by Lola Gabriel
Grey had no idea which unit might be Alex’s. They were all huge. Grey suspected most of them had been separated into several self-contained living areas, whereas Alex would most likely have a full unit to himself, but he had no idea which one it might be. They all looked the same from the outside. He was just going to have to spend some time moving around and watching the units until he got some idea of at least which area Alex was mostly likely to be situated in.
He decided to start with the back of the estate. It made sense that Alex would like to be set slightly back from the others, relishing his authority, and it made sense to be set back from the entrance area so that any unwanted guests could be taken care of by someone other than him. Grey figured the more central buildings would be the ones used for meetings, both formal and informal.
He moved quickly and quietly. He had debated turning into a wolf. He knew he could stay in the shadows better if he did, but he also knew that was more likely to attract attention if he was seen. If one of Alex’s pack saw a man from a distance, there was no reason for them to assume it wasn’t one of their own pack. If they scented a wolf here, they would know instantly that the wolf didn’t belong to their pack.
Grey managed to get to the back of the area without attracting any attention to himself. He knew he had to be even more careful now. He had essentially backed himself into a corner; there was only one way out of this area, and if he was caught now, all Alex’s pack would have to do would be to guard the entrance and he would be trapped.
He moved away from the trees he had been hiding in, stepping closer to the buildings and moving to a second row of trees that were closer to the buildings. He looked at the big buildings right at the back first. They didn’t look well cared for like the others. Weeds grew up the sides of them and they looked dirty and run down. He figured those three buildings were being used only for storage. He didn’t think it was likely he would find Alex there.
He crept closer, deciding to get between two of the abandoned-looking buildings. He would have a better vantage point from there and the buildings would provide him with cover. He crept forward and looked all around him. The coast was clear and he ran, darting out of his covered spot and crossing a small grassy area and then moving down a short stretch of road. He darted between two of the buildings, pressing his back to one of them and taking a moment to get his breath back. He wasn’t breathless from the short run; it was more from the fact that he kept holding his breath whenever he heard the slightest noise.
After Grey took a moment to catch his breath, he looked around and saw no sign of any movement. He hadn’t been spotted. He breathed a sigh of relief and then he started to make his way forward. If he got right to the front edge of the building, he could duck down behind the corner of the building and look out and have a fairly good view of the entire estate. If his guesses about where Alex’s quarters would be had been right, then he thought Alex would be living in one of the buildings directly ahead of him. There were four—two large and two slightly smaller. It has to be one of the two bigger ones, he thought to himself. Those were the two he would be mostly concentrating his spying efforts on.
He reached the edge of the building and stood back to watch. He had only been standing there for around twenty minutes when he began to get restless. The whole area was quiet; he hadn’t seen anyone since he got into place. It was getting close to eleven and he figured most of the pack were either retiring for the night, or they were out partying somewhere. He debated moving forward, trying to get a glimpse into the buildings. He could do this for weeks and not be lucky enough to spot Alex going into his building. No, he had to get closer. He had to see what was inside each building and work out from there which was likely to be Alex’s private quarters.
He took a step forward, moving out from behind the building. As he did, he heard a door opening and two male voices laughing. He jumped back behind the building and froze, listening. That had been close; too close for comfort. He barely dared to peer around the edge of the building again, but he forced himself closer. If he had been spotted, the voices wouldn’t be raised in laughter, and the footsteps wouldn’t be heading away from him; they’d be coming straight for him.
He peered around the edge of the building just in time to see two men disappearing around the buildings in front of him. He didn’t recognize them, but he knew they had to be part of the pack. They had come out of the seemingly abandoned building he was hiding behind. He thought for a moment. The building had to be a supply building like he had thought. He decided he was going to give it a few more minutes to be sure the two men definitely weren’t coming back, and then he would go into the supply building and take a look around. Any information he could get on the pack could be useful and the men hadn’t paused long enough to lock the door. Maybe this was an even better plan. His pack could take over the supply building and hold Alex’s pack to ransom that way.
He dismissed that plan instantly. It wasn’t like Alex’s pack wasn’t rich enough to replace anything they took control of. No, the original plan was a good one, and gathering intel from the supply building would be as good a place to start as any other would be.
He was done waiting. His impatience was making him nervous, and he knew being nervous led to making mistakes. He stepped out from behind the building after a quick check around and then ran to the door the two men had exited through. He pushed the door and it swung open. After slipping inside, he closed the door behind him.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly and he frowned, not sure what to make of what he was seeing. The warehouse had definitely been used for storage in the past; the walls were lined with rows upon rows of shelving units. But the shelves were all bare. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had seen the two men leaving the building, he would have assumed it was just a spare building, surplus to the pack’s requirements. But why would the two men have been in here if the building wasn’t used for anything?
He stepped a little further in, his curiosity aroused, and that was when he saw the three women chained to the ground. His blood ran cold as he saw them. He and his pack had known for some time that Alex’s pack was killing humans. There had been a run of torn up remains found. But he had never even considered that Alex and his pack were behind the disappearances in the city. The disappearances usually were closed quickly, an assumption made that the people had moved on. No one ever came looking for them so it made sense. But Grey now saw that there was another explanation.
Alex’s pack was careful, choosing victims that no one would miss. Choosing newcomers to the town, or people with no families or close friends here. And they were keeping them alive, prisoners. Using them for entertainment purposes. He shuddered at the thought of what was being done to the three women in here.
He took a closer look at the women. Their eyes shone in the dark room, each of them peering back at him. His eyes were instantly drawn to the one on the left. She was gorgeous. By far the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. Even chained up and imprisoned, her beauty radiated out of her. Her long brown hair was shiny and Grey wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through it. Her eyes were a pretty hazel color, and her figure was perfect with curves in all of the right places.
Grey’s wolf stirred within him, as excited at the sight of the brunette as he was. Even this one glance told Grey everything he needed to know. Whoever that woman was, she was meant to be his mate. He knew it. His wolf knew it. She was going to be his.
He took a step closer to the women, trying to establish how he could get them free. All three of them shrank back as he approached them and he held his hands up in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.
“It’s okay. I’m going to help you,” he said quickly.
“Why would you do that?” the black-haired woman asked, eyeing him suspiciously as he came closer.
“Because I’m not one of Alex’s pack,” he said. “I’m here to learn Alex’s habits so I can take him down. His reign of terror has gone on for long
enough.”
“Why should we believe you?” the same woman asked.
He answered her question, but his eyes drifted back to the brunette and he directed his words at her.
“Because I’m your only hope.”
The brunette met his gaze. She didn’t seem as afraid of him as the other two women did. Was it possible she felt this connection too? To Grey, the connection felt normal. He had always known the day would come when he laid eyes on the woman meant to be his mate. He had always known that he would feel his love for her envelop him immediately and it would be a certainty that she would be his. But this woman was human—Grey could tell by her scent. The scent of her was all he could smell; she filled his senses like she was the only person in the room. If she felt this connection, would it scare her? Would she think it was a trick?
She smiled at him as she looked deep into his eyes. Her cheeks had the slightest hint of pink to them. She was blushing. Maybe she did feel it too. If not the certainty Grey felt, then at least an instant attraction; something he could work with once he freed her.
“We can trust him,” she announced.
“You know him?” the third woman asked.
“No. But he’s right. He’s our only hope.” She looked down for a moment and then she looked back up at Grey, sending a shockwave of desire flooding through him. “And he has kind eyes.”
“Oh, well, that settles it, then,” the first woman scoffed sarcastically.
“Do you have any better ideas to get us out of here?” the goddess demanded.
“Ladies, listen,” Grey interrupted them. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I wouldn’t be too quick to trust a stranger in your position either. But you can either sit and argue about this, or you can tell me where to find the keys to your ankle cuffs. It’s your choice.”
“We don’t know where the keys are,” the goddess admitted.
“Right,” Grey said.
That made the idea of rescuing them a little harder, but he wasn’t going to just give up that easily. He thought for a moment.
“Okay. You’re going to have to leave the cuffs on. We’ll find a way to get those off later,” he said.
Even from this distance he could see the cuffs were solid. There was no way he could snap them off. Being a wolf shifter gave him more strength than the average human would ever have, but snapping four-inch-thick metal with his bare hands was too much even for him. He did think with a little help, though, he could break the chains, and once the women were free and away from here, hopefully they would trust him enough to come back to the hotel with him where he could use bolt cutters to get through the cuffs.
Grey moved to the nearest shelving unit. He studied it for a moment, and then he reached out and grabbed one of the metal supporting poles. He snapped it clean off. The unit teetered a little bit and fell back against the wall.
“Look out!” a voice said from behind him.
It was the goddess’s voice. He turned and saw the two men who had left the building earlier. They were back inside of it now, the sound of the unit clattering to the wall covering the sound of them entering. They looked at him with evil in their eyes, sick grins on both of their faces. They ran at him as one.
6
Ellery had been thrown completely when the door to the warehouse had opened and a new tormentor had entered. At first, she had reacted like Lisa and Ava, shrinking away from him, wondering what fresh hell this was. But then he had stepped into a ray of light cast by the moon from one of the small windows and she had gotten a proper look at him.
Her body’s response to the sight of him had confused her so much. He was gorgeous. There was no denying that. He had thick black hair and dark eyes, so dark that they, too, were almost black. His features were sharp and angular, but not in a scary way. They gave his face definition and Ellery had found herself wanting to run her hands over his sculpted cheekbones and over his square, perfectly symmetrical jaw. Her eyes had moved lower, taking in his tall, muscular body. Even through his clothes, Ellery could see the definition on his pecs and his abs, and his arms looked strong, the kind of arms that she wanted to be wrapped up in.
Her center had clenched as she took in the sight of the man, her clit throbbing with lust. She had been wet almost instantly. She had never had a reaction to anyone like that before. It was like she knew the man from a past life, and her body remembered him even if her mind didn’t. Her body responded to him completely, and every instinct in Ellery told her he was the one. That meeting him had always been her destiny; that everything that had gone wrong in her life up until this point had been a part of the universe’s plan for her, that it had been bringing her to this moment.
She hadn’t known how to process her reaction to the man’s physical appearance. It surely wasn’t normal to respond this way to someone who was almost certainly here to torture her and her new friends. Someone whose purpose here was to keep them prisoners and force them into a life as a mate to a man they had never met. Was she suffering from some weird, sexual version of Stockholm Syndrome? She didn’t know, but the strong attraction she felt to the man worried her. She felt like she was going mad. How could she be attracted to a monster, to someone who thought their treatment of people was okay on any level?
And then the man had spoken. His voice was warm, friendly. He didn’t bark orders at them and he didn’t berate them. Instead, he told them he was here to help them. Ellery had wanted to believe him so much, but there was still a tiny part of her mind that was acting rationally, and she told herself not to be fooled by the man’s appearance. Just because he was good-looking didn’t mean he was a nice person. And the way he spoke, telling them that he wanted to help them—that could be a trick.
He had looked at Ellery, his eyes never leaving her, even when he was responding to questions asked by Lisa and Ava. Something in his eyes told him she could trust him. Maybe she was crazy and was just clinging to a tiny shred of hope, which would only be ripped away from her, but she didn’t think so. She thought the man was seeing her, really seeing her, and that maybe he felt this crazy chemistry the same as she did.
She had held his gaze, feeling her cheeks burning as he looked at her like he was looking into her very soul. And in that moment, she had decided to trust him, to trust her own instincts. She had told the others he had kind eyes. They didn’t seem convinced that was enough, but to Ellery, suddenly it felt like everything.
The man had told them he couldn’t open the cuffs without the keys, but that he would get them out of there and worry about the cuffs later. He had gone to one of the empty shelving units and for a moment, Ellery’s hopes were dashed. If he couldn’t see the shelves were empty, then how much help could he really be? But he didn’t waste his time searching the empty shelves for something that wasn’t there. Instead, he ripped off a long piece of the metal pole that supported the shelving unit, and Ellery saw what he was planning on doing: using the pole to break through their chains.
The door opened as he pulled the pole loose and Simon and Clive rushed in. Ellery knew if she warned the man, she would be punished, but how could she not? He was risking his life being here, trying to help them.
“Look out!” she shouted.
The man spun around, the metal pole in his hands. Ellery wondered for half a second how he was strong enough to tear the pole off the unit with his bare hands, but she didn’t have an answer to it, and she didn’t have time to think about it for long.
Clive and Simon looked at each with glee on their faces and then they turned to the man. As one, they advanced on him.
“Well, if it isn’t Grey Langdon. You never could mind your own business, could you?” Simon said.
Grey didn’t waste any time. He swung out with the pole, catching Simon on the cheek and knocking him unconscious instantly. Clive roared in anger, a roar that became an animal sound as he shifted into a wolf. Ellery’s jaw hung open as she watched him turn into a beast. It was a seamless transition. One moment he was
a man, and then the next moment he was a wolf. Her jaw dropped even further when the pole clattered to the ground and Grey did the exact same thing.
The two wolves faced each other for a moment, their eyes locked on each other, both of them making low growling sounds deep in the back of their throats. As if acting on some signal Ellery didn’t see or hear, they both leapt into the air at the same moment, clashing together in a ball of teeth, claws, and exploding fur.
“He was telling the truth,” Lisa said, her voice sounding shocked. “He was really trying to help us. He’s a wolf shifter, but he’s not one of them.”
“How many wolves are there in this city?” Ava said to no one in particular.
Ellery could hear the conversation, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the wolves. She had completely lost track of which man had become which wolf. They looked so similar. Both of them had white underbellies and legs and both of them had grey fur along their backs and on their heads. They both snarled and growled and when they rolled closer to the women, Ellery shrank away, unsure of which wolf she could trust and which might take a bite out of her if given the chance.
Ellery was still hopeful. She had learned enough from the other women to know that this warehouse was far enough away from the wolves’ living quarters that no one could hear them, no matter how loud they screamed. That meant if Grey won this fight, no one would know, no one would come to end this. They could still escape.
Fear gnawed around the edges of her hope, though. What would happen if Clive won the fight? He would surely kill Grey, a thought that filled Ellery with despair despite the fact that she didn’t know anything about the man. And then the women would be punished, her especially for warning Grey. They might even be turned quicker than planned in case anyone else came looking for them.