Mirror Image Seduction (Feline Shifters of Down Under Book 1) (16 page)

Ryan hung up without responding. There was no point in promising anything he couldn’t deliver on.

“Okay. Let’s go get our mate. Think we can make it through that broken window?”

Dylan jogged over to a pile of bricks against the side fence.

“Seriously? Breaking another window isn’t going to help.”

“Keep your fur on. I’m getting her spare key.”

“How do you know about her spare key?”

The arrogant cat just smirked at him before heading towards the back door. Ryan held his breath as Dylan carefully slid the key into the lock and twisted it. With a quiet snick it opened and swung in. Ryan sent up a silent prayer that they weren’t too late as he prowled down the hallway behind his twin.

Chapter Sixteen

Dylan had never experienced terror like this before. He could barely hear through the sound of his blood rushing in his ears, his palms were slick with sweat, and his imagination was coming up with all sorts of horrific scenarios.
Please be alive.
Anything else they could deal with. So long as Lacey was still here with them and breathing … they would find a way to cope.

Following the sound of a low male rumble he headed toward Lacey’s bedroom. The closer he got to her the stronger the red haze over his vision got. She was in her bedroom with her stalker. What had their mate already suffered?

He stopped when he stood before her closed door. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focused on his hearing. With his shifter-hyper senses he could work out roughly where in the room the bastard was, and whether it was safe to break down the door. He hadn’t heard Lacey’s voice at all yet, and his cat was pushing hard to get free to save their mate.

“See? We’re good together. You just forgot how good it feels with me.”

Pure rage washed over Dylan, and his body vibrated as his cat pushed harder than he ever had before to shift. It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep himself in human form, because his cheetah couldn’t open a door.

Ryan’s presence behind him bolstered his confidence as he gripped the doorknob with a firm grip and, holding his breath, he slowly twisted it. He opened the door just a fraction to test if there was anything blocking it and silently cursed when it hit resistance.

“There’s something blocking the door. On three I’m going I shove the door in.”

“Do it.”

If it was something small, it would probably end up being tossed across the room. But they had one chance to make a surprise entrance, and he wasn’t going to risk needing more than one go at getting the bloody door open. He hoped he took out the guy and didn’t hurt Lacey with the move.

“One, two, three.”

With all his shifter strength he shoved the door open. With a terrible ripping sound the door came off the hinges and flew, along with a chair, to the side of the doorway. Dylan didn’t give it more than a micro-second of attention. His cheetah howled and took over, shredding his clothes as his strong feline form broke free of its human cage. He had no chance of holding the beast back now that he could see his mate. The sight of Lacey tied to the bed, gagged and half naked with some bastard on top of her would forever be seared into his mind.

“What the fuck?”

Rodney jumped free from the bed with a girly squeal of fright as Dylan leapt onto the mattress. Carefully placing his paws so he covered her body with his and kept her beneath him, protected. Without looking at his mate, he bared his fangs and snarled at the one who’d dare cause her pain.

While Rodney stood still, his eyes wide with shock, staring at Dylan’s cheetah form, Ryan had slipped up behind him. In a couple of lightning fast moves, Ryan had Rodney pinned to the floor with one arm twisted up behind his back. There was a crunch, and the man started blubbering about pain. Dylan purred a little. He hoped Ryan just broke his shoulder or elbow. Both preferably.

Sure that Ryan had Rodney under control, Dylan turned around so he could look into his mate’s eyes. Tears were streaming down her face, and her whole body shook violently beneath him. With a quiet whine, he lowered until his belly touched her bare skin. He gently licked at her tears before he carefully took hold of the gag with his teeth and tugged the material down out of her mouth. The moment her lips were free she opened them wide to gulp in deep breaths of air. Dylan raised himself slightly to allow her lungs more room to fill.

“Oh shit. Dylan, my Dylan. You came for me. He hurt me, oh bloody hell … he really hurt me, but you came. You saved me.”

She started moaning and pulling on her arms. He looked up and saw her hands had been bound with rope to the headboard, and blood was trickling down her forearms from how hard she’d tried to pull free. Balancing his weight on three paws, he lifted the other to swipe at the rope with his powerful sharp claws, being careful to not nick his mate. When the rope snapped, freeing her, Lacey winced and groaned in pain as she tried to lower her arms from above her head.

“Dylan, shift back. She needs you to be human. Push your cat down, brother. You need to massage her arms, to get her blood flowing again. And I can hear sirens. We don’t want the police or medics seeing a bloody cheetah outside the zoo. C’mon, brother.”

He knew his brother was right, but his cheetah didn’t want to let go. He wanted to be the one to care for their mate, to make sure she stayed protected. He forced his cheetah to truly look at Lacey, at the pain she was suffering because no one was able to help her. Cheetah’s claws didn’t fully retract, so even if his cheetah wanted to, he couldn’t even attempt to massage her. He’d tear her up with his claws.

That seemed to get through to his cat, and he was able to leap from the bed, then shift back to human.

“Come and grab my bag and get dressed first.”

“Ah yeah. Don’t want the first responders getting a load of my junk.”

As fast as he could, and without giving Rodney even a glance, he dressed and returned to Lacey.

“Hey, beautiful.”

“Dylan.”

Her voice was rough, like she’d been trying to scream through the gag, and it tore at his heart. With his eyes squeezed shut, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead before he picked up one of her arms. After helping her lower the limb and almost crying himself at the look of intense pain in her eyes, he rubbed and massaged her biceps until she stopped whimpering. Then he repeated the process for the other side.

Her clothes were a mess. Her shirt had been ripped down the center, and her bra cups were shoved down under her breasts, exposing their creamy slopes. It couldn’t be comfortable, and with as much care as he could, he slipped his fingers inside the cups to allow each of her breasts to settle back inside the protection of the lacy material. Her pants had been torn open, but her panties seemed to be intact.
Thank the fates for that!

Considering Rodney’s fly was undone, anything could have happened if they hadn’t got here when they did. Dylan’s cheetah rose to the surface once again, wanting to be freed, but he pushed it down. Lacey needed her human mates at the moment, not her cheetahs.

Sirens now filled the air, and Dylan could see blue and red lights flash down the hallway. They must have pulled up onto the front lawn. He quickly folded in the blanket on each side so Lacey was covered.

“I’m going to go let the police and medics in. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, but her eyes filled with tears. His heart ached for what she’d gone through, and he wanted nothing more than to bundle her up and take her home. But they needed to do this properly so Rodney got taken care of for good.

With a wince he reluctantly left the room to head towards the front door and the person who was currently pounding on it.

****

Ryan stayed where he was as Dylan left the room. He had Rodney pinned to the floor with his knee in the center of his back keeping him there. The brutal arm lock he was keeping him in didn’t hurt either. Well, it did hurt. But only Rodney, so it was fine.

A whimper from the bed had him wincing. Ryan wanted nothing more than to go to her and comfort her, but until the police took Rodney, he was needed here.

“Lacey, sweetheart. I’m still here with you.”

She hadn’t even looked at him since they came in. Was Dylan right? Did she only want one of them? What would he do if she rejected him and only accepted Dylan? Could he honestly stand aside to let his twin know happiness at least? He hoped he could be that big of a person. But it would break his heart every time he saw them, and he’d never get his own family. Never raise cubs of his own. It would gut him for sure.

His gaze locked onto her body, and his lungs refused to work when she stilled at his voice. Images of a life alone without his twin or mate beside him filled his mind. Internally his cheetah howled in agony, and his own mind whirled in a downward spiral of darkness.

Then she rolled toward him. She winced when she saw Rodney, before she lifted her gaze to his. Ryan took a deep breath when her gaze softened and a small smile tugged at her lips.

“My precious Ryan.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she did nothing to stop them as they fell. Ryan’s own vision went wavy with unshed tears. His mate wasn’t rejecting him.

“Hey, sweetheart, don’t you worry about a thing. Me and Dylan have got this. We’ll have you safe and sound tucked into bed at our place before you know it.”

She nodded a little as she brought her knees up so she was in a fetal position. He wished the cops would hurry the hell up. He wanted to be holding her, not this ass-wipe on the floor.

“I know, Ryan. You and Dylan will always take care of me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such wonderful men in my life…”

“They’re not fucking men. They’re nothing but mons—”

Ryan twisted Rodney’s arm a little tighter, and the bastard shut up real quick.

“You will never say a word of what we are. If you do, we will find you. Even in jail we will get to you and just think about the kind of mess two fully grown, pissed off cheetahs would leave you in. It won’t be pretty, or much fun. Not for you, anyway. If you even manage to survive it.”

Rodney shuddered beneath his hands, but stayed silent. Dylan led the police in, Eli in the lead. Ryan happily handed over custody of Rodney to the lion and stood up.

“I might have dislocated his shoulder when I took him down.”

Eli grabbed Rodney off the floor and roughly shoved him against a wall, holding him there as he called one of the medics to come check out the shoulder.

“As much as I’m sure he deserves nothing more than being cuffed and taken in with a busted up shoulder, the law prevents me from doing so.”

He nodded at the lion once in thanks. Then, Ryan went straight over to Lacey and kissed her on the forehead. He kneeled down beside the bed and stroked her hair while the medics checked her over and bandaged the wounds at her wrists.

Once they checked to make sure she didn’t need any other obvious medical attention, they peppered her with questions. It was bloody hard to hear the details of how his mate had been injured.

“Were you raped?”

Fuck, that one question struck a knife to his soul.

“No, he…” She paused to lick her lips. “He was going to. He used his fingers, but my men came in before he got any further.”

They all helped her up once they’d finished asking questions, and she turned to face him, her red-rimmed eyes filled with tears again. Cupping her face, he gently pressed his lips against hers. Just for a moment, before he released her to continue answering questions from the police this time. He wrapped his arms around her waist, relishing how she leaned back against him. When Eli took over the investigating, relief had him sagging against the side of the mattress. They’d been in time to save her from being raped.

****

Lacey woke to someone's hands on her feet, massaging her, and someone else's lips on her neck, kissing her slowly.

“Good morning.”

She stretched carefully between the two men who were surrounding her and blinked her eyes open slowly. Her shoulders ached from last night and she still had a bit of a headache, but all in all she felt physically good considering what she’d been through. Mentally was a completely different story, but she refused to look too deeply into that yet.

“Good morning, beautiful. We have breakfast for you if you are ready to eat?”

Delicious smells had her tummy rumbling, so she moved to sit against the headboard. The moment she was settled, a tray slid across her lap filled with pancakes, fresh blueberries, and a glass of juice.

“I … um, thank you.”

Ryan, who had moved to sit near her feet, gave her a big grin. “No problem, Dylan did most of that of course.”

Lacey blinked away the tingling threat of tears and wrapped her fingers around the juice. Lifting the drink, she swallowed some of the juice. The cold liquid relieved her parched throat, and she moaned at how good the relief was.

These two men were so full of thoughtful gestures, they never seemed to stop.

“I didn't fully consider the advantages of Dylan being a chef.”

“One of the many perks, I assure you.” Dylan winked, and she smiled at him as her heart warmed.

“I can imagine.” Suddenly, her exhaustion took over, and everything in her dragged. She eyed off the mountain of food in front of her. A full belly would definitely help her. She swallowed more of the sweet, tangy orange juice and took a bite of blueberries and pancake. The pancakes were fluffy and light, but her shoulders were so stiff she struggled to move enough to eat.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? How can we make you feel better?”

She must have sighed out loud without realizing it.

“I don’t know.” And she honestly didn’t.

Maybe she needed a little time alone to process everything. But did she really want them to go?

“Could you take this away for me? I’m suddenly not hungry anymore.” Dylan squinted at her a moment, like he was assessing her health at a glance, before he moved to take her breakfast tray away. Once more tears burned her eyes as Dylan and Ryan once again made their care for her obvious with their actions. They tried so hard to always make sure she was comfortable and had everything she needed.