Through it all, she watched Braden and Ian suspiciously, looking for any of the erratic behavior they’d displayed before. Ian’s lips were tight, but Braden stood in a defiant posture, clearly inviting her to f**k off.
“What are you?” she demanded.
Ian’s lips curled in irritation while Braden continued to stare her down, his eyes as unfriendly as his posture.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of pond scum,” she burst out. “I’m not the problem here.”
Braden snorted, and she glared heatedly at him.
“You came after me,” she pointed out. “Things have been bizarre since the day you kidnapped and drugged me. You act strange, like you’re hanging on to control by a thread. The next thing I know, Ian turns into some kind of damn big-ass cat and tears Ricardo’s throat out. And then you want to get snotty when I run like hell and act worried about the fact that I’m trapped thirty thousand feet in the air with two wild animals?”
Ian lost some of his surliness. He dragged a hand through his hair and walked over to flop into the chair across from Katie.
Braden remained standing, but he turned to include Ian in his view. The two brothers exchanged what could only be described as looks of resignation. There was more there. A deep sorrow. Katie’s chest tightened even as she damned herself for feeling anything for these two men.
“Did Gabe ever tell you anything about our mission to Adharji?” Ian asked.
Her brow puckered, and her eyes narrowed in confusion.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said dryly.
She shook her head.
“We were on a hostage recovery mission when we got gassed. We were captured behind enemy lines and were prisoners until we escaped several days later.”
“Gassed? What kind of gas?”
“That’s just it. We don’t know. But whatever it was turned us into a bunch of shifters. In my case a jaguar, as you’ve seen.” He gestured toward Braden. “He turns into a panther. Eli is more elemental. He can turn into shit like vapor, or smoke, steam, funky shit.”
“And Gabe? Was he affected?” she asked hesitantly.
Ian nodded.
“Wow, he never said—I mean he never told me.” She twisted her hands nervously in her lap. She’d always thought she and Gabe were close, but now she wondered how much of his interaction with her was solely based on obligation. “What was wrong with him?” she asked as she looked back up at Ian. “I don’t understand how this happened. It’s like something out of science fiction.”
“Gabe could become invisible,” Braden said.
“Invisible? Why something so different? That doesn’t make sense. The rest of you change physical forms, become something else entirely and he merely became invisible?”
“None of it makes sense,” Ian said tersely. “We were some scientific experiment gone wrong. Or at least Braden and I were. There was one other guy, our guide, and apparently he fared the worst. While Eli and Gabe were stable, the rest of us have no control over when and how we shift, and we retain no human cognizance when we’re in animal form.”
“Shit,” she breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Braden muttered.
“So Gabe could become invisible at will? And you and Ian have no control?”
She couldn’t hold back the surge of fear at being at the mercy of unstable shifters. She’d seen what Ian could do in jaguar form. He’d gone for the kill with no hesitation, and it hadn’t been pretty.
“We carry an inhibitor,” Ian said. “It’s in aerosol form. Most of the time it works to prevent shifting. Lately though…”
“Since we met you it isn’t as effective,” Braden said bluntly.
“Me?” She reared her head in surprise. “What do I have to do with anything?”
“Braden,” Ian growled in warning. “There’s no point.”
Braden ignored him. “I have no idea, sister. I’d love the answer to that. All I know is that ever since we got around you, our shifts have been more erratic, and the only thing that’s worked has been knocking ourselves out.”
“Seems like it would be a damn good idea to stay away from me,” she said sweetly. “Funny I suggested that from the beginning, but you didn’t seem to listen.”
“Look, Katie, I know it has to freak you out,” Ian said. “If it makes you feel better, we’ll give you the inhibitor so you can keep it on you at all times, and we’ll give you preloaded syringes with a sedative that would knock an elephant out. Worse comes to worst, you stick that in our ass and run like hell. Believe me when I say we’re not any happier about this situation than you are.”
“Is there nothing you can do? No cure? Who gassed you? And why?”
“You don’t ask the hard questions, do you?” Braden said mockingly. “If we knew all that, neither of us would be feeling the urge for scratching posts and kitty litter.”
“You’re not funny,” Ian snarled.
Despite herself, Katie burst out laughing. She wiped at the corners of her eyes as tears gathered. She sucked in a breath and kept laughing.
“Apparently Katie thinks so,” Braden said smugly.
She swiped at her eyes again and wheezed as she tried to regain her composure. When she looked up, though, she saw a glimmer of amusement in Ian’s eyes. She relaxed a bit in her seat and then groaned when the movement sent a fresh wave of pain through her gut.
“You okay?” Braden asked gently.
She closed her eyes briefly as she ran her hand over the thick bandage covering her wound. “It hurts like a bitch.”
“You need stitches,” Ian said. “There’ll be a doctor to see you when we land. It’s a pretty bad cut.”
“You dressed it?” she asked.
“Yeah, it was full of dirt. Needed to be cleaned or you’d get one hell of an infection.”
She glanced down. The whole reason her wound had been so nasty was because she’d run fast and hard. Neither man had said anything about the fact she’d taken off again, but what else was she supposed to do when faced with a bloodthirsty predator? Still she felt guilty—for what, not trusting them? The funny thing was she did—well, when they weren’t snarling cats.
“I’d like the inhibitor and the sedative,” she said quietly.
“I’m not as keen to give it to you as Ian is,” Braden said dryly. “I want some assurances before we just hand that shit over.”
Her gaze jerked back up to his. “Assurances? What kind of assurances do you want? You sure as hell can’t offer me the one I need most, mainly that you won’t turn into kitty cats on steroids and make dinner out of me.”
“How ’bout that you don’t use the sedative unless it’s a last resort,” Braden said. “Seems to me we’ll be handing you the perfect weapon for you to escape whether we shift or not. I think we’ve proven that we have your best interests in mind here. I want your word this crap is going to stop.”
“And you’d accept my word? That’s pretty stupid,” she taunted. “I’d lie in a heartbeat to protect my interests.” Why, oh why couldn’t she just shut up? She was fully prepared to offer them something—an olive branch? But she just couldn’t keep her fear, her insecurity, from surging up, and then she became a defensive, surly bitch on wheels.
“Thanks for the warning,” Ian said.
She moved her gaze to him, searching his expression, for what she wasn’t certain. Earlier, her fear of him seemed to bother him, and even now his eyes were guarded. Had she hurt him? It seemed odd that she’d have that kind of power. Did she like this man? Did she trust him? Before he’d changed into a freaking jaguar, she’d found herself softening toward him, and yet by shifting, he’d saved her. He hadn’t come after her. His ire had been directed at Ricardo. Coincidence? She couldn’t decide.
“What were you saying about a safe house a while ago? And now that you’ve got me out of the country, what next?”
“Just a change in plans,” Ian replied. “We had a place set up in France but we’re going to Austria instead. As for what’s next, we go there and lay low until Eli and Falcon nail Esteban.”
“Esteban is the man after me?” she asked.
He nodded. “He’s the one responsible for the chemical agent that turned us into shifters.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why does he want me? What could he possibly want with me now that Gabe is dead and he can’t use me against him?”
“That’s a good question,” Braden interjected. “We don’t have any idea. But we promised Gabe we’d make sure you were safe.”
“And what then?” she asked. “What happens when there is no longer a threat to me? I can’t go back and pick up where I left off. I may have gotten away with killing Paulo, but now there is a vehicle with my fingerprints all over it and several dead bodies that I’m sure the police wouldn’t have to work hard to pin on me.”
“We’ll figure it out, Katie,” Ian said quietly. “We aren’t going to let you go down for that scumbag de la Cruz.”
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. It was tempting as hell to take that promise and hold it close, but she couldn’t afford to be such a moron. No matter that Ian and Braden wanted to look out for her, she’d be a damn fool to place her trust so implicitly. But hadn’t she already? The whole saying about leaving the barn door open came readily to mind. The fact was, she did trust them. She didn’t want to. She thought she was dumb to, but it didn’t alter the fact that deep inside, she knew, she just knew that they weren’t out to screw her. Did that make her an even bigger dumbass?
A warm hand slid over her cheek, startling her into opening her eyes. She found Braden leaning down, his fingers stroking over her bruised cheekbone.
“I know you don’t trust us, Katie, but we aren’t going to hurt you.”
His voice was warm and vibrant and slid over her skin like the softest of blankets. She wanted to wrap herself in those words and hold them tight, like a talisman. She wanted to tell him that she did trust him. But she wanted a lot of things, and it didn’t mean they were good for her. And she was uncomfortable giving them that kind of power over her.
To her immense shock, he leaned further in and brushed his lips across the cut at the corner of her mouth. Though it was the lightest of kisses, it was as if he’d branded her with a hot coal. She jumped at the slight contact, but before she could yank away, his tongue flicked out and lapped gently at the small wound.
She reared back but had nowhere to go. He had her trapped between him and the chair. Her hands flew up and made contact with his muscular chest. She shoved, but he caught both her wrists with his hands and held them against his shirt.
His warm tongue swept over her abused flesh once more, soothing and sweet. Then he coaxed her lips, forming them into a moue with his own as he first nipped and then molded his mouth to hers.
What started gentle turned hot and urgent as he devoured her mouth. Hungry and restless. He stole her breath and returned it in stuttered gasps.
He tasted…male, and she was hungry. So hungry.
Finally he pulled away so that she could see the heated glitter in his eyes. “I’ve wanted to do that every single time you piss me off,” he said huskily.
She swallowed and opened her mouth to tell him precisely what she thought about keeping his damn tongue in his mouth, but nothing came out. The she remembered Ian, and for some reason, guilt crept over her shoulders at the idea that Braden had been kissing her in front of him. Only when she looked over to where he sat, she saw he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
“What were you doing kissing her, for God’s sake?” Ian demanded as Braden walked into the front cabin of the plane.
Ian stood with his fists curled at his sides, surprised by just how angry it had made him when Braden had kissed Katie. He felt juvenile and rash, not to mention like a giant, stupid f**k.
Braden gave him a what-the-hell look and sauntered past to snag one of the bottles of water from the galley area.
“What do you care if I kissed her?” Braden asked calmly, after he’d taken a long swig from the bottle. He recapped it and gave Ian a curious glance.
Ian looked past Braden to where Katie lay curled on the couch all but passed out. They were already making their descent, but she was clearly still exhausted and in pain.
“Ah, I get it. You’ve got a thing for her,” he said before Ian could respond.
“I don’t f**king have a thing for her,” Ian snarled.
Braden shrugged. “Not like you to get hyped up because I made a move on a woman you were interested in.”
Ian sucked in a breath. No, it wasn’t like him at all. Women flocked to Braden. Ian wasn’t the jealous type, and it wasn’t as though they didn’t regularly f**k the same woman. At the same time. What was unusual was for one of them to actually have sex with a woman solo.
Boy, did that sound screwed up.
“Just forget I said anything,” Ian mumbled.
“Hey, if you want me to back off, I will,” Braden said. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m not hella attracted to her. There’s something about her that makes me crazy, but at the same time, she lights my fires like no other woman ever has.” He grinned and rubbed his chin as if remembering. “Every time she slugs me, I get a hard-on from hell.”