by Susan Bliler
Yep, fucking monster!
He covered her back up, satisfied she was secure and thought about what he was going to say to her. The last time he’d seen her, he’d just attacked her, taken her, and then she’d fled. He let her go then, but not this time. There’d be no more running, not from him or from their affliction. He deserved answers, and he intended on getting them.
Pulling off to the side of the road, he made quick work of moving Jenny from the passenger seat to the back bench seat where she could lay more comfortably. He didn’t know how long she’d be out, but she’d looked damn uncomfortable slouched over in the passenger seat. Besides, he didn’t trust himself to keep his hands off her.
He covered her with the same blanket and ignored his inner beasts who raged that the reason she looked uncomfortable, even now, was because she was tied up and still shivering from the cold.
He slammed the door hard and climbed back into the driver’s seat before pulling onto the road. The persistent need to soothe and protect her was almost all-consuming, and in direct contradiction to his actions.
He raged inwardly, She did this! She’d played with him, hid from him, had him drugged. He was so damn strung out on his need for her that it had incited him into actions that he’d never thought himself capable. By denying him and his right to know what was happening to him…to them, she’d turned him into some rabid fucking beast. A beast that needed her so damn bad right now it had his back teeth aching. Feral. That’s what Monroe had called it. He was feral right now and it sure as hell felt like it. Just being this close to Jenny had the roaring pulse in his veins drowning out everything else.
His eyes flicked over his shoulder to steal a glance at her. The need to bury himself inside her again was pounding through him like a damn freight train, and it had self-loathing searing an acrid path down his throat as he swallowed hard. He’d already forced himself on her once and while he’d vowed it’d never happen again, but by the Gods, he ached to. He wanted to be buried so deep inside her that she wouldn’t know where she ended and he began.
“Shhhhit,” he grumbled and forced his eyes back to the road.
Chapter 3
Jenny came to but didn’t immediately open her eyes. Using her senses, she could hear the whine of a motor and the whirr of tires on pavement. Her body had that weightless feel that told her she was lying in a moving vehicle. Her cheek was pressed up against something soft and smooth. The scent of the leather seat was secondary to the scent that commanded the space. It was soap and masculinity, spice and rage. It was Bishop.
Trying to move a hand an inch, her eyes snapped open and looked down. Her hands rested on top of a thin blanket that covered her, her wrists were bound with thin rope.
She tried to move her legs, but they were tied at the ankles. Her heart hammered against the wall of her chest as she wondered at Bishop’s intentions. Sure, he was pissed, and she understood it, but she was his Angel! This type of treatment was unheard of once a Skin Walker male discovered his mate. His possessive and protective instincts were supposed to surge fore. Sure, the fact that he had her bound and was kidnapping her spoke to his possessive instincts, but his protectiveness… She wondered if she hadn’t done more than delay Bishop’s affliction with her injections. Had she damaged him? Had she twisted him somehow?
Now, her heart was hammering against her chest even harder than before. Pinching her eyes shut, she tried contacting Monroe through the mist. Nothing happened, which meant they were either too far from StoneCrow, or Bishop had done something to her. Jenny’s eyes snapped open, and she had to stifle a terrified whimper that was trying to wrench its way up her throat.
“The scent of your fear is offensive,” Bishop clipped out from the driver’s seat, apparently completely aware that she was now awake. “If I wanted you dead, you would be. If I wanted you hurt, you would be.”
Shoving up off the seat, she recognized the vehicle as one of the Humvees from StoneCrow. The scenery outside the window was unfamiliar though. Dense forest was just barely visible through the dark window tint and the heavy sheets of rain pouring down. Tearing her eyes from their perusal, Jenny tried to catch Bishop’s eye in the rearview mirror. He refused to meet her gaze. “Where…where are taking me, Bishop?”
“Someplace we can be alone.”
She swallowed and tried again to break her hands free of their binds. Because she was a Walker, she was stronger than an average human female, but the rope was too tight and she only succeeding in painfully chaffing her wrists.
Contemptuous eyes met hers again in the mirror. “What did you inject me with?”
“It wasn’t harmful. I wouldn’t do that to you or anyone else. I took an oath…”
“Wasn’t harmful?” he gritted out angrily. “It delayed what nature intended. I was sick, Jen! I was starving and exhausted, and I thought I was going mad. My beasts were shredding my insides every minute of every damn day demanding I find something, only I didn’t know what that something was because you hid it from me!” He snarled, “You hid from me.” His eyes narrowed to cruel slits. “I almost asked Monroe to put me down! I thought I was broken. I thought I was done! So don’t you dare sit here and pretend you have any ethics or moral code. You let me suffer. That so-called oath you took as a Doctor don’t mean shit to me, woman.” He angled his face away from her. “You did this to me! You who was supposed to do no harm!”
“Bishop,” she breathed, but he didn’t let her speak.
“Was I not good enough for you? A lowly Sentry. Did you have your sights set higher? Monroe StoneCrow perhaps? Do you want the Dominant?”
“No, Bishop! I didn’t want anyone else. I don’t want anyone else.”
He was back to avoiding her gaze. “I’m bound to you, and it disgusts me because I don’t know how I can ever trust you.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated again, head lowering defeatedly as she looked down at her hands. She’d been wrenching on her binds the entire time Bishop had been speaking and only now realized that the ropes had cut deeply into her skin and had blood soaking the ropes and her jeans. Good, she thought, I deserve the pain.
“You’re only sorry because you got caught. What was the end game? Let me die? See if the Grandfathers would grant you someone more to your liking?”
Her head snapped up. “No! It wasn’t like that Bishop. I wouldn’t have let you go. I couldn’t. You mean too much.”
“Save it! Your actions have spoken louder than your beautiful lying mouth. I meant so much to you that you stood by and let me suffer. You made me suffer.”
Jenny quietly studied Bishop’s profile. The scent of his rage and resentment filled the cab and made it difficult to breathe. Worse, she couldn’t denounce any of it. He was right. This was all her fault.
Tearing her eyes away, she focused out the window and sighed before trying again. “I’m sorry, Bishop. I’m sorry for all of it. I didn’t mean to take anything away from you.” Tears flooded her eyes and clouded the view of the forest whipping by. “I tried to do just the opposite.” She lifted both hands and swiped at her cheek when a tear slipped free. “I wanted you to have a choice in your mating.”
“Just me?” he scoffed, tone full of disbelief.
“Both of us,” she whispered. “We both deserve to make our own choices. I thought I was helping, and not just us but all Skin Walkers. Not all Walkers grew up with loving families. Some were treated like animals, caged, beaten, unwanted, or abused. One more lack of say in something could break them! I was only trying to help.”
“Some of those men have been looking their whole lives for what you’ve hidden from them. Who are you to decide they don’t deserve the love and aide of their mates?”
His words shocked her into silence as her mouth dropped open.
“Yeah,” his eyes met hers in the mirror. “I know what you’ve done.”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t, lest she incriminate herself. There was no way Bishop could know that she’d created an i
noculation that delayed the affliction. There’s no way he could know that she’d had every single Skin Walker employee at StoneCrow vaccinated. She hadn’t told a soul, not even her nurse, Stoney.
“RedKnife KillsPrettyEnemy,” Bishop muttered simply. “He told me about the injections, about what they really are, what they truly do.”
She wanted to defend herself but how could she. Any explanation would constitute an admission. Worse, he couldn’t understand the Walkers need for it. He didn’t even understand his own need for it. She gave him the only response she could. “Time,” she said quietly. “I was only buying everyone time.”
His words were harsh when he responded, “It wasn’t your decision to make. Who are you to make that call? Who are you to keep Walkers from what they want, from what many of them are actively searching for?”
Something about the way he said it had her lifting her eyes to glance up at him. “Were you searching?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and he drew in a breath before exhaling it slowly. “I wasn’t looking. But, I wasn’t running either.” He flicked her a glance and then glued his eyes back on the road. “I always told myself I’d be ready when it happened.”
“And were you?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. “Because it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to! You strung me out for so long that…”
His words died off, and her guilt was back full force. “I don’t blame you,” she offered. “For any of it.”
“Yeah,” he admonished, “Well, I blame myself! No man should ever do what I did. No Walker should ever take from his Angel the way I took from you.”
“It’s my fault. I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew what could have happened.”
He turned on a road that darkened under the thick canopy of trees overhead. He drove a little further until the vehicle slowed and then finally came to a halt. Jenny couldn’t see anything out the windows now because it was too dark.
Instead of climbing out, Bishop’s hard eyes met hers in the mirror. “What did happen!” He growled, his brows drawing down. “I attacked you, Jen!” He shook his head in clear shame and breathed, “I raped you.”
Chapter 4
“Don’t,” Jenny cut Bishop off with a shake of her head. “Don’t say that word, Bishop. It’s not what happened. I wanted you.”
“How could you?” he argued, shooting her a dark look. “You don’t even fucking know me!”
“You’re wrong. I knew what you were to me. I watched you, kept tabs on you. Even when you didn’t know I was there, I was. I knew you before you ever touched me.”
“Well, I sure as hell didn’t know you!”
“Your beasts knew me,” she countered. “It’s how the affliction works. You couldn’t have hurt me even if you wanted to.” She held up her bound hands. “Even this doesn’t scare me.”
“Funny how your lips continue to say one thing while your scent says another.”
Her brows speared down in a show of determination. “I am not afraid of you, Bishop Arkinson! I’m afraid of what I’ve done, of what this means for us.”
He turned in his seat, his cruel lips curling. “There is no us.” Without another word, he climbed out of the car, slamming the door so hard that the car rocked and Jenny winced.
She heard him open the trunk and then it was slammed closed and then nothing. Several minutes went by and with her advanced hearing, she could hear booted foot on wooden board and then a door creaking open. The booted feet were coming back, and then there was the crunch of gravel before her door beside her was jerked open.
Without a word, Bishop reached into the vehicle and lifted her out. She tensed in his arms and took in her surroundings. It was easier to see without the tint of the windows, but she didn’t need her eyes to tell her they were smack dab in the middle of the forest. The scent of pine trees overwhelmed even that of the wet earth. Jenny ducked her head against the raindrops pelting her face. With her nose closer to Bishop, she could smell that some of his anger had faded. Now, he just smelled like him, all soap, smoky mountains, and dominant male.
He carried her to a cabin that was smaller than those at StoneCrow. Light poured like liquid gold from the front door, casting the wooden plank porch in an inviting glow. There were no stairs, just a slight rise before Bishop’s feet pounded loudly across the wood toward the door.
Inside, he carried her through the small living room that held only a couch facing an empty hearth. She noted a small kitchenette with an island bar separating it from the sitting room. Two stools were tucked beneath the island at what she assumed was the only dining area.
At the back of the cabin, a set of rickety looking stairs took them up to a second floor. At the top of the stairs, a door was open, and she could see into a small bathroom that housed a toilette, sink, and shower with the tiniest of windows centered over the toilette. Bishop carried her the few steps to the only other door, and inside, he lifted her higher, using the hand beneath her knees to flick on the light.
The bedroom was simple with one bed and one dresser. In the corner was a small square fold-out table covered in a half done puzzle and surrounded by four spindle-backed wooden chairs. The entire cabin smelled musty like it hadn’t been aired out in a while and as Bishop settled her on the blue and white star quilt that covered the bed, she wondered when last the linens were changed.
“Every thing’s clean,” he offered as if reading her mind. “I’ve been coming up here frequently the past few months to hide out.”
“Hide out?”
“Yeah.” He stepped back and planted his hands on his hips while staring down at her. “When I thought I was losing my mind. I didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“Wh-where are we?”
His expression closed down. “Doesn’t matter.”
When he turned his back and took a few steps toward the door, Jenny asked, “You gonna untie me?”
He stopped but didn’t look back. “Gonna get the first aid kit from the bathroom.”
She watched him disappear, noting that it wasn’t an answer. Alone, she studied the room. It was as basic as basic could get. There were no pictures, no knick-knacks. The only other adornment to the room aside from the vibrant quilt she lay on was the matching curtain covering the room’s lone window. She was eyeing it, contemplating if she’d be able to fit her ass through it when Bishop came back in carrying a small white case.
He dropped it onto the bed and then bent, grabbing her legs where the ropes were tied over her jeans. “How are your ankles? They bleeding?”
“N-no. I don’t think so.”
He grabbed her forearms and sat, pulling her arms into his lap. He started untying the ropes that held her wrists and ordered, “Don’t try to run. Don’t try to fight.”
She swallowed hard. Fight?
When the ropes were loose, his jaw ticked once as he got a good look at her wrists. A look of regret washed over his features so fast that she’d have missed it if she weren’t watching him so intently.
Bishop’s strong fingers massaged the raw skin around her cuts before he released her and opened the first aid kit. “I don’t know what half this shit is,” he muttered.
Jenny’s eyes slid to the kit. Because they were Skin Walkers, they healed faster than normal and were immune to disease. Still, she jerked her chin toward the kit. “The packet of alcohol wipes first.”
Without question, he did as she directed, ripping a few open and then using them to clean her wounds.
It stung, but she didn’t bother mentioning it. “Ointment next and then gauze if you’ve got it.”
Bishop tended her and even though he had to feel her eyes on him, he never once looked at her. It wasn’t until he reached around and grabbed something by his hip that Jenny even noticed he’d brought a towel with him. He grabbed both of her wrists in one large hand, and she jerked back when she realized he intended on tying her up again.
“Bishop, don’t!”
> Was this it? Was this her only chance to fight for escape? She didn’t know what to do. Her inner beasts were screaming that Bishop wouldn’t hurt them, but without her lab, she had no way of knowing what frame of mind he was really in.
Her body tensed, ready to explode with a shift, consequences to her own body be damned. But, when Bishop’s eyes collided with hers she refrained.
He looked almost expectant like he knew she was going to disappoint him right now. He looked like he was certain she was going to disappoint him again.
Forcing her body to go lax, Jenny forced a sigh of acceptance even though her brain raged against it. It was her curse. Her overly analytical brain relied too heavily on math and science. It always left her floundering when she had no data to rely on.
Right now, being under Bishop’s control was so far out of her comfort zone that she was struggling to come up with appropriate responses and actions. In the end, she went with her gut and relinquished all control.
Chapter 5
Bishop’s control was razor fucking thin. Inside, his beasts were shredding him for treating their Angel this way. He tried to convince himself that nothing he did to her now could ever compare to what he’d already done. Shame still burned so hotly inside of him that he swore he could feel his blood boiling. Outside, he was a mask of stone. Jenny would never know how much it gutted him that he’d hurt her. She’d never know how much he agonized now over making her bleed by tying her with the ropes. She’d also never know that he wanted more than anything to release her and see where things went from there. It couldn’t be done. Right now, he needed answers to some very serious questions, and his mate was a bonafide flight risk, which meant she’d stay bound until he got what he needed. He knew it was torturous. Skin Walkers couldn’t shift while they were handcuffed or tied up because it’d break their limbs. He’d heard others talk about how Indigenous Walkers could perform the feat without injury, but he’d never seen it, and Jenny wasn’t an indigenous walker, so it didn’t matter.