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“We have food,” Nikan told me. “I’ll speak to the Alpha.”
“Thank you,” I told him sincerely. I sat back on the cot. “Is he here? I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. Is he bringing my brother?”
“No more questions,” the other guy snarled. “Nikan, come.”
“Royce, it’s fine. She’s in a cage, she’s hardly a threat!” Nikan seemed to have lost his patience with the barked orders too. With a deep breath, he looked at me. “I’ll get more,” he said as he pointed at the plate. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Thank you.” I looked at Royce glaring at me. “Bye, Royce.” I wiggled my fingers at him and grinned when he turned abruptly and marched away.
“If you want out of the cell, Kezia,” Nikan said so softly his voice almost too quiet to hear, “try not to antagonize the ones who have the key.”
When I went to speak, he gave a slight shake of his head, turning away from me. The door opened and closed in the darkness, and once more, it was just me, a bottle of water, and an empty plate.
No one returned, and I sat for a long time wondering if Nikan had been warning me against the others in the pack or telling me he was one of those who held the key.
Either way, a scrap of chicken was not enough for me or my wolf, and to take my mind off the gnawing hunger in my belly, I exercised. I’d taken the bedsheet they gave me off the cot, and with a lot of maneuvering and grim determination, I had hung it so it cut off the toilet and hose area.
I may be a shifter and wasn’t precious about nakedness, but I was determined to have privacy when I was on the toilet.
Days were long, so I passed the time not by counting the minutes until I got food but by doing exercise. I was midplank when I heard the door open. I felt him before he came into the light, and I refused to let Cannon see he bothered me, so I stayed in my plank.
“Why are the clothes on the floor?”
I kept my back straight, my attention on a point ahead of me. “I smell. I don’t like smelling. The clothes smell too, so I took them off.”
“Which is why you have a hose. Use it.” His voice was firm, and I really wanted to ask him if he was the monster he appeared to be. His next words almost made me lose my composure. “Do you think you can entice my pack with your naked body?”
Pushing up with my hands, I rested back on my heels and turned my head to meet his stare, knowing I looked as stunned as I felt by the accusation. “I don’t give a damn about your pack. If they’re enticed by this”—I waved a hand down my front—“then I will definitely know starvation is key to your pack.” I stood gracefully, facing him in only panties. My long hair covered my breasts.
“My pack are well fed, pup.”
I looked him over. “Pity I can’t say the same about me.” Looking past him, I searched the dark. “Where have you been? Have you brought my brother?”
“Your brother is with his pack.” Cold green eyes watched me as I tried not to react.
“Did you tell him you took me?”
“Took you?” Cannon folded his arms across his chest—a favored pose of his, I noted. “We caught a rogue wolf as is the right of pack law in the mountains.”
I knew I was gaping at him. “I’m not a rogue wolf!”
His head cocked to the side. “Really? No pack makes you a lone wolf. Danger to humans? A heightened risk to packs by bringing exposure to them?” He ticked off the items on his fingers as he spoke. “Sounds like a rogue to me.”
I was at the bars, glaring at him, my fingers curled around them as he watched me impassively. “I am not a rogue,” I snarled.
“You’re not in control either,” Cannon snapped tersely with a look at my claws which had pushed out. “Your eyes have changed, pup.”
With effort, I stepped back, forcing my wolf down. “I’m in control.”
“No. You’re not.” His look was as cold as his tone. “And until you are, you stay in the cage.”
I screamed as I launched myself at the bars, my body jarring against the immovable steel. My arms reached through the bars, claws extended as I reached for the arrogant alpha in vain, swiping futilely at the empty air, inches from where he stood watching me impassively, unbending like the bars that surrounded me.
Panting with fury and feeling powerless, I yelled out in frustration as I took an angry step back. I kept my focus on the floor as I willed myself to calm down.
Sweat dripped from my brow onto the canvas, my arms were limp at my sides, and my hair was hiding me from his gaze like a curtain.
“Why won’t you shift?” Cannon asked me calmly. When I didn’t answer, I felt him move closer. “Because you know as well as I do, if you shift, as out of control as you are, you won’t come back. Your wolf will take you, and then you will be everything you swore you weren’t. Rogue.”
