There was a pause on the other end of the line that infuriated Jasper. Every second was time wasted when they could be going after Nikki.
“What’s going on?” Camden asked, his voice sharp and alert.
“Lucas has Nikki,” Jasper said.
Camden swore. Jasper heard him relay the information to someone else, presumably Franco and Cillian. Jasper heard swearing in the background before Camden returned his attention to the phone.
“We’ll get her, Jasper,” Camden said. “Don’t worry.”
Jasper grunted and hung up. He stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Whatever Lucas had planned, he wasn’t going to be alive long enough to enact it.
Chapter 20 - Nikki
Staring out the window, Nikki tried to peer into the woods, wondering if there was a path through them that would get her away safely. How close were they to a town? To another cabin? If she ran out without some sort of plan, she could easily get lost in the woods and never find her way out. But was that really so much worse than the situation she was currently in?
She heard snapping fingers and tore her gaze away from the window to look over at Lucas. He leered at her from the couch, where he was talking to some of his cronies.
“Bring me a beer,” Lucas barked at Nikki.
She glared at him, but didn’t move.
His eyes narrowed, rage simmering just below the surface. “I said get over here, so unless you want to be punished for disobedience, you’ll do what I tell you.”
He glared at her. For a moment, she debated staying where she was, just to be petty. She would have gotten a savage sense of pleasure from it. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good. After a moment, she pushed herself from her feet and walked over to the fridge.
Her bare feet moved across the rough wood. Lucas had taken her shoes. The chains that hooked her hands together had enough length between them to give her a bit of mobility, along with the chain connecting her legs, but it wasn’t enough to give her full range. She couldn’t break into a run, and she couldn’t fight properly, but she could move enough to walk around the rundown cabin and do Lucas’s bidding.
She could feel his eyes and those of his cronies watching her as she opened the ancient fridge and pulled out a beer. Shedidn’t glance at any of them as she walked over, keeping her head high. It was all she could do not to fling the bottle at Lucas’s face. She handed it to him and was about to walk away when he grabbed the chain linking her arms and yanked, dragging her back toward him.
“You look good in chains,” Lucas said, his hand running up and down her arm. “It’s nice seeing you back where you belong.”
She glowered at him. “Take your hand off me before I bite it off,” she said. Her voice was flat and emotionless, but the rage radiating off her was palpable.
Lucas laughed. “You know, this new fight you have is absolutely adorable.” He tugged her toward him, hand clenching her wrist. “It’s going to make it so much more fun to break you.”
“Let go of me,” she said through clenched teeth. She jerked her arms away.
The smirk playing on Lucas’s lips evaporated, and his eyes flashed dangerously. He grabbed the chains again and yanked her back.
“I am your alpha,” he snarled. “Treat me with a little respect.”
She let out a genuine laugh, one that reverberated through the cabin. Alarm and bewilderment flickered across Lucas’s features. Even the others looked a little unsettled. Once the laughter died, her smile dissipated, and she met Lucas’s eyes.
“You’re never going to become alpha,” she said. Her voice was even, calm, and somehow filled with venom. “You’re nothing but a weak, pathetic excuse for a shifter. No one is going to follow you. I can’t believe you’ve managed to find these fewidiots dumb enough to follow you. But the second you go in and try to take over Silverrose, you’re going to be laughed out of town. You have no chance. And even if you did, Jasper and the others would tear you to shreds before you were even halfway to the town square.”
Lucas’s eyes burned, and his grip on her tightened. “You'd better watch that mouth of yours,” he growled. “You might be pretty, but just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you get to talk back to me.”
She let out a derisive laugh. Alarm flickered in his face again, as if he were taken aback.
“You’re pathetic. You know that?” She gestured around them, metal clinking against metal with the motion. “Look at this place. You’re stuck in this hovel, groveling for cronies. It’s embarrassing. But it works for you. It fits you, because this is all you’re suited to lead.” She gestured at the other two sitting on the couch. “Honestly, I’m surprised you managed to convince these people to join you. Then again, they’re more pathetic than you, which is saying a lot, so maybe they just recognized another loser and decided banding together was better.”
“Shut your mouth,” he snapped.
“If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, then you can let me go.”
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stalked away. He shot to his feet, his hand lashing out to grip her arm, yanking her toward him.
