by J. L. Wilder
By the look on her face, Hazel thought that Rita, at least, did understand.
Now, Rita stopped beside Hazel’s bed and rested a palm on her forehead. Hazel had memories of the older woman doing this when she’d been a child. Rita had always been a mother to her. “Can’t you help me?” she asked. “Can’t you stop him? I don’t want to give up my children, Rita. They’re mine. Can’t you understand?”
An expression of pain twisted Rita’s face. “It’s for the best,” she whispered. “You’ll be able to get pregnant again. You’re an omega, Hazel. You’re a Cavallon omega. Pregnancy will come as naturally as breathing to you. And when you carry Paulie’s litter, everything will be different. I promise you. We’ll put this behind us, and everything will be all right.”
“I’m in love with Emmett,” she said softly.
“No, honey,” Rita said. “You’re infatuated. I know it feels intense. But that’s all it is. It’ll pass.” She squeezed Hazel’s shoulder and retreated from the room.
Hazel sighed. Rita loved her. She knew that. She had felt that. But Rita wasn’t going to stand up to Matthew for her. Hazel doubted she even could.
She was on her own.
Sleep refused to come that night, perhaps because she’d spent the whole day sleeping. She laid awake, watching the shadows creep across her ceiling and wondering what on earth she was going to do. It had been four days now since she and Emmett had parted, and she ached for him so fiercely that she felt as if she might lose her mind.
I’m in love with Emmett, she said to herself, firmly. She repeated it like a mantra. I’m in love with Emmett. I’m in love with Emmett. They could send him away, they could steal her pregnancy from her, but she would never allow them to convince her that she didn’t feel what she knew she felt. Love. I love him.
CRASH!
Hazel jerked upright. A rock had come flying through her window, sending shards of glass cascading to the floor. Emmett! was her first ecstatic thought. Careful not to step on the broken glass, she picked her way over to the window and leaned out, fully expecting to see him looking up at her.
A hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled hard.
Letting out a cry, Hazel tumbled head over heels out the window and fell the two stories to the ground below, landing with bruising force in someone’s arms. Whoever had caught her tossed her over their shoulder and set off running before she had time to figure out what was going on. She struggled, arching her back to try to see who was holding her, but all she could make out was a vague shape in the darkness.
She knew one thing. It wasn’t Emmett. She would have recognized his hands, his grip, the shape of his body. She would have known him. Could it be one of his packmates?
The man darted around the corner at the end of the block and put her down, keeping one hand firmly on her arm. “Who are you?” Hazel demanded, tugging against his grip. “Let me go.”
He only held on tighter. And now, she was beginning to feel afraid.
A car pulled up alongside them. The man opened the back door, pushed Hazel in, and climbed in after her. The driver sped off.
Not the Hell’s Wolves. They were bikers. They didn’t own a car.
“Who are you?” she asked again, this time fearfully.
But she had her answer. The man seated beside her had turned to face her, and she recognized the face. Spike. Spike of the Savage Rangers.
He had found her.
The Savage Rangers had caught her again.
A stab of horror went through her at the realization. But before it could take hold, another thought occurred. She had not been taken prisoner, had she? Not exactly. This was more like a prison transfer. She had exchanged one set of captors for another.
And the Savage Rangers didn’t know she was pregnant.
Oh, they’d know soon enough. At the rate her body was changing, she knew she couldn’t keep her secret for long. But maybe she would be able to protect her babies a little longer. Maybe long enough for something to change. Maybe the Rangers would decide they didn’t want to terminate the pregnancy, or maybe they would wait too long and they wouldn’t be able to find a doctor who would perform the procedure.
She held that thought close, turned it over and over in her mind, clung to it like a life preserver. These were men who would strip her bare and carve their mark into her flesh. These were men who would chase her halfway to the Mississippi River. They were cruel and bad, and she was sure they would force her to mate with them at some point. But they didn’t know about the babies, and that meant that there was hope.
The driver now tossed a rope over into Spike’s lap. “Tie her,” he said, and Hazel recognized the voice of Spike’s packmate, Edgar. “Hands and feet. She’s an escape artist, this one. We don’t want her getting away from us again.”
“She didn’t escape last time,” Spike pointed out. “Got stolen.”
“Shut up and tie the damn ropes, will you?”
Spike bent and looped one coil of rope around Hazel’s ankles. Hazel didn’t even think about trying to pull away. He was too strong, and his grip was too firm. Once he’d bound her ankles good and tightly, he used the other rope to tie her wrists.
Edgar pulled the car up in front of what looked like an abandoned barn. Hazel wondered how many decrepit old buildings the Savage Rangers had for locking women away in, but she didn’t ask. He wouldn’t answer, she knew. He would hurt her.
Using a metal ring, Edgar pulled up a trapdoor in the cement floor to reveal a set of steps. Spike lifted Hazel and carried her down, depositing her roughly on the floor. At least this floor wasn’t cold and wet, she thought. It seemed to be covered with straw. On the downside, it was almost pitch black down here, and that was with the trapdoor open.
“You should have known we’d catch up with you,” Edgar called down to her. “That mark on your arm is permanent, bitch. You belong to the Savage Rangers now. We’ll always find you. There’s no place in the world you can go that would keep you safe from us.”
He dropped the trapdoor, submerging her in complete darkness. A moment later, she heard a scraping noise and understood—something was being moved on top of the door. Something heavy, she didn’t doubt. Something that would keep her from escaping this place.
She listened to the sound of their footsteps receding, their voices fading into the distance. She took stock of her body. She hadn’t been injured during this second kidnapping—maybe bruised a little from her fall and being caught by Spike, but nothing serious. She rested a hand on her stomach. Her babies were unharmed.
Her greatest fear—that she would wake up in the morning to find herself being dragged out to a clinic to have her pregnancy ended—was gone. Whatever happened to her now, she could bear it to protect her children. Emmett’s children.
She pushed some of the straw into a pile. Rather than curl up in the corner, as she had in her last cell with the Savage Rangers, she lay flat on her back, gazing up at the dark abyss she knew to be the ceiling. There was some way out of here, she knew. She would just have to think of it.
What would Emmett do in this situation?
Be a wolf. That’s what he would say. She could almost hear his voice now. Humans are weak. Wolves are strong. Be your inner wolf. That will get you out of this.
But what would a wolf do locked away in a cellar underneath a barn?
She didn’t know. All she knew was that she would have to find the answer. Her babies might be safe for now, but they wouldn’t be safe for long if she stayed with the Savage Rangers. She was going to have to find a way out of here, and she was going to have to do it without risking the lives of her litter.
Emmett was right, she thought. Matthew wasn’t able to keep me safe. Four days was all his protection had lasted, and she’d been kidnapped right out of her bedroom. She’d probably never be safe in that house again. They would always know where to find her.
Wherever Emmett was tonight, she hoped he was safe. And, as unlikely as it seemed, she
hoped that he would somehow be able to find her once again.
Chapter Sixteen
EMMETT
His plan had been to make a move in the middle of the night. He wanted to get her out of the house without attracting any attention and to do it at a time he could be confident no one would be coming to check on her for several hours. He could climb up the side of the house, he thought, and get her to open the window. He could climb back down with her on his back. Then they’d get on the bike and take off, head west and never come back. By the time the Coywolves realized what had happened, they would be long gone.
But someone else moved first.
Emmett heard the crash of the rock breaking the window and startled out of the light doze he’d been in, sitting concealed in the bushes under the window. For a moment, he crouched there, trying to understand what had made the noise, and then he heard a too-familiar scream and the sound of running feet. He looked up and saw two men running, one with Hazel slung over his shoulder, the other empty handed and sprinting off in a different direction. Where was he going?
Didn’t matter. Emmett knew he had to act quickly. Above him, in the Coywolves’ house, lights were starting to come on, but it would be too late by the time they got to her room and figured out what had happened. The best chance was to follow Hazel right now.
And the best chance to do that was in wolf form.
Emmett’s transformation was almost instantaneous, fueled by his love for Hazel and his anger over what was happening to her. He sprang from the bush, hackles standing straight up, and began to run.
Hazel’s captor met up with a car—that must have been where the other man had run off too, Emmett supposed, to get this car—and shoved her in the back seat. They drove off.
There was no time to go back for his motorcycle. He would lose the trail if he did. The only option was to run. Emmett dug in his heels and sprang out after the vehicle.
He kept to the shelter of the trees. If the kidnappers realized they were being pursued, they might turn violent. Emmett didn’t want a confrontation now. All he wanted for the moment was knowledge. Where were they taking her, and how tight would the security around her be? Knowing these things would give him power, power that would be necessary for his eventual rescue attempt.
Of course, he thought bitterly as he ran, stealing her from this pack was going to be a hell of a lot harder than taking her from the Coywolves would have been. They were probably still back at their house wringing their hands and trying to figure out how this had happened to them twice. He had known Hazel wouldn’t be safe there, he thought, cursing himself. He should never have allowed her to go back.
Emmett ran hard, ignoring the pain that shot through his ribs with every step. He couldn’t afford to slow down. Her kidnappers were in a car, and who knew how long they were going to drive or how fast they might eventually go? As long as he was physically capable of keeping up, he was going to do it, no matter how painful it might be for him.
They’re not hurting her in that car, he thought to himself, feeling desperate. They wouldn’t. They can’t be. Because every now and then, when he pulled close, he could see the back of her head in the passenger seat. If they’d been doing anything to her, she would have been struggling. He would have seen her struggle.
Fuck, just run.
If he got her back, he swore to himself, he would never leave her side again. The two of them would leave Rhode Island together and never come back. They would raise their pups together. Everything would be perfect, just the way they’d imagined when they’d realized she was pregnant. He thought of the happy moment they’d shared in the drugstore and poured on the energy, running even harder. His entire life, his entire future, was in the back of that car. They weren’t going to take Hazel away from him.
Then, just when he thought he might collapse or pass out from the strain of chasing a car, the vehicle came to a stop. Emmett barely managed to stop in time—he almost came bursting out from behind the trees and began the fight right there. He had to aim his body directly at a tree trunk and allow it to shoulder check him to stop his forward momentum. The impact rattled his entire torso and his injured ribs screamed in protest, but he pushed the pain away and hunkered, watching and waiting.
Hazel was shuffled out of the car. He saw that her wrists and ankles were bound and felt a hot surge of anger, but other than that, she appeared to be unhurt. One of the men picked her up and carried her down through a trapdoor in the floor. When he emerged, he helped the other man pile several boards on top of the door.
Emmett felt a surge of satisfaction. You think you’re trapping her down there, he thought, but you’re actually just marking where that door is for me. And another thought—if they were so concerned about securing the door, that meant they weren’t actually going to stand guard. They were going to go away and leave her.
Idiots. When Hazel had been in his care, he had never wanted to leave her alone. Everyone else seemed to do it without thinking. Didn’t they understand how valuable she was?
He stayed low to the ground, waiting. Sure enough, a few moments later, the men got back in their car and drove off.
Idiots!
They wouldn’t stay gone, he knew. There was no point in kidnapping an omega if you weren’t going to keep her alive, so at the very least, they’d be back in a few hours to feed her. But he intended to be long gone by then.
He waited until he could no longer hear the car’s engine before creeping out of the woods. He moved slowly, nose to the ground. He recognized the scent of Hazel’s captors immediately. Savage Rangers. They must have realized they were following a false trail and doubled back. He should have known better than to think they were free of the Rangers. He’d just wanted it to be true so badly, he supposed, that he had been blinded.
Pax never would have allowed himself to be so careless, he thought. His enforcer would have slept with one eye open, would have mounted a guard every night, until the Savage Rangers were completely neutralized. Emmett felt a pang, thinking of Pax, and wished suddenly and fiercely that his pack was here with him. The last time he’d gone in to rescue Hazel from the Rangers, he’d had them as backup. This time, he was on his own.
He expected to feel safer inside the barn, but instead, he felt more exposed somehow. The stench of the Savage Rangers was stronger here, and it almost made Emmett feel as though they were standing all around him and watching his every move. He nosed the boards carefully off the top of the trap door, trying not to make too much noise about it, and then shifted back to his human form to grab the ring that would open the door.
He pulled it open. “Hazel?”
“Emmett?”
Emmett scrambled down the steps leading into the pit. Hazel was in his arms instantly, her tears wetting his shoulder, her hands, still tied, pressed against his chest. He felt himself grow instantly hard at the nearness of her body. He had missed her, ached for her, but he hadn’t realized, until this moment, how primal that need really was. She was his omega, and he would cross the earth for her.
But right now, his baser needs had to be ignored. “Are you hurt?” he asked, feeling her body.
“No,” she said. “Are you?”
“A little bruised up. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I can’t believe they did that to you,” she breathed. “When I think of how many times I defended them to you—”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, loosening the knots around her wrists and ankles as he spoke. “You didn’t know what they were.”
“I should have known, though. I should have seen it. I spent all my life with them! Matthew was my alpha!”
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Before they come back. I’m sure they won’t leave you unguarded for long. Climb out. I’ll be right behind you.”
She ascended the stairs without argument, and he came up after her. He shut the trap door and moved the planks back on top of it. Maybe when the Savage Rangers came back, they wouldn’t ch
eck on Hazel for a while. Maybe it would take them some time to notice she was missing.
“Where will we go?” she asked him.
“We need to get back to my bike,” he said. “Then we can get out of here. But we’ll have to be quick. Can you shift?”
“I’ve only ever done it in training. I’ve never stayed in wolf form for more than twenty minutes at a time.”
“We need to try,” he said. “I need you to run with me.” And he shifted.
Hazel closed her eyes.
A moment later, she stood beside him in wolf form. She was beautiful, he thought, with a thick, even coat and intelligent eyes. But there was no time to admire her now. They had to run.
He led the way out of the barn and back to the forest, back the way he had come. There was no point in worrying about covering their tracks now. The only thing that would save them was his bike. They had to reach it, hopefully before anyone realized they had gone. If they could make it back, they would be free to leave the state. Canada, he thought. Maybe all the way up in the Yukon. They could build a little cabin and hide out, wait for the pups to be born. He would miss the road, but that didn’t matter. Only his family was important. He had to keep them safe.
Hazel ran beside him, her paws thudding against the earth in time with his. He was impressed by her strength. He hadn’t expected her to keep up so easily, knowing as he did that she had no real world experience running. But it seemed to come to her naturally. He had to give her credit. She’d clearly retained some of the wolf in her nature, despite the obvious efforts of the Coywolves to suppress it. If they could see her now, he thought, they’d be furious. Their precious omega, running like a real animal.
He’d never been so proud of anyone in his life.
After about an hour on the run, she began to flag slightly, and he slowed his own pace to match hers. They needed to keep moving, he knew, and to move as quickly as possible, but she had performed admirably so far and there could be no hope of forcing her to exceed what she was capable of. He would just have to hope they had enough of a lead.