Forbidden Hunger (Forbidden #8): Siya & Ram

by R. L. Kenderson

  “You got it.”

  Saxon kissed her and turned to Ram. “You ready to go speak with the alpha?”

  Ram nodded. Saxon didn’t have to ask him twice.

  As they were heading out the door, Ram heard Demi say, “I’ll keep you updated, but please be careful.”

  The distance from the bunkhouse to the main house was short, and Saxon gave a loud knock on the back door before entering.

  Vance was already in the kitchen, and Saxon gave the alpha a rundown of the conversation with Siya.

  “Let me see the picture,” Vance said. “And, Saxon, call Reid. We need to find this young girl’s parents. And ask him to run a facial match on the woman.”

  Saxon handed his alpha his phone with the image, but then he seemed to realize that he couldn’t call Reid.

  “Here,” Ram said, holding out his own cell.

  As Saxon made his call, Vance looked up from Saxon’s phone. “Can you help me get this sent to me, Damien, and Reid?”

  Ram couldn’t see it as much as he sensed the blood that filled Vance’s cheeks as he flushed.

  “Sure.” Ram leaned over the cat-shifter alpha’s shoulder and showed him how to forward the message to all three numbers.

  “Thank you,” Vance said but wouldn’t meet Ram’s eyes. “I need to call Damien.”

  The wolf-shifter answered on the first ring.

  “Why did Saxon send me a blurry picture of Monica Dahl?” he said in lieu of a greeting.

  “Who is Monica Dahl?” Vance asked.

  “She’s the woman who is running a human trafficking ring. Or shall I say, a shifter trafficking ring? Hell, it’s probably both.”

  Ram’s body stiffened. Siya was at the hospital with this vile female. He snatched the phone from Vance’s hand and pulled it toward him. “A human source came into contact with her tonight at a human hospital. She was with a young girl who had been raped.”

  Vance’s eyes snapped to his.

  “She said the young girl had tearing,” Ram said through clenched teeth. “You can’t tell me it was anything else.”

  Damien cursed. “If your human saw this and fed you this information, then there’s a good chance he or she might be in trouble.”

  Three

  Wolf-shifter Raven Kale was putting one of the last items in her to-go bag when she got a text that there was an emergency meeting downstairs.

  Picking up her phone, she left her bedroom and headed down the stairs. When she reached the living room, her alpha, Damien, was pacing back and forth, looking lost in thought.

  A few seconds later, they were joined by Lachlan, Kendall, and her mate, Eldon. Lachlan had his laptop under his arm, and Eldon had his arm around a pregnant Kendall.

  The last individual to enter was Damien’s mate, a cat-shifter named Payton.

  Eldon was also a cat-shifter, and neither he nor Payton were sentinels for the Minnesota Wolf Pack, but they lived with the wolf-shifters and were part of their weird family, so they always knew what was going on.

  Tonight, they were missing Ranulf, Chase, Quentin, Hunter, and Zane. The first four were on duty that night, which was why they weren’t at home. The former three were also wolf-shifter sentinels, and Hunter was a vampire Guardian and Quentin’s mate. Zane was a cat-shifter and had been living with the wolves while Kendall had gone to live with the cats. However, since Kendall was too pregnant for duty, Damien had recently sent Zane back to make up for losing Kendall. But this put the wolf-shifters at a disadvantage because they were short sentinels.

  Damien slapped his hands together when everyone was seated. “I didn’t want to wait until the four guys got home because I just heard about something very concerning from Vance. I’ll fill them in later.”

  Raven went on high alert, the sentinel in her ready for whatever her alpha needed from her.

  But rather than explain what had happened, Damien looked directly at her and asked, “Nothing new today from the after-school place, right?”

  A couple of months ago, a teenage wolf-shifter had gone missing, and her mother had come to Damien for help. After doing a little investigating, they’d found out another girl had gone missing—a human—who had also attended the same after-school program.

  Raven had been tasked with getting a volunteer position there. It had taken two weeks for her to get in, and she’d been there for about two weeks. About a week ago, Raven had overheard two teenage girls talking about what turned out to be an underground sex trafficking ring. And much to Raven’s shock, she’d discovered that the director, Monica Dahl, was responsible for luring the girls into sex work.

  Raven had convinced the two teenagers to leave the after-school place and go home with her. Their parents had been contacted and told what was going on, and they had promised to pull their daughters immediately from the program.

  Raven frowned and shook her head. “No. There haven’t been any updates on Monica. As far as anybody knows, she’s still out with a family emergency.”

  The family emergency was that her brother had died. Her two brothers, Wayne and Frank, had been running an underground fighting ring. Wayne had been killed by Quentin’s ex-boyfriend right after Raven rescued the girls. Quentin and his now mate, Hunter, had been trying to infiltrate the ring after Hunter was mixed up in it. But after Wayne Dahl had died, there hadn’t been any more fights. So, really, Monica’s emergency could be that her illegal activities were out in the open, and she had some messes to clean up.

  Damien looked at Lachlan, their computer expert. “Have you found anything?”

  Lachlan reluctantly shook his head. “I still have all the alerts activated on my computer and phone, but neither Monica nor Frank have used their cells—at least, the ones registered under their names—their credit cards, or anything else I can track them with since the evening Raven brought the two girls here.”

  Just because there was no activity from Monica and her brother, that didn’t mean the two of them hadn’t been doing anything illegal, especially since it seemed they didn’t want to be found by anyone. The only good thing was, Raven hadn’t heard any other students talking about Monica making them have sex for money. However, the last time that had happened, Raven had been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, even though she hadn’t heard anything, it didn’t mean nothing was happening.

  It would be nice for Monica to come back, so Raven and the others could keep a better eye on her. Especially with Raven going out of commission soon. Damien should have chosen someone else for the volunteer position. Of course, her alpha probably hadn’t expected for the assignment to last this long.

  “Damien, what’s wrong?” Payton, his mate, asked. She might not be a sentinel, but there was nothing that Damien kept from her.

  He scrubbed a hand down his face, and Raven knew she wasn’t going to like what Damien had to say.

  “Monica was spotted tonight at a human hospital. She had a young girl with her—a cat-shifter—and the girl was brought in for sexual trauma.”

  Raven gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth before a thought occurred to her. “Are you sure?”

  “As luck would have it, Saxon’s mate, Demi, has a friend who is a human nurse working in the hospital. If it had been anyone else working, we wouldn’t have known because Monica used a pseudonym.”

  “Then, how do you know it was Monica?” Raven asked.

  “The nurse took a photo when Monica wasn’t looking. It’s not high quality, but it’s definitely her. I confirmed it myself.”

  That was enough for Raven. “Let’s go then. We need to get to the hospital right away.” She spun on her heel, ready to get in her car and go.

  “It’s not that simple,” Damien said.

  Raven clenched her jaw and slowly turned back around. “Why not?”

  He gave her a pointed look. “I think you know why.”

  Yeah, she knew what her alpha was getting at, but she didn’t care. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said,
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Damien gritted his teeth. “We are low on sentinels right now.”

  “I’m here.” Raven pointed to herself. “I’m ready to go.”

  “No,” he commanded.

  Raven scoffed. “No?”

  “No. You are about to go into heat. You are supposed to leave in the morning for your parents’.”

  Dammit. He’d just had to say it out loud.

  “I probably have at least one day left.”

  “Absolutely not. Besides you being close to your heat, Kendall is pregnant, Lachlan needs to stay here in case Monica shows up on our radar again because we don’t know how long she’ll be at the hospital, and now that Payton is pregnant, too, I am not risking my life. You. Are. Staying. Here.”

  Everyone froze, except for Payton, whose eyes were as big as doorknobs as she looked from her mate to the rest of them standing around.

  Lachlan cleared his throat. “Congratulations to both of you.”

  Damien rolled his eyes and cursed. “This is not how we wanted to tell you all. Payton just had her heat last week.”

  That explained why Payton and Damien had gone to stay at their private home on the spur of the moment at the beginning of last week and why he hadn’t checked in much for a few days.

  Damien held out his hand, and Payton took it. “Her heat was a little early, but I’m glad it was since tonight’s development is something we didn’t foresee happening.”

  Raven didn’t want to hurt anyone, but it seemed too early to know for sure, and she couldn’t help but state the obvious. “Are you sure?” she asked Payton. Better to be disappointed now rather than later.

  Damien shot her a look full of venom. If he’d had any thought at all about letting her go to the hospital to confront Monica tonight, it was now gone.

  Damien and Payton had been trying for some time to conceive, and shifter males protected their mates at all costs. Raven was probably in deep shit for asking Payton that and breaking her heart.

  But the alphena smiled and pulled her shirt tight over the bottom of her belly. It was round still from her heat. “Damien can also…” She looked down at herself and cleared her throat. “He can also smell the pregnancy on me.”

  Raven tried to imagine her womb being full of a male’s seed and having the intimacy of him smelling a baby inside her before any other shifter could smell it. But with that came the thought of someone actually pleasuring her through her heat.

  Images of Ranulf and Chase flashed in her mind for a brief moment, but Raven shook them off. Yes, she’d had sex with the two males a few times, but that was all it was. After sneaking into their shared bedroom on numerous occasions, it had finally occurred to her that they never came to her. While they always welcomed her with open arms and pleasured her like no other male had, it was always her going to them.

  Which probably made sense. Chase and Ranulf had the classic bromance. They were Meredith and Cristina in Grey’s Anatomy. They weren’t sexual with each other, and each one would probably mate one day, but they were each other’s person. Hopefully, the two women they mated would be good friends because it sucked to be the third wheel. That was the very reason why Ranulf and Chase didn’t need Raven. They had each other.

  It was probably good she had avoided visiting them late at night the last few nights because being so close to her heat could trigger it, or it could make her think she had stronger feelings for the two men than she really did.

  Shoving thoughts of the two males aside, Raven apologized. “I’m sorry. I should have known that you both wouldn’t say anything unless you were sure.”

  “Apology accepted,” Payton said. She looked at her mate. “Right, Damien?”

  He dragged his eyes away from Raven, and they softened the second they landed on Payton. “I suppose.” His head whipped back around. “But you are still not going to the hospital.”

  Raven wanted to stomp her foot in frustration, but she had already pushed her alpha too far.

  “Vance is sending his sentinels to the hospital. They have more available, even with Kendall being here. Plus, the human female has a history with the cats.” His eyebrow lifted. “Understood?”

  Raven nodded once. “Understood.”

  “I have called everyone else home early. Once they are here, I will call Vance for an update and see if he needs any assistance.”

  The impromptu meeting broke up, and Raven went back to her room. She pushed her to-go bag off her bed before falling back onto the mattress. She was feeling itchy and restless. She could try to blame it on the fact that she couldn’t go to confront Monica, but she knew it was her heat coming.

  As much as she hated it, her alpha had made the right call.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been lying there, but she heard Kendall and Eldon come upstairs, whispering to one another. Damien and Payton came up next. Damien spoke in low tones to his mate, which sounded like words of love and happiness about the baby.

  Sometime later, she heard Quentin and Hunter get home. It was only about thirty seconds after their door closed that the sound of deep moaning traveled through the walls. It seemed as though the new couple was trying to get in a quickie.

  She hoped they hurried before Damien called them downstairs to update them on what was going on. But even the thought of them getting interrupted couldn’t make her laugh.

  Raven felt itchier than ever.

  Lastly, she heard Ranulf and Chase come home. They were laughing about something together as they walked past her room without a single pause.

  After their door closed, Raven released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Like she’d told herself earlier, they didn’t need her, so she had better make sure she didn’t put herself in a position to need them.

  She hauled herself up and jumped off the bed. She had planned to leave in the morning to go to her parents’, but things changed. Damien wasn’t going to let her participate in the Monica situation, so it wasn’t like she was of use to anyone anyway.

  Four

  Siya tried to concentrate on her own patients while also keeping an eye on Hannah—aka Emery’s—room to make sure they didn’t leave and also checking her phone every chance she got for Demi to call her back.

  It was as if time moved at lightning speed yet also at a snail’s pace.

  After what felt like forever, Siya’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She quickly excused herself and went out into the hallway since it was closer than the break room.

  “Hello?” she asked without even looking at who had called.

  “Siya?” The voice was male and deep. It wasn’t Demi but rather her mate.

  “Hi, Saxon.”

  “We’re about to walk in from the parking lot. Can you come and meet us in the waiting room?”

  “Yes. I’ll be right there.”

  Siya went back into the ER and told the tech sitting at the desk that she had to run out into the waiting room to get a patient’s family member. It was the best way to bring Saxon back to Emery’s room.

  The tech nodded but didn’t look up from the computer, and Siya hurried to find the cat-shifter sentinels. Right before she walked out, she glanced back at Emery’s room. Jane walked past the door but turned and looked out the little window there. Her eyes met Siya’s, and Siya quickly turned away to push open the door to the waiting room. She hoped that Jane—whoever she was—didn’t suspect Siya was keeping track of her.

  She couldn’t wait until Emery was safe and away from Jane.

  For some reason, when Saxon had said we, she had thought he meant himself and Demi. But she should have realized that Saxon wouldn’t bring Demi into a dangerous situation; plus, Saxon had been the one to call her, not Demi.

  Needless to say, she had not expected to see Ram standing next to Saxon. Both stood tall, broad, and intimidating, but Ram was the one who had her pausing her steps.

  So, the question of whether or not he still affected her was answ
ered. And it was not the answer she had been hoping for.

  After more than six months since she’d seen the vampire, he still made her breath catch and vagina tingle. Her biology was fucked up because this was not the man for her.

  Thankfully, her nursing training kicked in. She had to remain in control of her emotions plenty of times while working, and Emery was much more important than her attraction to Ram.

  It did take a little more concentration though with his yellow eyes practically boring a hole into her as she walked toward him and Saxon.

  She briefly made eye contact with the vampire before turning to the cat-shifter. Even if Siya didn’t have history with Ram, Emery was a cat-shifter, and Saxon was the better choice to go in as her father.

  Although…

  “What’s wrong?” Saxon asked.

  “My thought was to bring you back as Emery’s father, but you’re a little young. Also, you’d be expected to know Jane as her mom.”

  “Jane?” Ram said.

  “Um, the lady pretending to be her mother.” Siya had thought Ram knew what was going on.

  “Her real name is Monica,” Saxon said. “And I’m not going to go in there.”

  Vance and Vaughn walked in.

  Saxon pointed to his alpha. “He is.”

  “Hello, Mr. Llewelyn,” Siya said because her mother and father had taught her to respect her elders. “I can take you back with me.”

  “I’m coming with,” Vaughn said.

  Vance scowled at his son. “I can do this on my own.”

  “I know. But there is Monica and the girl. You can deal with one while I deal with the other.” Vaughn looked at Siya. “You can say that I’m the older brother.”

  “Sure. But we’d probably better go soon. Monica was eyeing me through the window.”

  “Let’s go then,” Vance said with a nod.

  “We’ll wait here,” Saxon replied.

  Siya used her badge to open the door from the waiting room to the emergency department and headed straight for Emery’s room.

  She knocked lightly, like she would with any other patient in case another nurse or a doctor was in there, before entering. But when she pushed open the heavy wood, the room was empty.