“I didn’t see her there,” Laura insisted. “I just
came from there, I would have seen her!”
Travis, finally with a direction to go, loped for the path to the spa, every sense alert for some clue to what had happened, and where his mate was. Laura and Tex were close on his heels.
“Hold up!” Tex said, coming to a stop behind him.
Travis turned to see Tex standing up with a discarded brochure that Travis had ignored, blown up into the hedge. The spa was circled in pen. “This is the brochure I gave Jenny.”
Laura gave a little moan of worry and Tex put an arm around her. “We’ll find her,” he promised.
“Can you smell her?” Travis demanded. Lynx had hearing so keen he could tell when an engine was the smallest bit out of alignment, but he couldn’t smell a cigar a meter away. Tex, on the other hand, had a bear’s better-than-bloodhound nose.
Tex gave a sniff, walking in a circle around the area where he’d found the brochure. Finally, he shrugged and shook his head. “Guests, staff, Laura… I can’t smell Jenny specifically, or tell where she is.”
Travis snarled and balled helpless hands at his side. “Someone took her,” he insisted.
The distant sound of the resort van coughing into life was clear to Travis’ keen hearing. “And with no boat, there’s only one way off this island!”
Travis bolted for the resort entrance.
Chapter 20
Jenny woke when the van went around a hairpin curve and she slid into the side of the vehicle.
“Ow,” she said out loud before she could stop herself.
“Dammit,” a rough voice said. She realized after a moment that it wasn’t addressed at her.
“No, I told you, I’m going to need that plane now. I don’t care if there’s a storm incoming. This place is crawling with shifters. The lifeguard is a dragon, did you know that? Yeah. They’re gunna to come looking for her, I haven’t got that kind of time.”
There was a pause in the conversation and Jenny was able to lever herself up and peer over the back of the second seat back. The driver was the gorilla from the pool deck, wearing clothing now, and the throbbing in Jenny’s head suggested that it was his fist that had caused her unconsciousness. Her hands were tied together, and just as she was considering whether she could shift her way out of the knots and escape, she met his eyes in the rear view mirror.
“Shit,” he said. “And fuck you, too,” he added as an afterthought into the phone. “It better be there when we get there. That was the agreement.” He hung it up as vehemently as he could with a tiny button on a tiny box that was dwarfed by his large hand.
“Don’t try shifting,” he warned Jenny. “I’ve drugged you with some fancy shit that should prevent you from werewolfing or any other magic crap. Man, is your boss pissed at you right now.”
Jenny was trying to wrap her head around why anyone at the firm would be this angry with her when the werewolf statement sunk in. A wolf. They thought she was a wolf shifter like Laura. No, they thought she was Laura. This pleasant mountain of a man must have been sent by the mob that her twin sister had worked for.
Was he telling the truth about shifting?
Jenny reached for the otter within her, and was alarmed to find silence. She reached for Laura then, trying to use their odd twin bond to make some kind of meaningful contact. Silence met her again. Though her head throbbed, Jenny didn’t think it was just a concussion. The mating bond… that was stronger than either of those things, wasn’t it?
Travis…
Jenny scrunched her eyes together against the pain that bloomed behind her eyes at the effort.
“I’m not Laura,” she said.
“Sure you’re not,” the man laughed gruffly. His voice went mockingly high. “You’ve got the wrong guy, mister! I swear!”
“I have a twin sister,” Jenny said, offended.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” the man said flatly. “I’ve never heard that one before.” His flat tone suggested otherwise.
The road they were traveling was full of tight corners and steep grades. Jenny found that her feet had also been tied, and it was a challenge to remain upright without being able to spread her limbs. She wedged herself against the window, and glared at the man in the rear view mirror.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.