The ache Ben had developed in his chest at seeing his mates worsened, imagining the lack of care. How many babies had they made this way? He shivered as the cell phone pinged to alert to yet more e-mails.
~/~/~/~
Bleary-eyed and uncertain what time of day or night it was, Ben rose from the bed in the far part of the plane. Exhaustion had pushed him to lie down after thirteen hours in the air once they’d refueled and taken off again.
He used the bathroom and had a shower, feeling slightly more human in the fresh clothes he’d found in the small closet. It appeared the Thalassa’s brothers thought of everything.
When he entered the main part of the plane, the steward was placing a platter of food on the table next to a cup scented with coffee, clearly having heard him moving around. “Thank you, Rupert.”
“You’re welcome, Sir. If you require anything more, just let me know. We should land in a couple of hours.”
Ben nodded, and his panther stirred in his mind.Not long now.
Picking up the cell phone, Ben checked his messages. He’d reached out to his oldest brother, Kylo, when they’d taken off. He’d explained the situation briefly and knew his brother would do everything in his power to find the place where his mates were being held. They were a close-knit family, even with the distance between them. His brother was proud of him for getting on the council and wanting to ensure all shifters got a fair deal, even if he didn’t understand it.
Kylo’s message was straight to the point. “We’ll be waiting when you land. Everything is in place. We know where they are.”
Ben closed his eyes and held on to the belief that they’d find his mates. Then he’d root out every fucker who’d participated in harming them and show them exactly what his panther could do when in a rage.
Chapter Two
Nico
SomewheredeepintheAmazon jungle, Paraguay
The stench of death was overwhelming. Nico, panting in the moist heat, managed to turn his head, his concern over the black panther in the next cage overwhelming. Teilo hadn’t moved in hours.
Summoning any energy at all was hard. Remembering shit was getting just as hard. As far as Nico could work out, it was at least a week since someone had been in, refreshing the water bottles or putting anything in their slop trays. Could be longer. Probably was.
He eyed the bottle suspended above his cage. The only advantage to not seeing anyone was the damned meds they’d been feeding him and Teilo had run out too. The meds that kept them compliant, so he’d heard a scientist say.
Compliance is easy when you’re so hungry you can’t think straight.But Nico knew it was going to be the lack of water that killed them. He flicked his gaze over at the cages on the wall opposite. The reason for the stench.
One cheetah had succumbed two days before, although Nico believed depression killed that one. The second one spent that night screaming his despair, but was dead the next day.
The lion was gasping his last… how the hell he’d been captured, Nico did not know, but the big beast seemed to waste away in front of his eyes. Without water, it wasn’t going to be long before he was gone, too.
Which left him and Teilo—who still wasn’t moving, although if he focused, Nico could see the cat with a form so like his own, making shallow breaths. Somehow, through the night, Teilo had found the energy to turn his head, so he was looking away from Nico. Something he’d never done since they’d been locked up. It was seeing Teilo’s bright yellow eyes that kept Nico going when the pain was so intense he wanted to shred his own skin off so it would stop.
Teilo had given up. Nico knew that as well as he knew the dark spots on his dark fur. Teilo—his doppelgänger, basically his twin, although both shifters had been conceived in a test tube. Teilo was his family, though, his rock. They had gone through everything together, and now…
There was nobody to hear his whimper. Nico’s muscles were wasting away due to lack of use. If he could only shift, he could find a way to disengage the cage lock, but even remembering what it was like to be human was an effort. It’d been so long since he’d stood on two feet, taking surreptitious glances at Teilo’s lean frame as they stood naked, waiting to be examined, hoping none of their trainers noticed. Trainers who’d clearly abandoned them for whatever reason.
You have to wake up.In his frustration, Nico slammed his paw into Teilo’s bars, but the cat didn’t move.
You can’t die. Please. You can’t die.Because Nico knew, if help didn’t come for them soon, Teilo would be dead, and Nico would follow him. Without Teilo in his life… there was nothing worth living for.
Please don’t die.
~/~/~/~
Teilo
The end was coming. Teilo knew it. His only regret was that he hadn’t held Nico in his arms the way he’d wanted to. Held him, caressed him, did things his body longed for, even if he couldn’t put a name to the specifics.
Turning his head had been cowardly. Teilo knew that, too. Nico would never understand how Teilo had only been keeping himself going by imagining a life he and Nico might have had if their circumstances had been different. If they hadn’t been born in a lab. If they hadn’t been trained to kill from the moment they took their first steps. Teilo kept himself going, imagining themselves free, and he couldn’t hold on to those thoughts when he was forced to watch Nico’s emaciated form locked in his cage.
Their captors kept them caged in their animal form because it cost less to keep them that way, apparently.It’s not costing them anything now, though, is it?They had shut the power off. The concrete slab room with its tiny vents in the ceiling was like an oven. Teilo had taken his last sip of water two days before. Or it could’ve been three days. It was so difficult keeping track of time when the only reason he was breathing was because it was instinctive. If it’d required any effort, Teilo wouldn’t have been able to do it.
