CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Slicing open a male fox’s throat, Tate let the body drop to the floor like a rock. He glanced around, searching for the man who’d stood on the manmade podium only minutes ago, speaking in a voice Tate had heard many times recently over the phone. But there was no sign of Gideon now.

Pandemonium had broken out literally the moment Tate and his pride mates raided the middle deck. Some of the clientele and workers had tried to flee, but most had braced themselves to fight. As such, Tate hadn’t been able to rush straight for Gideon; he’d found himself facing a pissed-the-fuck-off hyena—who was now very dead.

The air rang with the yipping of jackals, the hissing of a lioness, the laughs of hyenas, and the roar of a black bear. The beasts were deadly, but they were supremely outnumbered. Pallas cats might not have size on their side, but they were incredibly vicious and had more manpower. So it was only a matter of time before the bigger animals had numerous pallas cats crawling all over their bodies, biting and clawing and weakening them.

Some of the bidders were already dead, as were the waiters who’d been serving cocktails to the sick bastards. Their broken bodies littered the floor, staining the wooden planks with blood, guts, and even bits of brain matter. Gideon should be among them, purely because he fucking deserved to be.

He’d either escaped via the staircase or he’d tossed himself overboard. If it was the latter, Farrell and the other pallas cats would get the pleasure of killing him.

Tate tensed as a large male abruptly rushed him. Tate dodged the punch that came his way and rammed his fist into the fucker’s throat. The male sucked in a choked breath and swung again, clumsy this time. Tate ducked and slammed his fist into the side of the guy’s knee, dislocating the bone. The male dropped, crying out in pain. That cry died when Tate snapped his neck.

Luke crossed to him, panting. “I don’t see Gideon. You?”

“I’m thinking he went down that staircase over there. I can’t see him tossing himself overboard.” Seeing that few bidders still stood, Tate trusted that his pride could deal with them. He made a beeline for the staircase and jogged down it. He was stealthily making his way down a corridor, his brother hot on his heels, when he heard Gideon’s voice coming from around the corner.

Tate quickened his pace, his blood pumping, but then he stopped dead when an achingly familiar female voice spoke.

“Leaving so soon? Your evening isn’t going to plan, huh?” Havana.

Tate closed his eyes, and his cat arched his back as his fur stood on end. They’d both hoped their mate would be off the yacht by now.

“You have caused me a lot of trouble,” said Gideon.

A snort popped out of Havana. “I’d say you created that trouble for yourself. You shouldn’t be so surprised to see me. Tate did warn you that we’d find you sooner or later. Not sure why you didn’t believe him.”

“I would have let you all be if you’d only returned the favor.”

“And we’d have let you be if you weren’t a twisted asshole who sells people.”

Tate slowly peered around the corner. And there was Havana, facing Gideon and another male. She also had a gun aimed at her fucking head. Tate’s cat rushed for the surface in panic, trying to force the shift. Tate breathed through it, holding himself very still as he fought to keep his cat contained.

Dread seemed to sink into every bone in Tate’s body, but this wasn’t the time for him to rush in. If Gideon realized that she had backup so close, he could shoot her out of spite. Tate couldn’t risk that. But, fuck, it was hard to just stand there and do nothing.

“How did you find me?” Gideon asked her.

“We had a long talk with Enrique and Gavin,” she replied. “Two very brainwashed people, I must say.”

She looked as cool and composed as she sounded. Tate knew it wasn’t forced. He felt no panic from her. Only impatience and a sense of battle-readiness. He wondered if, sensing Tate’s rage and dread through their bond, she’d guessed that he was nearby.

“Are all your ‘kin’ that way?” she asked Gideon.

“I didn’t brainwash them. Didn’t need to. Their hate for shifters was already there. I just … nurtured it a little. Now come on, you and I are going on a little walk. You’re my ticket to getting away from here safely.”

“I’m not going—”

Gideon shot her in the shoulder, and red-hot pain blasted down the mating bond. If Luke hadn’t right then grabbed onto him, Tate would have charged at that motherfucker—common sense be damned. His cat raged and snarled and just about lost his mind.

“You won’t help your mate if you rush over there,” Luke quietly hissed into his ear. “Right now, Gideon needs her as a hostage. He won’t kill her. But he might if he realizes he’s cornered.”

Tate gritted his teeth, reminding himself that his brother was right; that he himself had had the same thought only moments ago. But it was hard to be rational when Havana was injured and in pain. This was his mate. His other half. His better half. And hadn’t she taken enough fucking bullets lately?

Tate held up a hand. “I’m fine,” he ground out, his voice low. “You can let go.”

Once his brother released him, Tate poked his head around the corner. Fury blasted through him at the sight of the blood staining the sleeve of her long-sleeved tee.

“There’s no way you’ll get out of here safely, Gideon,” she said, a note of pain in her voice—a pain that pulsed down theirbond. “You know that, right?”

“What I know is that you seem to matter very much to the Olympus Alpha male,” said Gideon. “I’m guessing that your claiming bite is from him, because I can smell him on you. That must make you his Alpha female. Which means not one of those damn pallas cats will do anything to risk your life.”

The male at Gideon’s side cleared his throat. “Sir? There’s a bearcat by the stairs chewing on a shoe.”

Looking further along the corridor, Tate saw Aspen’s bearcat sitting there, looking adorable and harmless and utterly indifferent to all that was happening around her.

“Can’t say I give a shit, Earl,” said Gideon, keeping his gaze on Havana. “Before we leave, I don’t suppose there’s a chance you didn’t free my assets, is there, Miss Ramos?”

Furious, Havana felt her lips thin. “The word you’re looking for is ‘people,’ not assets,” she said, putting pressure on her aching wound, not a real fan of blood loss. Her devil was pacing, worried and enraged. Only the knowledge that their mate had to be close and quite simply needed an opening kept them from panicking. “As for whether I freed them, why don’t you go check?”

“Um, sir, the bearcat’s now hitting a mean looking snake with that shoe,” said Earl.

Gideon’s brows snapped together. “What?” He tracked his friend’s gaze.

Havana acted fast, whipping up her arm and knocking the gun out of his hand. Several things then happened at once.

The bearcat crashed into Gideon, knocking him down.

The mamba rocketed at Earl and sank her fangs into his throat with a vicious hiss.

Tate and Luke raced around the corner and along the corridor … just as Gideon grabbed the gun that had fallen to the floor. He fired at Havana, the fucker. But the bearcat chose that moment to throw herself at Havana and knock her down, taking the bullet with a pained growl.

The son of a bitch might have shot at Havana again if Tate hadn’t then kicked the gun out of his hand and sent it skidding along the floor to Luke, who promptly picked it up.

Relief flooded Havana at the sight of her mate, alive and uninjured. She pressed hard against the bearcat’s wound, unbelievably grateful that it wasn’t fatal. “Bailey, take out my cell phone and call Sam.”

Having shifted back to her human form, Bailey crouched beside her and did just that.

Gideon looked up at Tate, a cruel smirk shaping his mouth. “So glad you could join us.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Tate, menace etched into every line of his face. “Baby,” he called out without moving his eyes from the wolf, “how are you and Aspen doing?”

“Our injuries aren’t fatal, but they hurt like a mother,” replied Havana.

“I just called Sam,” Bailey informed him. “He’s on his way.”

“Gideon,” began Earl, his voice shaky, “I think … something’s …”

“You’re dying, dude,” said Bailey. “And I’m delighted to tell you that it’s gonna hurt a lot.”

Gideon’s eyes dropped to the gun Luke held. He lifted a taunting brow at the Beta. “Well? Aren’t you going to shoot me?”

Luke frowned. “Why would I do that?”

Tate cocked his head, staring at the wolf. “You’d thought we’d kill you straight off? Why? I warned you when you called me that you’d die hard. It wasn’t an empty promise. You should have heeded it. You didn’t. You should have believed me when I swore that I’d find you. You didn’t.” Tate took a single step toward him. “And you really, really shouldn’t have shot my mate. She’s taken enough bullets because of you. So I think it only fair that she gets to be the first to hurt you. You good with that, baby?”

“Oh yeah,” said Havana, taking the gun from Luke. She glared down at Gideon, who finally looked nervous. Yes, it was occurring to him that he didn’t have a way out of this.

Gideon’s eyes slid to the barrel of the gun as she aimed it at him. He swallowed. “Wouldn’t you like to know where the other loners are who were auctioned off?”

“You know where they all are?” asked Tate.

“I chipped them before I sent them off with their new owners,” replied Gideon. “Can’t risk them fleeing and hiding. I can tell you where they all are.”

Just then, Sam boarded the yacht. He quickly healed both Havana and the bearcat before taking a position by the wall.

“Sam here is our healer, as you might have guessed,” Tate told Gideon. “I brought him with us for three reasons. One, there was a possibility that the captives might need him. Two, I wanted a healer on hand in case one of our pride was hurt. Three … I needed him to be here while we tortured you, because we don’t want you to die too quickly, Gideon. There’d be no fun or real justice in that.”

Gideon’s breathing began to quicken. “We can talk first, surely. I can tell you where the other assets are.”

“You can tell us while we hurt you,” said Havana, who’d fully enjoy every moment of it. “I’d say you’ll tell us absolutely anything we want to know in the hope of making the pain stop. But it won’t stop. Not until we’re done, anyway.”

Gideon jerked toward her threateningly.

She smiled. “Oh, you thought I’d reflexively shoot in my defense? That’s cute.” Her devil all but rolled her eyes. “You know, I don’t use guns—I prefer to fight with teeth and claws, like any self-respecting shifter. But for you, I’ll make an exception. Call it a little tit for tat.” She twisted her mouth as her gaze roamed over his body. “Now, where do I begin?”

“I’d shoot his kneecap first,” said Bailey.

Aspen, now back in her human form, hummed. “I’d go for his gut. All the bile in his stomach will make the wound burn like holy hell.”

“Both ideas hold some appeal. I’ll get to them later.” Havana lowered the gun until it was pointed at his crotch. “You raped Keziah, didn’t you, Gideon? Probably raped many others, too.”

Fear glimmered in his eyes for the first time. “My men might have done.”

“Yes, they might have. But so did you and Earl.” Havana frowned. “I never did get why a guy would think that taking a female against their will made them a man. There’s nothing manly about it. The act is cruel. Cowardly. Dickless. And so I don’t think you need yours.”

His eyes widened, and he shook his head. “No.”

Havana pulled the trigger.

Tate massaged conditioner into his mate’s hair as the hot water drummed against their skin and pattered the base of the shower stall. Condensation streaked the tiled walls and the frosted glass door. The humid, steamy air was laced with her coconut-scented shampoo and conditioner.

After returning from the dock, they’d headed straight to the bathroom and into the shower. They both needed this. Needed to wash the evening away. Needed a bit of normal. Needed to feel clean again. Needed the tropical smells of her soap and hair products to drown out the scents of anger, fear, blood, and pain that had overwhelmed their senses and filled their lungs.

More, Tate needed to touch her. Hold her. Breathe her in.

As she rinsed the conditioner from her hair, Tate found himself tracing the spot on her shoulder where the bullet had passed through. Too close. He’d come too close to losing her. Again. His chest went tight each and every time he thought about it.

There wasn’t even a blemish on her skin, thanks to Sam. But Tate knew it would be a while before he’d be able to look at her shoulder without remembering there’d once been a fucking hole in it.

Havana sighed. “You’ve got to stop with the brooding. I’m trying to make my mind and body relax. It’s kind of hard to do that when I can feel you dwelling and obsessing over what happened.”

He frowned. “Firstly, I don’t brood.” He ignored her snort. “Secondly, it’s pretty hard to just forget that you were shot. I saw it happen, felt the impact of the bullet, felt your pain.”

She placed her hands on his chest. “I don’t expect you to forget. I just don’t want you to keep thinking about it.”

He grunted. “That’s easier said than done. Being so close yet so far while the bastard aimed that gun at you … I almost charged right at him, which would have been the height of stupidity, but rationality left me for a few seconds.”

“And you feel guilty about that?” She shook her head. “Tate, you didn’t let me down. You felt my pain, but you didn’t feel any fear from me, did you?”

No, he hadn’t.

“You know why? Because I trusted that you’d never let him get me off that boat. I knew you were close—I could feel your panic and powerlessness through the bond. I knew I just needed to give you an opening. And when I did, you rushed right over. Gideon probably would have shot at me again, since the other bullet hit Aspen’s bearcat, but then you were there. At no point did you let me down.”

She grabbed his bottle of citrus shower gel from the corner shelf. He liked seeing her toiletries mingled with his own. He liked seeing her toothbrush in the holder next to his. Liked that one of the vanity drawers was filled with her cosmetics, that the bathroom often smelled of her body spray, and that her hair products lined the counter right beside her round makeup mirror. It reminded him that they’d blended their worlds.

As she lathered the creamy soap onto his skin, he decided he liked that more. Her touch was soft and sensual, and he knew … “You’re trying to distract me.”

“You should just let me. Go with it.”

“You find it easy to just put the evening out of your head?”

“No. But I don’t see any sense in obsessing over what did and didn’t happen. I thought about it. I processed it. And then I decided I wasn’t going to give Gideon or his bullshit anymore mental space.”

“But—”

“It’s over,” Havana reminded him, pressing a kiss to his mouth, wishing she could put him at ease somehow. “All of it is over. He’s dead now. Dead and mere ashes.” As were the bidders and crew members. Her pride mates had tossed the bodies from the dock back onto the yacht and then set the damn thing on fire.

She dabbed another kiss on his mouth. “Let yourself feel some relief and happiness in the fact that the threat that once hung over our heads is now gone. We saved a lot of people today. And we’ll soon be able to return home the shifters who were auctioned off in the past.”

Between the things Gideon confessed and the documentation that Vinnie found on the yacht, they’d be able to locate and rescue all of the sold loners. They’d also take it upon themselves to subject their “owners” to whatever suffering they’d put the trafficked shifters through. It seemed only fair.

The people they’d rescued from the yacht tonight were now safe at Dawn’s shelter. Some of them, such as young Robbie, would be reunited with their family members—people who’d lived the lone shifter lifestyle right alongside them. Dawn would also be sure to get them whatever help, support, or counselling they needed, even if they didn’t remain at the shelter.

Tate pressed a kiss to her throat. “There is a lot of relief in knowing the threat to you is gone. And now you and I can simply enjoy being mated without Gideon distracting us. We can even start planning our mating ceremony/welcome to the pride/congrats on your mating party now.”

“We can indeed. We could even start celebrating it now,” she added, fisting his cock. “Just the two of us.”

They kissed, stroked, probed, shaped, and teased until neither could take any more.

Tate backed her against the tiled wall. “Got to be in you now.” He hooked one of her legs over his hip, angled her hips just right, and then slid his cock inside her.