Page 32 of Midnight Hunt (Wolves of Midnight #4)

31

VIOLET

I lost track of time. I didn’t even know what day it was.

Without access to a window, I had no idea if it was morning or night.

As the hours ticked by, I grew weaker and weaker from the silver, but also from my lingering heat and empty stomach. At one point, I couldn’t hold my bladder anymore and wet myself. Sleep came in fits and starts, but I mostly stared up at the ceiling with silent tears tracking down my face as I tried over and over to shift.

After hours of trying, though, I was finally forced to admit defeat. The dose of silver Ivan had given me had effectively weakened my supernatural abilities, including my ability to shift at will. Sable was currently curled up inside me, comforting me as best she could. At least I could still speak to her, which made me feel less alone.

Despite the awful situation, there was no way in hell I would submit to these bastards. If they wanted to claim and breed me, they’d have to do it by force. I shivered at the thought, then quickly focused on something else. Griff immediately came to mind, and I allowed myself to replay the beautiful moments we’d shared just before I’d been kidnapped. Fresh tears leaked from my eyes and into my hair, but I held on to those memories for dear life, letting them carry me away from this nightmare.

I was starting to drift off again, utterly exhausted from the pain I was in, when a sound at the door jerked me fully awake. Expecting Ivan or his prick alpha to enter, I was shocked to see a slim female with medium brown skin and a pixie haircut slip into my room.

“Desirae?” I said, certain the pain was making me hallucinate her.

She was wearing a white tunic-style outfit and looked unharmed. But it was hard to see in the room’s dim lighting, especially now that my abilities had been impaired. As she came closer, though, I spotted something around her neck. It was metal and looked like a . . .

My throat closed.

A collar. She was wearing a collar .

“Desirae, what’s happening?” I pressed as she approached me with her face downcast.

“I’m sorry, Vi,” she whispered, flicking me an apologetic look before focusing on the floor again. “I’m not allowed to answer your questions.”

What the hell?

I lifted my head as she came nearer, finally noticing what she held in her hands. “Desirae, no,” I said and started to fight against my restraints again. “Whatever that is, keep it away from me.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, her hands shaking as she lifted the collar. “I’m allowed to tell you that any attempt to remove this collar will trigger the needles embedded in the metal. Each needle is filled with liquid silver and will be injected into your skin before you can stop it.”

Okay. That sounded extremely unpleasant.

When she inched forward, aiming the torture device at my neck, I snarled in warning. A frightened squeak left her, and she almost dropped the collar.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Vi, but if I . . . if I don’t put this on you . . .” Her breath hitched, and tears slid down her cheeks.

Seeing the terror in her eyes, I stopped struggling. “Desirae. Desirae, look at me.” When she did, I gently said, “Will they hurt you if I don’t cooperate?”

Sniffling, she nodded.

My heart sank. “Okay. It’s okay, Desirae. Do what you came here to do. I won’t stop you.”

A relieved sob left her, and she quickly secured the device around my neck. As it locked into place, I immediately felt its chilling weight. Before I could adjust to the feeling of being collared like a dog, Desirae got to work unbuckling my leather restraints. Adrenaline shot through me, and I dared to hope that she was helping me escape.

My hopes were dashed a moment later when she quietly said, “I’m allowed to tell you that any attempt to escape will be met with punishment, not only for yourself but for the other females. Your collar will be activated and so will all the others. This includes any attempt to shift or use magic.”

Okay, these bastards seriously needed to die. Fury trembled through me, but when the last restraint fell away, I didn’t try to escape. I couldn’t. Not when my actions would hurt every single terrified female trapped in this hellhole.

Clearly relieved that I wasn’t going to make a run for it, Desirae silently helped me down from the table. As my legs turned to jelly beneath me, she slid under one of my arms to carry most of my weight.

“The bathhouse isn’t far,” she tried to assure me, wrinkling her nose a little as she said it.

Realizing how potent I must smell, I muttered, “Sorry. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

“It’s not that. You just . . . You’re still in heat, and I can smell . . .”

“Griff? Yeah, I saw you eyeing him last week. Sorry about that.”

She abruptly came to a stop. “A week? It’s only been a week? ”

Hearing the misery in her voice, my heart went out to her. Who knew what horrors she’d endured over the past several days. She was already a submissive omega, so the rogue’s torture techniques must be extra traumatizing for her.

I opened my mouth to tell her that our pack was doing everything in its power to rescue us, but the metal door to my room suddenly squealed open. As Ivan’s broad form filled the doorway, I tensed, my fight or flight instincts kicking in. He stared at me coolly, taking in the collar around my throat before nodding at Desirae.

She ducked her head and started to move, practically dragging me in her haste to leave the room. As we passed by him, I openly glared, wanting him to see just how much I despised him. He didn’t react. Not emotionally, anyway. All he did was raise the rifle in his hands, reminding me without words that he held all the power.

I bared my teeth defiantly, then allowed Desirae to lead me down a dimly-lit hallway. Ivan’s gaze was like a brand on my back as he followed us, his heavy boots thunking against the cement floor. We passed a few doors that looked similar to mine, making me wonder if they held more kidnapped females. And then we passed through a wide entrance with no doors into a large room sporting an indoor pool.

Only, when I looked closer, I could see steam billowing from the water, and the pool seemed relatively shallow.

A bathhouse, then. A public one.

There were benches and cubbies along the walls, but there was no one in the room. Well, except for us.

“Scrub her hard. She still smells like sex,” Ivan said from the entrance, making me stiffen. Did the dude seriously think I would want him to claim me with an attitude like that? Then again, he probably didn’t care what I wanted.

Pausing at a nearby bench, Desirae let go of me and started to remove her clothing. I blinked in surprise but didn’t question her. Not with creepy Ivan still watching. When she was naked, she grabbed a shower caddy from one of the cubbies and a long-handled scrub brush, then nudged me toward the pool.

“I have to wash you now,” she explained, flicking a glance at Ivan as if to seek his approval. Anger stirred in my belly. Not at her, but at the males who’d so thoroughly broken her. They’d stolen her innocence, and I knew all too well how that felt.

As I slipped into the pool with Desirae and she began to wash me, I let my thoughts drift to the male I’d shortly been betrothed to nearly eight years ago. For the sake of Midnight Pack’s future, I’d been willing to marry Arrow Pemberton, the son of a powerful alpha from Maine. My parents had been so proud of my willingness to strengthen our pack ties, oblivious to the fact that I was about to destroy everything.

But, as I had the thought I’d allowed myself to believe for way too long, Griff’s words came back to me.

“You didn’t cause that to happen, Vi. You’re not a failure, you’re not poison, and you’re not worthless.”

I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t worthless.

I was Violet freaking Rivers, and one sociopathic male—or several—couldn’t take that away from me. And when all of this was over, I would remind Desirae of that as well. They might have stolen her innocence, but she was still sweet and kind. She didn’t have to lose that, and I would help her see that just as Griff had helped me.

That’s my girl , Sable murmured. Stay strong. Our boys will come for us .

I glanced at my arm, at the snake tattoo that magically bound me and Griff together. I had no idea where I was, but Griff had found me once before with the magic’s help. I hadn’t willingly tried to leave him this time, so it wasn’t causing me pain, but the sight of it alone gave me comfort.

Combined with Sable’s confidence, I let myself relax as Desirae scrubbed every inch of my skin until it turned red. Ivan continued to watch us from the entrance, but I pretended like he wasn’t there, giving him my back. If he thought I would be cowed into submission by the fact that a strange male was watching me bathe, he was dead wrong. The creeper could watch all he liked. He could even get off on it for all I cared.

This place wasn’t going to break me, and I would do everything in my power to protect the other females stuck in here.

I was given that opportunity only an hour later when Desirae and I left the bathhouse to meet up with the other females for dinner. There were a dozen of us, all hybrids and under the age of thirty. All unclaimed, except for me. We all wore the exact same outfit like a freakish cult—or inmates. The room looked like a prison cafeteria and felt like one too. Male guards stood at every exit, making sure we didn’t leave the room. Every time one of us talked, a male would clear his throat, and all of the females would quickly stop.

Fear. They were being ruled by fear .

Every time one of them flinched, my anger grew. These were powerful hybrid females whose confidence had been weakened. They were lost, a feeling I’d allowed to define me for way too long. But not anymore. I would no longer shrink away from what scared me. No longer let fear control me. I needed to remind these females of how strong and capable they were.

But how?

As we all sat down at a long metal table with our trays of food, an idea came to me. Quickly checking that the guards weren’t watching, I flattened my mound of mashed potatoes and used my fork to write, Where are we?

When I nudged the girl’s leg beside me to get her attention, she saw my message and let out a soft gasp. Everyone froze to look at her, so I hurriedly coughed to cover up the noise and took a sip of my water. After a moment of silence, I tried again. She shook her head, but I persisted, pointing to the message.

“Please,” I whispered, the sound barely a wisp of air.

She tightly clenched her own fork, then dug it into her mashed potatoes and hastily wrote, Alaska .

Alaska? How the hell had they transported me all the way across the country? They must have kept me sedated with silver for the long journey.

With the time zone difference, that meant I’d probably been here less than a day, even if it felt like several had passed. No wonder Desirae had sounded so miserable that she’d only been here a week. I hadn’t seen a single window in the place, making time drag impossibly slow.

Despite the news that I was so far from home, I erased my message and wrote a new one. How many?

The girl glanced at me in confusion, so I threw a pointed look at the guards. Understanding, she wrote back, 30 .

I nearly choked on my mouthful of meatloaf. Okay, more than I’d thought. Taking them all out was definitely going to be a challenge.

As I tried to come up with an escape plan, the girl across from me suddenly sniffled. I looked up just as she swiftly wiped the tears off her face. Looking at the others, I noticed several other morose expressions, and many of them had barely touched their food. Understandable, considering the situation, but something else seemed to be bothering them.

Nudging the girl beside me again, I wrote, What?

When she saw me glance at the others, she hesitated before writing back, The Claiming .

Oh crap.

When?

Tonight , she replied.

Who?

All .

ALL? What kind of creepy event was this? I probably didn’t want to know, but it looked like I was going to soon enough.

As the girl across from me shed a few more tears, I couldn’t help but whisper, “Don’t worry. I won’t let any of them touch you.”

Her eyes fluttered up to meet mine, and I gave her my most confident smile.

When a male cleared his throat in warning, I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Suck it, dickface.”

Several gasps lit up the room. Whoops. Guess I’d been a little too loud.

Sable snickered, clearly pleased with my sassy mouth despite the situation.

A hush fell over the table as heavy footfalls stomped toward us. Oh boy, I was in trouble.

Worth it , Sable said.

I agreed, but the other females were staring at me in horror like I was about to die a grisly death.

Feeling the male storm up behind me, I raised my water glass and took a casual sip. In the next second, he knocked the glass from my hand and grabbed a chunk of my hair, forcing my head back.

“Want to repeat that?” he growled in my ear, clutching my hair so tightly that tears of pain filled my eyes.

Blinking them away, I crooned, “Why? Are you hard of hearing or just not used to being called a dickface?”

He let go of my hair, only to backhand me across the face. My head flew to the side, and I bit my tongue. But as blood filled my mouth, I ignored the pain and turned to spit it out.

Onto his boot.

He released an enraged growl and raised his hand again, but before he could hit me a second time, a commanding voice said, “Stand down, Jensen.”

Dickface—aka, Jensen—turned and snapped to attention. “But, Alpha Bane, she was talking back. You said—”

“I know what I said,” Atticus interrupted, and I turned my throbbing head to watch him approach. His eyes were on me, and they had that pleased look again. Stopping a few feet away, he said to Jensen without taking his eyes off me, “Escort the females back to their dorm room. They need rest before The Claiming tonight.”

As one, the females all rose from their seats and shuffled toward Jensen. I followed suit, only for Atticus to hold up a hand and say, “Not you. Ivan will take you back to your holding cell and administer another injection. You haven’t yet learned to submit and, therefore, aren’t ready for The Claiming.”

As he gestured for Ivan to come get me and turned to leave, desperation made me blurt, “Wait!” When he paused but didn’t turn around, I quickly added, “I’ll behave. I’ll submit .”

The words tasted bitter in my mouth, but I refused to take them back. The girls needed me, and being strapped down with fresh silver in my veins would make me useless to them. If I had to submit in order to help them, then I would gladly do it.

Atticus slowly turned to face me again, but I could tell right away that he didn’t believe me. I broke eye contact and lowered my head, showing him my submission. But that wasn’t enough for him, unsurprisingly. He might be a creep, but he wasn’t dumb.

Stepping toward me until he was only a foot away, he quietly ordered, “Get on your knees.”

I immediately obeyed, dropping to my knees at his feet and keeping my face downcast.

He clucked his tongue, but it wasn’t a disapproving sound. He was pleased to see me this way. As he bent down, I stayed perfectly still, even when he placed his mouth near my ear and purred, “This is exactly where I want you to be after I claim you tonight, spitfire. On your knees before me, sucking my dick.”

As he straightened, I almost hurled up my meager dinner all over his shoes. So many angry retorts came to mind, but I savagely bit my tongue to keep them inside. He left then but not before telling Jensen to take me to the dorm room as well. As I rose to my feet, I managed to catch Ivan watching his alpha leave. Normally expressionless, there was no mistaking the fury in his eyes.

Despite the humiliation I’d just subjected myself to, I perked up. Ivan clearly hadn’t expected Atticus to challenge his verbal claim on me. I could use that against them. I could use that against them all .

There was a reason why dominant unmated males often got kicked out of the pack. They were volatile when challenged, especially when it came to females. But this pack was entirely made up of possessive, testosterone-driven males.

Each and every one of them was a powder keg about to explode.

A wicked smile slowly curled my lips.

I could use that. I could definitely use that.