They should all know.
He’d make sure they knew.
Because he was gonna rip that pack apart, even if he had to sacrifice every single hunter in his compound in order to do the job.
After all, what were human lives worth? Humans were weak, meaningless . . .
And only the strong survived in this world.
He was the strong. He was the alpha, and he’d prove that truth to everyone.
CHAPTER FIVE
“So how the hell do we get out of this cage?” Gage demanded, as he paced the small perimeter of their prison, and since he was pacing and they were chained, she pretty much had to pace, too.
Kayla hated the chain that bound them. And hated that she had to tell him, “We don’t get out.”
Those words stopped him. Gage glanced back at her. The faint lines on his face seemed deeper than before. “There’s always a way out.”
Such an optimistic shifter. She shook her head. “Not this time. The cell was designed for the maximum containment of a shifter. Even with your strength, you won’t be able to break the bars. And when you try”—because she suspected he was already thinking about that—“the silver will just burn you. It’s highly concentrated . . . the purest form I’ve ever seen.” Guaranteed to make a shifter scream.
“So you’re just what—giving up?”
Her eyes narrowed. Who did the guy think he was talking to? Sure, yeah, she’d had a sob worthy moment; wasn’t a girl entitled to that when she found out her whole life was a lie? But she was pushing forward, and she wasn’t gonna fall apart again. Kayla straightened her shoulders. “I’m picking my moment,” she said, “and when the right moment comes, I’ll get us out of here.” The moment wasn’t happening then. Sure, no cameras were on them. No other hunters listening in. But this wasn’t the moment to escape. “In an hour, Lyle will be back.”
“And you want to wait for him?” He looked at her like she was crazy.
No, what she really wanted was to slam her fist into Lyle’s face. But waiting was all she could do . . . then. “When he opens that cage door, that’s when we’ll get our freedom.” They just had to move fast enough and be strong enough.
They wouldn’t have long, but that door would open. Lyle—lying, conniving bastard—would be the one to unlock the cage.
Then it would be their turn to attack.
Gage was back to pacing. “And what if they just drug us again? Instead of opening that door wide, what if they shoot us, then drag us out of here one at a time?”
He would point out that option. She shrugged and tried to appear careless. Such an act. “Then we’re screwed.” Because her plan—the only plan that she could think of right then—involved Lyle opening the door for her. He opened it, then she killed him.
End of story.
The guy had always underestimated her. She’d pushed for the more dangerous missions. He’d held her back, saying she wasn’t ready.
I’ll show you killer instinct, asshole.
The chain rattled. Her gaze lifted. Gage was closing in on her and his eyes were glowing with the light of his beast.
She held her ground. Her heart raced in her chest, drumming fast enough to almost hurt, and she wondered just how acute his shifter senses really were.
Could he smell her fear?
If we don’t get out, I die.
Because she knew that when it came down to a choice between Gage’s pack and her, well, there wasn’t a choice at all.
Gage might think that Lyle wouldn’t actually kill her, but Kayla knew better.
Did he really kill my parents? The suspicion was in her gut, knotting deep. For years, she’d been following his orders. He’d given her a home. Given her protection.
And now he wanted to carve her up.
Like he had carved up her mother and father? He’d been there that night, but not as the rescuer she’d thought. As the monster she’d feared.
Gage’s fingers rose to touch her throat. She flinched, then realized that his claws weren’t out. Her breath whispered from between her lips.
“I don’t like that scent from you,” Gage said, his voice a dark rumble of sound.
Uh, come again?
“Fear usually smells good . . .”
So he could smell it.
“But coming from you, the scent just makes me want to kill.” Then he leaned forward. His arms wrapped around her and he lifted her up against him. Gage’s lips pressed against her throat. “I swear, I’ll kill him.”
He was kissing her wounds. His mouth was gentle, but the hands holding her were hard with strength and power.
She trembled against him as his lips moved toward the curve of her ear, and that tremble—it wasn’t from fear.
I should’ve had more time with him.
Gage hadn’t married her for love, yeah, she got that part. But why couldn’t they have just enjoyed a few days together? Had death really needed to come calling hours after she said “I do”?
Would it have been so wrong to take more pleasure? Before the pain that was promised?
I’ll carve her up.
Her eyes closed. Her hands curled around his shoulders. She knew what she wanted.
They had an hour.
No cameras. No audio recordings.
An hour.
She rubbed her body lightly against his. Take more pleasure. Because if the escape plan forming in her mind didn’t work, she’d know only pain in the time to come.
No, I want pleasure.
“I don’t . . . I don’t care why you married me.” Her voice came out soft and husky.
His head lifted. She couldn’t read the emotion behind the strong lines and angles of his face. And she’d always thought he seemed open? What a lie.
Shifters are born to lie. Lyle’s words. She just hadn’t realized—he was the one with the best skills at deception.
“I don’t care why,” she said again. She didn’t even want to talk about that genetic match bull right then. She just wanted . . . him.
Maybe he had been playing her, the way she’d intended to play him.
Catch a hunter. Spring your trap.
They were both trapped then, and they had only each other. So she simply said what she felt. “Before he comes back, I want to be with you again.”
His pupils expanded until only black seemed to fill his gaze. No more bright blue.
Slowly, he lowered her to the floor. Her feet touched the stone. Okay, right, she got that this wasn’t exactly the honeymoon suite. The cage bars weren’t sexy. The cot was narrow. The—
“Your timing is shit,” he told her, voice roughening with arousal.
Um, yeah, true, but it wasn’t like she had a rain check option going on then.
Gage pulled in a deep breath. “Don’t cry out,” he told her in that hard rasp that sent shivers skating over her body. “He’ll hear, and I don’t want him hearing a single sound that you make for me.”
Kayla licked her lips. No screaming this time. Check. She could do that.
Could he? The guy had been pretty loud last time…
Then his hands were on her jeans. Yanking at the snap and jerking down the zipper. She kicked out of her boots and—
His fingers slid between her legs. Pushed up into her sex, and she gasped at the sensual touch.
Kayla rose onto her toes, trying to adjust to the feel of those long, hard fingers inside of her. She wasn’t ready, not yet, but—
His thumb pushed over her clit. His fingers withdrew. Thrust again.
Her knees did a little jiggle even as her sex tightened around his thrusting fingers. Just that fast, Kayla knew she was getting wet for him. Adrenaline and need fired her blood and her nails scratched over his arms as she pulled him closer.
When they kissed, there was nothing soft or gentle about it. Wild. Heat. Hunger.
Craving.
If this was her last time with him, she’d take everything he had. There was no control. No holding part of herself back.
Only lust. Only him.
He lifted her up into his arms. She loved his strength . . . when she’d feared that same strength in others. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and she held on to him as tightly as she could.
He positioned his cock at the entrance of her body. The broad head pushed past the sensitive flesh of her sex. He wasn’t thrusting deep yet. Gage still had his control.
She wanted that control to break. No, to shatter into a million pieces. She wanted him wild and desperate for her—the way she was for him.
Kayla’s mouth broke from his. Wolves liked to bite, almost as much as vampires. They liked their sex rough. Hard. Consuming.
Just the way she did.
Kayla pressed her mouth to his neck. Licked his flesh. Gage shuddered. Good, but . . . she wanted more. She opened her mouth. Put her teeth against him, right where the curve of his shoulder met his neck. Then she nipped him.
“Kayla . . . ”
She knew that wolves marked their mates this way. A bite to claim. Was she claiming him?
She wasn’t a wolf but . . .
Kayla let him feel the press of her teeth once more, and she could almost hear the rip of his control.
Better.
His hands hardened on her, digging into her hips, and he thrust deep. Gage drove into her with one fierce plunge. And it was exactly what she needed. What she wanted. Each withdrawal and thrust had his cock sliding right over her clit, and the sensual strokes made her whole body tighten. Pleasure. So close. So—
He took two steps, kept his tight hold on her, and Kayla found her back slammed against the cage bars. He was still thrusting into her and she loved it. But this position, sweet hell, it made him go in even deeper.
After living the last eighteen years only feeling rage and pain, this was what she’d hoped for.
Wild and hot.
Her breath panted out. She wanted to scream as the pleasure built, but she bit her lower lip to hold back the sound. He was swelling even bigger inside of her. Going even deeper. Yes. She’d never felt more connected to another person. Never felt as if she belonged to another, the way she belonged to him.
His eyes were on hers. So intense and deep. She could see the edge of his canines. Lengthening, because the beast was close.
Then he put those canines on her. In nearly the exact spot that she’d bit him. Kayla arched toward him. She wasn’t afraid of the beast that lurked just beneath the surface of the man. She wanted him to bite her.
But—
Gage yanked his head back. Thrust faster. One strong hand lifted and wrapped around the bar near her and she wanted to call out a warning to him. He’d be burned. It would hurt—
Her climax hit her on a wave of pleasure so intense that every muscle in her body seemed to clench. She lost her breath, and when she opened her mouth to cry out because she couldn’t hold the sound in any longer, Gage kissed her. He drove his tongue past her lips even as his cock thrust into her core.
Then he seemed to erupt within her. She could feel the jet of his release inside of her. Her sex contracted around him, greedy for that pleasure to continue. Why did it have to end? She’d just found him.
Why did everything have to be so twisted for them?
Why couldn’t she just be a woman . . . and he just be a man?
Gage’s mouth slowly lifted from hers. He stared at her with the hungry, lustful eyes of a beast.
Never just a man.
He was so much more.
Her heart raced in her chest. Pounded so fast. Gage withdrew from her—dammit—and carefully lowered her to the stone floor. When her unsteady knees finally regained their strength, she remembered—his hand. In the heat of the moment, the guy had actually reached out for the silver bars.
She caught his hand and winced at the angry blisters lining his palm. “Gage . . .” His name whispered from her.
His fingers clenched into a fist. “I didn’t even feel the pain.”
Her gaze rose to find him watching her.
That half-smile flashed across his face. “Fucking you felt too good.”
She wanted to smile back at him because that grin had always gotten beneath her skin. That grin—from the first sight, it had told her he couldn’t be a monster, even when she knew otherwise. But Kayla couldn’t smile in return. She knew what future was coming for them.
And it wasn’t going to be easy or pretty or good. In order to escape, she’d have to turn on the men she’d worked side by side with for years.
She might even have to kill them.
Or else she and Gage would be the ones to wind up dead.
“I want to see my sister,” Jonah demanded as he marched into Lyle’s office. He didn’t know what the hell was going on at the compound, but he sure didn’t like it. He’d been forcibly held in that surveillance room by the other hunters—so much for friendship—and then, twenty minutes later, when they’d finally let him go, he’d discovered that more hunters were stationed in front of Kayla’s holding cell.
When he’d tried to go inside and talk to his sister, the hunters—jerks who he’d counted as friends before—had lifted their weapons toward him.
What the hell was happening? Things couldn’t have gotten this screwed, this fast. It was like a nightmare. One that he just couldn’t wake up from, no matter how hard he tried.
He’d been trying pretty damn hard.
“I want to see her,” Jonah said again. He had to make sure she was all right. It was his fault she was in containment. His fault.
Lyle leaned forward in his chair and gave a sad shake of his head. “I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”
“Make it possible.” Lyle could do anything he wanted. The man was the head honcho at the compound. He just answered to the government guys in their fancy suits—and those guys came around only when it was prison transfer time. “Give me clearance to see her. Now.” Anger had him seething. He still had his weapon. The others hadn’t taken that, and if he didn’t get to see his sister soon—
Lyle exhaled on a slow breath. “You know she betrayed us.”
The boss’s words scraped right over Jonah’s soul. His jaw clenched, and he straightened to his full height. “There’s been a mistake.” That was what he kept telling himself. A mistake could be fixed. “If you’d just let me talk to her . . .”
There was sympathy in Lyle’s gaze, but he said, “She’ll try to bring you over to her side, too.”
“I’m not goin’ on the side of a freaking wolf!” Not after what that shifter had done to him so long ago. Three months. He’d been trapped in a hospital for three months because of the beast that had come after his family. He’d nearly lost his arm. Had been clawed open.
And his sister was siding with those monsters now?
“No.” Lyle pushed to his feet and walked around his desk. “No, I never thought you’d join up with a wolf.”
Jonah’s breath heaved out. Right. Lyle trusted him. Lyle knew him.
“But then,” Lyle’s assessing gaze swept over him, “I never thought Kayla would either.”
Her betrayal didn’t make any sense. “Why?” Why would his sister turn on the hunters, on him, for a wolf?
“Because they’re fucking.”
Jonah’s teeth ground together so hard that it hurt. I’ll kill that wolf. “I can—I can get her to come back to us.” If he could just talk to her—
“The others know that she can’t be trusted now.” Lyle walked toward him with slow, measured steps. His green gaze was watchful. Always so watchful. “What we do in this world, it’s life or death, and if you can’t count on the hunter who’s supposed to be watching your back . . .” He shook his head sadly. “Then just what good is that backup?”
No good. Worthless. But Kayla wasn’t worthless. She was everything to him. Jonah fought to keep his voice calm. So much was happening. So much he still didn’t fully understand. “Why—why’d you turn off the surveillance camera?” That hadn’t been protocol. Not e
ven close. And with Kayla there—
“Because you’re already in enough pain.” Lyle’s hand came up and clasped his shoulder. “I didn’t want you to see just how far your sister has fallen. I didn’t want any of the other hunters to see just how twisted she’s become. They thought she was a friend, but the truth is, she’s been working with Gage Riley. She’s been planning—” His hand tightened on Jonah’s shoulder and his words broke away.
Jonah frowned at him and knocked that comforting hand away. “Just what has she been planning?”
“She was selling us out to her wolf. Telling him where our compound was located. You want to know the real reason all of Gage Riley’s pack mates vanished from the city?” The faint lines around Lyle’s mouth deepened. “They’re planning to attack us, and Kayla was going to help them destroy every hunter here.” The briefest of pauses, then, “Every hunter, including you.”
Bullshit. Kayla would never turn on him. No matter what else had happened, he wouldn’t believe that. Kayla wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t turn on him—
Not the way I turned on her. He could still see her eyes. When she’d realized that he’d shot her . . . betrayal.
She was the only family he had. When he’d been in that hospital, wired to those constantly beeping machines and drugged out of his mind, Kayla had been there. Every day. Bandaged and bruised herself, she’d held his hand.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, Jonah, I promise . . .” Kayla’s young voice. A voice that he still heard late at night, when the memory of pain and death came to him.
Jonah cleared his throat. “What’s gonna happen to her?”
Lyle turned away and headed for the door. “Come now, Jonah. Do you really think I’d kill a human? Her?”
Yes. Because Lyle could be the coldest SOB that Jonah had ever seen.
And as his boss walked out of the room, Jonah knew . . . nothing would ever be all right again.
I’m sorry, Kayla.
“He’ll be back early,” Kayla said as she adjusted her clothes. “No way is he going to give us an hour. The guy will be coming back—”
“Now,” Gage told her because he could hear the tread of footsteps in the hallway. Lyle had a hard step. Pushing forward with too much eagerness. The guy was hurrying down the hallway in his rush to return.
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