“There’s no salt on your tail, Honor. You can fly away.”
Before I could come up with an answer that didn’t start and end with blubbering, the phone I’d been clutching all afternoon rang.
I MERGED INTO THE FLOW of end-of-work-day pedestrian traffic, phone pressed against my ear. “Turn right,” Aunt May murmured. “Now cross the street.”
She had eyes on me, that much was clear. Which meant Grace and Michael couldn’t dog my footsteps the way they wanted to.
Still, the perfume must have been working because I could sense them back there. Lack of a pelt made my skin chill despite the clothes I’d borrowed from my sister’s closet. Grace’s relinquishment of our relationship made my legs wobbly. But at least our twin connection was still on the job.
As if our truncated conversation had brought us closer together while granting us two separate futures. The tightness in my throat threatened to choke me and I quashed all thoughts of my twin sister. She and I could deal with our relationship issues later. Right now, I needed to focus on Aunt May and the great grand niece she’d kidnapped.
“May I speak with Carly?” I asked, swerving deeper into the pedestrian flow to bypass an eddy of people clustered around a pretzel truck.
“You’ll see her soon enough if you pick up the pace. Down into the subway station now, dear.”
The fact Aunt May could call me “dear” while threatening Carly’s life grated, but I obeyed anyway. Bought a ticket as ordered. Slid through the turnstile and clattered down another set of stairs.
The train door was closing as I approached it. “Get on,” Aunt May ordered.
“It’s too late....”
Steel entered her voice. “Is that really the answer you want to go with?”
I slid through the gap, leaving my followers behind.
Chapter 33
Three transfers later, my twin sense lay fallow as I plodded up to street level. Backup seemed unlikely now, but I could still trade myself for Carly. Or, if that didn’t work out as planned—because a hostage swap never did work out as planned—I could find a way to protect Carly and drag my heels while giving Grace time to tear the city apart.
Speaking of heels, my feet were once again killing me. Grace’s boots, while stylish, were applying blisters on top of my bruises.
“You’re limping, dear,” Aunt May observed through the speaker pressed against my ear. “Perhaps you should have chosen more sensible footwear.”
I lacked the strength to mind my tongue. “Do you think your informant could give me a lift then?”
After all, the faster this wild-goose chase around New York City ended, the faster I could rip Carly out of the old woman’s grasp.
“No need. Turn the corner and you’ll be here.”
I turned the corner. The flow of pedestrians had eased, blocked by a caution-taped but empty construction zone. Otherwise, the street resembled dozens of others I’d walked down over the past hour. Awning-fronted stores lined the ground floor with apartments above them. Metal rumbled beneath my boots as I trod over one of the horizontal doors shopkeepers hauled open to expedite deliveries into their cellars.
Deliveries usually came during working hours, but the next door down was open. I swerved around the yawning darkness, only to hesitate as Aunt May tutted. Her voice this time emerged from two directions—both the phone and the dark.
“Come down, dear. We’re waiting for you.”
In the pitch-dark basement? I guess wolves didn’t believe in lamplight.
It wasn’t the darkness that deterred me, however. It was lack of a pelt, which meant I couldn’t smell whether Luke’s niece was present. Swapping myself for her was going to be tricky enough—best not risk it if the child wasn’t even there.
“Carly?” I called while scuffing my boots along the top cement step to wipe off a bit of perfume. If I got absurdly lucky and Grace somehow used our twin sense to track me down among New York City’s nine million people, I didn’t want Michael to walk by my destination unaware.
For a long moment, the black hole of the basement was silent. Then Carly called back: “I’m here, Honor. There’s....”
Her final word muddied, as if a hand had slapped across her mouth. Still, I smiled for the first time in hours.
My brain was fuzzy from exhaustion. My feet felt like gnomes were gnawing on them. But I’d found Carly.
The game was on.
I smiled...then I spun in a complete circle, making sure no skinless were waiting to pounce upon me. The street remained strangely empty, with no one at all present on this block.
So, flicking over to a ride-share app, I laid out ground rules for the swap. “Once Carly’s in the car, I’ll ditch my sword and come down there. Until then....”
Cell phones are hazardous. Perhaps you knew that already? I should have. Should have realized that even though I’d checked the street for signs of werewolves, I hadn’t looked up into the awning above.
Because my mouth was open to finish my sentence when air swooshed past me. Feet thumped against pavement. Iron fingers knocked Justice’s phone to the sidewalk before forming manacles around my wrists.
“Did you miss me, sword maiden?” Victor whispered.
He wasn’t even out of breath despite the fact he must have been perched on the iron girders for several minutes waiting. I was the one limping as he frog marched me down the steps.
THE CELLAR DOORS CLANGED shut behind us, plunging the space into complete darkness. Someone fumbled with a lock—or I assumed that was what caused the snick of metal against metal. Then Aunt May flicked on a light.
The bare bulb swung from a wire above her. An ancient incandescent, the light barely put a dent in the shadows separating metal racks full of bottles and boxes. An additional glow oozed down from a tiny window, likely right at street level while at the same time far above Aunt May’s head.
Despite the mitigating effects of bulb and filthy window, the overwhelming darkness made the cellar resemble a horror-movie set.
Ambience, however, was less important than the girl I’d come for. Carly shivered in a black lace nightie, perched at the edge of a metal folding chair. Her chin was up, but goose bumps lined her bare legs and arms. She was cold and uncomfortable, but she appeared to be unharmed.
Aunt May snapped her fingers. “Eyes here, dear. Arms out, please.”
Victor released my wrists slowly, waiting for me to make a move against him. But there were four more skinless hovering mere feet from us. Carl and three of his cronies. Had they ignored New York City regulations and come armed with guns?
I couldn’t risk Carly being caught in the crossfire if the muscle got nervous. So I complied with Aunt May’s orders. Spread my arms and my legs too, trying not to flinch as Victor patted me down.
“You reek,” he told me as he removed my sword and the most obvious two knives from my person. “Once you’re my mate, you won’t wear such filth.”
Apparently Michael wasn’t the only one offended by Grace’s perfume.
Still, his hands kept moving. First skimming over the inside of my jeans—as if I was likely to hide a weapon there—then sliding up under my shirt to wriggle like worms against my skin.
“Not quite yet, dear.” Aunt May’s reproof was mild, but Victor stepped back so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet in the process. That must be why she’d opted to keep him around while killing Easton. Victor was willing to obey.
Ignoring her grandson, Aunt May turned her attention to me. “Now, Honor, let’s talk about what’s going to happen next.”
She wanted to talk? That was part of my original plan—delay, delay, delay until backup arrived to save me. So, even though the chances of Luke reaching the city or Michael finding this basement in the near future were approximately as good as a lost hundred-dollar bill remaining in Central Park when the original owner went back to look for it a week later, I complied.
“You have me,” I said, stating the obvious. “Now you can release
Carly.”
Aunt May laughed. “You don’t really expect that, do you, dear? You don’t have a leg to stand on. No, here’s how it’s going to go.”
Her explanation took up more time than I’d expected it to. Which would have been great if my bond to Luke had been operational.
Instead, my silent messages went unanswered while Carly bit her lip and Aunt May spoke plainly about ovulation and conception. Our captor intended to produce two heirs of the Acosta bloodline—Victor’s heir through me and Carly’s with the help of Carl—for the sake of coup solidification. Bonus prize? Carl’s place in his pack and in relation to ours would also be assured if his son shared the Acosta blood.
Both babies would be planted tonight, which seemed like a long shot until I learned that wolves could smell menstrual cycles. Carly and I were both in just the right part of ours to get knocked up.
“Seriously?” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scream. “You expect us to have sex right here, tonight, with an audience? This is alright with the potential daddies?”
Carl and Victor stepped forward like good little soldiers, although Carl did look a trifle queasy. “There’s a cot, back there.” The younger male pointed vaguely toward the hidden recesses of the basement where light of the bulb didn’t reach. He cleared his throat and added: “No audience.”
So that was the only part of the situation that bothered him? Not raping a fourteen-year-old? Not Aunt May acting like a spider in the middle of a web of her own choosing?
Dismissing Carl as irrelevant, I turned back to the mastermind of the operation. “And Luke?”
Aunt May peered at me as if I was a particularly poor student. “Once we rejoin the pack, Luke will be removed just like his father was.”
I could almost feel the jaws of her trap snap shut around me. But we were talking, not doing. Which meant—“You need my cooperation for all of this to work. The pack won’t support Victor if I’m not a willing participant.”
That had to be why Aunt May had chosen me instead of another random female. I was Luke’s mate and his sword maiden also. If I threw that position over in favor of Victor, the Alpha’s Hunt would end with a conclusive bang.
“But you are willing, dear.” Aunt May motioned vaguely with one hand and a strange sort of tremor ran across my skin.
No, that wasn’t a tremor. That was one of the skinless manhandling my pelt. It dangled before Aunt May like a slithering shadow, but she ignored the fur-covered leather as she pawed through a handbag approximately the size of Manhattan.
“Ah, here we go,” she said after an endless moment. Something rasped in her hand, then a flame appeared at the top of a cheap plastic lighter.
“You’ll be willing or your pelt will burn, dear,” she added, suiting actions to words.
AT FIRST, THE FLAME was pleasant, warming the cold lump in my belly. Then my pelt began to singe.
The reek of charred leather filled the basement. I jammed my hand into my gut, even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference to the pain there. Through clenched teeth, I managed a single word:
“No.”
“No?” Aunt May wasn’t accustomed to being denied. No wonder her hand jerked, pressing the lighter close enough to my pelt so charcoal morphed into fire.
I was burning. No, my pelt was burning. It was hard to tell the difference when agony washed over me in waves of orange fire.
Ruth had been right. A woelfin wasn’t strong enough to mate with a skinless alpha. Tears filled my eyes. Not just from pain. From the knowledge I was going to fail....
“Stop it!” Carly cried. I hated that she was seeing this. Hated that I hadn’t gotten her out of here as intended.
I clung to that hate as Aunt May asked me again. “Would you like to change your answer?”
I couldn’t speak. Could only bite down on my tongue and imagine what Ruth would have answered. Furiously, I shook my head no.
My eyes were squinted shut, but I could still see tongues of flame licking up my body. I choked, opened my mouth....
I couldn’t be Ruth. I was only a woelfin.
...Then lost my breath as hard boots stamped out the blaze.
Blinking back tears, I realized no one was holding my arms now. Because Victor had left me to grab my pelt away from his grandmother. “She’s no good to me dead,” he growled as he squashed the last of the fire.
That last stamp knocked more than my breath out of me. Something went cockeyed in my spine, the shooting pain fighting for pride of place with the burns that had come before it.
I grabbed onto a shelf for support and nearly brought it down with me. But this was my moment. I—
“Restrain her.”
Iron-fingered manacles were back and Victor hadn’t even brought my pelt with him. Instead, my singed skin lay where it had fallen, at his grandmother’s feet.
Behind Aunt May, Carly hovered halfway out of her chair. Carl’s hand on her shoulder was more subtle than Victor’s grip on my wrists, but no less restraining. Luke’s niece had tried to come to my aid when I was supposed to be the one saving her.
That, more than anything, stiffened my aching spine.
I forced words out of a mouth that tasted like soot. “Let Carly and Luke go free and I’ll do what you want.”
Aunt May snorted, just like Ruth would have. “Did I mishear you? Do you really think you have room to negotiate, dear?”
She was right. I was asking for too much given my position.
But she was also wrong. I did have negotiating power or we wouldn’t still be talking. It must mean a lot for a sword maiden to willingly give herself to a new alpha.
So I narrowed down my wish list to a single item. “Sorry, Luke,” I apologized, knowing he wouldn’t hear me. “But Carly’s a kid. You came into this willingly.”
Then, aloud: “If you let Carly go, I’ll do the neck-bite thing with Victor and support him as pack leader. I’ll even join him when he rips apart Luke.”
Chapter 34
“Nice try, but not good enough.” As she spoke, Aunt May stepped onto my pelt. The pressure was unpleasant, but manageable. Her implication was not.
Her side of the chessboard was full of high-powered pieces. All I had left supporting my king was one measly pawn.
The pawn being me, of course. Pawns always plodded forward, one chess square after another.
Except when they killed. Then they did so with a surprise, angling attack.
I flexed my ankle, feeling the knife there constrict my motion. My glance flew to the tiny window, too small for an adult to shimmy through.
But a fourteen-year-old? She might just make it.
To get Carly to the window, though, required changing tacks.
“Is this really how you intend your granddaughter to lose her virginity?” I asked Aunt May. “A basement? After all the care you’ve taken to guard her virtue and standing. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you want for a pack princess?”
Aunt May wavered. Just the tiniest bit. But she didn’t cut me off, so I plowed onward.
“How about this? You give the kid a stay of execution. Wait until she has a bed, a room, a door with a lock. Let her put on my clothes now to protect her dignity. Then I’ll go back there—” I waved in the same direction Carl had—“and beget you an heir willingly. I’ll even let you smell my butt when we’re done to make sure I’ve conceived.”
Apparently, butt-smelling was a thing. Because Aunt May didn’t take offense at the insinuation that she was no better than a common canine. Instead, she glanced back and forth between Carl and Victor.
Was she gauging which way her granddaughter would be most useful? As a hostage to my good behavior or as the mother to the pack’s third-in-line to the throne?
“Our agreement...” Carl started.
Aunt May silenced him with a raised hand. Spoke to her grandson instead. “Victor, what do you think of this?”
It was a test. A test of both young males. Were they too hot-headed to c
onsider the long game? Could they work together even when their best interests were subtly at odds?
“Bites tonight,” Victor decided. “Your mating tomorrow, Carl.”
The henchmen in the shadows shuffled their feet. Or maybe they took a united step forward. I couldn’t tell out of the corner of my eye.
I’d forgotten the muscle all came with Carl, not Victor. If Carl wanted to double-cross his ally and take Carly by force—or me, for that matter—he had Aunt May and Victor outmatched enough to at least attempt it.
Outmatched not only in numbers, I suspected, but also with guns.
“It’s not much of a wait,” Victor continued, his voice snapping taut the way Ruth’s had a tendency to. Was this what an alpha sounded like? “Take it or leave it.”
And...Carl took it. Backed down despite his superior firepower. Perhaps because of Victor’s tone? Whatever the reason, his voice was low when he agreed. “That’s acceptable.”
“So I can give the poor kid my jacket?” I asked, keeping my voice as quiet as Carl’s had been.
Victor removed his hand from my wrists. “Be my guest.”
I DREW CARLY INTO THE puddle of muted light beneath the window, and no one argued about the new distance between us and our captors. Privacy for pack princesses...even when kidnapped and about to be mated against their will. The hypocrisy was laughable, but I’d use any advantage I could get.
To that end, I arranged us so my back was to the room, Carly shielded behind me. Then I undressed as loudly as possible, using the rustle of fabric and whir of zippers to cover up instructions murmured under my breath.
“Don’t answer, but touch my hip if you can hear me.”
For a moment, Carly just blinked back at me. Then she reached out a tentative finger to tap the waistband of my jeans.
“Good. Great. Okay.” I was having trouble wriggling out of Grace’s leather jacket, which wasn’t really big enough for me in the first place. We might have been identical twins, but sword training meant my shoulders were heftier than my sister’s. The clothing I wore had been made for a more slender frame.
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