Yet when Soren looked at Romy, the smaller rhino didn’t seem the least bit shaken by hearing his mate sound that way.
“Solitary except in family units,” the center tiger said, leaving it at that.
Daddy, ask him what one of them was doing chained by a fiery bringer of death,Soren asked, feeling braver now that it seemed like talking, rather than fighting, was the course the confrontation was taking, at least for now.
Arlington’s jaw twitched before he finally gave a curt nod.
“Is that for protection, or because one of you sold their souls to the council, and wound up leashed to a ‘being’ hell-bent on burning everything in its path?” The icy cold tone he used rivaled Bash’s.
The fidgety tiger let out a hiss, claws popping out of the ends of his fingers to slash a hole in his jeans.
“Ohh, I think I’ve hit a nerve,” Bash rumbled, a small grin creasing his lips as the center tiger shot a hand out to prevent the one to the right from charging. Eyes locked, fierce looks passed between them before the younger tiger finally backed down—somewhat.
“The next time you mock what my brothers went through, I’ll slash you to ribbons and face my father’s wrath afterwards,” he declared. “Stolen from us, used and abused by the fuckers, it is only through the goddesses' grace we got one of them back alive.”
“And the other?” Arlo asked, his voice only marginally less icy.
“Burned to death at the hands of the demon beast I killed,” the fidgety one declared. “I just wish I could have done it before he torched my brother. Neither of us signed up to be that bastard’s pets, though it was a far better fate than the torment and experimentation they subjected others to.”
Victim. He’s a victim too.Soren could see it now.
“And you expect us to believe that keeping you as pets was the only use he had for you?” Arlo questioned in a way Soren sensed he wasn’t quite ready to believe them.
“Pets is what he called us,” the fidgety one said. “But if someone were to treat a real pet the way he treated us, they’d find themselves behind bars. We were pets in the same way an attack dog guarding a drug den is considered a pet. We had one purpose. Keep anyone from getting their hands on him until he completed his missions.”
Arlo’s large body was rigid with the tension as he asked, “And did you?”
“Not without torment to force our compliance, and even then, we only fulfilled our roles until we could sink fangs and claws into him ourselves.”
Arlo
“You speak the truth,” Arlo stated aloud when his senses no longer detected any threat to them. “One of my mates bore witness to the atrocities that took place when the fire creature came to his homelands. Another visited us, who stunk of venomous death and proved extremely difficult to kill.”
“This is sufficient reason for you to understand why I keep my two remaining sons close,” the center tiger declared. “I will not allow them to share in their brother’s fate.”
“And how were you captured in the first place?” Bash asked, a deep furrow between his brows appearing as he searched for answers.
“The same way most cats find themselves trapped, no matter their size or the ferocity of their breed. Curiosity can be a cruel and unforgiving mistress.”
“Then forgive my curiosity when I ask for specifics on what lured them to the fire creature in the first place,” Arlo persisted.
“It was not the flames that drew me,” the fidgety one declared. “It was the scent of my mate, who the creature had already captured and held. No perfect trap has ever been constructed better than the one that plays to the mating instinct. One's need to bond with a mate or mates is the perfect storm. I became ensnared in a net of hooks and metal. Had I remained silent, my brother might have been able to avoid sharing my fate. There was a substance on the hooks that both burned and contained a paralytic agent. To my utter shame, I couldn’t do anything when it felt like my blood was on fire. In his haste to come to my aid and free me from the trap I’d gotten caught in, he found himself in one of his own.”
“And what of the mate you claim they used as the bait to lure you in the first place?” Arlo asked gruffly, his own mate's fate so easily could have been different.
“We recovered him,” the older tiger declared, “though we fear his mind may never be the same. Without being certain which council members we could trust and which had gone rogue, we’ve kept silent on our dealings with the being of flames out of fear that the second one would come to extract vengeance for what happened to the first.”
Arlo shared a look with Bash, who looked grim.
“We’d have done the same in your shoes,” Bash admitted. “Were you able to determine how they knew it was your mate to trap them and use them in such a way?”
The fidgety one ran a hand through his short, reddish-gold hair, revealing the remains of several shiny scars along the side of his neck. “I do not think they knew which of our mates they were taking, as long as the results proved favorable.” It appeared he couldn’t stop digging claws into the now shredded leg of his jeans.
All the signs of trauma and captivity were there, from the way he’d inched steadily closer to his father’s side to each restless movement that screamed of distress and an attempt to self sooth.
“At the time, we did not recognize that the gathering was designed both to recruit and to log observations about the ones in attendance. My brother, Lennox, and I attended hoping to meet other tigers outside of our ambush. The council sponsored the event. A council we had not yet learned to fear and distrust. My mate was not the only one taken captive, though I would not discover that until I was already a prisoner, too. In the compound where they held us, there were other mates of other species that had been at gatherings, including a grizzly bear, an eagle, a seal and three wolves.”
“We did not dare attempt to free them in our haste to retrieve Saber’s mate,” Morrison, who’d been the first guard they’d encountered when Taggart had come alone, declared, a look of frustration and shame on his face when he said it. “By the time I returned with more members of our ambush, they’d abandoned the facility with no sign of where the others were transported to. There was no evidence that they’d slaughtered anyone, and the mess they left behind suggested that their departure was a hasty one. My take is that it happened right after they realized that my brother and I had snuck in and retrieved his mate.”
