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“Fuck, that means I’ve been stuck in this shithole for over a week.” Her lip curled, and she clenched her small fists. “At least now you’re here, we might get rescued. There’s no way Tanner will sit back while his mate has been kidnapped.”
She sounded positively cheerful now she knew who I was mated to, but I didn’t share her sense of optimism.
“Hey, Jessa,” she yelled through the door. “Tanner has a mate!”
There was a loud squeal from somewhere nearby.
“What? No fucking way! My sister will be so pissed! She’s been after that hot-as-fuck wolf for years. Thirsty bitch.”
Lily laughed and a spike of hot jealousy shot through me at the thought of other females ogling my mate.
“How many girls are in here?” I asked in a low voice, unsure of whether anyone else was listening.
“Er, right now, there are just the three of us. They took the other two away earlier.”
“And will they be back?”
Lily chewed her lip and looked down. “Not sure. Depends on the outcome of their fights.” She picked at her nails and said nothing more.
My blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”
“They have us fighting for money, but these aren’t regular fights. Because we’re shifters and are a lot stronger than regular girls, they put us in skimpy costumes and have us fighting against full-grown men. They don’t let us shift, though, so we’re basically hamstrung.”
I had no words. What kind of twisted fucks put a teenage girl in a ring with an adult man?
“Hey, don’t worry, we can take care of ourselves. We heal real fast and I haven’t lost a fight yet!” She grinned at me, but I could see the fear in her eyes. She was trying to be brave, but she was still a kid.
“How many girls haven’t come back?”
“One. Sherry. She wasn’t from around here, and she looked puny for a wolf shifter. There was another girl too, but she only stayed a day. I don’t think they wanted her for the fighting ring. She was way too pretty; blond, like you. I heard one of the guys who brings us food say someone called Carlos had a buyer for her.”
Carlos…that name rang a bell. If only my head didn’t hurt so much, I could figure out who he was.
I was just about to ask her more questions when the sound of an outer door clanging open made us both jump.
“Stay quiet,” Lily hissed. “They won’t hurt you if you keep your head down.”
“Well hello, baby girl. It’s good to see you again!” drawled a voice that haunted my nightmares.
Cole
Gunshot wounds sucked ass. Eva’s screams when I fell haunted me. Being so utterly powerless in that moment, unable to protect my mate, felt like a failure on my part. Me, a powerful wolf shifter, taken down by a gun.
The rational side of my brain told me it wasn’t my fault, but the wolf in me said it absolutely was my fault.
My wolf had been silent since we came to. He was waiting for us to go after our mate. When we found that piece of shit who’d hurt Eva, he planned to eat him. The images he sent me made me want to vomit, but I appreciated the sentiment.
My gunshot wound had almost knitted back together, but I was still weak. I grunted as I stood, needing to do something. The fear of what Eva was going through threatened to break me. She’d only been gone a few hours and already I missed her so badly my heart hurt.
I’d got used to hearing her random thoughts in my head since we mated. While we could shield our thoughts when we needed to, she rarely remembered to do it. I loved how she lusted after us when we stripped off to play-fight, how annoyed she got when Silas teased her, and how she worried about Tanner when he fell into one of his moods. I also loved how she trusted us, despite her shitty past.
The last few weeks had been the happiest of my life. And now my sweet angel was gone. Taken from us by a person unknown. Our only lead was her psychotic guardian, but Tanner had found nothing on him, other than some unsubstantiated claims of misconduct that had mysteriously been airbrushed away.
The whole thing stunk of corruption. Why would a young orphaned girl be placed with a cop after her only living relative died? CPS should have intervened and put Eva in a group home or with a foster family. Yet that hadn’t happened. Instead, Brent Michaels stepped in and nobody said a word. It made no sense.
The fact Eva had escaped her abuser was down to her courage and tenacity. She was far stronger than she knew, which gave me hope she’d be OK. I had to believe that. There was no other option.
Tanner appeared, brushing snow off his shoulders. I dragged my still-healing body up from the sofa, ready to do whatever it took to find our mate.
