Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Smith takes a few steps further into the box, closer to Mari. My whole body primes.
“You think you can hold out four whole days, Conan?” He grabs Mari’s wrist and drags her arm to her side, baring her breasts. She tenses all over, but she lets him. Why? She’s stronger than he is. I want her to fight, but I also want her to do whatever she has to do to keep herself safe. Acid surges up my throat.
Standing here, powerless, I know what hell is.
I try to hold her eyes, but she bows her head, and before I can stop it, my gaze falls to her breasts, just for a moment, a split second, and fuck, they’re beautiful, round and heavy and tipped with big, puckered, pouty, brownish-red nipples. Saliva floods my mouth and shame throttles my throat. What am I doing?
I force my focus back to her face. She’s looking up again, but not at me. She’s staring at the man. No. She’s staring at the rifle pointed at me.
That’s why she’s letting Smith touch her. She’s scared. For me?
I growl—not my wolf—me. She doesn’t have to give a shit about me. That’s not how this works. That’s not the tradeoff. I leave her alone, and she doesn’t suffer. That’s the deal I made with Fate or God or whatever calls the shots in this fucked-up world.
I yank violently at the chains to distract the males.
“So you’re going to hunt me? That’s the plan? Hunt a wolf in rut?” The last thing I want to do is dialogue with these motherfuckers, but I need Mari to stop looking at that gun. I need her to stop feeling the way she’s feeling.
Smith grins. “Well, not me, personally. I don’t have the two million buy in. Yet. I will after this, but for this round, I’m serving in an exclusively logistical support role.”
Two million?
Smith draws his lips back in the approximation of a smile, revealing his bleached Chiclet teeth. He looks like that crazy actor with the face you want to punch.
“I know, right? Two million.” He whistles. “That’s a lot of dough, but you’ve developed quite a reputation. Haunt of the Hills? The Mercenary?”
“I’m not a mercenary.” That’s human bullshit.
“You just roam shifter territories, taking out ferals for the fun of it?” He says it like he can’t believe it, but with the notable exception of Moon Lake, the packs don’t care about getting rich. And I sure don’t do it because it’s fun. It’s nerve-racking as shit being away from Quarry Pack camp.
It’s worse, though, trying to sleep knowing that shit is out there, and Mari weighs maybe a hundred-and-seventy-pounds max, and she’s got the self-preservation instincts of a drunk bunny rabbit. No, a drunk bunny rabbit is cannier. What’s the kind of animal with such undeveloped defense mechanisms that it would charge alone into a dark shack with a notorious mad wolf in it?
I don’t think an animal capable of that type of recklessness has made it this far through evolution.
I go to run my hand through my hair and the chain catches me short. There will be time for losing my shit about Mari going on a coffee date with the villain from “The Most Dangerous Game” after I’ve killed them all. That’s the only possible outcome of this.
Emboldened by the gun, Smith saunters further into the container and squats to size me up. He probably intended to put us on eye level, but he misgauged. I’m on my knees, and still, I’m sneering down at him.
He’s the kind of arrogant that’ll run his mouth as he smirks up into the face of his own death.
“Do you even realize that you took out two of our clients?” he asks. “Up past the bogs, on the east ridge. About a year back.”
I remember. Two male human hunters who reeked of human female terror and stale sex. They’d been passed out drunk with a poached grizzly cub strung up from a nearby tree. I was tracking a moon mad wolf who’d been harassing the bus taking pups from Salt Mountain to the school at Moon Lake. I figured since I was passing through, I’d do the world a favor and snap their necks in their sleep.
“There’s been a bounty on you ever since, and we’re going to collect. A quarter million plus the commission on the hunt. Your pelt is gonna buy me a house in Sarasota and a bay boat.” Smith grins, and this time, it’s genuine.
“A male in rut isn’t much of a challenge,” I say, watching Lenox’s expression. He knows a male in that condition is no more capable of strategy or restraint than a rabid animal. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Has he tried to put one over on the humans? Maybe I can play them against each other.
Lenox doesn’t blink though. “We’re trying something different this time.”
Smith’s eyes gleam. “This isn’t a boring track and kill. No guns. No tranqs. Dogs, blades, and traps only. Man versus nature. Nothing in between a male in rut and his female in heat except the cunning and skill of the most consummate sportsmen on the planet, and the winner gets to fuck the Haunt of the Hill’s mate on his own bloody pelt.” Smith fakes a shiver of delight. “It’s going to be legendary.”
Mari’s fear bursts through the bond, setting my teeth on edge.
Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be okay.
The fear keeps coming. She’s not listening. She never does.
What do I do? Her fear makes my brain roar.
Please.
It doesn’t work. Mari’s chest rises and falls even quicker. Her round blue eyes pool with tears. I can’t stop myself. I throw myself against the chains, half choking myself out. Mari cries out. I stop mid-fling, and with every ounce of my will, I force myself to be still.
Fuck.
“Hey, save some for the main event,” Smith tuts. “We can’t have you going down in the first round, can we?” He lets out a sigh of self-satisfaction. “It’s going to be epic. The vig off the side bets alone.” Smith kisses his fingers. “What are you gonna do with your cut, Lenox?”
Lenox doesn’t answer. He’s squinting at Mari like the psychopathic squirrel in his head has gotten ahold of a nut. I jerk my chains again, try to get his focus off her, but he’s not distracted.
“There’s about a half cup of the drink left. The witch told the female I bought it from to drink half before the full moon and the rest after.”
“And?”
“Well, we’re not trying to get a mated female pregnant here, are we?”
Smith’s eyes light up. “Is it safe to give her the rest?”
“It probably won’t kill her.”
“Do it.”
Lenox jumps out of the back of the truck. My brain explodes in a red haze. I fight the chains for real, my wolf’s howls tearing up my throat, the metal scoring my wrists and ankles down to the bone, blood splatting to the metal floor.
Mari’s terrified, and I can’t do anything but howl and fight as her fear plunges into my chest like a jagged blade.
I watch Lenox climb back in with the two other men, watch the humans pin Mari’s arms behind her back, watch her struggle until Smith takes out the taser from his belt, watch her freeze and then tremble violently as Lenox grips her jaw and forces it open. I watch her throat gulp as she chokes it down, tears streaming down her cheeks. I watch him clamp her mouth shut until he’s satisfied that she’s swallowed.
And my wolf’s cries shake the walls, scraping up my throat like ragged claws.
It does nothing to know that I’ll lay their corpses at her feet. I seize the bond, and with everything in me, I try to take the pain and fear, but I can’t—I never could—so I rage and tear myself apart while I hold my wolf back with every fiber of my being, and for the hundredth time in my ill-fated life, I curse the Fate that made me.
Chapter 10
10
Chapter 10
MARI
Darragh’s doing worse than I am.
After Lenox emptied the thermos into my mouth, he and the others left, locking the door behind them. I fell to my knees and barfed. Some came back up, but not as much as he made me swallow, and whatever it is, it’s working.
I’m flushing in waves like I did the first time I went into heat, right before I lost control, and my brain is getting that cotton feeling. But Darragh—he’s definitely worse off.
There’s something wrong with his eyes. They’re flat, except for the gold rings, which glow like embers. He’s mangled his wrists and ankles to the point that I see flashes of white bone. He’s heaving and boring a hole in the door with his eyes like he’s going to charge it at any minute, and he’s been like this since they left.
I’m too much of a coward to really listen to the bond, but I give it a kind of blind prod and pull back quickly.
It’s okay. They’re gone.
No change. If anything, he tenses up even more. I try again.
I’m okay.
He focuses his blank gaze on me. I give him a nod. He blinks like he’s coming out of a trance, scanning the box and taking in the little puddle of liquid on the ground before settling on me.
He screws his mouth up. Immediately, my hackles rise.
“There was nothing I could do,” I say. They had guns and tasers, and I’m not a mad wolf impervious to fear and pain.
“I know.” The brow furrows as he searches my face. What’s he looking for? “You did right. You didn’t have an opening.”