Prymal Lust (23 page)

He chuckled. “No. There’s a tunnel leading to an underground shelter, which borders Lycus’s and our properties.”

“Our?” She met his reflected stare in the mirror.

“What’s mine is yours. We’ll get to that later. At any rate, Dax and Eva left using the secret exit.” Axe smothered his stubble with lather.

Tania tugged on a green sweatshirt emblazoned on the front with an elaborate orange hibiscus. She snatched a pair of stone-washed light blue jeans from the toilet seat. “This may be a duh-uh question, but why hasn’t Dax gone after the Jäeger?”

“He needed to know Eva would be okay and to leave her in a secure environment.”

In the middle of a sexy wriggle to pull the jeans over her hips, Tania froze. She stared at him. “That’s why Dax and Eva came here.”

“Yes.” Axe scraped the razor up his throat, but kept his focus on Tania.

Her cheeks paled. “You’re going after them. With Dax.”

“Yes. We leave at midnight.” Working with short, quick strokes, Axe shaved his jaw, chin, and the skin between his nose and mouth.

“Just the two of you? Against six Jäeger?” She sidled closer to him. “The Jäeger are genetically altered Russian Wylfen who were bred by Josef Mengele and Carl Clauberg. They’re deadly assassins.”

He dampened a towel, cleaned the remaining foam from his face and neck, dropped the soiled terry into the laundry basket, and gathered her to him. He thumbed away the worry lines on his mate’s forehead. “I’m a SEAL and a Feral wolf. Dax is Rogue. Trust me, six Jäeger are no match for us.”

The pulse beating above the center of her collarbone accelerated. “When do you two leave?”

“As soon as Bandit gets here. Probably at zero one. Around one a.m. After we finish eating, Lycus will go over the SOPs effective the second we leave.”

“Take Lycus with you. We don’t need him as well as Jurango, The Kydd, and Bandit. Please?” She placed her warm palms on his cheeks and looked right into his eyes.

He covered her hands with his. “Can’t, Tania. One of our tenets is not risking both our lives if we don’t have to. Lycus and I founded Prymal. One of us must remain behind.”

“Wasn’t Jurango the one who got you two together? Isn’t he a Prymal founder too?” Her tone bordered on hysterical.

Axe kneaded the dimples in the small of her back. “No. Jurango doesn’t want a leadership role. I’m not certain how long he’ll be with us. Lycus and I are SEALs, sweet girl. We deal.”

“I don’t want to lose you. I’ve only just found you.” She tiptoed and brushed her lips to his. “Why can’t Lycus go with Dax?”

“It’ll all go down as I planned. No worries.” Axe flicked her chin. “Trust me.”

All at once the worry tightening her features slackened. “Oh gawd. You’re going after the Jäeger because they’re after me, too? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Axe is going to kill me.” Tania wheeled the bike out of the concealed cave entrance her mate had shown her not two hours earlier.

Lycus and Axe had given both her and Eva a tour of their underground labyrinth complex right after their pizza and chicken wings meal. Both women had been amazed and downright impressed with the steel and concrete structure complete with living facilities, gym, an Olympic size pool, and a communication center that rivaled NASA’s.

“Don’t worry. Neither Dax nor Axe will ever suspect we even left the property,” Eva whispered. “It’ll take us thirty minutes at most to bike to town, smack some sense into my little sister’s addled brain, and send her back home.”

“I still can’t figure out how Fyrne managed to leave the boarding school without anyone noticing. And travel across the
entire
country. She’s seventeen and looks all of thirteen for cripes’ sake. Didn’t the sight of a young girl travelling alone alarm anyone?”

The security at the Connecticut boarding school all Serbian Wylfen females attended, New England College Preparatory, had never been particularly well enforced. But, roll
was
taken on a daily basis.

“Fyrne has always had bad periods. She’s usually in bed at least two days a month. She’s probably got her friends covering for her. What I don’t get is why Fyrne isn’t answering her cell anymore.” Eva mounted her bike.

Tania straddled her saddle and planted both sneakers on the ground. “She texted that it was one of those temp phones. Maybe it died. Or she exhausted the minute limit.”

“I’m going to tweak her ear until it falls off. She has no idea of the repercussions of what she’s done. The Senior Council could exile her for contacting me. I pray I can get Fyrne back to the school before anyone notices she’s gone.”

“I’m not comfortable with this, Eva. This is exactly the way people get in trouble on Law and Order—by leaving safety when they’re not supposed to and not telling anyone where they’re going. This is probably a trap.”

“You watch too much TV. Did Fyrne sound hysterical to you? Or even scared? No. She was her usual pain-in-the-ass bratty self. She didn’t take the train. Fyrne bummed a lift with a friend of a friend.”

Fyrne
had
acted like a typical, self-centered, spoiled teenager, Tania had to admit. But, that niggling sense of something not being right surged the moment they snuck into the underground tunnel. Thank goodness, she’d had the sense to leave a note on the bedside table for Axe telling him where she and Eva were going to meet Fyrne and what time they’d left.

Technically, she hadn’t disobeyed Axe’s direct order. All he’d said before leaving was to do whatever Lycus requested. Lycus had told them to get a good night’s sleep, which she would do once they got back home.

All at once, what Eva’d divulged hit Tania. “She what? OMG. Tell me your baby sister did not ride all across the country with a stranger.”

Eva grimaced. “She did. You’ve no idea how much I want to brain her for being so frigging stupid. But, in her defense, she was crazy scared for me. No one would tell her anything about me. All she knew was that I’d vanished. You don’t know Fyrne. She’s a diva. And she adores me as I do her. Ordinarily, I’d wait for Dax, but I just have this gnawing feeling something else is wrong.”

Acid unease coated Tania’s belly. “Like what?”

Eva looked away. “Fyrne’s determined not to be mate allianced. I don’t know how she found out what happened to me. But, I’m guessing she did. And now she’s running away and hoping I’ll be her sanctuary.”

Tania banged her forehead on the handlebar. “Axe is going to go nuts on me.”

“Go back,” Eva urged.

As if. She kicked a dried, dislocated Panchito Mansanita branch to one side. “No way. I’m not a quitter and I won’t let you do this alone. I still think it’s a huge mistake. Going to meet Fyrne by ourselves. And if this insane expedition ends in disaster, I’ll be telling you I told you so on an hourly basis.”

“I hear you loud and clear. Ready?” Eva asked.

“After you.” Tania waited until Eva was a good fifteen feet ahead, and then began pedaling.

Both women wore black baseball caps, dark pants and sweatshirts, sneakers, and zippered navy windbreakers. Below them lay the city of Ouzo, population twenty thousand and fifty three, according to Tania’s Google search results. They had to bike two point seven miles down the winding dirt road to hit the Wal-Mart supercenter that served the myriad small towns within a thirty-mile radius.

Tania glanced back at the cave’s hidden entrance. Her uneasiness escalated. In every horror movie she’d ever seen, this was the point where the victims made their first mistake. All her instincts told her to reverse direction.

Eva halted at the top of a sharp incline.

Tania braked and rested one foot on the ground. “What?”

“Look. I can tell you don’t want to do this. Go back. But promise me, you won’t tell Lycus or the others anything. If I’m not back in an hour, then sound the alarms.”

“I’m not letting you go by yourself. You are so frigging stubborn. Let’s just get this over and done with,” Tania retorted. “Know this. If I get in trouble with Axe, I’m blaming you for everything.”

White teeth flashed in the darkness. “Not to worry. Our alphas are more bluster than substance.”

Tania snorted. “Just because Dax hasn’t taken you to task for going to the grocery alone and
not
using the scent mask making it easy for the Jäeger to kidnap you, doesn’t mean he won’t sometime soon. I’d bet you anything he’s biding his time and waiting for you to be back to normal before he drops some kind of punishment bomb.”

“Lord, are you a wuss. Are you coming with me or not?”

“With you,” Tania muttered.

Eva pushed off and coasted down the steep incline. The red light on the back of Eva’s bike zigzagged and jerked as she rolled over small boulders.

Heaving a huge breath, Tania set her bike in motion. She guided the vehicle down the hill all the while replaying recent events in her head.

Before Axe had left, he’d told Tania and Eva to assume all their communications were being monitored. According to Axe, if the Rogue and Feral wolves had broken the Wylfen firewalls, then it only stood to reason that the reverse had happened.

That had been the reason Eva used for not informing Lycus about Fyrne’s brief phone call. Tania argued until her brain went numb, but Eva was adamant; she was going to meet with her little sister and send her packing back to New England Preparatory before anyone even suspected Fyrne had left the institution.

When Tania questioned Fyrne’s identity, Eva had pointed to the secret code the two sisters always used when emailing or texting each other.

The descent proved easier than Tania’d expected and they arrived at a two-lane paved road within fifteen minutes. In the distance streetlights and the neon sign of a gas station winked at them.

Eva and Tania biked in single file along the graveled edge of the road. The supercenter was located on the top of a rise.

Tania had to stand on the pedals to climb the sharp incline. The shadowed parking lot proved empty save for a few abandoned shopping carts and about twenty vehicles, which crowded the spaces nearest to the building.

She pulled up alongside Eva. “What’re we going to do with the bikes while we’re inside? We can’t take a chance on them being stolen.”

“Really? You’re worried about someone stealing the bikes? It’s fricking three in the morning. Ten to one all these cars belong to Wal-Mart employees. It’s a sleepy small town.”

Tania folded her arms. “We’re not leaving them out in the open.”

Eva blew out a combo snort-sigh. “Fine. Let’s go around the back. We’ll prop the bikes behind the dumpsters.”

They rounded the building’s corner. A curtain of absolute blackness confronted them. Tania couldn’t see a frigging thing. She braked hard. The bike juddered.

Hard fingers bit into her waist and tore Tania off the saddle. She gripped the handlebars. “Eva. It’s a…”

A greasy palm smashed Tania’s lips against her teeth. She tasted blood. Two fingers pinched her nose closed. She couldn’t breathe. Tania jerked her head back and forth. Two fists hammered her knuckles and she instinctively loosened her fierce grip on the handlebars.

Pain streaked up her arms. She was lifted high into the air and then slammed over an enormous shoulder. The blow knocked the wind out of her. She saw stars.

Eva screamed, but the noise was strangely muffled. It was as if the high-pitched, agonized yelp had erupted underwater.

“They’ve got her!”

Tania was thrown onto the ground. She landed butt first, instinctively jammed her palms into the gravel and lifted her head, but her skull still impacted hard.

She had to get up and run.

Find Eva and then run.

Ignoring her smarting hands and throbbing head, she rolled onto her side, and pushed into a kneeling position.

Grunts, snarls, growls, and the thuds and smacks of men engaged in battle rented the once eerie silence behind the Wal-Mart.

She had no idea who fought whom and didn’t give a frying fuck. “Eva. Eva.”

“Over here.” Eva’s voice came from her left.

Tania got on her hands and knees and crawled in that direction.

“Get the bitches.”

Someone jumped onto Tania’s back.

Knocked her belly first against the dirt and asphalt.

All the oxygen whooshed out of her lungs.

Her cheek stung.

At least two hundred pounds of hard male pinned Tania in place.

Then the weight vanished.

A familiar, comforting aroma enveloped her. Strong arms cradled her in a snug embrace. “Tanichika. Speak to me.”

“Mishe.” She burst into a sob. “Mishe.”

“It’s okay, sis. I got you. You’re safe now.”

She clung to her big brother too stunned to gather her shattered wits. “Eva—”

“Is safe. Breede has her.” Mishe broke into a sprint.

It took a couple of minutes for all that had happened to sink into her gray matter and several more before she realized that Breede, carrying Eva, loped alongside Mishe. When her brother halted in front of a parked pickup, keyed the vehicle open, and opened the door to the back seat, Tania finally managed to voice the questions dinging around her feeble brain.

“What happened? Why are you here? Who were those wolves?”

“We’re here to rescue you. A Jäeger pack. Tasked with eliminating the two of you.” Mishe settled Tania into the cold leather and buckled her in.

“How’d you know they were going to attack me?” Confusion tangoed with Tania’s normal deductive reasoning.

“We didn’t.” Breede strapped Eva in beside Tania.

“Then how’d you know we needed rescuing?” Eva asked. She looked none the worst except for a couple of scrapes on her forehead.

Tania explored her aching lower lip. She glanced at her fingertips. A few specks of blood stained her forefinger.

“There’s no time for explanations now. We have to get out of here.” Breede and Mishe shut the back doors.

“Nooooo,” Eva wailed. “My sister, Fyrne, is here somewhere. We were supposed to meet her inside the Wal-Mart.”

“The one with the red hair and freckles?” Mishe peered at Eva.

“Yes. She called me not an hour ago. She ran away from New England Preparatory.” Eva tried to squirm out of Breede’s hold. “Put me down.”