Ian snorted a laugh. "They probably bumped into each other in a clearing and it was a fifty-fifty shot as to which would die of fright. I'd have put my bet on the deer surviving."
I grinned at Ian's back as he lead the way further up the hills until the shifter's house was lost to the trees.
"Hold a minute, we should check the phone and see if Kris has called." I stopped and fished the phone out of my pocket as Ian came back to stand beside me.
Sadly, between the two of us we still couldn't figure the device out. On the verge of going back to ask Michael or Rachel, we were that desperate, I managed to get to Kristen's messages.
"Please enter your PIN to proceed," the soft female voice spoke from the phone.
"Hello? We don't have any pins." I hoped we could just get her to let us hear Kris's messages. Unfortunately, no matter what I asked of her she just kept repeating herself.
"Maybe she can't hear us?" I asked, frustrated at the lack of progress.
"I think it may be the phone asking for whatever it is," Ian sighed and looked towards the trail. "Best keep on then."
"Agreed. I'll keep the phone on as well, in case Kris tries to call." I followed after Ian, pressing various buttons on the phone more out of frustration than anything else. And then it caught my eye, a phone number with a label above it.
Troy.
Chapter Seven
Jen
I woke up with a start, the bright sunlight falling over my face warmly from the massive window above me. Sitting up quickly I took in my surroundings and was relieved to find myself alone. Slightly unsettling was the fact that I was in a bed.
Troy had moved me.
Suppressing a shudder as my stomach roared, demanding an attention that I couldn't give it currently, I was surprised to discover that I wasn't bound any longer either. Surprised and ecstatic.
A sense of overwhelming relief came over me when I noticed I was still fully clothed as well. I even had my shoes on. Whatever had happened after I had passed out, Troy hadn't done anything.
Getting out of bed I stood on wobbly legs, stomach protesting anything that didn't involve filling it. I no longer had the overwhelming sense of exhaustion anymore, thankfully, but I felt as if I had run the Boston marathon.
A dozen times in a row.
And hungry, damn was I hungry. The other day when I had scared myself with how much I had eaten seemed pale by comparison. Peckish next to the now ravenous hunger I was experiencing.
I realized that it didn't matter if Troy was outside my room, I had to eat. If he had moved me to this bedroom he had obviously returned with the 'supplies.' I just hoped that they would be enough.
Steeling myself, I made my way shakily to the door, stomach rumbling with every shuffling step. I pressed my forehead against the door as a wave of weakness crashed over me, causing me to shake slightly and bringing out a light sheen of sweat.
Gathering enough strength to continue took a surprising amount of concentration, but I was finally able to open the door silently. Stepping out I saw that I was on the second floor of the lodge, looking past the railing in front of me I could see down into the main room.
There was still no sign of Troy.
Looking to either side of the walk I found the stairs down and slowly made my way towards them, clutching the railing desperately for support. Those stairs were going to be fun to navigate in my condition.
Getting from the bed to the kitchen took the better part of an hour at the feeble pace I was moving, but it was the best I could manage. And, finally, when I turned into the kitchen an eternity later, my heart sank.
Troy was watching me warily from a chair at the center island.
Pausing just long enough to curse my luck I made myself continue forward, making my way towards the refrigerator. I felt his eyes on me the entire way but he said nothing as I finally reached my destination.
Opening the door I couldn't help but smile. Insane he might be, but he certainly knew how to shop. My eyes were immediately drawn to two large packages of steak tips next to a towering stack of ribeyes.
I grabbed both containers of steak tips and made my way to the nearest chair, unfortunately close to Troy but I didn't care. Sitting myself down I desperately tore into the plastic wrap on the first package and took out one
of the morsels, popping it into my mouth. Raw.
I had never tasted anything so wonderful in my life as that cold, raw beef.
The minutes passed quickly as I devoured both packages of meat, the only noise was my chewing and the increasingly rare stomach growl. Troy watched in silence as I went back for a pile of ribeyes.
He remained quiet when I went back for the rest.
Minutes became hours and I showed little sign of stopping. As the meat ran low I began to rummage through the cupboards with one hand, tearing bites off of a steak with the other. I soon had a pot boiling on the stove, filled with several points of spaghetti.
It was ready right about when I had eaten the last of the steak. I simply dumped a few containers of sauce into the pot and carried it back to the counter.
"What are you?" Troy finally spoke, voice neutral as I dug into the pasta, eating it straight from the pot.
"Hungry," I spoke between bites. It wasn't the answer he wanted, obviously, but it was the truth.
"You should be dead from eating the barest fraction of what you already have. Not going for more." He watched me shoveling in more and more food.
I just shrugged and continued eating, filling the void that had been my stomach.
"You frighten me." Troy said softly, catching my attention. His eyes met mine and he looked away quickly. "I can't touch you. I wore gloves to move you." That was comforting, it seemed I had been able to fight back even while unconscious.
"Then let me go." I had barely finished speaking before he was shaking his head.
"No. You belong with me," his voice was confident, but he looked confused.
"I belong with Liam," I couldn't quite keep the urgency from my voice, but he didn't seem to notice.
"You aren't her," he spoke quietly and I braced myself. The last time he had said that he had attacked me, though this time he just looked sad. "You should be, but you aren't. Why aren't you? Everything breaks in the end." His voice trailed off as he stared at the floor.
In spite of everything that had happened in the past few days I felt a slight twinge of sympathy. Troy wasn't specifically malicious, he wasn't doing this out of a desire to cause harm, he was just broken. It didn't make him one whit less dangerous though.
"Who should I be?" I wanted to ask if he thought I should be Kristen, but the memory of the last time I had said her name stopped me.
I let the question hang in the air as I ate, the time stretching on as I watched him warily. After a while I finally felt content and stopped shoveling food into my mouth, but Troy stayed unmoving. Finally, as I put the small amount of remaining spaghetti into the fridge, he spoke.
"Heather, why did you do this?" Troy's voice cracked as he said the words, tears streaming down his face, and I filed the name away in my memory. "Why?!" He pounded a fist on the counter and stood up, glaring and furious.
Catching sight of me he snarled and made as if he were going to attack me, but blinked quickly and stepped back, afraid. Watching me warily he moved to put the island between us.
"Stay away." His voice was raw with emotion as he moved towards the archway leading to the main hall.
When his phone began to ring it caused us both to jump. I calmed my heart as he brought the phone out of a pocket and stared blankly at the screen before answering it with a dead smile.
"Kris! Hello love! I didn't expect to hear from you again, I thought you might be, well, dead." He finished darkly and for the first time in days I wondered what had happened to Kris.
I had been too focused on my own predicament, she had been gone for days before Liam and Ian went to look for her, and now her absence demanded my attention. I strained t
o listen as hard as I was able, but I didn't have to bother. The voice that came through the phone wasn't Kris's, I could hear it clearly from across the room.
It was Liam.
"Oh Kris isn't dead," Liam's deep voice growled and Troy froze. "But not for lack of effort on your part."
I sighed in relief at the knowledge that he had found her. Troy looked completely stunned however, he hadn't expected this.
"You," Troy licked his lips nervously, "You are definitely dead."
"Not quite, though not for lack of effort on my part. Where are you Troy? Jen had better be safe. Your health depends on hers." Liam's voice was calm, neutral. This wasn't a threat, it was a simple statement of fact.
Troy glanced at me before answering. "She's fine, though frighteningly hungry. I took care of it though, I'm taking good care of her. Better than you ever could."
I waited for him to finish before yelling out, "We're at the Bear’s Den in Seneca Rocks! West Virginia!"
Troy glared and snarled at me, looking positively furious as he hung up the phone, too late to stop my words from reaching Liam. Banking on his fear of me I raised an eyebrow and stepped towards him, one hand raised.
It was as if I held a gun, he shrank back and stared at my hand. "Well," he licked his lips again, "Well. Let's prepare a warm welcome for Liam, shall we?"
My heart lept at the thought of Liam arriving, but my excitement quickly turned back to dread at the look on Troy's face.
Whatever he was planning, Liam's death was his goal.
Chapter Eight
Liam
I finished carefully disarming the snare as Ian was moving quietly back to my side. His muzzle still red with the blood of the sentry he had silenced. It had been the second one we had seen as we scouted around the cabin.
They should both survive, not that I could care all that much. They stood between my mate and I, and they would be dealt with. More unsettling was that Troy would employ them, or even know how to reach them.
Hunters.
Not all humans were oblivious to shifters, several groups had taken it upon themselves to rid the world of our ‘curse,’ as if we were the disease. Some of the groups had been around for centuries, passing the knowledge down through the generations.
But they were willing to work with Troy instead of simply killing him as well. I had no idea what that implied, but it couldn’t be good.
The only lights on in the house were coming from what looked to be a single large room on the first floor. Occasional movement inside told us there were several more hunters awaiting us.
Two men walked around outside in endless circles around the outdoor porch. They were spaced such that they would be on opposite sides of the house at all times. Annoyingly there were automatic lights as well that seemed to turn on when something moved nearby.
Human inventions could be truly inconvenient.
Focused as I was on the building, I didn’t notice Ian’s shift until he spoke. “Thoughts?” He peered at the house as well, absently wiping the blood off his mouth.
“It will be difficult to get close without them seeing us or setting off one of those lights.” I watched the patrolling men and wracked my mind for any possibilities, but none were obvious.
“Sneaking in and getting her out without being seen isn’t going to be easy, it might not even be possible.” Ian frowned, thoughts racing through his mind. “We’ll need to deal with the guards quickly.”
“Agreed.” My own thoughts churned but came up empty as well. “We need to surprise them somehow...” Ian was nodding at my words and suddenly it came to me.
I started to laugh, I couldn’t help it.
“You’ve had me thinking too much old man.” Ian watched me as I stood, curious and confused. “We need to do something unexpected, surprising.”
“And I assume you’ve got something in mind?”
“What’s more unexpected or surprising than a monstrously huge wolf charging right towards you?” I began removing my clothes and Ian’s face split into a wide grin as he began his own shift beside me.
Moments later I stood and let the shift wash over me, the wolf within baring its teeth in anticipation of finally being unleashed. Once the shift was complete I let out a howl filled with the frustrations and worries of the past several days.
Then I attacked.
*****
Jen
I strained against my bonds again uselessly, there was little give but I kept trying anyway. Being tied to a chair was pretty boring.
Troy hadn’t done it himself of course, he was still afraid to touch me, he had told some of the people to do it when they arrived earlier. His fear of touching me confused him to no end, he still thought we were a couple and that we should be touching. He just knew that it wouldn’t work out well for him.
So I sat in the chair, testing the bonds as he stood across the room watching me warily. My ‘guard’ stood between us, bored as he walked endlessly. There were plenty of others down in the main hall, all awaiting Liam’s arrival.
I’d be far happier about that if they didn’t all have guns as well.
“Can you at least turn the light on?” I asked to either of them. The only light we had was what came in through the windows. At least they were large and it was a fairly clear night. If I could get them to turn on the light in here, maybe I would be able to signal Liam. Somehow.
“So you can signal your boyfriend out there? No.” The guard spoke absently as he continued his bored pacing. “And stay quiet or we’ll gag you.”
There was no anger in his words, he didn’t care much about me beyond using me as bait for Liam. Something I wasn’t too big a fan of. Troy watched quietly, not reacting to either my words or the guards reply.
Letting out a sigh I settled back into the chair and wondered how they’d react when I eventually needed to use the bathroom. Absently testing the bonds again I heard a faint crack from the chair and my heart skipped a beat as Troy looked up and glanced around the room for the source of the noise.
Fortunately he got distracted quickly and was back to his own thoughts as he watched me absently. Clearly he wasn’t focused on me or he’d have known the sound had been from my chair. The noise had been too quiet for the guard to hear, he was no shifter, and his pacing continued uninterrupted.
I smiled to myself as my thoughts raced. I had been focusing on breaking the bonds themselves, I hadn’t thought about trying to break the chair itself. The ornate wooden desk chair would likely come apart if I applied myself, but I’d need a distraction.
An unnatural howl filled the air outside.
It was so unbelievably loud and powerful that the windows rattled and I felt the floor vibrating with the force of it. Troy stood up straight, wide eyed, as the guard stopped his pacing and came fully alert.
“What the hell was that?” The guard looked to Troy for an answer but it was clear he wouldn’t be getting any.
A scream came from outside, cutting off abruptly, followed a moment later by another scream from the opposite side of the house. The second scream was quickly silenced as well.
The sound of the men moving around in the main hall was punctuated by metallic clicks as they readied their weapons. My guard did the same, taking the gun from his hip holster and stepping up to listen at the door.
An eerie silence descended upon the house, the calm before the storm. Troy and the guard stood unmoving, barely seeming to breathe. Troy still had the same shocked, wide eyed expression on his face.
The house shook.
Screams filled the room below. These weren’t the sounds of anger about to be unleashed, in fact very few shots rang out. These were the cries of pure terror.
The guard stepped back from the door, pointing his weapon out towards it and visibly shaking. Troy had turned to stare as well, face unreadable, though he also stepped back. Several times.
With their attention on the door and the noises still ringing out from the fight I seized the opportuni
ty. Putting my efforts into breaking the chair instead of my bindings I was rewarded with freedom as it broke apart beneath me, far more easily than I had expected.
Troy and the guard both clearly thought the noise had just been part of the slowing cacophony downstairs, their attention still fixated on the door. Thanking their continued distraction I grabbed one of the chair legs and lept forward.
Troy saw me moving and his eyes opened managed to open even wider, they looked ready to roll right out of his head. The guard however, he never knew what hit him as I brought the wooden club down onto his head with as much strength as I could muster.
He crumpled to the ground without a sound as I turned to face Troy. He was backing away in fear, shock coming through his every feature and movement. I wasn’t going to give him time to recover.
I dropped my improvised weapon and charged at him. He might have blocked the chair leg but his worry of touching me stopped him from defending himself as I grabbed the sides of his face with both hands and focused on sending continuous blasts of calming through him.
His eyes refocused and his struggles redoubled, making it supremely difficult to keep my hold on him. I managed, barely, but it was a constant struggle as I kept trying to force him to calm down.
The violence was ending in the main room, but it put both Troy and I on edge as we struggled with each other. Each of us wondering who had come out on top in the fight below and what it would mean for us. I had to fight dirty.
“So Troy,” I panted as we fought, “who is Heather?”
His shock was so great that I was quickly able to trip him to the floor and pin him beneath me. By the time he recovered enough to fight back it was too late.
I straddled his chest and pressed his head to the floor, putting my full weight and strength into it, and stared into his eyes. Forcing calmness through him was beginning to drain me, but I continued as I read him.
“I see,” and I finally did. “She was your bond mate, your first love.”
“Stop.” Troy’s struggles increased, my soothing getting less and less effective. He closed his eyes, clenching them shut in an attempt to keep me out. Apparently it didn’t matter right now. “Stop!”
Bound to the Prime (Bound to the Pack, #3) Page 4