Page 72 of Red Boar's Baby

CHAPTER23

Costa had had better days.

Threats to Diana were the only thing that could keep him from fighting back—but it had worked. After regaining consciousness on the plane, he had submitted with teeth-grinding frustration to being chained hand and foot. Now, several hours later, he was still chained, this time in a locked room deep in a facility of some sort.

He had been blindfolded when they brought him here, so he wasn’t sure what it looked like, or where he was. He also didn’t know where Diana was, and no one had responded to his repeated demands to see her.

They left him alone in his cell, naked and handcuffed to the wall. So far they hadn’t done anything except—through the bars—stamping one of his shoulders with a mark that, when he looked down at it, seemed identical to the red lion device on the card recovered from the crash site.

“This is Halsted’s mark,” the goon who had stamped it told him, after getting hastily out of reach. “Means you’re one of his.”

“One of his what?” Costa snapped, testing his chains. He looked down at the smeary red mark again.

“One of his fighters. You’re going to be great on the shifter fighting circuit.”

“Yeah, do you remember any point when I agreed to this or signed anything giving you permission? Me neither. This is kidnapping, and I’m a federal agent.”

“You were,” the goon said ominously, and left.

That had been a while back. So far they hadn’t brought him any water or food, or even a blanket to give him relief from the cold concrete of the cell on his bare body. After the vigorous exercise in the valley, he was parched; his tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wondered if this might be part of their plan, actually—keeping him compliant by depriving him of basic necessities.

On the other hand, having a dry mouth made one thing easier. Back on the plane, he’d palmed a zipper clip off someone’s backpack and tucked it into his mouth, thinking it might come in handy later. It was the only thing he could carry in his naked state, and the only place he could think to carry it.

He waited a long while to use it, knowing he wouldn’t get another chance. But when no one returned to get him, he slipped it out into his hand. After prying at it with his fingernails and teeth until he managed to turn it into a crude lock pick of sorts, he started working on the cuffs of his chains.

He had gotten his hands uncuffed and was working on his feet when all the alarms went off.

“There has been a security breach. Please remain calm and stay in your assigned section.”

Costa grinned to himself, and a tightly wound knot of tension in his chest relaxed a little. That was Diana; he’d lay odds on it. She was alive, well, and causing problems somewhere else in the facility.

Now he just had to get himself to where she was, which was going to involve getting out of this cell.

He finished with the leg chains and let them drop, then stood up to examine the lock on the door. It was electronic, which didn’t bode well for his ability to jigger it open with the now dented and battered clip.

However, there was more than one way to get a door open.

With the chains off, he could shift freely. Costa backed up all the way to the far wall of the cell (not far to go, as it wasn’t big) and shifted. Then he charged the door.

He took the blow on his shoulder, wincing as he was reminded of the bruises from his previous altercation with the airplane. The door shuddered but held firm. Costa backed up and took another run at it, angling to land the full force of his charge on the side of the door with the lock, which he figured was probably its weakest link. The door was sturdy and the cell was probably designed to contain shifters, but how long could it hold up to several hundred pounds of angry herbivore made by nature to pound on things?

The answer turned out to be seven or eight charges. He was sore all over and starting to lose count, but he felt it start to give on the last two tries, and finally he rammed it and was rewarded with the door slamming open with a crash that must have echoed all over the facility.

Momentum carried him on out into the corridor, and that was when the door at the end of the corridor opened with a loud click.

Costa spun around, snorting, head down. For a minute, he and the man standing framed in the open doorway stared at each other.

The man in the doorway was Agent Azarias Caine. He was wearing his usual dark suit, with a tactical vest over the top and a gun in one hand. His sunglasses were shoved on top of his head. After eyeing the boar for a minute, he said, “That better be you, Chief.”

Costa shifted and straightened up, rubbing his aching shoulder. “Of course it’s me,” he snapped. “Is Diana with you?”

“No, but we have teams all over the facility.” Caine began to unbuckle his tac vest. “Here, you can wear my jacket if you don’t want to run around?—”

“I don’t care about that. All I need is a gun.” Costa stalked over and took Caine’s out of his hand. “This one will do nicely.”

Caine raised his eyebrows. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“You’re a dragon. Somehow I think you’ll figure it out.” Costa peered past him into the hall. “I need the Cliffs Notes version of what’s happening. Where are we, what are you doing here, how many people are with you?”