Page 20 of Heartless Wolf (Wolf Moon Rejected #1)
CHAPTER 20 - LIV
Trigger warning: secondary character restrains main character.
I didn’t see Dash again, and the distance between us drove my shewolf insane. I busied myself counting all the thread lines on the blanket, because, well, nothing better to do.
The coward sent Steele to deliver dinner sometime after dusk. A thankless task since I was angry at both of them.
Masterfully, Dash’s right-hand man slid the tray through the cell’s gaps, clunking on the metal a few times, but managing to avoid burning himself or spilling the contents. Frozen pizza. Exhausted from being this close to the iron, I slid off the bed and crawled along the cold concrete, gingerly taking the offering. Soggy crust from microwaving the thing. TJ would have made me starve for arguing with him. Stomach grumbling, I spirited the tray to the bed, grateful for the food I tucked into.
Steele stood guard for a few moments, ensuring I ate, arousing my suspicions. I maintained my mask of calm, munching away, sniffing at the slice of food, detecting a slight flowery smell. Brackenwood—a relaxant and sedative we used at the shelter to calm traumatized shifters. Dash tried to sedate me into compliance, wait out the month until my wedding, all the while unleashing his mad plan to eliminate our mutual enemy.
I set the plate down beside me and clicked my tongue. “Spiking my food.” I played dumb on the type. “Poison? Sleeping potion?” My throat cracked with each word, hoarse and raspy, thanks to the iron. “Something to ease the dull ache from the iron?”
Steele tugged at his hair. “Just eat. We’re not trying to kill you.”
I stretched back onto the pillow. “Not hungry.”
Steele cursed under his breath. “Dash will kill me if you don’t eat.”
“So will my sister.” I winked at him.
Anguish stole his breath, making me feel bad for being a bitch. Guilt overrode itself after a second.
Yeah, this rugged mountain man was definitely not my sister’s type. Silent, beard, long, wild hair, a bit of a grump. Nice to look at, though.
Arguing upstairs pricked my ears, and I focused my shifter hearing on the dispute. Dash and his father. The Umbra could get me out of here and back to my pack. I just had to make enough noise for Ash to hear me.
“Help!” I bleated a pitiful cry. All I could manage with a hoarse throat and no energy from the iron force field.
“Fuck.” Steele fished out his key. “Make a sound, and I will cover your mouth.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” I spat, daring him to try.
Metal punched the lock, and he twisted the key. I stumbled off the bed, forcing myself to confront him with a dick punch.
Ash Lumbry’s snarl evaporated the rest of my scream. “You were not instructed to interfere! You barreled down there like a savior, got stuck into TJ again and flared the situation again.”
Heather must have relayed the story to Father. I didn’t take Steele for a snitch. Men like him took secrets to their graves.
The mountain of a shifter yanked the door open, ignoring the steam hissing off his palm and fingers.
“I protect what’s mine!” Dash thundered back at his father, telling me they often got into verbal spars.
“Please, help!” I croaked a little louder, but not loud enough over the racket upstairs.
Steele plowed into my cell with all the grace of a bear. Frail and drained, I didn’t stand a chance of taking him down like this. Bastard easily overpowered me, forcing me onto the bed.
“Get off me!” I kicked without purchase and raked my nails along his denim, willing my claws to sprout. Except they didn’t.
Massive hands slammed over my mouth. “Quiet or you’ll get us all killed.”
I bit down into his flesh. Blood trickled over my tongue and my wolf lapped at it.
“Fuck, woman,” Steele hissed, holding on and not letting go. “You bite like a pup!”
A merciful bite. If he didn’t let go soon, I’d crush his bone to dust.
“Your wolf has always been wild and untamed.” Knots of anger formed on my Lunar bond as Ash Lumbry went on. “You don’t follow orders. God help the men you lead in this... club .” Venom dripped off the last word.
“I lead this club just fine.” Heat torched our connection. On the inside, Dash burned out of control. On the outside, he held his ground.
The knot on our link buried into my chest and tangled behind my ribs. The club was a source of ongoing conflict for them, and by the sound of it, not easily resolved.
“Where is she, son? I know you had something to do with it,” Ash demanded. “Return her to her father and I will not punish you. Then we can establish a new plan of attack.”
I used up the last of my energy, wriggling futilely beneath Steele.
“Sorry, Father. She’s not here.” Dash’s turmoil collared my throat. He and his father never saw eye to eye. The flood of frustration and failure threatened to split me open. “She slid off my bike at an intersection and took my spare helmet with her. I don’t know where she went. She got away before I had the chance to park my bike and go after her.”
The bond conveyed a muted version of Dash’s exhaustion at constantly failing to prove himself to his father, a mirror to my own helpless ploy to win my freedom.
“If I find out you’re hiding her, I will destroy this operation and demote you as my heir.” I felt every stab at Dash’s chest in my own.
“Do what you have to, Father.” The jagged edge to Dash’s voice stabbed me deeper and I slumped against Steele’s arm.
Ash Lumbry left in a storm of growls that left Dash broken and aching, and me swept away in his storm of pain.
Steele waited for the faint sounds of a vehicle tearing out of the driveway to release me and climb off me. Weary from my fight, I gasped for air, and clawed to my hands and knees. I wiped blood from my mouth with the back of my hand while he locked me up.
Dash came down to the cell, face worn and lined, our bond shredded.
“Don’t ask me to do that again!” Steele thundered, thumping Dash’s black vest, staining it red with blood. The heaving bear charged past him up the stairs.
Allies burned to ash in Dash’s camp. Soon, he’d burn every single one and be alone. Just like me.
I threw my legs off the bed. “Dash?”
“Don’t look so smug, Liv!” His Alpha bark exploded like gunpowder.
If he searched our link, he’d find empathy over a confrontation like that. Replicas of the blows my father and I came to over my arranged marriage. Undeserved for the way Dash treated me. But hell, I was a sucker for saving damaged shifters.
“Are you all right?” I knew he wasn’t by the emotions going off between us.
Fierce, grey eyes landed on me. Walls erected behind them to hide his defeat. “You stayed quiet. Why?”
Dash liked to change the subject. A. Lot. Deflection that Heather’s patients used when therapy poked at the wound they weren’t ready to address.
I shrugged. “It hurt to hear that.” To share his pain.
He gave me a brittle smile. “You’re a loyal woman, Liv. That never changed.” His nostrils flared and his gaze dropped to the crimson smear on his jacket. “Get my VP good, did you?”
My tongue flicked the smeared blood on my mouth, savoring the taste. “Brute manhandled a vulnerable female.”
“I’d rearrange his teeth for that if I didn’t need his loyalty right now.”
I flashed teeth. “I’ll do it again for my sister when I get out of here.”
He started for the stairs, gripping the banister tight. “Don’t, Liv. It’s not that he doesn’t care for your sister. He has baggage. The kind that buries him. It’s not my place to speak of it.”
His foot took the first and second step, telling me the conversation was over.
“Goodnight,” I muttered.
Trust Dash to leave me hanging on a cliffhanger. “Oh, I’m not leaving, Mooncrack .” The way he purred the last word ignited a log fire in my belly.
Mooncrack? I racked my brain for the meaning. Then it dawned on me that it was some sort of crude nickname. I didn’t get the chance to question his meaning when he disappeared through the wall panel.
The room coated in silence, and I wondered what he intended when he returned. Compelling me to finish eating my sedative-laced food? My gut shrank. Cloaked by iron, I was venerable enough to his Alpha compulsion. No, I was being silly. The flirty way he purred at me said he had something else in mind. The punishment he promised for my mouth?