Chapter 34
Aiden drove Jamie the short distance to Ted and Annie’s home, while Iris followed along in her Jeep. His hands trembled on the steering wheel. He didn’t want Jamie going into one of these monster’s heads. What if it was a trick? Or what if it reminded him of the hell he’d been through in that cage?
“Mate is strong. Let him help,” his phoenix said.
“You agree with this idea! I’d have thought you’d want to keep him safe.”
“He’ll be safe. We’ll be right there with him along with a pregnant bear with extraordinary shifter strength, an angry mama eagle, and a former alpha wolf,” the beast answered.
Aiden blinked. His phoenix was right. His sister and friends would be there to help. He let out a shaky breath.
He startled when Jamie laid a hand on his thigh. “It’ll be fine,” Jamie said.
Aiden turned to look at him briefly before turning back to the road. “I know. I’m just worried.”
“Now you know how I feel when you do something dangerous. And this isn’t nearly as perilous as flying. I have to watch you hurtling through the sky like a bird.”
“I am sort of a bird,” Aiden mumbled.
“Even so!”
“I know, I know.” Aiden chuckled weakly.
“Besides, you’ll be there staring him or her down the entire time, right?” Jamie said.
“Deacon says it’s a male shifter and, yes, I will be staring him down the entire time,” Aiden answered. “I’ll be sitting right next to you so I can incinerate him if he hurts you.”
Jamie patted his leg. “I know you will.”
Within minutes, Annie, carrying a sleeping Amber, led Aiden, Jamie, and Iris into a room at the end of the hallway on the first floor of their home. It was Ted’s home office. In the center of the room, a pale thirty or forty-something-year-old man with stringy dark brown hair sat in a chair. It appeared as if his hands were somehow restrained behind his back. Ted, in his enormous black wolf form, stood growling at him, the fur on his back standing up. A barefoot Mac stood a step behind the wolf in her bathrobe, her long raven hair in a messy bun. She had an odd-looking gun trained on the man. Shoot, that was one of the guns that emitted phoenix fire. He thought the SCB had taken custody of all the ones the local police found. As soon as Mac registered their presence, her shoulders slumped in relief.
Aiden stepped farther into the room to stand next to Mac to get a better look. He noticed she was panting. “Mac, are you alright?” Aiden asked in an even voice. He nodded to the captive. “He’s tied up, right?”
“Yeah, I used a pair of handcuffs.” She let out a breath. “He tried to take Tes— I mean Amber. My baby,” she said in a flat voice.
“Looks like you and Ted took care of him,” Jamie said from just behind them. Ted relaxed his stance but remained in wolf form close to their captive.
She slowly shook her head. “No, not him. The other one.”
“Deacon said Ted had to kill him,” Aiden said.
“He bit right through his arm, then slashed his insides. I could have saved him with my shifter healing, but I didn’t want to.” When she looked at Aiden, he shivered at the ferocity in her yellow eagle’s eyes. He’d never seen angry Mac before.
“Where is he? I mean, where’s his body?” Iris asked.
Annie spoke. “Ted dragged him out back while Mac took care of this one.” She was rocking a sleeping Amber in her arms. She certainly didn’t look as freaked out as Aiden thought she’d be after watching her wolf husband drag a dead man from their home.
“That human’s tough,” Aiden’s phoenix mused.
“Agreed.”
“What happened to this one?” Aiden gestured to the man tied to the chair.
The man’s eyes were closed. The dark shirt he wore was drenched with blood. Blood dripped down the side of his face from a wound on his head.
“This guy is some kind of cat or wolf shifter. I can’t tell. He doesn’t smell right.” She shook her head.
“Not quite human, not quite shifter,” Jamie mumbled.
“One of my father’s men,” Aiden told his beast.
Mac nodded toward their captive. “I clawed him with my talon. Got him in the kidney and spleen. I came to my senses and realized we needed to get information from at least one of them. I managed to stop the bleeding. Annie grabbed the baby and called Heath.”
“Good, we need answers,” Aiden said.
“I tried to get answers from him, but even this gun”—she waved the weapon at the bleeding man—“wouldn’t get him to talk.”
The captive opened his eyes to slits, his eyes glowing green like some of his father’s shifter experiments, and spit blood at Mac. “I don’t know anything. I was just following orders.”
Ted snarled, deep and low.
“Following orders is no excuse!” Mac shouted at the man. “You tried to kidnap my child!”
“I would never hurt the kid. I was just bringing her back for the boss,” the man muttered.
“Who’s your boss?” Mac asked. “Why’re you working for him?”
The man’s face contorted as if fighting himself. “No,” he hissed. “I’ll never talk. Just kill me. It’ll be better than what he’ll do to me if I say anything.”
“I can get the answers we need, and I don’t need him to talk,” Jamie said. He walked to the chair opposite the desk and dragged it right in front of their captive. He took a seat facing the man.
Aiden knelt next to Jamie. “You sure you don’t want me to try some thermal therapy?” He raised a brow. “I bet that’d get him to talk.”
Jamie shook his head and turned back to the captive. “No, I’ve got this.”