Cougar Bait Read online

  Samantha didn’t know what he was babbling about and she didn’t care.

  “You can see I’m through Rejuvenation, so there are no more, uh, fluids to harvest from me,” she pointed out. “And you missed your chance to breed me—not that you could now anyway,” she added.

  Lounds’s face turned dark.

  “Just because you’re no longer flowing doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to harvest. Your very blood has compounds in it that will be useful in my research. Not to mention your rejuvenated organs. Your ovaries will be especially useful, I think—and I might as well take your uterus while I’m at it. Hope you don’t mind being on the receiving end of the scalpel for once.”

  He took a step toward her and Samantha took a step back. The thought of him draining her blood and cutting her open to harvest her organs was beyond horrifying. But even worse were the particular organs he planned to take.

  No! The baby! she thought, and her hands, which were cuffed in front of her, moved to cover and shield her lower belly, almost of their own accord.

  Lounds’s small, piggy eyes widened and then narrowed as he saw the protective gesture.

  “Well, well, well . . . it seems you might have something even more valuable than nectar for me to harvest: Shifter stem cells,” he growled, advancing on her. “The breeding took, did it? Does Keller know you’re carrying his baby?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Samantha said, lying as convincingly as she could. “I’m not—”

  “Pregnant? Knocked up? In the family way?” A hateful smile twisted Lounds’s thin lips. “Oh, but I think you are, Samantha. Why else would you try to shield your little bundle of joy from me?” He put out a hand and Samantha drew back from him, eyeing the door.

  Need to get away! Have to get out of here! Even if I could just get out in the hallway and start screaming. . . . It wouldn’t do much good to scream in the birthing suite. The rooms were made to be nearly soundproof, to keep the noise out in the corridor down and allow for a quieter, more peaceful birthing experience.

  But Lounds was suddenly between her and the only exit.

  “Oh no, Samantha—I don’t think so. You’re not leaving until I get that baby out of you and harvest its cells.” His eyes flashed yellow and he grinned, showing teeth that had grown long and deadly and sharp. “The only question is, will I cut it out . . . or bite it out?”

  * * *

  “Fiona, I need your help.” Keller raked a hand through his hair as he turned in a circle in the center of a busy hospital hallway.

  The call from Sadie had driven him back inside Tampa General Hospital for another look—or in this case, another smell. He’d been horrified to find that he hadn’t been imagining things earlier—the scent he’d picked up was definitely from Lounds. When he’d come back in and had done a more thorough sweep of the area where he’d first caught it, Keller had become absolutely certain the Hyena Shifter was alive and well and right here in TGH.

  There was only one reason for the Hyena to be here in the hospital where Samantha worked, and it wasn’t to bring her a bouquet of roses and wish her happy surgeon’s day.

  He’s after her—he wants to hurt her! Maybe even kill her.

  Keller knew it was true beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had to find Samantha quickly, before Lounds got to her. Except, if Sadie’s feelings about her sister were accurate, the Hyena Shifter might already have her in his clutches.

  But where? Did he take her somewhere? Kidnap her? Or was she right here in the hospital?

  Keller was desperate to find Lounds, but unfortunately, he had lost the scent in the confusing array of smells coming from all over the hospital.

  After losing Lounds’s scent, he tried tracking Samantha this time, starting in the cafeteria. But her sweet, familiar scent was covered by the multitude of hospital food and cooking smells, providing yet another dead end.

  His next thought was to tear down the barrier he’d erected in his mind when he blocked Samantha and track her using their bond. But such mental structures, which took only moments to erect, were hard to take down. Though he leaned against a hospital wall, closed his eyes, and mentally tore at the bricks he’d put in place between himself and the place where they were bonded, he could only partially destroy it. And even when he managed to make a hole large enough to “look” through, everything he saw seemed dead or withered beyond hope.

  He’d done a thorough job of killing his bond with Samantha. And now she might literally be killed, all because he’d wanted to save himself some emotional pain.

  Keller cursed himself again and again. Never should have blocked her in the first place. My God, what was I thinking? Now she’s in danger and I have no way to find her! What am I going to do?

  He’d thought of calling Sadie, but though she and Samantha seemed to share a strange, unclassifiable bond, it wasn’t specific. The sisters knew when one of them was in trouble, but they couldn’t track each other in any way. He would only succeed in upsetting her. Likewise it would do no good to talk to Mathis—the other Shifter was too far away to help. Keller needed to find Samantha now, before Lounds hurt her or took her someplace else for who knew what horrible reasons.

  Lady Moon, he prayed silently, ignoring the people passing by him and giving him strange looks. I’ve allowed my wounded pride to put the female I love—the female you sent me—in danger. Please, if you’ll only help me find her before it’s too late, I swear I won’t be too proud to tell her how I really feel. Even if she rejects me again, I’ll at least try to bring her to me, even if I have to beg. Please!

  No trumpets rang from the clouds and no light shone down from the heavens, but he heard a quiet voice whisper in his ear, Call Fiona.

  Which was why he was on the phone now, explaining the whole awful business to Cougarville’s resident pharmacist and wise woman.

  “So I don’t know what to do,” he finished in a low voice. “I can’t track either of them—I don’t even know if they’re still in the hospital or if he’s taken her someplace else. I only know she’s in danger because Sadie had one of her feelings.”

  “I believe she’s still there in the hospital.” Fiona’s voice was warm and calm as always. “Since you cannot trace her scent and you’ve decimated your life-bond, you’ll have to find another way to track her down.”

  “I know that, but how? What way?” Keller felt like tearing his hair out. Hearing Fiona confirm what his gut told him was making him crazy. “She could be dead! He could be torturing her!” he growled. “But how the hell do I find her?”

  “You feel for your bond,” Fiona said.

  “Feel for my bond? But I just told you—I blocked her! The bond is as good as dead. I—”

  “Not that bond,” Fiona interrupted quietly. “Not your bond to Samantha—another bond similar to it, but much weaker and newer.”

  “Another bond? What . . . no, she’s not . . . are you saying she’s pregnant?” Keller’s voice was hoarse in his own ears. “But that can’t be—she told me she wasn’t.”

  “Samantha might not have known herself. In fact, that was the impression I got when I spoke to her—that she had no idea she was carrying new life inside her. Although perhaps she suspected.”

  “So you’re saying if she’s pregnant—”

  “You should still have a bond to the baby, even if your bond to Samantha has withered,” Fiona finished for him. “You just need to close your eyes and feel for it. It will be tiny and nearly hidden—like a single candle flame in a huge forest. You have to find that little light and let it guide you.”

  “Yes. Yes, all right.” Keller took a deep breath. How well he remembered the tiny spark of life he’d felt inside Rachel so many years ago. And how devastated he’d been when that little spark had been snuffed out. “I understand,” he whispered. “I know what to look for.”

  “Good. Then go find them as quickly as you can. They are, indeed, in dreadful danger.” Fiona hung up without saying good-bye, and
Keller clicked off his phone and put it in his pocket.

  Retreating to a part of the main hospital corridor that wasn’t so busy, he closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, he opened himself, searching for the tiny spark that was his child, hoping and praying that he could find both the child and Samantha before Lounds did something awful to them.

  Before it was too late.

  Chapter 24

  “What . . . what is this? Where am I?” Samantha looked around groggily. Her head ached, and something warm and wet was running down her cheek. Also, she seemed to be lying on something soft but firm. What was going on?

  “Oh good—you’re awake,” said a voice in her ear. “Sorry I had to knock you out, but you were becoming troublesome. But I’m glad you came back to consciousness before the big event. It’s going to hurt so much more this way.”

  “What?” Samantha blinked, trying to make her blurred vision come back into focus. When it did, she was sorry it had. Standing on her left was Lounds, with a wide, evil grin on his face.

  Memories began to come back to her. Lounds had threatened her and she’d run. He grabbed her, dragged her back, and brought the butt of his gun down on her temple. That must be why her head ached and her scalp and cheek were sticky with blood.

  The firm thing she was lying on was the fashionably made-up birthing bed. The cold metal handcuffs were gone from her wrists, but Lounds had found the soft restraints kept for patients who had to be stopped from hurting themselves. He’d used them to tie Samantha’s arms and her ankles to the bedrails.

  She pulled against the restraints, but though they were soft, they were also incredibly strong, and the knots were tight. Clearly Lounds was taking no chances on her escaping this time.

  “Stay away from me! Leave me alone!” she cried weakly, hating the terror she heard in her own voice but unable to help it.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not done extracting my revenge yet.” He snickered. “Do you see what I did there—extracting my revenge instead of exacting it? Because extracting is precisely what I have planned for you, Samantha. I’m going to be extracting your baby.”

  Samantha struggled in her bonds, but it was no use. Lounds simply laughed and picked up a pair of sterile suture scissors from the emergency C-section tray lying open on a rolling stand beside him.

  She didn’t want to think about what else was in that tray. Extremely sharp scalpels for one thing, and abdominal retractors for another. It made her sick to see that Lounds already had a large plastic specimen jar open and ready.

  It’s for the baby. As soon as he gets it and the cord out, he’ll put it in there and take it away. Or maybe he would just take her entire uterus, as he had threatened, with the baby still inside it. That would really make the most sense, if he was serious about harvesting her organs thoroughly. . . .

  Then the clinical thought gave way to pure emotion, pure anguish.

  My baby . . . he’s going to kill my baby!

  Lounds cut her scrub top open in one long motion, as though he were cutting a length of wrapping paper. As he spread it open to bare her belly, Samantha got ready to do the only thing she could do—Shift.

  She didn’t want to do it—didn’t even know if she could, since she’d only Shifted once before, and that had been an accident. But there was a nearly full moon outside, and even though she wasn’t out in the moonlight, she could feel its presence, silvery and lighter than air, calling to her softly, singing sweetly through her blood.

  Sadie said it’s bad for the baby, she thought. But surely being cut out of its mother’s womb would be worse. Shifting was the only chance she had—the only way she could save herself, and hopefully her baby too.

  “Ah—I think this one looks nice and sharp.” Lounds put down the scissors and picked up a scalpel. Leaning over her, he tugged down her scrub bottoms and underwear, leaving her half naked and trembling. “I believe I’ve heard that most surgeons favor what they call a ‘bikini’ cut incision for this kind of surgery,” he remarked, giving her a nasty smile. “It minimizes recovery time. But since I’m not planning on you recovering at all, I think I’ll take a more direct approach.”

  He placed the blade of the scalpel right below her navel. It was razor sharp, of course, so even the lightest pressure cut the skin. Samantha felt a warm trickle, and blood pooled in her belly button.

  It was now or never.

  Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes.

  Help me, she thought, not knowing who she was praying to but praying anyway. Help me do this. . . .

  She was just beginning to feel the first stir of changes in her body, as the moon began to mold her into something else, when the door to the birthing suite banged open.

  “Get the hell away from my mate, you son of a bitch,” growled a deep, angry voice.

  Samantha’s eyes flew open and she looked up. Keller was standing there, eyes blazing, big hands curled into fists.

  “Keller!” she breathed.

  There was murder in his pale-green gaze as he glared at the Hyena Shifter. “I said, get away from her!” he snarled, and he pounced.

  * * *

  Keller had followed the tiny spark through the mazelike corridors of the huge hospital, tracking it like a bloodhound, always keeping it in sight no matter how many distractions got in the way. He felt the little life glowing like a carefully shielded candle flame, and he knew that when he found it, he would find Samantha.

  Hang in there, Sammie—I’m coming! He wished he could speak to her through their bond, that he could send some kind of reassurance. But there was no way—nothing he could do but follow the spark, hoping to find her and the baby as fast as he could.

  It led him to a dark and empty corridor in the new wing of the hospital.

  At last he found a room with the light on. And when he peered through the glass window on the door, he saw Samantha.

  She was tied and helpless, half-naked, with tears running down her flushed cheeks. Lounds was bending over her, and in his hand was something that glittered, silver and deadly.

  Rage like nothing he had ever known before washed over Keller in a red wave. Pure fury suffused him at the sight of the woman he loved—his mate—tied and being tortured.

  Keller had thought it was impossible to be angrier, but at the sight of his mate’s emotional distress and physical pain, the rage inside him doubled and then trebled. His Cougar roared its lust for blood, and Keller knew the need to kill the male who was hurting Samantha was so strong, he couldn’t control it anymore.

  He sprang into the room, changing as he came, letting his Cougar out all at once. His three thousand dollar suit ripped to shreds as the huge Cat burst free of its human bindings and hurtled itself at the Hyena Shifter.

  To Lounds’s credit, he was only surprised for a moment. He dropped the scalpel he’d been holding and began to change as well, almost as quickly as Keller. By the time Keller had him by the throat, he had already grown a shaggy, spotted ruff to protect himself from the Cougar’s six-inch-long fangs.

  Keller bit him anyway, sinking his long canines, serrated like steak knives, deep in his enemy’s hide. The huge Hyena Lounds had become threw back its head and gave a howling snarl, kicking and scrabbling at Keller’s belly with its hind feet and back claws.

  Nimbly avoiding the attack, Keller bit harder, sinking his fangs deeper, trying to get a killing hold on the other Shifter’s throat. If he could just crush the Hyena’s windpipe . . .

  “Keller! Keller, help me!”

  The faint, weak voice from the bed brought him back from the depths of fury and made him look to see what was going on with Samantha.

  She was struggling weakly on the bed. But not just struggling . . . changing, he saw with alarm. If she Shifted now she could harm or even unintentionally abort the baby.

  “Help me!” she begged again, and he saw she was trying not to Shift but didn’t know how to stop.

  Throwing the now-limp body of the Hyena to one side, Keller Shifted back
to human form in a split second and ran to her side.

  “Easy, baby—take it easy, Sammie,” he murmured, stroking her cheek, still sticky with blood. “Come back to me . . . come back to yourself.”

  “I’m . . . trying.” The words sounded like they were forced from a throat which was only half human. “Don’t want . . . to Shift. When I started . . . I thought it was the only way. But the baby . . .”

  “Yes, the baby. Think about the baby,” Keller told her earnestly. Reaching up, he untied her hands from the restraints and placed them carefully over her lower abdomen. “Concentrate on the baby,” he said, holding her eyes—which were flickering rapidly from blue to gold and back to blue again. “Think about him or her, about holding her in your arms, calling her name and seeing her look at you. . . .”

  “The baby,” she whispered, her hands caressing her belly protectively. “The baby. I won’t Shift because it would be bad for the baby. . . .”

  “That’s right. Deep breaths.” Her body had been rigid, but now she seemed to be relaxing. When she looked up at Keller again, her eyes were a steady blue . . . and filled with tears.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered, still caressing her belly. “Didn’t know I was p-pregnant until after you left. Then I went in the bathroom and I f-felt it kick for the f-first t-time.”

  She began to sob, and Keller gathered her close, his heart overflowing with sorrow and love and pain.

  “Oh, baby. Oh, Sammie, I’m so sorry,” he whispered roughly into her hair. “I was such a fool—I should have just admitted how much I love you. I never should have blocked you and ruined our bond.”

  “I was the one who was an idiot,” she sobbed. “I thought all you cared about was the baby, and I was so scared about making such a huge change in my life. I never even gave you a chance. Oh, Keller. . . .”

  “For the last time, call me Liam.” He kissed her forehead and smiled at her. “The mother of my child should call me by my first name. Although the baby isn’t the only thing I want—it’s you, Sammie. I fell in love with you.”