take all three off our hands, since the first male seems to get along with the other,” another man said. “The new male has sure calmed him down.”
If the buyer was their own man, the situation couldn’t be better. Except for the fact that Kathy Carrington was gone.
***
Huntley hated to have to bide his time to break out of there, wanting to learn where Avery’s wife was being kept pronto, but they had to wait until night fell. As soon as it got dark, the rains came. One dim security light fluttered on and off at a corner of the house, and the fence had a locked gate. Phil and the other men had retired inside. All but one of the lights finally went out inside, cloaking the house in darkness. Jackson had never returned, as far as Huntley could tell.
Melissa had been lying on her stomach for about an hour, her head up. She had tried to stand a couple of times, but the effort seemed to take every ounce of her energy. Each time, she collapsed on her belly. And each time she growled softly. He was dying to help her up, but he couldn’t. Then on the third try, she finally made it to her feet, but she swayed a bit. Huntley was feeling back to his normal self. And glad of it. But he needed Melissa to be in better shape before they attempted to escape.
He examined the latch on the cage. A snap lock, easy to open as a human but impossible as a cat. Many big-cat rescue facilities used them. He recalled the story of the chimpanzees that had watched their keepers opening the gate to their enclosure. One of the large chimps had learned to open the gate, and several escaped and killed the owner. But the cats couldn’t manage such a thing.
The cages were shadowed in darkness and the rain was coming down lighter now. Huntley assumed anyone in the house would be sleeping, and even if someone looked out at the cat enclosures, he wouldn’t be able to really see what was going on. Only the cats could with their night vision.
Time to make an ally. He shifted, moved next to Avery’s cage, and said, “I’m Huntley Anderson with the JAG, and that’s my partner, Melissa Overton, JAG also. Your kids are safe. They’re on their way back to the States in the care of a couple of Guardians who are providing for them in the meantime.”
Avery shifted and frowned at him. “Thank God the babies are safe. But these bastards said they’ve sold my wife to some guy named Pierre Beaufort. He wanted us both for a breeding program. Then I lost my cool when he was poking around at Kathy, and he wouldn’t buy me. Said I would be too dangerous.”
Huntley nodded. “Understandable. We weren’t sure what we’d find. So we have to wing it. Our best chance is to storm the house, shift, and take them out—no witnesses, no leaving them for the police like we’d first planned. I’ll notify my boss, and then we’ll locate your wife. We do have an agent who’s supposed to be buying Melissa and me, but we can’t risk that he’s the one who arrives here first. If he did, he’d buy you too. If someone else shows up instead, we might end up getting separated or in a worse situation.”
“I agree. I’m damned glad to see you. Kathy said she left the cubs in a jaguar shifter’s tent and had smelled both a man and a woman. It must have been your tent.”
“It was.”
“She prayed the two of you could handle the girls and alert our people that we had gone missing.”
Huntley smiled a little. “It was kind of a shock. I came to your rescue, but they fired a shot at me, and I was knocked unconscious. I sure as hell wish I’d been able to rescue you before you had to go through all of this hell. I think Melissa was a little more shaken since she was a lot clearer headed than me at the time. She just missed taking the bastards down before they took off with the two of you in the boat.”
Avery sighed. “Would have saved everyone a lot of grief. But I could see where your partner wouldn’t have been able to handle all the men on her own. I’m just grateful you’re here now and the kids are safe.”
“Two of your Avenger buddies are helping out also—the Whittaker brothers.”
Avery smiled a little at that.
“I want to wait a little while longer until Melissa is more herself,” Huntley said.
“I want to get the hell out of here and find my wife.” Avery glanced in Melissa’s direction. She was curled up in her cage sound asleep.
Damn.
“But we’ll do it your way. We can’t risk it with your partner still so out of it.”
Huntley hated to have to wait as much as he knew Avery did, but otherwise one of them would have to carry Melissa. It was much too dangerous.
Both men shifted back into their jaguar forms. Huntley headed to Melissa’s cage and grunted at her. She grunted right back at him.
He smiled, knowing she was aggravated that she couldn’t shake off the drug. Then he lay near her cage, breathing in her relaxed scent, and waited. After what he suspected was another hour, Melissa stood and yawned, then grunted at him, letting him know she was awake and ready. Well, maybe not completely ready, but enough that she was able to escape. Huntley was immediately on his feet. So was Avery.
Huntley shifted at once and worked on unfastening the latch to his cage. So did Avery with his, then they dropped the latches on the ground and closed the gates to the cages, in case anyone chanced to look out and saw the gates wide open. Though Huntley suspected it was too dark to see.
Still in her jaguar form, Melissa leaned against the bars of her cage, waiting for Huntley to get her out, and he worried then that she still felt a little loopy or she would have freed herself. He unlatched her gate.
When she moved out of the cage, he ran his hand over her head in greeting. She nuzzled him in the crotch. He was sure his face turned a little red, and he thought she wasn’t quite with it.
He closed her cage and then shifted, and the three of them sprinted in jaguar form for the house. Standing by one of the open windows, Huntley peered through the screen. It was a bedroom, with a man sleeping on a full-size bed, sprawled out on his belly, arm slung over the side, face toward the opposite wall. An empty tequila bottle sat on the bedside table. The room smelled of liquor, sweat, and body odor—which could be a disadvantage for the shifters with their enhanced cat sense of smell.
Huntley went around to each of the windows, avoiding the one nearest the security light, though it shuddered and stayed off more than it stayed on. He finally found an open window to the kitchen, which he hoped was far enough away from anyone who might hear them entering. Still, the window looked to be situated over the sink, and that meant leaping in through the window and trying not to make a big racket. But with all the dishes and dirty food in the sink, Huntley opted for the first bedroom he’d investigated.
With everyone still in their jaguar forms, Avery stuck close to Melissa, guarding her, for which Huntley was grateful. Even though she had a viciously strong bite, he wasn’t certain she could attack that well in her current condition.
Huntley inserted his fishhook claws into the screen mesh on the bedroom window and tugged, making a racket, his heart drumming. He yanked the screen out quickly with his powerful claws. The man on the bed was too drunk to wake and didn’t stir. Huntley leaped inside and then shifted into his human form.
Melissa and Avery jumped through the window and waited while Huntley woke the man to question him about Pierre Beaufort’s whereabouts. Huntley had his hand on the man’s throat, threatening to strangle him. “How can I reach Pierre Beaufort?”
“Who…?” the man said, looking up groggily and then beginning to stir. “What the hell.” He couldn’t see Huntley in the dark, which was to Huntley’s advantage because he didn’t believe the poacher would think a naked, unarmed man was too dangerous.