Leap of the Lion (The Wild Hunt Legacy #4)(105)

Trained all too well to stay silent, the village females, from fourteen to twenty-four years old, peeked into the hall, saw her, and suddenly she was surrounded.

“Thought you were dead.”

“They said they caught you.”

“Said you screamed.”

“You died.”

Hugs and whispers and more hugs and tears.

Keeping her voice low, she said, “I escaped and found other shifters. We’re breaking you and our brothers out at the same time. You need to do what I say. Is everyone here?”

“There’s a new female in the basement,” someone said.

“No, two females,” a tiny female corrected. “An older one and the pregnant one.”

In the basement. They meant Vicki and someone else. Alec planned to check all the cells down there. “A friend is freeing everyone down there.”

She looked at the group surrounding her. “Listen. We’ll go to the ground floor, out the back door, and hide behind the building.” It would be better if she could take them through the trees and off the grounds, but they were weak with captivity and lack of food. Despite her practice climbing ivy and doing exercises, she’d almost fallen that day she’d escaped.

Alice tugged on her arm and whispered, “What about the alarms? The floodlights? The guards? We’ll—”

“The lights will be gone, trust me. I’ll handle the guards.” I hope. She firmed her grip on the mop handle, carefully ignoring the dark stain on one end.

Spotting Margery, she said, “Can you bring up the rear and make sure everyone stays together?”

Margery’s face still carried scars from the beating she’d gotten because of Darcy’s mistake. She still limped. But her answer was calm and sure. “I can.”

Idelle, also older than Darcy, stepped out. “Can I help?”

Oh, she did adore these females. “Stay in front with me. If we run into a guard, I’ll attack. You get everyone out.”

Lips pressed together with determination, Idelle nodded. “I will.”

Darcy led them down the stairs.

*

Not bothering to shift to human, Owen padded down the stairs in the zoo. The air drifting from the third floor held the fear-filled scents of females, and the concrete beneath his paws carried the stench of pain. With every inhalation, more rage filled his heart.

He didn’t smell Alec, though. Had the cahir taken the stairs at the other end of the building?

The first-floor door handle rattled.

Above on the steps, Owen went immobile, only the tip of his tail lashing.

Two guards entered the stairwell, chatting about the capture of a freak who had cried, screamed, and babbled information. They laughed.

Were they talking about the Cosantir’s mate? About Vicki?

With a snarl, Owen sprang. A slash through one’s trachea silenced him, so Owen could bite through the other’s spine. Turning back, he finished the first.

As he looked at the mess, his ears flattened against his skull. Not good. The next human on the stairs would run into the gore and dead bodies. The lights better go out soon.

He turned and trotted down the stairs.

The basement had a guard station, but the guards obviously didn’t expect trouble. He killed them both.

After shifting to human, he grabbed a key ring and tried to open the metal door behind the desk. There was no keyhole. What the fuck was the key ring for, then?

Wait. Before dropping him and Gawain off, Shay had run through the information Darcy’d provided about the compound. He’d mentioned a button on the desk.

There was a green button beside the monitors. He punched it, and the door lock snicked. When he pushed the door open, he flinched at the stink of loosened bowels and terror and blood.

The basement was where the Scythe did their experiments, Darcy had said.

A snarl lifted his upper lip.

He took a step and scowled at the door. The lock. What happened when the power went out—or if someone entered? He tossed a body into the doorway to hold the door open and then punched the red desk button. When the door lock extended out, Owen slammed a metal chair down on the deadbolt. Metal rang on metal—far too loudly—but the newly bent deadbolt would never fit into the strike plate box again.

No one was going to lock him in this fucking place.

A sniff of the corridor air told him that Vicki was nearby. He stiffened when he caught another familiar scent—one that belonged to someone who couldn’t possibly be here.

Stretching before him, the long corridor was studded with doorways and intersecting halls. The first door stood open. Empty. The next three were the same.

Finding a closed door, he unlocked it and stepped inside. No guard. No Vicki. Only an aging blonde female lying on a blood-soaked bed that was bolted to the floor.

Burn marks, fingernails gone, blood—everywhere. If not for the scent, he wasn’t sure he’d have known her. Her hands held her stomach, holding in her intestines. She’d been cut open—and the smell of death was in the room.

Her blackened eyes were swollen to mere slits, and she looked at him without recognition. “Don’ hurt meeee.”

As he crossed the room, pity swamped his lingering bitterness. He went down on a knee beside the bed. “Mother.”

“O-Owen?” Her pale skin took on a blue cast as her spirit prepared to return to the Goddess. “They hur’ me.” She tried to focus. “I tol’ them…”