“What’s the matter? You can’t be surprised by this, can you, Brooke? I mean, not really.” Vince paused, as if waiting for her to respond and Brooke kept quiet; she recognized his voice immediately. She could imagine the smug look on his face as he knelt before her, greasy hair hanging down like rats tails inches from her face. “It took a long time you know,” Vince continued, trailing a finger down Brooke’s cheek. If she wasn’t gagged, she vowed she would have bitten it off. “It’s a loyal pack you got yourself, I won’t lie. Didn’t want to turn on you at first. Which made it all the better when you willingly turned yourself into a sweet little bitch for Connor Strauss to fuck. Oh, how they flocked to me after I told them that.”
That stung, and though Brooke tried her best to hide it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, she couldn’t help twitching. He laughed, and then one of his thick fingers was tugging at her gag. She snarled.
“These weren’t strictly necessary,” he said gleefully. Brooke rolled her eyes. God does he ever stop talking? There was a sharp tug at the base of her skull as Vince hauled her up unsteadily to her feet by the knot of the gag. “But I just had to take advantage of the situation. Seeing you helpless and bound? Brings me a satisfaction like no other. Better than sex, I think. You always did need to be brought down a peg or two.” He kept her there, balanced on the heels of her feet, despite still being bound to the chair, and entirely at his mercy. Her wolf growled, metaphorical hackles raised at being in such a vulnerable state, while Vince continued,“This won’t be nearly as much fun if you can’t see anything though…”
He threw her down. She grunted as pain spiked through her hands and knees as she hit the floor. Deft hands went to the back of her head and the blindfold was yanked from her face.
It was dark, but even so, Brooke had to blink a few times to get her bearings. The first thing she saw, over Vince’s shoulder in the corner of the room, was a witch. Brooke didn’t know her. Despite doing business with a witch to get her scent potion, Brooke didn’t make a habit of hanging out with witches and wizards. She recognized the witch’s robe and the patterns painted - in what looked suspiciously like blood - on her skin.
Bringing a witch into pack business wasn’t a common practice; power transitions were tricky spells, fraught with side-effects and notoriously hard to pull off. Brooke remembered learning about alpha succession when she was a pup: two candidates interested in the position would have a straight fight to decide who was the stronger between them. The winner becomes alpha and the loser steps down graciously.
The day she fought Vince for the alpha position, Vince had been cocky, too light on his feet and distracted by trying to show off to the rest of the pack, who were watching with bated breath for the result. It had been easy to pin him and Brooke had become the alpha, as the rules of succession dictated.
However, power transitions were very rare and would only take place when a tyrant alpha refused to step down. The ritual took the victim’s shifting away, leaving them less than human as well, and barely conscious. Brooke stared at the witch with barely concealed dread.
She’d be little more than a vegetable when they were done with her.
“So you do remember some of our pack dynamics,” Vince purred, swiftly untying the gag and pulling the fabric from her mouth. “That’s good.”
Brooke spat on the ground, trying to drive the rank taste from her mouth, and glared up at Vince with fire in her eyes.
“Fuck you,” she seethed. Then she paused, eyes travelling over the rest of the room. At least half of the adult pack members were gathered in the tiny space, all glaring at her with varying levels of hatred. This used to be her family, they were all she’d ever known. Some of these people had held her while she mourned her parents. And now they wanted her dead.
“Please,” she rasped, voice still hoarse from disuse. “Whatever he’s told you, Connor wants to help us. He’s willing to make things right! We don’t need to-”
“We don’t need your boyfriend and his bears to throw us a fucking pity party!” Vince screamed, slapping Brooke hard across the face. She toppled sideways with the force of it, unable to pull herself up again. She growled. Around the room shouts of agreement echoed off of the walls. Damn them and their fucking pride.
The witch stayed in the corner and said nothing, walking forward only when Vince turned to her and beckoned her forward.
“Now, Sabine here just needs a few things for her little spell, and then tomorrow we can get this show on the road!” Vince grinned.
He was practically rubbing his hands together, Brooke thought in disgust. Sabine’s hands were cold but unnervingly gentle as she pulled Brooke gently back to her knees. Brooke couldn’t take any comfort from the light touch. It wasn’t as if this witch cared about Brooke - that much was clear from the spell she was about to perform. She just needed Brooke in one piece until it was over. The witch pulled a pair of ornate looking gold scissors from her pocket and snipped a long auburn lock of hair from Brooke’s head, plaiting it quickly into a tiny braid before stowing it back into her pocket. She worked in silence and Brooke looked at Vince, eyebrows raised in her best unimpressed look.
“Doesn’t talk much does she?” Brooke used her best cock-sure voice, nodding at the witch, and Sabine made a warning noise before cutting a deep slit in Brooke’s forearm, using more pressure than she needed to. Bitch.
“Her considerable talents lie elsewhere, I assure you,” Vince told her, eyes narrow.
Sabine climbed gracefully to her feet and stepped back, intoning,“It is done.” Her voice was as soft as her hands, barely above a whisper, and it made Brooke shiver involuntarily.
“Thank you, dear,” Vince said to her, then turned to sneer down at Brooke. “Well, I’d love to stay and watch you stew and whine but this place is even more of a shithole than those apartments you have us in, and I have a battle to plan.” He walked to the door, the other wolves following closely behind. Some of them sent glances to Brooke over their shoulders as they passed, but most of them didn’t give her a second glance. Brooke felt her heart start to crack in her chest, she truly had lost them.
Vince waited until they were alone and turned back to her. The moonlight framed his figure, making him look larger and more menacing.
“I’m going to take them from you Brooke; you don’t deserve them.”
“And they don’t deserve you.”
He grinned maliciously, showing too many teeth. “You know what the first thing I’m going to do once you’re nothing more than a shrivelled up husk? I’m going to take your precious Connor’s lodge and I’m going to kill every last bear within its walls.”
The door slammed shut behind him and Brooke was left in the dark and the damp, heart beating wildly behind her ribs. The ritual would take a day to prepare, if she was remembering her history correctly. That wasn’t a lot of time; she had maybe twelve hours before Vince and the pack would come back. Twelve hours, at the most, to escape and find her way back to Connor to warn him.
God, she hoped it would be enough time.
Brooke tested the rope binding her hands, trying to find a weak spot. She contorted her wrists, ignoring the rope burn as she pulled and twisted until… there! There was the slightest give around her right wrist, the rope was fraying slightly. She grinned.
It would take time to ease the rope apart, but it was hope, at least.
76
Connor
After the meeting with the pack, Connor and his brothers sat down in his office with several bottles of whiskey and talked about their half of the truce. Connor knew it was ultimately he who had the final say on what they did, but he still wanted their support, and they were willing to give it.
Cody had been the hardest. Eric had a bleeding heart and Nathan was willing to help anyone that he thought deserved it, but Cody had been more worked up about the pack’s being on their territory than even Connor himself. At one point he simply got up, told them he was going for a run, and left. He’
d returned an hour later having killed three bobcats and claimed he was feeling ‘much better.’
“Do we really have to give them that much up front?” Nathan asked, glancing over Eric’s shoulder as he went through their accounts. Connor nodded, remembering the way Brooke had described the apartments they all shared. He repeated the story back to them and Nathan grimaced. “Oh, Christ,” he had said. “That place is a shithole, man. Get them out of there.”
At some point they had been joined by Jessie, Lydia and Alanna, who all wanted to know more about Brooke.
“We don’t know each other that well,” he lied. He and Brooke had agreed not to tell anyone about the two of them, and he’d be damned if he would break that promise.
“Bullshit,” Cody snorted from the other side of the room. “The way you reacted when you thought she had been attacked suggested you know each other very well.”
Connor flipped his brother off as he wagged his eyebrows, turning back to the giggling girls.
“Let’s hope she can cook,” Alanna teased. “‘Coz you’re terrible at it.”
“I don’t need to be good at cooking. I have a brother to bully into doing it for me.” Connor smiled serenely while the girls dissolved into laughter, and it was Cody’s turn to flip him the bird.
“Well, it’ll be nice to have another woman around, anyway. She can help try to keep you four under control.”
“Oh, no,” he said proudly; his smile widening into a dopey grin. “She might be the only person I’ve ever met that's more stubborn than I am.”
All of them groaned and Connor laughed with delight.
By the time they'd settled on their half of the truce, it was sometime after two in the morning and Connor dragged himself to bed, wishing Brooke was there to curl up beside him.
It was lunchtime by the time Connor managed to slip out to visit Cole Couture. The perks of being the owner of a successful ski resort, he thought sarcastically. It seemed like every single guest needed him for something, be it a leaking pipe or not enough hot towels in their rooms. Usually, he was happy to help, if a little irritated when they treated tiny problems like the end of the world, but today he was eager to see Brooke.
The bell above the door tinkled loudly and Connor opened his mouth, a witty comment on the tip of his tongue, but Brooke wasn’t at the counter. Instead, Elsie blinked owlishly up at him. There were a few customers browsing the racks and Elsie had her phone in her hands, obviously scrolling absently while she waited for someone to make a decision. When she caught Connor’s eyes she hurriedly pocketed the phone with a sheepish smile. If he wasn’t so confused, Connor would have laughed.
He liked Elsie. She was an older shifter with a bright smile and brighter clothes, but something kept nagging at the back of his head. Where was Brooke?
“Afternoon, Elsie. Didn’t think you’d still be here, don’t you usually go home after lunch?”
“Hello to you too, dear,” she chirped. “Usually, yes, but Brooke didn’t come in today and I figured someone needed to be here.” Her smile was teasing. Connor frowned.
“Is she okay? Did she say anything?”
Elsie’s smile soured a little, worry causing small furrows between her brows.
“She didn’t come in this morning… but the poor dear hasn’t had a day off in a long time and, well, I don’t have anything else to be doing - just rattling around in my cabin - so I didn’t want to bother her.” She looked up at him, worry starting to creep into her expression. “Why? Has something happened?”
Connor gave her his best reassuring smile, hiding his true emotions with the skill only a seasoned business owner could achieve. “I’m sure she’s fine, I just needed to talk to her. I don’t suppose you have her number?” He was probably overreacting but something was telling him he needed to make sure she was alright. Elsie scribbled the number down on the back of some receipt paper and handed it over. I can’t believe I never got her number, he thought, taking the paper. It’s ridiculous, I feel like I’m doing this whole thing ass backwards. Still, despite his efforts to shake it off, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind, you never needed her number. You’ve always known where to find her... until now.
A customer was approaching the counter, so Connor left Elsie to it with a smile and stood outside, saving the number to his phone and dialling.
No one picked up. The feeling of dread increased tenfold, a suffocating weight pressing on his lungs. Connor hung up, not bothering to leave a voicemail, and went back to his office.
“So why do you need me to find Brooke’s employee file?” Eric asked, pulling his seat closer to the desk and opening up his laptop.
“Don’t be cute, you know why,” Connor replied, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. Eric had changed his background to a picture of him and Lydia, hands clasped, with huge smiles on their faces. Connor fought the urge to coo and ruffle Eric’s hair.
“I really need to teach you guys about technology,” Eric grumbled. “Seriously, though, if you want to know something about her why don’t you just ask? That’s what normal people do.”
“I can’t get a hold of her,” Connor responded in what he had hoped would be a patient manner, but just ended up sounding tense, scanning over the names as Eric scrolled through the database. “She won’t pick up her phone and I’ve never been to her place, so I’m not sure of her address.”
Eric must have picked up on the rising panic in his tone because he stopped scrolling to look up at him. “Connor, what’s going on?”
Connor hesitated, then told him about Vince and the fact that he’d challenged Brooke’s leadership.
“I thought the meeting would straighten everything out but,” he sighed. She’d asked him to go and see her at work. She would have told him if she wasn’t coming in. He was sure of it. “I just feel like something might have happened to her. Call it a gut feeling.”
Eric turned back to the laptop and continued scrolling. “Well, I think you should follow your gut; it always worked for the rest of us.” Connor looked at the back of Eric’s head, infinitely grateful to have his trust.
“Thank you, little brother.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all soppy on me now… aha. Found it.”
They both leaned in close as Eric clicked on Brooke’s picture. She was smiling into the camera but there was a tension to her shoulders that Connor realized she’d always had until just a few days ago - like she was carrying a huge weight with her everywhere she went. He shook off the sad feeling that settled in his chest and found what he was looking for a few lines down: Brooke’s emergency contacts. Carlo was listed as her first emergency number. There was an address.
Eric hit print and closed the laptop.
“Need back up?” he asked.
Connor shook his head, “I should be fine, but I’ll keep you updated.”
Eric nodded, “Okay. Be careful, Connor.”
“Always am.” He gave his brother a salute as he left his office. Eric snorted.
The renovated motel now apartment block where Brooke and her pack lived was a rundown shithole. The buildings were crowded in together and looked like they were one rainstorm away from falling over. Connor pulled over and paused for a long moment, looking at the dilapidated complex with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He should have done something sooner, there had to be some kind of law against people living somewhere that smelled this much like mold.
The front courtyard was empty and he couldn’t hear a single sound as he made his way up and down the front of the buildings, searching for Carlo’s address.
He eventually found it, mounting the rickety stone steps and pressing the doorbell, wincing at the shrill sound that shattered the silence.
Please answer the door, please answer the door, please answer the-
The door swung open and a young man, maybe nineteen years old, with dark curly hair and dressed in scruffy jeans, peered out at him.
It was Carlo. He looked as bad as Conn
or felt, with dark circles under his eyes, and he visibly deflated when he saw it was Connor at the door. Connor’s shoulders slumped, his final shred of hope that Brooke was safe disappeared from his heart.
“She’s not here,” Connor murmured. Carlo licked his lips and shook his head. Over his shoulder, Connor caught sight of several other people, peeking out from doorways and through stair banisters but shrinking back when their eyes met. They were scared of him, or at least wary. Connor instantly took a step back, trying to make himself seem smaller and less imposing. Their stares made him uncomfortable. He found that he didn’t want them to be afraid of him.
Carlo saw his discomfort and stepped outside, pulling the door to and blocking out the anxious stares of the shifters within.
“She never came back after the meeting. I figured, I mean, I hoped that she was with you, but here you are.” He kept his voice quiet, probably to avoid panicking the rest of the pack lingering in the apartment behind him. “Which means neither of us knows where she is.”
“I was supposed to meet her at Cole’s, but her co-worker said she didn’t come into work,” Connor agreed. Carlo’s expression darkened and he started pacing the length of the front step, hands worrying through his hair. Connor watched him, his own thoughts moving a mile a minute.
If she wasn’t at her apartment and she wasn’t at the lodge then where would she have gone? There’s no way she would have disappeared. Not without telling him, or Carlo, at the very least. Unless…
“Where’s Vince?” Connor asked, voice low and dangerous.
Carlo stopped pacing, scowling at the name. “He didn’t come back either. Good riddance to him…” He paused, eyes wide as Connor’s meaning sunk in. “Oh God, Brooke.”
A cold dread washed through Connor’s body. This was bad.
Vince had her. Connor pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialling Eric’s number and pressing the receiver to his ear, “Come on come on-”
Billionaire Bear Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset Page 47
