What kind of things am I?Austin wanted to ask.An incredible lover? Completely irresistible?Those were some answers he’d definitely accept.
“What is between you and him?” Anthony asked, suddenly looking way too interested. “I’m a young man and I never had anyone teach me about the birds and the bees.”
Austin stalked over and cuffed Anthony on the side of the head, wrenching a pained yelp and a reproachful glower from him. “As far as you are concerned, Savannah is a nun, and you do not think about her in that way, ever. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.” Anthony scowled. “Geez, I guess I’ll just die without ever getting a date.”
“Works for me,” Austin said briskly. “Okay, let’s start hauling him back to the car while he’s still out.”
Austin grabbed Roy by the feet and started dragging him downhill as fast as he could.
“He faked it before when I shot him with the darts, to get me close to him,” he grunted. “We’re going to need to keep a really close eye on him this time, to see when he starts waking up again.”
Savannah trotted along next to him.
“Do you want me to help?”
“Nah, I got this.” Austin glanced up at her and winked. “I want to impress you with my macho manliness.”
She laughed, and it made his heart sing. He loved it when she laughed. He loved it whenhemade her laugh. It was like a little gift she wrapped up just for him.
“Well, color me impressed, big boy. Very impressed. Also very angry about the fact that you handcuffed me, but we’ll deal with that later.” She nimbly leaped over a falling branch, and he admired the bounce of her full breasts, smiling as he remembered how sensitive they were.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing at all.”
Anthony was trotting along with them, panting for breath. He was nowhere near as graceful as Savannah in navigating the treacherous downward slope. “I’m taking notes!” he sang out.
“Well, stop it!” Savannah snapped at him. “You’re creeping me out.”
“I thought you loved me like an annoying cousin,” he protested.
Savannah punched his shoulder, hard. “I think I saidincrediblyannoying cousin, just to be clear. And I’d say the same thing if you were my cousin. You little weirdo.”
“Savannah said she loooves me,” Anthony sang, then promptly tripped when a loose rock flipped up under his weight, and Austin laughed out loud and didn’t offer to help him up.
When they made it down to the bottom of the mountain, Austin pulled the hard cover off the bed of his pickup truck, reached in, and yanked out a bag full of chains. He had restraints of every kind. He put several pairs of maximum strength, reinforced handcuffs on Roy’s wrists and ankles, along with thick steel chains wrapped around his entire body. He wrapped Roy up like a mummy with chains instead of bandages, then tossed him into the back seat.
He looked down at Roy, who was still unconscious, thankfully. It had been about half an hour now since he’d been tranqed, he estimated. He glanced at his watch. He’d have to time him, see how long the sedatives lasted.
“You watch him and keep that rifle pointed right at him,” he told Savannah. “The minute he wakes up, we’ll know how long the tranqs last. It should be at least a few hours per round, if he reacts anything like a normal shifter does when he’s sedated.”
“We can hope,” she said doubtfully. “I brought several dozen darts with me, and I’m going to be honest with you, I can’t promise they’ll last us for two full days.”
“Is there any possibility that you could get your mother to bring us more?” Austin winced at the idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Aside from the fact that she’d never agree to letting me do this, no. We don’t usually bother to grow a big batch of the stuff, because we don’t need that much. We have another crop that’s about halfway ready, but it’s not full strength yet. We’re on our own here.”
Savannah climbed in next to Roy in the back seat, and Austin shot her an uneasy glance. Normally, he knew, Savannah was more than capable of taking care of herself, but he’d just seen what Roy could do. He didn’t want his mate – that is, he didn’t want Savannah – anywhere near that crazy bastard. But they didn’t have much choice.
He climbed into the front seat. “If he even twitches, holler.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Anthony got in the front seat with Austin and promptly feel asleep, letting out low snores that fluttered his lips.
Austin pulled out onto the main road, then made his way down a long, skinny back road, then crossed private property owned by a shifter pack, until they reached Rural Route 7. All the access routes to the road were through private, shifter-owned property.
