by J. L. Wilder
“Okay, so they’ve got more girls in the barn,” Harley said. “I’m sure they’re guarding the door, though.”
Mark nodded. “You two wait here, and I’ll go around and scout it out. When I’ve seen how well guarded the entrance is, I’ll come back and we’ll make a plan. Maybe we’ll be able to distract the door guards long enough to get in and back out with one of the girls.”
“They’ll put up a stink when we come in,” Jamie said.
“Doubtful,” Mark answered. “We’re not the ones who’ve been holding them prisoner all their lives. You never know. They might actually be volunteering to come with us.”
Harley thought that was pretty unlikely. These girls might have been raised in captivity, but that captivity was all they knew. They weren’t likely to want to run off with strangers now. Better the devil you know.
He said nothing more, and Mark crept off and around the side of the barn.
Ages seemed to pass. Jamie had fallen back into the moody silence he’d been drifting in and out of all day. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist at the best of times, and when he was upset or angry it became much worse. Harley felt as though he was sitting here alone waiting for Mark’s return. It was anxiety-inducing—one of the Death Fangs might come along and discover them at any moment.
When he heard the sound of a motorcycle’s engine revving up, it shocked him so badly that he actually stumbled forward a little and almost fell. Jamie’s hand shot out automatically and caught him by the shoulder. The two men looked at each other, and Harley saw his own confusion reflected in his brother’s eyes.
Jamie pointed. “It’s coming from over there,” he whispered.
Harley nodded and jerked his head in that direction.
The two of them kept the barn at their backs as they edged back toward the parking lot, toward the sound they’d heard and were still hearing. Harley reached the corner of the barn first and peeked around.
And got the shock of his lifetime.
The bike belonged to a woman.
And not just any woman. If the silks she’d hiked up to her thighs were anything to go by, she was one of the Death Fangs’ omegas. What’s she doing out here?
As he watched, Harley realized that the bike almost certainly did not belong to her. Not only was it pretty unbelievable to think that the Death Fangs would give any of their prisoners bikes of their own, it was also clear that the girl didn’t really know what she was doing. She was staring at the controls as if they were written in code. She’s not going to be able to put it in gear, Harley thought.
And on the heels of that thought, another, much darker one—the Death Fangs are going to come out here and catch her doing this.
What would happen to her then? He had no idea, and he didn’t think he wanted to find out.
Suddenly, with a roar, the motorcycle leapt forward, the girl just barely managing to cling on. She was rolling out of the lot and down the dirt road that led to the highway. And Harley moved without thinking.
“Harley!” he heard Jamie half hiss half yell after him. But his animal self had been roused. He could feel the wolf licking at the corners of his mind, struggling to take over, but he held it down. He couldn’t allow himself to shift here, not where the Death Fangs might notice and come after him. He would just draw more attention to the girl, and her trouble was bad enough as it was.
So, he ran to his own bike, jumped on without slowing down, and kicked it to life. He peeled out of the parking lot and down the dirt road, but the girl had a good lead on him, and she was accelerating as she went, clearly getting more and more comfortable with the process of riding. She didn’t look back. Harley didn’t know whether she was aware of him behind her.
If she gained the highway, she’d be able to lose herself in traffic—
But as the highway came up on them, the girl started to wobble on her bike. Harley’s breath caught in his throat. He’d been riding all his life, and he knew how hard it was to stabilize when you were wobbling that badly. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, and her clothing was about the least protective he’d ever seen...he sped up, even though he didn’t think he had a chance in hell of reaching her before disaster struck.
The bike toppled over, spilling the girl onto the asphalt.
She lay still.
“GODDAMN IT, HARLEY,” Jamie groaned as he jumped on his own bike. Both of his brothers were so reckless, so impulsive, but Harley was, by far, the worst. At least Mark tried to control his animal nature. He was just bad at it. But Harley never even made the effort.
Jamie hung back a little way, following at a respectable pace instead of the breakneck one set by his brother. It had already occurred to him that if this girl was running, they might as well take her with them. That would solve the problem posed by kidnapping someone against her will, at least potentially. But someone was going to have to let Mark know what was going on. Jamie couldn’t help but feel that Harley should have made some kind of plan with him before taking off like that.
He caught up with his brother where the dirt road through the woods met the highway. Harley had jumped off his bike and dropped to his knees. Jamie parked his own bike carefully and walked over to see what was going on.
The girl had fallen. Her arm and her face were scraped and bleeding, and she appeared to be unconscious. Jamie didn’t think she’d been riding fast enough to do herself serious harm, but with biking accidents, you never really knew. He squatted beside his brother.
Harley held out a hand without looking up. “Give me your jacket.”
“What?”
“She’s practically naked.”
“Why don’t you give her your jacket?”
“Because mine’s short and yours is long. Come on, Jamie.”
Jamie sighed. He wasn’t really as exasperated as he supposed he seemed. It made sense to take care of the girl, especially if they hoped to make her their omega. He stripped off his biking jacket and handed it to Harley. On Jamie, the jacket hung just a little past the hips, but as Harley slid the girl carefully into it and zipped it up, it fell almost to her knees.
“We need to take her back to the hotel and get her cleaned up,” Jamie said, glancing around. “Those Death Fangs could realize she’s gone missing at any minute. We don’t want to be found here.”
“Someone needs to get Mark,” Harley said.
Now he’s thinking. “Go after him. You can come back on my bike. I’ll take the girl to the hotel.” This was the most logical plan. Jamie had the most experience patching up injuries, since his two brothers always seemed to be the ones getting themselves into scrapes.
Harley clearly recognized the wisdom in Jamie’s suggestion. “All right,” he agreed. “Be careful with her.”
“Don’t be seen,” Jamie responded.
Harley turned and ran back into the woods. Jamie carefully lifted the girl, moving her slowly, feeling for broken bones as he went. She seemed, more or less, all right, although she might have a concussion. He placed her astride Harley’s bike and climbed on behind her, holding the handlebars with one hand. The other arm he wrapped around her, from right hip to left shoulder, securing her tightly against his chest.
He drove slowly back to the hotel, doing his best not to jostle the girl, but he felt her wake up as they pulled into the parking lot. She struggled a little against him as he lifted her into his arms, but she was too weak to do much, and he carried her easily through the blessedly empty lobby and up to the room he was sharing with his brothers, where he deposited her carefully on one of the beds.
She looked up at him fearfully, not saying anything.
Jamie grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom, wet it, and sat on the bed beside her. “I’m going to clean your head, okay?”
“What?”
“You cut it when you fell. Do you remember?”
“A little...”
“Were you trying to run away? From the Death Fangs?”
Her eyes widened in sudden fear. “You’
re not going to turn me in, are you? Please don’t. I’ll do anything you want. Just please don’t send me back to them.”
“I’m not sending you back,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything. I just want to look at this cut on your head. Okay?”
Hesitantly, she nodded.
Jamie eased her hair out of the way. It was red and curly, soft in his fingers, and he found he liked the touch of it quite a lot. But he had to stay focused. There, high on her temple, was a long cut, trickling blood. He pressed the washcloth gently against it.
She flinched.
“What’s your name?” he asked, both hoping to distract her and intent on discovering whether she was concussed.
She hesitated a long time, as if it were a question she was unused to answering. “Maddy,” she said finally. “My name is Maddy.”
“Maddy, I’m Jamie.” He pulled back the washcloth and examined her head again. Now that he’d cleaned away the blood and dirt, it really didn’t look so bad. “Why were you running away?”
“You know what they do, don’t you?”
“The Death Fangs?”
“They sell women,” she said. “They sell....”
“Omegas.”
“Women,” she said fiercely. “I’m a person. We’re all people.”
“I know that,” Jamie assured her. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, I’m sorry.”
“I ran because I didn’t want them selling me to one of the awful men at that auction,” she said. “I ran because it was the only way to be safe and free.”
He watched her, saying nothing.
“You’re a shifter,” she said. “If you knew I’m an omega—”
“I am,” he admitted.
“Then you were going to that auction.” She drew back from him. “You were going to buy someone.”
He couldn’t quite deny it. “It’s not that simple,” he said.
She got to her feet and moved for the door.
And Jamie had no choice but to block her path.
She looked up at him, eyes wide and fearful. “Who are you?” she asked. “What do you want with me?”
Chapter Six
Maddy sat curled up on the bed in the hotel room, sneaking furtive glances at the man who had brought her here.
After he’d finished cleaning her wounds and ensured that she wouldn’t try to leave again—simply positioning himself between her and the door had done the trick; he was probably twice her size—he seemed to have lost interest in her altogether. He was now gazing out the window as though expecting to see something.
Jamie, she reminded herself. His name was Jamie. Names had power. She knew something about him, something important and intimate. She had never known any of the Death Fangs’ names, with the exception of Isla. None of them had ever known her name either. It was a fact that had kept them isolated from each other, Maddy knew. It had reinforced the fact that she was nothing more than an object to them, something to be taken and sold.
But this man, Jamie, had cleaned the cut on her head. He had wanted to know her name, and he had told her his. And even though he was now preventing her from leaving, Maddy thought it might be possible that he was better than the Death Fangs had been. Maybe she had improved her situation after all.
She ran her fingers along the torn hem of the garment that was barely a dress at all. It was bunched around her ankles now, dirty and frayed from her ride on the motorcycle. She was grateful for the jacket she wore, although she couldn’t remember having put it on. It covered her up, so this strange man couldn’t see her body.
Maybe it was his jacket. It seemed big enough to fit him.
Maddy thought back, trying to remember what had happened. She remembered stealing the bike well enough, escaping through the woods, feeling proud and free. She remembered thinking that the going would get easier once she made it to the highway.
I guess that wasn’t true, though, she thought ruefully, touching her fingers to the scrape on her thigh. I must have crashed. She couldn’t bring the crash to mind, and she supposed she was grateful for that. It probably wouldn’t have been a pleasant memory.
The next thing she remembered was being here in this hotel room. But it was an odd sort of remembering. Her memories started here, but she had no memory of waking up. It was as though someone had turned on the lights in her brain again.
I must have hit my head.
That must have been when Jamie had found her. She must have been lying unconscious by the side of the road.
Her luck could have been worse. It would have been easy for the Death Fangs to have found her. If that had happened, Maddy knew, she wouldn’t have woken up in a warm jacket to find her head wound being tended. She probably would have woken up in a cage. Or on a stage.
But she couldn’t help wishing that she’d been found by someone other than a shifter. A regular human. Someone who wouldn’t have known she was an omega. Such a person would have no reason to keep her in captivity. She could have given the address of the home where she’d grown up, and they would have helped her get back there. Or, at the very least, to a police station.
But, of course, she’d been found by a shifter. It only made sense. That stretch of road must have been full of shifter traffic on the day of the Death Fangs’ auction.
He was going to the auction. She would have to be careful not to forget that. Whatever else this man was, no matter how kind he treated her, he had planned to buy a woman at auction. That wasn’t someone she could trust.
Jamie got to his feet very suddenly and crossed the room toward the door. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked, despite her fear.
He didn’t answer, just looked out through the peephole.
A minute later, he unbolted the door and pulled it open, and two more of him came in.
Maddy thought for a moment that she must have lost her mind. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she’d thought. Had her vision been disturbed? Or was she simply going mad?
Then one of the newcomers spoke in a voice that sounded different from Jamie’s—similar, but tighter somehow. “Is this her?”
They’re triplets, she thought. Identical triplets.
“Of course, it’s her,” Jamie said. “Who else?”
The man with the tight voice came over and bent down beside Maddy. He examined her as if she were a piece of merchandise, and she half expected him to reach out and start squeezing, like the customers at the auction.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, scooting away from him.
The man blinked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was rude.”
“Yes, it was.” She was discombobulated. Were these men good people or not? How could they look at her like she was a piece of fruit in one moment and apologize to her the next?
Now, he stepped back from her and held out his hand. “My name is Mark Driscoll,” he said.
Not just a first name, but a last name! She shook his hand, more puzzled than ever.
The third man in the room was standing by the door, but now he lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey. I’m Harley.”
As though she was ever going to be able to tell them apart. “Okay. Hi.”
Jamie looked from one of them to the other. “What happened?” he asked. “Back at the farm, I mean? Have the Death Fangs missed her yet?”
“Wait a minute,” Maddy said, suddenly realizing there was something she didn’t know. “How long have I been away from them?”
“Not long,” Harley said. He was wearing a leather jacket, she noted. She would use that to differentiate him from his brothers for now. “Maybe an hour.”
“Just an hour? Really?”
“And yes, they’re onto it,” he said, turning to Jamie. “The place is in an uproar. We were wrong to think they wouldn’t cause a scene.”
“You thought the Death Fangs wouldn’t cause a scene?” Maddy asked. “They love causing scenes.”
“Well, that’s what’s happening now,” Harley agreed. “They’re tearing th
e auction apart. They’re checking everyone who leaves in case you’re smuggled under someone’s coat or something.”
“Didn’t they notice the missing bike?” Jamie asked.
“They noticed the crashed bike,” Mark said. “They know she tried to leave on it, and they know exactly how far she made it. They know she’s with someone else now.”
A thrill of fear ran down Maddy’s spine. “They’re not going to just let me go,” she said. “There was a girl who tried to run when I was little, and they brought her back and...” She couldn’t continue. The sounds of that girl’s screams still haunted her.
Mark nodded. “We need to get on the road quickly,” he said to his brothers. “We need to get her out of here as soon as possible. The Death Fangs haven’t put up barricades or anything yet, but they will, and if we’re inside them, it will be impossible to get on the highway. I really don’t want to have to ditch the bikes and run.”
Jamie turned to Maddy. “Can you ride?” he asked.
“Wait,” she objected. “Who says I’m going with you?”
It was a token argument, really. There were three of them, and they were all much bigger than she was. If they wanted to take her, she wouldn’t be able to do much about it.
But they looked at each other for a minute, sizing up the situation, and seemed to agree on something.
“You don’t have to come with us,” Mark said. “We aren’t going to force you. But we think it’s your best option. Those Death Fangs aren’t going to stop hunting for you. But our house is a long way from here, and we can give you cover and safety. You won’t have to worry about them if you stay with us.”
“And what are you going to do with me?” she asked. “Sell me? Force me to breed?”
“For now, we’re just going to hide you,” Mark said. “We can talk about the rest later.”
“But nobody’s going to sell you,” Harley put in. “Definitely not that. We don’t do that.”
“We won’t force you to do anything,” Jamie said.
They weren’t exactly concrete answers, Maddy thought, but the boys were right. She didn’t exactly have any better options. She didn’t want to be on her own in the woods when the Death Fangs caught up with her. Maybe these men would be able to keep her hidden, and if they couldn’t, they might at least be able to fight off the Death Fangs once they found her.