Again, the applause started up, and Kyle lost his focus just long enough to stagger back as Taz came at him with blinding speed and a hard fist to his stomach, doubling him over. A quick uppercut to the nose, and Kyle was lying on his back again, looking up. The back of his head had cracked the ground a little when he fell, so he was seeing a few stars along with the clouds in the sky. He felt blood trickling down the back of his throat and out of his nose. He wiped at his nose absently with the back of his hand. Maybe the worst thing was that Kyle knew Taz had been pulling his punches.
Taz loomed over him again. “Stay down!” he shouted, but Kyle was already dragging himself back up and trying to steady himself. His knuckles were skinned, his back was in agony, his whole face hurt and his head felt like someone was on the inside trying to hammer their way out. If Taz came at him now, he wouldn’t even be able to get out of his way. He stood swaying on his feet, blood dripping from his nose. Taz stepped up to him and grabbed two handfuls of his vest, pulling Kyle toward him and up onto his toes.
“Are you done?” he asked harshly and Kyle doggedly shook his head. Taz made a sound of impatience and then kissed the shit out of him, sliding his tongue inside his mouth and sweeping it around before pulling away with a little bite to Kyle’s lower lip. He shook Kyle a couple of times, so hard his head flopped backward on his neck. “I said, are you done? Stop this—you’re hurt. Now answer me!”
“Y-yes,” Kyle said this time, too wiped out to fight him any longer.
“Tell me that you yield.”
“I yield,” Kyle said, his eyes closed and slurring his words.
Taz nodded, hoisted him up to throw him over his shoulder and strode with him from the ring.
The five huge Lycan males made the room seem small as they crowded around Kai and Lucas’s main living area. Kai, Lucas’s mate, stood with his back against the counter in the adjoining kitchen. He could see the vid screen from where he was standing, but he’d watched the slightly out of focus film several times now, and he had no wish to see it again. He kept his eyes on the floor as Lucas, his brother Blayde and the cousins watched the short vid that Lucas had received the evening before.
The only sounds in the room were an occasional sympathetic or furious gasp as they watched the smaller figure, dressed, according to Lucas, in traditional Tygerian gladiator gear and being tossed around in some kind of arena setting.
His opponent was much taller and heavier, and it was hard to believe how often the smaller man that had to be Kyle kept getting back up after being slammed to the ground. Near the end of the short vid, when Kyle was viciously punched in his midsection, Nikolai, Kyle’s brother jumped to his feet with a wordless cry. Lucas put a hand on his arm to pull him back down beside him, and the vid ended a few seconds later with the Tygerian male pulling Kai up by the front of his vest. His back was to the camera, but it looked like he was yelling in Kyle’s face before throwing him over his shoulder and carrying him out of the ring.
As the vid ended, there was a short, heavy silence in the room. Then an alarming series of snarls and growls filled the room as at least three of them started shifting into their beasts. Konnor let out a string of Lycan curses and punched the wall near where he was standing with a huge, clawed hand, while Blayde cursed. Nikolai just seemed stunned after his earlier outburst, and Larsson hovered near the vid screen looking like he might be thinking of kicking it in.
“Okay, everyone calm down a minute,” Lucas said, pulling Larsson out of the way just before his big foot connected with the innocent screen. Kai straightened up uneasily. He was glad he’s sent the baby over to Ryan’s house before all this started. He’d known they would be angry, but he’d never seen them all so out of control. Even though it wasn’t directed at him, it was a little frightening, and several of them had ripped right out of their clothes when they turned. Lucas glanced over at him and sent him a brief, reassuring nod before turning back to the others.
“I know you’re all upset, but we have to try to assess this situation calmly or we’ll do something rash.”
“Calmly?” Nikolai shouted, jumping to his feet to stand next to Larsson’s looming beast. “After watching that son-of-a-bitch almost kill my brother? How do you expect me to be calm?”
“I know,” Lucas said. “I watched the thing ten times at least last night, and it makes me sick, too, but that’s not helping Kyle.”
Blayde lowered his hands and spoke in a surprisingly quiet voice. “Lucas is right. He called me over last night to see it with him, and I lay awake half the night trying to figure out how we can get to him.”
Larsson, the youngest of the cousins, spoke up angrily, though his body was beginning to resume its normal shape. “We just go in and get him, that’s all. And kill any tiger asshole that tries to stop us!”
“You know we can’t do that,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “We show up in Tygerian airspace, and they’ll shoot us out of the sky before we have a chance to even negotiate. We can’t sneak in either—their planetary detection radar is too good.”
“Negotiate, hells!” Larsson yelled. “We take him by force. Surely the Alliance will back us on this!”
“Not for only one man,” Lucas replied. “They’ll include him in the list of prisoners they’ve been negotiating for, but that’s it. I’ve already talked to them, and I’m afraid we’re on our own in this thing.”
“We’ve been there before,” Nikolai said. “How soon can we leave?”
“To do what, Nikolai? Get ourselves captured too, or killed? We have to be smart about this. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and there may be another way.”
Konnor had been quietly brooding on the side of the room since his outburst. Kai glanced over at the wall behind him now, wondering what Lucas was going to do to get that dent out. Maybe they could hang a picture over it? Konnor’s shirt was hanging around his shoulders in tatters, but he was still the first to answer Lucas.
“Tell us what you have in mind, Lucas. We’ll do anything to get him back home.”
Lucas nodded. “Our contact on Tygeria, the one who sent us the vid he took on his communicator, says the Tygerian’s name is Taz Bonnet.”
“Taz Bonnet?” Blayde said in surprise. “You mean that’s not Tarr?”
“No, even worse. It’s his twin brother, and he’s an important person on Tygeria. Some kind of senator, and we can’t underestimate him. According to our source, he’s not much like Tarr, except physically. The man’s mate is expecting a child, so it’s more than likely he bought Kyle as his…” Lucas glanced up at Kai again, as if he gathered strength by looking at him. “Kyle is probably his love slave.”
“Shit!” Konnor said softly. “You mean just like Nikolai?”
“No, not like Nikolai at all. Nikolai was just playing around with Jagger, and it wasn’t like Nikolai was being abused by his mate,” Lucas said. Kai had to smother an inappropriate smile at the idea of the huge, muscular Nikolai being abused by Jagger, who, though fierce and exotically handsome, was the smallest of any of the mates, barely coming up to his own shoulder.
“No,” Lucas continued. “Kyle is being physically abused as we can see on this vid. He’s probably being raped, beaten and forced to be this Tygerian’s slave.”
“Why didn’t he shift? And why was he fighting in gladiator gear? This doesn’t look like an Exhibition.” Nikolai had started the vid again, and everyone was watching it intently.
“No,” Lucas replied. “They must be giving him drugs to prevent the shift. And according to our source, they were sparring in the ring—practicing, I guess. Taz Bonnet participates in the Exhibition Games.”
“So it’s not enough to drug him and abuse him at home,” Nikolai said bitterly. “He also has to take him to the arena and beat him up?”
“Get back to what you were saying, Lucas,” Konnor said, breaking in. “Tell us your plan.”
Lucas sighed. “This man who has Kyle is Tarr Bonnet’s brother. Tarr makes frequent trips off planet to trade in love slaves, along with the Rogers. I think we have to go back to Blayde’s original plan—we have to take Tarr into custody. Once we have him, we can use him as a bargaining tool. We can offer his brother a trade—Kyle for Tarr.”
A short silence fell over the room and then Blayde cleared his throat. “I think that will work. They’re known to be very close.” He glanced over at Nikolai. “Like most twins.”
Nikolai and Kyle were twins, and though not identical, their connection was strong. Nikolai dropped his head in his hands, unable to watch the vid any longer. “The only problem is how to take him,” Blayde continued. “He hangs out a lot at his club on Leeria, so if we could find a way to stake it out—we could wait for him and then move in.”
“We’ll attract too much attention to go in where we can be seen. The Leerian officials were furious with him when he took Kyle and now Leeria’s lost all their Alliance trade agreements. I think if we made them certain promises, they’d cooperate with us. They might even arrest him themselves.”
“Only one problem,” Blayde said, laying a hand on Nikolai’s shoulder. “We’ll have to be patient for that to work. Tarr’s smart and he knows the Leerians aren’t happy with him. It may be a quarter cycle or more before he lands on Leeria again.”
Lucas shook his head. “Too long. Kyle could be dead if we wait much longer.”
Larsson made a growling sound. “Who knows what kind of abuse that bastard is subjecting him to?”
Silence fell over the room again, as each man became lost in dark, violent thoughts.
“Then we find him, wherever he might be in the galaxies. We’re not without resources of our own, and we have many friends and customers who trade with us. We’ll put out the word that we want Tarr Bonnet taken alive and offer a reward.” Lucas looked around at each of the cousins in turn. “I, for one, won’t rest until we find him.” Angry sounds of agreement and support echoed loudly in the room.
