Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
REID
My captors unloaded me outside a building that could have been mistaken for a house if not for the small plaque on the front door declaring it to be a medical clinic. I wondered idly if they intended to experiment on me somehow, but I couldn’t bring myself to care as much as I should.
Later, I had no doubt my new situation would sink in properly, but for now, I’d mentally detached from my own body. It was the only way I knew how to survive the debilitating pain of Trent’s death. I ached, and it wasn’t fair, and I hated that I was grieving him.
He’d forced an unwanted mating bond on me. Yet despite the fact my feelings for him had been magically induced, I grieved him anyway.
My eyes stung and my cheeks were wet but I was scarcely aware of those sensations when a man with a silver mustache opened the door and waved us inside.
The cuffs chafed like salt on an open wound, but the pain wasn’t physical, only psychological, so I couldn’t tune it out the same way I had everything else.
Once again, I found myself cuffed and at someone else’s mercy. Once again, being untrained had meant that I wasn’t able to protect myself. And now, I’d find out what price I was going to pay for that shortcoming.
We entered a reception area attached to a small waiting room.
I jerked away from the man who’d escorted me to the door and made my way to the corner.
I dropped to the floor with the wall at my back, brought my knees up to my chest, and rested my forehead on them.
Tears immediately soaked the fabric of my jeans.
People crowded into the cramped space. Several unfamiliar voices all spoke over each other and I was too emotionally exhausted to pick up on the thread of the conversation.
My fingertips were cold and I dug them into my shins in a fruitless attempt to defrost them.
A heat pump whirred overhead, but I was chilled to my core.
I didn’t think I’d ever feel warm again.
“Hello.” I sensed someone kneel in front of me but I didn’t look up. “My name is Dr. Black. What’s yours?”
I didn’t reply. The voice was kind, but I knew a trick when I saw—heard?—one. This man with the gentle voice had been sent to lull me into complacency.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” he persisted.
I kept quiet. As if I would give them any information they could use against me. They already had me as defenseless as a kitten because of the damn cuffs. What more did they want?
A soft touch brushed my shoulder and I flinched. Dr. Black immediately withdrew. When he left, I let out a breath and sobbed quietly into my jeans until another person approached.
“Hi Reid, I’m Nurse Allison. I’d like to check you over and see if you need treatment. Is that okay?”
How did she know my name?
I drew my knees even closer to my chest and shook my head. I didn’t want anything to do with these people. They’d murdered my mate.
Good, a voice whispered deep inside me. He deserved to die.
Guilt swamped me as soon as I had the thought. He’d been my mate. How could I even think such a thing?
He was your jailer, not your lover.
In truth, it didn’t matter what he’d been. My soul hurt, regardless.
Someone grabbed my arm and I flailed, my heart racing and adrenaline spiking through me as I fought to protect myself. But then a blood pressure sleeve looped around my arm and I realized they weren’t trying to hurt me. At least, not yet. I looked at the floor and let the doctor do as he wanted.
“Is it true?” a woman asked from somewhere else in the room. “Is he Zander’s mate?”
Zander.
Was that the name of the enormous bear shifter with the chocolate brown eyes?
“That’s what Zander said,” a man replied, his tone dubious. “Is he here?”
My lungs constricted and I burrowed tighter into the corner, grateful when the doctor removed the sleeve so I could wrap my arms around myself again.
He couldn’t be here already. If another alpha tried to claim me on the same night I lost my mate, I might die. I honestly wasn’t sure I could survive going through something so traumatic when every part of me felt like an exposed nerve.
“Not yet.” The woman tutted. “Poor dear.”
There was a rustle of fabric and then a matronly lady with a square face and kind brown eyes lowered herself to the floor in front of me.
“Hello, sweetheart. I’m Melinda Blackwood. I’m here to take care of you, okay?”
No. Not okay. I had no idea what “taking care of” meant. Was she going to get rid of me?
Surely not. If they were going to kill me, they’d have done it already, right?
They wanted me for more than that.
“First, let’s get this blood off of you.”
A hot cloth dabbed at my neck. I hadn’t even realized that I’d had any blood on me, although I supposed it made sense considering how I’d thrown myself on Trent’s body.
It was my mate’s blood.
Bile rose up my throat and I gagged on it.
She shushed me and patted my back. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’m getting it off you. We’re going to change you into something clean and warm, all right?”
I stiffened. They were going to strip me?
“Don’t worry,” she murmured as if reading my mind. “I’ll clear the room. No one will see anything. You’re safe here.”
Safe. I almost laughed. I’d never been safe. I certainly wasn’t now.
Somewhere behind me, I heard my name and tensed again. It was one of the omegas who’d been kept in the pack house with me. She was telling someone about how Trent had tricked me into going on a date with him six months ago only to assault me and force a mating bond.
I wanted to shout at her. To yell and scream until she stopped sharing what she had no right to. I didn’t want these people to know my story. All they’d do was use it against me. But the last of my energy had deserted me and I couldn’t summon enough strength to speak a word.
“Please leave me alone with Reid.” Melinda’s tone was completely calm and strangely soothing.
“Zander is outside,” Dr. Black said. “He wants to see him.”
I whimpered. Please, no. I couldn’t… It was too soon. Maybe tomorrow I’d be strong enough to make it through whatever lay in store for me, but not yet, not now.
“Don’t let him in,” Melinda said. “He can be patient.”
Thank the Gods. Perhaps I was only delaying the inevitable, but I’d take what small wins I could get. After all, I may have exchanged one prison for another, but I was still a prisoner.
“He’s determined,” Dr. Black replied.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Please don’t let him touch me yet.