Chapter 14
BIANCA
Things are not going well for me.
My thighs burn. My lungs feel like they’re on fire. I’ve been running for hours. Four? Five? Time means almost nothing to me now. It’s a cycle. Run until I can’t breathe, hide until I hear their voices, then run again.
The only way to get a break is to go up.
Bark scrapes against my legs as I climb higher. I just need to breathe and think. And I need my body to stop betraying me for five fucking minutes. Twenty feet up, I wedge myself between two thick branches and try to remember how to be human instead of… this.
“Come out, come out, pet!” Carter’s voice carries through the trees, sing-song and mocking. “We can smell that sweet hole calling to us!”
They have all the advantages. They aren’t fighting against their own bodies. I can’t outrun them forever. It’s not a question of if they catch me, but when. And what they’ll do to me.
Everything escalated so quickly. No time to adjust.
“The longer you run, the harder we’ll fuck you when we catch you,” Nathaniel calls out, closer than before. “Might as well give in now while we’re still feeling nice.”
“I bet she’s touching herself up in one of these trees,” Maverick laughs. “Fingering herself, wishing she had a cock instead.”
They’re maybe fifty yards away. Too close.
But my legs are shaking so badly I don’t trust them to hold me if I climb down.
I pull out my water bottle and force myself to drink.
The protein bar tastes like asshole. My body is burning up from the inside out, clenching around nothing, nipples so hard they hurt.
Something warm starts to build under my skin. An aching pull.
Weller.
No. Can’t be. He’s not here. None of them are. It’s a heat-induced hallucination. A ghost of the bond screaming for something that isn’t here. My mind is manufacturing comfort that only makes the reality of this worse. Thinking of Weller’s safe arms around me only highlights the hell I’m living.
My mind is starting to crack.
A breeze shifts and for a second, I swear I can smell Owen.
Black currant and spice. It’s so real I look around, expecting to see him.
But there’s nothing. Just trees and more trees.
The scent is gone as quickly as it came.
Then another trickles in on the wind, fig leaf and burnt amber. Tristan. My heart aches with longing.
“I can smell her arousal from here,” Carter says, and he’s definitely closer. “She’s practically begging for it.”
The bond pulses again, stronger this time. Like Weller is—no. Stop it. Get a fucking grip.
And just as that thought fades, I scent honey and cedar in the air. Freddie. I let it wrap around me like the hug I need right now.
“Found something!” Nathaniel shouts. “Fresh tracks!”
Their voices start moving away.
Shit. I need to use the opportunity to build the distance between us.
I half-climb, half-fall out of the tree, my legs barely holding me when I hit the ground.
Everything hurts. My inner thighs are so wet it’s embarrassing.
My tank top is torn, pants ripped at the knees, everything clinging to my sweat-soaked skin.
All of the mud is gone, my skin too slick for it to stick.
I run in the other direction, trying to throw them off.
But I’m moving like I’m drunk, stumbling over roots, the heat coming in waves so intense I have to stop and press my thighs together.
The forest floor is a blur of greens and browns. My feet catch on another root and I go down hard, the air knocked out of me. Lying there, gasping, a wave of pure despair washes over me. I’m not going to make it. They’re going to find me, and I’m too weak to fight them off.
Please, I think, the word a silent scream to the sky. Please, please, please.
I crawl to my knees and then stand. Legs wobbly. I begin moving, no clue which direction I’m even going.
“There you are.”
I spin around. Carter steps out from behind a tree, blocking my path. He’s bigger than I remember from dinner. His scent, leather and sugar, makes my body flood with want.
“Fuck off,” I snarl, backing up.
“Such a dirty mouth,” he says, advancing slowly. “I can’t wait to put it to better use.”
I pull my knife, my hand shaking. “Stay back, asshole.”
He laughs. “You’re seriously going to fight me? When you can barely stand?”
“I said stay the fuck back!”
“Just ask nicely,” he croons, still approaching. “Say ‘please, Carter, I need your knot,’ and I’ll make all that pain go away. I’ll fuck you so good you’ll forget you have a mate.”
Mate.
My back hits a tree. I’m trapped.
“Never.”
“Never?” He’s so close I can feel his body heat. “Your body says otherwise. I can smell how badly you need it. You must feel so empty. Is it hurting?”
He’s not wrong. It hurts so fucking bad. Like my insides are twisting, cramping, begging for something to fill the aching void.
“That’s just my body,” I gasp. “I don’t fucking want you. Don’t touch me.”
“Well, how about this… I’ll make your body feel all better,” he says. “And you can just lay there and pretend it’s not happening.” He snaps his fingers. “Everybody wins.”
A drone whirs in and stops to hover above us. A single red light glows, aimed right at me.
When Carter proceeds closer, a sound like an alarm goes off.
The alarm gets louder. Before I understand what’s happening, Carter throws a rock at it, knocking it out of the air, and then he stomps on it.
He reaches for me and I slash with the knife, catching his arm. Blood wells up and his eyes go dark. “You little bitch.”
Grabbing my wrist, he slams it against the tree until I drop the knife. His other hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing yet.
“I was going to be gentle,” he says, pressing his body against mine. I can feel his erection through his pants. “But now? Now I’m going to make you scream.”
“Go to hell.”
His hand slides down from my throat, over my chest, and my body arches into it against my will. “Your body knows what it needs,” he murmurs, fingers finding my hard nipple through the torn fabric. “Even if your mind is fighting it.”
I whimper from disgust, from need, from rage. Take your pick.
His hand tightens on my throat again. “Beg me to fuck you, or I’ll choke you out and do it anyway. At least if you’re conscious, you can enjoy it.”
I bring my knee up hard, aiming between his legs. He twists at the last second, but I still catch him in the upper thigh. As he doubles over, I grab the dropped knife and slam it toward his groin. The blade sinks in, deep into the meat of his inner thigh.
His scream is inhuman. “You fucking cunt! You tried to cut my cock off!”
He backhands me so hard my vision whites out for a second, then slams me against the tree again. Blood is spreading fast across his pants. His eyes are going black, the pupils dilating until they swallow the color.
Rut. The chaos has triggered his rut.
A gunshot echoes through the forest. Distant but clear.
For a second, I hear a voice that sounds like Freddie shouting. But that’s impossible. My mind is playing tricks.
The packs had knives and bows only, right?
Who the fuck has a gun?
Pop.
Was that another one?
Carter doesn’t flinch at the sound. He’s gone. His hands tear at my pants, ripping them down along with my underwear in one violent motion. The cool air hits my exposed skin and I thrash harder, clawing at his face.
“No! NO!” My body’s weak from running, from fighting a losing battle. He fumbles with his belt, his movements getting sluggish from the blood loss. His hands are shaking.
Something really bad is about to happen to me.
I scream.
“Mine,” he slurs, undeterred, but his eyes are unfocused. Then he collapses.
His full weight slams me to the ground, knocking the air from my lungs. His face lands directly between my thighs. He’s not moving. Unconscious. Maybe dying. Two hundred pounds of alpha deadweight with his face pressed against my bare vagina.
“Get off! GET OFF!” I push at his shoulders, but it’s no use. My pants are tangled around my ankles. I can’t get leverage. I’m stuck. Pants down, his face between my legs.
The crashing through the underbrush is close now. No attempt at stealth.
“Carter!” Nathaniel’s voice. “Where the fuck—”
They burst through the trees. Nathaniel and Maverick freeze, taking in the scene. Their brother’s face between my legs, blood everywhere, me mostly naked and pinned.
“What the—Carter!” Nathaniel drops beside his brother, checking for a pulse. “He’s bleeding out. Mav, help me!”
But Maverick’s eyes are locked on me. On the exposed skin between my legs. His face twists with rage. “You fucking bitch. You lured him in and tried to kill him?”
“No, I—”
He grabs my arm, yanking me out from under Carter’s body.
The movement scrapes my back against the rough ground.
I cry out as he drags me across the forest floor, rocks and sticks cutting into my bare ass and thighs.
My head bounces against the hard-packed earth, and for a moment, the world goes fuzzy.
This is different from Carter’s taunting cruelty.
This is brutal. There’s no game here. No pretense.
He’s going to punish me for whatever he thinks happened here. There will be no reasoning.
“Mav, we need to stop the bleeding!” Nathaniel shouts, pressing his hands to Carter’s wound.
“In a minute,” Maverick snarls, still dragging me. “After I deal with her.”
I try to kick, but my pants are still around my ankles. I try to claw at his hand, but he just grips tighter.
“Please—” The word tears from my throat. I hate myself for begging, but I’m beyond pride now. “I didn’t—he attacked me—“
“Shut up.” He stops dragging me and stands over me with murder in his eyes. “You’re going to pay for what you did to my brother.”
I don’t know what he’s planning. But I’m about to find out. And I know, with a certainty that freezes the marrow in my bones, that whatever it is, I won’t survive it.