by J. L. Wilder
He never gave me an order, she thought miserably. He assumed I would just obey. He assumed my fear of being kidnapped was too great to break these rules.
She had been reckless.
What would happen now? No one had ever told her that either. Everyone had always talked about kidnapping as the worst thing that could happen to an omega. It had taken on an almost mythical quality in Hazel’s mind. But now the kidnapping was over. They’d gotten her and they’d taken her...taken her somewhere.
No one had taught her what to expect next.
Because there was no reason to talk about it, she thought. Because everyone knows that once you’re kidnapped, there’s nothing you can do. It’s all over. That was the only thing that made sense. Her life as she knew it was over, and whatever came next would be part of a new life.
Hazel didn’t imagine it would be a very good life.
SHE WASN’T SURE HOW much time had passed. It felt like forever, and she was pretty sure she’d slept at least three times. She should have started keeping track of that right away. But would it have mattered? She didn’t think she was staying awake for a full day at a time.
The problem was that there was nothing to do.
The problem was that it was dark in here, fully dark, so dark that she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face.
There was so little to cling to. So little to give her comfort. There was the frayed and torn hem of her birthday dress, which she clutched in her fingers as she tried to sleep. How much time had gone by since Rita and Paisley had helped her into this dress? It had been so beautiful then. What did it look like now?
Every now and then, the door opened, and a shadow appeared, silhouetted against the dim light from outside the room where Hazel was being kept. He never spoke to her. Sometimes, he carried a tray, which he set on the floor before leaving.
The first time the tray had come, Hazel had ignored it. What if the food was poisoned?
The second time it had come, she’d been too hungry to care. She’d crawled toward the door, found the tray with the tips of her fingers, and felt around carefully to see what was on it. She had found a cup and had suddenly realized that she was desperately thirsty. She raised it to her lips, her hands shaking. The water tasted warm and rusty, but it was still water, and she finished the entire cup.
Further exploring uncovered two slices of bread. Here, she’d hesitated. They were soft in her hands. Might they be rotten or moldy? Hazel had seen moldy bread only once. Her pack was usually good about replacing groceries before they had a chance to go bad. Rita had quickly thrown the bread away and ordered one of the boys to take it out of the house, and Hazel had been left with the impression that mold was one of the worst things that could happen.
What would happen if she ate it? Would she die?
They don’t want to kill me, she thought to herself. They wanted her alive. They must. Why go to all the trouble of kidnapping her just to kill her with moldy bread? It wouldn’t make sense. If there was one thing Hazel knew, it was that she had value as an omega. Whatever they wanted her for, it must have something to do with that. They weren’t going to let her die in this room.
The thought filled her like warm coffee, spreading to her extremities. She hadn’t realized, until that moment, how frightened she’d been of dying. But having the fear alleviated was such a relief that she felt tears spring to her eyes. They’re not going to kill me, she thought, and she knew it was true.
As long as she was alive, there was still hope.
Maybe Matthew would come for her. She had value to her old pack too, and they cared for her, didn’t they? They wouldn’t abandon her to this. Someone would come. Someone would find her and bring her home to her family.
She just had to keep moving forward. She just had to hang in there until her rescuer came.
Reassured, she took a bite of the bread. It tasted fine—not good, it was plain and mushy, but fine. It would sustain her. Relieved, she ate both pieces and then crawled back into the farthest corner from the door of her little room and fell asleep.
SHE WAS AWAKENED SOME time later by a gruff voice. “Up.”
She blinked, confused, achy from sleeping on the cold cement. The light seemed brighter than usual coming in through the doorway. Was that just because she had been in the dark longer now?
How long had she been here?
“Get up,” the voice said again.
He was bigger than she was. Hazel believed now that they weren’t going to kill her, but what would they do? She wasn’t sure. It would be best to cooperate, she thought, and got slowly to her feet.
She felt weak and exhausted. Her time in the cell had clearly taken a toll on her. Her legs trembled as she stood, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure they would support her. Was it fear, or was it hunger? Or both?
“Come here,” the man said.
She didn’t want to. The last thing she wanted was to approach that ominous figure. But she hated to think what might happen if he had to come in and get her. She forced herself to walk toward him, feeling with every step, as though she might pass out.
When she was close enough, he reached out and grabbed her upper arm. He turned and dragged her unceremoniously out of the cell and into a long hallway. Hazel stumbled over her own feet, trying to keep up with the pace he set. She didn’t think he would stop if she were to fall.
At the end of the hall, he opened a second door and flung her inside. He stepped in after her and pulled the door shut behind them.
Hazel’s pupils contracted painfully. She couldn’t believe she’d thought the hallway was bright. This room was white—white walls, white tile floor—with silver instruments that caught the bright fluorescent light and threw it back at her. It felt as if the lighting was attacking her. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could see the brightness behind her eyelids, stabbing at her.
Slowly, she managed to ease her eyes open.
The room was small. Its main feature was a chair that reminded her of trips to the dentist. This sat empty and partially reclined in the middle of the room. There was a stool beside the chair, and a tray full of utensils. But they didn’t look like dental tools to Hazel.
She turned to face her captor. Now, in the light, she could see him clearly. He was tall, well over six feet, and wore a black tank top and black cargo pants. An ugly scar ran across his face from forehead to lower left cheek, and Hazel thought it looked as though it had probably been made by a claw.
Some wolves fight. She knew that. Matthew had often gathered his pack together around the fire after dinner and told them stories of uncivilized wolves, the ones who lived wild and didn’t have jobs or homes, the ones who fought with other packs. They were the ones to be afraid of, he’d always said. They were the ones who would do things like hurt or steal from decent packs.
Or kidnap an omega. He had never said that. Kidnapping an omega was an unspeakable thing. Matthew would never have brought it up casually like that, as part of a fireside story.
But it only made sense. Of course, that was who had taken her. It was a wild pack.
She expected her captor to put her in the chair in the middle of the room, but he didn’t. He stood there, arms folded across his chest, waiting. Watching.
Was she supposed to say something? She wasn’t sure. Maybe if she waited, he would ask her a question. She would tell him anything he wanted to know, she thought. She didn’t have any secrets. It wasn’t as if they didn’t already know she was an omega, and that was the most closely guarded thing about her.
But the big man didn’t speak, and he didn’t move an inch. He was like a statue.
Just when Hazel thought she couldn’t take the silence a moment longer, the door opened again, and another man came in. This one was smaller, although still several inches taller than Hazel herself. He had a trim but fit build. If she had to fight one of them, she thought, she would take the bigger one. This one looked like he might be fast.
Not that she’d stan
d a chance against either of them, really. God, please don’t let it come to a fight.
“Ah, good,” the newcomer said. “I was worried you’d have started without me.”
“No, sir, Edgar,” said the bigger man. “Orders were to wait and so I waited.”
“Very good,” Edgar said. He walked to the tray and picked up a pair of scissors. “These are sharp?”
“Plenty sharp.”
“Wonderful.” He approached Hazel. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. She wanted to kick out at him, to fight him off, but he was holding scissors. How could she?
Edgar glanced at his friend. “What is she wearing?”
The big man shrugged. “Dress.”
“I can see it’s a dress, you fucking nimrod. Jesus, look at this thing. Must have cost someone a few grand.”
“Family’s rich, I think. One of those old money lines.”
“Maybe they’d pay to get her back,” Edgar mused.
“They would,” Hazel said quickly. “I’m sure they’d offer.”
The point of the scissors pressed against her throat. “Quiet, omega,” Edgar growled. “Did I ask you a question?”
“No,” Hazel whispered.
“Then keep your mouth shut. Spike, get the needle.”
Needle?
“Stand still,” Edgar said, and raised the scissors. Hazel froze, afraid to move. What was he going to do to her?
Snip.
It wasn’t painful. Whatever he’d cut, it wasn’t her skin. She wanted to look back, but she didn’t dare.
Snip. Snip.
Her dress fell loose around her hips, and realization dawned on her. A moment later, the garment slipped from her body and pooled around her ankles on the floor. She shivered at the cold air on her suddenly bare skin. I would have taken it off, she thought. He didn’t have to ruin it.
It was the only thing she had to wear, and she knew she ought to be sad about losing it, but for some reason, the only thing she could think about was the look on Rita’s face as she’d stepped back to admire the effect of the dress on Hazel. The beautiful dress that her pack had saved to buy for her, given to her to celebrate her coming of age...it lay in ruins on the floor.
She wanted to cry.
She almost didn’t care that she was standing here almost naked in front of these strange men. She almost didn’t notice as Edgar took her by the arm and guided her down into the strange chair in the center of the room. Everything seemed to come crashing down around her at once. The beautiful life she’d had had been ripped away, just like her beautiful dress. Everything was destroyed.
“Spike,” Edgar called. “The needle. Come on.”
She looked up. Spike was passing a cruel looking device to Edgar. “What is that?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“Shut up,” Edgar snapped. He lowered the tip of the device to her shoulder.
Suddenly terrified, Hazel jerked against his hands, fighting, trying to get up. “Spike!” Edgar yelled. “Come and fucking hold her down, will you, before she takes my damn head off? Christ, I have to tell you everything!”
Big hands were on Hazel now, restraining her, preventing her from moving. There was a stab of pain, one that seemed to travel across her skin rather than stay in one place, and Hazel cried out.
“Shut up!” Edgar roared. “Make one more sound, omega, and we’ll knock you out. I mean it. You want to spend the next three days in that room recovering from a goddamn head injury? If not, then shut your mouth.”
Hazel shut her mouth. She lay as still as she could, trying to control her trembling limbs, trying to focus on her breathing. Yoga had taught her to let breath center her, but it was hard in this moment. She wanted nothing more than to scream, to cry, to open her eyes and find that it was all a dream and she was safe in bed in her suite at her pack’s house. She wanted a hot bath, a warm meal, a hug from Paisley. She wanted Matthew to give her a well-intentioned order, and she wanted to lovingly obey. She wanted Rita’s hands in her hair, styling, smoothing. Even Gianna would have been a welcome sight right now.
But no matter how many times she closed and opened her eyes, the reality around her refused to give way. It was no dream. She was really here, stripped to her underwear and held down in this chair by these men who were hurting her in this strange and confusing way.
It seemed to go on forever. By the time they were finished, Hazel had stopped fighting. She lay limp and exhausted in the chair, waiting for it to be over, waiting to go back to her cell, where at least she could sit alone in the dark and nobody would touch her.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the machine was retracted. “Cloth,” Edgar said. Spike handed him one, and he placed it over her arm. It stung, but Hazel didn’t flinch.
There was blood on the cloth when he pulled it away. Only then did she look down and see what had been done to her arm.
It was a tattoo. Three sharp slashes, as though she’d been clawed open by a wolf. She looked up at Spike’s face, at the scar there, and wondered whether it had been deliberate.
Who were these people?
And to her surprise, her question was answered. “This marking registers you as the official property of the Savage Rangers,” Edgar said. “Forget where you came from. Forget whatever you had before. You’re one of us now. Our omega. And anyone who sees this mark on you will know it.”
“I thought you were going to ask for a reward—”
Edgar slapped her hard in the face.
Hazel didn’t cry out. She was too shocked by his brutal treatment. No one had ever struck her before in her life.
“I told you not to speak,” he said. “Maybe we’ll ask for a reward for you. Maybe we won’t. It’ll be for our alpha to decide. And maybe we’ll take the reward, give you back to that pack of yours, and they’ll boot you right out the door for us to pick up again when they see our mark on your arm.”
That wasn’t true, was it? They wouldn’t turn her out just because of a tattoo. They wouldn’t.
Would they?
Would they pay for her return and then decide they didn’t want her anymore, that she was ruined, that she no longer had value, now that she’d been marked like this?
She wanted to scream. She wanted to sob. It felt like everything inside her body was shivering.
“Take her back to her cell, Spike,” Edgar said.
Spike nodded, hauled Hazel to her feet, and dragged her back into the dimly lit hallway and down to the door of her cell. He opened it, pushed her inside, and slammed it behind her.
She was alone.
She was completely alone, without even the dress she’d worn here for comfort. The ground was so much colder than she’d realized before, and so much harder. She curled up into a tight ball, shivering, trying her best to cushion her head with her hands. It hurt to move her right arm too much.
Was it still bleeding? She thought it probably was.
Would it become infected?
This room was far from sanitary. She would have to try not to let it touch anything. That was all she could do.
Matthew, she thought desperately, Rita, Paisley...anyone...God, please come and find me. Please come and take me away from here. I’ll never leave home by myself again. I’ll never disobey. Please, please, just let me get away.
But nobody came, and the hours passed. Eventually, Hazel’s tears dried up and the world seemed to go still around her, and when her eyes drifted closed, she fell easily into a heavy, exhausted, grief-stricken sleep.
Chapter Four
EMMETT
Emmett, Xander, Judah, Pax, and Dart stood around in a circle, passing around the items Matthew Lang had given them, acquainting themselves with the scent and the look of the woman they were hunting.
“Remember,” Emmett said, “she’s to be returned undamaged and intact. We don’t want her getting hurt.” And he pointed at Dart.
Dart scowled. He was the second youngest of the Hell’s Wolves, at nineteen, and he wore h
is nickname with pride. He’d won it because of his speed, both on a bike and on foot, and his ability to draw first blood in a fight. If you were going into a brawl, Dart might not be the guy you’d want at your side—he didn’t have the muscle mass that made pack members like Judah and Pax so powerful. But if you were an assassin, if you were going to sneak up on someone and cut them from behind, Dart was definitely your man.
The problem was that he wasn’t judicious about when he used his claws.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” he said now.
“Okay, good,” Emmett said. “Make sure you don’t. Because if she’s damaged at all, we don’t get paid.”
“You know they’ve probably had their way with her ten times over by now,” Judah said.
“I don’t know that at all, and neither do you,” Emmett replied. “We don’t know who kidnapped her. We don’t know anything about them. For all we know, it could just be humans.”
“You don’t seriously think that,” Pax said.
“Okay, I don’t,” Emmett agreed. “But it could be black market vendors. Maybe they want to sell her. And if that’s the case, maybe they’ve kept her unharmed. Or they could be planning to ransom her back to the Coywolves.”
“Do you really think the Coywolves would refuse to take her back if she was damaged?” Xander asked.
“You heard them,” Emmett said. “What do you think?”
Xander frowned. “I think he sounded like he meant what he said,” he answered finally. “I think she would lose value in his eyes if she wasn’t pure.”
“That’s fucked up,” Dart said.
“That’s omega life,” Emmett said firmly. “That’s what’s normal for omegas and their families.”
“Yeah, well, it’s sick, if you ask me,” Dart said.
Emmett thought about telling Dart that he hadn’t asked him, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. In truth, he agreed with his younger packmate. Established packs, traditionalist packs, could be real sons of bitches when it came to their omegas.