Page 24 of Ruthlessly Mated (Shared Mates #2)

K ita

“I don’t know what those assholes are talking about, but it better not be that I can’t shift, because I can.

I just don’t do it on command. It’s not a fucking party trick,” I vent to Damon, who wraps his arms around me and draws me down on the bed.

It is so hard to stay mad at him. He makes it practically impossible.

When he holds me close, I feel so completely protected.

It is like all the threats of the world melt away, and I am as safe as I have ever been.

I close my eyes, and before I know it, I am falling asleep.

Roused before dawn, I am first gagged, and then tied up. I am not quite awake when the gag slides into my mouth. I murmur a complaint through Tailor’s tie, then my hands are firmly pulled back behind my back and my wrists are tied, along with my ankles.

I start to fight immediately, of course, because this is fucked up. What the fuck are they doing? What are they trying to…

Fuck, I know what it is. They’re going to take me out of the city. They’re going to run with me, and separate me from my cargo. I am about to lose everything I fought for, and it is not fucking fair.

“Shhh,” Conroy says as I start to squirm. “You don’t need to fight. Relax. We’re getting you out of here.”

My mates are kidnaping me. Fuckers. They couldn’t get me while I was awake, but now that I’m asleep they think they can just tie me up and do what they want to do.

I am carried out of the apartment and taken through back alleys and quiet streets to the smuggler’s exit that Damon must have found earlier. I spend the entire time trying to talk through the gag. Whoever tied that gag did a damn good job; I have to give them credit for that.

When we get to the exit, the men strip, put their clothes and things into small packs, and shift into their wolf forms, picking the stuff they need up in their teeth. Conroy goes first, allowing for me to be strapped across Conroy’s back.

Tears leak out of the corner of my eyes because I am so fucking frustrated.

I do not want this. I wanted my cargo. I wanted to stay with it until the bitter end.

We weren’t losing. They couldn’t find us.

Alexander would have had to have mounted a full offensive, and that would be a disaster.

My plan is now well and truly falling apart.

The feeling of Conroy running beneath me is incredible. He’s so fucking big and so fucking strong, and every bounding stride he takes makes me feel like I am flying. If this was happening any other way, I’d enjoy it, but I hate this.

Daylight is just breaking, which means the vampires are being forced to sleep and Rock City’s defenses are as light as they will ever be as the shifts change.

Not so much as a single bullet rings out overhead.

We escape cleanly and completely. I realize with every mile we cover that they’ve made the right decision for themselves.

They wanted to get out with their lives.

They wanted to get me out with my womb intact so they can breed me.

And they’ve done it. But my revenge, and my payday, has been left behind.

Everything I went through to obtain it has been in complete fucking vain. These wolves, these men have deprived me of my vengeance, and with it, my purpose.

They run for a very long time, putting as much distance between us and the city as possible. They pause for a bit to drink in a river and then run again. This is what wolves are made for; we can go forever because we hunt in coursing packs.

By the time my mates stop, we are at least a hundred miles to the west. Tailor and Damon take their human forms, and they let me off Conroy’s back, untying me as he shifts into his human form. He looks exhausted with the effort of traveling a great distance with me as cargo.

“How fucking dare you?”

I slap him across the face as hard as I can. Hard enough to make my palm sting. Hard enough to move his head just a fraction of an inch. I see a slight reddening of his stubbly cheek, but nothing nearly as impressive as I had hoped it to be.

“You knew I wanted to stay! How dare you? How dare all of you!” I stamp my foot out of sheer instinct, and hate the way it immediately makes me feel like a baby. “You took me away from…”

“A literal fucking war zone,” Conroy growls. “Hit me again, and you will not like what happens, I can promise you that.”

He puts his hand to his jaw, and I feel a little satisfaction at the idea maybe he felt it after all.

Conroy

My face doesn’t hurt at all, but Kita needs to think she can hurt me when she wants to.

I can see that in her eyes, the sheer helplessness she felt when she realized she couldn’t actually get at me in any real way.

I am feigning injury like a father wolf letting his cub think she’s gotten a good shot in.

I don’t know when the energy shifted between us, from her being an irritating little shit to her being my irritating little shit, but I like it.

I feel deeply protective of her—all of her, not just her body, but her mind and her psyche.

I want her to find her wolf self with us, and if that means taking a few good solid hits, I’ll happily do it.

“You had no right to make that decision for me. Now I won’t see it when they blow themselves up. It’s just going to happen at some point, and I won’t even be part of it. I’m going back. Now.”

I grab her by the back of the neck and smack her curvy little ass hard. “You’re staying with us, and you’re going to travel with us. On foot. So you’re going to learn how to shift, because we’re not dragging you all over the countryside.”

She blanches. I glance over at the others. Damon and Tailor both noticed that reaction. She’s scared by the idea of taking her wolf form. Interesting. Could mean it hurt a lot when she tried it, or maybe she was punished painfully somehow when she did.

“It’s going to be a lot easier to survive out here in our wolf forms,” I say.

“So that’s the real reason. You’ve decided to force me into being an animal like the rest of you. Well, I won’t do it. I won’t! I’m not rewarding you for this bullshit. I’m going back to the city.”

“You are not going anywhere,” I tell her firmly.

“One, if you so much as approach that city, they’re going to think you’re a vampire and they’re going to kill you on sight.

If the vampires capture you, then you’ll wish you’ve been killed on sight.

And if one of the wild animals gets you, it’ll be somewhere in the middle. ”

I watch as her lower lip starts to quiver. She’s trapped, and she knows it, and she hates it. She hates me right now. I can see the flash of fury in her eyes as she tries to work out how to get out of this and realizes there are no good ways.

Tailor comes forward. “Listen,” he says, crouching down in front of her as she seats herself in the dirt. “We know you either can’t or don’t want to take your wolf form. If we can talk about it, we might be able to help you.”

“I’m not telling you anything about anything. I hate all three of you. And I’d rather be eaten by buzzards than take my wolf form for you.”

“Why? Does it hurt?”

“I don’t want to punch you in the face, Tailor,” she says. “So I’m going to give you ten seconds to get the fuck out of mine.”

Kita

This is the most humiliating discussion I have ever had. I hadn’t thought about how they’d eventually want to see my wolf form. I had other things to think about. My great plan for vengeance. Now suddenly, one of my greatest shames is front and center and I can’t avoid it.

Tailor and Conroy keep trying to talk to me, but I won’t talk to them. I am too angry, and I am too ashamed. Much later in the evening, Damon comes and settles next to me. He is not blameless in this, but he is also less triggering than they are. He doesn’t overwhelm me with words.

“A long time ago, I was in captivity,” he says.

I turn my head so sharply I almost snap my neck off. “You can talk!”

“I don’t like to,” he says, his tone deep and rough with a lack of practice. “But you need me to, so I’m going to try.”

I burst into tears. He’s so fucking sweet. He’s the most beautiful, gorgeous, sensitive man I have ever met and I can see that every one of these words is painful for him. But he’s giving them to me, because he thinks I need them, and he’d do anything for me.

His voice is accented, telling me he hails from the eastern states.

I’ve never been out there, but I’ve heard about some of the legends.

Vampires come from the east, from countries where tall mountains and deep woods are littered with old fortresses inhabited by various monsters, mostly vampiric in nature.

He says he was in captivity. I do not need him to elaborate.

I know that there is a tradition for vampires to hold wolves and to make them slaves. I know this because I myself…

“Don’t talk,” I tell him. “I love hearing your voice, but I don’t want your pain, and I know this hurts you.”

“Sometimes we do what hurts for those we love,” he says. “I love you.”

My tears, which I had sniffed back, return to prick my eyes.

“I love you too,” I whimper, my voice sounding even more wobbly and ill-practiced than his.

“Will you tell me why you don’t like to take your wolf form?”

He’s offering me his voice in the hope I’ll give him my deepest held secret.

“I look silly,” I say.

“What do you mean?” He cocks his head to the side, surprised at what I said.

“You all look so majestic. I don’t. I look silly.”

He frowns at me, not sure what to say.

“Are you going to keep talking? If I shift? Or is this a once in a lifetime thing? I mean, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, but I really like talking to you. You have a nice voice.”

“I’ll talk to you,” he says, holding my hands. “And you don’t have to shift for me just because I’ve talked to you. I’ve been wanting to since we met, but it’s been… a struggle.”

“When did you last talk?”

“I was fifteen when I was taken. That is when I stopped talking.”