When she was taken to the station, however, she was surprised that as soon as she was put in a cell, they called her back out again. “Your bail has been posted,” the officer told her.
She expected to see Ryker when she was escorted out into the lobby – but to her shock, Larissa was there waiting for her. That was weird; she hadn’t heard from Larissa in over a week.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as they walked to Larissa’s car.
“I wanted to apologize for me and Ronald,” Larissa said. “Cadence told me she saw the two of us, and she said she told you about it. Bitch,” she added, muttering that last bit under her breath.
“Well…it’s your life, you can date who you want,” Daisy said, following Larissa out to the parking lot. “New car?” she added as they slid in. How did Larissa have an Audi on a temp’s salary?
“My car’s in the shop. This is a rental.”
Daisy frowned to herself as they drove off. Something felt wrong, but she wasn’t sure what.
“I’m not dating him, anyway. We went out once, I realized it was a mistake. He doesn’t mean anything to me,” Cadence said. “Our friendship is much more important.”
As they drove, Daisy glanced behind her.
“There’s a car following us,” she said.
“Probably the press,” Larissa suggested, looking in the rearview mirror. “Here, I’ll take the back roads and try to lose them.”
“You know how to take the back roads to get to Ryker’s pack property?” Daisy asked, watching behind her.
Larissa ignored her and pulled off the main road. They’d left the city behind them, and Daisy didn’t recognize where they were, not that she knew the areas outside of Cedar Park all that well. The car was still following, way too closely. It was giving Daisy the creeps.
“Larissa, that guy is acting more like a carjacker than a reporter,” she said. “You need to get back on the main road.”
Larissa ignored her and kept driving.
Alarmed, Daisy fished in her purse for her cell phone. “I need to call Ryker,” she said.
“Don’t,” Larissa said sharply. “Don’t talk on the phone while I’m driving, it’ll distract me.”
Daisy gave her a skeptical look. “Since when?”
Larissa sped up around a sharp curve, then turned off the road, heading down a narrow side road.
Now Daisy was officially freaked out. And a thought occurred to her. “Larissa, how did you even find out so fast that I’d been arrested?” she asked. “And who gave you bail money?”
“I used my own money,” Larissa muttered.” Put it on my credit card. And I saw it on the news.” The car was bumping and jerking on the dirt road.
“You never watch the news.”
“You got me there,” Larissa said, and pulled over so abruptly that Daisy was thrown against her door.
She’d stopped in the middle of the road. The other car pulled over – on the right, beside Daisy’s side of the car.
Daisy felt panic welling up inside her.
She reached into her purse for her pepper spray. Larissa grabbed her arm, and at the same time, her door was yanked open. Daisy shrank back and saw Ronald standing there, towering over the car.
Then the truth dawned on her.
“You both work for my pack, don’t you?”
“Me and him, and every bad date you’ve ever had,” Larissa sneered. “You were supposed to get the message and just give up and go back to Frasier.”
“But…you answered my roommate ad… You mean…”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Yes. Your pack sent me there to keep an eye on you and try to get you to go back home. Nobody knew it would take this long. Idiot.”
Daisy felt her heart pounding in her chest. Rage and humiliation boiled through her. Months and months of miserable, degrading dates… Larissa reporting back on her every move…
“Was my mother the reason I didn’t get hired at Miss Bolker’s?” she demanded.
Larissa shrugged. “Probably. You could have made this a lot easier on everybody, you know.”
Furious, Daisy started to shift – but before she could, Ronald clapped something over her face. It was a wet cloth soaked with something that smelled like chemicals and made her head spin. And then the world went dark.
Chapter Eighteen
Daisy woke up with her head aching and whirling. Her stomach churned, and she thought that she might vomit.
She sat up, trembling all over, and hugged herself. She was in a pitch-dark room. The window was boarded up. With her good shifter eyesight, she could just make out her surroundings. No furniture, she was on a dirt floor…
Slowly, painfully, she climbed to her feet. She began walking around the room, feeling the damp walls with her hands. Concrete.
As her head gradually cleared, she sniffed at the air. It smelled familiar. She was in a storage building on her family’s estate. Apparently it had been emptied out completely, the better to serve as a prison cell for her.
“Hey! Hello?” she yelled out.
There was no answer.
She swallowed hard. She was thirsty and she felt sick.
After a minute, she heard a scraping at the door. The door swung open and her mother walked through – with Tritan.
Her father was nowhere in sight. Of course – he always let her mother do all the dirty work.
“It smells in here,” her mother said, looking around and glaring.
Had her mother actually just kidnapped Daisy, dumped her in a dank prison, and then come in to complain about the prison?
Of course she had.
“I’m thirsty,” Daisy snapped. “And you’re in deep trouble. Kidnapping is illegal.”
Her mother scoffed. “Nobody around herewould raise a paw to help you; our pack owns the county. And Ryker’s not coming for you, I assure you. Not after the text you sent him.”
As Daisy started to protest, her mother interrupted. “The text came from your phone. Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t go over the top and have you say anything mean.” She flashed an evil smile. “That wouldn’t be your style. You’re too weak for that. You simply told him that you had actually been engaged to Frasier this whole time, but you couldn’t make your mind up and you were trying to keep all your options open. And once the investment company dumped Ryker’s pack because of your arrest, you couldn’t go through with marrying him.”
“He won’t buy it,” Daisy said.
“Oh, but he already has.”
Daisy’s mother pulled Daisy’s phone out of her purse.
She held it up for her to see.
Daisy’s heart sank. It was a text from Ryker.
I understand, Ryker said in the text. You and me come from different worlds. We probably wouldn’t have worked out in the long run anyway. I appreciate you letting me know, and I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Daisy gasped in shock. She couldn’t believe it. He’d said that he wanted to marry her – how could he give up so easily?
He wouldn’t.
That just wasn’t like him. He’d be hurt, angry, demanding an explanation – he’d insist on talking to her face to face.
“There’s a million ways you could have faked that text,” she said angrily. “And it doesn’t matter whether or not Ryker marries me. I am still not marrying Frasier.”
Her mother’s eyes sparked with anger.
“Our pack has already made a number of business deals that are contingent on you marrying Frasier and combining our two packs and our land,” she said coldly. “It would be financial disaster for us if those deals did not go through. We would be…” She shuddered delicately. “Poor. Is that what you want for us?”
Daisy shrugged. “Might do you some good,” she said coldly. “You could learn a thing or two about compassion and tolerance.”
Her mother gasped. “I might have known!” she said. “You’d let our entire pack go down in flames because of your own selfishness! Well, you can just s
it here until you change your mind, you ungrateful wench!”
And her mother and Tritan left and slammed the door. “Hey! I’m thirsty!” she yelled at the door.
“You’re going to get a lot thirstier!” her mother yelled at her.
Panic clutched at her. Would her mother let her die of hunger and thirst in here?
Who knew? She hadn’t expected her mother to kidnap her, either. Her parents had a very expensive lifestyle, and they’d be desperate to maintain that.
It was a long, dark and boring day, that stretched into night – she could hear the crickets chirping outside. The door and window were locked tight, and she could scent the guards who were posted outside the door.
Her mouth was as dry as sandpaper, and she could feel her lips cracking.
When she heard roosters crowing outside, she came to a decision. She wasn’t going to let them kill her like this. She’d go down fighting.
She’d shift and fight to the death before she let them force her into mating Frasier.
She couldn’t believe that it had been this long and she was still here. She was on her family’s property – it wouldn’t even be that hard to find her.
Was Ryker never coming for her? He couldn’t have abandoned her like that. But here she was, hungry and thirsty and frightened, and getting increasingly angry – with no rescue in sight.
She pounded on the door and shouted at the top of her lungs. Nobody answered.
Long minutes stretched by, and then she heard angry shouts, and to her alarm, she scented Jasmine, along with her mother and Tritan.
The door flew open and Daisy blinked in the light as Jasmine cursed and clawed at Tritan. Tritan had a death grip on Jasmine’s arm, and they stood just outside the doorway. Tritan’s face was bleeding, which made a smile twitch briefly on Daisy’s lips. Then she saw that Jasmine’s mouth was bleeding too, and she vowed to find a way to kill Tritan at the first opportunity.
“Look who we found nosing around on our property,” her mother sneered. “And by the way, here’s today’s newspaper.” She shoved the newspaper at Daisy.
“You kidnapped a child,” Daisy growled at her. “She’ll be missed. You’ll go to prison.”
“She trespassed on our property. That means our pack has the right to take whatever legal measures we deem appropriate,” her mother said coldly.
Unfortunately, that was true. Humans didn’t get involved in pack politics. If Jasmine had a pack, in theory they could come rescue her, but she didn’t have a pack. She was on her own.
“The newspaper,” her mother said, shoving it into her hand. Daisy looked down at the paper and felt a great wave of nausea wash over her.
The story explained that Trenton Investments was severing all ties with Big Bad Wolf Industries, and they were likely to lose their pack land.
Ryker Harrison, according to the article, was formally announcing the end of his engagement. There was a photograph of him standing there with his family crowded around him, faces serious. In the news story, he apologized to Trenton Investments, and vowed that he would turn over a new leaf. She read the story over carefully, then handed the newspaper back to her mother. She knew what she had to do.
“Don’t hurt Jasmine,” she said coldly. “I’ll marry Frasier.”
Tritan started to drag Jasmine off, but Daisy let out a sharp bark of warning and let her fangs descend.
“She stays with me up until the wedding, and you bring us both food and water, or I will die right here on the spot defending her,” she said. “The rules of inheritance say that if you’ve got no bride, you’ve got no pack merger. Care to have another cub, mom?” She said that last word with sarcasm dripping heavily from it.
Her mother let out a long, snarling growl and her eyes glowed yellow. Daisy growled back at her. After a very long, tense moment, Daisy’s mother finally muttered, “This is the last time you win a fight with me, you bitch.”
She nodded at Tritan, who threw Jasmine into the room with Daisy and slammed the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Her mother and Frasier weren’t taking any chances. They scheduled the mating ceremony for that afternoon.
They tossed a big, ugly, white frothy dress in to the room along with a couple of bottles of water. Daisy gulped hers down greedily.
After a couple of hours passed by, Tritan threw the door open and barked at her “Put the dress on. Wouldn’t want to keep the groom waiting.”
“Kiss my fat ass,” Daisy snapped at him. He gave a snort of disgust and slammed the door shut again.
“God, this dress is fugly,” Jasmine said as she helped Daisy get dressed.
“And therefore perfectly appropriate for a forced wedding to the world’s biggest barf-bag.” Daisy stared down at the dress with disgust. “There is now a ruffle shortage in the northern hemisphere, and it’s all thanks to me,” she said.
The door flew open and Tritan stood there, glowering. “Don’t try anything,” he snapped at them.
Daisy and Jasmine were led out of the room by half a dozen armed guards, and marched through the woods, towards her pack’s mansion, off in the distance.
“Any time now,” Daisy muttered.
“Don’t worry, they’re coming,” Jasmine whispered to her.
Then she heard it.
The howling.
A lone voice rose, an eerie, portentous sound that made the hair at Daisy’s nape stand on end. Another voice joined it, then another, the song punctuated by the staccato yipping of coyotes.
“What is that?” her mother cried in panic. “I thought he gave up! He said he wasn’t engaged to her anymore!”
Jasmine’s expression should have made her shrivel up on the spot. “Lady, it’s a good thing you’ve got money, because you sure haven’t got brains.”
Before Phyllis could open her mouth to retort, the first of the wolves burst into the clearing, hackles raised, teeth viciously bared. He was a massive beast with thick fur broken above one eye by a pale scar. Daisy knew him at once. He’d come for her.
He was followed by more of his pack…and more…and more. They padded through the trees and poured into the clearing, moving with a single purpose. She saw Harriet, dainty even in her animal form, but snarling perhaps more fiercely even than Ryker. Lem ran beside her, panting, all salt-and-pepper fur, long and lean – almost whippet-like.
The Sheffields and the Bennetts were thrown into confusion. Phyllis turned to run, and a rather ragged-looking wolf pelted after her. It was Jasmine’s grandmother. Daisy didn’t envy her mother. Marta worked twelve-hour shifts dealing with belligerent drunks who’d lost a fight with the pavement. A skinny socialite whose idea of exercise was lifting her pinky finger when she drank her tea didn’t stand a chance.
Cadence ran straight for Larissa, bowling her over before she had a chance to shift and clamping her jaws around her throat, not hard enough to kill her, but hard enough to let her know it was an option. Daisy felt a tiny pang of disappointment that she hadn’t been given the chance to kick the treacherous bitch’s ass herself, but it was quickly lost in a swelling of gratitude that her friend had come to her when she needed her the most.
And she wasn’t the only one. That sleek gray wolf had to be Mrs. Finster, and Frasier’s thug Tritan went down under a ferocious assault by Jorge, Paulo’s father. Jorge certainly wasn’t drunk today – he moved with absolute determination and control. Despite his smaller size, the coyote held his ground, and Tritan showed his yellow streak, submitting almost at once.
Among the throng she spotted her school principal, two or three other teachers from the school, as well as half a dozen older students they obviously hadn’t been able to keep away. It wasn’t the most conventional field trip, but then they weren’t the most conventional kids.
A Bennett wolf turned snarling on a coyote cub. Daisy started to shift even before she’d finished tearing off the ugly frou-frou wedding dress. Seams ripped. Satin tore. Sequins scattered onto the leaf mulch on the forest flo
or. She threw herself into the fight, releasing the fear and frustration and hopelessness she’d felt while she’d been held captive.
* * * * *
Ryker felt relief flood through him as he saw that Daisy was alive and unharmed. He wanted to stop and shift, scoop her up in his arms, carry her away and keep her safe forever. But he had a score to settle first. A sharp bark caught his attention, and he saw Wynona, heavyset and glossy- furred, bounding after Frasier Sheffield. He was running away from the fight, like the coward he was.
Ryker join the chase, easily outpacing Wynona, despite the fact that she moved like lightning. She might be Daisy’s aunt, not her mother, but she was powered by the fury of a she-wolf whose cub has been threatened.
He leaped onto Frasier’s back and the two of them went tumbling over and over in the leaves. Ryker pinned his mate’s kidnapper to the ground, and the sniveling little cur exposed his belly, whining. Submitting.
Ryker coughed a bark of agreement and sat back, releasing Frasier. He turned his head to glance back at Wynona, who was trotting back towards the fight, satisfied that Ryker had this covered. And then Frasier lunged at him, snarling, going for his throat.
Just as he’d expected.
With one huge paw, he swatted the other wolf out of the air in mid-leap. Frasier hit the ground hard, skidding through the fallen leaves. He lay there panting, his flanks heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
Ryker prowled over, opened his jaws, and ripped out the bastard’s throat.
* * * * *
The polished, snooty, high society Sheffields and Bennetts had been hopelessly outclassed by Ryker’s pack and the scrappy band of teachers and students. Only a handful were still fighting, and they were tiring fast. There would be no help coming for them – the human police didn’t get involved in pack wars, and anyone with any political clout in the shifter world was either cowering in a group with the other battered socialites or part of the ring of angry wolves and coyotes guarding them.
The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf Page 12
