Savage Hunger(90)

Fear clogged in her throat. No. They couldn’t be dead. They couldn’t! She dragged her heels, twisting her head to look behind her to the shadows where the agents had been hiding.

But her earpiece had gone ominously quiet. Oh God. What if something had happened to them? No. She’d know if Warrick was dead. Would feel it in her soul. He had to be all right.

She couldn’t think about it now, but it didn’t stop the blind terror that took over. That had her lashing out at the person holding her as her screams reverberated in the empty building.

“Shut the hell up, or you’ll wish you had, Ms. Peters.”

If she didn’t get away from him, she’d be dead anyway. It was a certainty she didn’t doubt for a minute.

The smell of his stale body odor assaulted her nose as the man grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the ground, rushing her toward the door.

She smashed her head back against her abductor, but besides another furious curse, he didn’t react much.

“No, please,” her dad’s voice rose with panic from somewhere in the building, “you promised to let her go!”

The man’s nasty laugh had her stomach sinking. “But if we have your daughter, Mr. Peters, you’ll be a little more cooperative in helping us recreate the antishifting drug. Or should I say perfect it, seeing as the one we were using before wasn’t quite working the way we expected.”

“Who are you people?” she choked out. “How can you be so inhumane?”

“Those creatures aren’t human, Sienna. You more than anyone should know this.”

Where was Warrick? Her heart hurt at the idea he might be wounded. She couldn’t even consider the possibility that he was anything but unconscious right now.

The door to the building loomed closer and she saw her future changing. Saw herself and her father locked in a small room, her father forced to create a drug that could destroy the shifter species.

Her vision grew hazy, redder. The fear inside her began to shift to anger, expanding, clawing to get out. A snarl built low in her throat and she dug her nails into her captor’s wrist, trying to get him to release her.

A savage roar behind them was the only warning she and the man carrying her received before they were sent sprawling to the floor.

Sienna scrambled to her feet, quickly distancing herself from the flash of fur and fangs on human flesh.

The gray wolf wasn’t Warrick, but he was one of the agents.

“Wait!” the man who’d been trying to take her screamed, terror in his voice. “What are you—”

The rest of his words ended in a gurgle of pain. Of death. Sienna rolled away from her captor, her stomach roiling.

Another man’s scream tore through the air. High pitched and laced with terror. Then snarls and the sound of teeth snapping. There was another wolf off in the shadows, fighting someone else.

“Sienna!”

She spun to her left and with a sob launched herself into her dad’s arms.

Tears filled her eyes as she clung to him. “You’re okay. How did you—”

“Shh, I’m just fine, honey.” Kevin Peters wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tightly. “Warrick arrived to assist me just in time. I do believe at this moment he’s severing my captor’s head from his shoulders.”

Warrick! Oh God, Warrick was alive. Relief slammed through her so hard her legs buckled and she fell weakly into her father’s embrace with a sob.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Relief spilled through her at having her dad back and at the fact that the man she loved wasn’t dead. The emotion was strong enough to block the carnage around them from her mind.

And just as quickly as chaos had filled the building, it went shockingly silent again. It was enough to bring her back to the present and the situation at hand.

Sienna pulled away and glanced around the dim building. The wolf who’d attacked her captor padded toward her, then shifted back into human form.

Rafferty.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

“Not a problem. Are you okay?” he asked gruffly, his face etched with concern.

“I’m fine. Are they—”

“Dead. Both of them.”

Nausea rolled through her, but Sienna nodded and bit her lip.

“It’s no more than they deserve, Sienna.”

“I know. I just don’t understand.” She watched as her dad walked back toward the dead bodies of their captors. “I thought they just wanted the jump drive.”

“They wanted you,” Warrick said tersely from her right.

Hearing his voice, knowing he was human again, she turned with a gasp and flung herself into his arms.

“They always wanted you,” he muttered, holding her tight and stroking a hand down her back. “I knew it was too fucking easy.”