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“Law enforcement may be here,” says Tammy. “If they want to talk to you about anything you might know about Acker or the hound that took her, you’ll cooperate, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously,” I say.

“If you need anyone to cover you while you’re talking to the police, just send me a text?” She lifts her phone. “I’ll sort it out.”

“Sure thing, Tammy,” I say.

“I’m really glad you’re feeling better today, Cal,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

lotus

I’M IN THEmiddle of duct-taping Dr. Acker’s mouth shut. There’s duct tape down here in the basement of this place. I’ve tried to do it three times already, and she keeps managing to somehow move her jaw enough that she can talk around it. Or maybe she’s using saliva to weaken the tape. I don’t even know.

I can’t believe I’m this person, actually.

I can’t believe I’m the person who’s trying to figure out how to keep someone’s mouth taped shut.

That’s not me.

I should feel ill about it. I really should. I recognize that I should. But I don’t. I feel only a dull anger that I’m not capable of having that kind of moral center anymore.

It’s really this woman’s fault.

I never saw her while I was imprisoned against my will at Cedar Falls. But she did personally fuck with the heads of my mates. And she is part of the system there. So, she holds responsibility for what has been done to me.

Right now, Dr. Acker is tied to a pole in the middle of a basement. It’s a load-bearing pole, and her arms are tied behindher back. I have put duct tape all over her face and her chin, leaving only her nostrils free. I’m not trying to kill her. Well, not yet, anyway.

Why does Dr. Acker need her mouth taped shut?

After all, when we first got her here, I did not try to attempt to keep her from speaking. She was tied up down here, and I figured that was good enough.

And then, she started talking.

So, we had to do this.

“Lotus,” comes the rumble of a deep voice.

I recognize it as belonging to one of my alphas, Striker. I don’t even turn to look at him. “Get back upstairs,” I say to him. “I don’t want her affecting you.” Again.

“This can’t go on like this,” he says. “Knight says—”

“I know what Knight says, and I’m not willing to give up on it quite so quickly yet.” I do turn to look at him now.

“Yes, but—”

“Besides,” I say. “Knight couldn’t do it before.”

Striker nods. “I know. But he thinks he’d find a way around it now. He is the first one of us who figured out how to get around her mind control to get an erection, after all.”

“No,” I say. “None of you figured out how to get around it. You all had touseit.”

And it’s true. She did some weird association brainwashing technique with them, made it so they could only get hard if they associated it with violence. And they all had to do violence to get hard to service me. They didn’t do any permanent damage to me, and they claim they couldn’t, but we all know we’re just playing with fire out here.

This woman broke them.

This woman can fix them.