Pack Punished, page 16
part #3 of Thrown to the Wolves Series
My hellhound may be sulking in a corner, but present conditions make it pretty easy to rouse her into action. Drawing back my arm, I drive the end of the pocket knife into the window hard enough that it fractures into a spiderweb of cracks. Another two blows have the glass exploding, and I pitch backward before I tumble out of the window.
Every thought is harder to hold onto than the last as my head spins, but I lean into my panic to drive my actions. Shoving the folded knife between my breasts, I use my cleavage as a makeshift pocket and scan the room, my vision already wavering.
On unsteady feet, I scan past the seven unconscious bodies and stagger back to the bathroom. If I’m in better shape, it was because of the distance from the source. But if I hang around a busted window on the top floor for fresh air, I’m likely to fall out or get pushed, so the bathroom offers a little more security. At least it locks, and the steam from the shower might help counteract whatever’s in the air.
I make it all of five steps before I faceplant onto the carpet.
***
Motherfucker, my head hurts.
The thought is answered by a vicious snarl that reverberates around my skull until I can feel the vibrations in my teeth. Slowly releasing a breath, I rapidly take stock of what I have to work with.
My wolf is pissed, and that’s putting it mildly. Where she’s spent the last few days sulking, she’s awakened with a vengeance, pacing at the forefront of my brain. She doesn’t wrench control away from me yet, only mentally punches me awake, insistent that I’m as ticked off as she is, but gives me a choice, even if it’s an ultimatum.
Either I get us out of this, or she will, and it will be neither pretty, nor discreet.
Clenching my eyes shut tight, I extend my senses. Fabric surrounds me, along with the faint scent of bleach and sweat. Opening one eye and the other, I see nothing but muted light, and after a second blink, it registers that it’s a sheet over my face; several of them.
Without the worry of someone watching me, I slide a hand over myself in a body check, relieved to find not only my towel still in place, but the pocket knife I stole from Cinjin wedged between my breasts, and my necklace on. No matter how bad things get, whenever the guys come to, they’ll be able to find me, and I could kiss Bo right now for his paranoia.
Extracting the knife, I flip it open, extending my senses farther, but the dirty laundry overwhelms everything besides the lurching, sinking sensation. Elevator. Still in the hotel, then. One breath and then another, I come to a decision. Everything I’ve ever seen or read screamed, ‘don’t let them take you to a secondary location.’ That’s how you wind up raped and murdered with no one finding your body until it’s too late.
Taking a slow, deep breath, I mentally nod to my counterpart. I’m not giving her control yet, but if I can’t handle it, she has full permission to take over.
Carefully shifting the sheets off of my head, I pull my feet beneath me and tighten my grip on the knife. Launching upright, I pivot towards the faint sound of a single, steady heartbeat. The laundry cart crashes onto its side as I slam into the housekeeper, shoving her back against the elevator and pressing the blade to her throat.
“What the hell do you-”
The rest of my sentence is stolen from me as she grabs my wrist and twists it, locking a foot behind my ankle to throw me off balance and slams me down onto my back. The air rushes from my lungs with a grunt as her hat falls off, sending her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders into a curtain around my face. Before she can blink, I headbutt her, the satisfied sound of her hiss of pain and crunch of cartilage accompanied by her loosening grip on my wrist. Wrapping a leg around one of hers, I push off with the other to flip us, glaring down at her.
“As I was saying, what the hell do you think you’re doing, Mom?”
Blood pours from her nose, and I let her clap a hand over it while I continue to straddle her waist. Eyes that hold all of the warmth of the arctic glare right back at me as she snaps, “Saving you from yourself. Again.”
Scoffing, I lean over to snatch up the knife and get to my feet, fixing my towel before this ends up even more awkward than it already is and I have to fight her naked. Smacking the emergency stop button, the elevator lurches to a stop.
“Oh, of course. It has nothing at all to do with wanting to keep me as far away from your mates as possible so that I don’t slip up and give you away.”
Where I’m her carbon copy, instead of looking twenty years older than me, the last eight years since we parted ways clearly haven’t been kind to her. Dark shadows beneath her eyes only highlight a hardness in them that surpasses the lack of empathy that I remember. And while she’s thinner than healthy, she hasn’t lost any of the muscle, like she’s thrown herself so completely into keeping up with her training that she forgets to eat. You’d think that without me there to ruin her life, she’d have been happier.
Shaking my head, I watch her rise with a wary eye. “Well, you can relax. The Slaughters may be awful, but even I’m not so cruel as to make them have to suffer through living with you.”
“Charming, as always.” Snagging one of the sheets from the fallen cart, she uses it to staunch the blood flow.
Sighing, I relent, “Seriously though, the whole arranged marriage thing is bullshit.” After a brief hesitation, I admit, “I almost ran, too. Not quite the same circumstances, but I had no interest in suddenly being married to anyone, let alone multiple someones that I barely even knew.”
Adjusting the cloth for a fresh spot to bleed on, she scoffs. “I’m sure.”
Rolling my eyes, I take a step back and cross my arms. “Can we not play mind games for once? What are you really doing here?”
For several moments, she simply stands there, looking me over. “What do you think is going to happen if you go there? They’ll suddenly welcome back their ‘long lost daughter’ with open arms, and you’ll be a big happy family? Unite all of the packs on the mountain and go about your best life? Don’t be stupid, Sabrina. Even if you don’t tell them where I am, they want you there for a reason.”
Tongue in cheek, I tip my head. “A few of the guys mentioned that. Apparently you broke everything when you dipped out, and they’re under the impression that it might magically get better if your daughter returns.” With one hand, I splay my fingers and wiggle them with fake enthusiasm. “Huzzah, babies and bountiful crops for everyone again, happy day.”
She levels me with a wry look that I don’t even blame her for, because I agree, the whole concept is ridiculous. “Or maybe they’re cursed for a reason; they deserve to be."
“And us? Do we deserve to suffer, too?”
Glacial eyes bore into my face. “Absolutely. We aren’t better than any of them, just better at surviving.”
Heart in my stomach, I can’t argue that point. "I'm getting pretty sick of that word, you know; maybe. Maybe this, maybe that. If you'd give me any actual facts to work with, maybe I wouldn't always have to work with hypotheticals.” Swallowing, I plead, “Why didn't you ever tell me anything?”
Clutching her bloody rag to her face, she reaches past me to the panel of buttons. “We don’t have time to get into this here.”
I grab her arm before she can make contact, but she anticipated on me doing so. Leaning into my tug so that she falls with me into the wall, she drops the rag to smack the button, getting us moving again. With a lurch, the elevator returns to its descent, but this time with a loud vibration against the metal.
Closing my eyes and wishing the floor would open up so the darkness beneath could swallow me whole, my face heats. Awkwardly releasing her, I reach behind me to press the button on the butt plug still in place to turn it off again.
‘The vibrating one is more popular.’ Thanks for that helpful advice, Carina.
When I finally force myself to pry open one eyelid, it’s to find Mom’s unamused face. “Seriously?”
“You abducted me from a hotel room I was sharing with seven guys, and didn’t expect it to be weird? What did you think we were doing in there?”
She takes a step back, scrubbing a hand over her mouth as she grabs a relatively cleaner sheet to wipe off her face now that the bleeding has nearly stopped. “That place didn’t smell like sex before I set the gas up under the door. I had no interest in having to extract you from the middle of a gangbang.”
For some reason, that makes me blush harder. “Keep your nose out of my sex life.” She actually chuckles, and it gives me an opening to smack the emergency stop button again. “I want to be here. Your mates may have sucked, but mine don’t. If I disappear, they’re coming with me. So if there’s a real reason why I shouldn’t go, no need to steal me away. I’ll happily go upstairs to tell them that I changed my mind, we’ll grab our shit, and hop on a boat out of the country. But you need to give me something to work with, here.”
All amusement disappears from her face. “When are you going to accept that people only want you for the sake of using you? Your mates to set their beasts free, the Slaughters to find me, and to use you to foster a treaty to their advantage with another pack. You’re not a person to any of them, you’re a means to an end.” Shaking her head she sighs. “You need to trust me on this one. We have to go. Now.”
This time when I grab her wrist, it’s with all of the fury of my other half pressing down on the forefront of my brain. “Are you kidding me? What have you ever done to earn the privilege of blind trust? ‘The only thing you can count on other people for is to let you down,’ isn’t that what you always say?”
The elevator lurches with a hard thump from above us, quickly followed by another. Her heart sprints into overdrive as she attempts to yank her arm free, but to no avail. Tightening my grip, my counterpart rises, following the physical connection straight to her’s. I don’t siphon or soothe in any way, simply make her aware of my presence, let the unspoken threat loom over her head.
In a matter of seconds, the color fades from her face as she tenses. “What did they do to you?”
The emergency panel on top of the elevator is wrenched open, and Kaige drops through. Straightening to his full, imposing height, the small sliver of orange that remains visible in his eyes flickers and burns as if made of living flames. “I think a better question is, what are we going to do to you?”
By the time he finishes speaking, Slade has slipped through the opening and is at my side. Both are still in their pajama pants, with only Slade in a shirt, yet it does nothing to detract from the deadly air surrounding them. Jaw clenched, he quickly surveys the scene before carefully prying my fingers off of my mother’s arm.
“Slade, what ar-” He cuts me off with a swift, hard kiss, the gentle way he cups my jaw at odds with the coiled tension radiating off of him in waves.
“Are you hurt?” When I shake my head slightly, he tightens his fingers on my jaw. “Where’d the blood come from?”
It takes a second for it to click that I likely caught a spray of blood after headbutting her. “When I broke her nose.”
He slowly swipes his thumb over my cheek, but the relief I expected never comes. “Kaige?” At his grunt of acknowledgment, Slade orders, “Take Sabrina back upstairs.”
Scrunching up my forehead in confusion, I crane my head to the side to see he’s backed Mom into the corner. Without taking his eyes off of her, he replies, “I can handle it.”
“Handle what?”
Slade’s eyes are solid black at this point, and though he’s standing right in front of me, he’s never been farther away. “If she’d go so far as to break into a room with several male wolves when she fears them, in a hotel full of shifters only a few hours away from the people she’s spent over twenty years hiding from, she’s desperate to keep you away from the mountain. Anyone else, I could accept that it was because they were worried about you, but Annika Slaughter?”
He turns and spits on the ground, as if her name is a vile insult that he can’t stand the taste of. “Whatever you’ll discover by going there, she’s willing to come out of hiding and risk being dragged back to keep you from finding out. Desperate people are dangerous, and I won’t have another threat looming over our heads. She’s hurt you enough; it stops now.”
My stomach flips. “You can’t really mean you’re going to kill her? Aren't female wolves a protected, endangered species to you guys?”
When no one says a word, I look to mom, and this time, a little of her murderous rage has been replaced by unease. "She's right, and you know it. If anyone finds out you tried to kill me, they’ll make you wish you were never born.”
Kaige cracks his neck. “Already beat them to the punch on that one, and I have no intention of ‘trying’ anything. Besides, who’s going to find out?” Withdrawing a slender pocket knife, he casually rolls it between his fingers. “Nobody’s seen you for decades. You’re a ghost, Annika, like you always wanted to be. Now you can go back to haunting people, just from beyond the grave.”
Do I want her dead?
Sure, I’ve thought about it enough over the years when I was pissed off, but do I honestly want it? I haven’t seen her in eight years, and the only way she hurts me now is from memories. Killing her won’t make those go away. Plus, how can I show up on the Slaughter’s doorstep in a couple of days and lie to their faces? To let them keep thinking she’s out there somewhere, that there’s hope? They may be monsters, but that’s cruel by anyone’s standards.
And Slade’s willing to spare Kaige the guilt that would eat him alive after his wolf receded. He’s spent his entire life trying to be better than his ancestors, to cherish women as gifts to their kind and protect them from other males that would abuse them. No matter if it was to protect me, or how much of a bitch she is, killing her would destroy something integral within him.
It would wreck Slade, too, but they’re so far gone, I don’t think that they’ll back off this time even if I asked them to. Meeting mom’s eye, I give her a pointed look, hoping that I’ve studied Reid and Cinjin enough that some of their twin telepathy has rubbed off.
“That would be a waste when she has the ability to finally give us some answers.” Taking a step back, I press the button to get us going again, quickly glancing at the illuminated numbers. Six floors until the lobby. Subtly using my body to block access to the panel, I thread my fingers through Slade’s to keep him at my side and hopefully appease him while giving Mom my attention. “Why did you never tell me about any of the wolf stuff?”
She returns to glaring up at Kaige as he keeps her trapped in the corner without even having to touch her. The evidence that he isn’t bluffing is written all over his face, and it’s enough to keep her rooted to the spot. “So you could lament over the fact that you couldn’t shift? That there was an entire world out there that you were a part of, but didn’t fit into? I know you, Sabrina. You’d have gone looking, even if you knew it could get you killed.”
She turns to face me, but Kaige snaps a hand out, driving the end of the blade into the wall a hairsbreadth from her face. “You don’t look at her.”
When she adjusts her stance, using it as an excuse to subtly slip her hand into the pocket of her apron, she doesn’t even get a chance to remove it before Kaige has a hand on her wrist, slowly withdrawing it to reveal a syringe. Thankfully, this one looks nothing like those used at the Alodia mansion to create the lycans. Knowing what she came here to do, I’d wager on it being a sedative.
Tightening his grip until she’s forced to drop it, as soon as it clatters to the floor, Kaige uses the heel of his bare foot to shatter it. “You could have had at least one person to understand what you were going through and make your life less miserable, yet you hurt her any chance you could. Why your mates have wasted all of these years searching for you is beyond me.”
Nostrils flaring, she retorts, “I kept her safe.”
“You kept her beaten down so you could feel in control!” My stomach flips as Kaige’s deadly presence grows. “There’s a special place in Hell for people like you; the ones that constantly play the victim, yet become the same type of monsters as the ones they escaped. You were hellbent on protecting her from suffering through the things that you endured, only to turn around and treat her like shit? Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that doesn’t make you the martyr you seem to think you are.”
Eyes burning with disdain, she spits, “I was saving her.” Shoving his chest, he doesn’t so much as budge an inch, but she continues her seething rant nonetheless. “Do you know what happens to alpha wolves that have no one and nothing to feed off of? They go mad, then they die. And since we can’t live without them, with it, so would she. So yes, I made her suffer. Because one day, when I wasn’t around for her to siphon from anymore, she’d implode. I gave her enough pain that she could store it away to get her through the next few decades, or if she were ever found, she’d have something to fall back on to have a chance of escaping.”
Furious tears form in her eyes. “Do you even know her at all? She needs to latch onto some form of misery or hatred, otherwise she falls apart. Alphas use pain as fuel, and she needs more than most to keep her putting one foot in front of the other. She’d never have been strong enough to survive on her own if she didn’t have everything she took from me over the years to do so.”
When she falls silent, Slade argues, “She couldn’t siphon until about a month ago.”
Throwing a hand in the air, Mom looks at him like he’s a complete idiot. “Of course she could! You wolves just refuse to see anything that doesn’t fit into your perspective of how the world works. Newsflash; the top of the mountain offers a very different view than the bottom does. If you haven’t noticed yet, Sabrina’s an anomaly. Wolves are pain. That tight pressure in your chest you get randomly when she’s around? The one that makes you want to rub the heel of your hand over your heart when you’ve never struggled with your beasts like that before she showed up? It’s not because you’re in love with her, it’s because her wolf got its claws in you and was discreetly feeding; even when she wasn’t nearby.”
