Page 131 of Change

“Where are you going?” The shorter man pressed his palm against my hip, turning me to my back.

I glared at him—the ire of having been bested by a couple of weaklings beginning to get to me. The lankier one hadn’t even fully shifted yet. What kind of incompetent shifter/onmyoji mobster operation were these people running?

“Oh!” My captor climbed on top of me, his knees pressing into my thighs. “She’s still got some life left to her.”

The second man didn’t respond but was already almost entirely in his wolf form now. He was gray and white, with a droopy, unfocused manner as he stumbled sideways on shaky legs.

I couldn’t focus on him for long though, the unchanged shifter leaned over me, pressing his palm between my breasts. He wasn’t even trying to keep his weight off mine, and the added pressure was making it even more difficult to breathe.

“Use your knee!” Maria was shouting in the distance. “Kick him in the balls!”

“No!” Ada argued. “Use your thumbs to gouge out his eyes.”

Such uncultured ruthlessness—but they weren’t wrong, not for this situation. However, neither one of those suggestions would work for me. My legs were entirely trapped, and—at Ada’s shout—the man quickly grasped my wrists, pulling them up over my head in a painful grip.

And even though my position was precarious, it wasn’t until he’d lowered his face closer to mine that the true terror of my situation began to sink in.

No…

His nose pressed into the junction between my ear and neck, and I could hear his sharp inhale and following sigh.

I could feel the gray wolf’s nose pressing against my fingers, the cold damp retreating for an instant before the telltale wetness of a rough tongue touched my fingers. However, he didn’t bite me—not yet. On my fingers, no less. How was that any way to eat a prey? These idiots spoke about nature, but clearly never watched a National Geographic documentary in their lives.

But, before he could attack myfingers, the still-human shifter pulled back, bracing his weight on his knees and hands as his leer travelled my face.

“Wait,” he said, stopping his companion. “Maybe we should play with this one first.”

There was no need for further clarification, I’d lived through this many times before. Of course, no one had ever been allowed to kill me, but that didn’t mean I was ignorant to how it worked.

My breath stuck in my throat as my blood froze.

Not again.

A scream lodged in my throat. I was struck silent still. I pushed against him, but he remained unmoved, unphased, and his fingers moved roughly over the exposed skin of my thigh. I couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t solely from the unforgiving pressure of him over me.

“I can’t wait to taste this one,” he was saying to his friend. His breath brushed over my face as his large, calloused hand moved to cover my mouth. Although, why, I had no idea—they still believed I couldn’t speak.

That wasn’t entirely a lie either. But either way, it was possibly more for show than anything else, and the movement made the pressure against me almost suffocating.

The cold floor held a dampness that, somehow, made the situation so much worse. I began to go numb as my vision blacked again.

Mr. Richards had us locked down here for days this time. Nessa said something at school, and our house was being watched.

Mr. Richards got really angry when that happened—he said it cost a lot of money. But this was worse than usual.

Of course, Nessa got in trouble, and we’d had to watch—even Ciara, her sister. Just to make sure that no one else would do the same thing.

I’d never seen Mr. Richards so angry, and I didn’t know why. I just knew it was about me. My name had come up more than once, but Nessa refused to tell him what she’d said. She cursed like an adult, even though she was only a teenager, and even fought back.

She was so brave. I wished I could be like her.

But, eventually, her yells started to fade, and her skin was no longer pink and glowing. Her long, shiny black hair dripped with blood.

“Stop looking.” And that was the most I could make out before Ciara covered my eyes, smooshing my face against her chest. Her heart was beating so fast, and her arms shook as she squeezed them around my face, keeping me from seeing the rest. “It’ll be fine. Do you understand? You’ll be fine.”

She’d done this—said this—so many times now that I’d lost count. But when would she be right?

Her whispered statements still couldn’t block out Mr. Richard’s next words. I didn’t even have to look to know that he was wiping his hands on a red-stained towel, as he always did, when he sighed. “She’s useless now, take her to Butcher.”