AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her lips had parted to make a laughing comment when a strange beeping began to sound through the vehicle.
She saw Cabal’s expression first. Complete disbelief.
“Fuck! Get out!” Between one breath and the next he was throwing her door open and pushing her out.
Stumbling, adrenaline coursing through her body, Cassa went to her knees before scrambling to her feet and running.
“Cabal!” She screamed out his name as the Raider exploded behind her.
A wave of heat, shocking, searing, threw her to the ground as smoke began to roll and thicken the air. She could hear the squeal of tires, voices raised in alarm, seconds before rough hands latched onto her arms and she was tossed again.
Screaming, kicking, trying to bite, she fought the hold as she literally bounced against a metal floor and a door slammed shut.
Smoke still filled her lungs as she fought to cough, to drag in needed oxygen, as she pushed herself to her knees and swept her hair back from her face.
Terror surged through her as she felt movement. In one second a thousand impressions assailed her. She was in a van—the cold metal floor beneath her knees, the chill of the air, the dank scent of the interior. It was shadowed, closed off. There were no windows, but she wasn’t alone.
Her eyes swept around the interior until they landed on the man who inhabited the van with her. Long, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a dark complexion. For all his unassuming coloring, his features were memorable, and unmistakable. He was pure Lion Breed. She’d seen him in the picture left on the bank where Cash Winslow had died. She had seen him in other pictures as well. In the vids Jonas had displayed the night before. Pictures of the pride of Felines that was murdered Valentine’s night, twenty-two years before.
“Cabal will kill you,” she whispered hoarsely.
His lips quirked into a faintly amused grin.
“You don’t care?” She did.
“I’d have to be alive to care, Ms. Hawkins,” he said, his voice torn, raspy. More animal than man. “And we both know, I’m not really alive. Don’t we?”
She was staring into the face of a dead man.
Roars of rage echoed in the parking lot of the inn as smoke billowed from the destruction of the Raider. Flames leapt from the burning vehicle, searching for dry tinder, finding none. They sputtered on the pavement, in the street and the damp bank of the river that flowed on the other side.
Guests rushed from the inn. Sirens screamed through the small town, and Breeds rushed from several points shouting reports to Jonas as he raced from the building, followed by Rule and Lawe.
Cabal fought through the haze of smoke to find his mate, knowing she wasn’t there. He’d heard the vehicle, heard her screams. She’d been taken. He could feel it in the very marrow of his bones, and the knowledge enraged the tiger that lived just beneath the flesh of the man.
“St. Laurents, you’re wounded.” One of the Breeds rushed to him, dared to lay hands on him.
Cabal turned to him with a silent snarl of pure primal fury. Satisfaction raged through him as the Breed paled and backed away. He knew what the other man saw. At any other time he would have hated it, would have fought back the animal to hide it. Now he let it free, knowing that the dark stripe that ran from his forehead, slashed across his eye, nose and opposite cheek was an anomaly—the animal raging too close to the flesh, the spirit of the beast overtaking the man. He didn’t care. Let the animal free. The man had been weak. He had let his enemies live as he searched for answers. He had allowed his mate to be endangered as he searched for vengeance. No longer. Blood would spill. The enemies would die. There would be payment for this day.
“Cabal. Stand the fuck down.” Jonas’s order was a distant command, one he ignored as he surveyed the area, taking in the scents, drawing them in, separating them.
He knew the scent of the vehicle. There was a hint of something he had smelled once before, in only one particular place. The sheriff’s home. Danna Lacey was partial to cinnamon scents. The scent of cinnamon had been heavy in the small house she owned. It was more subtle in the van, but proof enough that she was acquainted with it.
He raised his head as the sounds of the sirens drew closer. The sheriff’s cruiser was the first to pull in. Cabal narrowed his gaze, watching as it slammed to a stop and Danna Lacey jumped from the vehicle.
There was no surprise at first. There was knowledge. Her eyes showed her knowledge of what had happened here before she replaced it with shock and began shouting orders. An ambulance rolled in, fire trucks. He paid little attention as he stalked toward her, aware that Jonas, Rule and Lawe were coming on his rear fast.
“Cabal. Are you okay?” There was true shock now. There was always shock when the unwary saw the proof of the tiger streaked across his face.
He didn’t answer. He could feel the blood at his shoulder, the slice across his flesh. It was there. It wasn’t fatal. An inconvenience, nothing more.
He bared his teeth in lethal fury. It wouldn’t stop him from killing this woman.
As the Breeds converged around them, his hand went out, his fingers locking around her throat as he slammed her against the side of the car.
Not enough to hurt her. The male was weak; he was merciful where the animal wanted nothing more than to rip her lying throat out.
“Return my mate.” He kept the order simple. Words weren’t as easy as they had once been, not with the growls that were tearing from his chest.
