Page 2 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter (Moonbound Mates #3)

PEACHES

“ Y ou motherfucker—you bruised her…their Prime is gonna kill us…”

“We don’t have to take her if you’re…”

“Are you crazy? Someone’s going to take her back to Gideon, and if it ain’t us, then we don’t get the payout…”

The voices swim in and out of my aching head, muffled by the hood covering my eyes and dulled by the sedative still coursing through my veins. My mind is upside down and backwards—all topsy turvy. I’m dizzy, my head feeling like it’s bouncing, bouncing…

Water. We’re on the water.

A boat.

The realization slams into me just as another wave rocks us, sending my head lolling to the side. I can’t see a damn thing with the hood covering my face, but my senses are sharper now, cutting through the drug’s haze. Salt. Wood. Metal.

The Rig.

“Choppy out here,” a man’s voice says. It’s the alpha, the one without a scent—Javi, the other man said. “Is her head cushioned?”

“Oh, calm down,” the second man says, his voice higher with a southern accent—not like mine, maybe out toward Georgia. “She’s not an actual princess, ya know.”

Javi growls. Not just a sound—an Alpha sound. It makes my whole body lock up, heat curling through me like an instinct I refuse to acknowledge.

Then his hands are on me.

I flinch, trying to scramble away, but I’m tied, my arms pinned behind me, my legs bound at the ankles. I flop uselessly, twisting on the hard deck like a caught fish. A humiliated, furious fish who should not be reacting to this man’s touch the way I am.

“Hold still,” Javi snaps, his fingers finding the base of my skull.

I freeze.

Not because I want to. But because it’s him.

Because something in his voice makes me do whatever he wants.

It’s a terrifying realization—one that sends a shudder through me, makes my fingers curl uselessly against the ropes binding my wrists. My body shouldn’t be listening to him. It shouldn’t be responding to him.

But Javi’s voice is low and firm, a steadying force against the rolling sea and the panic clawing up my throat. And worse—his hands match his voice.

Rough. Calloused. Warm.

Too warm.

He cradles my head like I’m something breakable. It’s instinct, maybe, but that doesn’t make it better. I don’t want his care. I don’t want his hands on me.

I jerk against them, twisting on the hard deck, but all I succeed in doing is feeling him more. His fingers splay at the base of my skull, holding me still as the boat lurches.

He doesn’t squeeze. Doesn’t force me down. Just…holds.

Like he can’t help it.

A growl rumbles through him, low and almost pained, and my breath shudders in my throat.

I’m tied up. Helpless. Gagged.

I should be nothing to him.

So why does he sound like he’s suffering?

Heat curls through my belly, twisting wrong and shameful.

The gag in my mouth is thick, rough fabric, and I try to speak around it, to beg, to snarl, to do anything to break whatever this is between us. But the words come out as a useless, garbled mess.

“Ih ooh annid ooh?—”

Javi tenses.

And then the other man—Boyd, the one who isn’t an alpha, the one who doesn’t smell like coconut and coffee and heat and ruin—laughs.

“Can’t understand you, darlin’,” he drawls, amused. “And we’re not taking out that gag. We know cute little omegas like you can wrap an alpha around their little finger, which is why we dosed up ahead of time.”

Dosed.

My stomach drops.

That’s why I can’t scent them. That’s why my omega instincts feel dull and wrong and sluggish. They’ve been drugging themselves so I don’t affect them. A fresh wave of humiliation burns through me, so sharp I want to bite someone.

Javi’s hands vanish from my head, and I hate how cold it feels without them. Hate the sudden, sharp distance he forces between us. I have no idea what that means, and I don’t much care. Tears fill my eyes, soaking into the hood covering my face.

“She’s crying, Boyd,” Javi mutters.

Boyd chuckles again, unbothered. “You good, sailor? Need another hit?”

Javi shifts me to a seated position, but then I hear him move again. “Pass it over,” he says. “I think she could use some too.”

I hear the clinking of glass, then Javi’s hand is gripping my arm again. I try to wrench myself away, but the needle goes in and I cry out around the gag, a burning sensation erupting along the vein.

“Gotta get your heat under control, little missy,” Boyd says, “before you drive my friend here crazy.”

My senses dull again. I don’t think they injected me with a sedative this time, but it seems to be doing the trick in terms of numbing my lycan abilities. I can’t smell them, can’t place their designation, and I feel a little more in control when it comes to the near irresistible urge to mate.

Which is, I guess, a good thing.

Javi groans from beside me, his breath hissing out like he’s in pain. I hear the glass clink again a second later; he must have injected himself as well.

“You should get some sleep,” Boyd says, his voice easy, like this is just another job to him. “No use in trying to talk; we’re not taking out your gag, and we’re not looking you in the eye. Nope—you won’t be set loose until you’ve been safely delivered home.”

I laugh, the sound muffled and bitter around the gag.

Safe? Home?

I think he and I have very different definitions for those words.

My laughter sets Boyd off. His amusement sours, voice turning sharp. “Shut her up.”

There’s a shift beside me, the weight of someone moving closer. The scent of him, thick and dark, washing over me.

And then—Javi’s hand closes around my wrist.

Heat breaks through the haze like a shock to the system. My whole body goes tight, every nerve attuned to him, like I’ve been yanked out of drowning waters and thrown onto scorching sand. His fingers press against my skin—just a touch, but it doesn’t feel small.

It feels like control—like he has every part of me in his palm, even the pieces I want to keep locked away. My breath comes out in a staggered gasp, body reacting against my will, muscles going slack, bones melting into the feeling of him, him, him.

“Sleep,” he commands.

The word crawls inside me, deeper than sound, deeper than logic.

It slides beneath my ribs, coils in my belly, makes my lashes flutter before I can stop it.

I try to fight it, but my limbs grow heavy, my body giving in even as my mind screams. My breath shudders in my throat, my pulse stumbling, slowing.

I can’t stop it.

Not because I want to obey him.

Because he’s an alpha, and something in me answers to him whether I want to or not.

“Sleep, Esther,” he says again, softer this time.

Esther.

My name.

Or—it was.

I wish I could tell him that’s not who I am anymore. That the girl who wore that name died when she ran.

But the gag holds tight, and all I can do is wish I could scream.

Instead, my lashes sink fully shut.

And I obey.

It’s dark when I wake up again.

The only way I can tell is because there’s no more light pressing through the fabric covering my face—and because my heat is killing me.

It shouldn’t be this bad. Not this soon. Not this strong.

I wake up hot and uncomfortable, my body already aching, slick pooling between my thighs, the pressure inside me unbearable. My skin is too hot, too sensitive, every nerve tuned too sharply to the air around me.

And worst of all—I can smell him.

The wolfsbane must have worn off, because suddenly I can sense them both. Boyd—the beta—barely registers. He’s nothing to me, just a presence in the dark.

But Javi…

Javi is an alpha.

And my wolf wants him.

It should be any alpha. I’ve spent enough moons without a mate to know that when my heat comes, it’s a dull, restless thing—a need, but a manageable one. A hunger that anyone could satisfy.

But this? This is something else.

I shift, my jeans rubbing just right, and I whimper, breath catching on the friction. It feels too good—too much—like my body is trying to tell me something I don’t want to hear.

A sharp inhale sounds a few feet away.

Javi.

“Damn it…she’s up, Boyd,” he mutters, and I hear the scrape of a chair, the rustle of fabric as he moves. “I’ll run out of wolfsbane if I keep having to take it at this rate.”

“We’re almost there,” Boyd says, unbothered. “Don’t you worry about a thing, my horny friend.”

Javi doesn’t answer right away.

The boat rocks, and I feel him shift again.

Then, lower, rougher—like the words were torn out of him against his will:

“Never smelled anything like her before.”

A pause.

“Like…fruit or something.”

A shiver runs through me.

Not just from his voice—from the truth in it.

No.

No, no, no, no?—

Because this isn’t just heat. This isn’t just instinct.

This is him.

Something in my chest squeezes, a terrible, bone-deep knowing that makes my breath turn shallow, makes my body burn hotter just from the way he said it. Javi, the man who captured me, the man who is taking me back to my father to be caged like an animal…there’s a connection between us I can’t deny.

Boyd snorts. “Yeah, I figured—never seen you lose control, even though you’re a damn brute when you want to be.”

Footsteps sound, moving away from me. “Hey—lights ahead,” Javi’s voice comes from far away. “Is that it?”

“Let me hail them,” Boyd replies. A click sounds from behind me—the ship’s floodlights, if I had to guess. A moment later, light flashes behind the fabric of my hood, a pattern I recognize.

They’re telling us we have permission to dock.

Panic surges in my chest, shoving everything else aside—even the unbearable, maddening heat curling under my skin.

I jerk against the ropes, twisting hard, my nails scraping uselessly against the fibers.

I should have done this a long time ago.

I should have fought harder. Bitten. Clawed. Something.

I’m too far from Austin now. Too far from Tilda, from Reyes, from anyone who might come for me.

And I’m about to go home.

Except—home isn’t what’s waiting for me.

Last time I was on the Rig, my father tried to kill me. After, I helped at least fifteen women escape from him.

I don’t know what he’ll do now.

But I know it will be worse.

My pulse slams against my ribs. I arch against the ropes again, shifting my weight, testing how much movement I have. Not much. Not enough. The boat rocks, and the motion sends a sharp realization slicing through me.

I could fling myself into the water.

I could drag myself to the edge, roll my body overboard, let the ocean swallow me instead of my father.

Salt and waves instead of chains and cages.

I suck in a breath, choking on the gag.

Dying in the Gulf wouldn’t be quick. It wouldn’t be kind. But drowning might be better than what Gideon Vinton has planned for me.

I shift again, feeling out the distance, measuring my odds. I just need to get free enough to roll. Just a little more?—

“Hey!” Boyd snaps. “She’s squirming.”

A heavy hand clamps around my shoulder, shoving me down against the deck. I snarl, thrashing, but my wrists are still tied, my body too slow from the last dose of wolfsbane.

Another growl rips through the air—not mine.

Javi.

His grip tightens just for a second, his fingers pressing against my overheated skin. Not bruising. Not hurting. Just stopping me. Holding me down.

Like he knows exactly what I was about to do.

“Stay still,” he mutters, voice low and firm, rolling through me like a second tide.

And against everything, my body obeys.

Radio static flickers to life on the comm unit, and I hear Boyd pick up. A voice speaks, then—a voice I recognize and that makes me want to throw up. It’s Abel, one of the young alphas my father was training as a lieutenant when I left the Rig.

I’m so screwed.

“State your purposes, Sea Witch.”

Sea Witch?

“We’re bounty hunters, just picked up a contract from your Prime a few months ago,” Boyd says. “Happy to report that we’ve fulfilled the contract—and we’ve got a certain Esther Vinton onboard.”

Abel doesn’t respond right away. We drift, the boat slowing down.

Boyd hails the Rig again. “I need some assurances that you have fuel and payment for us when we dock,” he says. “We want to make sure your bounty arrives safe and sound…and we gotta make sure we get paid.”

Static buzzes.

“What are your names?” Abel asks.

Boyd and Javi are quiet for a moment. I groan in protest, but they ignore me.

“Jeremy Boyd and Javier Ortega,” Boyd says. “You may have heard of us.”

Abel chuckles. “Sure have. Gulf boys from out east finally paying a visit to the Rig, huh?”

“And thrilled to arrive with a prize,” Boyd says. “Have the Prime meet us at the dock with our pay—and Esther here is all yours.”

My hopes are dashed in an instant, knowing Gulf Pack loyalists will never help me.

Even if Javi seemed to show a little sympathy, these are people who have thrived on the subjection of omegas for decades—and they might be from a different platform, but at their heart, they’re all the same.

I slump against the wall, trying to control my breathing as tears fill the corners of my eyes.

I have to believe my pack will come and save me.

I have to believe that somebody—Reyes, Tilda, Magnolia, Colt, Arden…that somebody will take the risk and ride the waves to bring me home.

It’s the only way I’m going to survive.

“We’ll see you at the dock, boys,” Abel says. “Welcome to the Rig.”