Into the Lair

Chapter Seventeen

Braden dragged his eyelids open but couldn’t for the life of him get them to stay that way. It felt like bricks were sitting on his eyes, and his head pounded like someone was taking a jackhammer to it.

He moved his hand, surprised to feel the roughness of carpet under his palm. He blinked and then blinked again as he became aware that he was on the floorboard of the SUV, his nose pressed against a floor mat.

What the ever-loving fuck?

His nerves were jittery and jumping around, but not like what happened right before a shift. This was different. And damn, he hurt from head to toe. What had Ian given him? And why was he on the floor?

He shoved himself upward. He realized several things at once. The truck wasn’t moving. They’d had one hell of a wreck. Ian and Katie were both missing.

Adrenaline surged, liquid and edgy. The cobwebs cleared from his brain as he leaned forward to examine the damage to the front seat.

The dash was caved in on the driver’s side. No way Ian could have gotten out by himself. He had to have been trapped. Had Katie managed to get him out? Or were they both dead?

An icy chill cooled some of the adrenaline rush. He reached for the door only to find it wouldn’t budge. He leaned back and kicked at it, hammering it repeatedly until it gave way.

He crawled from the interior and nearly fell out onto the ground. Struggling upward, he leaned a hand against the truck as he surveyed the immediate area.

It looked like a damn war zone.

There wasn’t much that he hadn’t seen—certainly not much that would shock him—but seeing Ricardo de la Cruz laid out with his neck gaping open, blood spattered in a three-foot radius around him and one of his henchmen on the ground several yard away with half his head blown off was so bizarrely surreal, he wondered if he was dreaming the entire thing.

A sound to his right shook him from his stupor, and he charged over, half afraid he’d find Ian or Katie in a bad way. He saw another of Ricardo’s goons slithering along the ground leaving a thick blood trail. Dark, almost black. Braden shuddered. Gut shot. Painful, messy way to die.

Braden kicked the man’s shoulder with the toe of his boot to turn him over. The man stared up at him with frosted-over eyes that told Braden he wasn’t long for this world.

Braden bent down and gathered his shirt, yanking him a foot off the ground.

“What the fuck happened?” he growled.

The man’s lips flapped up and down, but nothing would come out. He was obviously scared shitless.

“C-cat. Big c-cat,” he sputtered.

Oh fuck. Ian had freaked out and shifted.

“The girl. Where is the girl?”

“Don’t know,” the man gasped. “She escaped…when the cat…when it attacked…Ricardo. She s-shot me…and the others.”

“Good girl,” Braden murmured.

He let go of the man and gently returned his shoulders to the ground. His breath caught and stuttered, and for a moment his eyes widened in panic. Then air escaped softly, and he deflated. His head lolled back until his stare was locked sideways, focused on something distant. At least the bastard wasn’t suffering any longer.

Braden got up and stalked back to the SUV. He needed to get the fuck out of here before the cops showed up. He had no idea how long it had been since things had gone to shit, but it couldn’t be that long judging by the fresh blood and the guy who’d only just died from his wounds.

He surveyed the damage to their vehicle with a grimace. It was toast. He glanced over at the SUVs driven by Ricardo’s following. There were two. One with extensive front-end damage. The other had a few bullet holes but was otherwise intact.

Only taking time to haul out the gear from the back of the truck, he transferred it to the other SUV and climbed behind the wheel. He’d have to stash the vehicle and backtrack to find Ian. And Katie.

He peeled away and looked for a path into the wooded area. A few minutes later, he dove off the road onto a faint, overgrown trail. He barreled through the woods, tree limbs slapping the windshield.

Christ, but they didn’t have time for this. The last thing he wanted to do was have to call Eli to come bail their asses out. He remembered with abashed clarity that he’d snidely decided if they couldn’t handle one slip of a woman he and Ian needed to fucking quit.

Yeah, real smooth.

He broke into a short clearing as the road widened, and the trees fell away. And he almost ran over the body lying in the pathway. With a vicious curse, he wrenched the wheel sideways and tumbled into the trees. He came to an abrupt halt mere inches from a huge-ass pine. Not exactly what he wanted to pick a fight with.

He bolted from the truck and ran back to where he’d seen Ian—or at least who he thought was Ian. He didn’t think there’d be too many other naked men in the vicinity.

He wasn’t dead. Braden wouldn’t contemplate that something had gone horribly wrong. Okay, scratch that. Something had indeed gone terribly wrong. The bloodbath he’d left behind was evidence enough. But as long as it was Ricardo’s thugs and not Ian or Katie who’d taken the heat, he could deal.

He dropped to his knees over Ian’s sprawled body. Ian was facedown in the road, one arm tucked underneath him and the other over his head. His body glistened with sweat, but Braden couldn’t see any blood.

Hesitantly, he reached for his brother, touching the warm, damp skin of his back. The muscles twitched and quivered under his fingers, and Braden expelled a huge sigh of relief. Ian was alive.

“Ian. Ian,” he said louder. He shook Ian’s shoulder.

Ian moaned softly but didn’t move.

“Come on, man. We don’t have any time to waste, and I can’t carry your ass.”

Ian’s head turned and he stared at Braden with unfocused eyes. “You’re alive,” he rasped.

“Funny, that was my reaction when I found you,” Braden said. “What the hell happened? When I came to, the SUV was toast, there were dead bodies everywhere, and you and Katie were gone.”

Ian shook his head. His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Katie?” he said hoarsely. “Is she okay?” His expression became more intense as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.

Braden reached out to steady Ian, but his brother shook him off.

“What happened, Braden? Where’s Katie?”

“Get in the truck,” Braden said firmly. “We’ll talk there. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Katie has the tracking device on her. We’ll find her.”

Ian drew up short when he saw the SUV. Before he could form the inevitable question, Braden shoved him into the seat.

Seconds later, Braden climbed behind the wheel and looked over at Ian. Then he reached into the backseat for one of the duffel bags and dragged it into the front.

“At the rate you’re running through clothing, we’re both going to be butt-assed naked.”

Ian cracked a small grin, and Braden relaxed. If Ian could smile then things weren’t too bad.

As he awkwardly started pulling on his clothing in the confined space of the SUV, Braden started the engine.

“We don’t have much time so we need to talk fast and piece together what the hell happened back there.”

Ian pulled a T-shirt over his head and stared at Braden with haunted eyes. “I was driving and talking to Katie and then wham. Out of nowhere we got broadsided. Before I could react we got hit again. I was pinned under the dash.”

He absently rubbed at his legs as he spoke, and Braden, remembering the crushed front end, could understand why. It was a miracle his legs hadn’t been broken.

“Some guy, I’m assuming one of Ricardo’s men, yanked Katie out of her door. I tried to get free, and I remember thinking that shifting was my best hope. After that I don’t know.”

“You killed Ricardo,” Braden said grimly. “He had his throat torn out. No human did that to him.”

Ian’s jaw tightened. “I can’t say I regret it. Bastard deserved to die. But what about Katie?”

Braden shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Get the satellite out and see if she shows up. No way she could have gone more than three hundred miles, so she’ll be in our radius. I’d say no more than half an hour has passed since the wreck. One of the guys was still alive when I found him. Took a bullet to the gut.”

Ian’s gaze sharpened. “But how?”

“Katie. That’s how. Another guy had his gray matter smeared all over the truck. I’m telling you, some crazy shit went down out there.”

“So, Ricardo is dead along with at least two other guys. If I killed Ricardo, then that means Katie got to the others. And if that’s the case, where the fuck is she now?”

Braden gestured toward the bag. “You track, I’ll drive.”

Ian fumbled with the equipment while Braden drove deeper into the woods searching for an outlet that didn’t lead right back to the road littered with dead bodies.

Braden glanced over to see Ian’s expression darken and his jaw tighten.

“What’s eating you, man?”

Ian gave a quick negative shake of his head as he opened the small unit and powered it up. Then he dragged a hand though his hair and turned to Braden, consternation and loathing in his eyes.

“I don’t regret taking Ricardo apart, Braden, but what if it had been someone else? What if it had been you? Or Katie.”

“It wasn’t,” Braden said simply. And really, what else could he say? He didn’t have the answers, and he wasn’t going to spout some bullshit about how Ian would never hurt him, because shit, what the jag did was completely independent of Ian.

Ian sighed.

“Are you hurt from the crash?” Braden asked.

Ian shook his head. “Sore, but I don’t know if it’s from the wreck or the shift. You?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Head hurts like a bitch but then I’ve had a headache since the day I laid eyes on Katie Buchanan.”

“I hope to hell I got to Ricardo before he hurt her,” Ian said softly.

“You got a bead on her yet?”

Ian glanced back down at the handheld unit then frowned. “Yeah. Close.” He looked up and out the window. “Maybe a mile. She’s not moving.”

Braden cursed. “Steer me. Where am I going?”

“We need to head due east.”

Braden slammed on the brakes and surveyed the landscape. No way they were going to make it in the truck. Hell. With a sigh he opened the door and got out.

He grabbed two rifles and tossed one over the hood at Ian. Ian was moving slow, but if turtles had guns no one would bitch about their speed.

They took off into the woods, moving in the direction of the tracking device. According to Ian, she hadn’t budged since he’d locked on to her location, which couldn’t be good given her propensity for running like a scalded cat.

Two hundred yards in, Ian pulled up sharply and turned in a circle, his gaze raking over the area.

“Here,” he said. “It says she’s here.”

Braden shook his head. “She ditched the device, man. We’re flying blind now.”

“Maybe not,” Ian muttered as he squatted down and touched his finger to a leaf. He pulled it back up and held it out to Braden.

Blood. Fresh blood. Shit.

Ian stood, shoved the locator in his pocket and hauled his gun up. Head down, he followed the blood trail further into the woods. Braden took off after him, his gut tight as he noticed just how much blood was spattered on the ground.