“I’ll update Ben and Sam. We could send our own team out, cover more ground,” Martin suggested.
“Let’s make use of the eyes already on the ground. I’ll talk to Byron, see if he can petition the neighboring Packs on our behalf. We’ll need some goodwill to pave our way if we’re going to be crossing territories and searching other people’s land.”
In the wake of Daniel’s information, they held an impromptu meeting in Seb’s hotel room, patching in Glenoak and Fenrir’s Warriors via cell phones.
Andrew had rung in on behalf of the FW and had very little to add. They had had no warning of this, despite the interest Seb knew James had in Ro. They promised every help they could give but said what everyone else was saying. They needed more information.
The others departed, leaving Seb and Martin alone in the hotel room.
Seb couldn’t sit still, pacing back and forth across the room. They knew who had taken Ro, they knew which way they’d left the city, but they still didn’t know where they might be taking him. Reviewing all the information they had to hand, one thing stuck out in his mind. How easily Ro had been taken. Raventree helping coordinate the search wasn’t ideal when everything pointed to the involvement of someone from their Pack.
He was about to voice his concerns to Martin when footsteps approached from outside followed by a timid knock on the door.
Martin opened it. One of the hotel staff stood at the door, a young man in uniform, hands twisting nervously.
“I… I don’t mean to intrude.”
“What is it?” Martin asked, his tone causing the man to back away a few steps. He was a shifter, as were all of the hotel staff, but at a guess, he hadn't been born one.
“They were asking, downstairs, about anyone who had seen your mate today.”
“You saw Ro? When?” Seb stepped forward, motioning the shifter into the room.
“This afternoon. I was covering the lobby during the lunch break and I saw him arrive back.”
“And you told security this?” Martin asked, tone suspicious. Seb could understand why. If he knew something important, why withhold it?
“No… I haven’t been in the Pack long. I was bitten a few years ago. They were kind enough to take me in. I… I don’t want to bring trouble down on them.”
Seb could understand. Packs were becoming more and more reluctant to take in bitten wolves and much less tolerant of them once they were accepted into a Pack.
“Please, tell us what you know.”
“He arrived at the lobby and he was headed towards the restaurant but someone stopped him. They talked and he went to the elevator while they went back into the restaurant.”
“Who were they? Who did he speak to?” Seb sensed that the young wolf was holding back and knew it was because of who Ro had spoken to.
“Daniel Sutton, the Alpha’s trade advisor.”
“Did you hear what they talked about?”
“Well, yeah. It was nothing new.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s not so much the words, as the attitude. I get it a lot having been bitten. He was telling Ro you weren’t to be disturbed at lunch and made a point of saying that his outfit wasn’t up to scratch. Tried to make it sound like kindness but it wasn’t too hard to hear the true meaning. And I wasn’t the only one who saw it. There were two other staff members in the lobby. It’s just… Mr. Sutton wields a lot of power. He has the Alpha’s ear.”
“What’s your name?” Sebastian asked.
“Quinn.”
“Quinn, thank you for coming forward. We’ll do our best to keep your name out of it.”
Quinn gave them a small smile.
“I really hope you find him.”
He left and Seb shared a look with Martin.
“I’m trying very hard to think of a reason why Daniel wouldn’t have told me he saw Ro. He said he went to ask them to keep an eye out for Ro. Instead, he sends Ro upstairs, where he’s accosted and abducted.”
“We should certainly be cautious. There must have been inside help in getting to Ro and getting him out of here without anyone seeing. We’ll check into Daniel, see if he’s made any new connections,” Martin said.
Seb knew what he was thinking. As many allies as Glenoak had made in recent years, they’d also made enemies; Eagle Creek, Gray Valley. Not to mention Bear Lake weren’t their biggest fans after they harboured Briar Wood’s Omega and his exiled Alpha last year.
Chapter Seven
The days blended together for Jay. They’d drag him out of the room with his wrists bound and force him to walk back and forth along a narrow hallway until they were satisfied. Then they’d clean him with a hose and, if he was lucky, they’d feed him.
Each day he was kept captive, he only got angrier, wilder. Snapping at them when they came close, fingers and teeth tearing at their skin. They didn’t hold back, lashing out with fists and boots until his body was a patchwork of bruises, new ones taking the place of those that healed each day.
“Got the coordination of a toddler,” Mike complained one day.
“Yeah, well, who knows how long he was in wolf form for. Years from the look of him. He’s practically feral.”
They didn’t talk to him, except to threaten, and the pain stick they used became a familiar part of his day.
And then they decided it would be useful if he could talk. That he might know where to find other Omegas. He'd mostly growled at them up to that point but he'd spoken once, trying to get them to stop the pain. The fact that he could talk spurred them on. They took to spending time regularly bullying him to speak, jabbing him with that stick when he refused.
But when he gave them words, it was never enough. They always came back, looking for more, and it always led to pain. So he stopped talking, letting them do what they liked and trying to forget he'd once been a free wolf with a home in a wide open forest.
He slept chained to the wall, his incarceration interrupted only by the men’s comings and goings. The more feral he got, the less they let him out. And the longer they kept him trapped, the angrier he became and the more they punished him. It seemed a never-ending cycle.
Until one day he woke to find he wasn’t alone. He could smell the scent of an unfamiliar wolf and hear soft breathing. His eyes adjusted to the dark, the merest sliver of light from under the door showing him a crumpled form on the floor. He watched the stranger silently until they stirred, hearing a muted sound of confusion.
Why was there someone in his room? Was this the Alpha they talked about? They’d told him things would get much worse once they gave him to an Alpha.
The stranger sat up, eyes taking in the room around him. He didn’t move, didn’t make any noise. Maybe if Jay pretended to be asleep, whoever they were would leave him alone?
“Hello?” a voice whispered. “Are you awake?” The words startled him and he jerked, his chains rattling. “Who are you? Do you know where we are?” the man asked.
The gag in his mouth meant he couldn’t have replied, even if he wanted to.
The wolf moved closer and Jay’s fear grew, wide eyes watching as the shifter closed in.
He could see the stranger’s gaze as it made sense of what he was seeing. Hands reached for him and he jerked out of reach, chains clanging against the wall.
“Oh, hey. It’s okay. I’m… I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll try and get that gag off.”
The stranger reached out again, fingers fumbling at the cloth around Jay's mouth. It was too tight to just pull off, so instead, the warm fingers found the knotted material behind his head and tugged on it. It came loose, slipping off and nimble fingers pulled the thick rag from his mouth. He sucked in a deep breath, then another, watching the stranger warily.
“Do you have a name?”
It had been a long time since he’d spoken his name out loud. While he’d still been in human form, he’d clung to it, knowing he’d need it when they came back for him. But no one came and he’d spent more and mo
re time as a wolf. It made it easier to bear the loneliness. Letting his name go had been part of that.
But he did have a name. Could he still speak it?
“J...” There was more to it than that. "...ay."
The stranger tilted his head to the side, watching him. “Jay?” he asked.
He gave one short, sharp nod.
“Hi Jay, I’m Robert. But you can call me Ro.”
Ro woke with a heavy head. Had he fallen asleep at his desk again? As he sat up, his head swam and his stomach lurched. The room was in darkness, the scent unpleasant and unfamiliar. This wasn’t home.
He could hear someone else in the room and he stilled as the events in the hotel returned to him. Someone had attacked him, drugged him. Who, though? And where was he now?
The room was in darkness.
“Hello?” he tried. “Are you awake?”
The other wolf didn’t speak, but he moved and Ro heard an odd rattle. His eyes adjusted, showing him the figure propped against the wall.
“Who are you? Do you know where we are?” He crawled across the floor towards the figure, beginning to see him more clearly. What he saw made his heart sink. Chains held his arms up, tethering him to the wall, and he’d been gagged.
The wolf was skittish, wide eyes watching Ro fearfully as he removed the gag. There wasn’t much he could do about the chains. Though he was sure they’d never met, there was something familiar about the wolf.
It took time to coax a name from him, and once he had, the shifter didn’t seem inclined to speak again.
“Jay, do you know where we are, who’s holding us?”
The wolf’s eyes watched him, then shifted towards the door as footsteps neared. Ro turned, putting himself between Jay and the door.
The door opened and the light switched on. He blinked rapidly, raising a hand to block out the brightness. A voice chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down his spine.
He lowered his arm to see a grinning shifter watching him, a second wolf blocking the doorway behind him.
“I see you two are getting acquainted. I suppose you Omegas have to stick together.”
Omegas? He glanced back at Jay, getting a good look at what he couldn’t see in the dark. He was a young wolf, with bruised, dirty skin. He didn’t have to look to know what he’d sensed but hadn’t seen. An Omega mark. Which made it very clear what the shifters who had taken him were. Traffickers.
“What do you want with me? My Pack will be looking for me.”
“You’ll be long gone before they track you here,” the man replied, “and so will we.”
“It’s not just my Pack you need to worry about,” Ro continued, pulling out his trump card. “I’m under the protection of Fenrir’s Warriors. If they learn you’re holding me, they won’t be kind.” Fenrir’s Warriors had a reputation that couldn’t have escaped them.
That did give the shifter’s pause, but only for a moment. “All the more reason to move you on as quickly as we can. The Migones are very keen to have the pleasure of your company.”
A thrill of feared coursed through him at the words, but he forced it aside.
“What about him?” He looked back at Jay.
“Oh, don’t worry about your friend. He knows what’s in store; an Alpha to fuck him, one who’ll pay handsomely for the privilege.”
A plate of food was set down near them. Ro used the distraction as the shifter knelt, throwing himself at the wolf behind him and sending them both to the floor. He slammed a fist into the shifter’s jaw and dived into the corridor. If he could get away, raise the alarm, he could save himself, and Jay. A body knocked into him and he hit the ground with a cry of pain. A hand fisted in his hair and rammed his head into the floor.
“That’s enough, Mike. The Migones will be pissed if he’s injured.”
Two pairs of hands pulled him to his feet and the hand fisted in his hair dragged his head up so he was eye to eye with his captors.
“That was very foolish, Robert. We were going to be kind to you. Food, water, access to a bathroom. Now we’ll have to be cruel. You’d have enjoyed your short time with us so much more had you done things our way.”
His wrists were pinned in front of him and tied tightly with rope and he was pushed back into the room, tripping and sprawling onto the floor. The man he’d punched followed him inside, landing a kick to his midsection. Ro grunted, spitting out a curse.
“Mike, leave it. The Migones have plans for him. Let’s not spoil their fun or our profit.”
“Fine.” The light switched off and the door banged shut.
It took him a few minutes to catch his breath and pull himself up again. The food and water sat where they’d left it. There wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Reaching out with his bound hands, he carried the plate over to Jay and set it down. The other Omega’s eyes were full of anger.
“Here, we’ll share the food.” He picked up a piece of bread and held it out. Jay watched him with suspicious eyes, making no move to take it.
“Hey, we need to eat, keep up our strength for when we get out of here. And we will get out of here, I promise you.”
Jay bit off a piece of the bread, chewing and swallowing. Ro spoke softly to him as he ate.
“My Pack will be looking for me. My Alpha’s name is Sebastian. If he comes here, after they move me, I need you to tell him that it’s the Migones, that it’s Frank, who have taken me. Can you do that?”
Ro wasn’t sure the Omega could speak, beyond his name. He had a wild look about him, unlike any wolf Ro had ever met. Maybe Adam had been like this when Ben had met him first?
He ate some food himself, offering more to Jay. As hungry as he was, Jay looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in a while. His offer earned him a small smile from the quiet Omega whose eyes looked past Ro to the plastic cup of water on the floor.
“Hold on, food first. If I try and do too much at the same time, I might spill it.”
With difficulty, he managed to pick up the cup and carry it over, spilling some in the process as he held the cup up to Jay’s mouth and helped the Omega drink.
He took some himself, then offered the rest of it to Jay, letting him finish off the last mouthful.
“I’m sorry I can’t do anything about the chains,” he said, taking a closer look at them. “But maybe I can detach them from the wall. At least then you could lie down.”
He found where the chains were attached, pleased to be right that that was the weakest point. But it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought, as he tried to force the clip out from the wall to pull the chain free. He wasn’t sure how long he worked on it, the metal digging into his bound hands, but all of a sudden it was done, and Jay was able to lower his arms. He did so with a whimper.
“Slowly, take it slowly,” Ro cautioned, kneeling next to him. It was growing cold and, while he was still wearing the clothes he’d been grabbed in, Jay was naked, his skin cool beneath Ro’s touch.
Stripping his shirt off and leaving his t-shirt on, he lay down behind the Omega. Jay tensed, trying to sit up.
“It’s okay. We need to rest, conserve our strength. And that means staying warm, too.” Jay lay back down and Ro covered his upper body with the shirt, then pressed close to his back.
The Omega tensed again. “Do you feel how warm I am? If we stay close, like this, I’ll keep you warm too.” He shifted a little closer, relieved when Jay didn’t pull away.
Sleep didn’t come easily to him, but having Jay to worry about helped distract him from his fear. Another Omega. One who, from the looks of things, would need a lot of help.
He dreamt of Sebastian, happy to wake with his arm around him. Only the scent of the cold body next to him wasn’t his mate's and it took him a moment to work out why.
Sitting up, he saw the shirt he’d covered Jay with was bunched up between them. He reached for it, tugging it up gently and covering the Omega with it once more. It had the opposite effect of what he’d intended, the shifter jerking awake
and growling low in his throat.
“It’s just me, Jay. It’s Ro.”
The Omega subsided, flopping back to the floor, chains rattling against the ground. He started to shiver and Ro lay back down next to him.
“Maybe you should change? You’d be warmer as a wolf.”
Jay shook his head violently, the reaction enough to let Ro know there was a reason he wasn’t changing form.
“Okay, okay.” He reached out, resting his hand on Jay’s cheek. “Then we’ll just keep each other warm and maybe ask for a blanket or two, how about that?”
He was talking as much to reassure himself as Jay.
“We Omegas have to stick together,” he added.
Jay turned towards him and held out one chained hand, touching Ro’s cheek in kind. Ro smiled.
“Exactly. We’ll be okay. When my Pack comes for me, they’ll rescue you too. You’ll be safe then, free from those chains.”
Chapter Eight
Fenrir’s Warriors came through on the second day with a list of locations known to be used by different trafficking groups. It was a lot of ground to cover, so they divided it up and split into teams. Seb took Martin and Sam, and after some discussion, Daniel, opting to have him close to keep an eye on him. Ben took Kevin and Joel. Byron arranged for two teams from Raventree, heading up one himself, his brother Felix the second. Fenrir’s Warriors promised to check some other locations but wouldn’t divulge specifics. Raventree weren’t too happy that the FW were involved, but Seb ignored their protests. He'd take all the help he could get.
Despite Seb’s misgivings about Felix, given his attitude towards Ro on their first meeting, his group covered the most ground that day, coming back later than any group except Seb’s.
Each location was a bust. Either abandoned or with no sign Ro had ever been there. They did find a group of rogues with two teenage shifters. A brief questioning revealed they were part of a fighting ring but unconnected to the two traffickers they were searching for.
The Alpha's Love: Lost Omegas Book Four: A M/M Shifter Romance Page 5
