Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson #7)(27)

Ben nudged my knee, hard.

"I know," I told him. "Can we take them without alerting the others?" I shivered. The Tri-Cities wasn't Montana, but it was still too cold to stand around naked in November. Or maybe I was shivering with my coyote's desire to go kill someone.

The first man said something ugly, and Kyle made a noise.

Yep. It was the go-kill-someone shiver.

"We can," Stefan said. "And if not - I can kill them all."

That didn't sound like a bad plan, standing out here listening to them hurt Kyle. I knew it would be stupid to leave bodies, but his pain was putting paid to my good sense.

"Throw me up," I told him, and turned back into a coyote.

I looked at Stefan, and when he met my eyes, I jerked my chin to the balcony that came off the bedroom. He frowned at me doubtfully. I rose up on my hind legs and bounced once. Then lifted my muzzle toward the balcony again.

His eyebrows rose, but he picked me up and threw me. I cleared the railing but had to twist hard, so I landed in the middle of a planter instead of on top of the lawn furniture that might squeak under me.

Ben jumped to the top of the railing, and Stefan followed. Stefan hopped off and landed on the balcony with bent knees and no sound. Ben's ears flattened at me, so I moved off the planter and let the heavier werewolf use it as a stair so that he didn't have to land so heavily. Hard to land quietly on a hard surface with werewolf-sized claws.

Chapter Four

The brocade drapes were an inheritance from the people who had built the house. Kyle loved the fabric but complained a lot about the way they left six inches between the bottom of the curtains and the floor.

I dropped to my knees and peered through the bottom of the sliding glass door that Kyle planned to replace with french doors next summer along with the drapes.

Kyle and Warren's bedroom was decorated in a minimalist and very civilized style. The blood on the carpet looked like the single contrasting note one of those designers on TV liked to recommend.

There was so little furniture that the villains had had to bring up a chair from the dining room so they had something to use to stage their interrogation. They'd tied Kyle to the sturdy chair naked. His feet were free, but it didn't matter because they were also bare. Unless you are a werewolf or maybe Bruce Lee, bare feet can't do much damage unless you have more of a strike opportunity than being tied to a chair presents.

From the looks of him this wasn't the first round of abuse he'd taken. I kept my growl to myself, though I could do nothing about the snarl that wrinkled my nose. Kyle's face was bruised, the aristocratic nose sat at an angle, and dried blood covered his chin and upper chest. A cut above one eye had bled, too, and that eye was swollen shut and purple. There were red marks on his cheekbone and stomach that were fresher, having not had time to bruise.

The two men in the room were dressed all in black, and they wore the same body armor the men who held Adam had worn. The taller man was bald, his skin tanned by a life spent outdoors. I put his age between twenty-five and thirty. The other man was heavier built and not so tan, his hair the shade of rust and cut tightly against his scalp.

The bald man's body language was relaxed, and that made the worry he projected in his voice even more of a lie than the words.

"I don't like letting him free to do as he wants, Mr. Brooks. It isn't good for him or you. He might do some serious damage. Things that can't be repaired. I can stop him if you just let us know where you think she might go. We'll get out of your hair, and you never have to see us again."

Kyle spat out blood. "You must be fae. I never heard so much truth built into a lie. Did your mother have wings and pointed ears?" he asked, his voice as cool as it was in the courtroom.

Hadn't Kyle ever heard that you weren't supposed to antagonize your kidnappers? Especially when they were beating on you?

At least he had their attention fully on him.

Taking advantage of their preoccupation, I changed back to human and reached up to the catch on the glass door, which was, luckily for us, unlocked. Hopefully, the heavy drapes would disguise the cold outside air now wafting into the room as I carefully, quietly slid the door open. It was good for us and for Kyle that he had not had time to replace either the door or the drapes.

As soon as I had it opened, Stefan dropped to his knees to get a good look through the gap between the floor and the drapes, and I shifted back to coyote. My four-footed shape might not be as impressive as one of the wolves, but it was more lethal than my human shape. I squeezed next to Stefan and looked again.

The bald man's face had lost its pleasantness, though he'd taken his time to answer Kyle's taunt. "Your mouth is dangerous to you, Mr. Brooks. I'd suggest you use it to give us the information we want, or you might not be able to use it at all."

"You're a dead man," Kyle said. "Warren doesn't take kindly to people who hurt me."

We had to get in there - and now the only obstacle was the curtain. If we could be quiet enough, the men downstairs would not hear us.

"Your Warren is our prisoner," said the bald man, back to his Mr. Nice Guy persona. "He can do nothing to help you."

Kyle smiled. "You just keep telling yourselves that."

The younger man bounced a couple of times on his feet and feigned a strike. Kyle pulled his head out of the line of fire and the man hit him in the shoulder with a spinning back kick that launched Kyle's chair over onto its side. If he'd hit him in the head with that foot, Kyle would have been dead.