Chapter 2
TWO
Jez
THE RED-HAIRED ALPHA was the first to break free of his paralysis. “Fuck!” he snarled, fumbling a phone from his pocket. “Gage! Check his pulse and start CPR!”
The presence of two angry alphas held me frozen in place under the weight of the distant past. On top of that, the overwhelming miasma of pheromones, soured by adrenaline and fear, was making my head swim.
A scent match? It couldn’t be! Not here, not now, not like this.
I had to get away. Christ, why hadn’t I engaged the security latch on the damned door when I had the chance? Of course, then I’d still be trapped... but at least there would be something separating me from Mr. Sex Trafficker’s packmates.
I tried to sidle unobtrusively toward the door. Surely, they wouldn’t chase me while they were so worried about their pack alpha?
“Oh, no you don’t!” snapped Red Hair.
He took two long steps and grabbed me by the wrist, fast as a snake. I yelped in shock, trying to jerk free even as my arm tingled through my long glove at the heat of his touch. It was like jerking against an iron manacle.
“Hello?” he said into the cell phone. “I need police and an ambulance to the penthouse suite at the Aurora Hotel downtown! Male alpha, thirty-two years old, possible heart attack—he’s undergoing CPR. Get here fast.”
With that, he shoved the phone back in his pocket and rounded on me with his teeth bared. “Now, who the hell are you? What happened—what did you do to him?”
I shrank back. “Let me go! I—I’m just a hookup, all right? We were having a drink and he collapsed!”
I had to get out of here. I started struggling again, aiming a kick at my captor. It bounced off. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, a low growl rumbled in his chest.
“Stop.” It wasn’t loud, but the power of an alpha bark behind the single word was unmistakable.
I subsided with a frightened whimper, going still except for the tremor in my arms and legs.
“You’re scaring her, Heath.” The other alpha sounded out of breath. Had my captor called him Gage earlier?
“Goddamn right I’m scaring her.” Red Hair—Heath—gave me a sharp shake. “Knox does not do hookups, Gage. You know that as well as I do!”
“Maybe he does hookups with our scent match!” Gage panted, pumping his hands down rhythmically on Mr. Sex Trafficker’s chest with rough, almost violent motions.
“No.” Heath grabbed my little clutch purse, not letting go of me as he dumped the contents onto the dresser. “I don’t trust her. She smells guilty.”
“Maybe she’s just scared—” Gage began.
“Yes!” I said quickly, my heart rabbiting. “I don’t even know this guy! And now you’re keeping me here against my will!”
“No phone,” Heath said in a monotone. “This ID’s fake, or I’m the fuckin’ pope. Bit of cash. And then there’s this.”
He held up the empty syringe.
“I-it’s mine,” I managed. “I have a drug problem, okay?”
He set it down and shoved one of my long gloves back, baring my forearm. Then he repeated the action with the other, turning my arms up to inspect the unblemished skin even as I tried to twist away.
“No,” he said. “You don’t. What the hell did you inject him with, woman?”
“Nothing!” I protested.
“Tell me!” he barked in my face.
I cringed back. “Nothing,” I repeated hoarsely, because it was mostly the truth. The syringe had been empty. “We were just having a drink!”
But it was the wrong thing to say. Green eyes the color of the forest in summer scanned the room, fixating on the upended glass next to Knox’s chair. The sad remains of a couple of ice cubes sat in the last dregs of watered-down bourbon that hadn’t spilled out.
Holy shit. I hadn’t cleaned up the tumbler with the acepromazine dissolved in it.
I’d only washed and dried my own glass.
“Having a drink,” Heath echoed. He dragged me over and picked up the tumbler, careful not to spill any more of the contents. “So, if this was his glass, where’s yours?”
“I... wasn’t thirsty,” I told him, knowing how lame it sounded.
“Horse shit,” he growled. “What would the police find if they tested this?”
“Nothing!” I protested. “Bourbon, that’s all!”
He threw me down in the chair and held the glass up threateningly. “Just bourbon, eh? Fine, then—why don’t you drink what’s left here. Come on, down the hatch.”
I couldn’t help it. I shrank back, not sure how much of the powerful drug had sunk to the bottom of the tumbler.
“What the hell are you doing, Heath?” Gage puffed, not breaking rhythm as he labored over the twitching body on the bed. “Knock it off!”
“She’s guilty as sin,” Heath hissed, his forest-colored eyes boring into mine. “If Knox dies, you’re going to spend the rest of your miserable life in a prison cell, you murdering bitch.”
The panic that had been thrumming through me since the two alphas burst in tightened around my ribs like a steel band.
I couldn’t go to prison... I couldn’t be trapped inside four bare walls with bodies all around me in the dark, like the inside of the semi-trailer that had almost delivered me into a life of sexual slavery.
My breathing rasped and stuttered, a sick counterpoint to the weak wheezing coming from the bed.
“Dude, you can’t turn her over to the police,” Gage said sharply. “She’s our scent match!”
I choked, trying not to think what the alternative might entail.
The callused hand gripping my wrist tightened painfully. “She may have just killed Knox!”
Gage huffed. “I know, but...” He hesitated, then just repeated, “She’s our scent match.” His voice was softer this time.
Heath glared down at me with bared teeth. I blinked up at him, mute with fear.
Seconds stretched.
“You want to walk out of here not wearing handcuffs?” he demanded aggressively. “You tell me exactly what happened to Knox. Right the fuck now.”
My mouth opened, no sound coming out. What would be worse? To get hauled off by the police, or end up at the mercy of this pack?
The phantom prison cell loomed, cold and claustrophobic. I knew Heath would never let me go free... but if I took my chances with him and Gage, maybe I could escape. It felt like more of a chance than I’d have if I was handcuffed and surrounded by armed cops as a murder suspect.
I licked dry lips, trying to bring some moisture to my mouth.
“Acepromazine,” I whispered. “And then I injected air into his veins.”
Heath cursed sharply.
“Why?” Gage asked, sounding confused.
“Because he’s evil,” I croaked. “You’re all evil.”
Gage exchanged a look with his packmate. His expression was bewildered.
“Maybe she’s mentally ill?” he said, after a short pause.
I sneered at him... not because he was necessarily wrong, but because if I was, it was alphas like him who’d made me this way.
“Get her out of here,” Heath grated out, dragging me up from the chair.
“If you’re still dead set on this. I’ll take over with Knox until the ambulance gets here.
” He bent over and dragged me close, until we were eye to eye.
“And believe me, lass—If Knox does die, I can make you wish you were sitting in a courtroom facing murder charges.”
I shuddered, not doubting it. I was just going to have to get away somehow before that happened.
“Oh,” he added, his tone deadly. “One more thing.” He dragged off one of my gloves and grabbed my hand, forcing my bare fingers around Knox’s tumbler—pressing my sweaty fingerprints onto the glass.
“Insurance,” he said grimly. “In case I change my mind and decide to throw you to the legal system’s wolves later on. ”
My lips peeled back in an involuntary growl. He shoved my hand and arm into the glove. Then he pushed the syringe, cash, and fake ID back in my clutch and thrust it at me. I grabbed it and stumbled as he pulled me over to the bed.
I couldn’t help looking down at Knox’s face, a waxen blue-gray beneath his tawny skin. Gage slid off the mattress where he’d been pumping his pack leader’s heart, smoothly grabbing me as Heath handed me off and took his place.
The smell of orange peel and warm bread wove around me like a drug.
Gage herded me over and picked up his discarded jacket from where he’d thrown it.
Then my breath caught as he pulled out a little snub-nosed revolver and jammed it against my ribs, using the jacket draped over his arm to cover it from view.
“C’mon,” he said. “We’re going. I don’t wanna hurt you, but I can’t let you get away, either.” He glanced over his shoulder at the pair on the bed. “Take care of him, yeah? He’s tough; I know he’s gonna make it.”
Heath only grunted, not looking up from his task of keeping Knox’s heart pumping.
The gun in my side poked me harder, and I gritted my teeth as I was marched to the door of the suite, and into the hallway beyond.