14. Hailey
Chapter 14
Hailey
T he van jostles over another bump in the road, sending a fresh wave of nausea through me. It mingles with the heat—God, the heat—creating a toxic cocktail of sensations I can’t escape. I’m slumped in the corner, naked except for a thin blanket Caldwell tossed over me as an afterthought. Not for modesty. Just to keep me from soiling the leather seats with my slick.
My hands tremble uncontrollably, one pressed between my thighs in a desperate attempt to stem the ache. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. The drugs they pumped into me have turned my heat from something natural into this—this monstrous, consuming thing.
It’s dark in the back of the van, but I can feel Caldwell watching me from the opposite seat. His alpha pheromones fill the enclosed space, making it hard to breathe. Wrong. All wrong. My body responds anyway, another gush of slick soaking through the blanket.
“Christ,” the beta driver mutters from the front, inhaling deeply. “Can’t you control her scent, boss? I can barely focus on the road.”
Caldwell chuckles, the sound grating on my already raw nerves. “Why would I want to? Enjoy it, Marks. This is what three million dollars smells like.”
Three million. The number echoes in my mind. That’s what I’m worth to him. That’s the price he paid to destroy everything.
I whimper as another wave of heat crashes through me, arching my back involuntarily. My nipples are so sensitive they hurt where they brush against the blanket. Every nerve ending is on fire, begging for relief. For a knot. Any knot.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
Ren came for me. He was there. He found me.
The image of him strapped to that chair burns behind my eyelids. Bloody. Bruised. But alive. Fighting.
Was. Past tense.
Because now he’s?—
I can’t complete the thought. Can’t face what I know happened after that door closed. The two alphas with their gas masks. Heath’s orders. Cold. Make sure nothing is left.
A sob rises in my chest, but I swallow it down. I won’t give Caldwell the satisfaction of seeing me break.
“Getting worse, isn’t it?” Caldwell observes, leaning forward. The motion wafts his scent toward me—expensive cologne trying to mask something rotten underneath. “The heat. Your first one. And just for me, my sweet thing.”
I turn my face away, pressing my cheek against the cool window. The glass fogs instantly from my overheated skin.
“Look at me when I speak to you, omega.”
The alpha command slides into my brain like a knife, forcing my head to turn despite my resistance. Caldwell smiles, satisfied by my involuntary compliance.
“Better. We’ll need to work on your manners, but there’s time for that. We have all the time in the world now.”
His words make my skin crawl. All the time in the world because no one is coming for me. Because Ren is?—
Another surge of heat, stronger than before. I gasp, my back arching, legs parting without my permission. The blanket slips, exposing me from the waist down.
Caldwell’s eyes darken as he stares at me, at the slick glistening on my inner thighs. He wets his lips, his breath quickening.
“Jesus,” he mutters, shifting in his seat, adjusting himself through his expensive trousers. “I’m a man of patience, omega. But you test my limits.” His jaw clenches, his rod jerking against the tent it’s created in his pants. I want to vomit. “I need a taste.”
“Sir,” the beta driver warns, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Widow said it was best to wait until we reach?—”
“I don’t give a damn what Veyra said,” Caldwell snaps. “I paid for this little slut. She’s mine now.”
He slides from his seat to the floor of the van, kneeling between my spread thighs. His hands—cold, so cold against my burning skin—grip my knees, pushing them wider.
“Just a little taste,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. “Just to take the edge off.”
Through the haze of heat, revulsion rises in my chest. His touch—it’s wrong. Everything about him is wrong. Not my alpha. Not my pack.
I try to close my legs, but he forces them apart, his strength overwhelming. And I’m weak. The heat makes my legs feel like jelly.
“Stop,” I manage, the word barely audible.
Caldwell ignores me, his gaze fixed between my thighs. “Beautiful,” he breathes. “Pink and perfect and so goddamn wet.”
He lowers his head, and in that moment, clarity cuts through the fog of heat and drugs. This man—this monster—is responsible for everything . He and Heath. They took me. They have Ren’s blood on their hands.
Ren is dead because of them.
The thought hits me like a punch in the face, crystallizing all my scattered emotions into one white-hot point of rage.
With strength drawn from somewhere deep within me, I jerk my hips away, sliding off the seat and onto the floor of the van. Caldwell’s fingers graze me as I move, gathering some of my slick. He looks surprised for a moment, then annoyed.
“Playing hard to get?” he snorts, bringing his fingers to his mouth. His eyes flutter closed as he tastes me, a groan escaping his throat. “Sweet. I’ve never tasted one quite like you before, and that’s saying something. I’ve had many.” His gaze rakes over me, lingering on my curves. “I knew you’d be juicy. Those extra pounds serve you well.”
I press myself against the opposite door, as far from him as I can get in the confined space. The heat is still there, insistent and demanding, but it’s secondary now to the hatred burning through me.
Caldwell strokes himself through his pants, his erection obvious and obscene. “Just your taste in my mouth and I already know you’re worth every penny of the three million I paid.” He unzips his pants, freeing himself. “Come here, omega. Show your alpha some appreciation.”
“You’re not my alpha,” I spit.
His expression darkens. “I am now. Your pack is gone. Your alpha is dead. I’m all you have left.”
The words hit like swords piercing through me. Gone. Dead. All my fault.
What will Finn, Stone, and Jax do now? They’ve barely healed from Finn’s accident, and now Ren is gone. Because of me. Because I was stupid enough to wander off at the gala.
Caldwell advances on me, crawling across the floor of the van. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he warns, grabbing my ankle and pulling me toward him. “You’ll learn to enjoy it. They all do, eventually.”
I kick out, but he catches my leg easily. “I like a little fight,” he says, grinning. “Makes the submission all the sweeter.”
He’s fully erect now, his cock jutting proudly from his open pants. It’s large, obscenely so, the knot at the base already beginning to swell. Alpha pheromones pour from him, so strong they make my head swim.
Part of me—the omega, the heat—responds despite my disgust. More slick gushes between my thighs, my body betraying my mind’s revulsion.
“See?” Caldwell says, noticing my reaction. “Your body knows what it needs.”
He grabs the back of my head, fingers tangling painfully in my hair as he drags me forward. I can’t fight him. I’m too weak, too drugged, too consumed by the heat. My limbs feel like lead, my thoughts scattered.
But I’m just broken. Not dead.
Not yet.
As he forces my mouth open, pressing the head of his cock against my lips, I see triumph in his eyes. Victory. Possession.
For a split second, his guard drops, pleasure replacing caution as the tip of his cock slides past my lips.
That’s when I bite down. Hard .
Caldwell’s scream fills the van, high and piercing. He tries to pull back, but I clamp down harder, tasting copper as my teeth break skin.
“FUCK!” he shrieks, his hands scrabbling at my face, trying to pry me off. “GET HER OFF ME!”
The van swerves violently as the beta driver turns to see what’s happening. “What the?—”
Caldwell finally manages to thrust me away, sending me sprawling. Blood drips from his cock, from my lips. The metallic taste fills my mouth, and I spit, trying to rid myself of him.
“You fucking feral bitch!” he roars, clutching himself. “You goddamn animal!”
“Stop the fucking car!” he yells to the driver, already fumbling for the door handle. “Stop the car NOW!”
The van screeches to a halt. Caldwell throws the door open, stumbling out while still holding his bloodied cock. Now’s my chance. I have to go.
I seize the opportunity, lunging for the opposite door.
Behind me, Caldwell is cursing, his voice high with pain and rage. “Get the bitch! Don’t let her get away!”
I tumble out of the van, my bare feet hitting the ground. The night air hits my overheated skin like a shock, but it does nothing to cool the fire inside me. My legs are weak, barely able to support me. Slick runs down my thighs, leaving a trail behind me.
That’s when headlights suddenly illuminate the road from around the bend, catching Caldwell in their harsh glare. Another car. More of them coming to help?
No time to think. I have to run. I have to get away.
The beta driver rounds the van, grabbing for me as I try to flee. His fingers close around my arm, jerking me back.
“Come here, you little?—”
I turn and sink my teeth into his forearm, biting down until I taste blood again. He howls, reflexively releasing me.
“Fuck!” he yelps, cradling his arm. “She bit me!”
I stumble away from them, toward the tree line at the edge of the road. The approaching van’s headlights briefly catch me before I plunge into the darkness of the forest.
Branches whip at my face and body as I run, each step pure agony on my bare feet. I can hear shouting behind me, but it grows fainter as I push deeper into the woods.
I don’t know how long I run, or how far. Time loses meaning in the grip of the heat. Eventually, my legs give out, and I collapse at the base of a massive tree, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The cool earth beneath me feels wonderful against my burning skin, but it does nothing for the ache deep inside. I curl into a ball, pressing my thighs together, trying to stifle the need that still claws at me despite everything.
Alone. I’m alone again.
Tears come now, unstoppable. I weep for Ren, for the pack I barely had time to know, for the glimpse of happiness that was ripped away as quickly as it appeared.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the darkness. “I’m so sorry, Ren.”
The forest offers no reply, just the rustle of leaves in the night breeze and the distant call of an owl.
I huddle into myself. Hands trembling with the urge to press them against my swollen center to ebb this ache. But somewhere deep inside, beneath the pain and the fear, a spark of defiance flickers. I will survive. I have to.
For Ren.
For myself.