“I’m Tony. What’s your name?” He appeared to be the oldest of the group, maybe in his early forties, and his scent proclaimed him to be a shifter.
“Ma…” Shit. Not a good idea. “Mariah. They took me.” She gasped through each syllable, making sure her voice quavered in all the right places. “Please, you have to help me.”
“It’s okay.” The group flanked her protectively as they led her toward the patio. “You’re safe now.”
“Oh, my god,” a young shifter female gasped when she got a good look at Mackenna. “You poor thing. What happened?”
“They kidnapped me. I barely got away.”
The girl tilted her head and leaned forward so that her honey-colored hair framed her face. “Who took you, honey?”
Mackenna sniffled. “Hunters.”
A collective gasp went through the group, and one of the males growled as his eyes flashed a bright, luminous green.
“Please,” she continued to plead. “You have to help. There are others. They have a whole basement full of Gemini.”
“Felicity?” Tony called.
A vampire with dark hair and even darker eyes nodded, then disappeared through the back door of the restaurant without a word. More people had started to spill out into the street now, gathering in small groups and whispering amongst themselves. Mackenna kept her head down and did her best to look meek and afraid.
A minute later, the vampire returned with two guards dressed in black from head to toe. Neither one of them looked particularly alarmed to see a stranger covered in blood standing before them. A thread of genuine fear coursed through Mackenna’s veins. Did they know? Could they tell she was lying?
“More Raiders?” The disgust in the female guard’s voice was palpable, but at least it wasn’t directed at Mackenna.
“Hunters,” Tony responded. “She says they’re holding more in a basement.”
Both guards went rigid, and the male’s eyes glowed with an intense amber light. “Where?”
“I don’t know.” It would be so much easier if she could just give them GPS coordinates and be done with it. “I think it was some kind of camp or something.”
“How far from here?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I got away, and I just ran until I saw the lights here.”
The female guard took a step toward her. “How many Hunters are there?”
“Thirty or forty, maybe more.” She ducked her head and avoided making direct eye contact. “They have at least a dozen Gemini in cages. I heard them talking about culling them tonight.”
“Shit.” Unclipping a radio from her belt, the female rushed off, likely to gather reinforcements.
“Is there anything else you can remember?” the male guard asked. “Anything that will help us find this place?”
Mackenna bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a smile. “No, but I can show you.”
Chapter Nineteen
There was a hush in the forest, an eerie, unnatural quiet that made the hairs on the back of Cade’s neck stand on end. The hands on his watch showed twelve minutes until midnight, forty-eight minutes since he’d left Mackenna alone in the woods.
What kind of mate was he? What kind of man was he for that matter? He’d stood by while she’d stabbed herself, and he hadn’t done anything to stop Roux from tenderizing her face.
Then, he’d just left her.
“Head in the game,” Lynk whispered as they crouched together atop a wooded hill just off the narrow service road. “Showtime in one minute.”
“If anything happens to her…”
“Mack knows what she’s doing. She’s going to be fine.”
“She should have been here by now.”
“It takes time to assemble an army.” He stretched out his arm and clapped Cade on the back with his massive palm. “She’ll be here.”
Lynk was right. Mackenna was tough, smart, and as he’d witness for himself, a pretty damn good actress. She’d survived so much, and he had to believe that she’d survive this, too.
“So, how are we supposed to draw the prisoners to us, anyway?”
“Webber rigged some kind of SOS radio device. The transmission frequency is too high for the Hunters to hear, but any Gemini in the area will be able to follow it.”
Cade frowned. “Like a dog whistle?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Lynk winced, and his right eye started to twitch. “No, not a whistle. It’s a message.”
They had just ten minutes to lure the captives to them, load them up, remove their trackers—and possibly shock collars—then get them the hell out of there. Even if everything went perfectly, it still wouldn’t be enough time.
“What’s the message say?”
“Who we are. Where we are. That we’re here to help.” Lynk pressed his middle finger to the tragus of his ear and rubbed. “Let’s just hope they don’t think it’s a trap.”
Cade could see the Hunters playing some twisted game, luring Gemini to what they believed was safety, only to ambush and slaughter them. From the stories Mackenna had told, they enjoyed psychological torture just as much as they did physical.
With the rest of the team scattered throughout the forest, someone should be close enough to intercept. So, even if the prisoners didn’t trust the broadcast, they’d hopefully believe the word of a fellow Gemini. Well, if they made it that far before the shooting started.
Seven minutes.
“Won’t the Coalition here it?”
Lynk shook his head. “If they come in the front like we expect, they should be too far away. Even if they do hear it, hopefully, they’ll be too distracted with the Hunters.”
And too distracted to notice Mackenna slip away and circle back around to the west.
Six minutes.
Surveillance had shown that while Hunters patrolled the edge of the forest, as well as their
