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I lower my voice. “You clean your act up or next time, I don’t leave it at words. You understand me?”
Abel nods and stutters. “Yeah. Yeah, just—just let me go. Please.”
I toss him to the floor, making sure he lands on his ass. When I turn around, Boyd has already wrapped his jacket around the bartender’s shoulders, covering where Abel tore her clothes. The scared beta mouths a silentthank youin my direction, and that somehow feels worse than anything else that’s happened so far.
I shouldn’t be thanked for doing the bare minimum.
“Let’s get out of here,” I grunt at Boyd. “She’s coming with us.”
“I can’t leave the bar,” the beta starts, but I shake my head vigorously.
“Someone else can take over for the night,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”
Fuck.
I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole.
CHAPTER FOUR
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PEACHES
The moon is waning, but not fast enough.
As the wolfsbane wears off, I feel my heat coming on again, making me ache with need. It usually lasts for about five days, its peak at the full moon, and we’re only a couple days out. My body yearns to be touched, but my hands are still bound behind me.
And he took me—I should beangry, I shouldn’t feel like this—but all I can think about is Javi.
Green eyes gazing into mine, his grip on my arm, the way he touched me when he was worried I could be hurt on the boat. The memory of his hands on me burns like a brand, and I writhe in the blankets as I desperately chase pleasure.
Just an object of distraction to get me through tonight. That’s all he has to be.
I close my eyes and ignore the angry rope burns on my wrists, the fact that my clothes are still damp. Every touch is Javi—in the wildflowers, on the sea, rolling and drifting. I don’t know anything more about him than his name and the color of his eyes, but I let myself give into this strange desire as I ride out the last vestiges of the full moon.
Eventually I fall asleep.
And thank the lord, that sleep is dreamless.
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Even if I was born here, the world I wake up in isn’t home.
There’s no hot breakfast waiting at the community center.
No laughter and soft voices.
No omega bathhouse where we’re safe and isolated.
No kind words, no tea with Charlotte, no visiting the clinic with Akari for her weekly checkup…
This place is cold, bare, broken.
I lie still on the cot, my arms aching, my whole body shaking. I’m not cut out for this. I’m not tough, I’m not strong, I’m not brave.
I was picking flowers in a field in Texas andnow I’m here. Alone…afraid.
I sit up at the sound of someone coming up the metal stairs, my eyes trained on the door. There’s nowhere to run and hide even if I wanted to, sending my prey instincts into overdrive. I should be stronger than this, I should be hardened to it all—
