by Helen Scott
“I know you’re stubborn, just like I am. We’re the same, you and I. It’s how I know you’re meant to be my mate. You can be my queen, Antonia. Shifters would worship you. The pack that we create would be the envy of every other pack in existence. We could rule them all.” His eyes had lit up with a crazy energy, the kind that made me want to back away slowly before running for the hills.
I couldn’t run anywhere though, not while I was in this cage. Instead of backing away like I wanted to, I schooled my features into expressing hesitant interest in his plan and stepped closer, ever so slightly. I needed to convince him to let me out so I could find Blake. The best way I could think of to do that was to play into his hands. For now.
“You and I would be the strongest mated pair in existence. Everyone would respect you and treat you like the spectacular being that you are. We would be worshipped.” His tone was that of a salesman. A desperate one at that.
I couldn’t say that the idea was completely unappealing, just like he wasn’t, when he didn’t open his mouth. There was something there between us. I knew what he was talking about, and I hated it.
The dream I’d had where I stepped into the fire filled my mind. I remembered the smoke and darkness that had flowed from him in that dream, how his eyes had glowed, and how he seemed to get bigger and taller the longer I looked at him. I also remembered how the same darkness that had been flowing from him had surrounded me, had frozen me to the point that I couldn’t move. It had become a physical weight on my body and mind, one that I couldn’t escape.
It was this memory, dream, whatever, as silly as it may have been, that kept me from giving in to the sliver of desire I felt for him. Jax was callous and wicked, not to mention devious. He was everything my mates weren’t, and that was only one of the reasons I’d choose them over him every damn time.
“Do we have to talk about this with bars between us?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him. “Or at least untie me? I mean, what can I do against you, really?”
Jax watched me for a while, and I held the innocent, not planning anything expression on my face. His gaze raked over me, and for the first time, he seemed to notice what I was wearing. “What’s with the scrubs?”
“Nothing, I’m just fashion forward that’s all.” I winked saucily at him.
He grinned, and for a split second, I saw the boy he’d been. My brother’s best friend. My protector. Oh my, how things had changed.
“I like it, especially when your nipples are hard like that.” Jax’s voice had turned growly and deep.
Glancing down, I saw that he was right—I was nipping like crazy, but I also didn’t have a bra or undies on since I couldn’t exactly grab those from the hospital. The lack of undergarments aside, I’d made do with what I had, and apparently, that was distracting Jax enough that I thought he might actually give in and let me out.
I stepped forward, pushing my chest close to the bars. There was a bar between my breasts, and I pushed forward a little more, until I could feel the silver in the metal of the cage burning my skin. I drew a sharp breath in, a hissing sound escaping me as I did so, which only seemed to please Jax even more.
“You are drawn to me, aren’t you, Nina?” Jax asked.
I stayed where I was, letting the silver burn me as I fought back a pained sound. He liked that I was hurting myself to, theoretically, be closer to him. It wasn’t that I wanted to be closer to him, I just wanted to get out of this cage. Playing to his ego and his desires seemed like the best way to accomplish that.
“Aren’t you?” he asked again when I didn’t respond.
I met his gaze with my own and nodded ever so slightly.
A satisfied smirk twisted his lips as he stepped closer, pulling gloves on as he dug the key from his pocket and opened the door, letting me out into the tent. He promptly spun me around and untied my hands, but when I went to move away, he stopped me, his hands running up and down my arms like a lover.
“I know why you have multiple mates, you know? And I know why you’re mating with the shifters you’re mating with. The oracle told me all about it. I can give you answers, give you what you want and what you don’t know you want.” His lips moved against my ear, and his hips pressed against my ass for the last part. He thought I just didn’t know that I wanted him yet? What kind of fucked-up logic was that?
“I came here because you said you’d release Blake. I need to know he’s okay and get him back to the hospital, then we can talk more, okay?” I asked, turning in his grip to look up at him.
For the first time, I realized he wasn’t as tall as I’d always thought he was. Most of my mates were taller than him. It made me feel slightly less threatened by him, which probably wasn’t the wisest assumption, but my wolf and I were in agreement—we didn’t want him as our mate, not when we had better options.
“Did you really think I’d let either of you go?” Jax asked, a snarl curling his lips. The curious, seductive version of Jax faded away like fog in the morning sun, and all I was left with was the seeping darkness that lived inside him. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to possess me, control me. Not because he actually gave a shit about me, but because the oracle told him I was valuable, something for him to attain.
“No, I never thought you would let me go, but I was hoping you’d let Blake go. He’s been through enough.” I didn’t want to beg, but I would if that was what it took to get Blake out of there safely. I knew there was zero chance my guys would abandon me here. There was simply no way they’d just stop trying to get to me, but having Blake back would only help them in that regard.
“You think you’re so smart, but you’re not, Nina. Sam knew it. That’s why he wanted to get you out of the pack—he didn’t want you embarrassing yourself once the males that might consider mating with you realized just how dumb and easily manipulated you were and still are. Of course I won’t let Blake go. He’s my leverage over you. Every time you fuck up, it won’t be you I take it out on, at least not at first. It’ll be Blake. Every time you step out of line, every time you question me or speak out of turn, every time you try and deny me access to your body, I’ll take it out on him. He’ll receive all your beatings. The more you fuck up, the harder you fight me, the worse it will get for him. And when he’s used up and spent, when he can’t take the beatings anymore? Then I’ll kill him in front of you. Slowly.”
I had to fight the bile that wanted to rise from my stomach. The words he spoke were like daggers to my heart. What he described was something that I couldn’t let happen. There was no way I’d let Blake suffer like that, or any of my other mates for that matter. If it came down to me giving in to Jax or taking myself out of the equation, then I’d do so, but I’d fight tooth and claw to live and love who I wanted.
“Just let me see him. I need to make sure he survived before I just…give myself over to you.” I tried my hardest not to let it show, but that sentence was more difficult to get out than I thought.
“No. You come in here, making demands, stinking of sex, like I don’t already know you open your legs for the four of them but not me. Did you want to rub my face in it? Did you really think that it would go unpunished once I had you? You’re mind now, Nina, and once you no longer smell like another shifter, I will have you in as many places and positions as possible until I fuck the scent of your other so-called mates from your skin. You will scent of nothing but me by the time I’m through with you, and if you’re a very good girl, I might even let you come.” The vitriol with which he spoke let me know just how deep the darkness had woven into his soul.
I’d thought that I caught a glimpse of the boy I used to know earlier, but I was wrong—the man before me was nothing but darkness, rage, and chaos. He wanted to bring the world down to his level, force us all to get in the mud with him, to sully our souls with the darkness that he hid within himself.
I refused.
I couldn’t get over the way Jax felt like two different people. He could be sweet, if a bit of
a creeper, and somewhat charming, and then the next moment, he was all rage and threats, which I had no doubt he’d follow through on if given the opportunity. One thing that I knew about Jax to the very center of my being was that he wasn’t all bluster. There was a reason people were scared of him, and I, for one, didn’t want to find out what it was.
“You think I’d stay with you willingly after you threaten my mate like that? Threaten me like that?” I sneered at him and pulled myself free from his hold and took a step back. “If you want me to stay with you, then you’ll have to make me, because there’s no way in hell I’d do it voluntarily.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” he replied with a blood-chilling grin on his face as he advanced toward me.
27
Nina
My heart beat so fast in my chest, I felt more like a rabbit than a wolf. When he lunged for me, I darted to the side. If my heart was hammering like a rabbit’s, then maybe that was what I needed to be.
Quick.
Light on my feet.
Focused on escape rather than the fight.
I turned to the flap in the tent and made a break for it, only for him to grab me by my ponytail and yank me backward, making me fall on my ass. Hard.
The air was knocked from my lungs, and I lay on the ground for a moment, gasping like a fish out of water. My pulse pounded in my ear, the only thing I could hear as fear rushed through me. If I couldn’t get out of here, then it would be up to the guys, and I didn’t want to have to rely on them to rescue me. I knew they would try, but I also knew that they would probably get hurt in the process, and that was the last thing I wanted.
Though it seemed like that was all that had been happening lately.
One of them getting hurt after another. Each of them falling like dominos.
My lungs weren’t working correctly yet, but I couldn’t just sit there as Jax smirked down at me, clearly thinking I was already beaten. I pushed to my feet, struggling to do so. When I was halfway there, Jax lifted a foot and kicked me in the ribs, knocking me to the ground again.
“Stay down, Antonia, it’s for the best,” he growled out. His face may as well have been made of stone, for all the expression he showed. Was this the Jax that the rest of the pack saw? The one they were all scared of? I could see it in a way, but somehow, I thought this was only the tip of the iceberg.
I rolled away from him and pushed to my feet, my lungs finally deciding that they wanted to work again. This time, he was too far away to reach me as I got into a standing position that was fight ready. I knew better than to make it obvious, so my feet weren’t as separated as I would have liked, but I kept my knees slightly bent and my arms loose at my sides, ready to move at any moment.
When Jax advanced toward me, I feigned left and went right, choosing his less dominant side, hoping that it would give me an advantage as I struck out with my fists. Bare knuckle boxing wasn’t exactly fun, but if it was my only option, then I’d fight until my hands were swollen and bloody, until I couldn’t fight any more.
One of my punches landed square across Jax’s jaw, whipping his head to the side. He flicked his tongue out, licking the blood from the inside of his lip where it had broken. The fresh red of his blood stained the muscle, and when he swiped his tongue over the outside of his lip as though checking to see if that was broken as well, it just smeared it all over his skin.
Before he could react, I struck out again, letting my fists fly in a familiar combination of movements as I struck his ribs, face, and kidneys when I was around to the side. I kept moving, rotating and circling, hitting him whenever an opportunity arose. He blocked a lot of my strikes, keeping his arms up as he guarded his head and neck. It was clear he had some fighting experience, and I meant more than just a balls to the wall, fight to the death, no holds barred, kind of thing. He had learned some boxing, though not as much as me, and I doubted he had any martial arts training like I had, which gave me an advantage. Not that I wanted to tip my hand just yet.
I was running out of steam though, and that was a dangerous thing. Not enough training, combined with not enough food or sleep, meant that my body was running on fumes and muscle memory. Plus, the pizza I’d eaten earlier had to have been burned off by now.
If there was any chance of me winning this fight, it was going to be because I knew ways to move that Jax didn’t.
“This isn’t a boxing ring, Antonia, you can’t win against me that way. You know the only way to fight an alpha and walk away is to kill them,” he said as I backed away from him, needing a moment to breathe and get my head straight.
He didn’t let up though. As soon as I moved away, he followed. This time, he was the one hitting out though, his fists striking my arms as they came up over my face. When he realized he couldn’t get to me that way, he switched to my ribs, hammering on the bones that were exposed, even though I hunched down into myself, trying to give him as little to work with as possible. The problem was I was barely a welterweight and he was a heavy weight.
If I could wait for him to wear himself out, then I might stand a chance at recovering. It just meant taking a beating in the meantime. I tried to pretend I was back at the gym with Richard and we were just having a particularly brutal session. I could almost smell the sweat soaked floor of the boxing ring as I brought it to mind.
Focusing on my memories and not the present brought other moves to mind, ones that I could use to take him down if given the opportunity. I just had to get him to back off first. There was no way I’d be able to get him in a wrist lock or something when his wrists were constantly flying at my head.
Standing there and taking the beating wasn’t working though. I was going to get too hurt to be able to retaliate. I dropped to the floor, kicking out at his knee as I did so, before rolling farther away. Was it smooth and dignified? No. Did it work? Sort of. It got me farther away from Jax, which was my main goal, though my kick had only glanced his knee.
A low, spine-chilling growl left his lips, even though they never moved, as he turned toward me once again. “You think you can just attack the alpha and get away with it?”
“If I could kill you and get this over with, I would. You think I want to do this dance with you? You’re fucking insane!” My temper got the better of me and I regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth, but that was what happened when I was under constant stress and not allowed to eat properly—I got cranky. And when I got cranky, apparently, I also got reckless.
Fury rippled over his features, his skin turning blotchy along his neck, and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as though he was imagining wringing my neck. His eyes had gone so wide that I could see the perfect circle that formed his iris. “I’m going to beat you until you beg me to stop, then I’m going to lock you in that cage and leave you there with nothing but a bucket until you’re on death’s doorstep. Then before I’ll let you have any food or water, I’ll make you crawl to me on your hands and knees, naked, in front of the whole pack, begging me to let you live. I might even make you crawl over broken glass. That seems fitting for you, since you keep breaking my heart. I will tear you down and I will punish you just as much as I punish Blake. You will both pay for your actions, and I’ll enjoy every second. Maybe, just maybe, once I think you’ve learned your lesson, I’ll build you back up. After all, I do need you to sire my alpha pups.” When he started speaking, I wasn’t surprised that it was threats of violence and degradation, since that was in line with everything I knew about this version of Jax. I just watched as spittle built up on the corners of his mouth and his nostrils flared, trying not to let my own emotions show.
His rage was like a virus that had infected me and turned my logical thoughts to mush. Instead of holding my tongue like I’d planned, I found myself saying, “I’ll never bow to you. I’ll never crawl to you. The only thing I’ll ever do is walk away from you. I don’t give a shit about your fucking heart. You’ve drugged me, kidnapped me, tried to coerce me, and threatened me. Th
is is not how you get a mate, Jax, and especially not how you get me as a mate. But then, I have four mates already, don’t I? They’re big and strong and they make me come harder and more often than you’d ever be able to with your tiny dick.” Okay, so that was a bit much.
If I thought Jax had been furious before, it was nothing compared to now. His body practically rippled with anger. He bared his teeth at me in what I thought was supposed to be an evil smile, but really, he just looked like his wolf was too close to the surface for them both to agree on an action. His eyes were locked on to me as he cracked his neck from side to side, like everything up to this point had just been a game and now he was getting serious.
The next thing I knew, he let loose a guttural roar and charged at me. I’d never seen him like that before, even at the café, when he was throwing things and tipping tables. He’d never been this violent, this unpredictable before. I’d expected him to push me over, to grab at me, but he just picked me up and charged even farther until my back rammed into a tree that must have been on the other side of the tent or something. My head snapped back, connecting with the tree, and made me see stars.
His eyes were wild when I saw them this close, shifting from wolf to man and back again at a rate so fast that it made me dizzy, or maybe that was just the blow to the head. Either way, I was having trouble focusing, like my own eyes were rolling around in my head. I was blaming that for why I didn’t notice the guards that came in.
“Everything okay, boss?” one of them asked, drawing my bleary gaze in the direction of his voice.
At some point, Jax’s hand had gone around my throat, and he was just pinning me there to the tree or pole or whatever it was with that hand, like he wasn’t about to break my windpipe or something. I couldn’t even support myself, since my feet weren’t touching the ground. My head was pounding with the need to get more oxygen and blood past where his hand had cut both off.