Primal Night

by Ally Parker

  It was true enough. He was very invested in Kali surviving what was to come.

  A heavy silence pooled between them. “Right.”

  Shoving a leg into his jeans, he looked over his shoulder toward Kali. Interestingly, she drew the word out as if it was impossible someone would concern themselves with her welfare. He disregarded that thought. In normal packs females were revered. He was sure many males would be searching for his female. Clenching his jaw, he stopped all thoughts of anyone searching or possibly taking his mate.

  “Well, as you can see, I’m fine. If you’d just pass a message on that I’m one hundred percent okay, I’ll be on my way. I can see you’re busy and I’d hate to put you out.”

  The light, almost soundless, steps of her heading toward the exit had him tearing around to face his female. “Not so fast.”

  He stole a breath and reminded himself there was no leaving without the key. He’d hidden the emergency escape, and he doubted she’d discover it under his watch. Just the thought of her unprotected and leaving his sight… did bad things to him. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Sadly, that’s not how this arrangement will work.”

  Plump, kissable lips flattened, and Kali’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Her chocolate iris burned from the inside out. She reached up and tapped a finger on her chin. “Sorry there, Chief, but that’s exactly how this will play out.”

  In a move faster than his eyes could track, she was before him. His chin slammed upward with her impressive aim, and blood coated his taste buds. Her fist shot forward again, aiming for his nose. This time he was ready. He dodged left, wrapped his fingers around her arm, and yanked her to him.

  “Ryker. The name’s Ryker.”

  She curled into him like a ballroom dancer spinning for her partner. Only his female shot her elbow into his stomach. With an oomph, he gasped for breath and, careful not to injure his mate, he reached over and nabbed her other arm.

  Both of them were breathing deeply. His pulled her closer, and for a split second he could imagine holding her like this under very different circumstances.

  “Let me go, damn it!”

  Her ass ground against his cock, attempting to break free from their position. Apparently, his body didn’t care if the action wasn’t sexual. Her proximity—her smell—fueled a need he didn’t have time to explore. He let his voice drop an octave. “I’ll let you go when you promise to stop this reckless behavior. You’ll only end up getting yourself hurt.”

  Squirming in his hold, she pulled free and he let her go. He needed to remember that he wasn’t playing for keeps, just her safety. She didn’t need to like him, even though in some small recess of his mind, he yearned for anything she was prepared to give. The thought of her hating him hurt. But it was better than the alternative, seeing her punished because of his actions.

  “Yeah. Say that to the bruise marking your chin.”

  His fingers ran over his day-old whiskers and the tender spot already healing. Yeah, that had smarted some. “I told you not to touch me again. Don’t push me too far. Now that I know how resourceful and determined you are, I’ll chain all of you to the damn bed. So, no touching.”

  Kali’s heart pounded at the threat. Muscles rippled across Ryker’s back, and she knew that if he wanted to hurt her, he could do so easily. Hadn’t she been punished enough for one life time? There would be no way in hell she’d be bound again. Retreating back to the bed, she thought a glimmer of regret passed across his eyes.

  It was probably wishful thinking and just the low kerosene lanterns wavering across his odd mercury-colored gaze. Her skin itched and felt too tight. It hadn’t passed her notice that they were underground, and it was all she could do to control the panic swelling in her veins. I’m not buried alive. It’s not the tank, it’s just an underground den. See, you’re alright. You can breathe. As long as she could move around unrestrained, it would be okay. Instead of showing that weakness, she kept her mind focused on gathering information. Anything but where she was.

  Unlike most shifters, she’d had nobody to teach her survival skills, really anything to do with shifters. What she knew, she’d learned in the wild, and the Outlaw Pack had been as untamed as they came. If you didn’t find ways to look after yourself, you didn’t make it. It was survival of the fittest in its truest meaning.

  Ryker spun away and marched over to the small office area in the darkened corner of the room. It gave her a chance to study him. Really study him. First impressions—he would be a formidable force. Nearly seven feet of pure muscle held tightly bound by ironclad control. He’d been furious when she’d struck him, yet he didn’t retaliate or act in anger. Although danger wafted around him like wisps of shadows. Nothing like the Outlaws’ alpha. No, Jefferson would have had the limb removed—one bite at a time.

  The male in front of her was something else. Something she wasn’t expecting. Still dark, but not same kind as Jefferson. It wouldn’t stop her from fighting. Maybe escape wouldn’t come easy? But everyone had a weakness. She just needed to find his.

  Stooping low, Ryker swept away the dirt under the slab of wood that made the makeshift desk and keyed in some digits to what sounded like an electronic keyboard. Soon after, he straightened and placed a laptop and some papers across the tabletop.

  As far as interest went, he didn’t appear to have too much for the likes of her. Not now that a good few feet separated them. Though the potent scent of his arousal lingered in the air. Another time, another place, she may have entertained the idea of a joining under her terms. She hadn’t missed the hard press of his erection.

  Her wolf appreciated Ryker’s strength, his virile nature, and, of course, his prowess to yank her out of a shitty situation with the Shadow Moon Pack and their pet vamps. Her fingers curled around her wrist, still able to feel the ghost of the vampire bite from her interrogation. Not that she deserved being saved. She’d done a lot of God awful things over the years to survive; desperation did that to anyone. Sacrificing another person was right up there with the more despicable of her crimes. It was something that could never be redeemed.

  Too bad her circumstances had taken a nose dive. At least with the Shadow Moon Pack she knew what they wanted: the location to Mackenzie Sutton’s sister. Her actions should have been a ticket to survival, safety, protection, to finally have a family of her own, to know what it felt like to be accepted, cared for, and maybe even loved. Instead, it had left her with nothing but more enemies who wanted her dead.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You made your choices—live with them. It was a dark time, a desperate time. You won’t ever betray your values again.

  Apparently too busy to concern himself with a prisoner, Ryker got to work. Now that her initial panic had passed, her gaze strolled over the room, searching for a way out. She’d looked earlier when she’d realized what had happened, but whatever drugs the shifters had administered had clouded her mind. Or maybe it had been a side effect of the vampire bite?

  With no memory of recent events, she felt violated. An assault of the mind. Who knew what they had asked. Or what they had done without her knowledge. A low growl rumbled in her chest. It was why she hated both vampires and shifters. They’d done her no favors.

  No one had even come looking for her after she’d been taken. No enforcers. No pack. Not a single soul gave a damn about a ten year old girl who’d lost everything and been forced to fend for herself, doing unspeakable things just to survive.

  The shuffle of papers drew her attention back to the desk, and she watched Ryker hang pictures of women on a white board hanging from the stone wall. Maybe she was crazy, but the words tumbled out of her anyhow. “Scouting out your next victims?”

  Ryker straightened; his muscles tensed and rolled as he cast her an unreadable look over his shoulder. “What I do is none of your concern.”

  “You may have gotten away with taking me. But these girls…” Throwing her hand toward a candid shot of a woman covered in dirt with a crescent
moon-shaped birthmark on her cheek, grabbed her attention. She frowned, wondering why she looked so familiar.

  “These girls won’t go unnoticed. Someone will catch you and make you pay. You can’t just go around taking what you want.”

  Her gaze sailed over three more pictures of women looking malnourished and followed some more images to the two pictures at the end of the lineup. Frown deepening, she studied a young woman, hair as red as a hot flame and a tattoo of three small paw prints running up her neck. This female she knew for certain. Without Gracie’s help she would have never escaped Jefferson…

  “Gracie!”

  3

  Ryker spun to face Kali. “You know one of these females?”

  It might have been the breakthrough he’d been looking for. So far, he had a lot of circumstantial evidence. All of which could be blown out of the water by his father or his minions. If he could look through the files and establish a missing shifter report that had gone missing, it would prove that something off was happening within the Council and it wasn’t just an administration error.

  As it stood, the Council would be searching high and low for him now that he had used Council resources to retrieve Kali. After catching her scent when he’d infiltrated his brother’s pack, he’d known straight away she was meant for him. His mate. Nothing had stopped him from rescuing the only female that could save his soul. Consequences be damned.

  Now, anyone with a lick of sense would assume accusations against the Council would be attempts to squirm his way out of the charges against him. So he needed to establish a strong timeline of where these females were taken from and why their families weren’t causing an uproar to the Council.

  Ryker ate the distance between him and his mate to stand in front of her. Kali’s attention stayed riveted on the seventh picture he’d posted on the wall. He cursed and stooped so that he was eye level, wrapping his fingers around her shoulders.

  He tried to keep his voice level, low, and gentle. It was all he could do not to shake the information out of her. “Gracie who? Tell me. It’s very important. I need her full name and where her pack’s located.”

  An intense, almost onyx gaze glared at him.

  “You want me to help you take her too? I don’t think so.”

  He shook his head, and his hold on her fell away. She believed he wanted to take Gracie? The air blew out of him. Could he really fault her though? There was no reason for her to think anything less. After all, he had taken her. Even though that had been for her protection. After Saint, his brother, had captured his mate, he knew when Saint was done with her, she would have scored a one-way ticket to the Council for sentencing.

  With Kali’s Aubrey Hepburn good looks, his father would have yanked her out of there and transported her to the Pit before the cuffs had time to warm. A fate he would never allow for his mate. Disgust wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how he felt about what his father was up to.

  “I need that information.”

  She frowned. “To lock them up?”

  Frustrated he spun away and thought of all the females kept like brood mares, used for nothing but procreating. It made his monster want to come out and play. He needed to end it, and fast. The simplest means would be to march right up to the Council’s door and lead them to the Pit.

  Too bad his father, always untrusting, would never let anyone know the location. Not even his son. Anyone involved in his operation had to willingly be blind-folded and mind-fucked by the vamps under his father’s thumb to ensure the security and therefore the success of his plan.

  Turning, he paced and ran a hand through his hair. His wolf clawed for freedom and he didn’t know how much longer he could deny his beast. “It’s not like that.”

  He couldn’t believe how many of his kind had succumbed to his father’s wiles. Just like any virus, his father burrowed deep and dug in his claws before his victims even knew they had been recruited. His whispered words of power and fake promises lured more shifters than he’d like to admit to the darkness.

  Of course his father’s selection process was calculated. Only choosing shifters that had given up on finding the one female who could gift them their humanity. Every male was a ticking time bomb set to turn into a monster as soon as his evolving wolf glyph completed. Most chose to seek out their Alpha for an honorable passing before the last glyph stroke appeared.

  Others were desperate enough to believe his father’s words… More breeding led to more chances of females being born, giving more opportunity that their mate could be sent to save them from a fate no one wanted and most didn’t deserve. With so much darkness inside of him, he wondered if that was his future? Having no regard for anything or anyone but himself.

  Kali crossed her arms, and one of her brows arched. “So, are you trying to tell me someone has a vested interest in their well-being too?”

  A low growl slipped out and he fought to bite back his aggression. He could understand Kali’s reservations about sharing information with him. It didn’t stop the fact that so much was riding on her words.

  “I will be taking these females. All of them—and giving back their freedom.”

  He tore back to the picture of Gracie and yanked it down. Maybe if she got a close-up view of the condition her friend was in, it would motivate her. “It’s this simple.” He shoved the picture under Kali’s nose. “Tell me the information I need or you will doom your friend to a fate worse than death.”

  Kali stared into Gracie’s face; from the still image, the young woman who had helped her in what seemed like a life-time ago looked haunted, her eyes dead, like they’d given up all hope. Her cheeks hollowed out as if she hadn’t been cared for in a long time. Hell, if she could believe Ryker, Gracie was in some serious trouble.

  The howls of the Outlaw pack continued to haunt her dreams. After all these years the memories of her escape resulted in fear igniting in her soul. That night she’d lost the ability to process thought, acting purely on instinct. Gracie risked much the night she laid a fake scent trail. It had given Kali the time she needed to escape.

  Worry gnawed at her stomach. Was she about to negotiate with a monster? She licked her lips. “You said you were going to rescue these woman and give them back their freedom. What exactly are you freeing them from?”

  She scanned the pictures of the other females on the wall. Thoughts percolated in her mind, the images of the other two females swirled, her brain searching for a connection to where she’d seen them before. She couldn’t put her finger on why they were familiar. Maybe she’d passed them in the street?

  Ryker took a step back; he leaned to rest on the desk and crossed his arms. “That information is confidential. Take comfort in knowing the details you provide will change the fate of all these women and more.”

  Right. Sounded legit. If you were some serial shifter killer trying to get information on your next victims. “You expect me to trust you—the shifter responsible for my kidnapping—blindly, without any information to support what you are saying? For all I know you’re collecting females for whatever this is.” She swirled her hand around to encompass the room.

  Maybe he was losing it. She eyed his shifter glyph, a notable marking that ran along the left side of every male shifter. To a human it would look like some intricate tribal tattoo. To shifters; it signaled how much time until their humanity ran out. How much time until they would become rogue—a monster incapable of rational thought and a hunger for blood rivalling a creature from the darkest of nightmares.

  Since she’d seen Ryker—all of Ryker—she knew his markings where nearly complete. So, not rogue. Yet. But close. Who knew how much time he had left? She just needed to be the hell away from him before he turned. She’d seen more than a few rogues in her lifetime, and it wasn’t something she wanted to see anytime soon. Especially being trapped with one and unable to escape. Whenever she thought of rogues, her mind always circled her father.

  Before emotions could clog her throat she red
irected her thoughts. Ryker stood in silence as if sizing her up. Squaring her shoulders, she raised her chin and met him in the eye. It had been ingrained into the pores of her skin not to show weakness. Any signs you couldn’t hold your own would equal fighting for her life. The man oozed power. It weighed her down, urging her to submit to his will. Grinding her teeth, she held her position. If they weren’t holed up in some underground den, she’d have thought him an Alpha.

  Maybe he was an outcast shunned from his pack? Muscles flexed behind his jeans; he pushed off the desk and walked round her like a shark circling its prey, finally coming to a halt in front of her. She craned her neck to meet his gaze. Damn his size.

  “How much do you want for the information?”

  Her brows tugged down, and she stilled. How much did she want? Nostrils flaring, anger straightened her spine. You won’t feel shame. He doesn’t know what you’ve been forced to do or how many times you’ve been punished for escaping. But, damn it, she did feel shame. She felt saturated in it. “I won’t hand over information without knowing you are telling the truth.

  He spun away. Frustration peppered the air. His. Hers. No one was going to win.

  Blowing out a breath, he ran a hand through his hair to rub the back of his neck. “Why the sudden moral compass? I heard enough back in that rambled-down shack to know you’d consider my offer.”

  Nothing but a vacant void filled her time with Bastian, the vampire the Shadow Moon Pack used to question her. She knew they wanted the whereabouts of Ava—Mackenzie’s sister—and she’d wanted to give it to them. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that the fanatical doctor and military man running Delmac would have killed her.

  The doctor was bonafide crazy, researching things like a cure to human illness. Hell, she hadn’t even known how to change a human before working with the doctor. But she’d been desperate, and the doctor had dangled the carrot of safety with the promise of a pack all her own. Whispers of the Outlaws in the area had pushed her hand. She folded her arms. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”