Page 1 of For Cowgirls and Kings (The Trauma Bonded #2)

ADALENE

If I get out of this alive I plan to fuck whoever the hell I feel like. As often as I feel like. Whenever and wherever I feel like.

Because life is too fucking short to not do what you want. And I hate that I’ve spent the first twenty-eight years on this planet pleasing everyone but myself.

A door opens behind me, the hands wrapped around my arms biting deeper into my flesh in an effort to keep me from toppling over. I squirm in their hold, the hood over my eyes shifting as I flail my head around.

“Stop yer fuckin’ movin’ bitch,” one of them hisses.

I begin writhing again, screaming around the gag pulled between my lips even though only a muffled moan escapes. I refuse to go down easy.

A fist lands against the soft flesh of my stomach and I instantly freeze as pain blooms through me like bolts of lightning. I groan again, tears leaking down my cheeks as I try to breathe through the pain.

“Grab ‘er feet an’ let’s get ‘er tied up,” a different one mumbles. In the next moment my feet are bound together by someone’s arms, and they tip me on my back, carrying me down what feels like a flight of stairs. As we lower, the temperature plummets, the smell of dust and mold filling my nose.

I focus on the voices around me, the smells clogging my senses, the chill settling like a second skin over my bones. Dread builds in the pit of my stomach, and I all but gag at the weight of it.

What’s happening? Why’re they doing this?

I’m righted once more, only to feel something hard hit the backs of my legs a second before I’m forced to sit with two enormous hands on my shoulders.

I slump into the chair, fighting for oxygen through the hood and my mounting terror.

There’s little light filtering through the fabric, and I move my hand to yank it off.

“Tie ‘er up damn it!” A hand yanks my hand behind my back before I have a chance, grabbing the other and anchoring them together with an abrasive rope that threatens to instantly cut away my tender flesh.

I have to escape.

Before I can gather myself further, the hood’s yanked away, and I’m met with three sets of similar, yet starkly different gazes—each one more terrifying than the next.

Terror wells inside of me, beating like a second heart in my throat as I note none of them are making an effort to obscure themselves. They’re going to kill me.

No damsel ever escapes alive once she’s seen her kidnappers, and I’m able to catalog each of their features as if I was in an interrogation room, describing them in perfect detail. I have to escape, and soon.

One of them leans forward, ripping the cloth from my mouth and I suck in a deep breath, the bitter chill of the basement filling my lungs. My eyes dance from one man to the next, and I shiver as theirs seem to follow me just as closely.

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, my voice hoarse as I fight for composure.

“Will you shut that fuckin’ trap of yours?

” the first man, taller and thinner than the other two, with deeply bronzed skin littered in inky-misshapen tattoos spider webbing as far up as the cut of his angular jaw, barks.

He runs an enormous hand through his cropped, jet black hair, before dropping it and shaking his head.

I cower at the sight of them, wraiths in the light, causing the ropes to bite into the flesh of my wrists.

His eyes bore down at me, full of hatred so vile I cringe.

Maybe I can kill them with kindness? I’ve spent my whole life pleasing everyone else, I can do it a few more days if it means getting out of here. But what do guys like this want?

The thought instantly makes my throat dry and I fold tighter into myself.

No fucking way.

“I’m sorry,” I squeak, hoping that politeness will at least make me less of an annoyance to them. “I’m just not sure why I’m here.”

“You think ‘nyone knows why they’re kidnapped?” The second one, middle in height, but the most muscular, with black hair hanging below his shoulders, steps toward me.

His eyes, nearly yellow in color like a snake’s, narrow, and I bite down on my tongue to keep from releasing another scream crawling up my throat.

“Javier, now, now. Can’t ya see yer scarin’ the poor girl.

” The shortest of them all grabs Javier’s shoulder, pulling him backwards a step.

He flashes me a reassuring smile, his dark eyes soft around the corners as if trying to comfort me.

But I’m no fool, and can tell that even if he’s the smallest and most unassuming, he’s the most dangerous.

Maybe not physically, but mentally. And death clings to him like a blanket, wrapping him in a dark light that you’d be blind not to notice. Like he lives for death, revels in it.

I’m so fucked.

“Marco, yer one ta’ talk.” Javier and Marco—now if I can figure out the first one’s name… I flick my gaze to the tallest one, his arms crossed where he’s silently watching from the stairs.

“Rafael, I think she’s takin’ notes on us. See ‘er eyes, markin’ ya? And now she knows yer name, mine too. Clever little princessa, what’re you gonna do?”

Fuck.

I bite my lip hard enough it stings, but keep my mouth closed. They all stare at me, their heads tipping slightly to one side, and then as if on an invisible string, tip the other. A shiver races down my spine. Brothers, if I have to guess.

And deadly one’s at that.

Rafael snorts, his height so much that he has to bend to fit in the small basement, and takes a step forward.

In his nearness, I can see green eyes, squinting, as if cataloging each of my features, and thin lips covered in a thin dark mustache, pulled into a deep scowl— as if displeased by what he finds.

I lean away, my heart damn-near bursting in my chest. It’s a miracle I haven’t started crying yet, but my eyes feel achy and dry—I’ve been too terrified to even blink. “Princessa, yeah, that does seem to suit you, though you look more like a mouse than a dragon like the other one.”

What the fuck is he talking about? Dragon, mouse? “Please, what do you want with me?” I’m not above begging.

Marco tsks, his eyes narrowing in a look of disgust or disappointment or a mix of the two.

“Now we’ve seen the teeth of the other, don’t play shy with us.

Y’all think yer better than us”—he points to himself, and then his brothers—“but yer not. Ya might not be one of them by blood but I know yer one of them just the same. He watches ya, he tries to protect ya…”

“Piss poor job he did, too.” Rafael scowls before stepping back again.

“Still, the mouse act won’t get ya out of this. Only blood will. Only the death of the bitch or the brother will be sufficient enough payment for ya. And I know he’ll come for ya.”

Javier laughs, the sound so vile I fight the urge to throw up, bile readily in my throat. I don’t know where to look, but land on Marco’s face once more, ice settling over my bones, at the hatred I find there.

This man, who thinks he knows me, or thinks I’m someone I’m not, is going to make sure I’m never the same.

He plans to ruin me.

“Please, I really don’t know what or who you’re talking about. I promise if you let me go, I won’t say anything. I haven’t done anything. You have the wrong girl.” At the last part, my voice cracks, unable to contain my panic any longer. Tears start pouring from my eyes, like a burst damn.

Marco takes another step toward me, and then another, and a scream finally breaks loose.

My heart fights for every beat as terror clamps down on my throat.

And then his hand does the same, his fingers wrapping around my jugular.

He begins to squeeze, and I thrash my head, my arms, my restrained legs, anything to get his icy hands from my body.

“Na Princessa. Yer exactly the girl that’ll break him, bring him to his knees.” He leans closer and tears burn wildly from my eyes, blurring my vision. “Yer the one thing that he’ll willingly spill his own blood for. And yer gonna fuckin’ watch.”

“How ‘bout we have some fun with ‘er while we wait for ‘im to show up Marco?” Javier asks.

I sob, my heart shattering for the girl I once was. For the girl I never had the chance to be. I have no idea who they think I am, but no one’s coming for me. And once they get bored “playing” with me, they’ll kill me.

The sad truth is, I’ve struggled with the will to live before.

When you’re no one—no identity, purpose, or passions—you have nothing to keep you going.

I’ve always been a shadow, a shell of a human fit to mold over whoever I’m with, or whatever I’m doing.

For the first time, I feel stripped away, layer by layer, as I grapple with not only how to survive but why to survive.

Underneath it all, what will I find? What if I find nothing?

Will there even be enough of me left, to continue living?

“Come on boys, let’s see if we can make Princessa here cheer up.”