Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ANGELINA
“Down!” Crane yanks my hair, trying to force me to my knees. When I resist, he slams his steel-tipped boot into the back of my legs.
I drop to my knees, my face level with Schneider’s zipper. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
That earns me a strike across the face from his belt buckle as he loosens his pants. “You’re going to give me what I want this time.”
“I did what you wanted. Got the shifters to leave.”
“But now I’m all stressed, sweet cheeks. Need a reward. And since you’re the reason that last shifter escaped, you owe me. Open up.”
The spiked collar around my neck—spikes pointing inward, pressing against my throat—keeps me from shifting fully, but not partially. Few shifters can hold a partial shift, but I’ve had a lot of time to practice focusing my energy and holding it since they stole me from my pack.
My jawbone repositions, making room as new teeth form and descend. Others extend to three times their usual length. All sharp and deadly.
I open my mouth, flashing my wolf’s teeth.
“Jesus Christ!” Schneider yells as he jumps back from me and shoves his dick back into his pants.
I don’t laugh. Can’t. Not with another kick to my back, my lungs this time. Gasping for air, I collapse on the ground, only to endure that fucking belt whipping me on the back. My teeth recede. I can’t maintain the partial shift under the assault… but I hold it long enough to deter him. This time.
Crane pushes me into the dog crate they use for transport. It’s my private hell hole, and at times like this, my sanctuary. It protects me from these bastards, though they use it to contain me until the next mark comes through the region.
I wish Garrett were here. Not as one of their victims, but… I don’t know… He was the first shifter I could bring myself to look in the eyes, without shame. Maybe because I knew they wouldn’t catch him like the others.
He. Got. Away.
I smile at that.
A cattle prod shocks me in the middle of my back. “Stop smiling, you piece of filth.” A second shock. And a third. Schneider’s the worst of the three guards, and he’s the one in charge.
“We could’ve taken them,” Crane says.
No, you couldn’t. I don’t contradict anything they say, not out loud. That would only earn me additional punishments.
“I’m a crack shot.”
“We don’t know how many of them were out there. Our orders are to take only the lone shifters. Have you ever been on the wrong side of a shifter attack, Crane? It’s vicious.” He opens his shirt, exposing scars over his ribs.
“If they’d wanted you dead, they would have gone for your throat,” I say. Can’t stop myself, despite my wolf biting me, warning me to shut up.
Another cattle prod jab, this time against my right hip. My wolf can’t heal the burns as fast as she used to. Too much time locked within me—thanks to this damn collar—has weakened her, along with lack of food and constant abuse.
I should have shifted and run when they removed the collar for this latest stint in the woods. But they had their guns trained on the shifters as well as me.
Cooperate or they die. I’ve heard those words too often over the months. I’ll hear for the rest of my life. Even if I escape.