The Lion’s Curvy Mate: Shifter Romance

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

“We should call the cops,” Sadie said, hands on her hips, looking at the caged thugs still unconscious.

Declan shook his head. “When this is all over, we can get the authorities involved if we have to.”

“Why wait? It’d be better than trying to do this alone.”

“We can’t tell them the truth, obviously. And if the gang behind all this gets wind that the police are coming, they’ll go underground. We may never find the antidote then.”

“So then what do we do?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. His gaze bored into her, deathly serious. “We don’t do anything. I’ve put you at risk enough. This next part is all me.”

Sadie shook his hands from her shoulders. “You’re not sticking me on the sidelines. I’m just as involved in this as you are. They know who I am. They know where I live. This is my fight, too.”

“Sadie, I can’t let you get hurt. You should run away as far as you can, as fast as you can. Until all this blows over.”

Sadie smiled grimly. “You know damn well this isn’t just going to blow over. This only ends if we put a stop to this. Whoever is behind this, we need to take them down. For you, for me, and for your friend.”

Declan looked down at the ground. “What’s going to happen next, it’s going to be ugly. People are going to get hurt. I’ve done this before. Hurt people before. I know how to deal with it. But you, once you get your hands dirty, you can never get them clean again.”

She moved over to him and took his strong hands in hers. He looked up at her, pain shining in his eyes. “Whatever you’ve done, you had to do it. You were a soldier. It was your job.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.”

Sadie squeezed his hands. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get my life back. These assholes are the ones who started this. Not us. If people have to get hurt, if people have to die, it’s justice. My hands and my conscience will be clean. And so will yours.”

“You say that,” he said. “But you don’t know.”

“I know that if we’re going to have any chance of success, it’ll be together. I’m in this. All the way. And I’m not leaving your side until it’s done.”

Declan exhaled a deep, heavy breath. “Fine. But I do the dirty work.” She nodded. “And you have to follow my orders. No hesitation.”

She met his eyes with hers. “No hesitation.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re really something, you know that?”

“I know.”

“And I’ve told you this already, but I have to say it again. Your father would be proud of you.”

The words sent a thrill rippling through her. Some deep emotion throbbed in her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked with feeling. She cleared her throat. “Alright, well now that we’ve settled that. What now?”

Declan turned to look at the men in the cages. His eyes took on a hard cast. “Now we wake them up and get some answers.”

Sadie dumped a bucket of cold water through the bars of the cage, onto the unconscious figure lying there. The man sputtered awake, coughing and flailing around in a panic.

The drenched man blinked in surprise at Sadie where she stood by the cage door. The man was balding and overweight. Despite that, there was a layer of muscle beneath the fat. He looked like he could handle himself in a fight. Sadie was glad the cage door separated them.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Sadie said in a singsong voice.

The man’s eyes narrowed at her as he grabbed a hold of the bars and climbed up to a standing position. “You dumb b***h. I’m gonna rip your f*****g head off.”

The man’s hand rocketed from between the bars, reaching for Sadie. She deftly sidestepped the clumsy grab, laughing as she did. “Is that any way to treat your host? I go through all the trouble of giving you a nice place to stay and this is how you repay me?”

“Let me out of here, and I’ll show you how I can treat a lady.”

Sadie grinned. “That doesn’t sound very respectful. I don’t like it when people disrespect me.”

“Like I give a s**t what you like,” the man snarled at her.

“More importantly,” Sadie said, not responding to the man’s comment. “My friend doesn’t like it when people disrespect me.” She tipped her head, indicating the space behind the man in the cage.

A vicious growl cut through the air from behind the man. He froze, his eyes widening in terror. He turned around slowly, coming face-to-face with the hulking black lion at the back of the cage. Declan sat there motionless like a shadow except for the bared teeth jutting from between his snarling lips.

The man quivered with fear. All of his bluster and bravado had vanished.

“Now,” Sadie said. “I’m going to ask you some questions. I expect you to answer them. I expect you to be polite. And I expect your full cooperation. If I think you’re holding back, if I think you’re lying, or even if you just piss me off, I’m going to let my friend eat you. Is that understood?”

The man shot her a glance over his shoulder, his eyes terrified. He nodded. Then he turned his gaze back to the lion standing a few steps away from him.

“Very good. We’ll start simple. Do you know who my friend is?”

“Yeah, he’s one of those freaks.”

Declan snarled at him. Sadie chided the man gently. “They prefer to be called shifters.”

“Yeah, fine. Shifters. Whatever.”

“Do you know any other shifters?”

The man nodded. “Just one.”

“Garrett?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Does Garrett work for you?” Sadie asked, noticing the strained look on the lion’s face. She knew Declan was in intense pain maintaining his animal form. But they’d decided this was the best course of action for getting answers.

Declan said it would be easier to get the truth if they didn’t have to use force. Torture wasn’t the greatest interrogation tool. A man being tortured will say anything to make it stop. Even if that meant lying.

But a scared man would tell the truth.

“He doesn’t work for me. I’m not the boss.”

“But he does work with you?”

“Yeah, he’s hired muscle. Like me.”

“Excellent,” Sadie said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What is it that you all do? Why do you need muscle?”

“You don’t know?” The man asked, turning around. He looked at her with a cocky little grin.

“Just answer my question,” Sadie said.

“You really don’t know,” he said chuckling. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Let me give you some advice. Let me go. You don’t want to know who I work for. And you don’t want to be here when they come looking for me.”

Sadie arched her eyebrow at him. “Do I look scared to you?”

“No, but that doesn’t make you brave. That just means you’re stupid.”

Declan growled at the insult. The man’s cocky demeanor evaporated.

“I told you to be nice,” Sadie said.

The man scrubbed sweat from his balding head, but he looked at her with a spark of defiance. “Whatever. This freak won’t eat me. They don’t eat people. They have a rule against that.”

“You’re right. He’s not going to eat you. But that doesn’t mean he won’t kill you.”

“You can’t kill me. You need answers.”

Sadie grinned. “It’s funny. That’s what your friends said. Right before they died.” She pointed at the two cages next to his. In each lay the still, bloody forms of his two compatriots.

The man gulped at the sight of them. All of the fight drained out of him. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just take it easy.”

“Who are you people?” Sadie demanded.

“It’s not like we have a name. We just smuggle s**t into the country. Guns, drugs, people. Whatever pays.”

“From Canada?” Sadie asked.

“Yeah. Nobody gives a s**t about the Canadian border. The feds are so busy with the Mexican border, we can get away with whatever we want up here.”

“And Garrett? What’s his part in all this?”

“I told you,” he said, leaning his forehead against the bars. “We’re just muscle. We make sure everybody behaves themselves when a deal is going down. Or somebody owes us money, we collect.”

“Did he tell you he was a shifter?”

“I mean, I heard about it once they brought him on board. I thought it was bullshit until I saw it for myself.”

“Do you know anything about a poison that affects shifters?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Tell me the truth,” Sadie urged.

“I am. That’s above my pay grade. I guess the boss would know.”

“And who is your boss?” Sadie pressed.

“I don’t know who the big boss is.”

“Stop jerking me around,” Sadie said, slamming her hand against the bars.

“I’m not. I swear. I report to a guy who reports to another guy who gets his orders from somebody else. It’s all really secretive.”

“You gotta give me something. Unless you want to end up like your friends.” Declan growled again to emphasize her threat.

“Okay, look. There’s something big happening tonight. Garrett will be there. Hell, even the boss is gonna be there.”

“I thought you said he’s really secretive.”

“He is, but I guess this deal is important enough for him to poke his head out.”

Sadie nodded. “So where is this big important meeting happening?”

“The warehouse. Although you don’t want to go there tonight. Or go, I don’t give a fuck.”

“The warehouse?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda like a central facility where we keep our stuff before we send it off to customers. Garrett’s almost always there, guarding the place.”

“That’s good. Give us an address.”

The man told her the location. “Listen, you can’t tell anyone I told you. If they find out, I’m dead.”

“As long as you’re not bullshitting us, your secret is safe.”

“It’s the truth. I swear.”

“For your sake, I hope so,” Sadie said, moving towards the table off to the side. A silver case rested on the table top. She opened the case, keeping her body positioned so the man in the cage couldn’t see what was inside.

“Hey, so you’re going to let me go right?” The man asked, his voice nervous. “I told you everything. Just like you wanted.”

“Yeah you did,” Sadie said, not turning around. “But you know we can’t let you go.”

Sadie turned around with the tranquilizer rifle in her hands. The man in the cage flinched back with his hands held up in front of him, as if he could ward off the shot. “Hey, what is that? With the hell kind a gun is that?”

The man stopped backing up when he bumped into Declan. The man let out a little yelp and jumped. His head turned back and forth from the lion on one side to Sadie with the gun on the other.

“Nighty night,” Sadie said, raising the rifle. She squeezed the trigger. The dart seemed to blossom from the man’s chest. He looked down at it dumbly, as if not understanding what had just happened.

His eyelids blinked. It seemed they got heavier with every blink. The energy seemed to leak from him and he collapsed to the floor. He was out.

Sadie tossed the rifle on the table and fished the keys to the cage from her pocket. She opened the door just as Declan shifted back into human form.

He stumbled, weak from spending so much time in his animal form. Sadie was there to catch him. She held him up, keeping him from joining the unconscious man on the ground.

He threw his arm around her shoulders, and together they exited the cage.

“How was that?” Sadie asked.

“That was great,” Declan said. “You were pretty convincing. I think he was more afraid of you than he was of me.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. I think it helped that he thought his friends were dead.”

Declan chuckled. “Yeah, amazing what some animal blood and tranquilizer darts can do.”

Sadie laughed. “I’m sure he’ll be surprised when they all wake up. Anyway, let’s get you back to the house. You need another dose of tea.”

“That’s for sure. I didn’t think I could stand to be in lion form a minute longer. It feels like the poison hits me harder when I’m in that form.”

“You did great,” she said, patting him on the arm. “Now you can get some rest.”

“I wish. But there’s no time. We have to get moving.”

Sadie frowned at him. “You’re in no state to be taking on a bunch of drug dealers right now.”

“We don’t have a choice. At some point, someone is going to check in on these fools. When they don’t answer, they’re gonna know something is up. If they don’t already. And tonight might be our only chance to find Garrett.”

“So then we go to the warehouse.”

“Yeah, we find Garrett and get the antidote. Then we’ll figure it out from there.”