No answer.
The panic burned out hours ago, when they snatched me, shoved me into a van, bound me in magic. My body and my brain feel like they’re trudging through molasses, thoughts sluggish.
But emotionally, I’m wrecked. Beep is missing. Orion and Grayson are…
Not here.
I trace the plastic zip tie around my wrists with my fingertips, picturing Orion’s face when he promised he’d put me first. Grayson’s insistence that he knew what was best.
They didn’t mean for this to happen, I know that. But it doesn’t matter. They left me, and now I’m here in this mildew-infested basement, and I’m scared, and I fuckingmissthem. Imiss home. Silent Peak. The only place that ever felt like it was mine, and I might never go back.
Nothing lasts. Everything good is taken away.
My chest feels like it’s caving in.
The witch who spelled and brought me here is wandering around upstairs. He’s out of shape, foot steps labored, periodically letting out wheezing groans. After he carried me in here, he kept going on about compensation and how out of the way this drive was for him, as if I were supposed to nod along sympathetically.
He left my legs free, and he struck me as a little stupid, so after he headed back upstairs, I hurried toward an exit across the basement, likely leading directly outside, but an invisible, magical barrier sent electricity searing through my body when I got close, and it knocked me right on my ass. So, I’ve made myself uncomfortably numb, huddled on the floor in the corner.
Another cramp hits me, and I curl deeper into myself. Lifting my shirt with my bound hands, I bury my face in the fabric, but it does little to sate my omega. She cries, and I cry with her, aching in my body and my heart.
I wish I knew what was coming, what the witches wanted from me.
Will Grayson and Orion find me?
Will they find me in time for whatever’s coming?
The witch upstairs lumbers toward the basement door. It creaks open. The steps groan beneath his feet. He gets to the bottom, then walks over to me, tosses a water bottle. It hits me in the shoulder, and I flinch in pain.
I don’t move to grab it.
“Drink.”
I can’t. I can’t move, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
The man yanks my t-shirt down from my eyes, the neon light blinding me. My omega cries again.
“I said, drink, dammit!” He leans down, picks up the water bottle, cracks it open, then holds it over my lips. He pours the water in, though most of it spills down my neck and onto the floor. But he keeps the bottle tilted until it’s empty, and I choke on the last few sips.
He sighs as if I’m the inconvenience. “That bitch better be here soon. I ain’t no babysitter.”
I glance up at him. Even moving my eyes feels like they’re stuck in peanut butter.
Then a spike of heat blasts through me, and as the desire pulses between my legs, I quickly look away from the man.
There are different kinds of terror. Some are haunting, anxiety-fueled. The worry dances inside you, never sitting still, making you want to move fast and far, like maybe you can outrun it.
And sometimes terror is sharp—so sharp, it’s like a spike, and it freezes you in place, hoping, praying you go unnoticed.
The witch is oblivious to my heat, the unnatural lust curling through me, and I hold my breath and keep my gaze averted so it stays that way.
He sneers. “Don’t know what she wants you for. Deidre’s always been cryptic. You’re a wolf, huh?”
I say nothing.
“Wolves’re a dime a dozen. What’s so special ‘bout you?”
I can’t believe this is the guy who captured me. He grunts when I don’t respond, then looks around the empty room, scratching his chin. “Well, they should be here soon. Got another wolf with her too—her little pet. Used’ta never go anywhere without that one.” The man’s face twists with disgust, a visible shudder running through him. “Don’t know how she can sink herself so low and fuck one of ‘em.”
