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At that moment, there was a knocking on the bathroom door.
“Is there trouble in there?” Lupio called. “What’s taking so long?”
“I can’t pee while he’s watching me!” I called back. “Please—can’t you make him turn around?”
Lupio said something sharp in Spanish and the guard gave me an unfriendly glare and finally turned to put his back to me.
When he was no longer watching, I was finally able to let go. I gave a relieved sigh as I released my bladder at last. To keep my mind off the fact that the guard was still in the room with me, I looked around the bathroom. There was a tub across from the toilet and a sink beside it. There was also a window that actually looked big enough to squeeze though, I thought. Too bad the guard was here with me.
But then again, what would I do if he wasn’t here? Would I really run off and leave Christopher and Gabriel behind? Yesterday I would have said “yes” in a heartbeat, but after sleeping between them last night, I wasn’t so sure.
I was starting to have feelings for them again, I admitted to myself. As foolish and as wrong as that was—at least according to Pack Laws—I was halfway in love with my two stepbrothers.
It’s a moot point anyway, a little voice in my head pointed out. Even if you could get out the window undetected, how far could you get stark naked in the middle of the desert? You’d be sunburned, dehydrated, and going into heat stroke inside of two hours.
Which was probably true, I had to admit. I finished my business and washed my hands in the sink. Then I said,
“Okay—I’m done in here.”
The guard cast half a look over his shoulder, nodded, and opened the door for me. I had to brush past him as I left the bathroom—I’m sure that was his plan, since he leered at me and made kissing noises as I did.
I tried to ignore him and kept one arm over my breasts and the other over my sex as I finally made it out of the bathroom. Lupio was waiting for me. He nodded courteously as he escorted me back to the room where my brothers were still being kept.
“I trust everything went well?” he asked me.
“Yes—thank you for making him turn around,” I said. He might be our captor, but I had been raised to believe that good manners got you far in life. “I’m shy,” I added. “So I couldn’t…do what I needed to do until he did.”
Lupio frowned.
“You’re shy, you say? I wonder how you’ll feel about Don Diego’s plans.”
“What plans?” My heart was suddenly in my throat.
But Lupio only shook his head and pushed me gently but firmly back into the room. “You will see in time,” was all he said before closing the door and locking it behind me.
That was the only real incident that occurred for most of the day. Later, I told my stepbrothers about Lupio’s cryptic remark but neither of them could figure it out. It wasn’t until well after lunchtime (more cold tortillas and bottled water) that we began to understand what the drug king had planned for us.
And by then, it was too late to do anything about it.
TWENTY-THREE
“What are they waiting for? What’s taking so long?” Gabriel was pacing again—I swore he would wear a groove in the tile floor if he didn’t stop.
“You in a hurry to have them come execute us?” Christopher demanded. “Maybe they’re negotiating our ransom. Maybe Don Diego changed his mind and he’s decided to deal with the Pack Master.”
“I fucking doubt that,” Gabriel growled. “It’s not like he needs money. He’s the head of the biggest fucking drug cartel in Mexico!”
“Well, anyway—it’s good that it’s taking them so long,” Christopher said. “The longer they take, the closer it gets to the full moon—right?”
“True,” Gabriel acknowledged grudgingly. “It should be soon after dark,” he added, looking out the narrow window at the desert where the shadows were already growing long. He turned abruptly and came back to where Christopher and I were sitting. “My turn to hold the little mouse,” he said, sitting down beside us.
The two of them had been taking turns holding me all day. It had gotten marginally warmer when the sun came up, but it was still pretty chilly in the bare tile room. I didn’t mind being passed between them—it kept me warm to cuddle close to their big bodies, which seemed to put out heat like furnaces. Christopher said it was because Weres always ran hotter than humans.
“Here you go,” he said now, handing me over to my older stepbrother.
Gabriel took me in his arms but instead of sitting me on his lap like he was a chair, as Christopher mostly did, he cradled me to his chest like I was a little girl.
