Page 5 of Ensnaring Their Rabbit (Heat, Prey, Love #7)

CHAPTER 5

RIVEN

The gorilla lay limp on the ground. It wasn’t dead. Even with the beginnings of a rut coursing through Reeve and I, we weren’t strong enough to kill him, but he was incapacitated, and that was enough. It had to be. We had to get our mate back to our cell, where he would at least be somewhat safe. Then we had to claim him.

My wolf didn’t think bringing him to the cell was necessary. He thought just the bite on his neck would be enough. Maybe under normal circumstances with normal alphas it would be, but not here. The bite would mean nothing. The lure of Mate’s scent and the slick dripping down his naked pale thighs were way more inticing to these fuckers. At least in our cell we had some control. We could make sure he was as safe as possible while being locked on our knots.

I turned away from the gorilla to go find my mate when an excruciating–and very human–scream stopped me in my tracks. Mate.

Snarling, I took off. Reeve, still in his man form, ran after me, ready for anything.

Mate was on the ground, hunched over in pain. His body was shaking uncontrollably, little twitches I was familiar with. Behind him stood one of the guards, Erikson, the remote that controlled our fucking collars in his hand and an evil grin on his face.

I saw red. How dare he hurt our mate. How dare they collar him and humiliate him the way they love to humiliate us. I didn’t even realize I was growling until Reeve came close to me and squeezed my nape in warning. I couldn’t stop it completely, but I managed to tone it down some. I didn’t want to frighten Mate.

Erikson’s eyes flashed toward us, clearly surprised to see my brother in his man form.

“What the fuck, Balthazar?” He seethed, calling Reeve by our last name, “How the fuck did you shift?” His finger was on that fucking button again, and we both started to growl. I didn’t know if he was going for Reeve’s collar or Mate’s, but either way he’d lose a fucking hand if he tried.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” my brother snapped, taking a step forward.

Erikson laughed. “You don’t have the power here, inmate. I could do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Except, you’re not supposed to be here now, are you? The warning bell hasn’t gone off. And no one else has shifted back. Does the warden know you snuck past the walls so you can, what? Try to get the omega for yourself? I wonder what he’d think about that?”

Erikson’s expression turned deadly. “You even try to tell him and you’ll find yourself in solitary for a fucking month, inmate.”

My brother shrugged. “You’ll be dead. We both know that. If not us, any of these assholes will be happy to get their hands on you. So who’s gonna reinforce that threat?”

Erikson took a step toward my brother, this time with the baton. I wondered why he wasn’t using the remote to activate the collar? Our mate moaned then, and my attention fully went to him. Reeve could take care of himself. I used Erikson’s distraction to get closer to Mate.

I whined, hating to see him in pain. He forced his head up and met my wolf’s eyes, his gray ones hazy with pain and his heat. It physically hurt seeing him like this, and my wolf was screaming at me to fix it. I didn’t know what to do, so I gave into my wolf and licked his face.

Mate laughed weakly even as he wrinkled his nose, causing my wolf to preen. We made Mate happy.

“Alpha,” he half whined, half laughed. I licked him again.

A raised voice had my head snapping in that direction as I stood protectively over Mate. Reeve had Erikson pinned to the ground, his claws out and pressed against his neck. That goddessforsaken remote had skidded across the floor and was no where near the fucker so he couldn’t use it against us anymore.

He was trying to plead with my brother, threaten him with solitary and longer jail time, but there was one time when the normal rules didn’t apply and that was during the hunts. What happened in the hunts stayed in the hunt. There were no consequences for anything that happened. No questions asked. They cleaned up the aftermath, and we all went back to our miserable existence until next time. Yeah, that didn’t apply to the guards usually, but that’s only because they weren’t allowed in here. They were supposed to be protected behind those steel walls. Erikson was the one breaking the rules, not us.

Reeve laughed cruelly and dug his claws into Erikson’s neck, ending his life quicker than he deserved in my opinion, since he was the one of the skeeviest of the fuckers who kept us here.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Mate whispered, his tiny hand curling into my fur. He still reeked of fear, but both my wolf and I were happy he was clinging to us. Even in his confusion and terror there was a part of him that knew we were safe.

I wished I could talk to him, comfort him, but I wasn’t as alpha as Reeve was, and try as I might I couldn’t fight the shift to turn back early like he did. So I did the only thing I could think of and licked him again.

Thankfully Reeve didn’t take long. He was never one to play with his food, especially when he had something much more important waiting for him. He wiped his claws on his leg and retracted them before walking back to us and crouching in front of Mate.

He cupped his cheek with the hand that just killed Erikson, but Mate didn’t shy away. “Will you come with us, Mate? We will protect you and ease your pain.”

Mate didn’t hesitate. He just nodded and leaned into Reeve’s touch. “Yes, please.” With a satisfied smile, Reeve scooped our mate into his arms, this time in a bridal carry and walked back to our cell, me next to him, ready to defend our mate in any way I had to.

Luckily, the hunt was dying down, and we met very little resistance. The other inmates that were still around were coming down from the feral rush of the shift and knew they were no match for Reeve and me. They all backed up and conceded that they lost. The ones who wouldn’t give up as easily must’ve been still fighting…or dead. Either way, we made it back to our cell without any challenge. Reeve placed our Mate on the bottom bunk as I stationed myself by the open cell door, ready for anything. Soon the hunt would be over, and the collars reactivated and our cell doors locked, and it would be just the three of us. At least for a little while.