I made a face or at least tried to. What did chemistry have to do with any of this?
“In fact, I invented the drug I gave you. It has many interesting properties.” She stood up and began to pace next to me. “However, even more importantly, I found that testosterone injections can create a rogue alpha.”
She paused and grimaced. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t start out trying to make a rogue. The reality is, there are lots of packs like yours, Chloe. Packs without enough alphas and my hope was to help a beta wolf become alpha. We need more leadership in the werewolf community and, short of a breeding program, this was the only way to do it. Except, as you know, the experiment had surprising results.”
Kelsey resumed pacing, tapping her chin with a finger. “The big question then became not how to make an alpha, but what to do with a rogue one.” Kelsey squatted back down beside me and brushed my hair off my face. “So I brought him up here to solve my little problem.”
She leaned in close until we were eye-to-eye. “You.”
I grunted, a sound that was meant to come out as ‘what the fuck.’
Kelsey ignored my reaction and patted me on the cheek. “You’re a nice enough girl, honey, but not the mate for Jackson. I’m his true mate, and, with you out of the picture, everything will be right between us.”
My stomach dropped. Fucking bitch. I did my best to get up and attack her, but all I could manage was more flailing. While I could move, I couldn’t coordinate and I’d lost my strength. Worse, when I closed my eyes, my wolf didn’t seem to be in better shape. She was awake, but eerily still as if she couldn’t move freely either.
“I drove him out to your house the night I called you, hoping to finish you off then, but that other wolf, Vicki,” Kelsey frowned, “interfered with my plans.” She brightened then, a small, cruel smile on her lips. “At least it wasn’t a total loss, he managed to snag that other bitch on his way back to the car. She’s just as much of a problem as you are.”
Understanding dawned. No wonder she used such strong air freshener in her car, she was covering the rogue’s scent. And, if she’d been driving him around, that probably explained why his scent disappeared. She probably picked him up at the road and drove him back to camp so no one could track him down.
Well, damn.
Another thought hit me, one that made my blood run cold. Mara and Sara had been in the house that night. Would Kelsey have stopped her rogue from killing them? She’d been so nice to them the day we went shopping, but I’d met the real Kelsey and I could see her not blinking if the girls died. That scared me more than anything else that had happened.
“Ronald will be here soon and I’ll give him one last injection. Then, you’ll be his to play with.” She looked down at me, her eyes gleaming with twisted amusement. “He loves it when the girls fight back and he owes you one. You grazed him with a bullet that night. That’s what drove him off.”
As if he’d been off-stage waiting for his cue, Ronald crashed into the clearing. I smelled him first, that strong peppery scent making my eyes water. When he came into view, I gasped.
He was neither wolf nor man, but some sick combination of the two. Naked, a fine layer of fur covered his entire body. His face was human except that his nose and lower jaw had elongated into a snout-like shape. Claws tipped his hands and a thin tail grew from his tailbone. When I caught sight of his front, I tried to shriek but only gurgled instead. His penis was misshapen and bigger than a rolling pin.
Kelsey beckoned him over. “Hey big boy. I’ve got more alpha juice for you.” She pulled out a syringe from her purse.
He grunted, not taking his bloodshot gaze off me.
“All in good time, Ronnie. Come take your medicine and then she’s all yours. You’ll like her, she’s an alpha’s mate. Just what you need, big boy.”
His eyes widened and he came over to sniff me. I froze, holding absolutely still, which wasn’t hard given the effects of the medication Kelsey had given me. Up close, his scent seemed to steal oxygen from the air, burning my lungs until it felt like I’d inhaled hot ash.
“Ronald, baby, I’m waiting,” Kelsey called, her voice wheedling. He turned and shuffled over to her, but his bloodshot eyes never left me.
I needed to get the hell out of here, I realized. The sooner the better. This crazy bitch was about to leave me behind with her science experiment gone psycho. I tried to get up again and my body merely twitched. Desperate I decided to try shifting, but nothing happened.
“Are you trying to shift, Chloe?” Kelsey asked, her tone conversational.
I groaned a paragraph of obscenities at her. How did she know?
She shook her head as she plunged the needle into Ronald’s bicep. “You can’t shift while the drug is in your system. I can’t have you running off after I’ve gone to so much trouble to bring you and Ronald together, now can I?” She finished giving Ronald the shot and then tossed the needle into the forest with a shrug.
“You two have fun, okay? I wish I could stay, but I’ve got an appointment at La Rose. I want to have everything ready for my wedding.” She smiled at me in triumph. “I’ll be back in a few days to clean up the mess.”
She started to leave, but then turned abruptly and came back. “Before I go, let me make sure I have the keys to your truck. I’ll need to move it so it looks like you never made it to my hotel.” She searched my pockets and pulled out my keys with a smirk. “Jackson will be devastated, you know. He thinks you really are his mate, but don’t worry, I’ll be there to comfort him.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ronald pawed me after she left. He squeezed my breasts and checked me out like he wanted to be sure I was ripe. I whimpered. I wanted to fight back, to protect myself, but that damned shot Kelsey gave me wouldn’t let me move.
Wolves can take a lot of damage and heal faster than humans. Even when I hadn’t been able to change, it would only take an hour for a cut to seal shut. But we’re not invincible. If Ronnie raped me, he’d gut me with his dick. I wasn’t sure if I could recover from that fast enough to survive it.
Of course, that was pretty much Kelsey’s plan: Let Ronnie play with me until I died. Damned if it wasn’t a good plan. I couldn’t see a way out. I tuned out Ronnie and his roving claws, focusing on my wolf. Maybe she could reach Jackson’s wolf somehow. So far, that had never happened, but I figured standard rules did not apply. This was grandma lifting the car off a kid territory. Miracles could happen. All I had to do was believe and try. My wolf just looked at me with wide, distressed eyes though. She was just as bad off as I was.
I growled in frustration, which made Ronnie sniff at my face. His breath smelled of unbrushed teeth. His tongue flicked out to taste me and I cringed. That just encouraged him to do it more, so I forced myself not to react in an effort to dissuade him. My best option at the moment was to play possum and come up with a plan of action for when I could move again.
An unexpected reprieve came when Ronnie seemed to grow bored with groping me and wandered off with a guttural, “Be back.”
I could only assume my inability to respond wasn’t very thrilling for him. Kelsey had said he liked it when the girls fought back. That had to mean the medication would wear off, right? She wouldn’t just leave me here like an inert vegetable and think her plan to off me would work. She was evil, she was a bitch, but she didn’t strike me as incompetent.
With Ronnie gone, the chill in the air permeated my skin and sank into my bones until they felt like icicles. It appeared the medication also stunted my tolerance for cold temperatures. Wolves run hot and I was no different, but paralyzed on the ground, my wolf frozen in a similar fashion in my head, I lacked my usual defenses.
Somewhere behind me I heard a moan. It didn’t sound like Ronnie and my thoughts went to Tonya and Vicki, the two women the Rogue took before me. Were they here? Were they alive?
I heard scuffling footsteps, the sound of bare feet crunching dry leaves.
“Well, look who’s her
e.”
I recognized the voice, before she came into view: Vicki. And she sounded bitchy as ever.
She kneeled down next to me, studying me with narrowed blue eyes. I looked back at her, taking in her appearance. She was naked and smudged with dirt. Her scraggly, uncombed hair held bits of leaves.
“Are you just going to lay there?” She touched my shoulder. “Wow, you’re freezing.”
I made a groaning sound, trying to talk but still unable to form words. This stupid injection was like a full body Botox treatment.
Vicki leaned back with a look of disgust. “What’s wrong with you?”
In response, I flapped my hands and looked at her with wide, pleading eyes.
She considered me for a long moment, uncertainty shining in her eyes. Then, with a shake of her head, she grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me off. “I need you inside the tent.”
Vicki lugged me inside an army green tent and shoved me onto an inflatable mattress. Covering me with a blanket, she said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you need to get better fast. I can’t use you like this.”
I could only blink at her. If I’d been able to speak, I would’ve said, ‘no shit.’
“At least you’re still a distraction.” She stepped outside my field of vision and returned brandishing a crude spear made of wood. “I’ve been working on this all day. Ronnie’s big, but kind of stupid. I’m going to kill him. It’ll be easy now that he has fresh meat to keep him busy.” She smiled sweetly at me.
I rolled my eyes and tried to wave a hand, but, of course, nothing much happened. Although I did notice I’d managed to move my elbows a tiny bit. Relief flooded me. The injection was starting to wear off. It was just a waiting game now. Once I could move, I was going to deal with Ronnie and then kick Vicki’s ass until the Omega wolf shit stopped. After that, I was going to hunt Kelsey down.
Vicki thumped her chest with one fist. “I’m the star of this story. I’m the one who’s going to kill him. I’m the one who survived what Ronnie is going to do to you, but you won’t.” She nodded when my eyes widened. “Yes, he raped me and will do the same to you. What do you think he’s been doing with the women he kidnapped? Having tea parties?” She gestured to her stomach. “He tore me almost in half, but I healed.”
I shuddered at the idea of Ronnie raping me. The rogue was so massive, he would gut me like a fishing knife, I had no doubt about it. “What about Tonya?” My words still didn’t come out quite right, but I’d progressed from inarticulate groaning to some semblance of speech. Tonya’s name actually sounded pretty clear.
Vicki grimaced. “Tonya? She couldn’t heal. She was weak like you. It takes an alpha to deal with an alpha. You don’t stand a chance.” She pointed to the side. “There’s a tent out there where he keeps the dead bodies. She’s in the pile.”
Pile? I was confused for a moment until I remembered he’d kidnapped women from the Nashville pack. They were all dead? All of them? I couldn’t grasp what that meant, although I knew I was in grave danger. I strained to move again and was rewarded with the ability to raise my arms and flex my knees. My torsos didn’t do much. I was a block of ice, thawing on the edges while the center stayed hard. Still, it was getting better.
“Why are you still here? Why didn’t you run?” Maybe she was in cahoots with Ronnie and Kelsey and just trying to play me for a fool. In her place, I would’ve been long gone.
“It took me this long to heal. I’ve been mostly unconscious the last two days and I couldn’t walk until this morning.”
“It took you that long?”
She nodded. “My body had to knit itself back together from the inside out. That takes time.”
Driven by fear, I focused on my stomach muscles, trying to contract them so I could sit up. I was able to lift my shoulders off the bed, but didn’t have the control to do anything more. With a sigh, I flopped back onto the air mattress and for the first time, I realized it smelled. Of blood and sweat mixed with dirt.
Oh God. Am I laying in her blood?
Vicki watched me try to move. “What happened to you? Are you paralyzed with fear or something?”
I shook my head, pleased to find that I could. “No. Kelsey poisoned me with something. I can’t move and I can’t shift until it wears off. She brought Ronnie up to Huntsville to kill me.” I flashed a weak smile. “You’re not alone in wanting me gone.”
The raven-haired brunette shook her head. “Once I’m done with Ronnie, she’s next.”
“What’s your plan?”
“While he’s on top of you, I’m going to come up from behind and,” she raised the spear and pantomimed stabbing him.
“On top of me?” My jaw dropped. She would let that happen to me?
Vicki shrugged, unimpressed by my reaction. “Yeah. Listen, honey, it’s survival of the fittest right now. Do you really think you’re fit to live anyway?” She lunged with the spear, practicing. “Once he’s dead, I’m going to Huntsville to deal with Kelsey.” She pressed the spear into my chest. “Then I’ll send someone up to find your body. You’re done, Chloe. You’re out of the pack.”
“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” I tried to sit up again, but my abs wouldn’t contract just yet. They tingled though, so it wouldn’t be long. “When I can finally move again, I am coming for you, Vicki. I’m going to show you what Omega really means.”
“Which is what exactly?” She huffed. “Too stupid not to get caught in a trap by an old flame?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No, strong enough to take you down.”
The sound of thudding footsteps interrupted us followed by an angry growl. Vicki looked grim as she hid her spear behind her back. “Ronnie’s here.”
Just as she finished speaking, a large ham hand flipped back the tent flap and the rogue’s enormous head peered into the tent, snout first. He sniffed, testing the air and when he caught our scents, he stepped inside with a growl so low, it was almost outside of human hearing range.
The tent had been big enough when it was just Vicki and I, but with Ronnie inside, there was barely room to breathe, let alone move. Vicki and I exchanged quick glances. For all her earlier bravado she looked like she was scared shitless. I didn’t feel much better. Especially when he ignored her and focused on me.
He advanced to where I lay on the bed, eyes shining with interest. Grabbing the blanket covering me, he threw it off. Once again, his hands roamed my body, squeezing, testing, seeking what I didn’t know. I did my best to act paralyzed, hoping he would get bored and wander off again.
This time, though, he began ripping off my clothes. The pretty angora sweater I’d put on in anticipation of shopping for my wedding dress, pulled apart with little resistance. He split it down the middle and then yanked it off each arm before pulling it out from under me. The bra went next. I gasped when the elastic rebounded into my skin after he ripped the strap apart.
He split my jeans up the seams and then yanked off the button at the waistband. With a quick pull, the zipper parted and he was able to rip the rest of the denim off me. My underwear, he tore off with just one finger. As it turned out, lace wasn’t much stronger than Kleenex.
Now naked, I shivered on the bed and fought back tears. This was real. This was happening. Oh my God. He stood over me, gaze roaming my skin. I wanted to cringe, but forced myself to hold still.
My resolve crumbled when he parted my legs. His cock rose up hard and impossibly long and thick, like a battering ram. I cast a desperate glance at Vicki, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She did silently hoist the spear and edge ever so slowly behind him. Why she was so careful, I didn’t know. Ronnie was so fixated on me, I doubted he would’ve noticed a tornado.
He advanced on me, his weight threatening to pop the air mattress. Vicki stalked him in the shadows, waiting.
I urged her with my eyes to do it already, but she held back. I realized then that she wouldn’t save me, she didn’t care if Ronnie raped me or if I lived or died. She’
d meant every word she’d said earlier. Well, so had I.
I roared up and head butted Ronnie with everything I had. He jumped up, clutching his head. It didn’t take him long to recover while I still heard a high-pitched ringing noise in my ears. Even with my shocked senses, I knew I couldn’t stay still. I needed to stand up because staying prone would be a death sentence. I rolled off the air mattress just as he pounced. His nails pricked the air mattress, discharging a loud whoosh of air.
I rolled again when he followed me. I wanted to get my knees under me and then pull myself to my feet, but the head butt had left me a stunned, which, combined with the lingering effects of Kelsey’s shot, was not a good thing.
Lucky for me, Vicki decided to strike. With a harsh yell, she charged Ronnie. The spear caught him in the shoulder. She didn’t do much damage, but did draw blood.
Everyone froze. Ronnie and Vicki stared at the tiny rivulet of blood dripping out of his shoulder while I stared at Vicki. There was a beat and then we were all moving again. Vicki yanked the spear out and tried to nail the rogue alpha again, but he grabbed the spear and broke it in half. Throwing the pieces to the ground, he lunged for her, his hands wrapping around her throat.
She dropped to her knees, making awful choking sounds.
I grabbed what was left of the spear and rose to my feet. Sidling up behind him, I aimed for his heart. Vicki’s eyes met mine, they were wide and full of fear, but they were also losing their light as she became starved for oxygen. She would be unconscious soon, leaving me and Ronnie alone. Call me crazy, but I wasn’t looking forward to any amount of one-on-one time with the rogue alpha.
I took a deep breath and said a silent prayer. Like the head butt, I put everything into my thrust. Vicki was strong and she’d barely broken skin, I was going to have to do better. I just wasn’t sure if I could.
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