Kirk nodded.
The human headed down a narrow trail that disappeared around the cabin. Kirk moved to a rock and sat down, setting his firearm in his lap.
This was their chance! They could run downhill into the wooded area and find a place to shift. The humans wouldn’t have a chance of catching them after that.
“We were afraid we’d never see you again, David. Thank the moon you’re okay,” Jordan gushed for Kirk’s benefit. He watched from roughly fifteen paces away, his shoulders relaxed. They’d have to make like the wind and blow out of there into the cover of trees before he had a chance to put a bullet into one of them. It was a risk worth taking.
David blinked back what looked like tears and beamed at her the same way baby Fran did at Emmy when her sister coddled her.
Jordan pulled David into her arms and hugged him to her chest. He settled against her with a happy sigh. Jordan whispered into his ear. “We have to make a run for the woods. Follow my lead.”
David stiffened and jerked his head back, gaping at her with wide eyes. “No,” he whispered frantically. His eyes darted toward Kirk then pinged back to Jordan. He turned his back to the man. “You don’t understand. They won’t hurt us as long as we obey them.”
“Obey.” Jordan’s lips curled over the word like it was a cockroach that had crawled inside her mouth. “We’re not dogs. We need to go now.”
David’s chin trembled. “They threatened to cut off my other hand if I ever tried to run again.”
“I’m going to kill them,” Jordan said between crushed teeth.
David swallowed. “Jay didn’t want to do it, but after I tried to run, he had to.”
The bile turned to acid in Jordan’s stomach and throat. The revulsion of it made it hard to think. Her wolf bristled to take over. She’d start with the one named Kirk then go after Jay and his sister. Her body shivered.
David grabbed her arm. “Don’t do it,” he hissed. “They’ll take your arm, too. Please, Jordan.” His voice cracked on her name.
“What do they want with us?” Jordan asked, pulling her arm out of David’s grasp.
David’s face turned red as tomatoes. His eyes darted away, and he focused on an area above Jordan’s shoulder.
“What is it, David? They must have told you.”
“It’s for Wilma, Jay’s sister, Kirk’s wife,” David stammered. His face blistered, turning redder yet. “She lost three sons. She wants shifter pups that will be strong and survive. She wants to raise them as her own.”
David’s flush was like a wildfire, sparking and jumping to Jordan. Disgust swirled inside her gut while her mind bellowed in outrage, hissing and snapping at her innards.
The man named Kirk stood up. Jordan’s head jerked to watch him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared around the cabin, seeing something—or someone—Jordan could not.
“Wilma, we got one, honey,” he said gently. “We got a female.”
“A female?” A woman’s voice rose in excitement.
“Yes. A young, fertile-looking one.”
“How soon can I have my baby?”
There came a loving tsk from the one who had captured Jordan—Jay. “Nine months, sissy. You know how these things work.”
“And after that?”
“Another nine or so.”
“And then?”
“How many do you want, hon?” Kirk asked.
“As many as possible. As quickly as possible.”
“Sissy,” came Jay’s chiding voice. “We want to keep the female healthy. I saw what happened to the ones they bred too quickly at the compound. Miscarriages and milk drying up. We need her breastfeeding for as long as possible.”
Jordan’s stomach churned. Her chest felt as though it would cave in under the weight of her revulsion.
Foul, horrible, disgusting words assaulted her ears and senses. A huge, hard lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t swallow past the fist squeezing tightly below her jaw. Although she was clothed, she’d never felt more exposed in all her life.
She had to get out of there.
The one named Jay was still out of sight, and Kirk’s attention was on his wife.
The same plan could work. She could run for the trees and keep running until she put enough distance between herself and the humans to shift. David could follow her or stay. The choice was his, and he’d have to make it at the spur of the moment. She’d already given him fair warning.
But before Jordan could make a run for it, a shot exploded above her head. She crouched over the ground, heart speeding away and taking oxygen along with it. She’d never heard such a horrifying sound—and that included the screech of vulhena.
The woman cried out in distress.
Jay had rounded the corner and aimed his rifle and fired right above Jordan’s and David’s heads.
“What happened?” the woman cried. “Is David okay? Is the female?”
Kirk leapt from the rock, rushing around the cabin. He disappeared, voice trailing after him.
“Everyone’s fine. Jay was just firing a warning shot to keep the female from running.”
“She’s still here?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Don’t worry about a thing. Jay and I will take care of the shifters.”
While Kirk soothed his wife on the other side of the cabin, Jay walked over to Jordan and David. “That’s right, Wilma. Nothing for you to worry about,” Jay called over his shoulder. “Now why don’t you go inside and prepare us all a nice warm meal? We head out in the morning. We’ve already pushed our luck sticking around this area for so long.” He stopped five feet in front of them and lowered his rifle. If Jordan ran, he could easily tackle her. If she got to the ground to shift, her chances of survival would drop with her.
The sound of a door opening and closing loosened Jay’s jaw. He looked directly at Jordan. “As I said before, we need your help. Yours and David’s.”
Jordan snarled. “You want to breed us and steal the pups for yourself.”
Jay exhaled through his nose in a rush of air. “I have no interest in breeding. Your kind owes us. My sister lost two of her sons to wolf shifters. She lost her third in childbirth five years ago and hasn’t been able to get pregnant since. The poor woman would have gone mad with grief if not for the hope Kirk and I have given her. Now, you and David are going to make her losses up to her. You’ll give her shifter pups and, in exchange, we’ll look after you and keep you as comfortable as we can so long as you don’t try to run away.” Jay glanced up at the sky. “I understand how the full moon works. In two days you and David will get started on the first pup.”
Sharp claws raked across Jordan’s gut and bile oozed out, filling her veins like poison. “I will not mate with David, and I certainly won’t make babies for your crazy sister.”
Jay shrugged and nodded at David. “You can let him impregnate you willingly or I can hold you down. The choice is yours.”
“Choice?” Jordan hissed with disdain. “And what if David refuses?”
“He won’t.”
Jordan had never hated a face as much as this man’s. She hated his sunken eyes and thatch of thick hair sagging over one side of his wrinkled forehead. Most of all, she hated the certainty in the human’s voice.
She snapped her attention to David for confirmation. He stared at the ground, saying nothing.
“He’s already lost one arm. He knows I won’t hesitate to take another.”
“You don’t need to take my hand,” David spoke softly.
“No. I imagine not.” There was no hint of gloating in the man’s voice. No triumph or sick joy, only cold affirmation.
“You are a foul, disgusting pig,” Jordan spit at the human.
The man nodded. “Civilization has been forsaken. We live in depraved times. Know that I take no enjoyment in this arrangem
ent. I am simply doing what needs to be done, and so will you.”
“I’d rather die.”
“Jordan—” David sputtered.
“Don’t talk to me,” she snapped. She couldn’t even look at David, and the worst thing about that was knowing that if she didn’t get away soon, she’d have to feel him inside her during the full moon—a sacred time for claimed mates.
A pang of sorrow welled inside her for not having told Raider how she felt when she had the chance.
“She’ll need the kennel,” Jay said. “Go get it.”
The air thickened as David walked away. Though Jordan was unfamiliar with the word “kennel,” it made her shudder long before David returned carrying a large plastic box with a metal gated door. He set it on the ground. Jordan stared at the thing in horror.
“Open it,” Jay said.
After David complied, Jay lifted his rifle and pushed the barrel directly against Jordan’s heart.
“Get inside,” he said.
Cold dread filled her veins and tightened all around her, strangling and suffocating. This was her moment to decide. She had said she’d rather die, but with the gun pressed hard against her chest, all she wanted was to live—to return to the hollow and see Raider again. To get a chance to tell him she loved him.
Glaring, Jordan crouched down in front of the kennel. Her wolf howled inside her soul—a call to shift and rip this human apart limb by limb. But shifting meant death. Jordan wasn’t ready to leave this world, even as fucked up as it was. She’d find another way to escape. She had to.
Abandoning all sense of self-respect, Jordan backed up into the kennel so she could at least watch what was happening through the metal squares.
Jay slipped a lock over the door’s latch and secured it with a metallic rasp. “I’ll let you out when it’s time for dinner.”
He walked away, the sound of his footsteps receding while David remained at the side of the kennel.
Dinner? Had the day already gone?
Good, Jordan thought, grinding her teeth. Raider would know she was missing. He’d find her. He wouldn’t stop until he did. Hope unfurled inside her heart and spread across her chest, stopping short at her throat. Raider had also tried to find David and failed. It was safe to bet that Sydney would share nothing of use. Her little sister had lured her out here. She’d known about the humans and the trap and used that knowledge to throw Jordan into the net. Jordan’s stomach twisted. What foul kernel of loathing could have made her sister hate her so much?
“How did you end up here?” Jordan asked. Her words gusted out of her mouth like a cool breeze.
“Your sister.” David’s bitter tone matched Jordan’s mood.
He kept his place out of view at the side of the cursed kennel. Jordan attempted to sit up, but the top of the box was too low and she had to lean forward.
“Sydney insisted on seeing the city. She wouldn’t let it go no matter how many times I told her it was too dangerous and not what we’d been assigned. ‘Fine, then we’ll just look at it from the top of the mountain,’ she said. Or was I too much of a scaredy-cat to simply look at the city from afar?” David sighed bitterly. “One day, at the start of patrol, she told me she was going with or without me. She called me a little baby and said partners are supposed to stick together.”
Jordan’s heart constricted. The lying little bitch.
Remembering her sister’s words from earlier felt like reopening wounds. “I told him it was too dangerous—that we weren’t allowed—but he told me to stop being a little baby. He called me a scaredy-cat and said that if I wouldn’t go with him, then he’d go by himself.”
But it hadn’t been David who’d pressured Sydney into leaving the hollow. No, Sydney had been the one to manipulate and bully David into compliance, and then she lied about it.
From beside the cage, David grumbled. “I couldn’t let her go alone, but now I wish I had.”
“What happened?”
“We made it up the mountain and saw the city. The second we did, I told her it was time to turn around and go back, but she said we’d come all that way, and she wanted to explore a little longer. She took off down the bluff, and I chased after her until we came across one of the hollow’s backpacks. Sydney said it must be one of the packs that got left behind during the last supply run. She said we should look and see what was inside. I said it didn’t matter. We couldn’t carry it once we shifted for the return run back to the hollow, anyway. But she had to know what was inside. I asked her if she would stop messing around and return to the hollow after we looked, and she promised she would. So I went to grab the bag, but it turned out it was bait for a trap. Once I was hanging in a net from a tree, Sydney took off. She said she’d get help. I waited and waited, but no help came. Until Jay did.” David cleared his throat. “How did you get here?” His voice rose hopefully as though anticipating more help was on the way.
Jordan dashed it away when she recounted the story of how she’d ended up in the exact same trap as David.
“Why would she do that?” he asked in bewilderment. “She’s your sister.”
Yes, why? What could her motive possibly be? Jordan’s brain had been a bit too occupied with humans and threats of breeding to contemplate the sick and twisted reasons for Sydney’s actions.
“With me, it was an accident, but you—” David stopped mid-sentence.
There really were no words for what Sydney had done to them. She might not have expected David’s capture, but withholding the truth was every bit as devious as pushing Jordan into the trap.
“I don’t understand it,” he said softly.
“I think she didn’t want to get into trouble.” It was all Jordan could think of in David’s case. Something had always seemed off with Sydney. She’d always watched things unfold with cool detachment. Even her tears seemed forced—faked. Her tantrums were very real, fueled by the only emotion she’d ever shown genuine comprehension of: jealousy.
Envy was a traitorous bitch.
“She’d let the humans have me just so she wouldn’t get in trouble?” David asked bitterly. “What reason could she have to hand you over?”
The grate covering the kennel’s opening fragmented the surrounding trees and hills into squares. Jordan’s eyes went out of focus as she stared out. “To get me out of the way.”
It hadn’t been Camilla who had poisoned Emerson. It had been Sydney. She’d seen Emerson getting close to Raider on the council and flirting with him in the glade. Then, she’d learned that Raider was going to be paired with Jordan, so she’d pushed her into the river the same way she’d pushed her into the trap. She must have felt desperate that morning, knowing how close Jordan and Raider had become and with the full moon only a couple days away. It had been her last chance to get rid of Jordan. The girl was deranged and delusional enough to think she still had a chance with Raider if she simply eliminated the competition. That’s all it was to her—a twisted game she wanted to win for the sake of succeeding.
Even if it meant killing her own sisters.
No, Jordan thought. Even Sydney couldn’t go that far. Her mind wouldn’t accept it. She just couldn’t.
David moved to the front of the kennel and sat on the ground facing Jordan. His eyes and mouth stretched in his young face, with disbelief written across his features.
They were both in this hellacious situation because of Sydney, yet Jordan suspected he had just as difficult a time accepting that she’d done it on purpose. She must have misunderstood the consequences.
Jordan pressed her hands to her head; she was wasting time thinking about it. She needed to figure a way out of this situation. She’d deal with Sydney once she got back to the hollow.
She stared through the grate into David’s eyes. “Tell me everything about the humans. When do they eat, sleep, wash, and hunt? Is it just the three of them?”
From the moment Jay freed him from the trap, the humans had not mistreated him, except for the one time he’d shifted and tried to run away. Kirk had jumped on top of him and held him down while Jay grabbed the ax and chopped off one of David’s front paws. They weren’t worried that he’d get away on human legs, as either man could overpower him within seconds. Jay had heated the blade in a fire and used the smooth, flat side to cauterize David’s bloody stump. He’d passed out from the pain. Once he’d regained consciousness, he shifted into human form.
“Ever since they took my arm, I only shift at night when they tell me to guard the front door inside the cabin.” David hung his head and stared at the ground with vacant eyes.
Jordan pushed her fingers through the gaps in the metal gate.
“We’re going to get out of here, David. I promise.”
He studied the lock on her cage. “How?”
“You said Jay does the hunting. That leaves one human, not counting the woman. Next time he leaves to hunt, we look for an opportunity. Or we slip away while they’re all sleeping. We just have to keep our eyes open. There are two of us, and we’re not that far from the hollow.”
David’s head lifted. “Do you really think we can make it home?”
“We have to.”
The alternative was unthinkable.
It was still light out when they ate dinner. Holding his gun on her, Jay let Jordan out of the kennel and led her and David into the cabin, pointing out their places at a wood table. He seated them with their backs against the wall, while he and Kirk took the spots across the table and nearest the front door. Wilma ate her food on the kitchen counter, keeping her back to them. She had long, tangled dark-brown hair with threads of gray and wore a frumpy yellow dress that reached her knees. Unlike the men, she was barefoot. Every so often she hummed to herself then stopped before taking up the tune again.
Jordan wolfed down the dinner. She’d missed breakfast and needed her strength to escape.
Mating Games Page 25