Page 66 of Bad Blood Panther

Chapter 25

Xander’s ride to Broken Hill was not quite as comfortable. He spent it trussed up in the baggage compartment of a prop plane, trying not to bust out of his skin from worry and rage, and his panther’s terror at being tied up.

He had to keep it together. Don’t get killed, he told himself, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, like Jenny did when she was having anxiety. Save your family. Don’t get killed. Save your family. Don’t get killed.

Save your family. He had a family. Such a bizarre and unexpected thing. He had people he was responsible for; people who loved him and counted on him.

He’d begun thinking of the Bad Blood Crew as his family, but everyone knew he was the fuck-up of that group. He’d always tried to do what he could for the others, but face it—he was pretty useless most of the time.

It was usually them taking care of him.

This was different. This was his mate, his cub. He had to get them the fuck away from the Broken Hill Clan, or die trying.

He just had to figure out what the hell Alton wanted from him, and how to get out of there without giving it to him.

He knew Flynn and the Bad Bloods would be on the way. He could feel the round button of the tracker in his pocket, digging into his skin. The corporate douches hadn’t searched him, because they were idiots and they didn’t know Flynn the way he did. As much money and corporate power as they had, they still thought in terms of physical force.

Their mistake.

Whatever Alton Raines’ plans were, though, Xander couldn’t count on Flynn and the others to save his ass—and his family. What if they couldn’t get there in time? What if Raines’ whole plan was to kill Xander with his own hands the second he got there?

He had to assume he was on his own for the moment. At least, if he died without getting Jenny and Brandon out, he knew the Bad Bloods would do it for him.

There was some comfort in that.

They landed and bundled him into a van, handcuffing him to a bench in the back like a fucking convict. The manacles were shifter-strong, though, and specially made so that changing his hands to paws wouldn’t help him get out of them.

Plus, his guards all had big-ass guns pointed at him. If he hadn’t been so worried about Jenny and Brandon, he would have been flattered.

They’d never thought he was that much of a badass in the past.

They drove for a while over bumpy roads, which meant they were heading out into the country, away from civilization, into the heart of the panthers’ territory. Finally, the jolting stopped, and they unlocked his chains and pushed him out of the van.

He was in a small green valley surrounded by forest. The landscape was dotted with cabins, the three largest in a semicircle near the center of the valley. There were a couple of firepits at the sides—larger, less fancy versions of the one the Bad Bloods had. The area in front of the cabins, between the firepits, was a smooth green lawn with a square patch of raked dirt in the middle of it.

Right now, the square patch was cordoned off. Bleachers had been set up along two opposite sides, with a row of large striped tents across one end. At the other end stood a long, raised platform with a huge carved chair in the middle of it, decorated with velvet cushions.

It looked like a fucking throne.

Seriously? An alpha throne? Flynn would laugh his ass off if he saw that. And Jaz would probably lift her jaguar leg and piss on it.

That thought almost made him smile.

But the sight of clan members gathering in the bleachers, chatting in muted tones, wiped the smile off his face. They looked suspiciously like an audience, and that cordoned-off area looked suspiciously like an arena.

And Xander suspected he was going to be the main attraction.

Fuck it all to hell.

They tried to lead him to one of the tents at the edge of the arena, but Xander dug in his heels.

“I want to see Jenny and Brandon.”

His guards sneered. “Don’t worry. They’ll be here to see you in the fights.”

Fights. Plural. Xander hoped that all of them weren’t going to involve him, but he had the sinking feeling they would.

Raines wasn’t going to kill Xander with his own hands. He was going to sit on his asinine throne and watch his warriors do it. Fucking pussy coward.