Page 5 of A Twist of Luck (Shifter City Fated Mates #2)

CHAPTER 5

EMME

S lade returned to working the cuff on his ankle, which he’d transformed into a mangled mess of metal, even as it remained around his black pants. I took another sip of water and continued my new favorite pastime: watching the dragon shifter and debating if I’d ever break through his contained exterior.

Whenever I made even a small dent, he’d retreat and ice me out again, which only had me trying harder. “I really don’t like the idea of you heading up there without me.”

He’d already explained his reasons why, and they made perfect sense. Both of us agreed that in a physical sense, I would be less than zero help. There was no debating that after what I’d seen him do to Donnie and Blaine. He was underestimating how great my moral support was, though.

“You must be protected,” was all he said, and while a part of me swooned another part was annoyed.

I’d survived a lot on my own. Slade believed me to be a frail, pathetic omega with zero dominance. Next thing you know he’d call me cute as he bopped me on the nose, and I could store the full trifecta of shifter loserdom under my belt.

I started to pace, enjoying the use of my legs, even as the chains still attached to my cuffs clanked. “What are they waiting for?” I growled, my voice healed up enough for a decent growl again.

Slade didn’t look up as he tore away another strip of the outer layers of metal. “If I had to guess, which I don’t particularly like to do, they’re reassessing and figuring out how to keep me contained now that I’ve busted through their cage. They’re probably also regretting bringing me along for the ride, though it was their only logical choice at the time.”

“What if they’d killed you?”

The sound that emerged from him was a dark, twisted version of a laugh. “I’m not easy to kill, which is the only reason I’m here with you.”

Thank the goddess that Slade was on my side.

There was another clank and creak as he tore metal away, and when his head jerked up and he stilled, I froze as well. “There’s only a few of them left in the house,” he finally said, and my pulse raced at the predatory tilt to his head.

I wasn’t the prey he tracked today, but my instinctive fight or flight response remained the same.

His eyes darkened, black threading through the green, and he jumped to his feet so fast that he was gone before I choked out a gasp. He moved like liquid, flowing from one spot to the next, and I wondered if my reflexes were even slower than I’d originally thought. Or was he just that much faster than a regular alpha? Either way, it threw me completely off balance.

“Now’s the time,” he said. “There aren’t enough left to stop me. I want you to wait here while I clear the path. I will call for you, Emmeline. Do not move until then.”

I opened my mouth to protest being left behind, but he was already up the freakin’ stairs.

In like, two seconds.

I really needed to add cardio into my daily life, but now was not the time to compare our abilities. Slade couldn’t… uh, there had to be shit he couldn’t do as well as me. Like… menstruate.

Yes! I was an expert at that, and speaking of, I was due any day, so it’d be excellent if that didn’t happen while I was in captivity. My periods usually knocked me down for at least a day with terrible bleeding and cramps, and there was no way to hide the scent of blood in a house of alphas.

Yeah, okay, so clearly I wasn’t even an expert at menstruation, but I was still better at it than Slade.

Shuffling closer to the base of the stairs, I peered up at the broken door and frame, the edge of the handle just in sight as it swung on one hinge. Straining to hear any sound or a scuffle, I was disconcerted by the eerie quiet keeping me company.

I’d just placed my foot on the bottom step when Slade appeared above.

“You might as well come up here,” he said shortly, and I wasted no time scurrying up the stairs, emerging into a small, old-fashioned kitchen with pink, white, and yellow flowered wallpaper and wood cabinets painted in a brighter yellow. “What happened?” I hissed, looking around for Blaine and the others, but the room was empty. The entire house felt empty.

Slade’s expression remained ten shades of pissed off, which unfairly only made him look hotter. His gaze moved toward the back door. “As soon as I emerged from the basement, the few remaining rats bailed, leaving the entire house locked down with magic. I checked every room, and we’re alone. This is just a larger prison, and I have no doubt they’ll be back soon with a big enough army to take me out.”

Fucking excellent.

“Okay, so is there any way for us to break through this magical lock before they return? How strong is it?”

When he exhaled, I was surrounded by the ashy sweetness of his scent and my knees weakened. I reached out, and as casually as possible, pressed my hand to a flowered panel of wall, needing the support. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice me using the house to prop myself up.

“Strong enough that this house had to be built with magic in its very foundation. Maybe in the soil beneath the foundation. I might be able to break through; it’s just going to depend on how much time we have before they return.”

I could work with that. “How can I help?”

He glanced around the small kitchen. “Search out food, anything with high protein and fats. I need to fuel my energy as I battle the magic. It will be draining.”

Having an actual way to help bolstered my mood, and I immediately headed for the fridge. “On it. You get to work figuring out how you’ll break us out of here, and I’ll figure out food.”

When I reached the ancient fridge, which would have been white at some point in its life but was now yellowed with age, I opened the door and got blasted with excessive cold air. The thermostat was out, but at least everything inside looked fresh.

“How did they even get access to all of this magic?” I asked as I yanked out the pound of beef strips and mince from the middle shelf, along with a bunch of useless vegetables, which I’d only use to bulk up the dish. Thankfully, there were at least a few potatoes, which made the green, purple, and orange produce look positively pathetic in comparison. When did purple carrots even become a thing? Their very existence was wrong. Along with orange ones.

When I mentioned as such to Slade, he almost cracked a smile. “Purple carrots are actually the heritage varieties, around a long time before the more modern orange.”

That made me dislike them even more. “So… what you’re saying is they’re the ones that started this nonsense with vegetables?”

With a shake of his head, Slade ignored my vendetta against vegetables and answered my question from before. “I’m not sure what connection they have to the magical community. My research didn’t indicate that these alphas were particularly exceptional in either the financial or dominance worlds.” He huffed, and I glanced over my shoulder to find him slamming his shoulder against the door. I paused my gathering of ingredients to observe him closer. “I’m searching for a weak point,” he explained, and I almost heard him over the sound of my ovaries weeping. In my fertile time, with my period approaching, and this god of a shifter smashing down walls, I was in a world of trouble. “There’ll be one somewhere, which is our best chance for a quick escape.”

Right, right . “Hope you find it soon,” I lied.

With a shake of my head, I left Slade to his work and started to open all the cupboards to find a large enough pot for the food. I also lucked out with a bag of rice and spices, and hoped I could pull it all together.

The cooktop was as ancient as everything else in the kitchen. The electric element took fifteen minutes to even start heating, by which point Slade had left the room.

I heard him banging on walls, and tried not to think about his muscled arms as he hoisted the house about. I focused on making this the best meal that I could. Frying up the vegetables in oil, I added salt and seasonings, before browning the meat. I finished with water and extra seasonings, letting it all simmer for a while. In another pot, I cooked rice to add to the dish.

I’d learned how to cook through my years in diners and restaurants, but this meal was all winging it and hoping for the best . The aim here was to create as much of a meal as possible, to keep Slade fueled up. As nice as it was to see him go all alpha and beat up the walls, I really did want us out of here before the Rogers pack returned.

After twenty minutes the kitchen smelled delicious, and I lifted the lid to inhale the fragrant aroma. There were only a couple of dusty spoons in a drawer, which I rinsed to have my first taste.

A burst of beef hit my tongue, rich and hearty, with only a slight undercurrent of vegetables. The potatoes hadn’t broken down yet, but they would eventually, thickening the liquid. It wasn’t the best concoction I’d ever tasted but it would do. We couldn’t exactly be picky under the circumstances, and I was never going to come close to the quality of Gerald’s cooking.

Placing the lid back on to give it a little more time to simmer away, I wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room. Slade was in the corner, using an iron fire poker to jab at the edge of an old bay window. Like the fridge, the paint on the sill and walls would have been white a long time ago, but was now yellowing with flakes of paint fluttering to the dusty wood floors with each jab from the poker.

“Found the weak spot,” Slade said as I shuffled closer. “The spell doesn’t wrap around quite as neatly here, and I should have this wide enough for us to leave in approximately twelve to eighteen hours. With four hours of sleep factored in.”

I reached out toward the wall, but when he growled, I halted, my hand hovering a few inches from it. “Don’t touch the perimeter. It’s live with magic and will zap your cuffs again. I don’t have time to care for you while unconscious.”

“Shit, sorry. I should have expected that.” My brain had been offline since I’d woken up to find Blaine Rogers standing over me. As heat filled my cheeks, I quickly changed the subject. “The food should be ready in about ten minutes. Do you want me to feed you while you continue to work?”

Slade’s head jerked up, and I found myself locked in the laser focus of his piercing gaze. “Feed me?” He rumbled it with so much confusion, as if I’d spoken in a foreign language and he was attempting to translate the meaning.

“Yep,” I nodded, barely hiding my grin. “It usually happens with babies, but you don’t have to worry, I won’t make any airplane noises as I spoon the food in. Unless you want me to, of course.”

He blinked a few times before he shook his head. “I’m capable of fighting the energy and eating at the same time. Just leave the bowl close by.”

Goddess, this guy needed to relax before he gave himself a stress induced heart attack. “Right on it, sir.”

I snapped to attention with an exaggerated salute, and Slade narrowed his eyes, but I hurried away before he could tear me a new asshole. Thankfully his strict timeline for pummeling a hole in the magical wall had him mostly occupied.

Back in the kitchen, I turned off the element but left the lid on the dishes to steam through for a few more minutes. I found a mixing bowl large enough for Slade’s portion and spooned in the rice first, then added a huge portion of the stew, focusing mostly on the meat.

When I returned to the living room, I was pleased to see long beams of light peeking through the gap he’d made beside the window, and while we were a long way from fitting through, it was progress.

“Here’s your food,” I said as I moved closer.

For the first time ever, I noticed a light sheen of sweat on Slade’s forehead, face and neck, mingling with the remnants of the blood from the neck cuff. His scent was stronger as well, and I wasn’t impressed when the lower half of my body started waking up and fluttering about.

Not the time, vagina . It was really not the time.

“Thank you,” he huffed, jerking me out of my horny daze. He indicated with a nod that I should place the bowl near the window. “That shelf will work for me.”

Gently setting the steaming meal down, I rested the spoon against the side. “Where’s yours?” he asked as his frown deepened. “If that’s all the food you made, you will eat your portion first.”

“I ate not long ago,” I reminded him, “and you’re the one tunneling us out of here with a fucking teaspoon. You need the sustenance. I’ll be fine.”

I was heading back to the kitchen to fetch him a glass of water when his rumble had me tripping over my own feet. How in the fuck did he do that? It wasn’t even dominance… it was something else. “You will eat with me, Emmeline. Now.”

Drawing in the deepest breath I could manage while my body was all but locked down by this controlling lizard, I said with faked calm, “I’m not hungry, Slade. I don’t need to eat.”

“Lies,” he replied with a bite. “Don’t ever lie to me, Snow. I can hear your stomach and sense your need. You will eat before I touch the dish.”

These freakin’ alphas and their controlling tendencies.

“Fine,” I sighed, deciding we didn’t have the time or energy for this fight. At my compliance, he released me from whatever hold he’d had over me with his growl, and I grumbled all the way into the kitchen.

Grumbled and glowed, my body invigorated in a way that I only felt around my pack. The care of these alphas brought parts of me long suppressed to life.

Fire and need, anger and hope, desire and despair. A plethora of contradictory emotions swirled within me, and I’d never felt so alive.