Page 12 of Mountain Air
Chapter Eight
“Goddess protect the girls,” Garrett prayed as he revved the four-wheeler to go faster. Garrett needed to calm down before he couldn’t keep his lion in check. He was already on edge hearing that someone attacked his mother. His dad was ready to kill and would be out here with Garrett if he wasn’t worried about his mother. Yes, as shifters they were sturdier and healed faster, but his mom was sixty-three and a blow to the head hard enough to knock her out definitely gave her a concussion.
He could hear the other four-wheeler close behind him. Garrett would’ve sent Rob in another direction if he was more familiar with the terrain. As they got close to the rim of the canyon, Garrett thought he saw a light flashing. They hadn’t turned the lights on the four-wheelers yet so they shouldn’t have been seen but they were probably heard. Slowing to a stop, he motioned for Rob to pull alongside.
“Look across at about two o’clock, do you see a light?” Garrett asked, quietly. It wasn’t necessary but he erred on the side of caution. If whoever it was that took the girls was a shifter, they probably heard the engines as they came over the peak, but they couldn’t hear them talking from that far away.
“Yeah, but it looks strange. Like there’s something over it or the batteries are weak.” Rob kept his voice low too.
Garrett sat there for a minute trying to remember the different access trails to where the light was. “Okay, I want you to take this trail to the bottom and follow it around the creek edge. It should bring you out about twenty feet from the light source.”
“Where are you—” Rob started to speak but Garrett talked over him.
“I’m going to shift and go in the opposite direction. I’ll weave my way through the brush and come at them from above. Whatever you do, don’t act aggressively if there’s a mountain lion with them. We can’t know if they’ve given the lion whatever drug they’ve got.” Garrett’s lion wasn’t happy when he heard they were separating from Rob. Garrett pulled his four-wheeler off the trail and took the keys out. Handing them to Rob, he started to undress.
“Not the way I pictured seeing you naked again,” Rob teased.
“Yeah, you just wanted to see my flux capacitor again,” Garrett shot back. They both seemed to be trying to ease the tension.
“I could get used to your capacitor. How about keeping it in one piece so I can check it out again?” Rob asked, wiggling on the seat of the four-wheeler. Garrett’s lion could sense Rob’s uneasiness and wanted out to soothe him.
“I’ll see what I can do. You be careful and don’t do anything to get yourself hurt,” Garrett said before stepping back and initiating his shift.
Squatting down, he closed his eyes and gave control over to his lion. He could feel the fur sprouting from his skin, his bones realigned into front and back legs, his ears reshaped adding a point to the top and flopping over. When he opened his eyes, his sight was brighter, his sense of smell sharper. He padded over to where Rob was idling on the ATV and ran his side against Rob’s leg, marking him with Garrett’s scent. Repeating the gesture on Rob’s other side, Garrett’s lion met Rob’s gaze and bobbed his head up and down.
“Gotcha. Be safe. I’ll see you on the other side,” Rob said before gunning the engine.
Garrett stood there and watched Rob rumble down the trail. Fighting the urge to follow him, he turned and bounded off in the opposite direction. Time to find his nieces.
§ § §
Rob kept the headlights off as long as he could. Night fell rapidly in the wilderness and especially in a canyon. The sun had dipped over the rim a while ago and now there were long shadows on either side of the trail.
It didn’t take him more than ten minutes to get to the bottom of the trail. Zooming along the creek bed, Rob constantly was looking around him, expecting someone or something to come at him. There was no way that whoever this was would go to all the trouble of kidnapping Garrett’s nieces if they weren’t dangerous.
As he approached where he thought they saw the light, Rob slowed the ATV to a crawl. Moving forward, he saw the outline of a tent about thirty feet from him. There was a slight hill to his left that lead to the creek bed with a sheer rockface on the other. Putting the four-wheeler into park, he turned the ignition off and pulled the key. Not taking the time to find his flashlight in his backpack, Rob crept up on the tent. He didn’t hear anything except a soft rustling. He slipped a hand inside the flap of the tent and peered in. In the dim light, he saw the girls leaning against each other with tape across their mouths and their hands tied together. Someone needed to be hurt.
“Kelsey? Erin? It’s Rob. Your uncle’s friend. I don’t have any shots. I’m going to get you out of here.” Rob looked around behind him before he crawled into the tent. When he got to the girls, he took a minute to pull them into a hug. They felt cold to him and now that he was right next to them, he could see the tears running down their cheeks. If Garrett didn’t put a hurting on whoever did this, Rob would.
“This is going to hurt, girls and I wish it wouldn’t. I want you to close your eyes and think of rainbows and ice cream. Kelsey, you first.” Rob didn’t want to have to hurt them but there was no way he was leaving the tape on their faces any longer. He picked at the end of the tape on Kelsey’s face and got a hold of it. “On three, ready? One, two, three.” Rob yanked the tape as fast as he could and pulled Kelsey’s head to his chest to dampen the sound of her scream. “I’m sorry, princess. I’m sorry.”
“Unchi. You’re unchi’s friend. You smell like Unchi,” she corrected him, making him chuckle.He smelled like Garrett?
“I’ll try and remember that,” he told her. “Ready Erin?” He could see the fear in her eyes and steel himself for her scream. “One, two, three.” He rocked Erin in his arms when the tape was gone. That sucked hairy donkey balls. Not something he ever wanted to do again. “Okay, let me untie you and then we’ll go find your uncl— unchi.”
The moron that tied these knots didn’t know a hitch from a figure eight. It took less than thirty seconds before the rope… well more like twine… was on the floor of the tent. Rob grabbed Erin’s hand in his right, Kelsey’s in his left and pushed out of the tent.
“I’d stop there if I were you.” A man’s voice came from the darkness near the creek.
Ignoring the man’s warning, Rob stood up and placed himself between the man and the girls. He was going to have to go through him to get them again. Garrett should be close. Maybe he was just waiting until the rest of the man’s group showed themselves. He couldn’t be here alone.
“I’m going to leave now with these little girls. Move out of our way,” Rob commanded. It was worth a shot, right?
The man stepped up to Rob and rammed his hands against Rob’s chest. He stepped sideways to avoid falling into the girls. “Not thinking that’s going to happen. Sit your ass down and the brats too,” the man said as he backhanded Kelsey.
Rob wasn’t sure what happened next except he felt something burst inside him. He fell to the ground and rolled down the embankment. When he came to a halt, Rob tried to stand but there was something wrong. His legs weren’t working right. He shook his body and felt fabric move against his midsection. What the fuck? Rob braced his hands against the ground and looked down at them. Holy shit! He had paws! He was a fucking puma!
Racing up the hill, he let out a loud roar and headbutted the man, knocking him to the ground. Instincts Rob didn’t know where they came from had him leaning down and wrapping his jaws around the man’s neck. Just as he was about to clamp down, he heard Garrett and froze in place.
