Page 33 of Alphas Never Hide (Willow Lake Supernaturals #5)

Chapter Thirty-Three

RYLEY

“ Throw him in there,” Robbie yelled, betraying his sense of urgency.

Damn it. I hadn’t escaped yet. Apparently , my magic wasn’t much good at kicking ass.

I couldn’t see anything, but I had a pretty good idea of what was happening as the smell of exhaust permeated the thin fabric covering my head. They’d carried me all the way to the road and now we’d arrived at a vehicle of some kind.

“ Gently !” I shouted even louder.

The guy was not gentle.

I grunted as my captor dropped me onto what felt like the bed of a pickup truck. Yeah . That was going to bruise. It hadn’t been that long since I’d stowed away in Hayden’s truck like this, so the experience was jarringly familiar.

“ Keep moving,” Robbie said, pinching my thigh to get me rolling further onto the truck bed .

I moved away from his hand, slithering and rolling along the hard metal ridges, until I was out of his reach. The truck jostled a little as someone else climbed on after me. The tailgate slammed shut, followed by the doors on the cab of the truck. Then we were moving.

“ Conny ? You back here?”

“ Yeah .”

“ Can you get this foul bag off my head?”

“ Yeah . Hold on. They tied the bag’s handles or whatever they’re called behind your head.” A moment later, the bag was gone.

“ Thanks ,” I muttered as I peered around. Was this the same truck they’d used when they abducted me the first time? At least this time I was conscious and, even better, I knew people were coming to help me.

The truck had one of those camper shell things over the bed, so that’d make it a little more challenging. I couldn’t fling myself over the side and into the ditch. But the only ones back here were Conny and me. I didn’t know what had happened to his flute, but I didn’t see it on him.

“ Well , this sucks,” I said.

I cast my gaze to the road behind us, hoping Hayden would suddenly appear, but the only thing that stirred was a flash of black against the yellow leaves on the aspen and larch trees. Was that a regular bird or a shifter? I couldn’t tell. I hoped it was a shifter, specifically someone from Willow Lake .

“ They made a big mistake,” I said as I struggled to sit up. My hands were still secured with zip ties, and the truck was weaving erratically, which wasn’t helping my efforts. “ Hayden will come for me. ”

Conny reached for me, presumably to help me sit, but I cringed away from him. He winced at my reaction and pulled his hand back. I still hadn’t figured out what was going on with him yet. I needed him to explain things before I accepted any more of his help. Once I was finally upright, I broke the zip tie and freed my hands. That was better.

I crawled to the back and tried the handle. It twisted. Yes !

“ No !” Conny was on me, pulling my hand away.

The truck whipped around another curve, and we jolted apart. Robbie had put on a brave face, but he wasn’t wasting time making his escape. He knew Hayden and the others would be in pursuit. I hoped he pissed his pants when he saw the army Hayden would bring.

“ Please , Ry ,” Conny said. He was too thin, too pale, and looked years older than he should have for his age. He looked so vulnerable as he met my gaze. “ Don’t try to escape.”

“ What’s the matter with you, Conny ? You better get talking.”

All I got was another loud sigh for an answer. Conny leaned against the tailgate.

“ Why would you help that blue-balled dick sock?”

Conny shook his head, and a small almost-smile twitched over his lips. “ I’d forgotten about the weird way you swear.”

He wasn’t the first to comment on that. But single syllable curse words, which so many of them were, had always felt inadequate to me, like they couldn’t convey the depth of my ire .

“ Yeah , well, I’ll be swearing a lot more, so buckle up.”

“ I didn’t know it was going to be you,” Conny said.

“ Would it have been acceptable if it was someone else?”

“ No .” Conny rubbed his hands over his face.

“ Why are you here, Conny ? Mother and The Ass Pimple would never have let you leave the herd. You’re too young.” Conny’s father, also known as The Ass Pimple , was the guy who swept in to supposedly save my mother from making another mistake after my father died. Like getting involved with my father, a human, had been some terrible traitorous error on her part. TAP had timed it perfectly. She’d been grieving and vulnerable and ended up believing all the elitist bullshit lies the old-school fauns spread in the herd. They’d married shockingly fast, and Conny , their only child, had come along shortly after. Given how rare supe children were, everyone in the herd had seen that as a sign of the Eternal Magic endorsing their fauns-belong-with-fauns approach to life. It didn’t matter that I’d only been born a little more than a decade earlier and no one had celebrated my existence.

“ Fuck you,” Conny muttered. “ And quit calling me Conny . You know I hate it.”

“ No , you don’t,” I said. I glanced toward the cab of the truck. No one was paying attention to us, although it wouldn’t matter if they were. I needed information. “ Talk to me.”

He heaved out a deep sigh. “ I had to leave.”

“ Leave what? The herd? Why ?”

His gaze flicked to mine before he looked away. “ I met a girl. ”

That wasn’t what I expected him to say.

“ She’s human.” He swallowed. “ And she’s pregnant.”

“ With your?—”

“ Yes , with my baby.” He frowned at me. “ You sound like Mom .”

That was a sobering and disturbing thought. “ It was just a question.”

“ Yeah , well, it was a shitty one,” he said. “ I knew we couldn’t stay with the herd. They treated Gretchen like she was a phase I’d grow out of, but we’re fated. I know we are. When we found out she was pregnant, I knew we couldn’t stay.” He shuddered. “ I remember how they treated you. There was no way I’d bring up a kid in a herd like that and she agreed. So , we left. I thought I’d look you up, see if you’d let us crash at your place for a bit. Gretchen is super smart and has all these plans. She’s already got a master’s degree and everything. We thought I could be a stay-at-home dad while she pursued her career.”

“ What happened? How did you end up here?” I thought I knew where this was going, but I asked anyway.

“ We stopped at a motel one night.” He wiped his eyes. “ I don’t know how they knew I was a supe, but they did. They said if I went with them, they wouldn’t hurt her. She was just starting to show, and they held a gun to her belly. I didn’t know what to do.” He shook his head. He let out a shuddering sob. “ I haven’t seen her since… Since that day.”

“ I’m sorry, Conny . Truly .”

“ She’ll be getting close to delivery now.” The if she is still alive remained unspoken. Conny’s voice broke as he covered his face with his hands .

I suspected she would be. Based on what I knew of Robbie , I was certain he’d think having a baby supe to sell would be a good money-making scheme. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d wanted to hurt Robbie before, but now I wanted to kill him.

“ He said,” Conny continued, “that if I did as he said, she and the baby would be safe.”

I hoped the liar hadn’t lied. For everyone’s sake.

“ We’re going to get out of here,” I said.

When Conny opened his mouth to protest, I held up my hand to stop him.

“ We will find Gretchen . My mate and friends—” it’d only been a few days, but yes, those peculiar Willow Lakers were my friends, “—they’ll help us. I can guarantee they’re looking for me right now.”

“ I wondered if you’d found someone.” He eyed the lock of hair that marked me as being mated. His mouth twitched a little, like he wanted to smile, but the impulse died under his worry. Conny slumped. “ But they won’t find us. I’ve been out here for months, and they haven’t found us yet. Rob likes to drag me through the woods with him and have me hide him in the forest while he watches people hunt for him. There is this one guy. Rob laughs every time he sees him.”

Yeah . I had a pretty good idea who that one guy was.

“ It’ll be different this time,” I promised. I hoped I was right.