“Maybe it isn’t all about the physical,” she said. “Maybe I need more than that to know if I want to spend the rest of her life with someone. And to be honest, I would never have chosen a man who thinks doing this is okay to be my mate.”
He shook his head. “I wish there had been another way.”
She was silent for a moment and then said, “Why was your father cast out of his pack? You said it happened not long after you were born. I can’t imagine a new father forced to make out on his own with a newborn son. There aren’t many males around who would be able to handle such a thing. Normally, a pack would rally around a situation like that, and the pack would help to raise the baby.”
“My mother was from a rival pack. My father’s pack believed he’d betrayed them by mating with a member of the other pack, and then the rival pack blamed my father for the pregnancy and her subsequent death. He was left with nowhere to go.”
“Is that partly why you’ve been so focused on getting me away from my pack?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. I just hate to see you forced into a life you’d hate just because of pack hierarchy. It’s also the reason I want us to have a pack of our own. We can’t be thrown out of a pack that is of our own making.”
Chapter Twelve
Alyssa had to admit the thought of her own pack with Callum was breathtakingly freeing. It was kind of ironic to think of something as freeing when she was currently tied to a chair in the middle of nowhere.
While she would never agree with his methods of trying to make her his, she was starting to get some insight into the man who stood before her. She couldn’t imagine growing up without a pack. Even though she’d lost her parents, she’d always had her brothers and the rest of her pack around her. She knew it didn’t excuse his behavior, but perhaps she was starting to understand the desperation surrounding his actions.
“I’m not going to pretend the thought of having our own pack doesn’t appeal to me,” she said. “I don’t want to be on the bottom rung of the ladder for the rest of my life, and I certainly don’t want to have to spend another moment in Gregory’s company. I just wish I could be as sure about this as you are.”
He crouched in front of her, between her knees, and she was horribly conscious of how she still wasn’t wearing any underwear. “You will be. Maybe it will take a little more time than it has with me, but I know you’re my mate. I’d lay my life down on that certainty.”
“And you want a pack, too,” she said, wanting to make sure he saw that in his future. She wasn’t like him in the way he’d spent so much time alone. She wanted other wolf shifters around her.
He placed his fingertips to her cheek, his face only inches from hers, his blue eyes deep and searching. “I only want you, Alyssa. Nothing in this world matters to me. I want to spend the rest of my life doing everything in my power to make you happy. And if having a pack of your own is what makes you happy, then yes, we can build a new pack, together.”
She felt it hit her, like the ground had just been pulled out from under her feet, and the world tipped on its axis. Her heart rate exploded, launching in her chest. Heat rushed to her skin, euphoria spilling inside her. Suddenly, she saw him in a new light. Not the man who’d kidnapped her, but the mate who would be everything she’d ever need in this world. The one who’d give her everything she needed to feel complete.
Alyssa took a breath.
“You feel it, don’t you,” he exclaimed, his blue eyes growing wide.
She nodded, shock and disbelief racing through her. “I do. I can’t believe it, but I do.”
A mixture of elation and sadness warred inside her. She’d found her mate, but she’d also never be returning to her pack. She was going to miss her home terribly, but a sudden world of opportunity had opened up in front of her. Where she’d only ever expected to be at the bottom rung of her pack, now she had the chance of running her own pack, of having a family of her own.
Of having Callum as her mate.
“So you’ll be my mate?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, holding back a sob of emotion.
A slow smile spread across his face, and he moved forward to kiss her, but suddenly drew to a stop.
From outside of the barn, the grumble of an engine pulled up. It wasn’t right outside, she could tell, but must have been somewhere near the end of the track leading up to the clearing where the barn was positioned. Only her shifter hearing allowed her to pick up on the distant sound. She glanced at Callum. His head was turned toward the barn doors, the muscles of his shoulders tense, and she knew he had heard it, too.
“Who—” she started, but he lifted a hand to silence her.
“Shh.”
Was the owner of the vehicle also whoever owned the barn and the surrounding land, or had someone come looking for her. Her brothers, perhaps? No, they wouldn’t be driving a vehicle. Her stomach dipped in disappointment. They would be the only thing she would miss.
“Wait here,” Callum told her as he ran almost silently toward the barn door.
She struggled against her bonds. “No, untie me.”
“No time.”
“Please, Callum!”
“Be quiet, or they’ll hear you.”
“They?”
Her ears picked up the footfalls of two people, one lighter than the other. Callum was right, two people were here.
Callum put his finger to his lips to tell her to be silent. She was a sitting duck, here in the middle of the barn with a spotlight above her head. What was the point in being quiet? She was the first thing they would see. Then she realized that was exactly what Callum was hoping for. He wanted whoever the new arrivals were to walk through the door, catch sight of her, and rush to her rescue without checking who might be hiding in the sidelines.
Why didn’t she shout? She could open her mouth and scream, but her heart hammered, and this time it was more due to her apprehension of who was about to walk through the door than it was fear of what Callum might do to her. Who was coming?
Callum pressed his lean back against the inside of the wall beside the barn door. His whole body was taut with tension, and he focused on the door and the approaching footsteps.
The barn door opened and the first of the new arrivals set a foot through the gap.
He was a big man, bull-like, with a thick neck and a body that was almost as wide as it was tall. When he’d been younger he’d been thick with muscle, but now some of that muscle was turning to fat, enhancing his stocky appearance. His nose was flattened at the bridge, as though it had been broken one too many times. Despite his rough appearance, he was strong, and had a mean streak that ran deeper than the lines in his forehead.
Gregory!
Callum was about to launch himself at Gregory’s torso, but her gaze locked onto the weapon held at her alpha’s side.
She screamed the warning from the top of her lungs. “He’s got a gun!”
Gregory swung the barrel to point at Callum, and Callum raised his hands in a show of surrender Alyssa felt sure wasn’t real.
Alyssa stared at the gun in alarm. Where the hell did Gregory get a gun from? They lived a relatively peaceful existence in their pack. Everyone knew their place, and because of that there were no fights, or thievery, or anything else someone might need protecting from. Any challenges were always done in wolf form on a full moon, and tonight definitely wasn’t one of those nights.
She saw he wasn’t alone. His mate, and her alpha-female, Valerie, with her skinny limbs and sallow face, slipped into the barn behind him. Her heart sank. The other woman was also armed.
“Well, well, well,” chuckled Gregory. “What the hell do we have here?”
Alyssa stared between them in bewilderment. She’d imagined at this point she’d be crying out for help and begging her alpha to release her, but now she was faced with the reality of being taken into Gregory’s possession rather than Callum’s, it was the last thing she wanted.
Gregory moved forward and Va
lerie stepped into his place, training her gun at Callum’s head.
“I got your voicemail, Alyssa, so I came out looking for you,” he said. “I was expecting to find you broken down on the side of the road. Instead, I found your car and signs of a struggle. There were more tire marks, and the scent was pretty easy to follow here. What sort of situation have you gotten yourself into?”
He sounded more amused than concerned for her safety.
“He took me,” she admitted. “And tied me up here.”
Callum took a step forward. “It was for your own good,” he told her.
“Keep your hands in the air,” Gregory motioned to Callum with the weapon.
A smile spread across Callum’s face, but he kept his hands raised. “I won’t just let you take her,” he said. “Alyssa is mine now.”
Gregory’s jaw clenched. “No fucking way. I’ve had my eye on this girl since she first started getting breast buds, and look at the size of those juicy tits now. I can’t wait to get my teeth into them. She’s mine to mate and I intend on doing so.”
Valerie kept the weapon pointed at Callum , and gave a high pitched giggle. “Yeah, you fuck her good and hard Greg-baby. I can’t wait to watch.”
“In fact,” said Gregory. “Seeing her all tied up like this is already getting me hard. Thanks for doing my job for me. I think I’ll take her now.”
“No!” Alyssa cried, yanking at her bonds. “I don’t want you! You make me sick.”
“Whether you want me or not makes no difference to me,” he said. “I’ll mate you and you’ll be mine. I’m your alpha and you have to do as I say.”
“Not if I leave the pack,” she said. “You won’t be my alpha then.”
He laughed. “You’ll never leave, we all know that. Not prim and proper Alyssa who always does what she’s asked.”
He approached with slow, determined steps. Where Callum approaching her had given her a thrill of excitement and the look in his eyes had conjured a surge of lust, all Gregory did was fill her with horror and panic. She couldn’t do this. Callum had been right. She wanted a mate who would fill her with all the emotions Callum had created in her. Being mated with Gregory was a fate worse than death.
Hell, she would rather be dead.
Gregory grinned, revealing his crooked teeth. “That’s it, baby, you keep squirming like that. It makes me hard.”
He moved even closer, his hand at his belt, whipping it undone, and then starting on his zipper. “Aww, hell,” he said, noticing how her ankles were tied to the chair legs. “I’m not going to be able to fuck you like that.”
He got to one knee, just as Callum had done not long before, and started working on the knots. Within seconds, her left leg was freed. She wanted to kick out, to hit him in the face just as she’d done to Callum, but Gregory had been her alpha almost the whole of her life, and a lifetime worth of training wasn’t broken in a day.
Gregory untied her right ankle and looked up at her with a salacious grin.
Alyssa choked back a sob.
Chapter Thirteen
Each of Callum’s senses was on high alert. He was just waiting for the right moment to take these assholes out. He’d die before he let this ogre mate Alyssa.
She was his, and the fact Gregory was even breathing the same air as she was made him want to rip out the other man’s throat.
The other woman’s attention was taken, watching her mate, and alpha, dominate the bound girl. He would only have seconds before she realized what was going on and reacted. The woman had taken her eye off him, though the gun was still loosely trained in his direction. She was preoccupied by the way her alpha was attempting to untie Alyssa, while also dragging his tongue up the inside of her thigh. That Gregory had dared lay a hand on Alyssa, never mind his mouth, filled Callum with fury. His anger wasn’t only at Gregory. He’d been the one to tie Alyssa to that chair and leave her defenseless. If he hadn’t done that, she could have run.
But then she’d also have run from you, he reminded himself.
Callum turned his focus inward, concentrating on the wolf that lived inside him. If the moon was full, the wolf would be raging and fighting to get out, but at this cycle of the moon the beast lay dormant, sleeping.
Callum needed it to wake.
He roared in his head. Wolf! I need you.
The animal stirred inside him, but then settled back down.
No! You need to wake. I need you right now!
The wolf moved inside him once more, and this time it didn’t settle. It sensed the urgency of the moment, and then pain ripped through Callum’s body as it arose. The animal pushed its way out of him, through skin, muscle, and bone. Callum roared his agony. He shed the human costume he’d been wearing, leaving pieces of human skin and bloodied, pink flesh lying on the floor around him.
As he fell to all four paws, the woman must have caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. In shock, obviously not expecting anyone to risk shifting against the moon, she swung around. But she was too late. Callum leaped for her, his front paws landing squarely on her narrow, flat chest, knocking her to the ground. A shot rang out, and Gregory turned at the sound.
Standing over her, Callum opened his jaws and locked his teeth around the woman’s scrawny neck. She let out a shriek, and he closed his jaws tighter, squeezing the scream out of her.
Chapter Fourteen
Gregory spun around at the sound of his mate’s scream. He’d put down the gun in order to work at Alyssa’s bonds, but now Callum was a wolf and had Valerie’s throat in his jaws. A single snap would tear out her throat, a shake would snap her neck, and Alyssa knew Gregory wouldn’t risk that happening. Whatever else she thought about her alpha, for whatever screwed up reason, he actually loved his mate.
“Just let her go,” he yelled to Callum. “I’ve put the gun down, now let her go!”
Callum snarled and gave Valerie a slight shake. The woman let out a stifled scream and Gregory stepped forward, his hands held out in the ‘stop’ position.
“No, don’t!” he begged.
Alyssa spotted her chance. Her legs were no longer bound to the chair, though her arms were still tied. She could run, but she wouldn’t get anywhere fast like this. Callum had shifted against the moon, and she could, too. She knew it would be painful and dangerous, but it was the only chance she had to get away.
With a sob, she lunged to her feet. Focusing on the open doorway of the barn, ignoring the chaos, the growls, snarls, and screams filling the air, she ran. All she needed to do was stay on her feet. If she fell, she’d land on her face and probably break her nose and lose her front teeth. She didn’t have her hands free to break her fall.
Caught in their own battle, the man, wolf, and woman didn’t notice as she raced past and burst out of the barn doors and into the fresh air. Gregory’s truck sat outside, but she didn’t know if the keys were in the ignition. It didn’t matter anyway. She couldn’t drive with her hands bound.
The light had changed outside again, so it was twilight now, and almost dark. That was good. The dark could offer her shelter.
She knew it would only be seconds before they’d noticed she had run, and they’d come after her. She couldn’t waste a second. Darting off the track that led up to the barn, she plunged into the forest.
The going was tougher with her hands tied than she’d anticipated. Her balance was off, and she was unable to hold back the overhanging branches which kept threatening to clout her in the face as she ran. There was only one way she’d escape, and she wouldn’t do so with her hands tied. In order to have enough strength to tear apart her bonds, she would need to shift.
The sounds of snarls and growls followed her, and a sudden gunshot blast rang out in the late evening air. Everything inside her froze, her ears straining for the sound of a whimper, her nostrils flared for the distinctive tang of wolf blood on the air, but her senses met with nothing.
She prayed Callum hadn’t been shot.
Her emotio
ns were so mixed up about him. How could the thought of his death now fill her with terror? She didn’t want him to die, and for Gregory and Valerie to come after her. Callum had shown her the possibility of a different future, and the thought of submitting to Gregory’s will sickened her. She would miss her brothers with every fiber of her soul, but she knew now she could never go back to the pack.
She glanced up at the moon which peeped between the branches of the trees. It was barely past a waxing crescent and she knew waking her wolf at the wrong time of the moon’s cycle was going to hurt.
But she had no choice.
She was frightened of the wolf inside her, frightened that by calling it at the wrong time she would be giving it strength. What if it became stronger than she was? What if her wolf overpowered her and she wasn’t able to shift back?
Better that than becoming Gregory’s mate.
She continued to run, a strange stumbling lurch as she ducked beneath overhanging branches, her progress hindered by her arms being behind her back. Breaking through the trees, she spotted a trail, probably made by small animals, and she followed it. She didn’t dare stop for a moment, even to shift.
Alyssa focused deep into herself, mentally stroking the beast that lived inside her.
I need your help. Wake up. Please.
The animal stirred, and at first she thought it was going to settle itself back down, but it must have sensed her racing heart and the adrenaline firing through her veins.
Wolf, she urged it. We need to be wolf.
She let out a shriek as the animal woke fully and agony clawed its fingers into every part of her. The pain was so intense, she couldn’t even think. She dropped to the ground, her hands still behind her back, her cheek pressed to the dirt. As the animal forced its way from the inside, her skin tore from her face, dropping to the ground like peeled wallpaper. Her fingernails fell from the ends of her fingers like bloodied petals from a flower and the strength of the animal, combined with the different structure of the wolf’s massive shoulders rather than her human ones, tore the knots of the rope loose. The animal pushed through, leaving the shell of the body that had made her human in tatters all around.
Wolf Snatched: A Dark BBW Shifter Romance (The Dark Ridge Wolves Book 1) Page 6
