by R. E. Butler
Dahlia was an older female, with midnight black hair peppered with silver. Her face was wrinkled with age, but Lucian didn’t think the wrinkles were from smiling too often. She looked furious, her mouth puckered into a sneer and her eyes glittering with anger.
“You’ll release my son. Immediately.” Her voice had a high, scratchy quality that made Lucian want to cringe.
Lucian said, “Antonio killed an innocent. You can’t expect us to set him free simply because you asked us. He has to stand trial.”
She lifted her chin. “We have our own laws.”
He arched a brow. “Do they include killing humans who turn one of you down for a date? Because that’s what witnesses say happened, and that means he’s about as stable as a three-legged coffee table. It’s not the first time he’s harmed someone, and unless he’s put away, it won’t be the last.”
She tilted her head and stared, her pale gaze sliding over him as if she were memorizing his face. Then a soft smile lit her features, entirely at odds with her aggressive stance.
“Very well. You were warned.”
With those final words, she turned and walked away, head held high. The ravens followed like puppy dogs, not glancing back.
“Wow, that was…fucking weird,” Simon said.
Lucian stared at the ravens until they got into large, black SUVs and drove off. A shiver raced over his spine, and a feeling of dread settled in his gut. He was very certain that they hadn’t seen the last of the ravens.
* * *
Mia had been humiliated by the events of the previous night at Mal’s house. She’d skipped dinner. Although Mal and Nila had protested, she hadn’t wanted to sit at the dinner table with her brother and his family, surrounded in the happily-ever-after they’d secured for themselves.
Not when her whole world felt like it had fallen down around her shoulders.
She’d gone straight home from Mal’s and called her parents on the way, asking if the invitation to join them at the casino was still open. They’d happily purchased a plane ticket for her to Reno and changed their hotel room to a two-bedroom suite. Which had led her to this point in the evening…staring at her partially filled suitcase.
There was something very broken-record about the whole thing. She just wanted to get the hell out of Wilde Creek and go somewhere she didn’t have to think about Lucian – or anything – for a while. She needed time off to get her head on straight. Maybe she’d get lucky, and her wolf would attach itself to someone new. Someone better than a tattooed asshole who wasn’t willing to even talk to her.
Deciding that she needed to get some fresh air, she swiftly finished packing and then changed into a pair of jeans and a burgundy tank, which she topped with a cropped jean jacket. Leaving her bag just inside the door, she walked down the front steps and out to her car. The air was cool, and her wolf stirred, glad to be out of the house. Mia knew that sitting around all day moping wasn’t good for anyone. She sat down behind the wheel and turned the engine on, then stared out the windshield. She hadn’t thought any further than leaving the house, so she didn’t know where to go.
After deliberating for a few moments, she decided to just drive for a while. Putting the windows down to let in the fresh air, she backed out of her driveway and headed into town. Wilde Creek was a small town, with a mixture of humans and wolves. There were pack-run businesses, like the credit union and the construction company, but humans were welcome as long as they didn’t cause trouble. In general, the humans did their own thing and the pack did theirs, and they all lived together peacefully. There were shifters who didn’t think that the two groups should mix, and there were surely humans who felt the same way, but for the most part everyone got along.
She passed Luna’s, a restaurant run by a mated couple, and considered stopping for a piece of their amazing seven-layer chocolate cake. Then she saw Poke’s, the town’s only bar, run by Acksel’s brother-in-law, Luke. She hadn’t ever gone to a bar alone; actually, she hadn’t gone to a bar at all since Acksel and Brynn had mated. She’d lost her bar-buddy.
She made a U-turn at the light and pulled into the bar’s parking lot, turning off the engine and getting out before she changed her mind. She wasn’t going to just drive around all night; grabbing a drink at the bar was just the distraction she needed, and who knew what the night would bring.
* * *
Dario Marques watched from the passenger seat of his cousin’s van as the car they’d been tailing made a U-turn in the street and parked in the bar’s lot. The woman driving got out, looked around, and then walked into the bar. As the door swung open he could hear loud country music, and he made a face.
Damn, he hated country music.
“She’s pretty,” his cousin Moris said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Wouldn’t matter anyway,” he reminded him.
Dario had strict instructions from his mother. He’d been tasked with finding weaknesses in the hunters who had snatched his brother, so the nest could exploit those weaknesses and force them to release Antonio. It had taken some digging, but they’d been able to figure out the identities of the four males who’d taken his brother. Three of them were basically untouchable; the only thing they had in their lives of any value was their own skin, which meant the nest had no means of leverage. But the fourth – now he was an interesting male.
It appeared at first that Lucian Devoe was a male with no attachments. Ravens, though, had ways of finding out information. Ways which included a team of computer experts who did nothing but scour the internet for information. And found it they had. Not only did Lucian have a few family members, he had a business partner in a security firm who had a mate and a pup, plus one on the way. But that male wasn’t the way to get to Lucian.
They’d had teams of ravens following the four males, undetected, from the moment they’d discovered who they were. Dario had followed Lucian, eavesdropping on a conversation he had with this very female. She thought Lucian was her mate, which meant – at least to Dario – that she actually was. She-wolves didn’t throw the word ‘mate’ around lightly. Lucian had been cold, but Dario had seen the truth in his eyes when he walked away from the heartbroken little female.
Lucian had a weakness, and her name was Mia Slattery.
“I think I’ll go get a drink,” Dario said, removing a small leather case from inside the console. He lifted the flap and took out a small injector. The vial was filled with a special drug that was made to knock out wolves. It worked instantly. She’d be asleep before she even realized she’d been injected.
Moris snorted. “You’re not going to fuck her, are you? I don’t want to be waiting that long.”
“Nah. Just be ready when I give the signal.”
It might be fun to fuck her later, though. When she was under the thrall of their new mating drug.
While Lucian watched, of course.
* * *
Mia cringed at the loud music as she walked into Poke’s. Giving herself a moment to get used to it, she looked around the bar and found it about half-full, as she’d expected. There were a few stools open at the bar, and Luke was filling orders.
She sat down on one of the padded leather stools and rested her forearms on the highly polished wood.
“Hey stranger,” Luke said as he stopped in front of her and placed a white, square napkin on the counter. “Are you waiting for someone?”
“No. I’m…trying something new.”
Luke raised a brow. “Everything okay?”
“Sure,” Mia said. “Bring me something sweet and girly.”
He chuckled and walked to the mirrored wall behind the bar to pull down a bottle of vodka. He filled a glass tumbler with ice, poured a shot over the cubes, and then added a pink liquid from a decanter. He set the drink in front of her and floated a few strawberry slices on the surface.
“It’s definitely girly,” she said with a smile.
“It’s pink lemonade and vodka,” he said, leaning on
the counter. “Eveny can’t drink right now because of the baby, but she’s been researching new drinks for the bar. Pretty much anything pink is right up her alley.”
She took a sip and smiled. “It’s really good, thanks.”
He nodded and walked to the other side of the bar to fill an order. She nursed the drink for a while, then turned in her stool and bumped into a male standing behind her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”
“No worries,” he said with a smile.
He was handsome, with long, jet-black hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a leather jacket over a fitted black tee. She inhaled silently, and smelled only cologne.
Human.
She swung the stool back around and he leaned on the counter next to her, signaling to Luke, who moved over and set a napkin in front of him.
“Beer, and another refill for this pretty lady.”
“Thanks,” Mia said, “but I’m just having this one.”
Luke opened a beer and set it in front of the male, glanced at Mia questioningly, and then moved away after she nodded she was okay.
“Only one drink? I’m guessing you’re either driving home or not much of a drinker.”
She chuckled. “A little of both.”
“I’m Dario.”
“Mia.”
”If I can say this without it sounding like a line, do you come here often?”
“Not really.”
“I was passing through town and wanted to stop for a bit. I guess I’m pretty lucky to have found a friendly face.”
She glanced at him as she took another drink, and decided she could talk to him. What harm had ever come from having a conversation? And this was what she’d wanted anyway – a distraction. If her distraction came in the form of a good-looking human on his way out of town, then that was okay with her.
They eventually moved to a booth to talk when the bar got a little more crowded. He was on his way to a new job as a construction manager, taking his whole life with him in his truck.
“I don’t know if I could just pack up everything and go to a new job like that,” Mia said. “But then again I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“That would be nice. I moved around a lot as a kid, so I don’t really have a place that I think of as being ‘home.’”
She glanced at her watch and realized that they’d been talking for over two hours.
“Do you have to leave?” he asked.
“Yeah. I have an early thing tomorrow, and I’d only planned to get a drink and go home.”
“Let me walk you out. I should get on the way too, or the hotel will give my room away.”
She waved at Luke as she walked out with Dario. The air was crisp, and she inhaled, looking up to the sky. It was cloudy, so only a few stars were visible. She reached into her pocket for her keys as she neared her car.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said, as she put her hand on the door handle. “I wish you a lot of luck with your job.”
He didn’t say anything, and she looked up at him. She was surprised to see his eyes were no longer brown, but a pale bronze that glowed eerily. Her keys slipped from her hand as he reached for her.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 4
Mia woke slowly. She wasn’t sure when she’d gone to bed. In fact, she couldn’t remember getting into her car after leaving Poke’s. Her eyes flew open, and she faced an unfamiliar room. Everything was white; from the ceiling to the walls to the tile floor. There was a long, rectangular mirror against one wall, next to a painted door.
She looked down at herself and realized she was strapped to some kind of hospital bed, her arms and legs spread wide and secured with leather straps. She jerked on the bindings, but they were tight, the thick leather biting into her flesh. She was naked, kept tight to the thin mattress with the same type of leather straps under her arms, across her hips, and on her thighs.
Dread spiked through her. She reached for her wolf, but could only feel a faint echo of her beast.
A deadbolt slid back in the door, the sound terribly loud in the utter quiet of the room. Dario walked in, along with two other males and a female with silver-streaked black hair.
“Let me go!”
Dario chuckled. “That’s always the first thing they say.”
The female stopped next to the bed, looking down at her with curiosity. She touched her chin. Mia tried to jerk it free, but the female gripped it harder until Mia squeaked in pain and stopped moving.
“She’s pretty enough, I suppose,” the female said. “You’re certain she’s the one the human cares for?”
“What human?” Mia asked. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s the one. He’ll set Antonio free for her.”
The female hummed. “For her sake, he better.”
A male walked into the room wearing a lab coat, pushing a silver tray on wheels. He stopped on the other side of the bed and snapped on plastic gloves. “Do you want to get a video of the first injection, or wait until it takes effect?”
“We’re not going to send a video, we’re going to do this live,” Dario said.
Mia’s eyes stung with tears. “What’s going on? Please, tell me!”
The female released her grip on Mia’s chin and leaned over. Her eyes changed from brown to bronze as Dario’s had.
“Your mate wrongfully abducted my eldest son. He was asked, twice, to release him, or his loved ones would suffer. That’s why you’re here. Lucian will release my son to stop your torture.”
Mia let out a sob. “I don’t have a mate! Lucian isn’t anything to me. You’ve made a terrible mistake. Please, don’t do this.”
Something cold touched her upper arm and she gasped, watching helplessly as the lab-coated male swabbed her arm with an alcohol pad.
Dario tilted his head. “We’re not wrong. I watched the two of you when he broke your heart. Poor little wolf. Make no mistake, though. He’s your mate and he knows it. He’s trying to protect you by not taking you as his own, but the truth is that he effectively sealed our ability to kidnap you by leaving you alone and vulnerable.”
Dario pulled a phone from his pocket and she recognized the pink glittery case as her own.
“I don’t have his number,” she said. “Because he’s not my mate.”
“No worries,” he said, smiling as he looked at her over the phone. “We have all we need on him. I don’t know why a she-wolf would choose a human for a mate, but here we are. Now, smile for the camera, because you’re about to discover what it means to be bait.”
She heard the buttons clicking as he dialed a number, and then the pinging of the video-call app. It went unanswered, so he dialed it again. And a third time.
“I told you,” she said. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“He’ll answer,” he said.
“What are you doing?” the female asked.
“Sending him a text he can’t ignore.”
Then the video app sound pinged again, and she heard Lucian’s voice. “Mia? Mia! Are you okay?”
The female made a motion with her hand, and Dario stepped back to widen the angle of the video. “Hello, Lucian Devoe – or should I say Carnahan? You’re a tricky male to track down, but we did, and here we are. With your mate.”
“Dahlia, let her go. She’s not my mate,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
“Oh? We’re certain that she is. At least she believes you’re hers, and Dario is certain that you’ll want to stop us from fully testing our new mating drug on her.”
She nodded at the lab-coated male, who tapped a needle filled with clear blue liquid a few times and then stuck it into Mia’s arm. She shrieked as the drug flowed into her arm, leaving a burning trail in its wake. Almost as soon as the burning started, it stopped, replaced by a strange warmth that started low in her belly and spread outward.
Dahlia rested her hand on Mia’s stomach with a laugh. “We’r
e on the cusp of finishing the research on the mating drug. It will throw any female into a mating heat within hours.”
“That’s not possible,” Mia said. “You can’t force nature.”
“I can and I will,” Dahlia said, looking down at Mia. She glanced at the phone still trained on them. “Lucian, did you know that wolves have a certain custom when it comes to their mating heat? The first male who climaxes inside them is their mate.”
“No!” Mia shouted, jerking on the bonds. “It won’t work. This isn’t a natural heat! You can’t force me to have sex and then take a mate of the male who rapes me.”
There were some lascivious chuckles around the room, and Mia’s heart fell. If these people had really figured out how to force a mating heat, then eventually Mia would be too delirious with the heat to care who fucked her.
“What do you want?” Lucian said.
“Release Antonio,” Dahlia said.
“I can’t. I don’t have the authority.”
“I didn’t say you needed to use the proper channels, I said you needed to set him free. You have two hours. If you haven’t released Antonio by then, I’ll give your little mate another dose. Pretty soon, her body’s needs are going to overwhelm her and she’ll do anything to stop the pain, including letting my males line up to fuck her. Once she’s mated to one of my males, I’ll be sure to send you pictures and videos. My boys like to share.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Lucian said. “She’s innocent.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dahlia said. “You’re not. You stole my son and you will return him to me or she’ll suffer.”
She made a slashing motion over her throat and Dario pushed a button and said, “Use this number. Don’t alert your people to what’s happened. If you try to save Mia instead of setting Antonio free, we’ll kill her and it won’t be swift. Remember, you have two hours.”
Dario tucked the phone into his pocket and smiled pleasantly at Mia. “See you in two hours, she-wolf. If you’re lucky, your mate is already on the way to setting my brother free.”
