Page 91 of Midnight Hunt
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 aweek?”
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. Apublicone.
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 VioletfreakingRivers, 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.
