Keiran didn’t hear him.
He held his breath and listened, but still couldn’t detect any other sounds. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could see as plain as day that his father’s bed was empty but for rumpled covers.
“Pa?” Keiran said, frowning more. No answer came, not that he expected one to. A prickling ran up the back of his spine, worrying him with its presence. He was certain something was dreadfully wrong now, although he couldn’t imagine what it could be. There were plenty of places his father could have gone off to. Yet, the prickling dread stayed.
Pushing himself up out of bed, he padded silently over to his father’s empty bed and touched the mattress. Cold. He’d been gone for more than a few minutes then.
“Pa?” he called, slightly louder. His voice cracked, and he hated himself for that. Stupid omega, unable to contain his fear. What good was he?
Padding out of the bedroom now, he trailed his fingers along one wall and headed down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. He saw nothing, and started to turn the corner...
“That’s not nearly enough.”
Keiran strangled a gasp in his throat, acting on instinct and leaping back before he actually saw anything. His heart pounded in his chest. Lifting one hand and clamping it over his mouth, he struggled to control his breathing. What was that? What had he seen?
Calm down. Abigail’s words to him. Assess the situation.
Omegas were jumpy and wary, but they were that way due to their ability to pick up on warning signs and signals. It was a hidden strength and a necessity for survival. At least, that was what the healer told him. Until now, he hadn’t come across a situation where he could apply that practical knowledge.
He did so now, catching at his racing thoughts with claw and tooth to drag them to a halt as he might do to a bit of escaping prey. What had he seen? Three men in the living room, standing in complete darkness. One of them was clearly his father, but he couldn’t recognize the other two just by the shapes of their silhouettes.
If they were standing, that meant they didn’t feel comfortable enough to sit down and have whatever discussion. So then, not friends. Maybe no one he knew at all.
Could these be the special visitors? But why are there only two of them? Wasn’t there supposed to be a whole caravan? And why are they here in the middle of the night?
It was his father he heard speak first, saying something wasn’t enough. Whatever they were discussing, it had to be either extremely important or else a secret. Keiran wasn’t supposed to be awake and listening, but here he was. If he moved, they would hear him. It was a miracle they hadn’t already. But if he stayed to listen, he would be caught anyway.
“That’s about all he’s worth, Lance,” said an unfamiliar voice in response, using Keiran’s father’s first name. “He’s basically worthless.”
Lance acquired a tone to his voice when he spoke next, one that Keiran recognized immediately from frequent scolding. “Are you kidding me? Omega males are rare.”
They’re talking about me.
But what were they discussing? He couldn’t make any sense of it.
“Yeah, rare because no one wants them,” a second, unfamiliar voice said. “Your kid is worthless. Worthless even to you or you wouldn’t be talking to us.”
Keiran blinked back tears, stung. Was that true? Did his father think he was worthless?
A long silence punctuated the end of the statement before Lance sighed and spoke again. “Well, you’re right about that.”
It took everything Keiran had to keep from reeling backward in pain.
“I already have three omega daughters. What do I need with an omega son who can’t even carry on my trade?”
I’ll do better! He wanted to cry out, to fling himself into their midst and plead his case. I’ll think of it like healing and I’ll learn what to do, I promise!
“Exactly,” the second voice rumbled. “You have no use for him. No one does here. It’s best for you to just accept our offer and be rid of him once and for all. Clean and easy. We’ll do everything else.”
Fabric rustled and shifted from within the living room. Keiran pictured his father shifting his stance, folding his arms. “He might be an omega, but you’ll have buyers lining up for him. Like I said, omega males are rare. I’m going to need more than that.”
“And you aren’t going to get it.” That was the first voice again. Short, sharp, businesslike. “It’ll take time to find a buyer for him and that’s time we’re going to have to spend lodging him. We won’t make much of a profit, if we make a profit at all. You either take this,” a jingle of money being shaken, “or leave it.”
Another long silence, and Keiran could feel his father’s decision before he said anything out loud. Horror poured through his entire body like sludge, turning his blood cold. Before he could think to stop himself, he lunged out from around the corner and sprang into the living room.
Lance cried out in surprise, but the other two shadows seemed distinctly unbothered. “Keiran! What are you doing up? Go back to bed! This isn’t any of your business!”
“Ha,” one of the silhouettes said. It was the shorter and more squat of the two men, the first voice who spoke whenever the topic was about money. “He was there long before now. You didn’t notice him. He must really be worthless to you if you can’t even sense his presence.”
The other silhouette chuckled darkly. Keiran stared back and forth between the two of them, suddenly becoming aware of something he hadn’t noticed before. These men were not wolves. He couldn’t feel them the way he could feel others of his own kind; when he tried, their auras seemed to slither away from his. Reptiles, then. They were famous for their crooked ways and this certainly seemed like a good example of that.
“Pa!” Keiran cried, swiveling around to face his father. “Don’t sell me to them! Please!”
Everything had clicked into place in his mind once he realized that these unexpected visitors were reptiles. He was going to be sold into some sort of slavery, and none of the various kinds seemed like a life he would want to live.
Lance stared at him without passion, without pity. His eyes held nothing, purposefully blank. He might have only been looking at a fruit to be picked from the garden, or a fat lamb fit for the slaughter.
“Pa!” Keiran pleaded. His voice rose, almost a howl now. His body shook, wolf awareness shoving at the corners of his mind. He was on the verge of shifting and that would render him voiceless. He needed to stay a human and talk his way out of this. “Please, I promise I’ll do better! I’ll be the best kid you have, and I’ll make you proud! Please, Pa. Don’t let them take me. Please.”
Nothing but silence.
“Pa?”
But his father turned his head away. “I think we’re done here.”
Keiran misunderstood. Relief flooded through him and he started to lift his arms to embrace Lance, to thank him for one more chance.
In that instant, something wet and foul-smelling was shoved over his mouth and nose—some sort of cloth, drenched in a disgusting fluid. Keiran gasped in surprise and the harsh tang filled his senses, immediately clouding his thoughts. Haze stole through his brain and a glassy film covered his vision’ he reached out to his father, but now his b beseeching hands were curling like claws.
“Pa... you...”
The words were muffled behind the rag, every attempt to speak drawing more poison into his lungs.
“I...”
Lance turned away.
Through the film covering his entire existence, Keiran tried to shapeshift. Fur pushed up from underneath his skin and his muscles tightened, but he couldn’t feel anything else happening. The changes were coming too slow, and he couldn’t make them happen faster.
He staggered, brought down to his knees. Rough hands pushed him down, forcing him from a kneeling position down onto his side. And still he fought, but he was an omega and he was drowning in poison, fading fast.
Opening his mouth
to howl, Keiran sucked in a deep breath of the foul-smelling substance and felt the last bit of strength leave his body. Just before his eyes closed and the darkness became a part of him, he saw a reptilian face grinning down at him. Yellow, bulbous eyes and shiny green scales. A wide maw that spread from edge to edge, filled with rows of needlepoint teeth. It was a thing of nightmares.
Chapter 3
Keiran woke again to darkness. All he felt was weariness. He was so, so tired of being in the dark. Bad things happened in the dark, like being sold into slavery to two reptiles.
Misery swamped over him and he went to close his eyes, to succumb to the weariness, but a soft voice came to him through the fog of despair clouding his brain.
“Pssst... new guy... you’re awake.”
Keiran opened his eyes again, although he didn’t say anything in response. The darkness wasn’t as complete as he initially thought, with narrow beams of light filtering in from the roof and sides of whatever container they were in. The container constantly swayed and bounced around, jostling him. From his limited knowledge of vehicles and what his father had said before selling him, this must be the caravan of important people.
From what Keiran could see now, he was in a big truck filled completely with unwanted shapeshifters. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Keiran started being able to make out individual features and forms. Everyone was bound at the hands and feet, and so was he. Their mouths were not covered, however. He spared a moment to wonder at that before quickly realizing there was no need for it. Everyone else here looked absolutely exhausted. Emaciated, heartbroken, sold; they had nothing to cry out for, no reason to beg for help from anyone they might pass. They were all omegas, every single one of them. Unwanted from the start, no one would dare waste the time and effort to send them back to a world that would be better off without them.
Despair getting the best of him again, Keiran started to let his chin slump down toward his chest.
That voice came again. “New guy... stay awake. Come on.”
Who was speaking to him?
“Over here.”
Keiran looked around. He had his back jammed against a short length of wall. The voice came from several shifters away, almost exactly opposite him. The speaker had a thin face made all the thinner by starvation, and his shock of bright orange hair could not be diminished even by the shadows.
“You’re a fox,” Keiran said, dully.
The shifter tossed his head indignantly. “You’re profiling me because of my hair?”
“Sorry,” Keiran said. He felt lost, not exactly sure what was going on. His brain must still be foggy from that chemical the reptiles used to knock him out. “What are you, then?”
“A fox.”
Okay then. This guy is insane.
“My name is Ty,” the fox announced, as if he wasn’t sitting tied up in the back of a slave trade truck. “Yours?”
“Uh... Keiran.”
The fox nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Keiran. Nice to have you on board. What’s your story?”
I have no idea what’s going on.
“My story?”
No one else in the caravan was acting like Ty. No one seemed interested in any conversation. They weren’t even looking up.
“Yeah. Your story.” Ty nodded, his eyes reflecting a shaft of light that went past his face. “Like, I got caught trying to steal from a store. The family caught me and made a deal with the reptiles instead of letting the police deal with me.”
Of course a fox would steal. Ty was full of stereotypes. “How long ago was that?”
“Two weeks.” Ty shrugged. “I think.”
“This can’t be happening,” Keiran moaned. “This really can’t be happening.”
“It is.” And now Ty sounded the way Keiran would have expected him to. Depressed. Hopeless. Resigned to his fate. “But you have to make the best of it, right? Who knows where we’re going to end up! Might be better than where we started out! So, your story?”
Keiran just shook his head. He still had no clue what was going on, but maybe, if he played along with this game of Ty’s, he’d get more information, and that was what was important right now. “My dad has three omega daughters and one omega son who couldn’t learn his craft. So, he sold me.”
“Bummer,” Ty said. And it seemed like that was going to be the end of the conversation. But it couldn’t be the end! Keiran had to know more.
“But Ty, I don’t understand how this happened! My dad said there were important visitors coming and that everyone in the village knew they were coming. That doesn’t make sense. Isn’t the slave trade normally low-key?”
“Sure,” Ty said, agreeably. He sounded more tired than before, head slumping down and fingers fidgeting with the binds on his wrists. “But like, I guess some of them get tired of sneaking around. We hear some stuff in here. It’s like these guys don’t think we’ve got ears.”
And who are we going to tell their secrets to?
“These guys... you’ll see them... there are a lot of them. Lots of different shifter types in pairs. It looks like a caravan of emissaries, right? Everyone being present, dressed all fancy. They make up the name of a false organization and then they scope out the place to find new slaves.” Ty drew in a ragged breath, as if speaking was difficult and required more energy than he currently possessed. Still, the foxes did love to talk and Keiran had an idea that Ty would jabber away until he died. “I guess either your dad had a suspicion about them coming or they picked up on the fact that there was someone worth buying in the area.”
As much as he didn’t want that to be true, Keiran couldn’t help but to remember that one of the reptiles had said they would “take care of everything else.” What did that mean?
He voiced the question aloud, and Ty had the answer. “They’ll rough up the house a bit, screw with your bedroom. Plant evidence to make it look like they came in the night completely uninvited and stole you.”
“Why?” Keiran was shaking his head again. Everything inside him rejected this. “I don’t understand why they would do that.”
“Why not?” Ty shrugged. “They’re slave traders, not monsters.”
The two seemed pretty similar to Keiran.
“They do this specifically because they understand that the person they’re speaking to has no other choice, so they take care of the aftermath. And besides, you try not to anger clients. A happy client who only sees the easy part of the job is a potential repeat client.”
“Pa would never!”
But would he? He had three other omega family members. If he needed money to replace a lack of government funding, might Lance not be inspired to get rid of the one daughter who most resembled his dead wife?
“You learn pretty quick after this that the people who ‘never’ are usually the ones who do.” Ty’s bright eyes had gone so dark his hair even seemed to be affected by it, lacking its former vivid hue. “And if you don’t, you’re sunk.”
“No,” Keiran choked out. He didn’t know who he was speaking to. Some god. Some unseen force that might listen to his pleas better than Lance had, but he was met with only silence. All these other future slaves, they were beyond helping him. They were beyond helping themselves. But he was new still! He still had hope! He still had... had as much strength as an omega ever could have! If anyone was going to escape, it would be Keiran.
Closing his eyes, he started to shift.
Everyone around him sensed it and pushed away from him all at once. Ty looked up again and lifted his bound arms with his fingers spread as if to warn Keiran to tone it down. He ignored the gesture. He was beyond caring. What else was he going to do? Sit in here until they sold him off to work for some slave master, or pushed him into a marriage with a person who would probably end up being abusive? He couldn’t let that happen.
As he shifted, the circumference of his arms and legs changed. The ropes binding him did not burst apart as they would have for an alpha; instead, he was able
to simply step out of them. Standing took more effort than he would have thought. His body was full of aches, which reminded him that he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting for. His paws and legs were full of pins-and-needles tingles, and his muzzle and lips and tongue hurt from chemical burns.
But he was free.
“Don’t, you fool!” someone snapped at him.
Keiran ignored them and threw his head back, letting out a wild and uncontrolled howl. His chest filled with air over and over again as he howled as loudly as possible.
From outside the caravan came alarmed shouts. The wheels beneath the truck ground to a halt, signaling that someone was going to come investigate the sound. That was his chance.
Keiran shoved his way through the dozens of other omegas all crammed into the back of the truck, not caring who he stepped on or bumped into. He stood before the rear door and howled again, throwing his shoulder against the metal. Pain sent him rebounding and yipping, but then the door started to lift up as if by magic.
It wasn’t magic. A man’s face stared hard at his, one arm holding the truck’s rear door open. Behind him were a menagerie of animals, a bear, the two reptiles, a hawk...
Keiran didn’t stop to register the others completely. The man’s hand grabbed for him, to push him back inside the truck. He ducked beneath the man’s reach and kicked out with his hind legs, aiming to make some sort of epic leap for freedom. His hind paws skidded against someone’s clothes and he fell out the back of the caravan truck, ramming into the man holding the door up. The door slammed shut behind them as they collapsed to the ground.
Strong arms clutched around Keiran’s body, practically crushing him. He yelped and struggled, twisting around as he’d seen the guards do when he watched them spar with one another. Before he even knew what he was doing, his open mouth was clamped down around the man’s undefended neck. Blood filled his mouth as his teeth sank deep into the man’s flesh. His body went limp in an instant.
What have I done?
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 80