Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Rowan bit back a howl of pain and fury as he awoke. Underneath him was a cold, stainless steel gurney. He should be able to escape from it, but the silver chains at his wrists and ankles cut into his flesh.
He panted, trying to force a shift, to connect with his wolf, but the pain from the silver shackles was unlike anything he’d experienced before.
Of course, he was trapped with the precious metal.
It was the one thing that could kill his wolf.
He closed his eyes, trying to join with the beast inside.
As a pup, or did he mean toddler, he’d been taught how to connect with the animal.
How to control sudden shifts and to force a shift when needed.
But not today. He needed to change into the wolf to escape and smash the bonds, but he couldn’t because the metal would kill the wolf.
He cracked his head against the steel beneath him, denting the gurney.
For a moment, he relaxed in an attempt to use his human, the man, to work a way out of the dilemma.
He turned his head to the side, away from the fluorescent tubes burning his retinae, and he blinked, struggling to see his surroundings more clearly.
The wolf had far superior vision at night, but under the powerful lights in this room, he needed his human eyesight.
He closed his eyes and squeezed them shut, holding the lids shut for a few seconds.
When he opened them again, with the human’s vision restored, he saw he was in a medical facility of some sort.
The room immediately made him think of his physician mate.
But she was a healer. This room smelled of the antiseptics she used, but the silver and stale blood scents had nothing to do with healing. Quite the opposite.
“Summer?” He called her name, softly at first, trying to reach her through their mate bond.
The bond was their constant connection, a low-level hum, keeping him attuned to her existence, and now it was gone.
This was worse than the silver constraints, worse even than the cuts on his wrists and ankles. Was she still alive?
He could not smell her on his skin. He couldn’t even smell himself over the chemical stench.
In his last recollection, he was covered in her scent as he made love to her.
The juices from her orgasm washed over his cock and groin.
His body responded to the memories, and he grew hard, his erection tenting the patients’ scrubs he seemed to be clothed in.
Shutting his eyes again, he focused his entire concentration on his last memories.
How long had he been held captive? He’d left her.
He’d written a note. He’d used harsh words, yes, but he’d always planned to find somewhere for them both to live away from the Bayou Pack.
He’d felt like a failure when he wrote the note, wanting to give his mate options, allowing her a choice to be free of him.
Tears ran from the corner of his eyes, and he strained to wipe them away against his shoulders, but he was too tightly constrained to move much.
The stench of stale blood assaulted his nostrils, and he realized with horror the blood was his.
What are they doing to me? He wriggled on the gurney, sensing cuts on his back.
Had he been whipped? Or lashed? But the cuts were not swollen enough to be whip lashes.
But he had been cut, of that much he was certain.
“Summer!” he yelled, pulling against the restraints. He was only able to raise his torso by a fraction of an inch, but he felt the scratch where the healing blood clots were ripped away, causing fresh bleeding.
Unable to work out where he was, Rowan cast his mind back to his most recent memories. He was on his Harley, bayou wind in his hair and face, the motor thrumming under his groin.
Banishment from the pack tore at his chest, but he needed to get away before nightfall. If he did not, then Axel would have every right to kill him and claim his mate, so he left to protect her.
With the early evening sun in his eyes and the warm fall wind in his face, he thought only of his mate. When he hit the rope across the path and was thrust off the back of his bike, and his head thudded into the ground, his thoughts were still only of her.
Seeing Axel Mouton’s face grinning down at him, flooded Rowan’s senses. He clenched his biceps and strained against the manacles binding him in place.
Four of Axel’s vassal wolves forced him to his feet and into the back of a van. His Harley was thrown into the back of another van, presumably to be repainted and sold or dismantled for parts.
The drive in the van was long, and he didn’t recall all of it. Perhaps he’d lost consciousness? But he did remember hearing bursts of trumpets and the scent of chicory coffee, so he assumed he was still in New Orleans. But where?
Allowing a semi-shift to use his wolf hearing, he heard nothing from outside. Footsteps and a door nearby closing were as much as he could hear. He was not able to hold the half shift for long and passed out from the pain of the silver bindings.
When he came to again, nothing had changed. He was still strapped to the gurney, but the scent was now of fresh blood and antiseptic. The gurney felt slippery underneath him, and as he tried to lift his torso again, none of the cuts on his back adhered to the steel.
Perhaps the cuts had been opened again. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that. If he were being tortured, then he would be awake when the cuts were made. Although they really did sting this time.
Footsteps resounded in the hallway outside the room, and the peephole in his door slid back. Expecting Axel, he was surprised when he didn’t recognize the face. But as he stared at the frightened person wearing a surgical cap, they were pushed aside, and the face of Fabian Delacour appeared.
Rowan inhaled sharply, and with every frantic fiber in his being, he screamed the name of his mate.
“Summer!”