Tempted by the Jaguar #4: Infiltration (Riverford Shifters) (8 page)

Kylie didn’t release the breath she was holding until their car had
rounded the house and parked right next to a wide, steel door between the
attached garage and the house she had seen in the photo with Molly without a
single shot being fired at the car.

“Keep sharp,” Maxim muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “There’s a
couple of armed lions heading our way, so we’ll unfortunately have to go with
plan B.”

Hunter cursed. That meant Kylie’s little act was over, and she would
now have to accompany them down into the bowels of the ranch.

“As soon as they reach the car,” Maxim continued, “the bobcats’ll tranq
them. Once that happens, the gig will be up, and we’ll only have a few seconds
to reach the door and get inside before any guards within eyesight will likely
start shooting. Let’s just hope my guys were able to disable all the electric locks
or this’ll get real ugly fast.”

Although Hunter remained slumped against the seat, and kept his eyes
closed, he had already removed the tape across his mouth, and one hand was
beneath his sweatshirt, no doubt curled around his gun.

The next few minutes happened in a blur.

Kylie remembered seeing the two approaching men drop almost in slow
motion before she was scrabbling out of the car, nearly bumping into Hunter as
he moved past his opened car door. Hunter reflexively grabbed Kylie’s arm as
the two of them made a beeline for the metal door. Gunfire sounded loudly
behind them, close enough that it could have been Maxim firing, but then a
bullet hit the bricks near Hunter’s right shoulder just as she reached out for
the doorknob.

She nearly sobbed when it turned easily, and she was able to pull it
open. Hunter shoved her inside so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell to her
knees. Hunter grabbed her arm again to steady her as the door slammed behind
them.

“Come on!” Maxim exclaimed, gesturing towards a lone door at the far
end of what turned out to be a completely empty room no larger than a wide
corridor. “I can’t lock the door, and there’s at least a dozen of them only
minutes behind us. I’m not sure even the bobcats can pick them all off before
one or two can get inside. I’m afraid we don’t have time to wait for the rescue
group coming through the front to meet up with us here like we planned. That
door at the end should open to the emergency stairwell Jack mentioned.”

Hunter pulled Kylie tightly against him and threaded their hands
together tightly. “Don’t leave my side unless you absolutely have to! Maxim,
we’ve got your rear.”

“Maybe I should go first,” Kylie said as they raced to the stairwell.
“They might freeze just like that guard when they smell—”

“Absolutely not!” both men snarled in unison.

“As soon as we get in the stairwell, you need to change back into a
jaguar,” Hunter said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Soon our guys will be
down below helping us look for captives and mining information. If we get
separated, there’s a good chance they might attack you without realizing who
you are if they smell lion.”

Once through the door and they were descending a narrow set of
industrial, metal steps, Kylie dug out her bracelet and began fumbling with the
charms in the poor lighting.

“We’ll go down three levels first,” Maxim said. “That’s the only place
we know for sure other than the lowest level labs that they were holding the
captives. Hopefully they won’t have moved your brother somewhere else as a
precaution after Jack’s escape. Then we’ll search the other floors one by one,
room by fucking room, until we find everyone. With the locks in the whole
building disengaged, some of them may even be trying to escape on their own.”

Kylie completely expected to hear the sound of the door crashing open
above, bracing herself for the exchange of bullets that were sure to follow,
but before she knew it, the door to the third basement level was before them
without a single shot being fired just as she finally managed to find the right
charm and pop it open. Then she nearly dropped the bracelet with her finger
still pressed against the hollow inside one of the halves when a crash sounded
above them and Hunter yanked her hard through the door.

A young man in a lab coat stood frozen in the brightly illuminated
hallway lined with closed doors they found themselves in, his chest heaving,
and staring at them as if they were some type of hideous monsters birthed by
the stairwell. Maxim was on him before Kylie could even gasp in alarm, punching
him square in the face. The guy’s head snapped back with a cringe-inducing
crack, and he instantly crumbled to the ground.

“You two take the doors on the right,” Maxim said and immediately
hurried over to the first one on the left.

The first room was completely empty except for a couple of suspicious
dark stains along one of the walls. The second appeared to be jammed. Hunter
kicked it open, but this one, too, was empty. The fact that they were empty
really didn’t surprise her. If these rooms were where they locked up their
captives when they weren’t being tortured, then she didn’t think those types of
monsters would bother to provide their victims with a blanket, much less a bed.

Then Maxim let out a startled noise, and Hunter and she were
immediately at his back where he was looking into a darkened room with an
expression of pure horror. Kylie nearly gagged at the smell coming out of that
room, an unholy mixture of animal waste, death, and something she had never
smelled before. Certain she didn’t want to see what lay within that darkness,
Kylie forced herself to look anyway. Even in the darkness, she knew that the
blob that was a lighter shade of darkness curled against the far wall was the
body of an animal.

Kylie hastily got out of the way as Maxim backpedalled and shut the
door. “That was probably the coyote shifter Jack mentioned,” he said, so angry
that his words were barely more than a series of growls. “We can’t help him
anymore.”

She grabbed onto Hunter’s arm, feeling both sick and furious. How awful
it must have been, to have died all alone in the cold darkness after you had
lost your mind to the point of completely losing your humanity, terrified and
in unimaginable pain. That all of their missing loved ones must have been
forced to live locked up like this for months, for years…

A snarl fell from her lips. She wanted to go back to the young man in
the lab coat Maxim had decked and rip out his throat with her teeth, to go back
above and do the same to the piece of shit geneticist they’d left in the car.
But then Hunter said one word that instantly snapped her out of the killing
rage she had inadvertently fallen into.

“Ryder.”

Kylie shook her head violently. What was wrong with her? She had to get
it together, dammit! There were people counting on her right now.

Without a word, Kylie followed Hunter to the next door and then to the
next, moving down corridor after corridor until they had all been opened and
searched and they found themselves at a different stairwell than the one they
had left with no sign of another living soul.

“Up or down?” Maxim asked.

“Down,” Hunter said immediately. “The others are probably searching the
two floors above us as we speak. While this floor reeks of various shifters,
none of the scents are particularly fresh. Either they were moved because of
Jack’s escape, or we tripped a silent alarm that your people didn’t catch and
they were forewarned to move them somewhere deeper and likely more protected.”

“Then maybe we should wait for the others to catch up,” Kylie said. “We
could very well step into a room full of lions with guns rather than needles.”

She fully expected Hunter to at least argue with her—she could
practically taste the urgency to find his brother rolling off him—so she was
shocked when both men nodded.

“Let’s return to the other stairwell,” Maxim suggested. “Once we meet
up, half can follow me down this one while the other half continue down the
other with you two.”

Retracing their steps, they had nearly reached the door to the
stairwell when a hail of gunfire erupted from somewhere above, freezing them
where they stood for a few, heart-pounding seconds. Unfortunately, the door
didn’t have a window as some stairwell entrances did.

“Get into that room!” Hunter hissed, steering Kylie by the elbow
towards the first room they had inspected, his Glock clutched tightly in his right
hand.

Then the stairwell door exploded open before she could move more than a
couple of steps, and a mass of bodies spilled into the hall.

“Shit!” Hunter snarled, bringing his gun around to face these newest
invaders—only to let out a surprised laugh. “You guys fucking scared the shit
out of us!” he hissed.

Kylie turned around and saw several familiar faces. Her shoulders
sagged in relief.

“We’d hoped you all had gotten down this far when we didn’t run into
you topside,” one of the tigers whose name her frazzled brain couldn’t remember
at the moment said.

“How many are shooting at you?” Maxim demanded.

“At least a dozen. They came from somewhere within the house, itself, I
think. As far as we could tell, the bobcats took out all the security guards
outside before we even made it in.”

“I guess we’ll all have to use the other stairs,” Maxim said. “Follow
us. We were just waiting for you all before heading down to continue the
search.”

“Have you been able to locate any of the captives?” Hunter asked as
they hurried down the corridor.

“Just one,” one of the wolves answered, and Kylie’s pulse suddenly sped
up. “She looked pretty bad, practically skin and bones, but we’re pretty sure
it was Jack’s mate, Maya. A couple of my clansmen are trying to get her out as
we speak.”

Even though it hadn’t been Molly or her mother, Kylie felt a surge of
happiness and was suddenly more hopeful. Finding the dead coyote shifter had
shaken her confidence. If one of them had been found still alive, then there
was still a better than average chance all the others would be found alive,
too.

“We found the coyote,” Hunter said grimly. “He was already dead. It was
terrible, what that poor man must have gone through to end in such an
unspeakable state.”

Once they reached the door, a couple of the tigers pushed to the front
and peered into the dim stairwell before they allowed everyone to enter.
Seconds later they were at the door to the fourth basement level and the tigers
repeated the process.

“Another hallway full of doors,” one reported. “Some of them are open,
and I can see a desk covered with papers in one. Should we stop?”

“Yes,” Maxim said instantly. “A couple of you stay on this level and
see if you can find any useful intel on what these bastards are doing here.”

The next level had something large and heavy barricading the door. It
took five men to push the door open wide enough for everyone to squeeze
through. The first thing Kylie noticed was the sound of pounding footsteps
somewhere nearby, followed by the enormous room on the left that had a large
viewing window that reminded her of an ICU room. However, the equipment inside
made the space look like a cross between a morgue, a torture dungeon, and a
server farm.

Two large metal slabs about the length of a tall man sat side-by-side
in the center of a room that was lined with at least a couple dozen computers,
a series of attached thick, leather and metal restraints dangling off both
edges. There was also a wide cart of stainless steel drawers covered on top with
every type of medical tool imaginable as well as some wicked looking items that
Kylie had no idea what they could possibly be used for except to cause pain.

Maxim suddenly went rigid, and his nostril flared. “I can smell Anna in
here,” he whispered, his tone equal parts horror and hope. Kylie immediately
sniffed the air, and sure enough, there was a strong odor of several male lions
and a fainter smell of tiger beneath. Her heart clenched when she also caught
the acrid smell of fear and blood. What the hell were these bastards
doing
?

“Come on,” Hunter said firmly, placing a hand on Maxim’s shoulder. “Her
scent is still strong enough that she might still be on this floor. It also
looks like whoever was here left in a big hurry. All the computers are still on
and some of the carts are skewed.”

Maxim nodded, the haunted look in his eyes replaced with a cold fury.
Sandwiched between the newly arrived men, they moved quickly down the hall,
checking every door until they came to one that was locked and couldn’t be
kicked in after several tries. There was no doorknob, and on closer inspection,
seemed to be dead-bolted from the inside with a non-electronic lock.

“I bet a bunch of the sick fuckers are hiding inside,” one of the
tigers growled as he gave the door another savage kick. “It’s lined with
something—concrete or steel. There’s no way we’re getting in this way.”

“Oh, we’re getting in,” Maxim said, his voice quiet and utterly lethal.
Kylie actually felt a shiver go down her spine. “And then we’ll make them
talk
.”

He stalked over to an adjacent room, and everyone silently followed him
inside. Then without a word, he began kicking in the sheetrock of the wall
connecting the two rooms. All the rest instantly joined him.

Not knowing how much help she could be, Kylie stood back out of
everyone’s way, anxiously watching the door and listening for footsteps. She
hadn’t forgotten the fading footsteps she had heard when they had first entered
this level. The last thing they needed was to be ambushed here, especially when
Maxim was in so much emotional pain and not at his sharpest.

A gunshot abruptly sounded and several guys cursed. Kylie whipped
around, her heart suddenly in her throat. “Everyone okay?” she asked anxiously.

Nods all around.

“That definitely came from the other side,” Hunter said, peering
briefly into the center of the large hole they had managed to tear in the wall
before stepping back and to the side. He stared thoughtfully at the hole. “I
have an idea.”

He edged closer to the hole and crouched down. “We’re trying to save
you, you idiot!” he shouted. “The place is overrun with enemy shifters, communications
are down, and we don’t have much time! How about you unbolt the damn door
before they torch the place and you end up burning alive in there?”

Kylie stared at her lover in astonishment for a split-second before she
scrambled out of the room and back to the bolted door, everyone else a
half-step behind her. Then they heard several clicks in succession, and the
door was opening. Maxim lunged forward and the person at the door was brutally
pushed back as he charged inside, Hunter and a couple of tigers right on
Maxim’s heels.

“Stay back!” she heard an unknown baritone voice say shrilly, dripping
with panic and fear. “I’ll kill them!”

Kylie’s eyes widened, and she pushed into the room even though a couple
of wolves tried to keep her out. She froze the moment the scene was finally
revealed.

“Molly…” she tried to say, but her friend’s name got caught in the huge
knot of horror that had instantly formed in her throat.

A middle-aged man in a lab coat that was drenched in blood all down the
front stood next to two women on the floor, one of which was Molly who was
hugging, Kylie suddenly realized with more horror, Maxim’s fiancé, Anna, to her
chest. Molly’s hands and the front of the white hospital gown she wore were
stained with crimson, as was the bottom half of Anna’s gown that was wadded
between her legs. There was also a pool of blood that was slowly spreading out
from beneath Anna’s bottom.

To add to the horror show, the bastard lion was pointing a gun at the
back of Molly’s head while she held Anna and attempted to shield the bleeding
woman’s body with her own. Molly’s eyes were closed tightly, and she appeared
to be mumbling something under her breath, maybe a prayer. If not for the faint
rising of her chest, Kylie would have thought Anna dead.

Molly cried out in pain and her eyes snapped open as the lion suddenly
reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head back. It was in
that eternal moment that Molly’s eyes found Kylie’s, and their gazes locked.
Kylie would never forget the look of shock when Molly finally saw beyond the
disguise, of the anguish and absolute terror in her best friend’s eyes for the
rest of her life.

“You’re going to stand aside and allow me to walk out of here with this
human,” the scientist snarled, “or I’ll put a bullet in both of them right now
before you can even pull—”

Kylie wasn’t sure how it happened. One moment she blinked and the next,
Maxim was suddenly
there
in his tiger form, his powerful jaws biting
down on the lion’s neck with a disturbing
crunch
until he had bitten
clean through the lion’s neck. His severed head fell out of a sudden fountain
of blood with a gruesome, meaty
thump
onto the floor next to Molly. The
gun went off as both body and tiger hit the ground, and Molly finally screamed.
However, the bullet wedged harmlessly into the ceiling.

Her legs were moving towards the two women on the floor before Kylie
had even made a conscious decision to do so. She dropped down to her knees
beside Anna and began to stuff more of the bleeding woman’s hospital gown hard against
her groin. She wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around Molly in
relief that her best friend was okay, to reassure her, but right now nothing
else mattered more than to try and staunch the blood, not even the fact that
she was now touching tiger’s blood and her dominant shifter soul was likely now
a tiger as well.

Then Molly was talking, and it took Kylie a bewildered moment for her
friend’s words to compute, and that Molly was actually making sense and not
screeching hysterically.

“That fucker said she’d had a miscarriage. She was already bleeding
pretty badly when he dragged her in here and just dumped her in a corner. While
he was babbling into his cell phone, I tried to stop the bleeding, but nothing
I did seemed to work at all!”

“We need to get her to a hospital
now
!” A naked Maxim knelt down
on Anna’s other side and reached beneath her to lift her up into his arms.
Kylie stood with him, her hands maintaining the pressure against the flow of
blood.

“Go with them, Kylie,” Hunter said. “Help Maxim get both Anna and Molly
out of this hellhole. Ryder’s still waiting for me, and your mother—I swear if
she’s here, I’ll bring her to you. Now go!”

Feeling torn, Kylie could only nod in anguish. The thought of leaving
Hunter behind—but no, he was right. Maxim and Molly were counting on her, and
it was her fault in the first place that Molly was even here in the middle of
all this madness and horror.

“Find them. Then come back to me.”