A shooter went down, his aim totally off, hitting his partner, who forgot about them.
A short reprieve as the farther stair guys got close enough.
Zach shoved Fluffy into the room. “We have to climb.” She understood his intent and headed for the balcony, ignoring the people in bed, sitting up and yelling.
“Sorry. Just passing through,” he explained as he joined Fluffy outside the sliding glass door.
Third floor. He’d better not fall.
“Hold on to me. I’ll get us down.” He slipped off his other shoe and flexed.
She eyed him and snorted. The fur emerged, and she clambered down, agile and sure-footed.
He joined her, still as a man, making it to the first floor when he felt the sting.
One dart. No big deal. It was the other five that made him lose his grip and fall.
He awoke…
…in a lap.
A partially naked lap.
He knew that because his cheek rested on a bare thigh. As to who the lap belonged to… The silver hair framing him could only belong to Fluffy. What he didn’t know was where they were. He felt a chill, a distinct one. Could hear a rather rumbly hum—of an engine.
Had those guys hunting with tranqs caught them?
He shifted but didn’t go far as the curtain of hair parted, and bright eyes peered at him.
“Awake.” Fluffy smiled.
“How long was I asleep?” he said, trying to sit up, ignoring the plaint of his inner feline that wanted to snuggle the bare skin a little longer.
“Long,” she replied. “Bad.”
They were in the dark, so it took him a moment to adjust and realize their situation.
Look at them, stuck in a cage, the kind with very thick, metal bars. While she wore his T-shirt still, if worse for wear, he appeared to be quite naked. It took only a second to connect the dots. They were in the cargo hold of a plane.
“What the fuck happened?” he exploded.
Chapter Six
What happened was, Fluffy caught Zach when he fell asleep at the worst possible time. Who napped during an attack?
She’d slung him over her shoulders with no idea where to go or what to do. She did something she was good at. She ran. The problem being, she couldn’t camouflage with him on her back.
They drew attention, and try as she might, too many eyes watched. She couldn’t hide. Oh, how she wanted to. The city was a terrifying place, and a bit of relief filled her when the attackers caught up and shot her with a whole bunch of the sleepytime things. She enjoyed a good nap, really wished she could sleep some more since she’d woken bound hand and foot on pavement. She went a little nuts and bellowed to wake the dead.
Or, in this case, Zach, who emerged from his stupor with a roar, his eyes bloodshot, and his expression crazy. He snapped his bonds when he shifted into his beautiful cat. Despite his earlier admonition about not eating people, he apparently had no problem ignoring that rule.
Which led to more of the humans shooting them full of some more sleepy stuff.
The next time she woke, she was with Zach in a cage. The more they fed her the drug, the less it affected her. He appeared to have recovered faster, too.
He quickly shook off his sleepiness. “Help me out here. Who caught us?”
“Humans.”
“They put us in this cage?”
She shrugged. “Sleeping. Didn’t see.” But their scent was all over it.
“Did those humans say anything to you that you remember?”
She shook her head.
“Was this about the artifact?”
She lifted her shoulders. She had no idea what they wanted.
Zach moved so he could balance on his haunches. He reached out to touch the bars. “No electricity, which is good. Bad news is that this is some heavy-duty shit.” He felt the metal and tested its strength.
She could have told him not to bother, but she was going through a bit of a shock. For one, since she’d woken, she’d discovered more and more of her memories had come back.
She knew things. Knew they were in the storage hold of a plane. Knew she was a woman. He was a man. That they were in a cage with a lock.
But she still had no memory of her name or anything else. When it came to life, everything started in that cave. Only she couldn’t have said at what age. Sometimes, she remembered herself as a child—scared, and at the same time, endlessly courageous. Then she’d flip from that very young age to now with nothing in between. As if she’d grown overnight.
Who am I? She had a sense of self with nothing to fill it.
Zach had finished his circuit of the cage. It wasn’t a long tour.
He crouched in front of her. “We need to get out of this before we land, and they put us back to sleep.”
She made a noise.
“Yes, I know that’s an obvious plan, but it’s something to work with.”
“No key.” She pointed out the obvious.
“I just need something sharp to pick the lock.” But search as he might, he didn’t find anything. The only way they’d exit this cage was if someone opened it.
She settled in to wait. It took him a while before he admitted defeat and joined her.
“We’ll have to find a way to get someone to open the door. Maybe you can distract them while I take them out.”
She snorted.
“What? You want me to distract them while you take them out?” He lifted a brow. “Is this because I’m the naked one, ‘cause I will remind you, that’s my shirt you’re wearing.”
Her turn to lift an eyebrow.
“Keep it and save the stripping in case my distraction doesn’t work.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
The complete sentence took him by surprise. “You got your tongue back.”
“Remembering pieces,” she admitted.
“Do you remember how you got in that cave?”
“My mother took me so I could see it.” The only clear memory she had. Kind of. She couldn’t see her mother’s face.
“How long ago did she take you?”
She shrugged.
“What happened to your mother?” He clearly assumed tragedy.
He was right. “Bear.”
“Oh. Fuck.” A sincere thing to say. “Why were you in the cave with the artifact?”
“Box.”
He nodded.
“Protect.”
“You’re its guardian?”
She nodded. “Find it.” The box needed her.
“Find it and do what?” he asked.
She paused because she didn’t actually know the answer. It emerged hesitantly. “I guess it would need another hiding spot.” But did she want to devote her life to guarding it? No.
She tried to feel sorry about that and couldn’t. Even with being caught, she’d already experienced so much. Was starting to remember, too. She didn’t have to live in a cave all alone, eating whatever raw meat she hunted. The box was gone. She was free.
Or would be if she wasn’t in a cage.
Zach was right. They needed a way out.
The cadence of the plane’s engines changed.
“We’re starting our descent. Which shape do the kidnappers know you in? Woman or yeti? Because that’s the one you should be wearing when they come to get us.”