by Hettie Ivers
Yeah … Heathcliff didn’t care for me so much. At all.
“Al’s not been himself lately,” he offered up without prompting. “He’s become addicted to … consoling himself … via random nightly trysts—endless meaningless casual sex.”
I got the sense that Kai was the one talking to himself now—trying to ease his own concerns about his friend’s behavior toward me, more so than he was attempting to explain anything for my benefit.
And by “for my benefit,” I meant he was attempting to insult and degrade me, of course. Too bad he was way out of his league embarking on that cause.
“He lost someone recently,” Kai expounded. “He’s … grieving.”
I gave his profile a raised, whatever-the-fuck-you-gotta-tell-yourself brow.
“We all lose people,” I blurted a bit callously before I could catch myself. “I mean, my sincerest condolences for your friend’s loss,” I amended. After a pause, I asked, “Was it a woman?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, studying him in profile. “You loved her too, huh?”
A strained, faraway look had flashed across his features that had made me suspect that the woman he spoke of had been someone special to him as well. But he seemed startled by the very suggestion for some reason, as slowly, he turned to look at me. Oh, yeah, he was supremely irritated with me now, judging from the way a muscle ticked in his jaw and the vein that ran down the centerline of his forehead suddenly pulsed to life.
Oops. Direct hit. And score. I shrugged and flashed him a toothy smile. Time to jet before the old dog killed me.
“Want some gum?” I asked, bending down to unzip the backpack at my feet. Werelock or no, one flashbang at close range should do enough damage to give me a decent running head start at least.
My fingers had just wrapped around the very item they were searching for, when I felt a sharp, pinprick stabbing sensation in my thigh.
Avery
I awoke from a dreamless sleep chained to an unfamiliar bed.
Never a good sign.
“Good afternoon.” It was the surly voice of Kai, the asshole doctor, that greeted me.
An even worse sign. That bastard had needle-roofied me or something. I didn’t remember anything beyond the few moments right after he’d stabbed me with an injection.
I breathed a little easier when I opened my eyes and noted the telltale signs that I was in a hotel room—in what looked to be a luxury suite—an unfamiliar-location situation that was likely preferable to any number of other possibilities since it meant close access to the general public, at least. Not that any of them could actually help me to escape from werelocks, but they were useful as a stall tactic in a getaway scenario if I could create a big enough scene.
He’d said it was afternoon. If that was true, it meant he must’ve hit me with some serious tranq for me to have slept through the night as well as morning.
Daylight streamed in through the windows. I caught sight of familiar high-and mid-rise buildings that made up the cityscape of downtown Denver and was relieved to know that I hadn’t been transported far.
Kai stood next to my bed, appearing as annoyed as the last vision I’d held of him in my memory. I decided it was probably his normal look. My guy Alcaeus didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight, which was a disappointment, since he’d been my biggest fan and champion the night before. Perhaps he wasn’t that into me after all. Maybe he really did fall in love with strangers in bar bathrooms every day.
Yet I noted that his scent clung to the made-up bedding that I was lying upon—an indication that he might’ve slept next to me. As foolish as it was, the notion made me smile inside.
I still had all of my clothes on, which was another positive. And my lady parts didn’t feel as if they’d been accessed or violated in any manner while I’d been knocked out. As anxious as I was to get away from these Reinoso werelocks and back to Sloane, this was by all accounts as positive as it probably got in a waking-up-after-being-drugged-and-kidnapped scenario.
I’d get out of this one.
Time to see if the doctor was into anything other than having a pole permanently lodged up his ass.
“Wow,” I greeted him with a smile. “I knew last night that you were crushin’ hard on me. But I didn’t realize how desperate you were to play dirty doctor. You could’ve just asked. Where’s my bae? Did you steal me away from him?”
His sour expression curdled further, if that was even possible. “Rest assured, I am not crushin’ on you.”
I had to suppress a giggle at the look of sheer disgust he gave me.
“Ah.” I gave him a wink. “Playing for the other team, eh? Thought you might be in love with my bae. Guess that would also explain the drugging and kidnapping. You two been together long? You kinda argue like a married couple.”
The smile he gave me was one of pure contempt. “I am not interested in playing games with you, Averhilda.”
Damn. Despite my best intentions to remain blasé, my heart rate picked up at the mention of my real name. “You must be confusing me with another bathroom tryst your lover has had recently. My name’s Cynthia.”
“Cynthia? How interesting. Because your DNA partially matches that of one Averhilda Fatima Haskie, born in 1981.”
“How very fascinating,” I replied in a mockingly droll tone of voice that mimicked his bored, supercilious one. “I had no idea that ‘partially’ counted in science, Doc.”
“It does when your werewolf DNA wouldn’t have been available in the system. Because you weren’t always a werewolf, were you, Averhilda?”
“You got me. Cynthia Pressley Blackwood’s my werewolf stage name. Rolls off the tongue better, don’t you think?” God, I felt like an idiot every time I said it. I cursed Wyatt internally for that stupid name.
The uptight doctor didn’t look amused. “Tell me, how does a woman with a Ph.D. in molecular biology from M.I.T. wind up hunting rogue werewolf hunters?”
“What’s with the chains?” I yanked on the bonds securing my arms above my head and binding my ankles to the end of the bed, using the opportunity to test the strength of my restraints. “Do they come with the room or do you travel with these? Wouldn’t have pegged you as the S&M type, Dr. Kai.”
I’d totally pegged him as the S&M type.
His impassive demeanor didn’t waver. “On September twenty-second, 2013, Ms. Averhilda Haskie went on a camping trip to the White Mountains with her fiancé and another couple.”
“Are we gonna play the fun kind of doctor games or the torture kind here?”
“Averhilda’s fiancé and the other couple were attacked and killed during that camping trip”—he raised one distinguished brow at me—“by a pack of wild, rabid wolves”—he paused to study my non-reaction—“according to official reports.”
It was getting harder to control my heart rate, but he’d need to do better to get a rise out of me. “So it’s a surprise then? Good, I love surprises—especially the torture and kink kind.”
“Ms. Haskie, the sole survivor of the unfortunate attack, reported the incident to the authorities. Then she mysteriously disappeared off the face of the planet less than a week later.”
“I’m hungry.” My eyes flitted about the hotel room. True statement, actually. I was famished. “Does this place have room service as well as bed chains? Just a tip”—I craned my neck and pretended to scan the room for signs of food or an in-room dining menu while assessing my situation—“I don’t cave well under torture, but food—I can be bribed to talk.”
“Have you any idea how rare it is for a human to survive the werewolf transformation?”
The irritation in his voice was music to my ears. I shrugged—to the extent I could within my bonds—as my eyes continued to canvass the room. “Most humans aren’t like me.”
“Most common werewolves aren’t like you, either, Avery.”
In a blink, the mattress dipped and he was perched next to me on the bed, one hand clamped around my throat
while the other yanked my shirt up past my ribs. Any snarky retort about kinky doctor play I’d hoped to deliver was cut short as his fingers tightened around my neck, blocking my airway.
In stark contrast to the hand wrapped around my throat, his other was gentle against the skin of my stomach, warm fingers tracing my abdominal muscles before stroking higher to explore my ribs. Eyes on my face, he found what he was looking for through touch alone. Which meant he’d done some exploring while I’d been knocked out. Dick.
My eyes shifted, and I forgot all about controlling my heart rate as I thrashed and yanked against the chains holding me. He squeezed my throat harder in response and leaned in, observing my distress with casual disinterest while my bulging, fuming feral eyes promised vengeance.
“The scars of your former human life will forever give you away, Avery.”
Tell me something I didn’t know.
He wanted to see me shift. It was the only way out of my bonds and the only chance I had of survival if he kept squeezing, and we both knew it. Why he wanted to see it—what he was looking for or hoping to figure out by this, escaped me. And made me stubbornly resist shifting.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I was released as soon as the door burst open. A great ruckus ensued.
“Why the hell is she chained to the bed?” Alcaeus demanded. “I wasn’t gone for more than fifteen minutes, Kai. How could you do this?”
“She has scars, Al. On her ribs and back. One on the back of her left thigh, too. She was human before. And now she’s a werewolf with no scent. She’s hiding someth—”
A cracking sound cut the doctor short, and I couldn’t help but grin. The big hot werelock with the weird name was still totally into me. And he definitely seemed to be the Alpha in charge.
“You undressed her?”
“No—I mean, yes. Come on, Al, I’m a doctor. It was—”
Crack.
I bit my lip to stifle my laughter when the doctor groaned in agony. I hoped it’d been his nuts.
“You chained my mate to the fucking bed!” my savior roared at his friend.
“He strangled me, too,” I couldn’t resist chiming in to tattle. “And I think he liked it—if ya know what I mean.”
More swearing and loud cracking noises ensued while the doctor tried to deny the latter part of my accusation. As satisfying as it was to hear him get his ass beat, I was over being tied up. Upon Alcaeus’s arrival, the smell of food had filled the room—food that I was unable to get at while chained to a bed.
“A little help over here maybe?” I called out.
The chains around my wrists and ankles magically broke apart, and Alcaeus was by my side a second later, spouting apologies as he inspected first my wrists and then my neck for injury. But when his concerned hazel eyes dropped to my midsection—where my tank top had ridden up amid Kai’s inspection—they widened and flamed bright amber.
“Who did this to you?” His hands went straight to the scars on my ribs.
The blind fury in his eyes was so piercing that I felt momentarily paralyzed. But I quickly snapped out of it.
“Back off,” I smacked at his hands as I tried to pull my shirt back down. “I’m over being inspected and manhandled for one day.”
He didn’t relent as his eyes burned unseeingly down at me. It was as if my words hadn’t registered. He even pushed me back down to the bed when I attempted to sit up. So I threw a right hook that connected with his jaw, and that got his attention.
“Ouch!”
“I said back off, Chaos.”
His feral yellow eyes blinked. “What’d you just call me?”
His expression was difficult to decipher. I couldn’t tell if he looked angry or … charmed.
“Um … Chaos. You know, like short for Alcaeus? ’Cause your name sounds like ‘Al’ plus ‘chaos.’ It uh … helps me to remember it.”
A slow smile stretched his lips as his bright golden eyes bled to hazel.
Definitely charmed.
“It’s a bit more of a ‘key’ sound than ‘kay,’ actually. But I like it. Chaos.” His grin gave way to a chuckle as he tried it out. “You gave me a pet name,” he said softly, his eyes moving over my face. “That’s”—he shook his head, gazing at me as if I’d completely enchanted him—“adorable.”
My lips twitched of their own volition, and I found myself grinning back. “You’re welcome.”
“Precious.” Kai’s harsh voice cut in, breaking the spell of our private moment. “Congratulations, Al. Your ‘fated mate’ has come up with a mnemonic device to aid her in remembering your name.”
Alcaeus’s smile faded. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, smoothing my tank top down for me. “I didn’t mean to lose control like that.”
When my shirt was back in place, he laid his palm over my now-covered stomach. His flattened palm and fingers pretty well spanned the width of my waist, warming me straight to my core, making me feel irrationally calm inside as his concerned hazel eyes probed my own and his fingertips slowly stroked over the thin cotton of my shirt, gently palpating where the raised scars on my rib cage lay beneath.
“And I’m truly sorry about Kai’s behavior.” His eyes became more disconsolate as he continued to gently explore my ribs through the barrier of my tank top. “So deeply sorry.”
I wasn’t sure why I was still just lying there, allowing him to continue. Or why it was that his apology triggered a sudden burn of tears at the backs of my eyes.
Probably because I knew that he wasn’t simply apologizing for Kai. It felt like he was apologizing for the scars on my ribs—something he’d had absolutely nothing to do with.
“I’d give anything to be able to go back in time, so that I could’ve been with you, and stopped it from happening.”
He definitely wasn’t talking about Kai’s behavior today or last night.
“It was nothing.” My voice was a faint whisper. “Your kinky doctor friend doesn’t scare me one bit.”
My stomach chose that moment to growl its hunger against the palm of his hand.
Alcaeus
I was desperate to hold onto some measure of calm. The gurgle of her stomach beneath my palm gave me the excuse I needed to smile in that moment when she started giggling in reaction.
Hers was a nervous laugh that caused more sadness and regret to well up in me at first. But then I saw the true laughter in her brown eyes staring up at me, and an overwhelming sense of pride and gratitude for the fact that she was okay—that she had survived everything that she’d been through in her life up to this point and that she was with me now—overcame me.
She was with me now.
She was whole and perfect. And no one would ever be able to harm her again. I would make certain of it.
But she had been hurt in the past. Damaged. She didn’t trust me yet. I’d have to be patient with her tendency to lie so easily to me until I earned her trust.
“Are you hungry?” Dumb question.
“Starved,” she confirmed, her eyes flashing with such excitement that God help me, my dick got hard.
Pushing visions of my cock in her mouth from my mind, I offered her a hand up off the bed and led her to the adjacent living room of the hotel suite, where there was a small dining table and two service carts brimming with food.
“I ordered everything on the menu that I thought you might like from the restaurants downstairs. I got a selection of breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods.”
“Wow.” She inhaled deeply, eyeing the carts, and moaned. “I think I love you.”
Ah, shit. I wasn’t going to make it much longer without being inside her again.
I adjusted the bulge in my slacks as she rushed forward to investigate the food, lifting plate covers and taking sample bites as she went, before piling more food than she could possibly fit into her tiny stomach onto a dining plate for herself. When she paused to twist her long black hair into a knot at the back of her head to keep it from getting in the way of her
eating, I knew I was going to live happily ever after with this woman.
I pulled up a chair so I could sit and watch her. And so the bulge in my pants would be less obvious and uncomfortable.
The sounds of ecstasy that she made while she ate would’ve tempted a saint. The way her eyes rolled back in her head and she licked her fingers and got all into it kept my mind firmly relegated to the gutter.
“Did you really set Clifton’s community ablaze?” I asked, simply in the hope of steering my brain away from the fantasy it’d just latched onto of eating her out atop the dining table. I already knew from the memories I’d collected from Clifton and Zeke’s minds that she had, in fact, torched it.
“I don’t recall,” she answered from behind the cover of her hand as she chewed.
Hearing the same answer she’d given me the night before—right in front of her accusers—made me chuckle to myself all over again as I watched her attack a sausage link with her fork. It was all I could do to keep my hands from reaching for her and pulling her onto my lap.
“That’s a yes,” Kai interjected. “Your ‘mate’ is quite the seasoned criminal, as a matter of fact. She got an early start at it. You should read her juvenile records.”
Her fork slipped and clattered against her plate, but she picked it up and replied casually, “Dr. Kai’s just jealous. Thinks I’m your Yoko. He confessed in the car last night how worried he is that I’m gonna break up your touring werelock band.” She shot a side-eye glare at him that promised pain. “Right before he stabbed me with a hypodermic syringe.”
My smile faded at the last part, and I leveled a censorious glare of my own at my Beta. I never should’ve left her alone with Kai. I wouldn’t be doing it again after what he’d just pulled with chaining her to the bed.
“I’m very sorry about that, Cynthia. It won’t happen again, I promise.” I hated calling her Cynthia, but it would have to do until she felt comfortable revealing her real name to me.
I couldn’t fault her for being wary based on how those werewolves in Clifton’s pack had mistreated her. They’d deserved every bit of the damage she’d done to their property years ago and much more, as far as I was concerned.