Shifters’ Captive(17)
Grant rolled his eyes, dismissing the suggestion. “Do you think these ropes could hold me if I didn’t want to be held? I’m only talking with you because the girl’s right, we need to share what we know and come up with a solution.”
John pulled up a chair and straddled it, facing the other man. “It’s been a little over a month since the first person in our pack got sick. It took several cases before anyone saw a pattern. Our wisewoman had a dream about Sherrie like you did, and I went to bring her here.” Sherrie continued the story. “Nothing remotely psychic has ever happened to me before, but he showed me a little girl in one of these comas and when I touched her, I saw inside her mind. I experienced everything she did including the being who’s keeping her prisoner. He’s sucking up her energy while keeping her unconscious.”
“Did you see how Liberty came into contact with him?” John asked.
She closed her eyes, trying to recall something more specific than a black, shadowy figure labeled The Bad Man, and she smelled the sharp scent of pine. “In the woods. She heard—no, felt someone calling her, and she followed the sound.”
Sherrie’s heart beat faster. A claustrophobic sense of anxiety swaddled her like cotton. She could hardly breathe and wanted to run from the creature Liberty had been drawn to. Images flashed in her mind like quick edits in an art movie.
“A cave, maybe. Someplace dark and rocky. That’s not where she first saw him, but he’s holding her there with him now, holding all of their minds with his. It’s very confused and fragmented.” Sherrie opened her eyes to find brown eyes and gold watching her once more, searching for answers and maybe salvation.
“They’re his prisoners on an astral plane,” Perron said matter-of-factly, as if he dealt with the otherworldly all the time. “But if he has a physical body, we can destroy it.”
“What if killing him doesn’t set them free? What if they die when he dies? We’ve got to be careful.” John rose and paced the room, reminding Sherrie of wolves she’d seen in a zoo habitat walking the perimeter of their enclosure.
“We need to take action. Cut me loose and I’ll handle it.” Grant strained against his bonds, finally showing some impatience. Sherrie didn’t doubt he could break them as promised if he turned into a mountain lion. Although the idea terrified her, a small part of her wanted to see that.
John stopped pacing to glare at him again. “What are you going to do? Your kind is so impetuous.
Taking action isn’t the same as taking the right action.”
“And taking no action is the wolf way. You have endless councils before you make a decision about anything.”
“I brought her here, which is more than you did.” John pointed at Sherrie, and once more she felt like a prop in their play as they argued about who had the bigger cojones.
“Enough. John. Untie him. He’s not our prisoner. He’s an ally. And you, Cat-man, remember you came here for me. Whatever you do, I must be a part of it, so let’s think this through and come up with a solution before you go off half-cocked.”
For a girl who tended toward impetuosity herself, she sounded remarkably like a schoolteacher— Let’s work together, class. The only problem was she had no idea what direction their plan should take.
John turned to Perron. “She’s right. We have to lay our differences aside.” The other man’s lips twisted in a smile that seemed more like a snarl. “Untie me. I’ll be a team player.”
John crouched behind the chair on which Grant Perron sat and loosened the knots he’d just finished tying. Sherrie took stock of the differences and similarities between the two men. They might be night and day as far as coloring and build, but both had a sleek grace and palpable magnetism. If she’d met either of them at a bar, she wouldn’t have known why there was a sense of wildness about them, but would’ve been attracted to it. She was attracted to that primal quality in both of them.
Her body vibrated like a violin string tuned too tight, and the desire her interlude with John had slaked began to swell again. She felt as if her body was one raw, pulsing sexual nerve, responding to these men with a mind of its own.
“There’s a network of caves near the peak. We’ll head up there,” Perron announced as he pulled his hands from behind his back and rubbed his wrists.
John grimaced at the other man’s arrogant tone, but held his tongue. He glanced at Sherrie.
She offered him a smile. Locks of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead and she longed to brush them back and kiss him. A fantasy of doing this while Perron watched flashed in her mind, and heat flooded her body. She pictured him, still tied to the chair, erection growing, as she and John fondled and kissed in front of him. He would groan and shift as they stripped and fell on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. She’d ride John’s cock, breasts bouncing, and meet Perron’s hungry gaze, taunting him with a smile.