Page 7

In the split second I have, I take a deep breath and finally catch the scents in my room. There’s me, bright and frantic, the fear like a shot of eucalyptus right up my nose. Then there’s something else. Plain, steady. Almost no flavor at all.

betas.

Two betas—albeit very beefy and more than capable of killing me—have broken into my house. In all my time worrying over this situation, it was always a rutted alpha who didn’t know what he was doing, or a different alpha who knew exactly what he could get away with. My imagination never considered the fact that some betas might get bored and decide to mess with me just because they imagined the local police would never really get around to investigating the case.

“Holy shit.” Body moving on instinct, I turn and grab the vase from my bedside table—wilting rose and all—and try to hit the man over the head with it.

Growling, he catches the vase in his hand. The flower and water inside go tumbling down over me.

Beefy growls and seethes, “That’s enough!” before swinging the vase back in my direction, making everything go black.

***

The world is a buffet of sounds and scents when I start to rouse.

Fire, smoke. Meat cooking over charcoal and flame. It’s freezing out here, but it’s always freezing here. And although the man carrying me smells about as appealing as a tank of rotting fish, at least he’s warm.

There’s talking, whispering, murmuring. In the distance, rowdy shouts and breaking glass. Music, a gentle beat that makes me think of that night from the dream.

Everything makes me think of that night from the dream. I am thinking, which means I’m not dead. I’m coming to.

In fact, I’m surprised that I’m gaining consciousness again at all. I truly figured those betas were just planning to kill me and rob the house—not that there was much for them to take.

No. The one said, “Ease the hell up on her. She’s turning blue!” They had never planned to kill me. They were there for something else completely.

I realize the reality of my situation right around the time I taste the duct tape covering my mouth, feel the string of the ties around my wrists and ankles. They’re tight, so my wrist bones grind painfully against one another. My ankles do the same, and I try not to move them, try not to think about the claustrophobia of the moment.

It’s almost hilarious, how I used to cry as a little girl, complaining that my toes were trapped in pinching socks. Now, I’m hog-tied and trussed up, and trying to stay calm.

I’m being carried, bobbing gently like the person transporting me might actually care whether or not I make it out of this concussed.

Surely, I’m already concussed from the flower vase blow.

It’s not just duct tape I’m tasting—also blood. Did the vase cut me?

For some reason, the thought of that wilting flower alone and crushed on the floor of my bedroom makes me sad. I picture it there, abandoned, and a tear leaks down my cheek, loosening the tape around my mouth.

Only my mouth.

There is nothing over my eyes.

So, I open them.

Bright, blinding orange light. Instantly, I can hear the crackle of the fire, feel the heat on my skin. There are dozens and dozens of shifters gathered around the fire, their eyes flickering in the light, their faces glowing like ghouls waiting to eat the flesh right off my body.

The man carrying me comes to a stop, but we’re not in front of the fire.

I hear the murmurs through the crowd. Sacrifice. Omega. Bitch.

Laughing. Jeering. Some people saying, drunkenly, throw her in!

It’s nothing new to be judged for the way I was born by literally every shifter I’ve ever come across, but it hits with a particular poignancy now that I’ve been kidnapped. A bitter sense of hopelessness washes over me.

Nobody is coming to help me. Nobody has ever cared whether I live or die.

It was all delusional to think that hiding away in that house still steeped in my father’s scent would help to hide me. That I could just work my little online job and live my small little life and be left alone. As if an omega could ever be allowed to live her own life without literally being removed from it.

All these thoughts are racing through my head—admittedly, not a great time to be chafing against the injustice, but what else am I going to do—when I glance to the side and see the rippling, glassy ink surface of water.