AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stared at her. Was she serious? Had being pregnant done something to her brain?
“Mom, he’s like forty-five years older than me!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want to marry him!”
“Now, now, Zoe—you can’t go into your Joining with a bad attitude.” She frowned and shook her head reprovingly. “You need to keep your chin up and do your best to be a good wife and a good mate to your new husband. It’s the Were way, you know.”
“No, I don’t know anything about the ‘Were way’ since you never even told me I was a Were! I didn’t find out until we were kidnapped by that fucker, Esteban and brought here!” I exclaimed, losing my patience.
My mom frowned.
“Now, Zoe—please don’t speak about your father that way.”
“He’s not my father!” I shouted. “Dad was my father and Esteban killed him—he shot him in the head right in front of us less than a year ago! Don’t you remember?”
“Of course I remember.” My mother got a pained expression on her face. “It was very sad. But really, as kind and sweet as Dave was, he was just a human. He couldn’t really care for us the way a Were male can. Look at how Esteban takes care of us! He’s given us a lovely home and now he’s found the perfect husband for you. You ought to be grateful.”
“Grateful that he shot Dad and kidnapped us? Grateful that he’s forcing me to marry an ugly, cruel old man who’s planning to rape me on my wedding night?” I demanded.
My mother pursed her lips primly.
“Now, Zoe—it’s only rape if you’re unwilling to participate. I don’t like to talk too much about delicate subjects, as you know, but I promise you, as long as you’re on your Heat Cycle by then, you won’t be unwilling.”
I wanted to scream and cry and rant and rave and ask her what was wrong with her and how she could talk to me this way. But I could see that nothing I said would penetrate her happy little bubble. Either being pregnant had changed her brain somehow or she had the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome in history.
“I give up.” I threw up my hands in disgust. “I just came to say goodbye, since Esteban says I’ll never be coming back here to see you ever again once he sends me away.”
“I’m sure we’ll see each other at your Joining Ceremony,” my mother said placidly. “And if you’re a good girl for Pack Master Moncrieff, he might even let you call me on the phone once in a while. Though I will be pretty busy with the new baby, once he comes,” she added, patting her still-flat belly.
“Yes,” I said dully. “I guess you will.”
All my anger had leaked away to be replaced with sorrow and betrayal. First Gabriel and Christopher had turned their backs on me and now my own mother had done the same. I really was all alone in the world with no one I could rely on but myself.
If I was going to get out of this situation, I was going to have to do it on my own. I just hoped I was up to the task.
SEVENTEEN
“You’re sure this is the way? We’re getting awfully fucking close to the border.” Gabriel looked out the window of the moving sedan with a frown on his face.
I looked as well, but I didn’t see anything but desert—the same thing I’d been seeing for hours and hours. My hopes of running free at a gas station were gradually slipping away. So far we’d only made one stop at a dusty little one-pump station where there was nobody but a single sleepy attendant at the front of the store.
I had tried talking to him—I told my stepbrothers I had to use the restroom and after a suitable amount of time spent in the disgusting, dingy little bathroom I had come back out and gone to the counter.
“Excuse me?” I said to the old man, who peered myopically across the counter at me through thick, smudged lenses. “Excuse me please, can you help me?”
“You want to buy some smokes, young lady?” He frowned at me disapprovingly and gestured at the rows of dusty cigarette packs behind him. “I don’t think you’re old enough.”
“No—that’s not what I want!” I leaned closer to him. “Please—I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being trafficked. I need your help!”
“Eh? What’s that?” The old man frowned at me uncertainly. “You say you don’t like the traffic? But there ain’t none—nothing but desert for miles and miles out here!”
My heart sank as I realized he must be deaf—or at least really hard of hearing.
“No—I said I’m being trafficked!” I exclaimed, daring to raise my voice above a whisper. “I need help!”
The old man shook his head.
“I don’t understand—how can you be the traffic? What in tarnation are you talking about, young lady? Do you think you’re a car?”
