by Lola Gabriel
She really was happy, just not for the reason she claimed to be. Again, she was playing him, trying to manipulate him into thinking they were a team, working together to help to strengthen the movie. He took the only pleasure he could find in the situation—that he was playing her almost as much as she was playing him by letting her think he was falling for her mind games, when really he saw straight through them and would put an end to them if anything more serious came up.
Callin had caught a glimpse or two of Brianne over the course of the morning, and those brief glimpses had kept his body fired up and ready for her, but he hadn’t been able to speak to her. He had caught her watching him a few times while they were filming, and he felt like knowing she was watching him improved his performance no end.
Unfortunately, Valerie kept fudging her lines, and what should have been a quick and simple scene to film ended up taking almost three hours. Callin suspected it was all part of Valerie’s play to keep him and Brianne apart. He had to wonder how she planned on running interference between them long-term. She was likely to get fired if she held production up like this at every session.
Or maybe now he was overthinking the situation and she was just having one of those bad days. Every actor had them at times—those days where the simplest words got tangled up or came out wrong, and every scene became a real slog. It was like an avalanche. One tiny mistake made the person so self-conscious, they ended up making more mistakes until it was almost impossible to get a single sentence out correctly.
It could be that, but Callin suspected it was most likely to be his first theory that proved to be true.
Finally, they got the footage they needed and the director called for a break for lunch. Before Callin could react, Valerie went to speak to Brianne, who nodded and immediately hurried away from the set. Callin figured Valerie had asked Brianne to go and pick up some lunch for her, and he tried not to hate her too much in that moment—it wasn’t like it was unreasonable for Valerie to ask Brianne to do that.
Even if she wasn’t running interference between the two of them, she likely would have made the same request of her assistant at any time. He had asked Shauna to do it for him plenty of times with no ulterior motive. That was what made Valerie such a good game player. Her moves were all carefully thought out, and from the outside looking in, most of them seemed reasonable enough that if the person being played spoke up, they would end up looking like they were making something out of nothing, and Valerie would come out of the whole thing looking like the innocent victim of a paranoid mind.
Callin had grabbed himself a sandwich and eaten it in his trailer. Half an hour had passed since Valerie had spoken to Brianne and he figured she would be back from wherever she had been sent by now. He stood up, brushing a few crumbs from his jeans, and headed back toward the set to look for Brianne.
He wandered to her office, but she wasn’t there. He kept going, looking in the cafeteria and all around the set. He couldn’t find her anywhere. He asked a couple of different people if they had seen her and they all gave him the same answer: not since the morning’s filming had been wrapped up.
Callin could feel himself getting annoyed. It was one thing for Valerie to try and keep him and Brianne apart, but sending her off on a series of wild goose chases when she should have been having her own lunch was taking things a bit too far. On a whim, he turned around, left the set, and headed for Valerie’s trailer.
As he walked, he told himself to calm down. He didn’t want to go into the trailer with guns blazing when there was still a chance he was wrong about what had happened. It was a small chance, but a chance nonetheless. It was possible Brianne had an appointment or something and had asked Valerie for permission to attend it. He decided to play it subtle. His dragon stirred inside of him. His dragon didn’t really believe in being subtle, but Callin kept himself under control. There was no way he would give Valerie the satisfaction of him accusing her of something and being wrong about it.
He reached Valerie’s trailer and tapped on the door. She called for him to come in and he opened the door and stepped inside.
“Callin. What a lovely surprise,” Valerie smiled.
Her smile told him this was anything but a surprise. She was sitting at the table, eating a salad of some sort, but to Callin, it looked staged, like she had just jumped into position when he knocked on her door. He knew in that moment that he had been right; this had all been planned. His dragon stirred again, and again, Callin pushed it down. He wasn’t ready to let Valerie see she was bothering him. If she thought she was getting under his skin, she would only keep trying to keep him and Brianne apart. If he acted like he really wasn’t too bothered either way, she would hopefully get bored of the game and give it up.
“Where’s Brianne?” Callin asked.
He saw Valerie flinch slightly, her smile slipping as he said Brianne’s name. She speared a baby tomato and popped it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, watching Callin, who fought to control his anger and not slam his fist down on the table and demand an answer now.
“She’s gone,” Valerie said finally, her smile very much back in place.
“What do you mean gone?” Callin demanded. “I swear, Valerie, if you’ve fired her because of yesterday…”
“I haven’t,” Valerie interrupted him. “I’ve sold her.”
Callin sat down opposite Valerie and looked her in the eye.
“Tell me what the hell is going on here, Valerie, or I swear I will make you regret it,” he growled.
She smiled at him again and put her fork down, and then she crossed her hands on the table in front of her.
“Brianne’s great-grandmother and I came to an arrangement many years ago,” she said. “The woman came to me for protection. I don’t know how she got mixed up with shifters, but she knew about us and she knew I was a dragon. She had the Sanmere protein in her blood and she was being hunted by a Matchmaker. We made a deal. I would keep her safe from the Matchmaker, and in return, she would be my assistant and pledge her loyalty to me. The arrangement passed on down her family, just like the Sanmere protein did.”
Callin took a moment to process what Valerie was telling him. If she was telling him the truth, and he thought she was—his senses would have picked up on it if she was lying—then that meant Brianne carried the Sanmere protein and she could be turned into a dragon. They could have eternity together.
He swallowed down his excitement and kept his focus on Valerie.
“Right,” he said. “And what does that have to do with Brianne and where she is?”
Valerie held his gaze as she spoke.
“Well, Brianne broke the agreement we made all of those years ago, didn’t she? She stopped being loyal to me the moment she slept with you. So, like I said, I sold her. Riley Morgan picked her up about an hour ago,” Valerie said casually, like she was just telling Callin it might rain that afternoon.
Her face was the picture of calm but Callin knew she was gloating inside. Riley Morgan was one of the most well-known dragon Matchmakers in the district and if he had Brianne, then Callin knew she would be sold quickly.
“Are you fucking insane?” he demanded. “What the hell made you pull that stunt?”
He jumped to his feet and Valerie calmly got to hers. She closed the gap between herself and Callin.
“I know you’re upset so I’m going to excuse your tone this one time,” she said. “You might call the shots around here, but this is nothing to do with the movie. This is pack business and you know it. I got a pretty hefty fee for Brianne and that money will be funneled back into the pack. Let this go, Callin, I’m warning you.”
“Yeah?” Callin said, shoving Valerie away from him. “And I’m warning you. Watch your fucking back, Valerie, because this is far from over.”
He left the trailer, Valerie’s laughter echoing in his ears, and ran toward his car. He could hear the director calling after him, but he didn’t stop. If he got fired, fine, he’d live with that. H
e didn’t care about the movie. In that moment, he didn’t care about his career at all. All he cared about was getting Brianne back.
12
Brianne was still trying to make sense of what had happened to her. She had left the set to go out and get Valerie a steak and cheese sub from her favorite place. As she left the sandwich shop, a man had grabbed her and pulled her into his car. She had no idea who he was or why he had taken her. All she knew was that he was damned strong and all of her kicking and fighting him had no effect whatsoever. Someone had stepped forward and tried to intervene and the man had punched him in the face, knocking him clean out with one swing. After that, no one else tried to help Brianne and she had found herself forced into the back seat of the man’s car. He had smashed her head against the window until she fell unconscious, and that was the last thing she remembered until now.
She had woken up a few minutes ago to find herself tied up in a room she didn’t recognize. The room looked like a dining room. She was tied to a hard, straight-backed chair, and in front of her was a dining table and three chairs with a gap for a fourth chair—the chair Brianne believed she was currently sitting on.
She struggled, trying to pull her wrists or her ankles loose, but the rope that held her was too tight. It was so tight she could feel the rope cutting into her skin, and every time she tugged on it, she felt it getting tighter.
She screamed, shouting for help, but as she had expected, no one came. She tried to work out if she had seen the man’s face before, but she knew she hadn’t. He was a stranger to her and she figured she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She felt hot tears rolling down her face as panic seized her once more. If she ever got out of here alive, she was sure to lose her job now. Valerie was never going to believe she had been snatched off the streets this way. There was very little chance of her getting out of here alive, though, she knew that much. Whoever the man was, why would he have taken her if he didn’t have some sort of a plan for her? People generally didn’t snatch other people off the streets and then just let them walk away from that. The best-case scenario here was that he killed her quickly rather than torturing her and raping her first.
She thought of Callin, how he had promised to keep her safe. She had no doubt he had meant it, and if he knew where she was, she knew he would come for her. But he would have no way of knowing where she was. To him, it would look like she went out to get Valerie her lunch and just didn’t bother coming back. She knew how it would look, especially after this morning. He would assume she had lied to him this morning, that really, she had been sneaking away and had made up a story to prevent the awkwardness of him catching her, and now, she had completed her plan to run away from him.
Dammit, she thought to herself. I have to find a way out of here.
She tried pulling her wrists free again, but again, all she succeeded in doing was tightening the bonds that held her. She screamed again, yelling and shouting until her throat was hoarse. It was no use. No one came.
Brianne didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard footsteps moving outside of the room she was in. She didn’t think it could have been long—the sun was shining in through the window—but to her, it felt like she had been here for an eternity.
She opened her mouth to call out to whoever was making the footsteps, but then she shut it again. Whoever was in the house obviously knew she was here—he was likely the one who had taken her—and the last thing she wanted to do was draw his attention to her if there was a chance he thought she was still unconscious.
Her hopes of that were dashed when the door opened. The man who had taken her walked in. He moved to the table and sat down in one of the chairs so that he was facing her, the table between them.
“You’re awake, then,” he said.
“Yes,” Brianne said. “Mind telling me who you are and what the hell I’m doing here?”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure, why not? It’ll pass the time while we wait for your buyer. Do you want a drink of water or anything?” he asked.
Brianne shook her head despite the fact that she was thirsty. The last thing she wanted was something he could poison her with. And besides, she wanted to know what the hell he meant by her buyer.
“Valerie tells me you know a little bit about the shifter world,” the man said.
Valerie? What did Valerie have to do with this? As soon as the thought came to Brianne, so did the answer. This was her punishment for being with Callin when she knew Valerie wanted him for herself.
“So, Valerie arranged this, then?” she asked.
The man nodded.
“Okay, then. You might as well get it over with. Rough me up a bit. Kill me. Whatever it is you’re meant to do to me,” Brianne said.
She sounded a lot braver than she felt, but she wasn’t quite ready to start begging the man to spare her just yet.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man said.
Brianne raised an eyebrow and the man smiled.
“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty hard to believe after the way I got you here. But honestly, Brianne, I’m not going to hurt you. If you have marks on you, your value will be less. I’m a businessman, not a thug. I want to turn over a tidy little profit for you,” the man said.
“What are you talking about?” Brianne asked cautiously. “Are you like a pimp or something?”
“Do you know what a Matchmaker is?” the man asked.
Brianne shook her head, sure he didn’t actually mean someone who set up their friend on a date.
“Right,” the man said. “Well, I’m Riley Morgan, and I’m a Matchmaker.”
She knew in that moment, whatever a Matchmaker was and despite his reassurances, she wasn’t getting out of here alive. He would never have told her his name if she was.
“I’m not sure how much you know. Do you know about Sanmere? The protein that allows a human to turn into a shifter safely?” Riley asked.
Brianne nodded her head. She didn’t know it by name, but Callin had told her about a blood test to see if she could turn into a shifter safely. That must have been what he was referring to.
“Good,” Riley said. “This will make more sense, then. A Matchmaker basically takes women with Sanmere in their blood and sells them to a shifter to be their mate. I know at face value that sounds like a terrible fate, but these guys aren’t looking for someone to hurt or abuse. They want a mate, someone to share their life with, someone to bear their children.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Brianne said. “You’re not so much a pimp as you are a human trafficker?”
“I suppose that’s a pretty close comparison. It’s not strictly the same thing, but for the purpose of simplicity, then yes,” Riley said. “And I’ve sold you to a bear shifter. He should be here within the next hour or so.”
“I… but… what makes you think I have this protein? From what I hear, it’s pretty rare,” Brianne said.
She found that for the first time since Callin had mentioned she might be able to become a shifter, she was desperately hoping she didn’t have the ability to become one.
“You have it,” Riley said with confidence. “Why do you think you’re the one who ended up working for Valerie and not your sister?”
“I… I hadn’t thought about it,” Brianne admitted.
She was thinking about it now, though. And suddenly, she had an answer to another question. Now she knew exactly what it was that Valerie had been protecting her from. The very thing she had sold Brianne into once she had betrayed her.
13
Callin forced himself to slow down. Driving like a maniac wasn’t going to help Brianne if he got pulled over. Riley was good at selling potential mates quickly and Brianne was smoking hot—a deadly combination that meant he likely had a buyer lined up for her already. But that didn’t mean that she would be gone when he got there. It was more likely to be a buyer from out of his district than from inside of it, and t
hat meant he had a bit of time. Enough time to drive normally, but likely not enough time to get arrested and thrown into a cell overnight.
Callin finally reached Riley’s place after what felt like forever. He got out of the car and ran to Riley’s door. He hammered on the door with both fists, pounding on it completely until it was dragged open. Riley’s anger turned to surprise when he saw Callin on his doorstep.
“Callin? What are you…” Riley started.
Callin didn’t wait for the end of the sentence. Instead, he pushed Riley to one side and stepped into the house.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Where is who?” Riley asked.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Riley. Where’s Brianne, the girl Valerie sold to you?”
“That’s what this is about?” Riley said, sounding shocked. “You’re embroiled in some sort of power play with Valerie? She sells me someone and you want her back to make some sort of a point?”
“Brianne is my girlfriend and Valerie had no fucking right to sell her to you,” Callin said, feeling his temper rising. His dragon was close to ignoring his commands and bursting forth and frying Riley.
“She’s your… shit, Callin, I didn’t know. You have to believe me,” Riley said.
Callin felt himself relax a tiny bit. He nodded his head.
“I do believe you,” he said.
There was no way Riley was lying. Callin would be able to see it a mile away if he was. Besides, Riley was older and more powerful than him. If he had known who Brianne was, he would just admit it. It wasn’t like he was scared of Callin.