Prey (Shifters #4)(62)

It took a lot of control to keep my pulse from racing as I brushed past him intoYarnell’s living room, now empty, thanks to the flurry of activity preceding my entrance.
Kevin closed the front door and leaned against it, and again my heartbeat tried to rally. My inner cat hated being caged, and neither the size nor the opulence of the enclosure mattered to her. It was the blocked exit she objected to. So I placated her with a long, satisfying look at the bloodstains on Yarnell’s carpet, right in front of the couch.
“I wish I could say I’m surprised to see you here, but that would be giving you too much credit.” Kevin crossed his arms over his chest and lied through his canines. “We’ve been expecting you.”I laughed, letting derision ring in my voice. “Yeah. About as much as you’re expecting the tooth fairy.” Kevin’s gaze smoldered as he tried to burn a hole through my forehead, but I only smiled. “My guess is that you were about to leave for your house. Without Marc.” Because why bother to haul around an unconscious tom, if they weren’t planning to trade him anyway…?
“I was about to leave, but Marc’s already there waiting for you. You just missed him.”
“You’re lying.” My smile grew, bolstered by the uneasy glint in his eyes. “I can smell him.” Because unlike some people, I took full advantage of my enhanced cat senses.
“That’s because he was here. Pete left with him about ten minutes ago.”
My confidence wavered. Could I really be smelling the scent lingering in his absence? The gadget in my pocket said Eckard’s microchip was inYarnell’s house, but that meant nothing if it was no longer in Marc’s possession.
“Fine. If Marc’s gone, there’s no reason for me to stay.” I reached out with my left hand to haul Kevin away from the door, my right fist curled around the knife in my pocket. But Kevin shook his head and batted my hand away, holding his cell phone up for me to see, like a grenade missing its pin.
“Sit.” He gestured to the plush gray couch. “Or Marc’s dead. All it takes is one call to Pete.”
I hesitated and inhaled deeply again, trying to judge how fresh Marc’s scent was. Had it faded a bit since I’d come in, or was I being paranoid?
“Well?” Kevin arched one eyebrow at me, and the left side of his mouth turned up in a crooked, malicious smile. But his eyes…they were the key. He looked relieved by my doubt. Relieved that I appeared to believe him.
Which meant he was lying.
“Okay, let’s call Pete….” I smiled and pulled my own phone from my jacket pocket. “Allow me.” I’d added his number to my call list from the information Michael had given us before we’d come to Yarnell’s house the first time.
Kevin’s grin froze as he tried to decide whether or not to call my bluff, but I’d lost patience. I scrolled quickly through my contacts—watching both Kevin and the kitchen doorway on the edge of my vision— and pressed Call when I got to Yarnell’s entry.
“It’s ringing….” I said merrily, for Kevin’s benefit.
His gaze slid to the left, toward the hallway across the room from me. And an instant later, obnoxiously twangy country music rang out from the kitchen. I took one step forward, and the granite-topped island came into view, and with it, a slim black phone buzzing on the smooth surface. 
“Oh, no!” I covered my mouth in mock horror. “It looks like Pete forgot his phone.”
Kevin growled, and his eyes went hard with anger. “Pete, come get your damn phone,” he snapped, but his gaze never left mine. “And you…” His voice sharpened when he addressed me, as a door opened down the hall. “You put your bitch ass on that couch, or I will personally walk back there and stomp Marc’s neck beneath my foot.”
As Peter Yarnell limped awkwardly into the living room—his good hand holding his injured ribs—I pressed the End Call button and slid my phone back into my pocket. I watched him casually, careful not to tense and clue Kevin in to my intentions. As soon as Yarnell rounded the corner into the kitchen, I leapt into motion.
My feet pounded on thick carpet. I crossed the room into the hall in less than a second. Kevin panted behind me. Grasping fingers brushed my shoulder, then tangled in my hair. I shrieked as a strand pulled free, but kept running.
I dashed through the open door—the last in the hallway—and slammed it shut. Kevin howled as the hollow wood panel hit his face, but I held it closed, bracing my feet against the floor. Tossing hair out of my eyes, I glanced around for something heavy to push in front of the door, just long enough for me to haul Marc out the window. But my hasty plan was born of desperation, not flawless planning, and it depended rather heavily on Marc being alone in the back bedroom.
Which he was not. Kevin and Peter had backup.
Damn it, Faythe! That’s what you get for trusting the bad guys to tell the truth!
My heart beat furiously, and despair washed over me at the sight of another tall, thick tom with his back to me, bending over Marc, who lay unconscious on the floor. The assholes hadn’t even bothered to put him on the bed!
But then I noticed the familiar cut of the tom’s jacket and the length of his dark brown waves, just as his scent penetrated my flustered brain. “Dan!” I breathed, as Kevin pounded on the door hard enough to shove me forward at least two inches.
He stood and turned to shoot me a nervous grin. “I think he’s okay.”
“Good. Help me block this so we can get him out of here.” I scooted to make room for Dan against the door as he crossed the room. “Jeez, you scared me. I thought you were one of them.”
His uneasy smile faded as his hand wrapped around my arm, pulling me almost gently away from the door. “I kinda am, Faythe. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Shock numbed me so quickly that by the time I remembered to react, he’d already pulled the door open to reveal Kevin standing in the hall with his fist poised to bang on it again, his other hand covering a nose gushing blood. “Dan, no!” I shouted, jerking free from his grip. “Don’t do this.” Glancing from one to the other, I backed up several steps, and they let me. “You know what he’s done. He implanted you with a tracking device, so his dad can spy on you whenever he wants!”
Kevin huffed a nasal laugh. “Yeah, he volunteered for that—guinea pigs get paid extra.”
Shit. That’s why Dan was first on the list….
Kevin wiped his nose with the tail of his shirt, then pinched his nostrils shut, lending an odd quality to his speech. “Then he helped lure the others in with massive quantities of alcohol. Do you have any idea how much whiskey it takes to get a two-hundred-pound tom drunk enough to believe he passed out?”
“You flea-ridden bastard!” I shrieked, fury singeing every nerve ending in my body until it felt like every inch of my skin was on fire. My fist flew before I even knew I was going to throw a punch, and blood spurted from Dan’s freshly broken nose—a matched set to Kevin’s.
“Hold it down, unless you want to explain all this to the cops,” Yarnell said, stomping unevenly down the hallway. “I do have neighbors, you kno—” He appeared in the doorway, and his eyes widened the minute he saw the blood pouring down the front of Dan’s shirt, in spite of the stray’s best attempt to stanch it. “Fuck! My carpet!”For some reason, Yarnell’s surreal complaint about the ruined decor shocked me back to myself, and I darted across the room and over the twin bed against one wall. My fingers were scrabbling for purchase on the window latch when Kevin cursed behind me. “Shit, Pete, grab her!”
Arms wrapped around my waist just as I twisted the first latch open, and I was hauled roughly off the bed and set on my feet with my arms pinned at my back. “Told you I’d see you again soon,” Yarnell whispered, his lips brushing my ear. I turned my head and pulled away from him, but he only jerked me back. “And this time it’s your turn to scream. I had to Shift four times just to be able to stand up straight after all the ribs you cracked, and my fingers are as crooked as a country road.” He held up his hand to show me bandaged and noticeably bent digits. “And in a few minutes, you’ll be begging me to kill you.”
“Not likely,” I growled through clenched teeth, fury flaming in my cheeks. I moved my weight onto one foot and slammed the other one into his shin, as hard as I could.
Yarnell howled, and jerked mercilessly on my arms as he hopped on his good foot behind me. “Can we tie the bitch up?”
“Please do.” Kevin reappeared in the doorway with an olive-colored hand towel pressed to his nose, and tossed its mate to Dan. “Tape her hands and feet and put her on the couch. When we’re done with her, she’s all yours.”
I wanted to ask what they were going to do with me, but I couldn’t afford to appear so weak or desperate for information. So I pressed my lips together and began to walk only when Yarnell shoved me forward, viciously twisting my shoulder in the process.
On my way out of the room, I got a glimpse of Marc. Not much, but enough to be sure he was breathing. For the moment, anyway.
“Where’s Jace?” I demanded, and as we passed the third door, Yarnell shoved it open to reveal Jace lying on the bare floor of another, smaller spare room, his breathing soft and even, his hands and feet heavily bound with acres of duct tape. Dan had probably knocked him out the moment I was out of sight, and they’d no doubt made it into the house before I’d even gotten to the front yard. Which meant…