“We’re going to get this fucking collar off. And if we can’t, then we’ll come up with another plan. Either way, I’m not leaving you here.”
My eyes scan the few crates I opened, hoping to spot something I can use to pry open the collar’s lock.
“Garrett, the truck… the engine’s started up again. They must be ready to climb the hill. You have to go.”
“Trying to get rid of me already?” I sniff under an arm. “I don’t smell that bad, do I?”
That brings a smile to that beautiful face. “I won’t be responsible for your capture.”
“I know you won’t. Because they’re not going to catch me. Do you know how much flack I’d get back at my pack if I got caught? Shit, my team would never let me live it down.”
Her eyes fixate on the cargo van doors, and I doubt she’s absorbing half of what I’m saying, or that she’s shivering from the cold. I pull her in against me, wrapping my arms around her, and let her talk while I warm her with my body. When she stops speaking, I worry she’s going into shock.
“Talk to me, Angel.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Better yet, the key to the collar. Where is it?”
“Schneider has it in his front pants pocket.”
“You’re certainly observant.”
“He makes me watch him jerk off. I focus on anything but his dick. I stare at the outline of the key in his pocket.”
I struggle to keep my wolf’s growls subdued and my claws retracted. Talk about wanting to shred a human to pieces… That luxury will be for another time.
“Which one’s Schneider?”
“The taller of the two.”
As I insert a nail from one of the crates into the collar, trying to pick the lock, she gives me more details about what they made her do. Images I don’t want in my head right now, because the urge to murder the guards is distracting me from my goal of getting her out of here.
“Why not close your eyes?” I say, to keep her talking, distracted from the fact that I can’t get this fucking lock open.
Her hand goes to one of the burns on her hip and immediately I curse myself for asking.
“They’ll pay for ever touching you,” I whisper in her ear as I look to the glass window to figure out which human will get his head ripped off today.
That’s when I realize the truck has stopped.
The humans are no longer sitting in the cab.
CHAPTER SIX
ANGEL
My rescuer—the handsome shifter who came so close to becoming another of my victims days ago in the Medicine Bow Mountains—gently pulls me from the crate. His hands are so warm against my cold flesh. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this moment, how this brave shifter returned for me.
Not even a shifter from my own pack. A shifter I would have lured into captivity had my handlers not threatened to shoot him in the head unless I convinced him and his packmates to leave.
“I didn’t want to trap anyone.”
“We’ll talk later.”
“I need you to understand—” I lose my thought when his eyes lock onto me. Teal eyes that make a girl’s insides flutter.
Or maybe that’s the hunger.
