Tane's Mate: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifter's on the Run Book 1) (13 page)

“When we finally got there the small town looked deserted. We walked through it finding several bodies hidden behind doors. It was a trap. We turned and ran back to the jeep that we were assigned. I remember Dai reaching for his phone to call it in while I turned the jeep around to speed out of town. They hit the back tire making it spin out of control. The next thing I know the glass beside me was breaking. I felt a pinch and lost consciousness. When I woke up I was chained to a wall.”

Leza looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost seven a.m. and she was clueless on the day of the week. They were close to the address Amy had given them. Soon they would know if bringing her here had been the right thing to do. She could hear Amy talking to Dai and Jay, her voice high pitched with nerves.

Tane parked the camper a block away in an empty lot. They didn’t want to drive up to the house. It was too easy for someone with good intentions to cause them a world of hurt. Something as simple as their license plate leaking was a danger to them.

Unbuckling, Leza stood and made her way to the back of the camper.

“Are you ready?” Amy was dressed in a pair of leggings and a cami that belonged to Leza. She looked like she was playing dress up in her mother’s clothes because Amy was so thin.

Leza shook her head wanting to feed her again but knowing her stomach would be too upset right now to accept food.

“I’m ready,” Amy said with a show of bravado that made them all smile.

Jay opened the door to the camper and indicated they were to follow him with a flourish of his arm.

“Come Princess Amy, we are all waiting for you.” The smile on Jay’s face was happy.

Amy gave a little girl giggle. Jay had started addressing her as Princess Amy letting her know it didn’t matter what she went through she was more than worth their efforts.

Leza would have kissed Jay he was so brilliant but then Tane would have tried to kill him and well it just wasn’t worth it.

They all exited the camper and allowed Amy to take the lead. Leza watched as the emotions played over her face. There was joy and sadness along with fear and anticipation.

They stopped in front of a beautiful two story brick house before Amy wiped her face and started up the steps to the porch. She raised her hand to knock then settled on ringing the bell.

“Coming,” a female voice inside the house called.

Leza could hear the tiredness in the voice. The lilt that said I will smile just for you but in reality I’m crying inside. Her heart went out to that voice as she wondered if it was Amy’s mother.

The door opened to reveal a tall female with jet black hair and a face that reminded her of Amy’s. She stood there mid-smile unable to move. Her hand that was still on the door fell to her side.

“Hun, who is it this early in the morning?” a male voice called out from the house.

When he didn’t get a response, Leza could hear him walking towards the door. When he got close, his mouth opened and he stopped just like his wife and stared.

“Amy?” The wife asked tentatively not knowing what to do, as if this was a dream.

“Mom?”

That one simple word did it. The mother snatched her into her arms like she was afraid she would disappear. Tears rolled down her face as her hands touched everywhere and her lips kissed as if nothing but physical contact would make it real.

The man reached over and pulled Amy into his arms giving her one of the biggest hugs Leza had ever witnessed.

“I’m so sorry!” Amy’s voice came out in a tortured cry as she ping ponged between the two of them.

“No, baby,” her mother cried. “It was my fault! You should have been able to tell us anything. I’m so sorry we weren’t there for you.”

“Do you still want me?”

The look of shock on her mother’s face was priceless. The air being forced out of her father’s lungs was something that Leza would remember forever, because it resembled a love that was so real and deep they were struggling to put it into words.

“Mine,” her father growled. “My daughter, I’ll kill whoever touched you.”

Amy buried her head in her father’s chest and cried until her tiny shoulders were shaking.

“How’d you get away?” Her mother asked her. “They said you ran away but we knew better. We’ve had someone looking for you every day since you’ve been gone.”

Amy turned around and grasped Leza’s hand. “My friend, she helped me.”

“Thank you,” her mother said raising a tear stained face to look at her. She reached out to touch Leza’s arm with shaking hands.

Her father wrapped her in his arms in a bear hug. Leza held him for a minute grateful that this family was making her believe in humanity again.

Amy’s dad went over and shook the hands of Tane, Dai, and Jay before asking them to please come in.

They walked into a living room that was cozy. It was done in blues and greens and the colors meshed well together. They were told to sit anywhere they pleased. Jay and Dai took the couch one on either side. Tane took an armchair and placed Leza on his lap.

“Thank you for helping our daughter. I’m Mel and that’s my wife Marion. We will have to call the station to let them know you have finally been found and they can stop the piddling efforts to bring you home. Can you tell me where I can find the bastards who hurt my Baby?”

“Daddy,” Amy’s voice was so small it broke Leza’s heart.

“Precious?”

She smiled at her nickname. “They’re dead. We were in the forest somewhere and a panther and what looked like wolves came from nowhere and tore them to shreds.”

“Thank you, God.” Marion said hugging her daughter again. “Sorry Baby, I just can’t believe you’re here and real.” Her mother ran her hands over her again.

“You’re so tiny, you must be hungry. Oh my where are my manners. You all must be hungry, let me fix you something.” Marion raced off to the kitchen not letting go of Amy’s hand.

“Ma’am you don’t have to do that,” Tane said, trying to stop her.

“Please,” Mel said. “We insist. If there’s anything we can do for you. There’s a reward for Amy’s return, it’s not much but as soon as the bank opens…”

“No. We don’t need or want a reward. Use it to help Amy,” Tane said letting his eyes take in the room.

Leza stood and walked over to Mel directing him to a chair. “Please sit. I know this must be a lot for you.”

He sat before he raised his eyes to look at her. There were tears tracking down his cheeks that he didn’t try to stop.

“I never gave up hope, but I still didn’t think I would ever see her again. All I could do was pray that one day she would be free and live a good life. Now she’s here. Already I find myself straining to hear her voice in the kitchen. We were devastated when she went missing. Every hour that passed was a weight on our hearts. I can’t…I can’t tell you what it means to us to have her back.”

Leza reached out and gave him a spontaneous hug. “I need you to know it won’t be easy. She was with two men who abused her and kept her by saying if she tried to run or get help they would find you and your wife and kill you. She’s going to need help. The recovery time may be long and she may never get back to the person she was before they abducted her.”

“I know. I should be saying the hard part is just about to start, but I’ll do anything she needs. The hard part was waking up every morning and looking into her room, knowing she wasn’t there. We would pass the school and watch her friends laugh and wonder where she was. Was she hurting? Did she need us?” His throat convulsed.

“She’s home, that is the good part.”

Amy walked into the living room.

“Dad, Mom said bring everybody into the dining room for breakfast.”

Mel just stared at her, love brimming over. “All right, Precious, I’m on it.”

Amy smiled and turned haunted eyes to them. Eyes that would never be young and innocent again. Eyes that would be safe with her parents, even though they had a hard road to walk.

They followed Mel into the dining room sitting at the table as Marion served them like they were royalty.

“Your room’s the same,” her mother said between bites of food.

Amy stopped trying to eat and looked at her mom. “Can I go see it?”

“Of course you can,” her father’s voice rumbled. “This is your house.”

“Can I go now?” She looked up waiting quietly.

“Don’t you want to eat some more?” her mother asked.

“I’m full.” Amy’s voice was full of regret.

Her mom nodded, “Go see your room, Baby.”

She rose leaving the table to move quickly into the front room.

“They fed her just enough to stay alive. We found that making her eat plenty of small meals got more food into her,” Leza told them quietly.

Mel’s hand made a fist before he pounded it on the table. Marion tried not to cry as she hid her shaking hands.

“She needed permission to do anything and if that permission wasn’t given and she did it anyway she was beaten.”

“I need to see their dead bodies. I have to make sure they will never come after her again.”

“They won’t,” Tane said with certainty ringing in his voice. “There’s not enough of them left to be seen. If there was I would take you to them.”

Mel nodded trying to make his hands relax.

“How will I do it?”

Leza canted her head to look at him.

“How will I let her out of my sight? How can I send her to the store for a loaf of bread or to school? How will I go to work every day knowing I’m not close enough to protect her? How did I live a life of believing nothing could happen to her before, but now I’ll never be able to live that life again?”

“You’ll do it like you’ve always done, Mel. You’ll live one day at a time grasping for all the happiness that day can bring you because there’s no guarantees it will be there tomorrow.” Tane turned his head to look at Leza.

Dai stood. “We need to be going.”

Tane stood and nodded.

“Can’t we convince you to stay a little longer?” Marion asked.

“I wish we could. I’d like to spend more time with Amy but we have to leave. Can we say goodbye to her?” Leza asked.

Marion nodded when the doorbell rang. They could hear Amy’s feet on the steps before she joined them in the dining room.

“I’ll get the door.” Mel left the room.

“Amy,” Leza walked over to her. “I’ll always remember you.”

Amy threw her arms around Leza whispering thank you in her ear. “You saved me.”

“I helped you save yourself. You didn’t have to talk to me that first day but you did because you wanted to be free. It won’t be easy but it will be right. Together you and your parents will make it.”

Mel walked back into the room with two people following him. They gave gasps as they looked at Amy.

“I told you she was home.”

“Who found you? How did you get here?” the male asked.

“Are you all right,” the female asked.

“That’s my aunt and uncle,” Amy told Leza.

Leza gave her one last hug. “Amy, we have to leave. Remember what we talked about?”

Amy nodded her head.

Tane slid his arm around Leza.

“We are happy we could bring Amy back to her family, but we have a journey in front of us and need to be taking off.

“Take care of the blessing you have been given,” Leza said.

“Amy, I’ll be checking in on you to make sure you’re all right.”

The smile of wonder on Amy’s face was enough to make Leza think that all their problems were behind them.

What made her so naive as to think they were on easy street? She strained to look at the television in the restaurant where they stopped to eat. On the national news was a reporter doing an interview with Amy’s aunt and uncle.

“You understand my sister and her husband just want to have time alone to get reacquainted with their daughter,” the aunt said.

“That’s some story. She was gone one year and from what we can tell she wasn’t really that far away,” the reporter said, stopping for effect. “Did your niece say how they got to her house?”

“No,” the uncle shook his head. “We assume they got there in a car like everyone else. Amy has been too traumatized to say anything. She can barely remember what they looked like and of course her parents didn’t have eyes for anyone but her.”

“What happened to the men who abducted her?”

“They were torn apart by a wild beast. As far as I know these parts don’t have wild animals, but I want to thank God for them,” the aunt said.

The reporter gasped showing her excitement at such a turn of events. “Your niece is a lucky young lady.”

“Lucky?” Jay vibrated with fury while Dai slid his hand off the table and into his lap.

“That’s her job,” Leza said. “To make it titillating.” She tuned back to the reporter.

“Do you remember? I know the shock of seeing your niece must have overwhelmed you, but do you remember anything about the heroes?”

The uncle’s chest pumped up a little before he shook his head. “Not much there to remember. Three males and one female. I believe the men had tats and the female was African American, but that’s all we know of them.”

“Did your niece mention their names? Maybe someone in America knows them. We would love to interview them.”

Leza felt her throat close as she waited to hear if their names would be spread across the airwaves. Tane’s hand took hers and squeezed.

“The aunt shook her head. No, we never heard their names, but wherever they are we wish them well.”

“You heard it here, America. A young teen has been returned to the loving embrace of her family and we have real heroes traveling our roads helping those in need. Let’s all say a prayer for the mysterious strangers tonight.”

“There’s no way they can find us, right?”

Three sets of eyes turned to look at Leza.

“We were the only animals in that forest. The government will know that. They will also know we were at Amy’s house, as well as what time we were there. Any distance we put between them and us has now been reduced. They will be backtracking looking for us. We need to go.” Tane stood and put enough money on the table to cover the bill.