Page 26 of Hunting Isla

Franklin laughed. “She’s not wrong,” he ribbed, as Talbot crawled the large SUV around the corner. We pulled up to Kara’s old estate gate. Her house had once sat high on the hill, looking like a castle above the lowly subjects of Chatsville. I’d always wondered why Kara didn’t want to spend more time there, a princess in her tower, but she’d hated being at home, preferring to spend time at the guys’ tiny apartment for social misfits.

Now I knew it was because the mansion was a monument to power and control, where misogyny and brutality were king. All that was left of that grand manor was a single blackened wall.

“Okay, so one more time, sweetheart. What are we going to do?”

Bohdie just looked bored. “We are gonna get outta the car. I’m gonna look scared and stand behind you.”

“What next?” I prompted.

“Then when you say so, I gotta climb back in the car and lock all the doors until someone I know opens them.”

I nodded. That was the best I could do. The rest was up to fate.

We hadn’t gone fifteen feet through the gates when we were stopped by a guard. “That’s Angus. Showtime,” Franklin whispered, cracking the window an inch.

“You aren’t welcome here, bear,” Angus spat. His face was scarred, and his biceps were bigger than my head.

Franklin sighed. “Take a deep breath there, Pussy. Smell that?” I watched Angus scent the air and go still. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. We want to talk to your Regent. And we want our reward. In cash.”

Angus peered through the gap, his dead eyes assessing me before settling on Bohdie. “Drive through.”

Franklin laughed, like Bob’s right-hand man had made a joke. “So you can take them, put us down, and keep the money? Sure, Kitty Cat, that’s gonna happen. You get the Regent and our money down here, or we bounce. Maybe we’ll keep the girl and cub. She’s pretty cute, you know what I mean?” He gave a lascivious wink.

I forced a whimper. Geez, these guys flirted even in life-or-death situations.

Angus scowled and pulled out a phone. I couldn’t hear what he said, even with my shifter hearing, but I kept still. Franklin wound up the window, and we sat silently, waiting. It was the longest five minutes of my life.

When a shiny black SUV pulled up nose to nose with ours, I clenched my hands to control the shaking. Smiling brightly at Bohdie, I gave him a tight squeeze in my arms. Franklin and Talbot slid from the car first, standing either side of their open doors.

The back door of the other SUV opened, and a man stepped out. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this congenial-looking older man. He was handsome too, if you chased the silver foxes… or silver lions.

But then, if I’d been smart, I’d have known he would have been attractive. I mean, Billy was hot as hell. But part of me had expected Bob’s outside to reflect his rotten core.

He swaggered up to Franklin and Talbot, smiling with Hollywood-white teeth. A man named Bob shouldn’t have such perfect teeth. He spoke to the twins, and they all laughed like old friends. Doubt worked into my mind, but I pushed it away. I had to trust people other than myself.

Franklin meandered back to the car and pulled open the door. “Get out,” he growled menacingly, though he angled himself so Bob and his goons couldn’t see, and winked at Bohdie with a smile.

Acting hesitant, I slid from the car, pulling Bohdie out behind me. He poked his head around my back just enough that Bob could see, then ducked out of sight again, just like we’d planned. God, he was such a good kid.

Bob appraised me, looking me up and down with an expression that made a cold shiver of fear run down my spine. “Good. And you’re throwing in an unmated lioness as a bonus?” He laughed, a cold, rough sound. “It’s like all my Christmases have come at once. I always enjoy this next part, though. Especially when people think they can come into my house and fool me.”

Pulling a gun from the back of his jeans, he shot Franklin in the chest.

I stood frozen between one thudding heartbeat and the next. What had just happened?

But my new predator instincts kicked in, pushing Bohdie into the car and slamming the door shut. “Talbot!” I screamed, shaking him from his own stunned state where he was staring at his twin, who was lying bleeding on the ground. He let out a completely inhuman roar that echoed off the trees. The guys would hear that. They would come.

“Talbot!” I screamed again, reminding him of his promise to me. He had to get Bohdie out. I could have driven, but if it came to a fight, my lioness couldn’t protect Bohdie against a fully-grown lion male. But I would try and protect Franklin. I ran forward, and some peripheral part of me acknowledged the feeling of gravel hitting my skin as Talbot threw our SUV into reverse, the crack of them ramming through the gates. The men all ran toward me, and I snarled a lion’s growl at Bob from my human throat.

Everything that happened next happened in the space of a few heartbeats.

Beat one, the back of Bob’s skull exploded over the windscreen of his SUV. This I was expecting, but I hadn’t been prepared for the visceral nature of someone getting their brains blown out, or the fact that the scent of blood made my lioness go crazy.

Beat two, I leaped toward Franklin, shifting into a lion to crouch protectively over his body. I let out an angry growl at Bob’s bodyguards, but they aimed their guns toward the trees, peppering the woods with bullets, hoping to get the unseen assailant. Unfortunately for them, he was a mile away in a tree, picking them off one by one.

I rested my huge paw against the wound in Franklin’s chest, counting every beat of his heart. It was getting slower. The guys needed to hurry.

There were now only two guards left, and one aimed his gun down at me. I hunkered down over Franklin’s body and roared. “Fuck you, bitch,” the guy spat, completely unoriginally.