Filed to story: A Claim of Fortune Book PDF Free by Jaymin Eve
The other guard shook his head so violently that it had to hurt. “I only started my shift a few minutes ago. Owens and Carter were on before that, but Carter is still patrolling. There’s usually only one of us here at the gate.”
That lined up with what I knew of patrols, so I shifted back into my bear form and left him to pass on my message, hand trembling as he held the radio.
My bear was bigger and far more brutal than most shifters of my kind. I’d learned to be meaner and grouchier, which would hopefully be to my advantage when I caught up to Chelsea and Emme.
Bonded or not, Emmeline Anders was my scent match, and no fucker was stealing her out from under me. Not while I was alive.
EMME
There were too many unfinished parts of my life for it all to end now.
Too many unknowns.
Too many questions.
They kept running over and over in my mind, holding me in a near catatonic state.
Like, I’d never asked Kellan why he read romances, or when he figured out he loved being surrounded by plants. I had no idea who taught Finley to tinker with cars, or if he played hockey when he was younger, and if so, how he managed to get his horrible family to support a relatively expensive sport. I didn’t have a clue what Hunter’s first invention was, or how he’d created a billion-dollar company under the control of his cruel, ruthless father. Slade was as much a mystery to me today as he ever had been, and I had so many questions for the dragon: When did he learn to hack? How did it feel to fly? Was there fire burning in his dragon’s gut moments before it spewed from his mouth? What were his dragon’s thoughts like?
For many years I’d had no one in my life. No one to be curious about or ask questions, and then for a brief moment I’d had what felt like everything, before it was cruelly taken from me.
I’d been stolen from my pack and forced into the arms of my mother’s murderers.
Bonded against my will.
Since then, my mind remained locked down in a state of shock with the world moving around me, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t deal with what had happened in any way other than to retreat into myself completely. I felt the presence of the dragon in the new bite, a ragged, unstable connection. Whatever he’d tried to do, it hadn’t worked as well as they hoped.
But it was there.
It was a bond. We were joined forever through this tenuous connection.
In my broken state, no one touched me, and I was left with the tingling bite and the reminder that life would never be the same again. A true quintet couldn’t form when one of the parties was bonded outside the pack. A quintet was five, and I’d brought in a sixth.
A scary, evil dragon who looked like Slade, but even at his coldest, cruelest moments, Slade would never have forced me into this bond.
“She needs to eat and drink fluids. We need her at full strength and health, or she’ll be less than useless to us.”
The slivers of my brain not locked down recognized the voice-Hunter’s father. No doubt the alpha had a name, but I had no idea what it was. He’d forever be the devil in my eyes, the evilest shifter in existence, who’d been influencing my life, in the most negative ways, since before I was born.
I might not know everything, but I knew of his omega experiments, which included pushing my mother all the way to her suicidal death. This alpha was the reason I’d had to wade through darkness and pain for most of my life. I was sure of it.
“The bitch won’t starve herself. She has other mates to worry about.”
Blaine fucking Rogers. The entitled alpha of my mom’s former pack, and Hunter’s alleged brother. Apparently, he was still here as well, which had me cringing, seething, and mentally screaming.
“It’s been a fucking week?-“
Hunter’s sperm donor was cut off by a low rumbling growl. The first sound the dragon shifter had made in a week? I caught another hint of his maple sweet scent, and I refused to comprehend what that meant.
“The dragon wants us to leave,” Blaine scoffed. “If you kill her, dragon, I’ll be unhappy. Don’t make me unhappy-you know that never ends well. Just get her to eat and drink.”
The dragon’s response was another guttural rumble, and I almost sighed in relief when the heavy, malicious essence of Hunter’s father and brother left the room. I had no idea where I was being held now. They’d moved me multiple times in the first few days, and I’d tried to keep up with where we were, but eventually I’d lost myself to the darkness. And here I’d stayed.
Now, though, I was alone with an unhinged shifter, and while he probably wouldn’t kill me due to our bond, there was nothing to stop him from hurting me badly.
I’d been fighting against my own destruction for so long that the very thought should have me springing to my feet and battling with everything left inside me.
But my wolf never stirred. She hadn’t stirred in days.
I could only assume the forced bonding and distance from my pack had sent her into a depressed hibernation.
Where is our fight or flight?
I demanded, but my weak question was ignored.
The wolf wasn’t going to help me here, which meant I had to use other strengths to keep myself safe.
Open your eyes, Emme. Open your fucking eyes.
Rough hands lifted me from where I’d curled in on myself, the hard floor my current companion. I was surprised when he placed me on a bed, the sheets smooth but slightly musty, as if no one had been in here for quite some time.
When the dragon dragged a thick blanket over me, a tiny sliver of the tension that had been holding my muscles in a cramped position for hours eased.