Tiger Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 3) Read online

  He rested his forehead against hers. “Sophia, I know you think I’m the kind of stand-up guy that wouldn’t mess with my Enforcer’s mate. But you—you do something to me. It’s like you draw me to you with a magnet. I can’t resist you. And I can’t let Alexander Grant hurt you.”

  Sophia frowned. “Why would he hurt me?”

  Jesse’s face shut down. “Because he’s batshit crazy. I told you.”

  He pulled his head away and said, “I’m going to check out the other room. See if there’s any weaknesses that I can find in the security system.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I’m going to clean up a little.” She tried to smile at him. “No peeking,” she said.

  It hurt his heart, seeing her trying to joke around. Trying to be brave. He gave her another little half-smile. “I’ve seen it, babe.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to see it again.”

  He just gave her a little salute and walked to the door.

  He did a new tour of the room, looking at it with different eyes. The walls were blank concrete, without even any electrical outlets. The single outlet he’d seen was in the bathroom—a box-type outlet with the wiring coming in through a conduit attached to the wall. The ventilation duct work was also exterior, as were the water pipes, which meant the walls were solid.

  Mindful of the camera, he wandered toward the door, trying to look aimless. It was reinforced metal, like a cell door. There was a small square window in it, a little below Jesse’s eye level, so that he had to stoop to see through it. It was filled with thick Plexiglas, almost unbreakable. No potential weapons there, and no escape.

  At the bottom of the door was a slot with a metal cover, sort of like a mail slot, except at floor level. Jesse figured that was for food delivery. Assuming that Grant planned on feeding them.

  Jesse moved to one side, then the other, peering down the hall as far as he could in both directions. There were at least a dozen cells on this hallway. It was impossible to tell anything about the rest of the structure, though. From the looks of it, they could be inside a building, in a basement, or in a bunker of some kind.

  But they were underground. Jesse’s wolf knew it, and hated it. Of all the shifters, wolves had the lowest tolerance for being caged. Wolves hated closed spaces and underground rooms; they needed freedom and the feel of the wind. Lock a wolf up for too long, and it got sick. Or went crazy.

  But they weren’t going to be here long enough for that. Jesse was going to make sure of it. Somehow.

  He crouched in the corner, looking up at the security camera. It was stationary, not panning from side to side. It probably had a wide-angle lens. That would cover most of the cell, with the exception of the bathroom, and the corner right next to the door where he was sitting.

  Leaving blind spots was an amateur move, even if it wasn’t much of a security risk. Jesse was out of camera range, but anyone coming through the door would see him as soon as it opened, so there was no chance of catching them by surprise.

  Still, he might be able to use the blind spot to his advantage.

  The door lock was electronic, operated from the outside. But there was wiring sheathed in a metal casing that ran down to a panel on the wall inside the cell, next to the locking mechanism. A fail safe? The panel was closed, the cover screwed down, but if he were able to MacGyver some tools Jesse might be able to pry into it and trigger the lock from the inside.

  The problem was, bypassing the lock wouldn’t be enough. There would be security cameras in the hallways, and an alarm would probably sound the second the cell door opened. And there would also be a guard station between them and the outside.

  He needed a better plan.

  He was running through possibilities in his mind when he heard a commotion in the hallway. Jesse rose to his feet and peered out the Plexiglas window.

  Three uniformed guards were dragging a huge, shaggy man down the hall on his back. He was bigger than Jace, or even Kane, and muscled like Sasquatch on steroids. He had a full head of wild black hair, and a thick, shaggy beard. He’d also been beaten bloody; half his face was purple with bruising, and his hair was matted with blood. But the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut glittered with defiant fury, and he was roaring and cursing at the guards.

  As Jesse watched, he contorted and changed into a black-maned lion, giving an ear-shattering roar.

  The guards were clearly taken by surprise. They dropped the lion and jumped back, drawing their weapons, but not before one got a set of deep claw marks across his thigh.

  He screamed, and one of the other guards hit the lion with one of those taser rods. He immediately seized and his lion form retreated, leaving him lying naked in the hallway. Jesse could see now that his whole body was covered in cuts and bruises, some livid ones across his torso suggesting broken ribs and maybe some internal bleeding.

  The guard who’d been mauled had collapsed in the hallway, moaning and cursing and clutching his leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Jesse growled, viciously hoping he’d bleed out. Anyone who’d do this kind of work was a prick and a sadist, and deserved what he got.

  From up and down the hall, Jesse heard howls and snarls, and metallic thuds as dozens of fists pounded on metal doors. The sound rose to a wild cacophony that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

  This place was full of shifters.

  One of the guards banged on the nearest cell door. “Shut up, all of you! Or no meals tomorrow!”

  The noise gradually died away. The other two guards aimed a few well-placed kicks at the lion shifter’s midsection, and Jesse distinctly heard another rib crack. Then they roughly picked up his arms again and dragged him off down the hall.

  He had to be in agony. He opened his mouth, but instead of giving a roar of pain, he began laughing like a crazy-ass lunatic. The sound of his wild laughter stayed in the air until they shoved him in his cell and the door clanged shut.

  Chapter 13

  Sophia stood in the bathroom in her damp sweats, trying to wrap a threadbare towel around her hair. It was hardly bigger than a hand towel, and so thin it soaked through in seconds. For a moment she missed her private bathroom in Nash’s house, and the fluffy bath sheets that went with it. Not that it wasn’t just as much of a prison as this, but at least it was comfortable.

  She startled as Jesse stepped into the bathroom. His presence filled the room, making her uncomfortable. For someone who wasn’t a dominant wolf, he had a huge presence. It wasn’t the steal-your-breath hit-your-knees kind of dominance Nash and his lieutenants had. It was more the commanding presence of his advisors—the ones who came to back-room meetings and didn’t show their faces in public. The power brokers and kingmakers.

  This man was more formidable than he believed.

  And sexier than he thought he was, too. His body seemed to radiate heat, and a magnetic pull that made Sophia want to crawl into his arms and never come out, trusting him to take care of her forever.

  Good luck with that. That fairy tale was never coming true. Not for her.

  Jesse stepped forward and took the towel, wringing it out and then rubbing it gently over her hair. It was an unexpectedly intimate thing to do, and for some reason it brought tears to her eyes.

  “How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

  She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know,” she said. She hesitated, and he put the towel aside and ran his fingers through her hair, separating the strands so it could dry.

  Sophia just wanted to close her eyes and lean into him. Instead she asked, “What was all that noise? Are there more shifters here?”

  “Looks like it,” Jesse said. “Sounds like dozens of them. I know why Grant wants us, but why so many others? I can’t believe there’s a big enough black market to make it worthwhile.”

  Sophia shook her head. She had no idea. And Jesse’s closeness, his fingers caressing her hair, made her want to forget everything else.

  His fingers stilled, and then he put his hands on her shoulders
and turned her around, looking into her eyes. His were an unusual light brown, reminding her of melted caramel. His lips parted, as if he were about to say something.

  At that second, all the lights in the place went out, and they were plunged into total darkness.

  Sophia gasped, and she reached out reflexively, her hands encountering Jesse’s rock-hard chest. He froze at her touch, seeming not even to breathe.

  “Lights out!” a guard roared from the hallway.

  No kidding.

  “What time is it?” Sophia managed to ask. As if that mattered, but she was trying to distract herself from his nearness.

  She felt Jesse’s chest move as he took a breath. “Ten o’clock?” he guessed. “Eleven, maybe? We were ambushed late morning, and then transported here. By the state of my bruises, I figure we were out maybe eight hours. We missed dinner, anyway.”

  Sophia’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. She hadn’t even thought about it until now.

  “So, this is it?” she asked. “They’re going to keep us caged in here in the dark until morning?”

  She could hear her voice shaking. Somehow, she’d been able to keep the fear at bay when she could see where she was. But with the darkness, the weight of their imprisonment pressed down on her. She’d been caged in the dark before, and it never ended well.

  No! She would not give in to the fear. She wouldn’t. If she gave in, she’d go tiger, and she might hurt Jesse.

  She felt the tiger rising to the surface, a snarl escaping.

  She had to get away from him.

  But he wasn’t backing away. Instead, his hands stayed on her shoulders, rubbing them gently. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”

  She slid her hands down to his taut waist and focused on the warmth of his skin. She wanted to pull him close, but she was afraid her tiger would feel trapped and burst out.

  He seemed to sense that, because he didn’t close the space between them, just kept quietly rubbing her shoulders until her breathing slowed.

  Her vision had adjusted, and she could see his outline now, warm and solid. His eyes shone with little flecks of gold. His wolf was riled up, too.

  “Come on,” he said, turning her and putting his hand lightly on the small of her back. “We can’t stay in here all night. At least in the other room, we can sit down and get comfortable.”

  He kept his hand on her back as they walked across the cell. Sophia’s night vision was kicking in, but everything was still dim and shadowy.

  Her foot hit something that rolled across the floor with a metallic clatter. She froze. Oh God, it was the taser baton.

  Jesse’s hand tightened on her waist. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s just that damn cattle prod of Grant’s.”

  “I know,” she said. But she couldn’t make herself move. She didn’t know why. Nash Jenkins carried his electrified cane with him all the time, and she’d gotten used to seeing him with it, blocking out the number of times he had hurt her with it, and would hurt her with it again.

  She’d gotten used to shutting off that part of her mind, to pretending that everything was normal, that her pack was a bunch of normal people living in a lovely, gracious home presided over by a benevolent patriarch.

  Because otherwise she would never have survived.

  But suddenly, here in this cell with that veneer of civilization ripped away, she couldn’t pretend that instruments of abuse and torture were anything but what they were. All the times she’d been shocked and tormented crashed over her, and she couldn’t move. Not if that thing was anywhere that she might touch it. She just couldn’t.

  Jesse rubbed his hand gently up and down her spine. “Soph?” he murmured. “What is it?”

  He sounded confused. No wonder. She’d been frickin’ Wonder Woman all day, and now she was freaking out over a taser that wasn’t anywhere near her. But she still couldn’t move.

  “That thing,” she said. “I can’t—can you get it out of the way?”

  “Sure,” he said. She could hear the puzzlement in his voice. “Wait here.”

  She heard him move softly across the room, and the scraping sounds as he picked up the taser rod and moved it to the other side of the room, away from the bed.

  “It’s okay now,” he said as he came back to her. “Come over and sit down. You’re shaking.”

  She was, she realized. Her hands were shaking, and her legs felt like jelly.

  Jesse led her over to the mattress and sat her down. Then he put his back against the wall and pulled her between his legs, her back against his chest, his bent knees forming a warm barrier against the darkness.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and took her hands in his, warming them. “Just breathe,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”

  Sophia just sat for a few minutes, soaking in his warmth and strength. A cold, hard spot in her chest that had been there as long as she could remember started to loosen.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what that was about. With all the things that have happened today, you’d think a stupid cattle prod lying on the floor would be the least of my worries. I feel like an idiot.”

  Jesse rubbed his hands up and down her forearms.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve been so amazingly brave all day long, I figured nothing could get to you. I should have realized the shock would hit you at some point.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have hit you,” she said.

  Jesse shrugged. “I’m an Enforcer,” he said. “Part-time, anyway. And I’ve been in battle situations. You learn to manage the emotions, is all. At least until the crisis is over.”

  “So it’s just that I’m a rich little cream puff who doesn’t know how to manage stress,” she said drily. If he only knew. Her whole life had been one long exercise in stress management. And in convincing herself and everyone else that nothing was wrong, when really, nothing was right.

  But Jesse didn’t get defensive. “I didn’t mean that, exactly,” he said, reaching up and casually brushing her hair back behind her shoulder. “Although, you’re soft and sweet like a cream puff.”

  She snorted.

  “That’s my girl,” he said. “I just meant that being in any kind of battle or hostage situation is more difficult to handle if you’re not trained for it, and don’t have the experience.”

  He went quiet, then added, “But I think it was more than that. You may not remember, but your tiger reacted to the taser rod too. It was almost like it triggered a traumatic memory. Do you remember ever having some kind of traumatic experience with an electric shock?”

  Sophia hesitated. She had to tell Jesse something, and he was smart enough to know if she was lying. But she wasn’t going to bare all her family secrets and shame right here, right now.

  Maybe a half-truth would work.

  “That cane Nash carries?” she said. “It’s a taser. He carries it for protection.” Jesse stroked the back of her arm, waiting for her to go on. “When I first came to live with him, as a little girl, I didn’t know it was dangerous. Until I got shocked by it. Really bad. It was horrible.”

  More horrible than he knew. The first time Nash had punished her with the cane, she’d thought she was going to die.

  Jesse’s arms tightened around her, holding her close. “I’m sorry that happened,” he said.

  She forced herself to shrug, like it wasn’t a big deal. “I used to have nightmares about it,” she said. Also true. She still did—but because the bastard still used it to keep her in line.

  “After a while I got used to seeing him with it, and I didn’t really notice it anymore.” More like, she just forced herself not to think about it. “But I guess—well, maybe you’re right. Everything that happened today kind of hit me all at once, and maybe it brought that trauma to the surface? Anyway, I’m sorry I acted like such a baby.”

  “God, don’t apologize,” Jesse said. “You’re entitled to a complete meltdown. I think you’re doing grea
t.”

  Inside, she was a blubbering wreck. But she didn’t want Jesse to see that.

  “I can’t have a meltdown,” she said doggedly. “Not if we’re going to get out of here before Jace and your pack walk into a trap. I have to be strong.”

  “You are strong,” he told her. “You’re a tiger.”

  She shuddered. “I don’t want to talk about that, either. I keep picturing myself having a nightmare and turning tiger in my sleep, and ripping you to shreds before you even wake up.”

  Jesse’s arms tightened around her once more. “You’re not going to do that,” he said.

  She’d done it before. Well, not the tearing someone to shreds part, because fortunately, she’d been alone in bed at the time. And she’d been only eleven. But she still rarely spent the night with anyone, just in case. Jesse and their night in the cabana had been an exception.

  Jesse obviously took her silence for lack of conviction. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Let’s talk about something else. Something stupid and meaningless.”

  “Right,” she said. “Because that’ll help.”

  Jesse ignored her negativity. “Which do you like better, Coke or Pepsi?”

  “What?” His question was so unexpected, she laughed in spite of herself.

  “You heard me, woman. My level of respect for you depends on these important values. Coke or Pepsi?”

  “Coke,” she said. “Don’t you know all we southern gals drink Co’ Cola?”

  “Good answer,” he said. “Beach or mountains?”

  “Mountains,” she said. “The beach is too open. My wolf feels uncomfortable.”

  “Me too,” Jesse said. “Coffee or tea?”

  “Coffee in the morning. Sweet tea in the afternoon.” She paused, then added, “That’s iced tea, for you ignorant Yankees.”

  “I knew that,” Jesse said.

  “Liar.”

  She felt him grin.

  “Spring or fall?” he asked.

  “Spring,” she said. “New beginnings, and the forest smells amazing.”