Tempting the Tiger (2 page)

Plus, he’d made her feel uncomfortable with the way he watched her. He was always there, observing, when she crossed the yard for whatever errand she was on or when she went onto the porch for a view of the night sky and fresh air. It unnerved her and made her afraid. Her father’s earlier words made her even more so. What plans did he and Kellan have for her other than training?

Kellan’s hand dropped and landed on her waist, his fingers spanning across her stomach. He moved just a bit closer, and she held perfectly still though she wanted to jerk away from the erection she could feel pressing against her. Oh, God. She was going to be sick. He couldn’t mean to be with her. They were family.

“I’m glad you’re coming around.” His voice was way too close to her ear. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. Your dad and I have spoken many times. I’ll tell you all about it once we get your training started.”

She swallowed her bile down and stepped away with the pretense of looking at something else along the wall. “We’re cousins, Kellan. Surely, you can’t plan to be more than my trainer.”

“We’re no blood relation. My dad and your dad were step-brothers.”

He moved toward her again, and she was afraid she might panic if she didn’t get away from him soon. Not blood relatives? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t be with Kellan. Ever.

“When will we start training?” she asked, shifting away again.

“This weekend. I’ll see to your training myself.” He sounded far too pleased with that.

“I guess I’ll head back to the house for now then.”

Kellan nodded, and his focus turned to Clara. “I’ll see you later.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Animals have to be taught all kinds of lessons. We’ve barely started with this one.”

Amia could see Clara tense and said the only thing she could. “Can’t you come with me instead?”

Kellan’s gaze flicked to her with surprise, then delight. It was all Amia could do not to take the words back. Instead, she let her glaze return to Clara, a visual reminder of what the girl had already been through. Saving her needed to start now.

“I mean, you could walk me back to the house and tell me more about what we’ll be doing this weekend. I’ve got some iced tea made. I bet you’re thirsty after all this.”

His gaze flicked between Clara and her, and Amia held her breath. It was cowardly of her, but part of her wished he’d ignore her request and stay. And the guilt of that thought weighed on her, making her step forward and clasp his hand with hers. She’d just admired Clara’s courage. Maybe it was past time she found some of her own.

“Come on.” She did her best to use a teasing tone. “You know you want to.”

“Just for a little bit. I’ve got to get back out here later.”

“Later then,” Amia agreed and tugged him toward the door.

Amia wasn’t short at five feet seven inches, but Kellan was taller at just over six feet. And strong. If he wanted to hurt her, she’d be hard-pressed to stop him. Still, she walked with him across the yard toward the house, chattering the whole way. But in her head, she wondered how she could help Clara escape.

The answer came when they ran into her father in the kitchen. She poured Kellan a drink while he sat at the table with her dad, as if it were his normal place. Maybe it was. Lord knew she didn’t spend more time down here than she absolutely had to. Quality time together was not something they had. She cooked and cleaned, but her father usually sent her to her room to eat alone while he conducted business over meals. She didn’t mind.

“Don’t forget we have a meeting tonight. We have three hunting parties coming in from the other farms with reports. I’ll need you there. We’ll have to tighten security for it. I’ll want all the men armed and watching the cabins,” her dad told Kellan as Amia grabbed a glass and put ice in it.

The cabins were on the other side of the house, about one hundred yards away. More importantly, they were on the opposite side from the barn. So if all the attention was focused on the cabins, none of it would be on Clara.

“What about the prisoner?” Kellan asked, and Amia could have thanked him for voicing the question for her, if she didn’t hate him with every breath she took that was.

“Leave her for now. She’ll still be there in the morning.”

Kellan nodded and smiled as she handed him the filled glass.

“Did I see you two chatting away a few minutes ago? Making plans already?” her father asked.

She did her best to control the impulse to scream and jerk away as Kellan put his arm possessively around her and patted her on the butt.

“Amia is coming around to our way of thinking. I’m looking forward to taking her out this weekend and starting her training.”

She almost gagged at his barely veiled comment. Surely her father realized Kellan wasn't just talking about hunter training? What disgusted her even more was the look of pleasure across her father’s face. How could she not have seen them plotting this for her?

She knew in that moment she had to get away as well. Tonight, while everyone was focused on the cabins, she’d slip out and free Clara. The soundproofing of the barn would act in her favor. They’d have to work together to get away from here, far away. Amia wasn’t any safer now than the prisoners they captured. She was just a different type of prisoner. And while they might die, she would be forced to endure the plans her father and Kellan had for her every day for the rest of her life. She would rather die.

The rest of the day crawled by, but Amia used the time wisely. She had two backpacks ready to go as well as a set of clothes for Clara to put on. She could only hope they would fit the other girl well enough. She thought Clara might be a little shorter and leaner.

Dinner was a cringe worthy experience with Kellan sitting beside her, constantly touching her as if it was his right now, while her father looked on with pride. She choked down what she could manage, knowing she would need the food for fuel later.

Finally, the house was dark and quiet. Still, her heart knocked in her chest as she carefully slipped out the side door and darted from shadow to shadow around to the back of the barn where she’d left the packs hidden. She took the clothes with her as she sneaked inside and toward the room where Clara had been chained. But Clara wasn’t there. They’d moved her? Where would they have moved her?

The chamber? She had to search her mind for any conversation she might have overheard at dinner. She knew the chamber was on the other side of the barn. Kellan had mentioned earlier that they wanted to test it. So it only made sense that was where they’d taken Clara. Surely if she had been killed, they would have mentioned it at dinner.

She made her way toward the area she thought it might be located, but she couldn’t find anything. Frustration mounted as time crept by. She kicked out her foot and tripped over a cord draped across the barn floor. She threw up her hands as she fell against the wall, then squeaked in surprise. There was a soft snick, and it gave way, parting to reveal a room she hadn’t even known was there. She eased inside, shutting the door behind her, and found it was lit by the dim glow of a monitor. She saw Clara on the screen, and the girl wasn’t moving. Where was she? It appeared she was in a very confined space. But it was too dark to see much detail, especially with the camera angled at Clara’s face.

There was little in the room around Amia but a large panel with numerous buttons marked with things like lift, lower, merge and open. There was a large slab of concrete to her right that looked eerily out of place in the barn. And there were tanks of something with tubes disappearing into the ground. What in the world was this? Where was the chamber? What was the chamber? And where the hell was Clara?

It took Amia a minute to realize what she was seeing. Her mind didn’t want to believe even with the proof right in front of her. But there was no holding back the shock when she finally accepted the truth. The chamber. It was a burial chamber. Clara was in what was probably a coffin of sorts and somewhere underneath that slab of concrete. The chamber Kellan and her father were so excited about was something straight out of a horror movie.

Amia turned to the panel and tried to focus more clearly on the buttons, needing to figure out how to get Clara out. Her hands shook with fear that she might hit the wrong one and kill Clara by mistake. She took a deep breath and looked at the button that said open. But did it mean to open the concrete or whatever they had her locked in? My God, she could kill Clara instead of releasing her. But none of the others seemed right either.

With a shaky finger, she hit the button and prayed she was right. Her stomach was in her throat as the concrete split down the center and began to shift apart. It was deep, so deep beneath the barn. She had no idea how far down Clara was. The entire chamber was lined with some form of metal and she saw tubes snaking down the sides. Tubes from the tanks? She took a closer look. Oxygen tanks. They must have set it up to keep oxygen circulating so whoever was submerged wouldn’t suffocate.

They’d buried Clara alive. What if the oxygen tanks had failed? What if the chamber had collapsed? Clara could have been crushed under the weight of concrete. She wasn’t sure what kept the oxygen lines from getting crushed or severed. Or was that part of the fun? Not knowing if the captive would be alive or dead when they decided to bring them back up for more torture? And her father wanted her to believe they were the good guys, saving the world. More accurately, they were the fucking animals that needed to be eradicated.

Glancing back at the panel, she decided to press the button marked lift next. She held her breath as a coffin slowly came into view and prayed no one would be close enough to hear the soft whirring of the motor. As the coffin rose higher, she noticed the lid had a bolt through it. When it finally breached the opening the concrete closed again, this time beneath the coffin.

She shook as she reached for the bolt. It almost proved to be her undoing as she struggled to release it. When it did give, she ended up falling back on her ass across the floor from the effort she’d been exerting. The lid sprung open, and Clara exploded out, landing in a crouch in front of the coffin.

“It’s me,” Amia whispered. “I’m here to help just like I promised. I’m here to help, Clara.”

Clara began to shake uncontrollably, and Amia crawled across to her, continuing to whisper.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe…”

“That you come from such sadistic bastards?”

Amia nodded. There was really nothing she could say to make any of this better. It didn’t matter what she thought. It only mattered what she did, and the plan was to get them both out of there as quickly as possible. It had taken more time than Amia had planned to locate Clara. They had no more to spare.

“I’ll help you put these on.”

“I’ve got it,” Clara said and jerked the clothes from her hands.

Amia busied herself lowering the now empty coffin back into the ground while Clara dressed. When she turned around, she noticed Clara had rolled up the jeans just a little. The sneakers looked a bit loose as well, but there was nothing to be done about that.

“I’ve got a pack for each of us behind the barn. I can get us through the woods and out of here. There’s a town at the base of the mountain, but I’d suggest bypassing it and going somewhere else. We need to get as far away as we can.”

“You’re going with me?” Clara asked her softly.

Amia nodded. “You’re hurt. I’ll stay with you as long as I can. Do you have a place you can go and be safe?”

Clara slowly nodded, but her gaze was guarded, and Amia knew she wouldn’t be invited to tag along to that safe place. She shouldn’t have hoped for anything more. She might not have been the one who’d captured and tortured Clara, but she was a part of them, whether she wanted to be or not.

“Good. Let’s get going. I’ll stick with you as far as I can before we need to go our separate ways.”

“You’re not coming back here?” Clara looked at her suspiciously, and Amia didn’t blame her after what the Blanes had put her through.

She wondered what else might have been done to Clara while she’d been oblivious in the house, cooking and then eating dinner. Suddenly, every morsel she’d forced down wanted to reappear, and Amia had to swallow to keep it down.

She toyed briefly with the idea of confessing the rage she was inviting by helping Clara escape. Her father would make her suffer if he got his hands on her. There was no greater sin than betrayal. Hadn’t her dad drilled that into her head when he spoke of her mother? Now she wondered what her mother had done to betray Marcus Blane, and if it was anything like what Amia was doing. But those were her problems, not Clara’s. The other girl had enough to worry about after all she’d had to endure.

“Ready?” Amia asked instead and waited for Clara’s response.

When the girl nodded again, Amia took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Follow me. Stay as close and quiet as you can. And if you hear me yell run, take off. Don’t look back. You don’t want them to catch you again.”

Clara nodded, still giving her that odd look, and that’s when it registered for Amia. Both Clara’s eyes were open when she’d have sworn one had been swollen shut just hours before. She shook her head in confusion. There was no time to dwell on it now.

It took them two days to go around the town. Clara recovered quickly, more quickly than anyone Amia had ever seen. She learned the girl had been taken while on a camping trip with friends, at least that was all Clara would tell her. Clara still didn’t trust Amia, and nothing Amia said or did changed that. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to trust anyone again either.

Her whole life felt like a waste, like a lie. Clara wasn’t an animal. Amia’s father and his men were the animals, the monsters that needed to be removed from society. Amia swore she’d see it done. She had no idea how, but she’d see her father and every hunter working for him stopped. How many people had they murdered in cold blood under the guise of some hunter’s law? And how did she stop them for good? How did she put an end to the madness? Where could she turn for help?