“Rest, Leona,” said the alpha, with a hint of command behind the words. “We’ll worry about the next part when it comes.”
My body knew what to do with an alpha command, at least. It went boneless, subsiding into sleep.
Some time later, unwelcome scents intruded into my little bubble, setting off alarm bells.Betas, my instincts screamed.Not pack. At the same instant, the alpha’s pheromones spiked with protective aggression.
“Oh, no,” Kam said quietly, a world of fear lurking behind the simple words.
The combined signals ofdanger, dangershould have snapped me back into something approaching coherence, but I still couldn’t seem to control my muscles properly. Adrenaline sloshed around my system with nowhere to go, though it at least expanded my bubble of awareness to encompass the rest of the room I was lying in.
Not a room. A cell.
Parts of the recent past managed to shoehorn their way into my heat-dazed consciousness. Jax had already lunged to his feet, his low growl rolling around the enclosed space as the lock on the heavy cell door clanked open. Kam settled me against the cave wall and knelt in front of me, also facing the door, his arms splayed out to cage my body behind his. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind.
The details were hazy in my memory, but I knew someone was coming for us. When they took us, bad things were going to happen—and I was helpless, barely able to control my own limbs. The door swung open on shrieking hinges, the sound scraping across my nerves like nails on a blackboard. The barrel of a familiar rifle entered first.
Excited voices cut through the air, speaking rapidly with words I couldn’t decipher. I peered around Kam’s body, my heart thudding. Jax growled again, taking a threatening step toward the guards. The rifle steadied, fixed on him. The other guard pointed a finger toward Kam and me, still talking rapidly. After a moment, both of the men withdrew, and the heavy lock clunked into place, securing the cell door.
“Jax,” Kam said, once they’d gone. “Please talk to me. Are you thinking right now, or reacting? Because we’re in serious trouble.”
The alpha seemed to have grown six inches taller and broader in the space of thirty seconds. My short-circuiting body tingled with need, and if I’d had any kind of muscle control I probably would have stumbled over and tried to climb him like a tree despite the utter inappropriateness of the urge. Meanwhile, in the background, parts of my brain were frantically trying to reboot.
If you try to protect us, they’ll just shoot you, I wanted to say, but the words were caught in my throat.
Jax made another low noise of anger. Rather than answer Kam’s hesitant question, he turned and strode toward us, moving Kam aside with a gentle hand and scooping me up as though I weighed nothing. He carried me to the wall next to the door, and set me down. The door was designed to open inward, I realized distantly, and it would block me from the immediate view of anyone entering. When I was settled, he herded Kam to huddle next to me. Kam immediately wrapped an arm around my shoulders, holding tight.
Jax crossed the cell, still without a word, and attacked the wooden box that acted as the seat for the latrine, tearing at it with his bare hands. He came up a few moments later with a splintered length of board, wielding it like a club.
“They’ll kill you,” Kam whispered.
Jax didn’t reply. Instead, he returned to the door and positioned himself on the other side from us, makeshift weapon held at the ready.
Heavy footsteps approached—more of them this time.
“Oh, god,” Kam said, his fingers clutching the material of my battered blouse.
NINE
