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“We, Fletch. Any plans you make include me, too,” Milo reminded.
Fletch nodded. He knew that, but it didn’t change the need inside him.
“You’re still going to leave,” Milo muttered.
“I…” Fletch paused, his senses going wild. He tilted his head as he tried to hone in on what he sensed. “Do you hear that?”
Milo stilled, copying his brother’s stance as he listened.
“I hear it. Someone’s moving and not quickly.” He inhaled. “A woman. Shifter. Bear.”
“Yes.”
“There’s blood. She’s hurt. There’s something else. I can’t place it.”
Milo broke off with a shake of his head as he turned to sniff at Fletch. Fletch didn’t need any input on what that other smell was. It struck him at a visceral level, wrapping around him and pulling everything taut. He’d waited a lifetime to smell that fragrance, and the fact it was diminished by the scent of blood and pain had growls spilling from his lips.
“Fletch?”
“She’s not alone,” he murmured, every sense in his body locking onto the female.
A scream of rage filled the air, and Fletch took off. He heard his brother behind him. Noted the sound of the others in the distance. None of it mattered. His only concern was getting to the woman. Protecting her. Caring for her. Seeing to all her needs and making sure she stayed at his side for the rest of their lives. She was his, and the way his bear pressed against his skin, he knew he’d have the words before the day ended. His mate. He couldn’t get to her fast enough.
“I’m coming,” he murmured then burst into his fur when another scream sounded only to break off midcry.
Chapter Two
Helen struggled to bite back her moan as her ankles were released from the restraints then almost screamed as her legs buckled beneath her, refusing to bear the weight of her body once her wrists were freed, as well. She hit the stone floor hard, pain jarring through her body as bruises both fresh and partially healed jolted to life. Her whole body ached. Her captors had been exceptionally brutal the last few weeks, as if they no longer had someone behind them pulling the strings. As if they had free rein on the atrocities they could commit.
“She’s too weak for the games tonight,” Carter barked. “Leave her for now. We’ll clean her up later.”
The games. The fucking games they were forced to endure to entertain these predators. Stripping two women down to the skin and throwing them into a dirt pit that had been carved into one of the cavernous rooms in the cave system Helen had called home for far too long. She and all the other female shifters who’d managed to survive in this hellhole. Tonight, their numbers would decrease again as women were selected from among them and forced into the pit, forced into a fight to the death. Refusal meant death for both combatants as well as for a randomly picked victim from those forced to watch.
“Carter! Come quick. You’re not going to believe what’s happened!”
Another of the endless assholes who surrounded them ran in, pulling the attention of the others in the room.
“What?” Carter snapped. “Is it Talbot? Did the doctor finally decide to check in with us?”
“No. Not from him. About him. Word is he was captured by a group of shifters. A mix of bears and cats.”
“The females who were taken off Holloway land,” Carter muttered then snorted. “Dumb bastards should have known better than to try that. Only way to kill a Holloway is to lure them off their land. What about Marcus Blane? Any word from him?”
“No, it’s like he’s disappeared or something. The guys that just came in might know more, though. They’re waiting for you before they say anything else.”
Talbot caught? Marcus Blane disappearing? Only in Helen’s dream. Both men were evil personified. Blane was the head of the largest group of hunters in the world. The man fed on hatred, instilling it in the members of the purist society he led, a group known as the Hunting Society, more commonly referred to as hunters. They had one goal. Hunt down and exterminate every shifter they could find. Man, woman, child, the unborn. It didn’t matter as long as they died. As savagely as possible.
The ones who lived, like her and the women with her, were subject to games and experiments courtesy of the sick mind of Dr. Victor Talbot. He’d certainly never taken anything like the Hippocratic Oath. No, his vow had been one of torture and depravity. He thrived on it. She’d witnessed him vivisecting one of the cat shifter females he’d managed to get his hands on, cutting her wide open with little care to the fact she was awake and felt everything. He’d merely shrugged when she’d died and selected another victim to experiment on. Helen would give anything to rip out his throat. His or Blane’s.
“This better not be a waste of my fucking time,” Carter snapped, voice cracking like the whip he liked to wield.
Just the thought of that black leather with the barbed tip made a shudder run through her. She knew the feel of it intimately. In case memory ever tried to fade, she had the scars on her back, buttocks, and thighs to remind her. Why she’d become hislittle petas he called her, she would never know, but she prayed with every beating that he’d finally go too far and kill her.
Carter turned on his heel and headed for the door with the others following at his heels. “Let’s go find out what they have to say.”
It took Helen a minute to realize they’d left her door open. Wide fucking open. Either by mistake, something that never occurred, or because she wastoo weakto matter. The reason wasn’t important. Opportunity knocked, and she wasn’t ignoring it.
Forcing her feet under her, she used the wall to push herself up, allowing a tiny whimper to fall free this time. She needed her bear. The fucking drugs they pumped into the women daily kept their bears in a deep slumber. It’d been so long since Helen had felt that side of herself that she feared the bastards had somehow found a way to kill the animal within her. Except there were times she swore she still felt it. Not now, though, and she could really use her animal’s abilities. Especially the healing.
