“What the fuck is she?”
“Search the woods, spread out!”
“Ian, Fenwick, you take the south side. Rufus, Dominic, you take the east.”
Oh God, there was more than two! I pushed my legs faster. I was terrified but prayed there would be a road on the other side of these woods; they just couldn’t keep going on forever, could they? There had to be something else….
I could hear how close they were now, their feet crunching on leaves with a confident stride while I was stumbling all over the place, tripping on roots and getting branches tangled in my hair. The tears were flowing freely down my face as I ran. I screamed for Sean in my head but he still wasn’t there. How on earth much of that drug did I have in my system anyway?
Suddenly I burst into a clearing, almost making me stop from the shock of it, but instead I pushed myself faster. There was tall yellow grass everywhere, thigh-high, making it hard to run, slowing me down. I tripped and fell, skidding along, scraping my knee and winding myself. The rock flew out of my hands and into the dense grass, out of sight. Dread settled over me as I suddenly realised I’d been here before - well, not ‘been here’ exactly, but in my mind I’d been here. This was my premonition that Sean had been so frightened of. The growling started as I knew it would. I pressed myself against the floor, digging my fingers into the soft earth, wanting to disappear and trying to hide in the grass. But I knew it was useless. The growling was all around me, so loud and ferocious that it made my stomach shake with fear.
I couldn’t just stay here; I had to try even though I now knew it was hopeless. I jumped up, preparing myself to run but instead I saw the grass waving around me as the eight shifters closed in on me, like a little circle so I was trapped in the middle. I swallowed my sob and closed my eyes as one of them shifted back - the dirty blond haired one that I’d seen in my vision, the one with the campfire mark on his chest. I looked over his face. Of course he was handsome being a shifter, but his blue eyes were hard as he looked back at me with one eyebrow raised. He was probably in his mid-twenties. Again I was struck by another wave of familiarity as I looked at his mark, but I couldn’t quite place him.
He smiled at me as he spoke. “It’s good to see you again, Tyler. You’re looking good, married life obviously suits you.” His smile turned into a sneer as he looked me over slowly, making my breath catch in my throat. I knew that look. I’d seen that look a lot when I was younger and that’s what he made me feel like, like a child again, a frightened child that knew what was coming. I flinched involuntarily as he walked closer to me, I could feel his hot breath on my face. “Don’t worry we won’t hurt you, yet. It’s not you we’re actually after; it’s your other half. He’ll be here soon, as soon as he realises we have you. I promise we’ll make it quick, you two won’t even feel a thing.” He reached out and grabbed the tops of my arms, pulling me against him, his fingers biting into my skin.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” I cried, struggling to get out of his grasp so I could get away. I didn’t want Sean here, I didn’t want him anywhere near these people that wanted to hurt him, but yet I knew what he said was true, as soon as Sean knew where I was he’d come, he’d come for me without a care for himself or his safety. That was the thing I hated the most about our bond, that he would risk everything, just for me.
He cocked his head to the side as his eyes met mine before he bent forward, his nose brushing up the side of my cheek before his mouth stopped at my ear. “We don’t want the one from the prophesy to get in our way. He could be very bad for the organisation,” he whispered, making me shudder in terror. He pulled back and smiled, looking at the wolves that were circled around us cautiously.
“Let’s get her back to the house. My grandfather would like to speak to her,” he instructed, waving a hand dismissively.
When I struggled and tried to fight him off of me, he slapped me so hard in the face that I fell to the ground, dazed and seeing double. He grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet, making the pain in my shoulders ten times worse. “Walk or I’ll fucking make you!” he growled.
I nodded, feeling my eyes roll around in their sockets as I swayed on my feet. His grip on my arm tightened, stopping me from falling over again as I put one foot in front of the other, silently trudging back to meet the man who had obviously orchestrated this whole kidnap plan.
Chapter 34: Monsters
The walk seemed to take forever, I didn’t realise I’d made it as far as I did. The only heart-breaking thing I realised was that if I ever got a chance to get away again I knew that I’d have to go even further, and even faster to reach any sort of civilisation.
I was actually pretty grateful when my sneakered feet were on the level ground of the farmyard again, at least I would stop stumbling everywhere now. I let the blond guy lead me to the old looking farm house that stood proudly amongst six outbuildings of various sizes. A horse whinnied near me and I immediately searched it out, spotting a brown mare running around in a penned field off to the left of the house. I groaned. I should have run left earlier! Maybe I could have somehow got on the horse and then I would have gotten away. That was the new plan in my head. Now I just needed to wait for another opportunity.
The grip on my upper arm tightened, pulling me closer to his body as the one of the wolves shifted back to his human form and opened the door. I looked at the guy’s face curiously. He looked a little like Thomas, but older - maybe that was Billy, his brother. His eyes met mine and his jaw clenched tight, his eyes angry as he waved me through the door into the kitchen I’d not long escaped from.
Sitting at the huge oak table, with his dirty boots resting there, dripping mud all over the table, was an older man. Maybe early sixties, his blue eyes raised to meet mine. An amused smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he played with a silver penknife, twirling it around his hand like a toy. I gulped at the intensity and hardness of his gaze. His eyes scared me, they were calculating and wise, like he was reading my thoughts and was getting one step ahead of me. He cocked his head to the side, seeming to assess me slowly. The way he moved was so fluid that I was reminded of a snake that’s getting ready to attack. I took an involuntary step backwards, wanting more distance between him and me, but in doing so made me bump into the naked body of the blond from the clearing.
He chuckled, his hands settling themselves on my hips, as he stepped impossibly closer, his body pressing against my back. “Careful, sweetness, first things first,” he whispered in my ear, and then he was gone, heading out of the kitchen.
Memories flashed over me so quick that I almost didn’t know how to handle it. Visions bombarded my brain of my stepfather and his ‘friends’, the drug dealers, and what they used to do to me. I closed my eyes as I remembered one of them stepping closer to me in the dim light in my bedroom, his campfire mark level with my face. He gripped my chin, titling my head up, making me look at him. His blue eyes sparkled with excitement as he brushed his dirty blond hair away from his forehead. “My turn now, sweetness,” he purred, as he pushed on my shoulder guiding me back onto the bed.
I whimpered and struggled to contain my emotions as my past resurfaced making my skin crawl and my stomach ache. I was pulled out of my nightmare by someone clearing their throat. I opened my eyes and looked up at the man sitting at the table. Something hard pressed into the back of my knees making me jump. I looked back to see that the guy that had opened the door, was pushing a chair into the back of my legs, obviously wanting me to sit down. I sat, not because I wanted to, but because my legs just wouldn’t hold me anymore. I tried not to think about my past because I couldn’t cope with that on top of this what was going on right now.
The blond came back seconds later wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else. I cringed as my eyes found his mark again. Revulsion and terror washed over me as I felt like the same young terrified girl, the dirty girl that Sean had seemed to chase out of my memory. The older guy sitting at the table nodded at the chair next to him and the b
lond immediately sat down in it, smiling cockily at me, as if he somehow knew that I recognised him. He probably did know, it was probably clear on my face that I was disgusted with both myself and him.
“So, finally we meet,” the older one said.
I nodded weakly, knowing I wouldn’t be able to speak if I tried.
“My name is Byron Jefferson. I’m sure you’ve heard of me,” he stated. I nodded again; I’d heard of him alright, this was the guy that Sean was looking into finding, the guy who was head of the Organisation, the eldest male in the Jefferson family. The guy waved at the blond next to him. “This is Eli Jefferson, my grandson, but I believe you two have met already.” He chuckled darkly and I dropped my eyes to the table, staring intently at the grain of the wood as I tried to keep myself from sobbing hysterically.
“Oh yeah, we’ve been up close and personal, right, Tyler?” the guy from my nightmares teased. I refused to answer; instead I dug my fingers into the underside of the table, feeling my nails break and crack from the pressure of it, focussing on the pain of it instead of letting the memories fill my brain.
“We’ve had our eyes on you for a very long time, Tyler,” Byron stated.
I looked up at him then and frowned, trying not to look at his grandson that was sitting next to him.
If they knew who I was then why leave it so long? “Really?”
He nodded in confirmation. “Since the day you were born actually,” he confirmed. I became even more confused at that. “You were born in a human hospital, so when you came out with that mark of yours people thought it was the strangest thing ever. A birth mark in the shape of a heart with chains around it, imagine what your human parents thought about that not knowing anything about shifters,” he said, shaking his head. “You were in the local papers the week of your birth, did you know that?” he asked. I shook my head, my mind going blank at this revelation. “Yep. ‘Strangest birthmark’ they called it in the article.”
I gulped. My parents would’ve obviously not known that it was a shifter mark, they wouldn’t have even heard of shifters. I can see why they found it strange - everyone did, well, everyone who isn’t a shifter that is.
Byron nodded. “Because we were on the lookout for strange stuff, we started looking into you, into your family history. It became apparent very quickly that you had no shifter blood in you, but yet you have the mark of a shifter. That rang little alarm bells with the Organisation, and we started to wonder if maybe you were related to the prophesy somehow. For years we’d searched for anything prophesy related, then suddenly up pops this little human girl with a shifter mark.”
I frowned; they couldn’t seriously have been watching me since birth, could they? “But if you knew who I was then why wait until now to talk to me…. unless you were waiting for me to bond?” I asked, confused.
His face turned hard when I mentioned the bond. “Oh no, that wasn’t supposed to happen at all. We didn’t want you to bond, but things got…. out of our control.”
I squirmed uncomfortably on my chair under his intense gaze and the eyes of the six large wolves that were sitting in the room, watching along with Eli and Billy. All eyes were on me and I felt slightly sick with nerves and fright. “Out of your control?” I repeated, hoping he’d explain.
He sighed and moved his feet off of the table, leaning in, crossing his arms. “When you were seven, do you remember someone grabbing you at a play park and trying to drag you away?” he asked.
I scrunched my face up at the memory. I was at the park when a woman had taken my hand, pulling me off of the roundabout, trying to tug me towards the gate. She’d been mumbling something about how I was in danger and couldn’t stay there. She said she wanted to protect me, that the bad men knew where I was but that she could keep me safe. Before anything had happened though, two men had appeared from either side, claiming to be police officers. The woman had looked terrified as she let go of me and ran. They’d both chased her, dragging her off while I just watched with wide eyes not understanding what had happened. I’d forgotten all about that because that was the same day that my dad had died. Losing my father had kind of made everything else seem unimportant. I’d never thought of that lady again, until now.
“Yeah?” I confirmed, unsure as to where he was going with this.
He nodded, pursing his lips, seeming to consider his words. “Well, because of that little incident, we needed to put someone closer to you, someone to protect you until we could work out what to do with you. We had your father killed, making it look like a car accident, then it was easier to plant someone into your house.”
I almost choked because of his words. My father had been killed on purpose? It was just a random car accident, just an accident, no ones fault. It couldn’t have been…. “No,” I muttered, shaking my head as I refused to accept it.
He smiled brightly as if he was proud of that fact or something. “Yep. With your dad out of the way we just needed to get your mom to fall in love with someone and then you would have protection twenty-four seven." I struggled to comprehend the words. My dad had been killed because of me?
He’d been murdered because of a stupid birthmark? It was my fault, and that meant I’d indirectly killed him. Guilt and grief was threatening to crush me as Byron carried on speaking. “Obviously I was too old to try and seduce your mother, so I sent the next best thing, my eldest son.” Eldest son?
But that meant…. “Peter moved in with you to keep tabs on you. You knew him as Peter Symons, but in actual fact, his name was Peter Jefferson,” he explained.
My head snapped up as I searched his face to see if he was lying, but his eyes showed nothing by the truth there. My stepdad had been a Jefferson too? They’d killed my real dad so that a Jefferson could move in with me? I had no words to describe how disgusting and horrifying that thought was.
Byron smiled wistfully. “Tales of the gifts that you could bestow on your mate were all we could think about.” He raked his eyes over my face and body, and I cringed into the chair at the sight of his wanting expression. “Peter tried it out to see if anything happened, if you would gift him with anything, but of course nothing did,” he said nonchalantly.
I shuddered at his casual mention of the fact that his eldest son had raped me repeatedly from the age of eleven - and he’d apparently done it simply to see if I would ‘gift’ him with something? The way Byron didn’t even seem remorseful was barbaric.
“I was a child, he….” I trailed off, feeling the vomit rise in my throat at the memories.
By nodded, sighing. “Yes, but it didn’t work. So then of course we wondered if it was a certain person who you could gift to. Obviously none of us were your intended bond mate; that much was clear from your distinctive mark. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t try,” he said, smiling at the guy he’d introduced as his grandson Eli. I flicked my eyes to him, immediately wishing I hadn’t because of the way he was looking at me. I knew he’d ‘tried’ plenty of times when I was younger.
Eli licked his lips as he looked at me and I felt like my skin came alive and started crawling. The tears were in full flow now, I couldn’t stop them as I started to feel a little dizzy and overwhelmed.
“Billy, get her a glass of water,” Byron ordered to the only other man in the kitchen, I was right earlier, that was Thomas’s brother. The six wolves were all sitting around the room, watching the scene with interest, none of them moving.
Billy set the glass down in front of me and I picked it up with a shaky hand, slopping some of it on the table before using two hands to raise it to my lips and drink. Panic was setting in, I needed to leave because they obviously knew a lot more about me than Sean and I realised.
“So things were fine, but then your fucking mother found out and went crazy, calling the police.
Peter escaped, luckily. But we lost track of you when you went into the system. We have a lot of people on the inside of the police, but your personal officer hid you very well,” Byron stated di
stastefully. I supressed a sad smile at the thought of Ryce and what a great job he’d done, obviously too good a job for these assholes to find me. “For three years we had no idea where you were. All was lost, until one day you and your bond waltz into the council meeting room, and hey presto, we have you again,” he chirped joyfully.
I groaned and closed my eyes. The council, the stupid council - if we hadn’t gone there then the Organisation wouldn’t have known where we were, we could have lived our lives happy and ‘lost’.
Byron laughed humourlessly. “And now I find out that there is another reason for me to want your bond mate dead. Your husband was the one that killed my son, Eli’s uncle.” He raised one eyebrow and I felt my heart stop.
“Sean didn’t kill anyone,” I lied, shaking my head fiercely.
Byron chuckled, waving his hand at the grey wolf that was sitting closest to him. It trotted over to him and shifted back into his human form. Edward stood there in its place, a wicked smile on his face Byron smirked at me, probably because I was gaping at Edward with wide eyes. “I’ve heard all about how it happened. I’ve even viewed copies of the recorded interviews the council conducted with Sean. There’s no denying it, my dear,” Byron stated confidently. “Edward has been working for the organisation all along, as did his father before him. Evidently, it paid off to keep him remaining inside the council. If it weren’t for Edward remaining undercover, then we wouldn’t even know your whereabouts.”
I glared at the old man, wishing I had the power to kill him with my eyes as he smiled at me cockily. He’d told them everything? Passed on all of the tapes and information? That meant that the Organisation knew about every single one of Sean’s abilities and gifts.
Byron sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, looking at me interestedly. “So, there’s the whole story. Now all we have to do is drop a few hints and wait for that brute of a husband of yours to figure out where you are, and then we’ll be able to end this once and for all,” he finished.
Bond Mates Page 37
