A few minutes later, he came to a pile, and his panther growled inside his head, his hackles rising. Ben flicked open the top file, scanned it quickly, then moved on to the next. Nearing the bottom of the pile, his panther hissed. Ben lifted the file, and a bolt of electricity shot up his arm.
Pulling the closest seat towards him, Ben sat. He exhaled a shuddery breath, his panther alerting him to an unseen danger. One that made his innards shake with what he’d find inside the file. Had one of his family members been taken?
He opened the file, and his heart thudded painfully against his ribs. His eyes slitted, his claws unsheathing at the sight of the cats inside metal cages far too small to allow the animal’s inside to move. The surrounding area in the picture barely registered with the torment on the faces of the cats staring out of the bars.
Lightheaded, Ben blinked, his body more panther than human. The buzz he’d felt when he touched the file became a total body experience as his stare moved from one set of eyes to the next, then back. The haunted look in both pairs enraged him and his animal. Part of the paper file shredded at his lethal touch. His eye teeth dropped, and he worked hard to stop his panther from taking control and shifting.
Ours.
The word reverberated through a sweat-soaked Ben. Every fiber in his body knowing the truth. The remaining parts of the file dropped to the table. He looked blindly about the room, his mind working to process his new reality. Something his panther didn’t need or want when it was ready to hunt, to kill those who dared to cage their…mates.
Chapter One
Ben
“Of course you can use our plane, but why this frantic need?” Alexi stared at Ben, his dark gaze searching Ben’s face making Ben’s cat shift uncomfortably beneath his skin. “My kraken senses your animal is in distress.”
“He wants out, and he’s not being reasonable right now. They trapped our mates in cages. Their time is running out. Don’t ask how I know this. My panther does and that, right now, is all that matters.” Ben was trying to keep himself under control. It was becoming more difficult with his panther’s desperation to be set free to hunt.
It will take too long to get where we need to go if you take charge right now. Where we have to go is over five-thousand miles away.
Then get on with it. Something’s desperately wrong. I can feel it in my soul.
That set Ben off pacing as he listened to Todd organize the plane for him. Both of them had left everyone upstairs to come and help him.
“We’ll need a fuel stop. It’s around a twenty-five hour’s flight to where I need to go,” Ben said to Todd as he gave instructions for the flight plan.
“Did you get that?” Todd asked the person he was speaking to. He continued on, and Ben walked to the table to pick up the ripped file he’d taken to Alexi when he first went to ask for help.
He’d originally considered going to the council, then discarded the idea immediately after everything that had happened in the last few days. Right now, the only people Ben trusted without reserve were in the Thalassa building.
“Do you need anything else? We have contacts all over the world.”
Ben shook his head at Alexi’s question. “I’ll reach out to my family. They’ll know where this location is and scout it out for me while I’m in the air.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind,” Alexi pulled out a cell phone, “This has all our numbers in, and we’ll answer no matter what time you call.”
It took a second or two for Ben to get control over his emotions, which were all over the place. Alexi’s help reminded him of how long it’d been since he’d had a friend to place trust in. As for the other side of his emotions, he’d played the field for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to hope he’d find his mate.
Two mates. We have two.
His teeth ground together as two sets of yellow eyes were there in his mind’s eye, begging him to come and release them from the hell of the cages. A hell that the now dead council member had actively taken part in causing his mate’s pain and suffering. If he still lived, Ben would have taken great pleasure in making the fucker suffer. Earlier a part of him felt horrified at what Ajani had inflicted on Gareth, now he relished witnessing what Gareth had gone through.
So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Todd standing in front of him, holding out a set of keys. “Take the last SUV that’s parked outside on the left. You can leave it at the airport. Everything will be ready when you arrive.”
As Ben took the keys, Todd squeezed his hand. “I’ll work on finding out as much information as I can, and I’ll send it to the cell phone Alexi gave you as I get it. I trust the Fates’ directed your hand to their file, now go. We’ll be here when you need us.”
Ben swallowed hard. “Thank you.” He nodded to Alexi and shoved the cell phone into the borrowed trousers. Holding the keys in his other he headed out. His body buzzed with the energy to hunt as he drove away from the Thalassa building and towards the airport.
Time lost all meaning as he arrived at the airport and sat in the plush leather seat. The door closed, and he fastened his seatbelt. His panther, never one to enjoy flying, settled in his mind, allowing him to be fully present.
It didn’t help when he had the files that Todd had sent to the cell phone to read. The details were graphic, detailing everything his mates had endured, all in the name of training and servicing the council. It was fucking barbaric. Ben had asked Todd to do more digging on every member of the council and check for connections to the assassins. He wanted no stone left unturned.
Ben had reached out to Beaumont, mostly because of Marvin’s conviction the man was on their side—that they shared the same goal in trying to save the lost boys. Although Ben didn’t fully trust the alligator, he asked him to step up in his absence as lead. Beaumont hadn’t asked any questions, but Ben suspected Beaumont thought it might have something to do with Gareth. In a way, he supposed it did.
There were many names in the files and different types of shifters that were tortured in one way or another to gain compliance. What captured Ben’s attention was that they did not take the shifters in Paraguay from families, like it would appear they did from shifter families in the States. Stolen, no, the fuckers behind the assassin program in Paraguay hadmadetheir specimens. Test-tube babies made for only one purpose: to kill.
What had they done to create these men? These killers?
