Jaguar Fever

Chapter 26

“What the hell took you so—” George said, opening the door, wearing only boxers and a frown. His brown eyes widened as he saw David and Wade holding Candy’s arms, and he took a deep breath and smelled the scent of the shifters in front of him. Angry shifters.

He tried to slam the door in their faces, but Wade had anticipated his action and blocked the door with his boot.

George raced across the room, grabbed a tranq gun, and fired it without aiming properly. The dart hit Candy. She squeaked, eyes wide, and crumpled to the carpeted floor.

Wade had the man by the throat in the next instant, walking him backward into the suite, while David quickly checked the rest of the place to make sure George was the only person there.

David nodded to Wade. “You can kill him now.”

“Wait,” the man said, eyes bulging as he grasped Wade’s hands still around his throat. “What’s this all about?”

Wade backed him up to the brown sofa in the sitting area and shoved him onto it. “Bettinger asked you to help him grab Maya for him.”

“What? He wanted her. Sure. But then he changed his mind, called me, and told me to pick up a jaguar for him instead.”

“He paid you to take a female jaguar where?” Wade towered over him, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed.

The shifter glanced at David and then at Wade, his forehead pebbled with sweat. “What… what do you want with the jaguar?”

“She was my property. Bettinger had no right to her. What’s your name?”

“George Tucker.” He swallowed hard. “Jim said… the man stole the cat from him. He needed my help to get her back, and he was paying lots of money, no questions asked.”

“That’s the first thing that should have clued you in that you were doing something illegal.”

“Illegal?”

“Where’d you take her? To the ranch? To be hunted?”

“Hunted?” George shook his head.

“Were you involved in crashing the truck Maya was riding in?”

“No, I never saw any truck. Bettinger handled the whole thing and had me pick the cat up from him at an abandoned building. I delivered her across town to another location where a waiting vehicle was parked. Bettinger was really paranoid that someone would come looking for the cat.” George’s jaw dropped open, and then he let out his breath. “Hell, no wonder he was worried someone could find the trail. He’d stolen the cat from two shifters.”

“Where is she?” Wade growled.

“I don’t know. I was supposed to transfer her to the trunk of another vehicle parked in a vacant lot.”

“Okay, let’s go. Don’t try to cause any trouble for us,” Wade said, “or you’ll damn well regret it. Get some pants on first.”

“They’re in there,” George said, motioning to the bedroom.

David waved for him to get his clothes. “Nice and easy,” David warned.

“You realize we’re with the Service, right?” Wade said.

George swallowed hard. “I kind of suspected that when you barged in the way you did. I didn’t know anything about jaguars being hunted. I swear it. It was just some quick, easy money. I should have known it was too good to be true.” He slipped into the bedroom, quiet as a cat in the rainforest, and grabbed his clothes, then hurried out of the bedroom. David and Wade waited while George fumbled with his clothes in getting dressed.

“What… what are you going to do with me?” George asked, looking like his legs were barely holding him up.

“Just keep talking about what happened while you dress,” Wade said.

“Okay, I assume that whoever was picking her up was watching because I had to leave the keys on the driver’s seat and anyone could have stolen the car. I was told in pretty harsh terms not to wait around.”

George yanked on his sneakers without bothering with socks. “If someone got to the car and stole it, the thieves would have a real shock. They’d have found a jaguar in the trunk. Once she awakened, they’d have regretted stealing the car, but it would have served them right.”

“Name and make of the car? Color? License tags?”

George gave Wade the information in a hurry. “You can’t kill me. I haven’t done anything wrong, according to our laws.” He tugged on a T-shirt.

David quickly texted the information to Martin.

“You conspired to supply a jaguar as prey for an illegal hunt.” Wade said, raising a brow. “Grab Candy. We’ll take her with us. If we left her and she woke, she could warn her brother we’re out to get Maya back.”

The man’s eyes grew round as he stared mutely at Wade. He suspected the man really hadn’t known that’s why Bettinger was buying the cat. “I can’t believe they’re going to hunt her. I… I thought Bettinger just wanted his shifter girlfriend back and was plenty pissed about her being with the other guy. You know how we are. Possessive. Territorial.”

David grabbed Candy off the floor and cradled her in his arms, since George seemed too shocked to react quickly.

Wade continued to tick off the charges as he shoved George toward the door. “Taking a shifter hostage.”

All the color drained from George’s face. “I… I didn’t think of it as taking her hostage. She was just… asleep. I was just returning her to Bettinger.”

“…To use in a hunt where hunters have paid to kill said shifter. Do you know what would happen if word got out that a hunter had killed a shifter and that shifter turned from cat to human when she died? All caught on videotape?”

“My God,” George said, shaking. “I… I didn’t know that’s what he wanted her for. I would never have agreed to anything like that. I thought he just wanted her back.”

“And she happens to be my woman,” Wade growled, hand clenched around George’s arm as he guided him out of the suite.

“Your woman?” George looked like he was ready to pass out. “I swear I don’t know where they took her. I’ll drive you to the place where I transferred her to the other vehicle, but that’s all I know. What are you going to do with me?”

Wade and David flanked him as they hurried him out of the hotel. “We’ll turn you and Candy over to our boss. He’ll hand her over to the police once we’re finished mopping things up,” Wade said.

“Which group are you in? The Enforcers?” George sounded hopeful. No one who knew about their organization wanted a visit from the Avengers, who terminated shifters who were this much in violation of their shifter laws.

“Golden Claws.” Which meant they did everything.

George stumbled. Wade tightened his hold on George’s arm to steady him. “Easy, man.”

“I… I heard Bettinger’s brother and a couple of human smugglers were in Belize and didn’t make it out of the jungle alive,” George said.

Wade gave him a small smile. “You heard right.”

“I don’t… haven’t ever done any of that kind of work.”

“Our boss will investigate your claims,” Wade said.

“Whose car do we take, or should we take both?” David asked Wade.

“These people trust George more than they do us. We’ll take his car.”

They all piled into George’s car, David driving while Candy slept in the front seat and Wade sat in the backseat with George, who gave directions while Wade read his text messages. He saw George watching him. “What?” Wade asked, his tone harsh. He was ready to kill George for handing Maya over to Bettinger.

“I’ll help you get her back. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. Anything.”

“Anything?” Wade asked, his voice softly dangerous.

“Yeah. Anything. I didn’t know she was someone else’s woman, damn it. Or that they planned to hunt her. Hell, I’ll kill Bettinger myself.”

“That’s my job,” Wade said, noticing how late it was getting. He hoped the bastards weren’t mistreating Maya. Just confining her in a pen would be bad enough.

“I don’t know if it’ll help any, but Candy said something about the big party being moved up to this morning.”

His heart thundering, Wade stared at George in disbelief.

“Storms are predicted for the area all day.”

“This morning,” Wade said, the pit of his stomach dropping like a lead weight in the dark Amazon River. “We’re running out of time.”

He was with Maya now, loving her, kissing her, hugging her, warming her. She couldn’t seem to raise her arms to hug him back. She tried, but she felt… lost. He didn’t seem to mind, his whispered breath against her cheek, letting her know he was here for her. She wasn’t alone.

Thunder boomed in the distance as the air crackled with the approaching storm, waking Maya from a sound sleep. The damn drug!

The weekend was only two days away and no sign of any sort of rescue. She knew Wade and everyone else would be looking for her. But would they be too late?

Last night, she’d intended to attempt an escape, but that bastard Bettinger had shot her with another tranquilizer dart after he’d eaten dinner with Gunther. After that, she’d been out for the rest of the night.

She’d only just managed to get to her feet and stood staring at the sheets of lightning flashing across the black sky in the distance, highlighting massive blue-black thunderheads that towered in the early dawn. Forks of lightning zigzagged to the earth, an explosive boom of thunder rippling into rumbling overhead afterward.

She was swaying on her feet, unable to keep her balance as the wind picked up. Twisting her ears, she heard what sounded like a truck approaching. Breakfast? At this hour?

Glancing at the cat run next to hers, she saw that the other jaguar was gone. Her heart fluttering wildly, Maya stared at the empty cage. Where was the cat? She’d wanted to save her, though she wasn’t sure how she was going to do that. She needed to save herself if she was going to be any help to anyone else.

She saw headlights in the gloom and felt a chill race down her spine as her tail swished anxiously. If they opened the cage and didn’t shoot her first, she would leap at them and run.

As the truck drew closer, she stiffened, with only the tip of her tail moving in a tight twist back and forth.

The engine rumbled. Maybe they meant to take her somewhere drier in the event the storm was really bad. Yeah, right. So she would be nice and dry for the hunt later.

The truck backed in toward the cage. The tailgate lowered like a lift. Then she saw the smaller cage sitting on the bed of the truck. Bettinger and a man she didn’t recognize got out. She smelled the air. Human.

Bettinger smiled. “Glad to see you standing, though you look like you’re ready to collapse, beautiful cat. Why don’t you take a load off, and we’ll take care of you?”

She stared at him, her feral expression reflected in his dark eyes. He smiled. “Have it your way, but I think you’re going to want to cooperate. If you do, no more tranquilizer darts and by the time the hunt starts, you’ll have a sporting chance to run. Not get away, but just… run. If you give us any trouble, I’m taking you down again. Then you’re going to have one hell of a time waking up enough to attempt escape before the hunt starts. So I’m giving you fair warning.”

She knew he wouldn’t. He’d have hell to pay if he shot her full of dope and she didn’t give the hunters the sport they had paid for. He was all bluster. She sure would love to take a bite out of him and end this game between them.

He began to rig up a fenced-in walkway between the cage and the run. She could slash and bite at the mesh, but it wouldn’t do anything but make them jump back and maybe make Bettinger angry. She couldn’t believe they were moving up the hunt. Surely they couldn’t mean that she could run free for two days.

She looked at the mesh while the other man held a rifle aimed at her, just waiting for her to make a move. She glanced at the other cage. Had they taken the other cat and let her go free until the hunt began also? Or had they already killed her, and Maya’s turn was next?

Bettinger was almost finished setting up the mesh walkway and glanced in the direction Maya was looking. “Don’t even think of searching for the other cat. She’s on her own. You go to her, and you’re going to forget watching out for us.”

Us? She looked back at Bettinger. He smiled. “Oh yeah, I’m coming for you, beautiful cat.”

The other man said, “You didn’t pay to hunt her, Bettinger. You can’t go out there.”

“I’ve promised Gunther a male cat, and I’m going to be the one videotaping the hunt this time.”

“Gunther always videotapes the sessions. He won’t let anyone else touch his camera equipment.”

“Not this time. It was my condition. One free, wild male cat for his hunters to kill, and I tape the show.”

“You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that.”

“Yeah. I do.” Bettinger patted the cage. “Come on. Up you go. Make it easy on yourself.”

“She won’t do it.”

Bettinger smiled at Maya. “Sure she will, if she knows what’s good for her.”

Maya looked from him to the cage. It was so small. She’d be so cramped in it. No room to move, to even turn around. She’d have to back out when she got to where they intended to let her out. She didn’t have much of a choice, and if it meant freedom even for a short while, she’d do it.

She ran through the mesh walkway and jumped onto the bed of the truck, then crouched in the cage, growling as she went.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Bettinger said, jerking the cage door shut and locking it.

He climbed onto the bed of the truck and sat next to the cage.

“What are you doing?” the other man asked.

“I’m going to give the cat a pep talk.” Bettinger’s grin was as evil as they come.