Justice nodded. “We hiked in from the woods so we wouldn’t be spotted. The upstairs bedrooms are currently lived in. Someone will return. Their things are still here.”
Tiger nodded at the five men inside. “We watch and wait.”
Valiant moved, climbed up on the bed, and pressed his nose against the mattress again. Tammy’s scent lingered there. The smell of her terror was strongest there. He didn’t want to move for fear it would fade away. He had to find her. He sensed Justice and Tiger watching him.
Justice sighed. “Does it help?”
“A little,” Valiant admitted softly. “I do not want to live anymore if we don’t find her.” He turned his head to stare at them.
Tiger cringed and Valiant understood why. They all knew it happened sometimes with New Species inside the testing facilities. They gave up hope and just stopped eating. They allowed their bodies to die. He never thought he’d be one to release life once they were freed. He refused to regret falling in love with his Tammy though.
“I hope I never fall in love if it means losing a woman makes me want to give up my hold on life,” Tiger muttered.
“Hopefully the male she’s been taken to won’t hurt her,” Justice said. “He will scent you on her unless she showered and changed her clothing after you left her.”
He shook his head. “She did not. She’d already changed into her clothing when I left. I held her and my scent is all over her. He won’t be able to miss it.”
“Good.” Justice turned his attention on Tiger. “There are more of Species still imprisoned by Mercile. We need to find them and we’ll be able to if we find her.”
Tiger lifted his cell phone. “I’ll go upstairs and let the others know. We will try to find out who bought or rented this house. Maybe they are using the same name or funds to pay for wherever Tammy is being kept. I doubt that Zenlelt is a real name. They set Charlie Artzola up to die. They’ve been dealing with New Species who’ve never known freedom. I’m sure they assumed we’d behave the same and kill him instantly. They gave him the weapon that took Flame down and had to know he’d survive. I can’t figure out why they didn’t just shoot the attorney instead of sending him back to us alive.”
Justice growled. “Mercile enjoys trying to make us appear dangerous and unstable to humans to justify what they did to us. They probably thought we’d murder the bastard with humans around to witness it. That or they just think we’re stupid and it was worth the risk of leaving him alive on the chance of keeping an insider in place if we believed everything he tried to lie about. I dread trying to discover how much he’s betrayed us and what information he’s passed to them.”
Tiger glanced at Valiant. “I’m sorry, man. We’ll get her back.”
Valiant couldn’t speak. Emotion choked him. Justice turned away to whisper to Tiger but he still heard the words.
“He’s so fierce. To see him this way breaks my heart. Let’s give him some privacy with his mate’s scent. Make those calls and order our men to stay hidden. Hopefully they will return here. I don’t know what else to do.”
* * * * *
“Wake up,” a voice growled next to Tammy’s ear. “They come to feed us. Stay on the bed and do not go near the bars.”
Tammy’s eyes snapped open. She met 927’s gaze as he lifted off her. He stood, putting his body in the path of the cell door and her. Tammy sat up and noticed with some alarm that the broken glass wall had disappeared but the debris from it remained on the metal floor. How did I sleep through that?
Her attention lifted to the top of the room when a hum sounded and she saw a two inch gap in the cage roof. The length ran across the room where the glass wall had been. She heard a louder noise, a whine of an engine, and another glass wall was lifted by some kind of crane system from the other side of the warehouse.
She gaped, watching as it was positioned over the cage, lined up with the slot of the opening and lowered slowly from the ceiling. She stared in shock at it. Obviously the glass walls were removable from the top and the broken one had been lifted out. A new one slid in all the way to the floor to separate the cell from the door.
The New Species with his back to her tensed and growled deeply. Tammy realized he did it in an attempt to protect her. That seemed a vast improvement from being sure he’d kill her when she’d been tossed into the caged room with him. He’d held her instead while she slept and hadn’t hurt her. Gratitude toward him and hope that Valiant and the New Species at Reservation would find them flooded her. She just needed to stay alive.