Alpha Domination (Alpha Wolf Book 1) Page 13

  “Follow us and I’ll shoot her, Nathaniel.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Nathan grinds out, the gleam in his eyes a promise.

  Caleb only responds by snickering.

  My heart batters against the inside of my ribcage. My last view of Nathan is him primed to leap for Hattie’s side.

  Caleb drags me backwards and out through a side door. Snow crunches under my stumbling feet. The light is piercingly bright compared to the inside of the dank pool hall. Caleb’s fist is clenched around my wrist, so tight it burns. He hauls me across the street to a small jeep, pushing me into the passenger seat, gun trained on me as he throws himself into the driver’s side.

  I make as if I’m going to get back out of the car, but Caleb snatches my hair and yanks me backwards, twisting the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life and we squeal around the corner.

  My heart is pounding. The barrel of the gun presses, cold, against my temple. I wonder how the hell I’m going to get out of this. Nathan won’t be able to track us by scent and there’s nobody else to rescue me.

  We’re reaching the edge of the town when an ambulance screams past. I hope to god that it’s heading for Hattie.

  Caleb snorts to himself.

  I glance sideways at the man holding a gun to my head. Books and films had always made me think that werewolves were supposed to be good looking, like Nathan, but this guy was entirely forgettable. If he hadn’t turned me and frightened me half to death, I probably wouldn’t have been able to remember his face.

  “Why me?” I ask him.

  He glances at me, twisting the wheel with his free hand.

  “Why did you choose me?”

  “Don’t think you’re anything special, missy. You just fit the bill. Lotta research went into this shit and I’ll be damned if I waste it.”

  He’s driving us out into the snow blanketed wilds now. The houses have petered out, but trees are beginning to appear. I briefly wonder if Caleb has a base somewhere between the Conservation Centre and Nathan’s house. That might explain why he’d been roaming around there when he bit me.

  “What was your criteria?” I ask.

  Caleb’s eyes narrow on me.

  I vaguely recall reading a hostage account that cited how the woman had ingratiated herself with her kidnapper in order to escape.

  Maybe Caleb will think I’m interested in him and his process. Maybe he’ll mistake it for admiration. If I can get him to let his guard down, I might be able to free myself before he tries to make me submit to him.

  I swallow, thoughts of Nathan’s kisses and the way he groans my name crossing my mind. Maybe I had submitted to Nathan, only not in the way he’d intended.

  But then... if that was the case...

  Maybe he’d submitted to me, too. A kind of mutual domination.

  But I have no intention of bowing to Caleb. And no intention of letting him get far enough to try to force me to, either.

  “The boys wanted a bitch they could lay without wanting to claw out their eyes. Something fuckable.” He slides the cold gun down my neck and over my breast. “And enough to grip onto when they screwed.”

  I grit my teeth and swallow as he smirks. The barrel of the gun has come to rest in my lap.

  “Wonder what would happen if I thrust that up there,” he says, crudely, half to himself. “Wonder if you’d like that.”

  My knuckles are white around the lip of my seat. Caleb glances across at me, smirking again.

  “Nathaniel puts on a good show, from what I’ve heard, but he isn’t half the beast I am, missy. I’ll make you raw until you scream your submission to me. Got it?”

  I swallow. “Those can’t be the only reasons you chose me. Because I’m ‘fuckable’,” I say, testing the word on my tongue.

  All the while I’m talking, I’m thinking about how Nathan won’t be able to find me out here in the snow if he couldn’t track Dan’s scent through the town, especially as a fresh layer is blanketing the place as we drive. The trees are denser, now, and I’m not sure we’re following the road any more, the jeep lurching from side to side.

  Caleb seems to know where he’s going, though.

  “I thought you would be feisty. I like that. And no. There’re certain other physical things you gotta look at. Women don’t always survive the change, y’know, missy?”

  He smirks and I can’t help but feel the bile roll in my stomach.

  “Gotta see if there are other survivin’ wolves in their family. Things like that.”

  “There are no werewolves in my family.”

  “I did my research. Wouldn’t have followed you here if we weren’t sure.”

  As a stone drops in my stomach, Caleb laughs to himself.

  What other werewolves could he be talking about? If I’d had a relative turned, surely I would know? But there wasn’t anybody left to turn!

  “Should have bitten you back in Oklahoma. Would have been easier than this shit show.”

  He drags the gun back over my chest to nestle the barrel against the pulse thrumming in the base of my throat.

  “Wouldn’t have you all to myself, then, though. So maybe this worked out fine, missy.”

  My heart is hammering in my ears. Caleb and his pack have been after me far longer than I thought. That kind of determination makes me realise getting away from them wasn’t going to be easy from the start.

  Nathan was right; I’d never be safe until they were all dead.

  “If... If you wanted me so badly, then why didn’t you try to find me in the woods? When those people were shooting?”

  “If we’d known you were still alive, we would have, but we thought the hunters killed you.” He smirks. “You have no idea how disappointed we were, missy. And then you walked into that bar and we couldn’t believe our luck. If only Nathaniel hadn’t turned out to be such a goddamned problem...”

  I tug Nathan’s jacket tighter around me. I can smell him faintly on the leather.

  The jeep stops and Caleb switches off the engine. Snow is billowing outside the windows. He pushes open the door and waves for me to get out, too. The white carpet is much higher than the shoes I’ve borrowed from Hattie’s apartment. Ice slips inside the tops and liquefies between the material and my bare feet.

  Caleb shoves me, pushing me under the heavy canopy of the trees, his gun pointed at my back.

  We trudge onwards, him occasionally shouting directions that I can barely hear over the biting wind. By the time we reach a shabby shack, I’m soaked to the bone and chattering from the cold.

  Caleb pushes me inside so hard I stumble and land in the middle of the floor. I raise myself up a few inches as he continues fixing the ill-fitting door back into place. There’s a threadbare, canvas mat beneath my hands, barely cushioning the uneven stone floor. Caleb dusts off his hands and settles himself by a dark hearth.

  I glance back at the door. Wind and snow push in at gaps between the wood and the threshold. A dim glow lights up the walls. Caleb’s started a small fire in the grate.

  “So, what now?” I ask, still chattering.

  He smirks and comes to stand over me where I’m still crouched on the floor. “And now we wait until the moon rises and your transformation is complete.”

  “But the full moon is tomorrow. Not tonight.”

  That smirk stays in place and it’s the last thing I see before Caleb hits me over the head and everything goes blank.

  Snow Sport

  The room is dark. I lift my head slowly. It feels heavy and dizzy at first. Everything swims back into focus. Caleb is propped against the fireplace, his eyes shuttered, snoring lightly.

  I shift myself, awkwardly, into a sitting position. My hands and feet are bound with what looks like old rope. I reach up into my hair to find a small sticky mess where Caleb thwacked me with the butt of his gun. It’s tender, but the skin has already healed over. The gaps around the door assure me that the wind and snow have not yet let up, but the sun has been below the skyli
ne for a good couple of hours.

  My thoughts drift to Nathan and Hattie. Has he managed to get her to a hospital? Has she survived? Will Nathan stay with her or will he try to find me? It would be foolish to sit and wait to find out.

  Eying Caleb warily, I start working at my bonds. The gun is clutched in his sleeping grasp. If he so much as hears me move, he might wake and shoot.

  Now he has no pack, I wonder what his plan for me is, exactly.

  As quiet as a mouse, I wriggle the rope with my teeth until it loosens enough for me to slip first one and then the other wrist free.

  A hasty glance in my kidnapper’s direction assures me he’s still asleep. Perhaps he thought I’d be out cold for longer.

  I make light work of the knots around my ankles. A quick once over assures me that he hasn’t managed to do anything else to me whilst I was out cold. Something tells me that Caleb’s the kind of man who likes watching his female prey squirm, anyway.

  Memories of his vile comments back in the car disgustingly resurface. I push them away, my skin crawling.

  My eyes light on the gun in his grasp. If I try to take it, he’ll surely wake and overpower me. Deciding it’s not worth the risk, I creep to the door. My attempts to quietly loosen the wedged wood fall flat as the wind smashes it open, pouring into the one room shack. Snow blasts past my face.

  Caleb calls out.

  Panicked, I dash out into the freezing air, not daring to look back, a gunshot narrowly missing my arm.

  The air whirls angrily around me as I run, hampered by my frozen limbs and numb feet. Caleb is faster than me, his warm clothes and thick boots making light work of the freezing weather. He pushes me down into the snow, face first. I struggle, gasping for breath as he yanks my head back with a fistful of my hair.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he snarls. He drags me back into the dilapidated shack, throwing me across the floor again. I stumble, slamming against the opposite wall and grazing my palms on the old stone. Pain lances through my body.

  I slide down to the floor, out of breath, desperately trying to figure out my next move. He pushes the shitty door back into its frame as I inwardly berate myself for failing to escape. I have to come up with another plan.

  “What did you think you’d achieve with that, bitch? You’re not even a full wolf, yet. How did you think you’d possibly get away?”

  I look up at him as he towers over me. “Did you think I was going to stick around and let you rape me? Fuck you, Caleb.”

  He backhands me. The whole side of my face illuminates with pain. It hisses out between tightly grit teeth as Caleb smirks at me. “Sooner or later, you will, missy. You’ll submit to me and I’ll have the pleasure of that flesh any way I please.”

  “You don’t have a pack. You’re not an alpha any more,” I answer, voice trembling, even though I’m wondering if he can do that same sweep of power that Nathan can.

  Caleb snorts, playing with the safety on his gun. “Who gives a shit? I have a female werewolf that I sired. That means you’re bound to me. Mutts will come crawling to be part of my pack and get a bit of beast on bitch action. Mark my words, missy.”

  “I won’t be whored out just so you can feel like other werewolves respect you.”

  He stops playing with the safety and leans closer. I can’t tell whether the ammo is live or not when he strokes the icy tip of the barrel down my cheek. “Y’know what they do with new horses before they ride them properly?”

  I swallow, unable to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

  “They have to break them in.” He smirks. “And I’m going to take my sweet time breaking you in, bitch. When I’m done with you, you’ll only know my command.”

  That’s when I spit in his face. His eyes widen then narrow in anger. I dodge the predictable lash where he tries to smack me and manage to punch him instead. It doesn’t make the impact I wish it would, but it’s enough to surprise him so I can lurch past towards an escape.

  Caleb snags my ankle at the last second and I go sprawling across the floor. He launches himself on top of me. I roll to face him, trying to hit him as he grabs at my wrists. My hand clenches around his gun. Somehow, I’m stronger than both of us expect. My fight for control of the weapon is almost on an equal footing with Caleb.

  He swears as I manage to wriggle my finger around the trigger and only just succeeds in skewing the aim as I squeeze, narrowly missing his head and blowing a chunk out of the wall.

  He swears, unexpectedly yanking his other hand back from my wrist and smashing me across the face. My moment of surprise allows him to wrest the gun from me. He straddles my hips, pointing the barrel at my chest.

  “I’m gonna teach you some fucking respect,” he snarls and yanks at the bottom of my borrowed blouse between the open folds of Nathan’s jacket. The material tears, two lower buttons breaking free of their threads. I scream and buck, trying to overthrow the bastard.

  He laughs and shifts just off kilter enough for me to shuck him and knee him in the bollocks at the same time. Winded, he falls to the side as I scrabble to my feet and lurch out of the door into the icy cold, my shoes sinking lower than ever in the snow.

  The sound of Caleb’s wheezing shouts and his footsteps coming after me is the only reason I manage to make it deeper into the close trees as balls of ice begin to clog my legs. The air stabs like a thousand knives into the smallest pieces of exposed flesh.

  Pine needles scratch my trembling fingers as I lurch onwards. I hear another gunshot crackle through the woods, producing a startled yelp from my throat, but I don’t turn to look. He’s upwind of me so I can scent him, but he can’t smell me, my panicked brain reminds me, wolf instincts melding with human. The air pushing against my back, I pant and stumble through the undergrowth, tripping over tree roots hidden in the snow.

  It all looks the same in the dark and the blizzard. There’s no way I can figure out where I’m headed. My only plan is to keep the wind at my back so Caleb can’t smell me easily enough to find me. I pull Nathan’s jacket close around my throat, catching a whiff of his aroma from the inside material, trying to trap out the breeze stealing up inside my torn blouse.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, urging myself on, though my feet don’t want to move, and I can barely feel my fingers any more. Muscles protest, adrenaline the only thing stopping me from keeling over. I wish I’d chosen different shoes from Hattie’s collection. I wish I hadn’t thought a blouse would be a good idea. I wish I’d stayed back at Nathan’s cabin or simply not taken that damn walk that had gotten me bitten by Caleb in the first place.

  But then I wouldn’t have met Nathan. And part of me thinks that that might be the only good thing to come out of this at all.

  The sharp snow and wind stinging my eyes, I stumble on until I barrel into a dark, warm shape. The scream that forms on my lips is cut short by a gloved hand.

  My panicked gaze streaks upwards to find familiar, concerned eyes. The hand moves from my mouth as my lower lip wobbles.

  He makes a movement to signal keeping quiet, but I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him like I’m drowning and he’s my first breath. Tears prickle my eyes as a moment’s relief breaks in my chest. His lips press back, opening to me, the heat of his mouth more than welcomed. One hand rests on my hip, pulling my body against his, the other resting his gun against my thigh.

  “George,” he murmurs, still kissing. “Georgie...”

  He presses me hard against him and groans softly.

  “Nathan,” I rasp hurriedly against his lips, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He brushes the hair back from my face, concern highlighting his brow as he assesses me, the softness of his gaze hardening as he remembers where we are. “You’re okay? Has he touched you?”

  I shake my head, swallowing down as I look up into his face, pulling his jacket tighter so he can’t see the broken buttons or the torn fabric. “No, but he’s coming. And he has a gun.”

  A branch snap
s somewhere behind me.

  Both our ears prick at the sound. Nathan pulls me hurriedly out of sight behind a large pine. His body presses up against mine, using the tree as camouflage to scope out what might be coming.

  I know I should be terrified, and I am, but, at the same time... I swallow hard and glance at Nathan’s lips. His body is pushed up against mine, sandwiching me between his heat and the hard plane of the tree, which I know is a protective move, but, after the way he kissed me just moments ago, I can’t help aching for the heat of his mouth once more.

  “Someone else is out there,” Nathan whispers. I shift against him, feeling an answering ache as his eyes shutter for the briefest moment. His gaze sweeps to mine, dark like embers. “Don’t tell me the danger is turning you on, love?” he murmurs wryly, unexpected warmth in the endearment.

  “Not the danger,” I whisper without thinking.

  His head cocks slightly to one side as he looks at me and then his gaze crosses to my lips. “Now really isn’t the time to discuss this...”

  The words hang regrettably in the air for a moment.

  I know he’s right. I know there are more pressing things we should be thinking about. But the way he looks at me... The way he feels...

  “Caleb followed me from Oklahoma,” I whisper like a bucket of cold water. Nathan stiffens, his jaw clenches. “All that time... He’s been after me for so long. He’s never going to stop.”

  “I’m going to end this, dahlin. You have my word.”

  A gunshot sounds in the darkness and snow. Nathan freezes against me. There are two more cracks that rent the air of the woods. My heart feels like it’s about to break free of my chest.

  The gunshots sound from different directions, but I know that Caleb has no back up. I grasp Nathan’s wrist, my fingers white as snow.

  “Caleb mentioned hunters,” I hiss frantically, my breath crystallising in the air.

  “Shit.” Nathan’s face has paled.

  “They’ll stop shooting once they realise there are humans here, though, right?”

  “Not this kind.” He swears again, shaking his head. “Caleb followed you and they must have followed Caleb. Fuck.”