Free Dead But Not Forgotten by Charlaine Harris

plane with his sister in the seat in front of him. Across the aisle were three gun thugs, one adjacent to each of the Quinn siblings and a third one row up, just for good measure—three killers in a row.
    â€œDo you really think this is somehow your fault?” he asked, frowning. “You didn’t get me into this, Fran. You’re here because of me.”
    The man sitting across from Quinn raised the gun from his lap and aimed it at him. “Shut up.”
    Frannie had been half turned so she could talk quietly with her brother, but now she slid around to face straight ahead, like a schoolgirl who’d been scolded.
    Quinn forced himself to exhale his rage, to stay calm. Even in shackles, he could have killed the man in seconds, gun or no gun. Perhaps he would be shot, but he thought the odds were with him. Trouble was, the two guys who were covering Frannie would shoot her instantly. He’d never be able to disarm them all before they killed her.
    Quinn glanced at the man to his right, at the gun resting on his lap.
    â€œYou know,” he said, “you’re going to have to take these cuffs off when we get there. No point in keeping me like this.”
    The man gave him a sidelong glance, almost a sneer. “I’ve got my orders, man. Just like you. We’ll both follow them and maybe everyone comes out of this alive.”
    Quinn grunted. “Maybe.”
    The guard in Frannie’s row turned to stare back at Quinn. “You gonna make a move? Are you that stupid?”
    â€œI won’t endanger my sister’s life.”
    The man smiled thinly. The one guarding Quinn seemed all business, but this one took sadistic pleasure in their circumstances. The urge to twist his head off was strong. Quinn inhaled again and caught the scent of fear. Remarkably it came not from Frannie but from the final guard, the man in the row ahead of Frannie’s. He glanced back nervously, clearly terrified of being in an enclosed space with a weretiger.
    You’re the smartest one,
Quinn thought.
    â€œI really
am
sorry,” Frannie said quietly.
    The guards all glanced over at her. The one across the aisle from Quinn seemed about to object, but then he settled down, perhaps deciding that he no longer cared, that conversation between brother and sister would not change the outcome.
    â€œYou didn’t put me here,” Quinn said, his voice a low growl. “That bastard Teague did this.”
    â€œTeague forced your hand,” Frannie agreed, “but you suggested this setup to protect Mama and me, and the baby.”
    Quinn said nothing. He would never blame Frannie or his mother for the cruelty, greed, and savagery of other people. Faced with the threat of harm to his family, or the nightmare of his boy being enslaved to murderous combat like some ancient gladiatorial beast, he had made a different offer to Teague—Quinn would become the weapon they sought. They didn’t have to wait twenty years for his son to be their tiger-warrior; he would serve them now, go anywhere and kill anyone as long as they abandoned any effort to take and use his son, and as long as they left his mother and sister alone.
    They had kept him in a cell for more than another week, only lightly drugged and with the threat that if he attempted to escape, Frannie and his mother would die. As the days passed, he had realized that they were waiting for the full moon, thinking that he would be stronger then, and that he would be less able to control his own ferocity. On those counts, they had been correct.
    Quinn glanced out the window of the plane. The sky had begun to darken as they hurtled toward the horizon, the clouds sifting away below them. Soon they would fly into nightfall and the moon would shine.
    â€œI don’t even know where you’re taking me,” he said.
    â€œA place where the people won’t obey, and the tyrant who rules wants to set an example. The company is being paid