Shadow Read online

  He wanted to keep them at a distance. He lifted the rifle from the weapons he had laid out, hit a panel of glass, and shattered it with the butt. The sound carried and he watched the human disappear behind the tree trunk.

  “We’re well armed,” he bluffed. “Security is on the way. Your time is up. Leave while you can. My people won’t allow you to live.”

  Silence. A full minute passed before a male voice responded from the far right, out of his sight.

  “Send out Mud. She is the small New Species with brown hair and eyes. We’ll allow you to live if you do.”

  Rage gripped him and his heart accelerated. Mud? I’m going to kill the bastard who named her that. He’d assumed they were there for Beauty and now his suspicions were confirmed. It took a lot of effort to get his emotions in check. New Species had been given numbers when they were test subjects but she’d been tagged with a derogatory title.

  “Fuck,” Breeze hissed.

  Shadow had bad words to say too but calmer ones came out of his mouth. He was careful to speak clearly instead of snarling. “We don’t know who you’re talking about. No one is here by that name.”

  “Don’t play games, Shadow. We know who you are. It’s you and Mud in there.”

  His absorbed that information. They knew his name, which had to mean someone had betrayed the NSO. The tub worked at hiding Beauty’s body temperature if they were using thermal scanning if they were mistaking Breeze for her. The other option was they couldn’t see inside. Their intel hadn’t warned them that another Species female would be present. Either way the humans obviously only expected to come up against him.

  “Son of a bitch,” Breeze whispered. “We do have a leak. I’m going to find out who it is and rip off his nuts.”

  He softly growled to silence her. They’d deal with that later. Right now they needed to stall for time. He decided to bluff by laughing loud enough for it to carry. “I’m Torrent. You are at the wrong cabin, humans. You paid for bad directions. I hope it cost you a small fortune to get screwed over.”

  “Bullshit.” It was another human male who called out. “We’ve got a lock on your signal. You’re Shadow.”

  The air in his lungs froze while his brain tried to work fast. How would they have a signal? He would have had to either carry something on his person or inside one of his bags. He mentally went over the list of items he’d packed and what he’d worn on the trip to Reservation. The other bag contained weapons. A dozen possibilities of when he might have been tagged with a tracker filled his head. They were small enough to hide in clothing, his boots, or even on the bags. The only people who’d had access to him or his belongings had been his task force team and the few Species he’d come into contact with at Homeland. Of course anyone could have sneaked inside his room at the dorm. Only Species had access though.

  “I’m Torrent,” he repeated. “I don’t know what signal you think you tracked but you’re wrong. Shadow is at another location.”

  “Bullshit.” The same human responded, probably the one in charge, and it was coming straight ahead from behind a large rock. “Stop wasting time and send out Mud. Her owner wants her back.”

  His fangs flashed as he fought the urge to howl. No one owns Beauty.

  The human spoke again. “It’s your coin, jackass. Every team member has them and carries them at all times. Stop stalling and send her out. We haven’t opened fire because she’s worth a lot of money alive but that’s all our orders were.” He paused. “Alive. It doesn’t mean we can’t return her injured. We have a medic to patch her up. It’s your choice. Either way we’ll come in there to get her or you live by having her walk out of that cabin to us. Those are the only options you have.”

  Shadow turned his head and caught Breeze gawking at him. “Coin?” She gave him a baffled look.

  “Task force,” he rasped. “Someone on the team betrayed me.” He glanced up at the ceiling, then back at her. “It’s still inside my bag. We all keep them, usually on us, in case a member is taken. Only Tim and three other members know the codes to activate the trackers inside them.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I understand.”

  That narrowed down the leak. Shadow silently swore revenge on the team member who’d betrayed him. “I have some of Shadow’s things but he’s not here.” He decided to keep bluffing. Every second could count. It might stall the mercenaries.

  “We’re coming in. I know what you’re hoping for and it isn’t going to work. We have at least half an hour before our location is compromised. I have snipers in the trees surrounding the area. Any Species spotted coming this way are being shot. No help is going to reach you.”

  Fuck! Shadow calmed his rage enough to aim his rifle, watching the location of the human who’d come the closest. He’d shoot the second the male moved. Maybe a few dead bodies would persuade them to rethink rushing the cabin. He doubted it though. Mercenaries were known to be single-minded and vicious. They probably calculated some losses amongst their ranks before agreeing to the mission.

  “Kill anyone who enters the open area,” he ordered Breeze softly.

  “Understood.”

  Beauty tiptoed away from the hallway, having heard most of what Shadow and Breeze had said. Eight humans were out there willing to kill to take her back to Master. Shadow had shown her how to really live. Breeze had given her friendship. Neither of them deserved to die for those wonderful things.

  The thought of Shadow dying left a gaping wound in her soul. She wasn’t about to allow that happen. She’d fight too. Three against eight were better odds. The bag inside Shadow’s room was heavy when she lifted it and carried it to her bedroom. They’d target him since he stood in their way. Her bedroom was on the back of the cabin, above where Shadow stood.

  She pulled out weapons the way he had, laying them out on the carpet so they were at the ready. It took a few minutes to figure out where to put her fingers on each weapon. Point and shoot. How hard can it be? She might not hit much but the extra firepower could surprise those men out there enough to give the two Species downstairs a better chance at survival.

  She was careful not to make noise as she dragged a heavy chest in front of the window. She opened the lid, staring inside at the spare bedding. She turned, her gaze sweeping the room. The hardback books lining the shelves by the door caught her attention. They would help prevent bullets from tearing all the way through the wood chest to strike her if those men returned fire. Every step was taken carefully in case she alerted Shadow that she wasn’t in the tub as she packed the chest.

  She knelt and shifted the curtain enough to peek out the window, watching for any sign of movement. It took a few sweeps but she saw one man right on the edge of the woods. Another was two trees behind him to the right. She didn’t spot any more of them but she had targets at least.

  It was too risky to crack the window open. She’d have to move the curtain out of the way and be seen if she lifted it up. It would be stupid to give her location away. She could just fire through the glass. Beauty took a few calming breaths trying to slow her rapidly beating heart. I can do this. She repeated that a few times. For Shadow.

  The first bullet fired wasn’t loud. It was a dull sound that reminded her of a firecracker coming from a distance but glass shattered somewhere on the first floor.

  “Get down,” Shadow yelled. “Incoming!”

  “Oh God.” It’s begun. Shadow was alive though. She’d heard his voice.

  The man closest to the house suddenly lunged from behind the tree into the open, something fisted in his hand. His arm arced back as if to toss a ball but the sound of bullets exploded from the first floor. Beauty watched in horrified fascination as the guy jerked while his clothes seemed to tear open in places. Blood bloomed across his arms, then legs, before he fell back.

  BOOM! The sound registered about the same instant the fallen man seemed to blow apart near his head. Blood and gore flew in all directions, mostly splattering across the tree trunk. Bile rose in her