Here There Be Tigers (35 page)

If they let her help in her way. Not
theirs.

That was the rub.

Nila turned when she heard Irina make a slight
hissing noise as they drifted gently around a bend in the road. If
anything, the woman looked paler. “Victor, I think we might have to
pull over?”

“
No,” Irina said. “I really am fine.
I promise not to throw up all over your car, Victor.”

Victor looked at her in the rearview mirror and
smiled. Nila realized it was the first time she’d seen him grin
that big. He looked almost boyish with that expression on his face.
She smiled despite herself.

Until his grin dropped, replaced instantly by a
glare. Irina’s eyes widened and her mouth rounded in an “o” of
surprise.

“
Son of a bitch,” she cursed and
looked out the back window.

Before Nila could follow her gaze, their Jeep
was slammed from behind, throwing her hard against her seatbelt.
Tires screeched, Irina cursed again, Nila screamed, and Victor
worked frantically at the wheel. The Jeep lurched again as another
hit came and the sound of crunching metal made Nila’s stomach
bottom out. She held onto the door handle, her other hand pressed
against the dashboard, her muscles tensed and ready for the next
impact.

On the third hit, Victor lost control. Nila
couldn’t even scream as they careened off the road and slammed head
first into a massive tree.

Mitch tried to control the bounce of his leg in
the back seat of Max’s SUV, but the effort to keep still proved
beyond him. He had never in his entire life had trouble holding
still. Being able to freeze and remain unseen were so much a part
of his internal make-up, his very being, the fact that he couldn’t
keep from fidgeting had him worried about his mental
balance.

For the first time in his life, he was
glimpsing the same emotions in himself that drove his father to
kill after his mother’s death. He finally understood, in the depths
of his soul, how his father could go so completely crazed after
losing his mate. Because Mitch knew if he lost Nila, he’d never
recover.

“
She’s going to be fine, Mitch,”
Alexis said from the front seat beside Max. “We won’t let her get
hurt. Victor will protect her and Irina with his life.”

Mitch didn’t miss the tightening around her
eyes when she said this last. They both knew she’d turn into an
avenging angel if Victor was killed. She would respect his
sacrifice for the women. But she would slaughter those responsible
for forcing him to that action.

Mitch knew exactly how she felt.

The problem was, if Victor was killed, Nila and
Irina would be in a lot of trouble. And Mitch wouldn’t be there to
protect her.

The farther they drove, the further apart he
got from Nila, the more he regretted this plan. Not knowing, not
having her beside him where he knew she was safe, was harder to
deal with than he’d thought when they started this particular game.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket and checked it, even though
he knew she hadn’t called. She’d taken a new cellphone Max had
bought for them, so there was no way Petrov could track it. He held
Max’s phone, so if the others needed to reach them, he could answer
immediately.

She hadn’t called. As far as he could tell,
everything was going to plan.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that
something was wrong.

He finally forced his body to still, taking in
several deep breaths to steady his rapidly beating heart. Then he
stretched out his senses. What was wrong? What
was…missing?

“
No one’s following us,” he
murmured, his eyes half-closed as he concentrated.

“
We knew they’d stay far enough back
that you couldn’t pick them up,” Alexis said, but she frowned as
she looked past him out the back window to the highway
traffic.

“
But I did pick them up. When we
were half an hour away from the hotel. Petrov was behind us. I felt
him.”

“
He’s probably just fallen back,”
Max said, keeping his concentration on the increasing traffic
around them.

“
No,” Mitch said. He was sure now.
“They’re not back there anymore.” He met Alexis’ gaze as horror
slipped into his bloodstream and he knew why he’d been getting more
fidgety as they continued away from Nila. “They’ve figured us out.
They know Nila’s not in this car. They’ve found her.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

Nila unsnapped her seatbelt as soon as they
stopped so she could check on Victor. His side of the car took the
brunt of the hit, and he wasn’t moving. As she reached to check his
pulse, she said, “Irina, you with me?”

Irina groaned in response.

“
The baby?”

“
We’re both still here.” Her voice
was weak but lucid.

To Nila’s relief, Victor had a pulse. She was
about to lean back to check on Irina when the front two car doors
were ripped away. She gasped, swallowing a scream as she faced the
nasty end of a gun across a still unconscious Victor. Looking over
her shoulder, to her door, she saw the man who’d tried kidnapping
her from the airport smiling at her.

He motioned with his own gun. “Lean back now,
Nila. Cooperate. Or we kill them both.”

She eased away from Victor but couldn’t force
herself into her seat and so close to the sneering shifter. She
didn’t speak, waiting to see what the men would do.

The one beside Victor shifted his gun to settle
it against the unconscious man’s skull. He stared at Victor with
his head tilted to one side. His intense concentration made Nila’s
stomach clench.

“
Cellphones,” her would be kidnapper
said. “Toss them out.”

Reluctantly, Nila pulled her phone from her
thigh pocket. She was tempted to throw it at the kidnapper’s head
but was afraid he’d shoot her on accident. Or out of spite. Bidding
her time, she did as he said and threw the phone past him, into the
dirt.

Irina leaned forward, toward her purse. And the
man’s gun shifted her direction. “Easy, there, pretty. No sudden
moves. Toss the entire purse out.”

With a snarl, Irina did as told.

“
I need to check her and Victor. To
make sure they’re not hurt,” Nila said.

The man shrugged. “Why bother?”

“
You said if I cooperate, you won’t
kill them. That’s a pointless promise if they die from their
injuries.”

He chuckled. “Quickly, then, doctor. And only
Irina. You have one minute.”

Nila leaned between the bucket seats and tested
Irina’s abdomen. “Did you hit your head, does anything feel
pulled?” Nila asked quietly as she ran her fingers along Irina’s
arms, then studied her face closely for signs of shock.

“
I’m fine,” Irina muttered, still
glaring at the kidnapper on Nila’s side of the car. “I can’t
believe you’d align yourself with a male who would kill his
mate.”

Nila didn’t look at him, so she couldn’t see
his expression. His voice was neutral as he said, “She committed
suicide. I can’t blame her. If I’d birthed an abomination and my
mate discovered the truth, I’d have killed myself, too.”

Irina stared at him as Nila finished her exam.
When Nila leaned back, Irina said, “Either you’re a good liar,
Stephen, or he’s lied to you. Either way, you’re
pathetic.”

Nila swallowed as she heard the man growl and
watched him level the gun at Irina. “Please,” Nila said to distract
the man—Stephen—from Irina. His gun swung back toward her and he
raised his brows. “You said you wouldn’t hurt them. I’ll do what
you want, just leave them be.”

Stephen snorted. “You’ll do what I say anyway.”
He glanced at the other man then shrugged. “But Petrov wants the
honors, so I can’t shoot you yet. At least not dead. There are
other places I can shoot you that will hurt like hell without
killing you, though. So don’t get any ideas.”

Before she could respond, she heard Victor move
and a gun click. Swinging around to face the other two tigers, she
reached out for Victor. He was staring hard at the other man, who
was staring back, the gun set firmly against Victor’s temple. She
tried squeezing Victor’s arm, to get him to back down. But he
ignored her efforts. She watched in tense horror as the tiger with
the gun narrowed his eyes.

Stephen spoke into the heavy silence. “Do you
really want Alexis coming after you? He dies from the car accident,
she can’t blame you. You shoot him, she’ll rip you
apart.”

The man considered Victor for a long moment. He
said in a quiet, gravely voice. “He’s not hurt badly enough to
die.” He never moved the gun from Victor’s head.

“
Wound him if it’ll make you feel
better, then,” Stephen said, unconcerned. “If he survives, she
might not bother hunting you down.”

Nila widened her eyes and her head spun. “You
can’t. We’re too far off a main road. He’ll bleed out before help
arrives.”

Stephen shrugged. Not the least concerned with
the outcome. Nila leaned in closer to Victor, but Stephen jerked
her back by an arm, sending her sprawling across the seat and
bringing her hard up against his chest. Irina sat quietly, still
glaring at Stephen rather than watching the other two men. Nila
couldn’t take her eyes off Victor and the gun at his
head.

Several long seconds passed before the gunman
moved his weapon away. Nila held her breath. She felt helpless as
she watched, and though she pulled against Stephen’s hold, she
couldn’t budge.

There was a gun just under her seat! She should
have gone for that first, before checking injuries. Stupid, stupid.
But her first instinct was to heal, not hurt. That instinct was
going to get them all killed.

When the man staring at Victor finally looked
up at Stephen, Nila realized how dead his eyes looked. Cold.
Emotionless. She couldn’t find any compassion, any anger, anything
at all in his expression.

She was so sure he would kill Victor, she
actually let loose a breath of relief when he walked away without
spending a single bullet. Before she could savor her relief,
though, Stephen jerked her backward, pulling her in a heap from the
car.

As Stephen hauled her up to her feet, she
looked back at Irina and Victor. They were both staring at her now,
eyes identically narrowed. She couldn’t read their expression, but
she noticed Irina no longer had a seatbelt on. And Victor had
unsnapped his, though the shoulder strap was still in place. She
shook her head as Stephen set his gun against her
temple.

“
If you try anything, I’ll kill
Irina,” he told Victor.

Victor’s muscles relaxed immediately and his
gaze jumped to Nila’s. She nodded her approval. She wouldn’t be
able to live with herself if she knew Irina was hurt because of
her.

Irina, on the other hand, was not so quietly
accepting. She growled at Stephen. “You could try and kill me,” she
muttered. “But it’d be harder to do than you think.”

Stephen chuckled. “I’d love to play with you,
pretty, but I have somewhere to be.” He pulled Nila backward,
keeping his attention on the two tigers in the car. “If you move
before we leave, everyone dies. Slowly. And painfully.”

As he passed Nila’s cellphone, he stomped on
it, crushing it into the dirt. She searched the ground, looking for
Irina’s purse but didn’t see it anywhere. Her hope that they’d be
able to contact the others immediately using Irina’s phone lasted
only a moment before she saw the other kidnapper emptying the
contents under the front wheel of a four wheel drive truck, kicking
the phone close to a tire. The front bumper was bashed in, so she
knew that was the car that had run them off the road.

She also realized there were two more men in
the flatbed of the truck, holding large shotguns, both pointed at
the damaged Jeep. They’d been outnumbered all along. Even if she’d
gotten out one of the guns under the seat, she wouldn’t have been
able to do anything against all four of them.

Swallowing back her fear and keeping her feet
under her with an effort, she stumbled toward the truck. Stephen
released her to open the door, but he kept the gun at her forehead.
He shoved her into the narrow back bench. She barely had a chance
to right herself before the truck took off. She looked out the back
window. Victor and Irina were both standing outside the Jeep now,
staring after her.

One of the men in the back was still pointing
his gun toward them. The sound of the shotgun going off seemed to
happen at the same time as Victor went down, blood exploding from
his leg. Nila screamed.

Horrified, she watched Irina kneel down next to
him as the truck swung around a corner. “Why?” she demanded, facing
Stephen in the front seat.

“
There was a chance he could follow
otherwise,” he said with a shrug. “He’ll heal. But his knee’ll be
tricky for a while.”

“
What if he bleeds to death? What
about all that talk of Alexis’ wrath?”

Again the man shrugged. “I don’t care if she
rips out that man’s throat.” He finally turned to look at her.
“He’s human. Good riddance.”