Hastily, I cover Addie’s mouth, shaking her awake. Her eyes fly open and I gesture for her to remain silent, grabbing her hand and pulling her from the bed. As quietly as I’m able, I crack our door open, rushing across the hall into Hunter’s room and leaving the door open behind us. We’re trapped no matter how I slice it, but better together than apart. Zane may be our warden, but he’s our best hope right now.
Scribbling a note so that I don’t need to speak, I hold it up for him to see as he gets out of bed with a frown, rubbing at his eyes. Swallowing, he nods, grabbing a pocket knife from beneath his pillow before snagging Addie’s hand in a vice grip, the three of us flying down the hall as soon as the door to the outside world opens.
Rushing into Zane’s room, we slam the door shut behind us, not bothering with discretion at this point. Whoever’s breaking in is likely a shifter, so they’ll still be able to sense where we are either way.
The three of us shove Zane’s dresser in front of the door as he gets out of bed half-naked, brow furrowed before he picks up on the sounds in the living room. His nails lengthen into claws, but he doesn’t go tearing out of the room, instead gesturing for me to grab the other side of his desk so we can use it as an additional barricade.
The best I have going for me is some basic self-defense, but I’ve only been practicing for a few weeks. I might be able to hold my own against a human on the streets long enough to escape, but against a shifter? I’m fucked. My only real plan if Zane can’t pull this off on his own will be to sacrifice myself to protect the kids, to hope that the strangers won’t know about the sire bond so that the guys can find me relatively quickly.
“I like to imagine I raised you to be smarter than this,” my mother chides on the other side of the door, sending my heart into overdrive. “You clearly know by now what you are, what I am. You think a heap of wood will do, what, exactly? Really, Risa, you’re not that stupid.”
Hunter tucks Addie behind his back as my mom clucks her tongue.No, not Mom. A woman that likely killed my mother, that kidnapped me, used me. She doesn’t deserve the title.
Swallowing, I make sure that my voice doesn’t waver. “How’d you find me?” Zane wraps a hand around my wrist, pulling me back a step and jutting his chin towards the other side of the room.
She scoffs, and I use the moment to stretch my senses to their limit. Two other people in the living room, two in the basement above us. “I’ll always find you; you’re mine. Now let’s not make this harder than necessary. You know damn well you’re cornered, and I can either wait you out until you’re starving and desperate, or bust through the door. You’ve managed to hide damn well until recently, I’ll give you that, but I’m sick of dealing with your little tantrum. It’s time to come home.”
Tongue in cheek, I try to stall however I can, giving Zane some time to come up with a plan. “My real parents... you killed them?”
Her voice turns hostile, far quicker to temper than the woman in my memories. “Weare your parents. We took you in when you had no one else; fed you, raised you, and look where it fucking got us!” Her voice cracks. “They killed Jake because of you.”
My heart skips a beat. “Dad’s dead?”
There’s a heavy pause before she replies on a croak, “You left, and when we missed the next shipment, we were able to buy a little time, but the withdrawals were... they were worse than we could have expected people to react. These last years have been hell, Risa. Constantly running, searching for you. Daniel claimed to find you, but when he never showed up at the rendezvous point, we all thought he ran off with you, decided to keep you for himself. And by the time we tracked down the accident, you were nowhere to be found.”
Zane gestures for me to keep talking, running a hand through his hair and pulling at the strands, starting to pace the room. Swallowing, I mentally psyche myself up for when they bust in here, trying to figure out a way I can get both of the kids and myself past five people that won’t hesitate to drug or chain us up, to bleed us dry without remorse. Hunter might stand a chance, but there’s no way in hell that boy is making a break for it and leaving his sister behind.
“Yet here you are,” I prompt.
I can feel her cold smirk through the door, a small shiver trailing down my spine as she brags, “You had to stop running some time. Put me within five miles of an incorruptible, and I’ll be able to track them down.”
Five miles like that’s something to boast about, so most people don’t have that finely honed sense. Facts; I can work with those, can find a solution if I get enough pieces of the puzzle.
“And the ‘us’; I take it you don’t mean you and Dad, but the people you work with? A special few that you trust not to steal me away from you to make a quick buck?”
She scoffs. “This works much smoother without one person having to manage everything. You’re already trouble enough; why would someone put their head on the chopping block for you when they can take an easy payout and leave me to have to deal with the hard parts?”
One of the men cuts in, “Until you put a number on her dowry.”
There’s a lengthy pause before my mother hastens to correct herself. “Until I find someone that would make a good husband, and then the vultures will be his problem.”
Rubbing my thumb over the underside of my ring as a comfort, I remind myself that the hand chain looks like normal jewelry instead of a traditional wedding band to anyone else. Most shifters don’t even bother with the human custom, so they wouldn’t think twice, so I could use this to my advantage if it comes down to it.
The guys would want me to stay alive far more than have me pandering to their egos by shouting that I’m mated from the rooftops to people that don’t even matter.
Still, it’s hard to curb the venom in my tone. “And my par-“ I correct myself, trying to keep the conversation amicably flowing, “the people that you rescued me from. Were they incorruptible, too? Beating me? What did you even save me from?”
One of the men barks at my mother to hurry this up and she snaps at him before addressing me with less patience than before, but continuing the conversation out of spite at this point, trying to flex her control over the people with her. “Enough of this, Risa. It’s time to go.”
Zane looks at me, and the manic glint in his eyes has me taking a step back. He mouths,I’m sorry, before darting forward, grabbing my wrists and forcing them behind my back. He shifts his grip to hold them with one hand, using his other to brush my hair out of the way, holding my chin hostage while he strikes.
I jerk against him, not giving a damn if he tears a chunk of my throat out in the process so long as I can get him off of me. It’s not that I don’t understand his logic; an energy boost might be the only shot we have when it’s pretty much five against one, but it’s the violation of it all. Desperation doesn’t give someone the right to do whatever they want, to give them blanket immunity because they think they’re doing the right thing.
The scared person that decides to kill off a chunk of the population to save resources thinks that he’s right. The man that thinks he’s ‘saving’ someone by hurting them because ofhisbeliefs, thinks that his actions are justified. As soon as you have to defend yourself over stripping away someone’s rights, claiming that it’s for the greater good, it’s a sure sign that you’re on the wrong side of a losing battle.
I let the guys feed from me because I want to. I would have offered Zane a wrist if I could, because I want to get out of here alive, too. But by taking the choice away from me, I wasn’t able to warn him that my blood’s more potent than he’s used to being around with Addie, that it would be nearly impossible to stop.
That by taking my blood, it would turn him feral, and he’d become a bigger threat to us than the people waiting outside of this room.
