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“That’s not any of your business, Clyde. It’s Clyde, right? Let me ask you something, why are you doing this? Why kidnap me? If you know Reynolds at all, you’ll know he takes a dim view of someone coming after his people.”
“My people aren’t afraid of that lynx-shifter or your mate.”
“Which only proves how stupid your people are. I think your buddies left because they knew the level of vengeance that was headed your way and left you to be the one to be sacrificed for the rest of them. But don’t feel bad—neither Sean nor Colby will settle for just you.”
Clyde looked concerned; Winter was fairly sure this thought hadn’t occurred to him.
“Nah,” he sneered. “You’re just trying to scare me into letting you go.”
Winter shook her head. “No. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. You are dead man walking.”
“This is all your fault, bitch,” he said, slapping her across the cheek.
“No, Clyde. You’re just cannon fodder for the ones who give you orders. They don’t give a shit about you or your buddies.”
“That’s not true. They say we have to establish an orderly society before…” His sentence trailed off as he must have realized he was about to give something away.
“What a crock. I’ll bet the puppet masters pulling your strings aren’t even here in Alaska. Are they even in North America, or do you have the slightest clue as to where they are safely tucked away behind their stone, steel, and digital fortresses, where they are protected from the fallout that will result from their folly?”
“You don’t know anything. If you and your alpha mate had gone back to your rock in Scotland, none of this would have been necessary.”
Now, that was interesting. What did Sean bring to the table that had made those behind the curtain risk coming after me? It’s Sean they fear, not me or even Colby.
Clyde paced back and forth, stopping every couple of minutes to look at the door. Was he expecting his friends to return? Was he worried about Sean coming for him? Was he thinking about running? It didn’t matter as each time he did, Winter raised her wrists to her face so she could work the zip ties. The first thing she did was work them around until the locking mechanism was straight up on top of her wrists, between her hands. Then little by little, she tightened the cuffs. The tighter she could stand them, the easier they would be to break, but she had to be careful not to cut off the circulation to her hands—she was going to need those.
The wolverine was worried. That worry was becoming more frantic. His frantic was beginning to border on panic. More and more, his attention was diverted away from her as his pacing became quicker and more erratic. At first, he had paced in the clear space between Winter and the door. Now he moved from there to a window, where he peered outside before moving to the next window. Clearly no one had prepared or properly trained this guy. He was beginning to become a bit unhinged.
Winter brought her hands up to the iron collar around her neck. There was no actual lock, so opening the closing mechanism shouldn’t prove too difficult or take too much time. Winter centered herself and had to work to keep from smiling as she could see her snow leopard, prowling within the dark recesses of her mind. With the iron collar in place, she couldn’t shift. Something about the metal kept a shifter from shifting from human to altered self or vice versa. She wasn’t overly concerned, as the man had discarded his weapon, placing it on the top of a box at the far end of the path he paced. Even in her human form she could take him easily if she had to.
Whoever was pulling his strings had failed to warn him about Winter’s lethal skills. She had to remind herself that if she killed him, he couldn’t give them any information—information that might prove vital. The first thing they needed to figure out was why Sean was so important.
“So, Clyde, what are we waiting for? I don’t think your buddies are coming back. You keep pulling out your phone as if you’re expecting a call. Don’t you have the ringer on?”
“Shut up and quit watching me.”
It was hard watching a man unravel, but in this case, it could help her take him down. Her preference would be to keep him alive, but if push came to shove and she had to choose, she would choose to end his life rather than have him take hers.
“Someone is supposed to come and take you out of here. That should draw your mate away and will leave the others vulnerable,” he said, staring at the phone as if that would make it ring.
“Take me where?”
“I told you to shut up.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I was just making conversation to pass the time. You don’t live here in Mystic River, do you?”
“No. I live outside of Kodiak. We have a small pack and mostly stay away from Mystic River.”
“I would think Mystic River would be a better place for a shifter. I know we can pass for human, but I would worry about being so close to a large human city—after all wolverines, like snow leopards, aren’t native to the island. It’s nice living some place I can shift and go for a run.”
“Well, we wolverines aren’t big on runs, and all the wolves, bears, and big cats up your way can make it hard for us. They told me if I helped them, they’d relocate me and my family to some place we could thrive and not have to hide.”
Winter nodded her head. “I can see where that would be an enticement. I’d invite you to Windsong, but you don’t seem to like Mystic River. How about you let me go, and we’ll pick up your family and take you anywhere you like. Colby has a plane, and so does Sean for that matter; it wouldn’t be an issue.”
He huffed a laugh. “If I help you or your mate, they’ll kill my family before you have a chance to get to them. No. No,” he said, shaking his head. “I need to see this through.”
From a distance, she could hear what sounded like a small helicopter coming in low over the river’s surface. If the pilot had flown north of the town and then come back, he might easily escape detection. She could feel Sean at the other end of the link, but not strongly enough to know where he was or what he was planning. No matter. Winter would do as she had always done and simply save herself.
When Clyde stepped out onto the porch, presumably to check on the helicopter, Winter raised her arms over her head and brought her hands back down into her abdomen with a violent motion. Trying to simulate touching her shoulder blades together, she caused her elbows to flare out like chicken wings. As she did so, the ties broke at their weakest point, which was the locking mechanism, freeing Winter and allowing her to spring into action. She didn’t take the time to remove the collar as she didn’t need to shift in order to deal with Clyde.
