And what had he meant by the cloths in the bathroom being mine now? Did he expect me to stay and live here with him? Obviously, he had something weird in mind considering where I woke up, the look of everything, my fancy breakfast and most obvious of all…the fact that I hadn’t been tied up at all.
I heard another door closing somewhere else not too far away and held my breath. What felt like five years passed before I felt safe enough to slowly crack open the door and take a peek. It led into a hall, down which I could see what looked like a living room. If there was a front door, it had to be not far from the living room. Standard housing layout, right? Opening the door enough so I could squeeze through I started to move as quickly as I could down the hall.
My body was so stiff and sore just the process of walking was pure torture. Even with my adrenaline rushing like Niagara Falls in the rainy season, my body was a mess and was not happy with having to move. As I reached the end of the hall I paused, listening and looking out around the corner to make sure that the guy who was keeping me here wasn’t anywhere around, or at least that I could see. I couldn’t hear anything, so I moved forward…and stubbed by damn toe on the leg of an end table. Stumbling I fell to my hands and knees biting down hard on my lip to keep from cursing out loud like a sailor. Seriously? I was already captive of someone who, from the décor of the place, was a ridiculously rich kidnapper. Not to mention I had been in a car wreck…and I have to stub my toe now too? I was starting to think I had done something messed up in a previous life and Karma was trying to come as close to possible to both killing me and driving me insane at the same time. Karma is most definitely an angry bitch.
Climbing to my knees I suppressed the urge to groan and continued towards what I thought was the front door. Thankfully, I seemed to be at my max quota of bad luck for the day and it was, in fact, the front door. I praised whatever deity above was looking out for me and I slipped out as quietly as possible. I took off as fast as my beaten body could manage to get out of the building and back to my dorm. Back to my self-imposed bubble.
Chapter Four
I honestly have no idea how I got back into the dorms without anyone seeing me. The way that I looked was pretty noticeable. My hair was wild, as were my eyes I’m sure, and I was all bruised to hell wearing a weird, long white nighty. I probably looked like a horror movie victim and to be honest I sort of felt like one. I snuck into my dorm with all the grace of a one-footed duck and locked myself in my room. Thankfully it was still pretty early in the afternoon and my dorm mate would be in class most of the day.
I spent that entire afternoon sitting under the soothing warmth of the showers, trying to wash away the insanity that had been the past not even 12 hours. Ravenous, I grabbed myself a few random snacks from the vending machine before going to bed before the sun had even gone down. I needed a day to figure out what the hell had just happened to me and what I was going to do about it but first, I needed to sleep. The only thing I was sure about right this moment was that I was never, ever, going to drink again.
When I woke up, however, I had to wonder if I was losing my mind or just having crazy vivid nightmares from drinking too much. The first thing I noticed was my lack of general pain and soreness. I fully expected to wake up and not be able to move at all but I got up and out of bed without much effort, which started my freak out. Then, of course, there was the fact that my bodysuit of bruises was all but gone. The soft, almost healed look of bruises on a few spots along my right side and the white nighty in my trash bin were the things that made me realize it had all actually happened. What the hell.
Out of everything, the real conundrum was why I was suddenly all healed up and feeling ok. There was no way my body could have healed itself that quickly from the crazy amount of trauma it had gone through. Yet here I was, feeling well enough to go to class if I wanted too. Not that I would, of course, today was a day to get my shit back together. But the fact that I could have wasn’t lost on me. I spent half of my day trying to come up with answers and just wound up driving myself up the wall.
Giving up on attempting to make sense of it all, I tried to just go about my daily routines and pretend like none of it had happened but everything just felt…awkward. I felt jumpy and just generally off kilter no matter what I was doing. It was only about two days of pretending everything was normal when I received a card that turned up volume on the crazy again.
I was sitting in my dorm room alone, trying to study when the white envelope slid under my door and across the carpet. I jumped up, looking at it a moment before snatching it up off the floor. I looked at it for a moment before whipping the door open and stepping out into the hall to look for the messenger. All I saw was the regular lot of co-eds milling about. Frowning I went back into my room and opened the envelope.
Inside was a single index card piece of paper made from solid stock and embossed in what looked like a bronze hue around the edges. Written across the white surface in the center was a single sentence with a place and time below it. Your Husband would like to see you. - Remington’s. 8:30 Tonight.
It felt like there was a golf ball in my throat as I stood there staring at the card. My…. what? I threw the card on my bed and proceeded to spend the day freaking out in my dorm room as I attempted to figure out what to do. I didn’t want a damn thing to do with whatever the hell was going on, but I so desperately wanted to know what had happened to me and who the hell that guy was. The ping-pong battle going on over it in my head was brutal.
8:30 came and I found myself standing out front of Remington’s Restaurant. I made a point to wear pants and a bright red scarf. The pants to ensure quick movement if I needed to bolt and the red scarf so people would remember me. Having a criminal justice student for a dorm mate was a blessing I hadn’t expected.
Walking in I made sure my phone was in my hand and 911 was one tap away. I noticed him right away. The same guy who had brought me breakfast in bed after abducting me from the scene of a car crash. I felt my heart leap into my chest again but shook it off best I could. I was here for information and I wasn’t going to let him get to me.
I walked up to him with confidence and slid into the seat opposite him. He moved to stand as I approached but I sat before he had the chance to get more than halfway up. Settling back down he flashed me a brilliant smile while I grilled him.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be willing to see me just yet. I’m happy you’re here.” He motioned towards the bottle of wine on the table but I shook my head in decline. He shrugged and continued. “It looks as though you are feeling better.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. The way he spoke to me as if we were old friends having dinner to catch up and reminisce. The way he so casually drank his wine and sat there like this was the most comfortable and easy-going meal he had ever had. I lost it.
“Who the hell do you think you are?!” I hissed at him across the table. I could feel the ferocity in my eyes as I stared him down. “Whatever it is you want you won’t be getting it and don’t think you can intimidate me. It’s not going to work.”
He looked as though he was going to say something but I cut him off by waving my hand and shaking my head. I had this weird feeling that if I let him talk he would somehow get the upper hand.
“No. No, I don’t want to hear whatever it is you have to say.” I practically growled at him. “I came here to tell you to step off, leave me alone and stay away from my life. Got it?”
That was when he reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat. I tensed, thinking he was going to pull out a gun, a knife or something worse. Instead he removed a piece of folded paper. Opening it up he placed it on the table and slid it gently towards me.
My eyes darted between him and the page in front of me. What I saw before me was clear as day but I refused to believe it. A marriage certificate, and an official looking one at that. There at the bottom, two signatures. One in flowing, studied script that I assumed belonged to the man across from me. The second, wa
s my own…though it looked a bit more jagged than usual.
I felt like I had swallowed my tongue. I just stared at the paper before reaching out and snatching it from the table. I continued to stare at it in disbelief, finally looking up at him to try and find some answers in his face.
“How?” I managed to croak.
For the first time I really studied his face and yet still found nothing about it recognizable. I had never seen this man before in my life, positive. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered a face like his. He was handsome, but not in the conventional way. His jaw was wide and solid, his brow strong and his eyes that intense shade of green I had noticed when eh first walked into my life with breakfast on a wooden tray. The way they focused on me reminded me of a predatory animal at the zoo. Locked in a cage and not at all happy about it.
“You don’t remember at all, do you Olive?” He asked, the sound of my name coming from him sending a shock wave through me.
“No.” I snapped, maybe a bit too loud. “The last thing I remember is thinking about my shitty luck right before the car started to roll.”
“I saw the wreck that night.” He said. “When I went to check to see if anyone had survived I found you and your friend. I managed to pull your friend to safety and put out a call for an ambulance. Unfortunately, you…you were beyond help.”
He paused a moment and I could tell he was gauging my reaction to his words. I just sat there staring at him, my mind fighting over whether or not it wanted to believe the insanity coming out of his mouth.
“Something…something had punctured your chest in the crash and you were bleeding out.” He continued in a slightly more hushed tone to avoid prying ears. “There was no way you would survive until first responders managed to get there. So, I asked if you wanted me to save you the only way I knew how. You said yes.”
“So, you married me and saved my life? How does that work?” I quipped, being a smart-ass just because I felt the need to gain back some control of the conversation.
“No, Olive. I turned you.” He answered as if talking to a school child, which I found annoying as hell by the way. “To become a Shifter is not something I feel should be forced upon someone. Not to mention, there are laws. After all, we are so much more civilized these days.”
He seemed to make a joke but I was still stuck on him saying the word Shifter. My face must have been pretty screwed up from the thought going through my face because he apparently felt prompted to clarify.
“I am a werewolf, Olive…and now so are you.” He dropped the atomic bomb of the night on me and I was thankful I was sitting. “Our laws state that a Shifter can only turn their spouse without repercussion. I asked for your hand in order to save you. I pulled you from the wreck and brought you to my home where I helped you through the first night as the change settled in. Though overall it will take some time before it’s a full and complete change.”
I was stunned into silent through all of this. It was the most outlandish fairy tale to explain away a kidnapping I had ever heard. I sat back in my chair with arms folded over my chest. I could just tell he had more to tell me.
“Once I knew you were stable I brought you back to my home, The Alpha met us there and oversaw a brief ceremony to bond us together and make your change a legal on.” He continued as I expected him to. His hand had gone up to take hold of his thus far untouched wine glass. “One you settled down a bit I put you to bed and waited for you to wake with a clear head so we could talk.”
He looked at me a moment, as if sizing me up. Plucking the wine glass from the table he swirled it a bit before he kept talking.
“You left without eating breakfast, though I’m not sure why. There is nowhere you can go where I won’t be able to sense you, to smell you out above all things.” He brought his glass up and took a sip. As if all of this was nothing to be concerned over. Just business as usual
“You’re nuts.” I said.
I couldn’t believe I was even here. This guy was absolutely nuts and the only explanation I could come up with was my ridiculously horrible luck had somehow brought him into existence solely to throw my life into some weird kind of chaos. Shaking my head, I started to get up from the table to leave. As I went to take a step away he reached out and grabbed my hand. What happened next was the last thing I expected.
Chapter Five
The moment his skin touched mine it was like someone hit me in the head with a bucketful of ice cold water. A shock to the system, shiver included, that I felt flow from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and caused me to gasp and freeze in place. There was a resurgence of memories that flooded my brain and had me swimming to make sense of it all. Random moments flashed by and I struggled to grab hold of them, but soon they began to come in a concise timeline.
I recalled the crash, the car flipping side over side down the embankment before it smashed against the base of a tree. The noise of destruction was deafening all around, metal snapping, twisting and bending with the most horrendous sound. As the car spun my body, though held in by the seatbelt, still flopped around hard against the inside of the car.…I could almost feel the pain again as the memory flashed through my mind. The pain from the crash was nothing, though, compared to when the car finally came to a violent stop. The front pillar of the car on my side snapped from the frame and was bent inward by the tree. The momentum from the car had slammed part of the metal through the side of my chest, pinning me to the seat I was in. It was a miracle it had missed my heart.
What followed next sounded like the crash was starting all over again. Metal being ripped apart, shrieking in protest before giving way with an ear shattering snap. I vaguly recalled seeing a large wolf at one point but then suddenly…he was there. The man at the table who had brought me breakfast had been there at the crash site. I could hear him talking to me, the memory coming through so vivid it almost felt real.
“I’ve got you…but you are dying.” I could recall him saying in the most soothing voice. “I can save you…. but it will change you.”
I remember begging for him to save me. To do whatever it took to keep me alive. The fear and confusion from that night almost knocked me over. I felt my heart begin to race and my breath went ragged. My body was threatening to go into shock from the crash all over again. But then another wave of memories hit me. His voice, so calm and comforting.
“You will be changed forever. But I will be there with you. You must only agree to marry me and accept my curse as ours. Will you do that?” His words came through so clear in my mind…and yet they seemed so vague at the same time. Nevertheless, I recalled agreeing to his terms. A wife for a life.
Suddenly there was no longer a man standing there in my memories, but instead a large wolf of dark and scruffy fur. The creature lunged. I screamed in my memories, and nearly in that current moment there at the restaurant, the pain of sharp teeth piercing the flesh of my leg was so strong in my memories it was hard to believe it wasn’t happening again. I must have passed out from the second wave if new pain when he bit me, because the scene in my memory flash-back changed to something new.
I was no longer in the torn and twisted wreckage of the car. Instead I recalled the same bedroom had woken up in just days ago. There he was, standing beside me as I clung to him as if my life depended on it. For some reason, I seemed to recall being insanely attracted to my savior in that moment. So much so that I now remember him gently keeping me at bay while discussing something with another, much older, fellow who was also present. I couldn’t recall what they were discussing, though I knew it had something to do with me. I was far more concerned with rubbing and grinding myself all over the man who had saved me to worry about whatever they were talking about.
What I did remember with embarrassing clarity, was signing a contract with that same jagged, tilted signature that he had shown me on the marriage contract. What was worse, besides signing myself into marriage with a man whose name I couldn’t even remember, was that I could clea
rly recall throwing myself at him the moment we had both signed the page. The other man who was there, a representative of some sort, just watched my antics…which only made it all the more embarrassing. I could clearly remember trying to rip his clothes from his body, offering myself to him over and over like a starved beast begging for sustenance. It was humiliating.
The last memory that hit me through all of this was of him calming rebuffing every advance I made at him. Instead he scooped me into his arms, which even in memory felt safe and comforting, and carried me to the bed. Instead of giving me what I kept claiming to want, he instead tucked me in and waiting and comforting me as my body bucked and fought the change he had instilled in me. He stayed there with me until I fell into a deep sleep from the exhaustion of it all. My body finally giving over to what was going to be the rest of my life.
“No” I could hear myself say in a whisper through the wash of memories.
That was when he let go of my hand and I came back to present day. I just stood there for a moment before turning to look at him. I’m sure the horror on my face told him everything he needed to know regarding how I felt. Hearing him clear his throat helped solidify me back in reality, my eyes closing a bit until I heard him speaking to me once more.
“When you are ready, Olive, you’ll come to me.” He said. “I can show you how to live this life with dignity. How to hunt and satisfy your instincts without hurting the people around you. I can help you go about getting your education within the new parameters of your existence.”
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