Head Over Tail - Ridgeville, Book Three Read online

  He needed to keep it that way.

  At least until he found Madison.

  Damn. Madison Lane, five feet of sweet-as-pie lioness who was at the mercy of Alistair McCain. He’d never been so angered at having a tip pan-out as when the news about Madison’s kidnapping had come to light.

  Of course, he just guessed at her disposition, but he’d never known a Sensitive that wasn’t gentle and accommodating, happy to do as others asked.

  Alistair had nearly killed Carly Thompson-Landry just over a week ago. Since then, Ricker had followed the coward around North Carolina and then lost him near the South Carolina border only to have the piece of shit circle back and kidnap the tiny Sensitive.

  Fuck.

  The bartender, a slim fox who lived up to her species name with her trim body and model-like looks, poured him another glass with a seductive smile and wink. “Here you go, baby. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Information.

  Not that he’d say the word out loud. Nah, he’d sit around the bar, keep his ears open and listen for gossip. Disgruntled worker bees tended to talk and he found Freedom members to be particularly unhappy most of the time.

  Hopefully a human, or shifter, would unload on him soon.

  It being a Friday night, the place had filled up pretty quick, men taking their places at the bar top and ordering heavy drinks.

  It wouldn’t be too long now.

  A man, human, that he’d seen hanging around the bar the last night or two approached him, slid into the stool to his left and waved a couple fingers at the bartender.

  “Cat.” The human had a deep, smoke tinged voice.

  “Human.”

  The man grunted, but had no other response.

  The fox sauntered over and slid a glass filled with two fingers of liquor across the smooth wood. Bourbon from the smell of it. “Here ya go Jimmy.”

  “Nice night.” The human nodded at the bartender, stinking of sweat and loathing.

  Well, Ricker didn’t care for the man either. “Uh huh.”

  “It’d be better if your kind weren’t crowding our mountain.”

  “And I’ve been thinking that we’d all be better off if y’all left us to the wilds. Funny how shit works, huh?” Ricker took a sip from his glass, hands loose. He either had a man with a verbal message or one whose information came with a couple of fists the minute he exited the bar.

  Ricker kinda hoped for fists. He had a lot of frustration built from his tracking and wouldn’t mind taking a bit of it out on the stinking human.

  The guy grunted again and he wondered if the man wasn’t part ape. “I’d be happy if y’all left Nelson all together and avoided Willow Mountain, that Flick place in particular. Tommy Flick was a good boy and y’all are turning his granddaddy’s home into one of your heathen places.” He took a sip of his bourbon, set the glass carefully on the polished wood. “Seems y’all can’t even stay with your own kind anymore. Disgraceful. Bears and cats. Fucking dogs. We ought to take y’all out back and shoot ya. Then you bring in another slut…”

  He hated prejudiced hicks with nothing better to do than drink and act ignorant.

  Instead, he hitched the side of his mouth up in a half smile and shrugged. “Yeah, well, sometimes sticking with a pride doesn’t work.”

  The man grunted, took another sip and slid from his seat. “Gonna get outta here before I decide to take a little target practice. You just tell your friends to get the fuck out or we’ll send you on your way ourselves.”

  With that, Jimmy abandoned his drink and disappeared into the crowd, slithering like a snake between bodies, then right out the front door.

  The man had been sent. No doubt. The town of Nelson more than likely had a faction of the Humans for Shifter Extermination, the HSE, settled within town limits. Apparently, the good ole boys had a problem with a mottled group of shifters making their place home and assumed Ricker was one of them.

  Good of them to assume since it helped his cause. However, his newest problem became keeping a quiet balance between the HSE and Freedom while he liberated the “slut” that had turned up recently.

  At least he had a place to start.

  Ricker waved the fox over, slipped a hundred dollar bill beneath his glass and slid the money and empty tumbler across the bar. “Tell me about the Flick place.”

  The woman leaned over the hard surface, low-cut shirt displaying a large swath of her tanned cleavage. Ricker’s cock didn’t even twitch. “What kind of business do you have there, baby?”

  He raised a single brow. “I think the occupants and I might have some common interests.”

  A wide smile split her features.

  Contact initiated.

  Chapter Two

  “Some shifters don’t understand that “no means no”. If that’s the case, teach them that a nine millimeter Glock means no.” – Maya Josephs, Prima of the Ridgeville Pride and a crack shot.

  Maddy woke on the floor in a small room with only her pajamas and a blanket between her and cool concrete. Her head spun and the cat growled in the back of her mind. The bitch was pissed. Well, human Maddy wasn’t feeling much better. Alistair had paraded her through the compound’s living room and forced her to touch each and every one of his shifters, calm them and implant feelings of absolute trust in Alistair. Then, after she’d passed out from the exertion, he’d apparently tossed her into this cell.

  Remaining still, she kept her lids lowered and swept the room with her gaze. The area was sparse, only holding a small table, the pallet she lay upon and a toilet. Spying no one, she opened her eyes fully when…

  A whimper, barely a sound at that, cut through the silence and was followed by a soft shuffle. Another look around the room revealed the source of the noise. Hidden beneath the table, pressed into the corner and tucked into a small ball sat a woman.

  Maddy could see trembles and shudders wrack the fragile body, and she ached to go to the woman. Without asking, the cat joined her and they seeped into the woman’s consciousness.

  Fear, hunger, hate… They mingled and mixed inside the sweet fox’s mind. Maddy couldn’t identify the female, couldn’t even pluck events from her memory, but she could soothe the poor creature. With the ghosting of a touch, she swept away the fear, calming her. There was nothing to be done about her hunger and Maddy figured that hating their captors couldn’t hurt anything.

  And yes, they were both captives… Maddy could sense a kindred spirit in the fox, recognized her for what she was. A Sensitive.

  As Maddy retracted her metaphysical touch, the woman slumped and the shivers ceased torturing her slim body.

  “Th-Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Maddy remained silent for another few moments as the stranger collected herself. “I’m Maddy. Madison Lane. How long have you been here?”

  The woman raised her head and Maddy bit back a whine. Death and despair lurked in the fox’s eyes.

  “Two years, maybe? Not sure exactly. He,” she swallowed. “Alistair took me from Hayes in South Carolina and then…” A tear slithered down the female’s cheek. “Then they used me, broke me. I can’t do anything anymore…”

  Broke me.

  It wasn’t easy to break those like her, their power was one of birth and not artificial, but she’d heard stories…

  “What’s your name?”

  “Elise Mara.”

  Maddy pushed herself to a seated position and leaned back against the stone wall of their prison. “Well, Elise Mara, we’re going to get the heck out of here.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows, eyes wide. “We can’t. We don’t… You’re like me. We aren’t made for violence. We listen and do as we’re told and—”

  Maddy shook her head. “Nope. My Prima has been working with me, helping me find my back bone. Which, in case you were wondering, is above our asshole.” She winked at Elise. “Everyone’s got one, we just have to find ours.”

  “Assholes or backbon
es?” She didn’t miss the smile playing around the fox’s lips.

  “I’m hoping you know where your asshole is, so I’m guessing it’s the backbone we have to work on.” That earned her a giggle from Elise and Maddy smiled. Maybe the tiny woman would be okay. Maybe. “Another thing we’ll learn to use is our middle finger.”

  “Middle finger?”

  Maddy figured she could keep Elise occupied with Maya-isms while she scoped the room, poked and prodded at the door as well as seeped into the minds of those surrounding their prison.

  “Yup. According to Maya, it takes, like, a gajillion muscles to be scared shitless and only four to give a guy the finger. I tend to add ‘suck it’, but that’s just me. We just need to do a little finger-robics.”

  Look at her, she could be all optimistic and confident and shit. She just hoped she could keep up appearances until help arrived. Or until she died. Whichever came first.

  Maddy prayed for help.

  “What are they gonna suck?”

  She scoffed. “Toes. Duh. You know, after you’ve tromped through mud puddles and your feet are all stinkdified.”

  The echoing thud of wood hitting metal yanked them from their conversation and they both turned their attention to the visitor.

  Hello asshole. The hyena from the kidnapping squad stood framed in the doorway, hair disheveled, bruises marring his face and, upon further inspection, a very large bulge behind his jeans.

  Broke me. Elise’s soft voice flitted through her mind.

  Lust poured off the hyena in waves, blanket after blanket of the cloying emotion choking her, and she pushed past those feelings to delve into the crazy fuck’s mind.

  Hate.

  God, did everyone hate everyone in the freaking compound? She’d just finished calming the fucker. The least he could do was stay “fixed” for more than five minutes. They seriously needed a time out and some kumbaya shit.

  With a gentle, metaphysical hand, she reached out to soothe the man…only to have a real claw-tipped paw physically wrapped around her throat as the male lifted her from the ground.

  “Nu uh, little cat. You did that once. Jasper won’t let you play in his head again.”

  Really? The guy had to talk about himself in third person?

  “Jasper should kill you now, she-cat. Think of how much fun it would be to bathe in your blood.” The hyena cackled, evil laugh echoing off the walls and Maddy decided she was officially creeped the fuck out.

  She also realized she couldn’t breathe. She clawed at his hold, fingers and human nails digging into the flesh of his arm and hand, searching for purchase. She wheezed and coughed, scraped at his skin in an effort to get away.

  On the other side of the room, poor Elise had huddled beneath the table once again, valiantly trying to curl her already tiny body into an even smaller ball.

  And Maddy couldn’t blame her. Before the months she’d spent in Maya’s care, Maddy had been the biggest pussy known to pussy-dom. Seriously. She was like a Timex watch in a totally bad way. Her body took a licking (literally sometimes) and kept on ticking…until the next time a pride member took a swipe at her for shits and giggles. Most of the pride members were nice, but there was spoiled meat on a carcass. It’d taken Maya’s influence on both their Prime, Alex, and the pride, to get them to treat her as more than a whipping boy, er, girl.

  With one, last, evil smile, he dropped Maddy and she crumpled to the ground in a gasping heap.

  “Pity Jasper can’t kill you quite yet.” He turned away from her as if she were of no consequence and crouched near Elise. “Come fox. You know it is better for you if you don’t fight. Not better for me, but I don’t wish to break you further.”

  Lust, hot and powerful, filled the room once again until Maddy nearly gagged on the stench.

  God, he was going to…

  Struggling to her feet, she croaked out two words that would probably change her life forever. “Take me.”

  *

  Ricker slipped into the house through an unsecured window, movements silent thanks to his inner tiger. He and the cat had trained for these situations, working together in a synchronization that not many possessed.

  He was the best at what he did, the greatest tracker in the history of the council, and the only male trusted with the job of hunting Alistair McCain.

  The bartender had been most forthcoming with information. Suspiciously so. She’d claimed it was because Alistair had done her fox clan—her skulk—harm, but still Ricker was cautious. He wasn’t about to go in with guns blazing so he could get himself shot.

  He envisioned the layout of the home he’d studied, plans courtesy of an illegal trip to city planning, and recognized that he was in the first floor library. He had to get down a hallway, into the basement and then down a subterranean passage that led to the compound hidden beneath the earth. Old Mr. Flick had been a survivalist nut job and had taken his bomb shelter building seriously.

  Piece of slaughtered Zebra.

  Not.

  He patted himself down, double checked the placement of his weapons and then crept to the door. It stood slightly ajar, a two inch gap giving him plenty of space to see into the darkened hallway. He opened his mouth and tasted the air, confirming what his eyes were telling him.

  There had been no one in the area in the past two hours. Maybe longer.

  He eased the door open, just enough to slither through the opening and into the confined area.

  Ricker stuck to the wall, his heart rate and breathing even as he moved toward his destination. The shadows cradled him, hiding his progress.

  Fifteen feet down the hallway opened to the home’s entryway. To his left lay the front entrance and, to his right, the grand staircase leading to the upper floors. More importantly, just beside the stairs there was the path to the kitchen and, ultimately, the basement.

  He just had a few Freedom members to get through first.

  Ricker scented the area once again, tasted each fragrance and cataloged them. A lion stood watch just outside the front door. He was weak, easily overtaken if necessary.

  He didn’t want it to be necessary.

  If anyone died this night, it’d be Alistair due to his position of leadership in Freedom, along with those who stood in his way while he hunted for Madison. The others could be rehabilitated. At least, that’s what the council desired.

  He kept to the wall, steps not making a sound as he crept along the hard surface and toward the back of the house. A glance at the front door revealed that the guard still hadn’t spotted him. Good. He hoped to at least get into the compound undetected.

  The shadows of the stairs enveloped him as he neared his destination. At the open entrance of the kitchen he lowered to a crouch. He pulled a tiny mirror from a pocket. Easing it along the floor, he inched it into the doorway, making out the shapes occupying the room.

  And make them out he did. His deep inhale confirmed what he saw. Two males, both wolves, sat around the kitchen island, cups of coffee steaming before them. They were silent save their breathing and Ricker settled in to wait, thankful for the council’s recent invention that masked his scent from others. He’d neutralize the wolves…at the right time.

  It didn’t take long.

  The scrape of wood against tile signaled one of the males rising and the thump of footsteps neared him. He only had an instant to subdue the guard.

  The man stepped around the corner, cup at his lips as he sipped at his drink and it was all the distraction he needed. In one fluid movement, Ricker gripped the man’s head and gave it a fierce twist. His inner tiger lent him a bit of strength to make the killing quiet and fast, the coffee cup hitting the carpet with a muffled thud.

  He caught the wolf’s weight and lowered the body to the ground, stretching the male straight against the baseboard and out of sight.

  One left.

  Ricker dared a glance into the room and found the other wolf still sitting on his stool, back to the door and he rolled his eyes. Ha
dn’t Alistair trained the men in any way?

  It was no fun killing stupid people.

  He edged forward, hands at his sides and loose, ready to dispatch another. It took two steps and a wrenching pull to eliminate the wolf, and Ricker ignored the pang of guilt that came with every kill. It seemed to magnify and weigh down on him more and more with every death.

  Ricker navigated the kitchen with ease and found the entry to the basement without a problem. He paused long enough to listen for any other surprises and heard no one, so he headed down the dark staircase and found…nothing.

  Oh, the area was dusty with worn furniture scattered about as well as some electronics, but otherwise, it was completely empty and didn’t appear to have been used recently.

  Did Alistair not realize…

  Well, he hoped the polar bear had no idea about the bolt-hole entrance to his “impenetrable” compound.

  Ricker strode to the brick wall and stared at the stones. To the casual observer, it was simply a decoration for the room, a faux finish that was meant to be pleasing to the eye.

  It also happened to be a door.

  With care, he pressed a handful of bricks, in precisely the order described by the bar’s fox. While he’d gotten the plans from the city, the handy-dandy code came from the bartender. Thank God for pissed off women.

  The wall opened with a soft whoosh. Cool, stale air wafted over him.

  Ricker had a feeling the weight of guilt would be nearly debilitating before the night was through, but to save a sweet, innocent Sensitive, it’d be worth every slice of pain.

  Chapter Three

  “To err is human, to love is divine. But fucking with a chick that grows fur and claws is a mistake. Show ‘em how big that mistake can be.” – Maya Josephs, Prima of the Ridgeville Pride who, regardless of the ginormous belly, is happy to show off her claws.

  Jasper hadn’t taken Maddy. No. He’d leered at her, promised that she’d enjoy his company someday, but he had a craving for his sweet Elise.