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.Clear thinking was essential. He was looking for you, Trey, as you ve been looking for him.Only Kingley could have possibly passed on that information, and Trey had been careful.94 www.samhainpublishing.comLynxHorton s tone turned chiding. Don t pretend you don t know him. He s changed. Stick as close to the truth as possible. I knew him a few years ago, briefly. How?Trey gazed at Horton, unwilling to baldly state they had been lovers. Kingley thought you d given up on men.Trey shrugged. Clearly I should have, if this is what happens to them.Why would you be interestedin Jonah once you realized he wasn t a wolf?Here Horton let out a sigh. I wasn t.I was very disappointed.Not only is he human, he s a bittouched and a bit dim.I didn t realize that was your style, Trey.Trey didn t reveal his rage.Jonah was suffering and Horton understood fuck all about the lynx. He keeps asking to study university math. At Horton s guffaw, Trey wanted to reach across thetable, clamp a hand on his throat and crush his windpipe.But first he had to find out where Horton was keeping Jonah.Trey asked the obvious question. Whatare you going to do with him? Blackmail you, of course.You appear to have some feelings of responsibility. If you intend to hold anything over me, you re going to have to reintroduce us.I know how thisworks.He could already be dead. His gaze flicked down to the picture. He s not looking particularlyhealthy. We ll feed him better.And I don t mind a little introduction for a little cooperation. What kind of cooperation? For starters, I d like a liter of your blood.It doesn t have to be all at once.Fury flowed through Trey.He knew what Horton was searching for the werewolf gene.He wantedthe blood sent for DNA analysis.Horton planned to engineer a secret Werewolf Genome Project and use itto control shapeshifters.Trey couldn t afford to hand him such power over himself and his family.Even hisadult daughter, who wasn t a werewolf but a carrier, would be a target if this information was kept inHorton s secret hands.Didn t matter right now.He still knew how to play this out. First, I see Jonah, then the blood. That easily? Horton sneered. Please.What kind of fool do you think I am?Trey wanted to bare his teeth but couldn t afford to overreact to the taunt, so he quietly said, I thinkyou know I demand proof. Oh I can give you proof, no problem. Horton pushed away from the table and rose. It s time foryou to do as I say.If you don t, Jonah will die of thirst, a pretty painful way to expire.Slow too.No oneknows where he is, you see. He looked down at Trey, watching him take in the information, trying togauge how important Jonah was to Trey. Therefore you will come with me.www.samhainpublishing.com 95Joely SkyeAnd Trey obeyed, much as it galled him, leaving his car behind at the coffee shop.He climbed intothe passenger seat of Horton s jeep and allowed Horton to take him God knows where.If he were purelyrational, purely clinical, he would have attacked Horton anyway, killed him.He was a threat to a lot ofpeople Trey cared about his daughter, his niece and nephew.But Trey could not sacrifice Jonah, notwithout fighting his hardest to save him first.Jonah had learned to wait.At least he figured that was the one accomplishment that kept him going.First he d been in a holding pattern before Trey, grieving for his lost family, unsure how to move forwardor if it was possible to move forward.Then Trey had arrived, stormed Jonah s defenses and left him nakedin every way possible.No waiting during those three and half weeks that remained the most vivid days ofhis life.But afterwards, afterwards, there were endless months at home followed by a year and halfsearching and waiting though at that point Jonah had lost track of what he was waiting for.Then finally here, with Horton and the guard he occasionally sent in his place, bringing supplies sothat Jonah could barely hang on.He knew he was weakening.Horton had asked him, his tone joking, ifJonah had wasting disease.Because he was getting thinner and thinner.He wasn t shifting, and Jonah had thought it was a way for him to save on the calories.But somehowthe cat, jailed within him, was draining Jonah s energy anyway.It didn t help that Horton was deliberatelynot feeding him enough either.Jonah had considered his options and come to the decision that before he became too weak, he wouldhave to kill Horton.But not yet.Jonah felt he had a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, until he hit thatpoint of no return.If he did, he would die in here.Horton had made it clear that his death put the cell in completelockdown.And no one was coming to the rescue.Jonah could face death.He d reached that point.Being a prisoner did that to a person, or at least to alynx.But the lynx wanted to get that last kill in.Was straining for action.Perhaps it was good that it wouldbe a few days before he saw Horton again.Or that s what Jonah had thought before he observed Horton through the barred door, punching in thenumbers that allowed him to enter.He clanged the door shut and looked across at Jonah who made it a point not to challenge the man.His lynx found Jonah s way of stalking a little too slow and a little too stealthy, but was in fundamentalagreement that their captor was being stalked.Jonah sometimes thought the reason his lynx stayed asquiescent as it did these days was because Horton was prey.There was a bloodthirsty side to him, hard torouse, but strong once it had determined that an individual, be it Aaron or Horton, had to die.It also interested Jonah that the longer his lynx stayed leashed within his human, the more of a splitpersonality he felt.And it pleased Jonah that Horton didn t understand the first thing about him.96 www.samhainpublishing.comLynx You re an odd duck, said Horton. I can t see what Trey ever saw in you, though maybe you weredifferent a few years ago. Maybe, Jonah said vaguely.Horton had brought a computer with him, which was a change of pace.Jonah found his interestpicked up, and he wondered if this had the long-promised math texts on it.Not that Jonah understood computers very well, so that would be a problem
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