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Jake sighs and looks down at me before gripping the back of my neck and kissing me, his tongue invading my mouth, and I gag. He growls, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, and I cry out.
“I can’t wait for those bastards to be out of you. Then, I will be able to truly feast on you. But you go against me again, and I will feast on them. Are we clear?”
I nod, and he grabs my arm, pushing me toward the doors leading outside. He stops, turning and looking over his shoulder at Noleen, who sits on the ground looking broken and in shock. We all are; what we’ve just witnessed will be etched into my mind for the rest of my life.
“The missing supplies you can come in for tomorrow when you apologize. Ten a.m. If you’re late, you all go without for the next two weeks,” Jake tells her.
Noleen just stares at him and says nothing while the other women huddle and hide from him. I want to help and save them, but I can’t save them when I can’t even save myself.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
“Filthy fucking rogues. After all I have done for them,” he sneers, slamming his car door shut. Then, he whirls around to face me. “And you, taking their side when I was trying to teach them a lesson. I had every right. How dare she make demands of me?” he snarls before starting the car.
The entire drive home, I keep my face to the window, tears slipping down my face silently with my hands clasped over my stomach. From one nightmare to another.
Lexa has given up. We are both helpless and at his mercy, and I can’t see a way out of it.
Jake smacks the dash as we stop at the back of the shop, pulling me from my troubled thoughts.
“That night we met?” I stop, not knowing what I am asking, not knowing where I am going with that question. Yet, for some reason, that night has played repeat on my mind for the last couple of days.
Alisha and I had snuck out. We were drunk and wanted so desperately to see how the humans lived, how they lived without rules and titles and without packs. For one night, we wanted to pretend we were normal people. So, we snuck out through the old tunnels, but it was quiet once we arrived in the small town. Not at all like we imagined, and then, we got lost. Both of us were too drunk to remember the way back, so we stopped in the cafe/general store, which we thought was odd at the time because it was after midnight and still open.
We’d planned to ask for directions. Then, I tripped through the door and landed on my hands. I sliced it, trying to grip the glass table on the way down, not realizing how sharp the old metal trim around it was.
I look down at the scar that still laces my skin when Jake grips my wrist.
“That was the first night I got to taste your blood,” he groans, his thumb brushing over the scar.
He was right. Alisha freaked out, and he came running from the counter to help, clutching my hand in his before wrapping it in a tea towel.
“Neither of you noticed Mary at my feet. I thought for sure I was caught. Then, when I got a whiff that you were a werewolf, I just had to taste you. You tasted better than you smelled, made me stronger, faster, and that sort of power was addictive.”
“Why were you even there?” I ask him.
“I saw Petra leave the cafe. I was curious. So, I used my charms on Mary and found out about the rogue settlement with an entire pack of women to use at my disposal. The next time Petra visited, I followed her. However, I never expected you to walk through those doors that night. It must have been fate,” Jake says, looking at me. “Don’t you think, pet? Everything changed for the better that night.”
I look away from him and nod, not wanting to say anything wrong.
“Come. How about I run you a nice hot bath?” he tells me.
Jake allows me to work in the cafe the next morning. He tells me if I behave, I can go downstairs, and that Sondra is coming to bring in some more desserts. Hearing that, I plot ways to get a message to her. Jake went down to the basement three times in the early morning hours. All three times, I asked if I could see Alisha. The answer was no. However, I convinced him to let me make her a burger, and he agreed, even bringing a photo of her eating it. It was the confirmation I needed to know for now that she was still alive.
Hearing the bell, we finally have a customer. This morning has been unusually quiet because of some fair happening in town. Walking out, I find it is Noleen. She glances around nervously, and I clear my throat, pointing to the box just as Jake comes out behind me. Jake drops his hand on my shoulder. Noleen stares at me for a few seconds, then searches my face.
“Your apology?” Jake demands his hand on the crate of supplies.
Looking out the window, I see a bicycle with a milk crate attached to the handlebars. Listening to Jake make her beg and plead makes me sick, yet reluctantly he shoves the box at her when she speaks again.
“Jake, can I make a request?” she asks, looking over the box’s contents.
“A request?” he asks, stopping.
She nods, looking down at the floor.
“Very well, let’s hear it.”
