by Kele Moon
Never in her entire life had she ever been so powerless. So weak. The pulse of fear throbbed through every fiber of her body. In that moment, she hoped to God they did turn her into a werewolf, because she wanted rip every last one of them apart.
The fury rose up the back of her neck, hot and seductive, as she thought about biting into them, utterly destroying them and bathing in their blood when she was done. The heat spread everywhere, all over her body in a warm, compelling wave, turning her fury into something far more sinister.
God, no, please.
Amber started mentally praying when her breathing fell shallow in primal desperation. Her muscles seized next, and she found herself thinking of Desmon. She needed him there to distract her. She was clinging to something, anything, to make her less terrified.
12
The shrill ring of a cell phone echoed in the woods, sounding completely out of place in the peaceful quiet of nature. Desmon stopped his patrol on the edge of the Goodwin boarder and turned his head, growling and showing his teeth.
Irritated, he transformed and stood naked in the woods, wearing Miles’s old Alliance harness that was too loose in wolf form and too tight in human form.
He pulled the phone off the clip on his side. It had been raining all night, and he had to fight to slip the phone out of the waterproof case while he walked over to a tree, hoping for shelter. He was about to start growling at whoever called him, when he saw it was Katie.
He answered it quickly, forgetting about the need to hide his phone from the rain. “What’s wrong?”
“Hey.” Katie sounded nervous. “Have you seen Amber?”
“It’s the full moon. I’m in the woods, Katie.” Fear gripped Desmon, tightening his chest. “Why would I have seen her?”
“She left for ice cream a couple of hours ago and she’s not back.” Her voice was shaking. “And Bea told me something—”
Desmon let out a low growl.
“Come on, you have to promise to stay calm, ’cause I’m kinda breaking sister code by telling you this.”
“What is it?” Desmon started running in the direction of the clearing, but he was still at least a half mile away from the Quick Mart. “Is Amber in danger?”
“Maybe. She’s not answering her phone. I didn’t know what else to do,” Katie choked. “And Bea just told me they ran into Gary Goodwin at a store this afternoon. He was being really creepy around Amber, sniffing her, saying weird shit.”
“She went into neutral territory while she was unprotected and unmated?” Desmon stopped running to process the shiver of raw horror that rolled down his spine. “I told her to stay on pack land. She had my scent on her. That’s a red fucking flag to weres everywhere.”
“She’s still new at this,” Katie whispered nervously. “She doesn’t know how dangerous outside weres are. She never believes me when I tell her Merl kept us safe from them. Gary told her to head out to the border and spy on you for the running. What if Amber fell for it?” Katie asked in panic. “She could’ve gotten curious and decided to stop.”
“She wouldn’t do that.” Desmon was sure of it, even as his breathing fell shallow with fear. “She’s not that naive.”
“Well, she’s not back! It’s raining. Maybe she got into a wreck on the mountain. Something’s happened to her.”
“I’m coming, Katie. I’m heading your way. Keep trying to get ahold of her,” Desmon barked, fighting down the beast in him that came roaring to life. “Call me back the second you hear something.”
He hung up and called Jazz, who answered on the first ring because he was forced to stay in human form while in town.
“God, I can’t keep track of these girls. They’re all over the place. Why are you huffing in my ear? Are you running?”
“I think my mate’s in danger.” Desmon was still racing toward the clearing, but he knew he needed backup before he completely lost control of himself. “You have to hold the pack until I find her.”
“What?” Jazz’s voice changed, becoming suddenly sharp and serious.
“Katie called me; Amber’s missing, and Katie said Gary Goodwin was sniffing her at a store today.” The hair on Desmon’s arms and face grew long, and his voice became completely inhuman. “They know she’s mine!”
“Okay, Desmon, listen to me, we’ll find her. You need to try and stay calm—”
Desmon snarled into the phone in response, hearing it crack in his grip. He pulled back to look at it, seeing the glass was shattered, and roared again.
“Meet me at Amber’s house!” Desmon managed to choke out before he lost his ability to speak completely.
He couldn’t afford to abandon his phone now, and he had to fight to get it back in the waterproof case. As soon as he got it clipped on Miles’s harness, Desmon shifted and let out a long howl of warning to his wolves, because he was still responsible for them and the obligation went down to his bones.
With the throb of fear still pounding through his veins in his wolf form, Desmon took off toward the clearing at full speed. It wasn’t like him to abandon them—but he had priorities, and Amber would always be his number one.
“Whew, smell her.”
Amber blinked when the trunk opened, completely dazed, because everything looked…weird. Details were sharper and more vivid, and for a moment, the horrible, all-consuming nightmare of fear and desire paused. It was still dark outside. The dim beam from the hood was the only light, but she could see clearer than if it was mid-day.
“Fuck.” A tall, well-dressed man with short dark hair and broad shoulders groaned like he was in pain and cupped a hand to his face. “What the hell did you do to her, Rich?”
Amber tilted her head back, still blinking to adjust to the vibrant colors and painful throb between her legs. Her entire body felt hot. Every muscle was tense with a powerful, pulsing energy so overwhelming, it made her want to crawl out of her skin.
“I had to give her a little blood.” Rich came into view, looking small and more subservient next to the other wolf. “She hit her head when we caught her, and you said to keep this one extra healthy since she’s Nightwind bait.”
“You had one fucking job—the easiest job. Literally the pup could’ve done it without you. How does this shit always happen with you?”
“Sorry, Alpha,” Rich muttered like it was a habit.
The taller werewolf grabbed Amber’s head, unhooked and unwrapped the bungie cord. He tossed it aside, and she didn’t have time to enjoy the small freedom before he fisted Amber’s hair in a way that made it obvious, he didn’t care about her pain any more than the other wolf did.
“A little blood?” The alpha wolf squeezed her cheeks with his other hand before she could try to somehow push the rag out of her mouth. “This thing’s soaked. I told you the last time, this is too much!”
“I thought she might die, and since you needed her for the Nightwind raid—”
“I can’t even tell if she’s the right one, her scent’s too strong now.” The larger werewolf cut him off and sniffed Amber closer. “I think she’s already half turned. This is more than bloodlust, this is fucked-up were-zombie lust.”
“The cheetah in Freeport said he keeps his catches for months like this, and they never turn on him,” Rich complained, sounding like a petulant child. “He just feeds ’em blood like that when he’s done playing with them, and they heal up. Cats play with their catches for months, years sometimes. That’s why they know this stuff. He says it just keeps ’em feisty.”
“Yeah, I bet it does.” The alpha suddenly backhanded Rich without warning, making the smaller wolf stumble. “Asshole! He’s selling them in the underground. He’s keeping them blood-drunk and renting them out. It’s a huge fucking problem right now. The Alliance is slitting throats over it. This is why I keep telling you to stop talking to these weird shifters when you’re hunting. They give you bad ideas.”
Rich shrugged. “I think he was trying to help.”
“Remember that time y
ou shot yourself in the foot with a silver bullet because that city wolf told you drinking orange juice made you immune? They fuck with you on purpose.”
“I know,” Rich agreed, sounding disappointed. “But I don’t think that’s true this time. ’Cause, the human I caught in Reno wasn’t moving, and—”
“Goddamn, Rich.” The alpha rubbed a hand over his face, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Let me try to explain this. I give you permission to catch a couple humans a month because we’re not city wolves out here. Pack wolves still need to hunt and play around a little, and the Alliance knows that. As long as it doesn’t show up on the news, they don’t give a shit about a few humans disappearing in the woods. We eat what we catch. No money changes hands. We don’t have a collection in the basement. It’s for entertainment only. But this right here? It has ‘dealer’ written all over it. Any shifter walking by can smell her, and I’m not getting executed for your dumb ass!”
“We’ll just get rid of her after a couple of days like we did with Reno,” Rich grumbled. “No one will know. Who’s going to smell her out here?”
Rather than respond, the alpha turned his attention back on Amber. His pupils dilated while he looked at her, and she couldn’t hold back the low, vicious sound that rumbled from the center of her chest.
Even as sexually pent up as she was, burning up so bad she felt like she’d die from it, she hated this wolf—she’d never be that desperate.
“Look at her, growling at me.” He caught Amber’s hair, holding her head while she kept grunting and growling to break away. “Fuck, she’s making my dick hurt. Your cheetah buddy is probably making a fortune if he’s found a way to keep them ripe like this for months.” His voice had a low growl to it, like he was becoming more animal than man. “I can just imagine what she’s doing to you. I bet you wanna start humping furniture. You and every male in this pack.”
Without warning, he let go of Amber and grabbed Rich, who let out a dog-like whimper. The alpha bent Rich over the trunk and pressed his face against his face against the floorboard, holding him there.
“Stay,” the alpha growled, and Rich stopped struggling, but kept breathing hard with his face pinned against the floorboard in front of Amber. “You wanna make her smell like that? Fine. Thanks to you, no one’s allowed to even look at her until Desmon Nightwind’s head is on my doorstep. The pack gets to suffer until then, and I’m gonna make sure they all know it’s your fault.”
Rich was huffing and growling, but he let himself be pinned down rather than fight, and grunted, “Yes, Alpha.”
Obviously satisfied, or easily bored, the alpha wolf stepped back, and shoved Rich at the same time, making him fall into the mud.
The alpha turned to Amber once more and folded his arms, contemplating her in the open trunk. “She’s cute,” he mused thoughtfully. “Shame to eat her, but we sure as hell can’t keep her smelling like that.”
Amber growled when he suddenly reached out and fisted her hair again.
“Don’t growl at me—I like it,” the alpha wolf snapped when she tried to tug out of his hold.
He showed off long, sharp teeth, and snarled at her in warning, before he raised his other hand and bit viciously into his own wrist. He made a show of tearing away the flesh with a gush of blood, like the pain of it didn’t even faze him.
Amber fought desperately to turn her head, but he held her tighter as he forced his wrist to the bleeding rag in her mouth.
She kept struggling, but there was nowhere to go as the alpha wolf tilted her head back so it was easier for the blood to go down her throat. She could feel her heartbeat reverberating in her ears so loud it was deafening. The fury rolled under the surface, but Amber could only narrow her eyes at him while he poisoned her.
“You’re glaring at me, but I’m doing you a favor. Alpha blood will keep anything alive.” The alpha’s pupils dilated more, making him look completely primitive when she was forced to start swallowing convulsively. “There she goes. That’s it, pet.” He smiled encouragingly, his wolf teeth long and deadly. “She’ll survive getting the growl fucked out of her now.”
Underneath the hard, throbbing pulse of anger, Amber knew it was already done. No matter what happened, her old life was over, and she mourned more than she thought she would. Everything got blurry when tears of fury, powerlessness, rolled down her cheeks.
Neither of them noticed.
The alpha wolf finally stopped holding his wrist to her mouth and licked the bleeding wound, sucking on it as he stared down at Amber as though proud of himself.
“Take a picture. I’ll send it to Gary and find out if she’s the right one. If she is, I’ll call the Nightwinds—’cause too bad for them, she’s ours now. I might even keep her at my place for a few weeks.”
The alpha wolf leaned over once more, this time pushing Amber’s hair from her face like he was trying to make her features more visible. “I heard one of their pack enforcers, Jason, started keeping a human like she’s his mate but he won’t change her. He has her in his house, sleeping in his bed, sniffing her ass every night like he wouldn’t eat her if he was hungry, and Desmon lets him do it.”
He squeezed Amber’s cheeks and smiled, showing off still sharp wolf teeth. “But you don’t have to worry about that now, do you, pet? You’re too cute to eat, huh? Growling at me.” He forced the rag deeper into her mouth with his thumb and caressed her bottom lip. “I’ll let you thank me later.”
“Yeah,” Rich agreed distantly, his voice sounding dazed with lust while he blinded Amber with the light from his phone and snapped pictures. The alpha held her head, while Rich leaned in to get a close-up. “She already smells spicier.”
“Too bad you won’t get a taste. Rule still stands. You’re still not allowed to fuck any of our bitches. We don’t need any more of you in this pack.”
The alpha stood back and slammed the trunk shut again, but Amber could still hear clearly, despite being plunged back into darkness.
“Jesus, don’t look so fucking sad, Rich. It’s not totally your fault. No one should’ve let your father fuck your mother, either. That’s our fault. Couple weeks, I’ll let you off pack land again, you can go pay your buddy in Reno for a good time with one of his blood-drunk humans. You won’t die. Maybe if we get Jazz, I’ll let you watch us break her in until Desmon shows up.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” Rich said quickly. “We’ll get him.”
“Sure.” Footsteps walked away, sloshing in the mud. “You’ve got guard duty. You or any other male in this pack touches one hair on her fucking head before I say so, and you’re never getting off pack land to hunt. Don’t think I won’t smell it if you decide to start toying with her, ’cause you know I will.”
“I won’t.”
“Keep the trunk shut, Rich. I’m not kidding. Don’t be sniffing after her. Let her marinate for a couple more hours. Things go bad, and we can still catch some of the younger Nightwind males with her scent. I might need you to drive her to a different location. If I call you, and you don’t answer—”
“I’ll answer, Alpha,” Rich promised quickly, his voice still shaky. “I will.”
“Okay, text me those pictures.”
It was quiet after that, with the sound of the footsteps drifting farther and farther away. Amber was still trying to breathe through her nose. In those moments, she knew she sounded exactly like what they were turning her into—a trapped animal, huffing and growling as she searched desperately for an escape.
She wasn’t scared, she was angry, and she channeled all that anger into biting on the rag in her mouth as her heartbeat seemed to get louder and louder in the darkness of the car.
Rather than try to get away from the blood, she worked on drinking more of it in a desperate bid for escape. She had no idea how to change into a werewolf, but knew she had to try. It was her only chance. If she changed, maybe she could run into the woods and find Desmon. It was a long shot, but it was the only thing she could think of.<
br />
Frantically, she bit harder, trying to swallow more of the blood, all the while imagining being a wolf. Maybe it was a mind-over-matter thing. She kept trying to think of Desmon, and her sisters, but the reason why she wanted to shift started to fade behind the desperation.
She struggled to slip her hands past the zip-tie, leaving her wrists sticky with blood. She continued to suck on the rag in her mouth, biting at it, taking out her frustrations on it, but the pulse in her head kept getting louder.
Deafening.
It was making the ache between her legs worse and worse, until it became the bigger problem. The stifling heat in the trunk started to become unbearable, making her clothes stick to her as they coated her body like a second skin.
Slowly, as she struggled to free herself, the reason why she was angry started to slip away. She started shifting and fighting for a different reason, desperate for an escape from the warmth in the trunk. She would do anything for relief from the pounding between her legs. Every movement that caused the lace of her bra to brush her tingling nipples made the pressure coil tighter, until Amber was shaking with repressed need, until all her clothes hurt her skin.
The way her hands were tied was sheer hell. She didn’t even remember what she was fighting for. She just knew she needed the throbbing to stop. Not being able to move made need crawl under her skin and snake into her brain, scorching her along the way.
She tried to kick at the trunk, hoping he’d let her out. She’d beg if she had to, she was that desperate, but her arms and legs were still bound together with the bungie cord.
Amber couldn’t do anything to make it stop.
Nothing.
Abandoning her plan of changing into a wolf, she tried to push the rag out of her mouth with her tongue, but she couldn’t get it out. The harder and faster her heartbeat pounded in her ears, the more the blood seemed to burn her tongue. She wanted to get away from it, to run a thousand miles and never have it touch her again. It made her feel horrible and dirty.