Free Kane by Loribelle Hunt

her. “Oh, I thought it was pretty good.”
    “Mathias, drag her by the hair if you have
to.”
    “Be ready to run, Calista,” Mathias said.
    Everything in her screamed no, but she didn’t
respond, too busy trying to stay alive.
    “Now, Sebastian,” Kane yelled and both men
shifted.
    Fast, without stripping first, but the
clothes didn’t encumber them. They were on the attack before anyone
noticed. Panic set in, mayhem followed. Mathias grabbed her arm and
dragged her straight through the melee. She struggled as they went,
craning her head to see over her shoulder. Terrified for Kane and
the reticent weretiger she’d come to respect. One of the men got a
lucky strike at the tiger, slicing him down the side, and she
screamed, struggling to free herself from Mathias’s grip, wanting
to go back and help.
    It was no use. He outweighed her by at least
eighty pounds, had the superior strength of a werewolf and had
honed it to a fine edge. He got her to where the horses were
hobbled and threw her over the back of one, while leaping onto
another. He took both reigns and they were off. It was all she
could do to straighten herself and not fall off.
    They rode for an hour, twisting into the old
ruins but steering clear of any lights. Finally, he called a halt,
and they dismounted, checking to see which supplies they’d gotten
away with. She reloaded her revolver, double checking to make sure
the other had six shots.
    “You know he wants me to take you home,”
Mathias said softly. The night was silent. Too quiet.
    She stilled. No way. “And you know I
won’t go.”
    “And why is that little human? What’s it to
you?”
    The voice came from the brush in front of
her, and the vampire who’d helped Izzy earlier stepped into the
clearing. Alec.
    “I won’t leave my sister,” she answered. “I
won’t leave Kane and Sebastian.”
    He held her gaze, and she looked back
steadily, trying to pour all her resolve into it. She was not going off without them. All of them. Finally, he nodded,
and she released a pent up sigh of relief.
    “We need a plan, then,” he said and her
relief was even greater. They had help, the best kind probably. A
vampire.
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
     
    Kane paced the small cell, glancing worriedly
over at Sebastian every few minutes. The weretiger wasn’t healing
as fast as he should. The cut down his abdomen still oozed blood,
and Kane was afraid infection might set in. That was rare among his
kind, but under these conditions, where they couldn’t flush the
wound out and clean it, it could happen.
    If he knew Calista, she was already planning
a rescue attempt, and if she did, he’d tan her hide when he got her
home. Not to mention Mathias. He and Sebastian needed to escape on
their own, before anymore of his people were put at risk.
    When Sebastian had gone down, he’d leapt to
his defense, and the attackers overwhelmed them both. They’d
surrendered and gone quietly. As long as Tobias’ men were kept busy
with them, Calista had a chance to get free. They’d been brought
into the inner city, to a large, walled compound. A house sat in
the middle with several buildings surrounding it. An armory and
barracks, Kane guessed. The building they were taken to had been
set up as a small jail, with two cells. The back wall and side wall
of the cell they were in was wood, with iron bars separating them
from the next cell and the main room on the front side. The door
was locked, the guard was gone, and the idiot had left the keys on
a hook by the door. The question was, how was he going to get to
them? For the first time in his life, he saw the use for snake
shifters. He stretched his arm through the bars again, knowing it
was futile. The keys were several feet out of reach. Banging his
head against the bars, he let his hand drop to wrap in a white
knuckled grip around them. Fuck!
    “That helping much?” Sebastian asked.
    “No.”
    “Want to talk about it?”
    No, he didn’t want to talk