The change in blondie’s demeanor revealed his ire at my answer.
Stupid. Stupid, Cerise. Why would you talk back to him like that?
He strode up to me, fire in his eyes as he pulled his foot back like he was about to kick me.
“Stop!” Liam shouted. “We’ll do it. We’ll help. Whatever you want. Anything. Just…just don’t hurt her.”
Blondie halted, glaring down at me. “Next time I break a rib. Keep your mouth shut.”
I nodded, trembling and trying to slow my breathing.
“What kind of animal?” Liam asked.
“A female jungle cat and her young.”
Chapter 20
A Deadly Trap
Liam
Iglared at the burly man staring down at us. “You do understand trying to capture a female jungle cat who is protecting her young is extremely dangerous, right? She won’t hesitate to kill you on the spot.”
He laughed. “You don’t think I’m aware of the dangers? We have the equipment needed. And we also have weapons for protection. We just need your expertise to track one.”
He turned away and left the tent.
“Imbecile,” I muttered as I turned my attention back to Cerise.
She was trembling, her breathing picking up pace, but I could tell she was trying to hide her worries by the way she lifted her chin and met my gaze. Though underneath it all, the terror I saw in the depths of those violet eyes had me itching to pull her close and keep her safe from these assholes.
She appeared as though she was on the edge of a complete meltdown, her brow pinched and eyes glistening with barely restrained tears as she frantically looked around our quarters.
Rage churned in my gut as I scanned her injury; her swollen eye and bruised cheek. Someone had hit her. They had punched her in the face.
I wasn’t a violent man. Hells, I’d never even thrown a punch before. I honestly didn’t even know how to. But seeing her harmed at another’s hands? That ripped something open in me.
“Cerise. We must make our escape while we’re searching for the jungle cat.”
“What? How are we going to do that?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Do you think there’s some type of hazard in the jungle we can lead them to? Enough to distract them so we can run?”
She looked thoughtful, pursing her lips. “I—I don’t know. I need…I need to think. I just need a moment.”
She was trying not to panic. If I gave her a purpose, a task to work on…perhaps that would help. Guide her to use her strengths, her intelligence.
“Listen to me carefully,” I said. “We may not have physical strength, and we don’t know how to fight our way out. But you and I, sunshine? We are smarter than those men out there. You alone are smarter than all of them combined.” She gave me a small smile. “If we can’t beat them with brawn, we’ll beat them with brains. So brainstorm with me. Let’s think of a way out of this, okay?”
Cerise took a breath. “Okay.”
We’d been walkingthrough the forest for a couple of hours now. The sun was high in the sky, steam rising from the ground as it burned away the moisture of this morning’s rain. My hands were still bound behind me, as were Cerise’s, but at least our legs were free.
Cerise and I had spent as much time as we had available concocting our plan before the poachers retrieved us for their mission.
We’d decided to give the group a false trail—pretending to seea small tuft of fur, or an animal track indicating a jungle cat wasn’t far off. Luckily, there were plenty of ‘clues’ out in the wilds. It was just that none of them actually belonged to the large feline.
But the poachers didn’t know that.
