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Chapter 1
Meira
Five Years Later.
When it rains, it pours.
I used to fucking hate that saying, loathed it with a passion. Mostly because I didn’t understand how true it really was. How when life delivers one sucker punch, it quickly follows up with several more just to make sure you aren’t getting up.
I’m not an optimist. I accept that. Living in a world ravaged by a virus broke my spirit when I lost everyone I’ve ever known… including Mama.
“Move,” barks a muscular, white-haired Alpha, and he snatches my arm, squeezing the hell out of it. He drags me down the middle of a small aircraft that reminds me of a steel coffin with wings.
The ropes binding my wrists at my back are too tight. The friction rubs against my skin and it stings. I want to say something, but I’m still tasting the blood in my mouth from his backhand at my last demand to release me. So I say nothing and stumble alongside him to keep up.
There are no seats in this small aircraft, just small, round windows and women sitting on the floor on either side of me. Eight women, not including me. They sit with their backs to the walls, their hands cuffed to a single chain linking them all and anchoring them in place.
They each stare at me with fear in their gazes. Their clothes are torn and filthy. Bruises and cuts litter their arms and legs… God they are all about my age, nineteen-twenty-years old. Some are stunning, other ordinary, but they are all terrified.
Just like me, they were found in the woods at the wrong place, wrong time by the Ash Wolves. It’s my fault for entering the Shadowlands Sector… their territory. I should have known better, but starvation messes with your head. I’ve been living alone for the past five years, scavenging what I can, avoiding the monsters in the woods and wolf packs alike.
Female wolf shifters are commodities, and apparently, only good for two things.
Mating with the intent to breed.
Or trading, which eventually leads to point one.
And lucky me, I’m being traded to another wolf pack in the far west of Eastern Europe. Just delaying the horrible inevitable mating coming my way. I will fight to the end before I ever give in to any Alpha.
I grit my teeth, not caring whom they send me to. I’ll escape and run. That’s all I’ve known since the undead monsters stormed into my home and killed everyone I knew. My gut aches at the memory, and my wolf whimpers deep in my chest, but I drive the thoughts away. Not now. I refuse to drown in the grief I can’t shake.
The white-haired shifter pivots me around, then shoves me away until I hit the wall.
“Sit!” He growls, darkness gathering under his ice-blue eyes. He’s a wolf Alpha; I smell it on him like the electricity in the air after a storm. The scent of wolf lingers on him too, and my own beast responds, acknowledging him. But the rumble in my chest is a warning for him to stay away. His presence leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I slide down to my knees and sit on my heels.
“Caspian, are we ready to go? Just brought in the last one from Mihai’s delivery,” the man suddenly yells, his attention cutting to the open door leading to the cockpit.
“Mad, get your fucking ass in here.”
I tuck these shifters’ names into my mind for later because knowledge is everything in a world that has fallen apart. Information can be sold to the right buyer or to extract oneself out of a sticky situation.
Mad huffs and drags a hand down his rugged face. He’s not an ugly man… quite the contrary. He looks to be in his mid- to late twenties with strong angular lines on his face and a square jawline, broad shoulders, and a body made of muscle. Except my skin crawls. There’s an aura about him that doesn’t sit right. Then again, most males I’ve encountered have a similar effect on me. They want one thing from me. While all I want is to drive my knee into their groins.
“Fuck, man.” The other man in the cockpit snarls again.
“I swear to hell, Caspian. We’re already running late after Mihai insisted he got lost on the way here with the cargo. You better not fuck this up too.” Mad’s upper lip curls into a sneer as he marches forward and vanishes into the cockpit. From my angle, I watch him bend over to help the pilot, but I don’t waste another second.
The fool has forgotten to link me up to the chain with the other women. A smug, satisfied smile spreads on my lips. Slowly, I lift myself to my feet, glancing the way we came, the main door still gaping open.
I glance over to the other women, their hands tied to a joint chain. I’ll never release them without being caught first.
“Go,” whispers the thin redhead next to me, her eyes flicking to the door and back at me.
An alarm screeches in my head that my chance to escape is narrowing the longer I wait.
My breath hitches, and I mouth, “Sorry.” I swirl around, my hands still tied behind me, and run as quietly as possible to the exit. Shivers ripple up my arms at the thought that I’ll be caught.
