Judge: Mating Fever: Shifters Forever Worlds (Barely After Dark Book 3) (4 page)

J
udge froze
.

Lani slammed on the brakes, but the car clipped him just as she swerved, sending the vehicle hurtling into the trees on the wrong side of the mountain—the side facing downhill.

Judge stumbled, his side felt like it was on fire. He fell forward on all fours, then crumpled briefly.

His bear bellowed, rising to unsteady paws.

Lani’s car dangled precariously off the ledge, held in place only by a few young trees. Judge loped, limping, to the driver side of the car, shifting into his human form rapidly. Thankfully his training as an Enforcer allowed him to keep his proficiency at shifting. Too bad it didn’t lessen the pain. Just made the process quicker, so the pain didn’t last as long.

He drew to a stop next to her car door. The side window had blood on it. She was slumped forward, clearly unconscious.

Judge tugged on the door.

The car made a creaking sound—or maybe that was the trees. It teetered, then settled back in.

Not good.

It could fall at any moment.

He pulled on her door handle, opening it, and pushed her head backward, hoping he wouldn’t create more damage from doing that.

Blood dripped down her temple toward her cheek.

He grunted as a stabbing pain seized near his ribs.

He didn’t have the time for this shit. He needed to get her out of the car before it fell.

Judge tugged her out of the car, glad she hadn’t fastened her seatbelt.

Then again maybe that would have kept her from hitting her head.

Another set of hands reached for her. He turned to look at the newcomer.

“Lance,” he grunted through the pain.

“Step back. We’ll get her.” Cross stepped up, putting his hand on Judge’s side.

“No. I can’t lose her.” Judge groaned from the touch, though it shouldn’t have hurt, not normally, not if he hadn’t been hit by a speeding car.

“Mac,” Lance called out. “Take care of Judge. He’s bleeding.”

Judge looked down, saw blood on his shirt. He glanced up. Mac, Lance’s mate was raising his shirt.

Next to Judge, Lance and Cross had taken a still-unconscious Lani out of her car.

Not a moment too soon, as her car made a protesting groan and slid down the mountainside, rolling several times in an angled clearing, then landing with a thunderous thud.

“What the hell is going on up here?” Cross’s voice seemed loud to Judge’s ears.

Mac touched his rib. Judge grunted from the pain and pushed her hand away, shaking his head. “Take care of Lani. I’m fine.”

Mac frowned at him. “You’ve always been too hardheaded for your own good.”

She turned toward Lani. Judge couldn’t tear his eyes off Lani’s pale face.

“She’ll be fine. Let’s get her to the clinic, though,” Mac said. “I want to get an X ray and check her vitals. She hit her head, maybe a concussion. We’ll take her.” She indicated toward Lance to get the oversized suburban.

“I’m riding with you,” Judge announced.

“Not a chance,” Cross said. “You’re riding with me and Ariadne. You have some questions to answer.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m leaving her alone,” Judge snapped at his older brother.

He helped them get Lani in the car, reclining her in the extended cargo area that Mac used for transporting, they laid a blanket beneath her. Judge crawled in next to her, favoring his injured side. He stretched out his legs in front of him, wincing as it pulled on the injury.

As soon as he could be sure she was fine and safe with his brothers, he planned to go into a healing hibernation. Shouldn’t take long if he could only get into his bear form and hibernate. It always amplified and accelerated healing.

“What are you guys doing?” Judge asked. “You were headed toward my Dragon’s Point.”

“Yeah, you called. Then Cross talked to Griz. He said he had a feeling—that we should check on you.”

“Griz has his fingers on the pulse of things more often than not,” Judge grumbled. He didn’t exactly mind that Griz seemed to always predict when he or one of his brothers needed him, but how he knew was confusing, to say the least.

Lani moaned.

Judge brushed her hair away from her face. “Lani, you’re going to be okay.”

I hope.

Lani’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils dilated, then her lids closed again, then opened. She focused on Judge’s face. “What—who—where am I?” She tried to raise her head, then dropped it again. Her hand reached toward the bloody laceration.

Judge caught her hand just in time and held it away from the injury. “You had an accident. We’re taking you to Mac’s clinic. She’s going to do some tests. Run an X ray.”

Lani’s eyes widened. She wriggled, struggling to rise. “No. No X ray.”

Judge frowned.
What’s the big deal?

“I’m sure it’s fine. Mac’s good.”

“You don’t—no—I can’t.” She panted, almost seemed to be hyperventilating.

She jerked her arm up, striking his injured side.

He flinched, fighting to keep the grimace of pain from his face. “Okay. Relax.” What the hell was her problem with getting checked by Mac?

He leaned back, closed his eyes against the pain.

“Judge?”

Trying not to keep his pain from ruling his senses, while also struggling to push his feelings for Lani back, Judge opened them again. “Yeah?”

She’d turned her head and her face was almost touching his thigh. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m okay.”

“That was you I hit? Your bear? I didn’t mean—”

“I know. I know you didn’t.”

“I’m okay, really.”

“I’m an Intuitive. You can’t lie to me.”

He fought to keep his pulse even, even though he wasn’t sure if that was how she read his emotions. Pulse-reading was how shifters ascertained another’s fear, joy, sadness, as well other emotions.

“Who said I’m lying?”

“Judge.” That single word came off her lips in a sigh.

The sigh tugged at Judge’s gut, at his heart, at his bear’s soul. Then the anger set in.

She walked away.

He turned his head toward the window.

Damned if he’d let her see the emotions on his face.

Moments later, or maybe forever later, they pulled up in front of Mac’s clinic, part of the Bear Canyon Wildlife Reserve Mac was the head of.

Judge helped Lance get Lani out of the vehicle, even though the effort made his side feel like he was being stabbed—over and over again. He gritted his teeth against the pain and put his arm around Lani. She was more important right now. She hit her head.

Mac was already inside, a medical bag in her hand.

“I can walk.” Lani nudged herself away from Judge’s hold. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are.” Mac had put on her best bedside manner. “Come in here.”

Lani gave her a wry smile. “I can’t believe I’m being treated in a vet’s office.” She pointed to Judge. “He needs help. I hit him with the car.”

Mac snapped her head in Judge’s direction. “Is that what happened?”

Judge nodded, giving Lani a dirty look for turning the attention away from her own needs. “It’s no biggie. I can wait ‘til you’re done with Lani.”

I think.

He leaned against the wall.

“Bro,” Lance whispered. “You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m fine. Nothing a short hibernation heal won’t take care of.”

Lance frowned. “If you say so. I’m going to make sure Mac’s got this covered.”

Cross and Ariadne walked in just as Lance went into the examination room.

“Hey, got her car pulled out of the trees,” Cross said. “Called a tow truck. Where are they?”

“Examination room.” Judge indicated with his head.

“You’re next.” Cross’s voice was firm. “You’re not looking good. And your pulse is getting weaker.”

“I’m fine.”

Cross shook his head. “You’re not.”

L
ani braced
against the tightening of the blood pressure cuff. Why did they always have to get so tight?

“So, you’re Lani.” Mac kept her eyes on the blood pressure monitor.

Lani nodded. She didn’t pick up any negative vibrations from the blonde with the clear blue cornflower eyes. “You’ve heard of me?”

Mac nodded. “Not until recently. Judge called Lance. Something about someone being AWOL. That’s you?”

Lani nodded. Her Intuitive senses said she could absolutely trust the blond veterinarian.

“Why’d you go AWOL? Aren’t there severe repercussions?”

She gave another nod. “I had to.” She flinched when Mac touched near the head injury.

“Hang on. A little sting.” She dabbed at the spot.

Though really, if felt like she’d used a jackhammer on it.

“Ouch!”
She calls that a little sting?
“I’d hate to see a big sting.”

“Sorry.” Mac gave a sympathetic wince. “You don’t need stitches. Look here, please.” Mac shone a light in her eye, then in the other eye.

“Hurting anywhere else? You were limping when you walked in. I have an X ray machine here.”

“No! No X ray.”

Mac raised Lani’s sleeve, tied a piece of elastic tubing over her bicep, and took out a syringe. “Just a little bit of blood. To be sure.”

That didn’t seem normal, but Lani didn’t even think about it until after it was done.

“So why are you AWOL? Why are you in Bear Canyon Valley?”

“Word gets around, doesn’t it?”

“Small valley. Close-knit shifter community. You know how it goes.”

No, actually. I don’t.

How could she possibly get it? She was from a different community. The Intuitives were more reserved, less likely to show emotions because they didn’t need to show them—they felt what others were feeling.

That was what attracted Lani to Judge, to the shifter ways. Expressing rage, love, anger, sorrow, all of those emotions she’d always felt like she had to control.

For an Intuitive, expressing emotions was like screaming, just wasn’t done. Not in public, and rarely in private.

That includes sex.

Sex didn’t seem to be anything like it had been with Judge. Loud, messy, sweaty, juicy, hot, full of pumping pulses, elevated blood pressure, heightened sensations.

“Well?”

Lani realized she’d been so lost in her own thought, she hadn’t answered Mac. “Long story.”

“I’ve got a few moments.” Mac slipped into a reach-in cooler and grabbed two bottled waters. She handed one to Lani.

“I don’t have that much time.”

“Give me the Cliff notes.”

Persistent, much?

Lani bit back the sigh of exasperation.

“You never know,” Mac said, as if she could read Lani’s mind. “We may be able to help.”

Doubtful.

Cliff notes, here we go. “My best friend Pepper is missing. She’s an Intuitive, like me. You know what that is?”

Mac nodded. “Lance told me. I do have some questions about that. They can wait though.” She waved her hand for Lani to continue.

“Pepper freelances. She applied for the Compliance Unit when I did.” Lani grimaced. “She didn’t make it.” She blew a breath out. How could she sum up almost four years of Pepper’s freelancing? “Anyway, some of the organizations she works for…” She shrugged. “She has no business associating with those types.”

“Like what types?”

Another grimace. This part was hard to tell. Pepper was a good person, she didn’t engage in illicit activities. “Like maybe criminal organizations.”

Mac took a long drink off the bottle, then wiped her lips with a tissue from the dispenser. “Why does she do that?”

“She didn’t plan to. Guess she got involved with a guy…”

Mac nodded. “Yeah—keep going.”

“Didn’t find out until later that he wasn’t such a great guy.”

“Shifter?”

A knock at the door interrupted Lani’s response.

Lance peeked his head in. “You’re needed.”

Mac gave him a strange look. “Right now?”

“Yeah. In the back. Large animal bay.”

“Wh—” Mac started.

“Now, babe.” Lance took her by the hand. “Cross and Ariadne are back there now too.”

“This way.” Mac nodded toward the door opposite the one they’d come in, clearly the one that led to the back. “I’ll be back in a couple,” she said to Lani.

Lance followed Mac out.

Lani stared at the closed door they’d just gone through. She waited for what seemed like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than five minutes. The silence and emptiness of the room got to her. She opened the door she’d come in, the one that led to the lobby and glanced around.

Empty.

Where was everyone? Where was Judge?

All she saw was a set of keys on the counter.

I shouldn’t.

A
few hours later
…

L
ani drove to Denver
, the signals from Pepper were intermittent, but when they came, they came with an intensity that drove through Lani’s mind with the fierceness of a migraine’s lightning bolt.

She’d parked the borrowed—stolen—vehicle in the dilapidated parking area full of potholes and debris in the midst of an army of warehouses. The warehouse district was a ghost town. It was near dusk, and Lani’s eyes were gritty from the lack of sleep.

She opened the car door and stepped out, almost falling into one of the large potholes.

The baby was giving her fits, making the nausea a constant, rather than a sporadic issue.

Dear God, let me find Pepper quickly and get her to safety. And find a place to shower. And food.

Her stomach rumbled. Then a sharp pain jerked, low in her abdomen, beneath her stomach.

She lurched forward from the pain then rested against the vehicle, leaning her forehead into the cool glass.

Here we go.

A piercing pain in her eye, worse than the one in her abdomen, pulled a shriek from her.

She clapped one hand over her mouth while the other hand flew to her eye.

Then the hand over her mouth began to burn. The pain of her eye, hand, abdomen brought a low moan out of her. She rolled her back against the truck, then slowly lowered herself until she was sitting in potholes, crumbling asphalt, and pebbles.

The pain in her eye wouldn’t subside. It was so strong, it made the pangs and aches in her abdomen seem nonexistent.

She closed her eyes against the agony and tried to concentrate on her breathing—anything to take her away from the pain.

“Here we go. Just like Clark said.”

Her eyes flew open.

Three men stood above her. Attired in jeans and khakis with T-shirts that pulled tightly across broad chests, they were appraising her as if she were a steak in a butcher’s window.

“Who are you? Please help. I need to get to a hospital.”

“We’ve got the right place for you.”

Before Lani could protest or even react, she was blindfolded, gagged, and carried by one of them.

His perspiration gave away countless unbathed days.

Lani fought back the nausea the scent of him brought up.

The sound of a door creaking open and the sensation of a different environment heralded a new smell. Dank, mildew, stuffy. She knew she’d been taken into one of the warehouses.

But which one?

Did it matter which one, she scoffed at herself.

She was set down roughly, her hands released. She pulled the blindfold off and jerked the nasty gag out of her mouth.

Indignation had well set in. She studied the men surrounding her. The agony in her forehead was still prevalent. But it was interrupted by the sound of whimpering that came from behind the men.

She craned her neck.

“Pepper?”

“I’m sorry, Lani. I tried, I couldn’t after they—he—I’m sorry.”

The men stepped aside.

Lani clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from letting the horrific sight before her be expressed in a scream.

Her mind was still desperate to release a scream, to let out the horror of what she was witnessing. Beneath her fingers, she bit her lip.

Coagulated blood had made a crimson trail of tears from one of Pepper’s eyes down her face, neck, and left its mark on her top. Blood still seeped down, albeit slowly.

Lani couldn’t tell if her eye was missing or injured.

She cringed inwardly.

Now she knew where the searing pain she’d experienced came from. Her connection to Pepper was so strong, Lani’s body had experienced reflections of Pepper’s pain.

Remembering the pain in her hand, Lani glanced at Pepper’s hand.

Bloody.

A gaping wound on the back of her hand that seemed to go through her palm.

What the hell happened to her?

All those thoughts happened in a matter of seconds.

Lani leapt to her feet and ran to Pepper. She wrapped her arms around her friend’s shaking shoulders.

Sobs wracked Pepper’s body.

Lani squeezed her tighter and looked at the men watching them. “She needs a doctor.”

The men were unmoving, staring at her.

“Now, dammit. Call 9-1-1.”

From behind the men came the sound of laughter. One man’s laughter. Eerie, the sound filled the room and bounced off the walls.

Slowly, each of the men began to laugh in sync with the unnatural laughter.

A man stepped from behind the men. The source of the laughter, he was tall, thin to the point of being gaunt, attired in all black, with short black hair slicked back. His face was pale with deep-set black eyes. He stopped laughing, thin lips curving into a tightlipped smile. If she only had one name to give him as a description, Lani would have chosen the word gravedigger.

“Nice of you to join us, Miss Meyers.” The depths of his eyes flashed a light blue color in their depths.

Join us? What the hell is he talking about?

That didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered was Pepper’s injuries.

“My friend needs a doctor.”

“She’ll survive.” His tone was cold. “Take them to the holding area.”

Moments later, Lani and Pepper were alone in a room that had no windows, and a huge padlock on the outside of the door. Lani noticed the lock as she’d walked into the room.

She studied her surroundings. A ratty, filthy dingy warehouse. Dark walls covered with dust, grime, and who knew what. The flooring was crude concrete. A chair and a makeshift bed were against the far wall.

Makeshift because it was a board on top of several milk crates, with a bunch of blankets on top. No comfort. Unsanitary.

Rumpled T-shirts were strewn across the blankets.

“Let’s get that covered for now.” Lani picked out the cleanest of the shirts, and ripped it in half. She wrapped one part around Pepper’s eye, making a provisional eye patch, careful not to touch the injury, hoping her vision in that eye could be saved. She wrapped the other half around Pepper’s hand,

“What happened to you? Why are you here?”

Pepper sniffled. “Thank you. That creep is an elemental. He made an ice storm, shooting icicles at me.”

“God. Why?”

“He wanted me to tell him where you were. When I wouldn’t, he said he knew how to get you here, that he’d use our connection, and my pain would bring you. He shot icicles at my eyes. One—” She heaved a breath that was closer to a sob. “One of those ice projectiles did this.” Her uninjured hand waved toward the patch. “The next icicle was headed toward my other eye, but I managed to stop it.” She held up the wounded hand.

“Why? Why would they do that?”

“They are collecting Intuitives for—”

Lani’s groan interrupted Pepper. By the time the second groan had exited her mouth, Lani had doubled over. A flash of heat traveled over her body.

She reached for the wall for support.

“Lani.” Pepper put an arm around her. “What is it?”