Emily's Captive (A Lilly Town Shifter Novel Book 2) (13 page)

Paul was walking silently through the woods on
his way to the compound. He had ridden Emily for
the first two miles, and they were now only a half
mile from it. He looked over at her, almost
surprised to see her there. She was silent. You
couldn’t even hear a leaf crunch under her paw. No
wonder she was so deadly; she was a ghost.

He saw her looking at him and smiled. She was
really starting to grow on him. Paul never planned
on falling in love with her, but here he was, head
over heels. He knew she’d get rid of him once this
was all over, whether they found Stacy or not. She
wouldn’t need him anymore, so why keep him around?

There was a sound to his left. It wasn’t
anything out of the ordinary in the woods, but
because it had been so quiet, the twig snapping
didn't quite fit. He knew it wasn’t from their
people, they were too quiet.

Paul started inching toward Emily. He didn’t
want to startle whoever it was, but he wanted to
alert Emily. He had a feeling it was a shifter,
but he couldn’t be too sure. Some of the Hunters
were that good.

There was a little rumble, something that could
easily have been wind, but wasn’t. He knew that
growl, but he didn’t know what had made it. It
could have just been an animal, but he was starting
to wonder if Zeke had gotten his own shifter army.
It wasn’t something he ever thought Zeke would do,
but he also never thought the man would lie to him.

“Emily,” he whispered.
She looked at him.
“There’s something out there.”
“Do you know what it is?” someone asked him.

“No, I thought…,” but that was all Paul could
say before that something was on him and snarling
in his face.

***

Emily was so shocked she couldn’t move. There
was a tiger snarling at Paul and looking ready to
kill him. She shifted and whispered, “Stacy.”
She couldn’t believe they'd found her.

Stacy didn’t move.

“Stacy,” she said a little louder. She didn’t
want her sister to kill her Paul. Wait? HER Paul?
When did that happen? She didn’t know what he was,
but she’d figure it out later.

Stacy still didn’t move.
Emily moved closer to her sister, putting her
hand on Stacy’s side, trying to get her attention.
No reaction.

Emily knew what would get her attention; she
just hoped her sister wouldn’t hate her for it.
She was going to have to push Stacy off of Paul.
She had to show her who was in charge. She hated
doing it, and she hadn’t had to do it in a long
time, but she couldn’t let her sister kill Paul.
She hoped she wouldn’t hurt Stacy more than she
already had been. Stacy had blood pouring from her
head, and her movements were twitchy. Shifting
helped, but healing still took time when hurt so
badly.

Shifting and leaping at Stacy, Emily knocked
her to her side. She heard a whimper, but couldn’t
let that stop her. She hated it, but she stood
over Stacy, clamping her jaws over her neck. That
seemed to wake her up because she shifted back to
human.

“Em,” she whispered.
Emily shifted back and hugged Stacy to her.
She'd found her. Her mission was over.

Now she had a new one. She was going to make
them pay for hurting her baby sister. She had to
let them know that Stacy was hers and no one was
going to hurt a hair on her head.

***

Stacy looked up at Emily and felt safe. She
hadn’t felt that in weeks. Zeke may have been
comforting, but he wasn’t her sister. Emily hugged
her and she let out a painful groan.

“Are you okay?” Emily said.

“No,” Stacy said weakly. All she wanted to do
was curl up in bed, but she needed to get Richard
for what he’d done. She had to make sure he
couldn’t do it to anyone else ever again.

“Let me send you back with someone and we’ll
get them,” Emily said kindly.

Stacy could tell Emily was trying to contain
her anger and she was grateful for that. Her
sister could scare the shit out of her, even though
she’d never hurt her.

“No. Richard,” she got out.
“Does he need help?” Emily asked.

“No… kill,” she whispered.
“Okay.”

“Stacy!” she heard someone say from behind
Emily.
Stacy looked behind her and saw Aunt Martha.
“You called Aunt Martha?”

“Yeah, I didn’t have a choice. I was having
some personal problems and I needed her help,”
Emily said with a smile.

“Yeah, she fell in love and didn’t have her
sister to knock some sense into her,” Aunt Martha
said with a grin.

“What?!” Not Emily. She didn’t do
relationships. She had her one night stands and
that was it. Stacy never understood why, but that
was just how it was. “Who?”

“See that hottie over there?” Aunt Martha
said, pointing to the man Stacy had tackled.
“Yeah?”
“Him.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought he was trying to hurt
you,” she said a little sheepishly.

“That’s okay, he probably deserved it. I’ll
fill you in on him later. We need to get you to a
doctor,” she said.

“No, I want to stay with you. That bastard has
to die and I want to be the one to kill him,” she
said angrily. Richard had put her in there. He
had put her in a cell with a feral wolf shifter.
She deserved to be the one to kill him.
***

Paul watched as Emily shifted back into a
tiger, along with Martha and Stacy. Just one look
at them and he could tell they were pissed. And he
had every intention of staying out of their way.
They were on a mission.

“Alpha One, Stacy has been found and we’re
heading for the compound,” he said into his ear
piece.

“Roger that. Is she injured?” Jason asked
through the link.

“Yeah, and the tigers are pissed off,” he said.
All three of them looked back at him and he
shrugged his shoulders. “What? You are.”

They turned back around and went back to
stalking through the woods. He moved as quickly as
he could, trying to keep up with them. They didn’t
seem to care too much about being heard.

“Um, Jason, why don’t they care about the
element of surprise anymore?” Paul asked.

“Because they recovered Stacy and are seeking
revenge. She got out somehow, so they had to have
known they’d end up with some pissed off tigers at
their door, so why try to hide it?”
“Good point,” he said with a smile.

They walked for about ten more minutes before
the compound came into view. Paul hadn’t been to
it in a few years, but it looked the same. He had
thought that, since he’d changed so much,
everything else had too.

“We’re going in,” Paul said. The tigers were
at the steel doors, trying to push their way
through, but they weren’t even making a dent in it.
All they were doing was making a lot of noise. If
they weren’t on a mission, Paul would have been
laughing his ass off at the sight of three tigers
trying to figure out a way to open a door.

He reached past them and opened the door. The
thing about this compound was that, unlike the
others, it didn’t have that much technology. The
security was tight, but it was very easy to get in.
It was the first one built.

Paul watched as the tigers split up. Two
stayed together while the third went down another
hall. He guessed it was Martha who was going
hunting. He had a feeling Emily wasn’t going to be
leaving Stacy’s side for a very long time. Poor
girl.

He followed the two tigers, wanting to stay
close to Emily. A gun was fired and Paul’s heart
stopped for a minute, afraid one of the tigers had
been hit. That was when the larger of the two
jumped the shooter before he could get another shot
off. That was his girl.

They moved further down into the compound,
killing any guards they saw. There were more than
he had originally thought. They must have called
in additional guards or have added security because
of Stacy being there. Paul had his knives in his
hands, covered in blood from the men he’d killed.
Emily and Stacy had blood covering their front paws
and Emily had it covering her mouth. She was just
as ruthless as he’d read, more now that she could
seek the revenge she needed.

A Hunter came out of a closet next to Paul. He
was about to open it to check it when it slammed
into him. The force of it made him cut himself on
one of his knives. He was grateful it wasn’t too
deep, but it still made fighting a little difficult
when he had blood running down his arm. The knife
was going to be hard to grip because of it.

Before he had a chance to defend himself, Emily
was on the Hunter, ripping out his throat. She
didn’t seem too happy about Paul getting hurt. Did
that mean she cared about him? Maybe she didn’t
plan on letting him go after all this. He could
only hope.

“I need to get something on this to help with
the bleeding,” he said to her. She nodded and went
behind him with Stacy in front. He guessed they
were trying to protect him in their own tiger way,
but it was a little frightening and strange to be
surrounded by tigers.

Pushing that thought out of his mind, Paul
pulled off a large portion of his shirt and wrapped
it around his arm tightly. He couldn’t let the
blood slow him down, not when he was so close. He
nodded to Emily, letting her know he was okay. She
huffed at him and started back down the hall.

***

Emily watched Paul carefully as they made their
way through the compound. She saw how much blood
he was losing. It looked bad. She was hoping it
was just a flesh wound, not something down into the
tendons. She hated to see him trying to fight, she
was afraid he’d lose his knife and get killed.
She’d even be upset if he died. Okay, maybe a
little more than upset.

As they went further into the compound, they
started checking for any other shifters who had
been kept there, and for more Hunters who needed to
be killed. Emily had a feeling that, once this one
had been taken down, it would take them a long time
to regroup. It looked like a major one, based on
the size and amount of men.

She hoped she was right. Maybe it would do
enough so this couldn’t happen again. She hated
the thought of her baby sister being there alone
and scared.

Well, she wasn’t alone any more. She had Emily
and Paul. Between the two of them, they could
teach her how to defend herself better so it
wouldn’t happen again. Emily had a feeling that
Aunt Martha wasn’t going to be going anywhere any
time soon either.

Emily saw a room that had a cell in the middle
of it. Stacy growled at the sight of it. It must
have been where she had been kept. Emily had to
tear it apart. She didn’t know how, but she had
to. She rammed herself into the bars a few times,
breaking the door and denting the bars. It wasn’t
completely destroyed, but it couldn’t be used
again. That was the important thing. They were
going to blow the whole building anyway, but now
she knew it would never be recovered and used
again.

***

Richard was in the camera room, watching as
everything was being destroyed. There were two
tigers and a man in the room where the girl had
been kept, and one of the tigers was destroying the
cage. It seemed that, even though he'd let the
girl go, they’d still found him and the compound
anyway.

He knew he had to escape otherwise he wouldn’t
survive, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off
the carnage.

So much work was being destroyed because of one
girl. He didn’t know why she was worth so much.
There were so many lives being lost. Didn’t they
understand it was nothing compared to the lives
that were being destroyed? She was just a kid.
She meant nothing.

He looked over at another screen and saw a
large group of his men being taken down by another
tiger and some wolves. There were some humans he
didn’t know fighting them too. They must have been
brainwashed into thinking these animals were more
than they were. He didn’t know how they could be
so blind.

Something on the monitor with the two tigers
caught his attention. He hadn’t had a good look at
the human before, but now he knew who it was. Paul
Mills. He had never met the man, but he knew his
face very well. He was a traitor.

Richard was going to have to make sure he died,
but not yet. The group of three was heading for
him.

Hitting the secret release to get out, he left.
He just hoped he was fast enough. He knew he was
cutting it really close. Running as fast as he
could, he ran into the woods, hoping to outrun
them.

***

Emily had just finished taking down a Hunter
when she saw Stacy running into a room. She wasn’t
going to leave her alone. She couldn’t let them
hurt her again. She had to protect her.

Running after her, Emily knew Stacy was on a
hunt. She had smelled something. She followed
Stacy and wondered if she had smelled the man who'd
hurt her. It would make sense if she was that
tuned in to the smell. She would want to kill the
man who had hurt her.

Stacy went into what looked like a camera room.
She was surprised they could all fit in there.
Camera rooms were usually pretty small. It must
have been a communication room to the other
compounds as well. Most of the monitors were
turned off, but there were some that showed either
dead bodies or fighting.

There was a cracked portion of the wall on the
other side of the room. It must have been a hidden
room. Before she realized it, Stacy was pushing
through it.

Emily followed, making sure she didn’t let her
sister get too far ahead of her.

It was dark, but with their heightened senses,
they could see pretty easily. The doorway seemed
to lead to a dusty hall. Great! Who knew what
could be roaming down here? Snakes? Rats?
Spiders? Emily hoped she wouldn’t see any of that,
especially the spiders, until they reached fresh
air.

Emily wasn’t sure what Stacy was planning, but
she had every intention of being there when it did.
Stacy was hurt, limping very badly and still
bleeding, so was in no condition to fight.
However, she was still standing and set on getting
her revenge. She hoped Stacy knew what she was
doing.
***

Paul killed the last man in the room and looked
up to see both tigers gone. He couldn’t believe
they left him here alone. He could have been
killed if more men had rushed into the room.

He thought Emily cared more than that about
him. Maybe she was chasing Stacy? That was the
only thing that made sense to him. He started
checking rooms that were off of the one they were
in.

He found a bathroom, a couple of closets, and
the camera room. That looked promising. Walking
in, he saw all the monitors. There didn’t seem to
be all that much fighting going on. They must have
pretty much taken down the compound.

“Jason, Emily and Stacy took off after
something. I’m going after them,” he said into his
com link.

“Roger that. Let me know when you find them,”
Jason replied.

Paul looked around the room and saw part of the
wall pushed open, revealing a passageway. He knew
Zeke had installed a lot of those to make sure he
always had an escape route. He didn’t know this
particular one, but he'd never spent any time at
this compound.

Pulling out his flashlight, he made his way
down the dusty passageway. He could see the recent
footprints and the large paw prints made by the
tigers. He knew he was going the right way.

It seemed to be getting colder, so he guessed
he was underground. Zeke always liked getting one
over on people by having the exits far away from
the compounds and where they thought he might come
out. It was safer for him unless someone found the
tunnels. He must not have been thinking about that
part. But he also closed the door behind him when
he used them.

When Paul started smelling fresh air, he knew
he was almost at the end. He also knew something
was going on when he heard a growl and a bone
chilling scream. Stacy had found her captor.