Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Maisy
I huddle on the hotel bed, my head in my hands. Allen left shortly after dropping the bombshell, leaving me under the guard of the two thugs who picked me up in Bad Bear.
It’s after one am, and I’m still groggy, but I can’t sleep.
I felt well enough to take a shower and change into the I heart Vegas shirt my dad brought me. I figured I might as well do what I can to feel like myself.
In the morning, I’m going to marry a mobster unless I do something.
I need to think clearly to figure out a way out of this. Allen said he owes someone named Lucky Lou money, and in exchange for cancelling his debt, Lucky Lou wants to marry unlucky me.
“Don’t trust atoms,” I whisper a joke to myself. “They make up everything.”
It doesn’t help.
Like always, I imagine what it would be like to deliver that joke to Matthias. What he would tell me to do in this fucked up situation?
Run.
But how? Can I somehow trick the guys outside the door into leaving?
Or letting me get by? Maybe if I set a little fire near a fire alarm sensor, then it would trip the alarm for the building and the firemen would come.
I scan the ceiling, spotting what looks like a sprinkler.
That could work…except I have no matches.
Maybe I could bum a cigarette from one of the guards? I definitely smelled stale cigarettes on them.
I draw in a breath, trying to work up the nerve.
I’m the girl who gets flustered when the hot town doctor walks into the cafe and orders coffee.
Am I really capable of flirting with the low-lifes outside the door to convince them to give me a cigarette?
I’m not Missy. I’m no actress. And even if I do convince them, I don’t smoke!
I’d probably gag and choke when he lit it for me, giving my scheme away.
But it’s the only idea I’ve come up with so far, so I’ll have to go with it.
I force myself to my feet and paste what I hope is a friendly smile on my face.
Just as I reach for the door handle, though, I hear the sound of a heavy thud, like a body got slammed against the wall.
I gasp, jumping back.
Another thud.
Is that good or bad?
The door bursts open. I swallow a scream.
Then I realize my fantasy has become reality, and Matthias is here. I blink. Maybe it’s the sedative. Why would he be here? How did he find me?
“Maisy.” He strides toward me, looking so big and dangerous, I can’t believe he’s real.
“Matthias? Is that you?” Shock turns to relief, and I burst into tears.
And then I’m in his arms.
“Shhh, beautiful.” His deep voice rumbles through me. “I’ve got you.”
“How did you get in? What happened to the guards?”
“I took care of them.” He sits on the bed, still holding me tight, and I cling to him. He’s so big and strong, I feel so safe even though Allen and Lucky Lou might be lurking nearby.
“Are you okay, beautiful?” He runs his hand down my side and then lifts my face up to him, so he can look into my eyes. He’s not wearing his glasses, and his usual brown eyes flash with a blue light. He looks scary. Scary hot.
I rest my hands on his chest. The muscles under my palms are like granite, grounding me. “They drugged me with something. They just grabbed me and injected me with something, and I woke up here, and I’m so sorry…I missed our date!”
The corners of Matthias’ mouth twitch like he thinks I’m cute. “Shhhh, I’m here now. And everything’s going to be okay. Let’s get you out of here.”
He swings me up into his arms. I’m a big girl, but he lifts me like I’m light as a flower. Then he carries me out into the hall, where several of his brothers wait. The two assholes who kidnapped me lie in a crumpled heap on the floor. Darius is zip-tying their wrists together.
“Maisy!” Axel sounds relieved. It’s so good to see him. Even though we don’t hang regularly, he’s always looked out for me.
“Hey,” I say weakly.
I feel Matthias’ muscles tense even further. “I got her,” he growls. His voice is a deep bass that almost sounds inhuman.
Darius picks one of the thugs by the hair and drags him down the hallway where he shoves him into a supply closet. Hutch hauls the other one by the foot. I have a feeling they could easily lift them, but they want to give them the most ignominious treatment possible.
I find it immensely satisfying.
“Teddy’s parked out back, and Canyon’s in the lobby on standby, in case we need a distraction,” Axel says.
“Let’s go.” I love how commanding Matthias’ deep voice sounds.
Darius takes the lead, with Axel just behind him. Hutch and Bern close in behind me.
We move in quick formation down the hall.
“This way.” Axel darts forward and holds the door open to a stairwell.
The bear brothers make it down the endless stairs in record time. I knew I was in a high-rise hotel, but I didn’t realize I was on the twenty-fourth floor.
As soon as we reach ground level, Darius opens the door, and Matthias carries me out into the cool night, straight into a big white bus parked by the door.
Teddy nods from the driver’s seat as we climb in.
Matthias sets me down on the bench seat at the back of the bus. The whole interior is glowing neon purple.
“Is this a party bus?”
“Yes,” Matthias says. “It was the only thing that we could get quickly that would fit all of us.”
“Oh.” I let out a semi-hysterical giggle. I can’t help it–after the strain and stress of being kidnapped, leaving with a band of bear brothers in a party bus strikes me as funny. And also awesome.
Teddy pulls away from the curb, even though only Matthias and I are in the bus. We’ve left his other brothers behind.
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere for now. Teddy’s going to just drive us around while I check you over. I want to make sure there are no ill effects from what they drugged you with.”
“I’m fine.” Even as I say it, I feel the heaviness in my body. The adrenaline rush of seeing him has ended, and I slump toward him. I can only sit there as he takes my pulse and blood pressure with the equipment he pulls out of his black medical bag.
“Pulse elevated, eyes a little dilated. How are you feeling? Any numbness, tingling?”
“No. I did feel dizzy a few times when I woke up. I’m just tired. Groggy.”
“It is the middle of the night. That’s okay, I have something that will help you feel better.
” He pulls out a plastic-wrapped syringe and preps it and a vial of some sort of medicine.
The liquid looks clear, but when the light hits it a certain way, it has a red tint.
“A dose of this will counteract the drug, okay?”
“Okay.” I must look worried because he rests his hand on mine.
“Do you trust me?”
When he gazes into my eyes like this, I’d do anything for him. Follow him anywhere. “Yes.”
He administers the injection, and I don’t even feel it. Maybe I am a bit numb.
Almost immediately, energy rushes through me, like I just went for a long hike, then drank a four-shot latte. “Whoa.”
“It’s potent, I know. It will heal you of any damage the drug did.” He holds my hand. It’s nice. “Tell me what happened.”
I explain everything from the moment the strangers showed up at my door to waking up in the hotel room and my conversation with my dad. “He says this guy wants to marry me.”
Matthias lets out an inhuman growl, and his eyes turn laser blue.
My eyes widen. I knew he was a bear shifter, but witnessing the signs firsthand sends goosebumps running down my arms.
“Not. Happening.” His words have a snarl to them.
Damn. That’s hot. So hot.
Is he growling over me? Would he make those sounds over any female from Bad Bear who got kidnapped?
Like…would he growl like that for Missy?
I want to think I’m special to him. When I was a teenager, I had this fantasy that one day Matthias would tell me that I was the woman he wanted and that he’d been waiting for years for me to grow up and be ready for him.
But that’s silly. He’s never shown any interest in me other than common courtesy.
“I’ll rip that guy apart before I let him marry you.”
Heat floods between my legs. I want to throw the back of my hand over my forehead in an old-fashioned swoon-pose and moan in a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice, “Take me, Matthias!”
Instead, I blush. Or at least it feels like I must be blushing based on how hot my cheeks and neck get. I clear my throat. “My dad says he owes a lot of money.”
“Hey, guys?” Teddy calls from the driver’s seat. “Wren called in a report from the hotel. Black Wolf helped her get eyes in the hotel, so she can monitor the mission.”
“And?” Matthias keeps holding my hand, his eyes on me.
“Lucky Lou discovered his men were missing. He knows Maisy’s gone.”
I tense. “They’ll be searching for me.”
“They’re not going to find you,” Matthias says. His thumb strokes the top of my hand in a soothing motion. “And even if they did, they have seven werebears to contend with.”
Werebears. He said it out loud.
Since the secret of Bad Bear mountain remains an unspoken one, I’ve never heard any of them acknowledge it. Not even the fact that Everest, the giant Polar-Grizzly who roams town, is clearly not a pet but a brother. I tried to ask Axel about it once, but he denied it, which hurt my feelings.
I turn to Matthias and rest my hand on his muscled chest. We’re sitting so close together I’m practically on his lap, but it feels right. “Why would this guy want to marry me?”
“I don’t know. But our friend Kylie’s digging into him to figure it out. Did you know Allen used to have a trust fund?”
“What?” The words Allen and trust fund together don’t make sense.
“His parents both came from money. He inherited his trust fund at age twenty-one and took off for Vegas where he spent it all as fast as he could.”
That sounds more like the Allen I know. The one who hit his young daughter up for birthday money. “Allen’s been broke as long as I’ve known him. But I guess I don’t know him very well. I never thought he’d do something like this.”
Matthias’ eyes flash blue again, as bright as the neon party lights.
“Kylie’s intercepted more texts,” Teddy informs us. “Lucky Lou’s calling in all his favors to find you. Whoever finds you is supposed to take you straight to the chapel.”
I shudder. Less than an hour ago, I was scared and alone back in the hotel room thinking I was pretty much doomed. “I’m so glad you found me.”
“I’ve got you now,” Matthias says. “And I’m never letting you go.”
My heart gives a double-pump. Um, wow. He probably doesn’t mean that the way I want him to, but he’s pretty much fulfilling all my teenage fantasies right now.
A look of steely determination comes over his face. “As for the marriage thing, I’m going to stop that right now,” he says.
“You are? How?”
“You’re marrying me.”