But Ryan put a hand on Anton’s shoulder. “Stand down. You too, Emilio. You’d only be wasting your time anyway. That’s not how it works with Tanner. All that’ll do is piss him off. If you really want to get a reaction out of him, you don’t go after him. You go after someone else. Someone innocent.”
Tanner stiffened, his fangs elongating ever so slightly. Ryan knew him too well.
“Someone like…” Ryan glanced around the room, his gaze falling on the middle-aged woman. She had a nasty bruise on her left cheek and an ugly gash starting at her right temple and disappearing into her hairline. “Her.” He gave Anton a grin. “Stab her anywhere but in the leg. I want her to be able to stand in the cage.”
Tanner’s fangs and claws ripped their way out before he could stop them. He lunged at Anton with a roar. The man froze, and Tanner could have finished him right then and there if it wasn’t for the damn manacle around his right wrist. He groaned in frustration as the chain stopped him short, his arm nearly ripping out of the shoulder joint as the claws of his left hand tore into the man’s suit jacket. While he grazed the skin, he did no real damage beyond that.
Anton scrambled back, his eyes huge as he reached for his gun. Beside him, Emilio did the same. Tanner didn’t care. He snarled and lunged again, straining against the chain holding him as he fought to get a piece of the men.
It was Ryan’s applause that snapped him out of his rage. That and the fact that he could sense both Spencer and Bryce getting ready to lose it, too. Knowing how bad that would be was enough to get him to rein his inner animal back in. It complained but conceded much faster than Tanner would have ever thought possible given the situation.
Breathing hard, he let his fangs and claws slowly retract.
“Think that would move the needle?” Ryan asked Nguyen.
The man nodded approvingly. “It will indeed. In fact, he’ll be tonight’s main event. One flash of those fangs, and our offshore bets will go through the roof.”
“I’m not going to fight for you,” Tanner growled. “I don’t care what you do. I won’t hurt people for your entertainment.”
Ryan glared at him. “You’ll do anything I say, or I’m going to do all kinds of unspeakable things to that girl I grabbed.”
Tanner went still, terrified his worse fears had come true and that Ryan had kidnapped Zarina. “If you hurt Zarina, I’ll—”
“Tear me apart with your claws, I know.” Ryan sneered. “Believe me, I wish I’d been able to get my hands on that beautiful Russian girlfriend of yours, but it didn’t work out that way. However, I do have the dark-haired girl you tried to save, the one with the scars on her neck. A gift from you, I’m guessing?”
Ryan barely got the words out before Spencer shifted and lunged for him, Bryce at his heels. Ryan might have been careful to stay out of Tanner’s reach, but he’d put himself dangerously close to the other two hybrids. He would have died right then if it wasn’t for Emilio. The man moved fast, yanking Ryan out of the way just as Bryce and Spencer got there.
Bryce pulled up, but Spencer refused to give up. Eyes glowing red, he snarled and yanked at the chain so hard, Tanner heard his arm bones crack.
Ryan laughed. He looked like a frigging kid at Christmas. “This keeps getting better and better. I had no idea there were three of you freaks. Is there something in the water out there or what?”
Tanner didn’t answer, not that Ryan seemed to need one. The asshole turned to Nguyen. “I think we have some more opponents for the main event. With these three in the ring, we’ll have a hard time counting all the money we’re going to make.”
Nguyen nodded, his mouth curving into a smile. After a moment, he turned and walked out, leaving Ryan and the other two men behind.
“If you hurt that girl—” Tanner started, but Ryan cut him off.
“That’s up to you, not me. You do exactly what I tell you, and she’ll live through the night. You try anything, and the pain she’ll go through before she dies will make you sorry you were ever born.”
The threat drove Spencer even further over the edge. He jerked at the manacle until his wrist bled, but it did no good.
Tanner bit back a growl as his old friend—or the man who used to be his friend—turned and walked out of the room, taking Anton and Emilio with him, slamming the door shut as they went.
It took almost an hour to calm Spencer down, during which he roared and howled so loudly, the human prisoners put their hands over their ears to block out the sound. Tanner could have told them it wouldn’t work. He knew because he’d tried it when those doctors had injected Spencer with the hybrid serum all those months ago. Tanner hadn’t been able to do anything to help the man’s agony then, and there wasn’t anything he could do now.
* * *
“How do we know that Tanner and the others are even in there?” Zarina tried to keep the terror out of her voice as she looked at pictures of Ryan’s club spread out on the table, but she was sure she failed. “What if they’ve already killed them?”
Zarina had done all she could to keep it together, but the endless hours of doing nothing but sitting on her hands at the DCO’s storage unit in Seattle had been hard as hell. She’d practically made herself sick imagining all the horrible things that might be happening to Tanner. Was he hurt—or
