Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

Wherever he was, it wasn't close. His leathery, spicy scent was absent.

I shifted and realized my hands and feet were tied - and had been for some time if the cramps shooting up my legs were anything to go by - and cautiously opened my eyes. What met my gaze was metal and wood.

A box.

A cage.

The bastard had caged me. Like an animal.

But this was one animal mere wood and metal would not contain - although there was no point in busting out until I knew the whole situation. I might very well step from the frying pan into the fire.

It was something of a habit, after all.

I twisted my legs around so I could look at my feet. My shoes were gone, and the ropes that were binding my ankles were thick and strong. They were also damp, meaning they were tightening as they dried out, digging into my skin. There were blood smears under the ropes already - I must have been struggling against them when I was unconscious. The knot itself didn't look too hard to undo, but with my hands bound behind my back, undoing it was next to impossible.

But maybe I didn't need to undo them. Maybe I just needed to change shape, and the ropes would slip off. I mean, they'd been tied to a human, not a wolf, and therefore I should have plenty of maneuvering room in my wolf shape.

I called to my wolf, felt the power of her sweep right through me, only I didn't expect the pain that came with the change. It burst through my mind - a blinding, hot, bone-breaking pain caused not only by limbs twisted into positions not natural to a wolf, but by the presence of silver. I might not be able to see it, but it was close. Close enough to be affecting my shapeshifting.

I bit back a howl and twisted around, desperate to get my legs free. The ropes fell away, releasing my limbs, allowing my legs to fall into a position more natural to a wolf.

The pain eased into a deeper throbbing ache, but the burning presence of silver didn't go away. It was all around me - under my feet, near my sides, over my head, Yet there wasn't a bit of silver in sight. Only wood and the metal strapping holding the cage together.

I scrambled to my feet. It made the ache worse, my abused and overstretched muscles shaking under the additional pressure of my weight. I ignored both and sniffed out the confines of my cage. If it had been used before, then I couldn't tell for what. There were no odors caught in the wood, no fur or scent markings to hint at what might have been here before me.

I stepped to the corner and pressed my nose against the wood. The familiar burning got stronger, a warning that silver was close. My frown increasing, I shifted back to human form and pressed a hand to the wood. My fingers burned with the same awareness of silver that my nose had. It wasn't in the wood, it was beyond it. How far was anyone's guess. I was so sensitive to its presence these days, it could be one inch away or it could be one foot.

There was only one way to find out. I clenched my fist, drew it back, and punched at the wooden side of my cage with all the force I could muster.

My fist went through the wood as easily as a hot knife through butter, then was stopped abruptly by something thin and metallic. Something that burned as soon as my hand touched it. I swore and jerked my fist away, shaking it to ease the pain and seeing the red welts already forming across my fingers.

The bastards had covered my box with a mesh of silver. Anything else I could probably break, but this was beyond me. I guess I had to be thankful the silver wasn't touching me. I might be uncomfortable right now, but at least it wasn't killing me. I shifted position and carefully peered out of the hole I'd created.

Little more than darkness and the metal struts of the boat greeted me. If I was in a hold, then it either wasn't a very big one or I'd punched a hole in the wrong end of my cage.

I shifted again, and kicked out with a bare foot, being careful not to get anywhere near the silver mesh. The wood cracked and splintered, falling away in chunks rather than smashing into splinters. The space beyond the mesh wasn't much different. A little bigger, a little less dark, but otherwise, the same. I was alone in this fishy-smelling hold.

I wondered where Rhoan was. Wondered if he was locked up like me. I wasn't getting any sort of sick feeling that he was in trouble or hurt, so wherever he was, he was obviously okay. For the moment, anyway.

So where the hell was the Directorate? Why hadn't they come riding to the rescue? That was the whole idea of the trackers in our ears, wasn't it?

Maybe they just didn't know we were in trouble. Hell, I don't think either of us bothered to tell Jack what we were intending to do this morning. Hard to come riding to the rescue if they didn't know they were needed. I pressed the stud in my ear, and said, "Hello, hello? Anyone listening?"

There was no immediate response. Not surprising, I guess. We were out on the ocean and the corn-unit didn't have a huge range. The tracker did though, so sooner or later they'd realize something was up and come a-hunting. All we had to do was hang on until then.

But just in case they were picking me up, I added, "Rhoan and I need help, ASAP. We're on a boat and traveling to God knows where."

I flicked off the send function, but left the receive one on, just in case someone tried to contact me, My next step was finding out who was on the damn boat with me. I lowered some shields and carefully reached out, telepathically searching for minds - human or not. There was an odd sort of blankness coming from what I gathered was the front of the ship, given we were moving in that direction, but other than that, I might as well have been alone. Which I wasn't, so either the boat driver was mind-blind, or he was wearing a psychic wire to protect him from telepathic intrusion.

With that avenue of investigation going nowhere, I checked my pockets to see what I had to work with, but they'd been cleaned out. The laser, my wallet, phone, everything was gone. The only thing left was lint and the remains of what had once been a tissue, and neither of those were going to be a whole lot of use for anything. Not even blowing my nose. With nothing else to do, I laid back down and waited.

It was a long wait. The engine droned on and on. Footsteps would stride across the deck above me occasionally, but I couldn't hear voices. Couldn't hear anything to indicate there was another living soul on this boat besides me and the owner of those footsteps.

The day stretched into the evening, a fact I knew only by the lengthening of the shadows and my own innate awareness of the night and the moon.

Eventually the aroma of earth began to run underneath the scent of fish and ocean. The ship bumped against something hard and the footsteps moved across the deck and then disappeared. A few seconds later, the thumping of the engine stopped. For a while, there was nothing breaking the silence but the creak of the boat and the lapping of the waves.

Then a car - maybe even a truck, given the low note of the engine - approached and came to a halt. Doors opened, footsteps echoed, and then, finally, I heard Rhoan - swearing like a trooper.