by Layla Nash
Chasing the Dream
City Shifters: the Pride (Book 5)
Layla Nash
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Connect with the Author
Also by Layla Nash
Copyright © 2015 by Layla Nash
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Resplendent Media.
Chapter 1
Time had no meaning in the dark. I tried to count how frequently I slept to gauge whether time passed, but I had no idea how many days, maybe weeks, I'd been in the dark. They didn't bring me food with any discernible pattern, and what they brought was total crap. Hunger clawed at my stomach constantly until I couldn't even sleep on the thin futon mattress they'd thrown on the floor.
My strength slowly faded until it became a chore to do my hundred crunches and push-ups and lunges, until I could barely shove to my feet when the door creaked open. They shone a light in my face and my eyes watered as I shielded my eyes. The pack alpha, a hard-eyed man without a hint of empathy in his soul, stood in the doorway of the cell. Behind him stood at least three other men, maybe more — all the ones who'd offered to mate me. Who'd sneered at the challenge of taming a lone wolf. My lip curled away from my teeth in disgust, wanting to charge through the alpha to show them I wasn't just a wolf.
And they'd clearly never tangled with a wolverine, or they wouldn't be standing there so nonchalantly.
The alpha folded his arms over his chest. "This is your last chance, girl. Cooperate, mate with one of my betas, and join the pack. That's all you've got to do."
"And if I refuse?" I staggered to my feet, even though my knees wobbled and my head swam from lack of food and sleep. Of course I would refuse, they had to know it. From the moment they'd cornered me a few weeks earlier, I'd fought to stay a lone wolf.
"There's an auction in the near future. You'll be put up for sale, and any shifter in the region can buy you." No emotion crossed his face as he said it, so casual about modern day slavery that my skin crawled. The alpha raised an eyebrow. "So you can see that the only feasible choice is clear. Better the evil you know than the evil you don't, girl."
He didn't know anything about evil. I bared my teeth more at the memories of true evil, the first time I'd been caged. The experiments, the punishments, the deaths. The walls started to close in around me. Panic bubbled up in my chest. Not only caged, but sold. To someone depraved enough to want a woman against her will.
One shot. I had one shot. I pushed away from the wall and wobbled forward a few steps, trying to see the hall behind the alpha's broad shoulders. If I could get past him, I had a shot. The beta males standing behind him would be easily scattered in the confusion. Maybe. I clenched my hands behind my back. "I need to think about it. About which one. Can I get something to eat? I can't think in here..."
The alpha made a face and glanced back. "It doesn't matter which one. Pick one and then you can eat. We'll move you to better quarters."
"The tallest one, then." I took another step.
"Fine." The alpha looked bored more than anything as he waved a hand. "We'll —"
I bolted. Rammed my shoulder into him and tried to bull my way through to the hall. I made it out of the cell as the alpha staggered back, growling in irritation, and I slammed into one of the betas. He tried to grab my shoulders, tried to pin me to the wall, but I kneed him in the gut and kept moving, even as my vision blurred and my balance tilted. God help me, I could almost see freedom.
Something jabbed my lower back and my brain shorted out. I blinked and pain spiked through every muscle, then I stared up at them from the floor as I twitched and clenched my teeth against a cry. One of the betas, the tall one, held a taser up for me to see. "Can't outrun electricity, sug."
"Nice try." The alpha's expression, dark with fury, chilled me through the pain. "Good luck with the auction."
"But —" I couldn't even finish before one of them jammed a needle in my hip and I cried out. A second needle followed, and the world grew slow and distorted around me, like deep water. It took an eternity to blink. My tongue felt enormous against my teeth, and I struggled to lift my head as they dragged me back into the dank cell. "What did you give me?"
My words slurred until even I couldn't understand what I tried to say. But the tall beta, looming over me as the world faded in and out, answered me anyway. "Tranquilizer, so you'll behave yourself, and wolfsbane, so you can't shift." He toed my side and I groaned, rolling away as nausea gripped me. "Too bad. We could have had some fun, you and I. Maybe I'll fight for you anyway at the auction. Or maybe I'll let one of those bastards take you. Think about that. If you ask nicely, I'll fight."
The cruelty in his smile didn't inspire any confidence that that would be a better deal than rolling the dice with the auction. I blinked back tears as the door creaked shut behind me and the tranquilizer numbed my limbs until I couldn't have moved even if they offered me an open path to freedom. I'd been so close to finishing my list before those bastards caught me. So damn close to being done with the past so I could finally have a future.
I tried to plan my next move, tried to imagine how I could free myself after whatever this auction was, but the sedative stole even that away and the darkness closed over my head in a rush.
Chapter 2
Edgar hated everything about the resort from the moment he and Kaiser drove onto the grounds. The rest of Edgar's brothers, and most of the Council members and their fighters, waited on the resort grounds as the Auction got underway. But he and Kaiser had been chosen to walk into the Auction to determine the best time to act. Or if they even needed to act. The main ballroom was filled with giddy girls, their fathers and brothers and friends, and the eligible bachelors looking for a mate. Everyone there seemed eager to fall in love.
Edgar hated love. Hated everything about the earnest flirting, the coy glances, the crowds and expectations. It made his skin crawl. Logan had been apologetic, at least, about asking Edgar to walk into his worst nightmare, but that didn't make it any easier to wade through the giggles and gruff boasting. He reached for another beer.
Kaiser, looking almost presentable in jeans and a sports coat, raised an artful eyebrow as he scanned the crowd. "You need something stronger, Chase?"
Edgar made a face and waved away a well-intentioned butler with a glass, preferring to drink from the bottle. "If anyone else tries to give me their phone number or introduce me to their father, I will."
"Being a good-looking dude must be quite a burden."
Edgar shot the bear a sideways look, but couldn't quite tell if Kaiser was joking. The grolar bear — half polar bear, half grizzly — looked entertained more than anything as another gir
l, nervous and dressed entirely in pink, sidled up and asked if he was looking for a mate. Kaiser chuckled and thanked the girl but said he'd already found his mate — and then slapped Edgar on the shoulder with a wink for the girl. Her eyes went wide and she mouthed, "So sorry, you're very cute together," before fleeing back to her gaggle of friends.
Edgar gave the bear a sideways look. "Really, man?"
Kaiser's smile grew a touch as he shrugged, returning to his survey of the crowd. "You wanted to limit the girls hitting on you. Don't tell me you're uncomfortable?"
"I'm fine with however far you want to take this, man, but you're not getting past second base. No matter how much I drink."
Kaiser snorted and lifted his glass. "Right. So before we play a high-stakes game of 'flexible sexuality chicken,' let's find the organizers and get to the real problem."
"Great." Edgar tried not to scowl as he switched his empty beer bottle for a fresh one from a server's tray, and strode through the crowd toward the men they'd identified as the ones who put the whole thing together. They came from somewhere on the west coast, maybe California, although even Edgar's favorite private investigator couldn't come up with much background on them. Even Bridger, one of the local loan sharks, could scarcely do more than provide grainy surveillance photos of the two men.
His teeth set on edge as he drained the beer and pasted on a false smile as he stood in front of one of the organizers. "Hey, mate. This is all well and good out here, but we heard there might be something more... intense available."
The man raised his eyebrows and offered a queasy smile. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Kaiser slid a folded hundred dollar bill into the man's jacket pocket, deliberate in his action. "I'm sure you do, friend. We're serious."
The organizer, a wolf, scanned the crowd behind them, then seemed to make up his mind. "Fine. Follow me."
Edgar shared a look with Kaiser and wondered where the bear got that kind of cash to throw around, but they followed in silence as the man strode away from the main ballroom to one of the reception halls on the other side of the main resort. The halls emptied the farther they got from the main event, until only a few servants and armed guards noted their passing. The organizer spoke quietly into a radio, then turned the corner to face a pair of giant doors, guarded by a handful of men and wolves.
He gestured at the doors. "You understand the rules?"
"Of course." Kaiser's lip curled with disdain.
The man eyed them both, then nodded to the guards, and one of the doors opened. Edgar strode in, fighting back revulsion as a wave of testosterone and anger and fear rolled over him, and immediately picked up another beer. Kaiser followed close on his heels, and the doors shut behind them. A crowd of about a hundred men filled the reception hall, with a tall dais on the far end. A man with a microphone called out a few jokes as someone cleaned blood off the mats in front of the dais, and an unconscious challenger was dragged away by some of the guards. Edgar's stomach turned over.
Kaiser frowned as they took up positions to observe from the wall near the dais, and Edgar studied the announcer, the bouncers, the guards, the escape routes, everything. The rest of the pride waited for the radio call and would storm in to mete out justice when needed. All he had to do was make the call.
The bear watched as one young man, goaded by his friends, shuffled to the front of the crowd, apparently convinced to take a swing at the next round of bidding. Edgar's lip curled in disgust and he nearly called his brothers in, just to end things before he had to watch the kid get his ass kicked.
Kaiser snorted, looking into his beer. "Owen calls that a 'hold my beer' moment. Something he got from the Corps, I guess."
"Oh?" Edgar feigned interest as he continued to scan the crowd.
"Yeah. Said that was the moment when he knew he needed to get his medical bag, or someone was going to jail, or something would end up on fire. After a couple of drinks, some kid would say, 'Here, hold my beer,' and then all hell would break loose." The bear gulped from his glass and set it on the tray of a passing waiter. "Every now and then you can feel it, can't you? That second right before your whole world shifts. Changes."
Edgar took a breath, ready to tell Kaiser he was full of shit, when a commotion brewed on the dais. Two bruisers dragged a girl up the steps. She looked partially drugged and certainly out of it, and probably starved as well. And pissed. Royally pissed. His entire world collapsed down onto her, the bared teeth and flashing gold eyes, a cold despair he recognized. Like part of her soul was missing and she'd spent her entire life searching for it, hoping to find it again. Except he knew it wasn't possible.
The announcer laughed into the microphone before waggling his eyebrows at the crowd. "A bit of a wild one, here. Young Ivy is a red wolf. No known defects or health issues, breeding status unknown. Ten thousand to start in the first round, an additional ten thousand for each subsequent round until only one fighter remains. Any takers?"
Edgar's heart climbed to his throat. She'd lost her mate. He knew it just by looking at her, knew it to his bones. Her breeding status should have been 'grieving.' 'Lost.' 'Lucky to be breathing at all.'
From his right, a surly older man with greasy hair raised his hand. "Aye, I'll stand a challenge."
"I'm in." This from a younger male on the other side the room, cruelty in the set of his jaw.
There was only one type of man who went looking for the kind of trouble that girl promised, and Edgar hated every son of a bitch who stepped forward to enter the challenge. The girl's eyes narrowed as she surveyed the crowd, then she lurched and threw off one of her captors. She almost freed herself from the second when the first jabbed a taser in her back and she went down in a boneless heap. The men laughed as they straightened, and Edgar started to growl.
Kaiser looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Problem?"
Edgar's eyes narrowed as he held his drink toward Kaiser. "Hold my beer."
The bear sighed as he took it. "Man, are you —"
Edgar didn't hear him, shedding his coat to toss over Kaiser's shoulder as he strode toward the dais. The girl deserved a chance to choose her own fate. She fought for herself when no one else would. Well, he'd damn well fight for her when she couldn't. Her mate would have been there, if he lived, but Edgar would do his best to honor the man's memory — and the girl's independence.
His voice came out more roar than human, and the crowd recoiled as he bristled. "She's mine."
One of the challengers, the one with greasy hair, scowled. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You fight like the rest of us."
Edgar pulled his dress shirt off, over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. He flexed, tattoos jumping across his back and down his arms, and the lion wasn't far beneath the ink. "I'm Edgar fucking Chase, and you better remember my name. Back off or regret it the rest of your life."
The man's eyes narrowed but he stood his ground. Maybe he couldn't back down, with so many witnesses. The young kid, on the other hand, and two of the other wolves who'd paid the ten grand to fight for her, backed off, hands held up in surrender. That left four serious contenders. Edgar bared his teeth and cracked his knuckles. The price jumped ten grand each round, as soon as a competitor dropped out, until only one man remained. As long as he could pay the price, he walked away with the girl. Edgar glanced at the dais, where the girl remained still and silent in a heap on the floor, then bared his teeth at the four men who faced him in a line.
They fought as a pack against the outsider, the lion, and would turn on each other as soon as he was knocked out of the fight. A cruel smile tugged at Edgar's mouth. They underestimated the lion. Underestimated the rage and pain and fury that boiled inside. A decade of hating life, of hating everything in the world, would spill out and over and those bastards would pay the price.
He flexed his shoulders and braced for the rush as someone rang a bell and the wolves surged toward him.
Chapter 3
The last thing I rememb
ered was the red flash of pain from the taser as I tried to flee the dais. If I made it into a public space, I might find allies. Someone who would help or at least buy me enough time to recover from the damn tranquilizers. I felt like a zombie, slow-moving and stumbling and slurred, and it worsened as I forced my eyes open.
I sat in a hard wooden chair in the corner of a strange room, four men around a table in the center of the room. I recognized the alpha who'd sold me, and one of his betas, but the other two men were strangers. One looked like a bear in human form with dark shaggy hair and an impressive beard, with shoulders that tested the tensile strength of his fancy suit coat. The other one... He seemed familiar, though I was certain we'd never met. His dirty blonde hair was cut ruthlessly short, short enough that I thought I could see a hint of a tattoo under his hair near his ear, and the strong jaw balanced high cheekbones and a hell of a nose. His face swam as my eyes watered, and I tried to push myself upright. Whatever they talked about, I needed to be part of it.
The blonde guy smiled as he looked at me, and something in my chest eased. Everything would be okay. His voice was deeper than I expected, but still gentle as he leaned back in his chair to speak to me. "Hello there."
The alpha and his second glared at me from the table, mouthing a threat as I blinked and swayed. No doubt they wanted the deal to go off smoothly. Maybe the blonde was a cop. He couldn't have been one of the bastards fighting for a woman against her will. My heart sank. Except maybe he was. There was no other reason he'd be there, negotiating, if he hadn't fought.
The bear shifted in his chair and smiled at me as well, though he presented a hell of an obstacle to the door. I fought to clear my thoughts as the blonde held out his hand. "I've got a question for you, darlin’, before we wrap things up."
I braced my hands on my knees. Between the taser and the sedatives and the wolfsbane, nothing seemed to work right. I couldn't force a question past my lips, my mouth full of cotton. But it didn't matter. The alpha gripped the table, and his beta cracked his knuckles in a clear threat. They needed the money, and they needed me gone. The blonde and his checkbook would solve a lot of their problems in a few seconds.