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Chad shook his head. “You know that’s not how this works. Give me the flash drive, and once I’ve confirmed it has the formula, you can have your mate.”
Wes handed over the flash drive, his lion growling at him and trying to take control. He knew the plan as well as Wes did but seeing Eleanor had driven rational thought from his lion. His lion’s desire to protect his mate was all-encompassing and difficult for Wes to control.
“Stop touching her,” he growled to Hoyt, who held Eleanor’s arm in a tight grip. His other hand pressed a gun against Eleanor’s ribs.
“Excuse me?” Hoyt said.
“Stop touching my mate, I said.” Wes’s lion was very close to the surface now, and the other shifters gave each other uneasy looks as Rourke grinned.
Chad took the flash drive from the human, nodding to Hoyt. “Let her go, Hoyt.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hoyt said.
“She won’t move. Not until I tell her she can,” Chad said. “Because she knows that I’ll have her mate shot in the head if she does. Isn’t that right, Eleanor?”
Eleanor’s face paled to the point where Wes thought she might simply collapse. She took a deep breath, and his lion purred encouragingly to her when she said, “That’s right.”
Hoyt rolled his eyes but released Eleanor’s arm. He shuffled back a little, keeping the gun pointed at Eleanor. “Anything else I can do for her, Chad? Maybe you want me to make her a fucking cup of tea or get her a fucking sweater?”
“Enough, Hoyt,” Chad said.
A second human left the half-circle and retrieved a laptop from the SUV. He brought it to Chad, holding it steady as Chad plugged in the flash drive and tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. Relief washed over his face. “It’s the formula.”
“Give me my mate,” Wes said.
Chad closed the laptop and pocketed the flash drive. “How many copies did you make?”
“I didn’t,” Wes said. “Give me my mate. You have your formula.” He took a step forward, and the men in the half-circle raised their guns at him as Chad took a step back.
“You realize that I can’t trust what you’re saying, right?” Chad said. “The odds of you not making a copy of the formula are astronomically low. So, I need you to tell me the truth. How many copies did you make?”
“I didn’t make any,” Wes said.
Chad sighed and glanced at Hoyt. “How many of Eleanor’s fingers do you think Rourke will need to bite off before Wes admits he made copies.”
Rourke grinned as rage flashed over Wes in a hot and heavy wave. He growled at Chad, his hands clenching into fists. “Harm my mate, and you’ll die tonight.”
“No,” Chad said. “I won’t. Because you foolishly came alone. The only people dying tonight are you and Eleanor.”
Wes grinned, revealing his long fangs. “I’m not alone, Chad.”
His grin widened when the large tiger, his sleek fur gleaming in the headlights of the car, leaped down from the top of the rotting pile of logs and landed with a heavy thud on Hoyt’s back.
CHAPTER 25
Gunfire was hella loud, Eleanor decided as the brush of the tiger knocked her flying. She landed face-first on the broken and crumbling pavement, an explosive “oof” escaping from her lips when her already bruised knee slammed into a loose chunk of pavement and her bare forearms skidded across the rough concrete.
Hoyt was lying on his stomach next to her with a tiger standing on his back. As the tiger’s thick claws sank into his flesh, Hoyt screamed pitifully. The scream abruptly ended when the powerful tiger bit into the back of his neck with a bone snapping crunch that Eleanor felt more than heard.
As there were more gunshots and screams of fear, she stared at Hoyt’s face in numb disbelief. The tiger tore a huge chunk of flesh away from his neck, and blood gushed out in a hot rush. Hoyt fell forward, his face hitting the pavement with a wet splat as his entire body shuddered once before growing still.
“I think that guy is dead,” Eleanor said as the tiger roared in triumph before bounding away. “He just got eaten by a tiger.”
“Eleanor!” Wes dropped to his knees beside her as there was another piercing scream of pain. A laptop fell to the ground in front of her, and she stared numbly at the smoking bullet hole in it as Wes grabbed her arms. His hand dug into the sutures on her arm, but she barely felt the pain as she stared at him.
“Hoyt’s dead,” she said. “Boone ate him. Or maybe it was Grayson. I didn’t get a good look. But somebody ate him. Or mostly ate him.”
Wes pressed a kiss against her mouth before half-dragging and half-carrying her toward the SUV. “Behind the car, Butterfly.”
