Chapter 1 #2
“Hey, don’t pass out,” he said urgently. Devil really wasn’t a name that inspired trust and confidence. Neither was Cobra. “The medics are working their way down the line, you’ll get seen to soon.”
“If anyone touches me, they die,” I snarled, teeth bared as if that meant anything from a beta. I didn’t have sharp canines, just dull beta teeth. That wouldn’t stop me gnawing my way through someone’s neck to rip their throat out.
I looked beyond Devil’s rugged, artfully stubbled face and blinked when I saw the vast fields that spread out around us, a couple dozen vans and cars arranged in the wheat, tyre tracks carved through the stalks.
And just behind them was a big, stone structure I’d never glimpsed before—because I was drugged on the way in, of course.
The piece of shit traffickers were professional.
Arrayed around the big house were seven barns. Seven.
Seven.
I must have said it out loud because Devil ran a hand down his face, then dragged it through his hair. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Seven.”
There must have been ten people in the barn where I’d been restrained and—nope, not thinking about it.
Never thinking about it again. Not fucking ever.
The barn where nothing at all happened. I curled inward, ignoring the pain that exploded through my shoulders, my ribs, my stomach, and inside me, each a detonation that made my eyes water.
Ten times seven. Seventy. These fucking pigs had seventy of us locked up here, available at a price to—to—
“Ah, shit. Comforting isn’t really my strong suit, but—calm down?”
“You calm down,” I snarled, my breathing racing, each rough scratch of air down my throat making my ribs howl, spike, and stab me with pain. White spots crowded into my vision this time, to add a little variety.
“We’re here to get you out, yeah?”
“You don’t—sound confident—of that,” I wheezed. I was definitely swaying now, my head spinning.
“What happened in that barn is never going to happen again. I give you my word.”
I swayed a little too far to the left, and knew I would fall off the trailer. I slammed into a solid arm instead, and had to bite down a cry. But it hurt less than crashing into the ground would have. “The word of the devil. Wow.”
The scent of rum and leather swirled around me, invading my senses, and it was such a pleasant difference to cum and piss and terrified desperation that I endured the pain in my ribs to draw more of it into my lungs.
“Devil’s a sappy bastard,” Asshole Number One told me, appearing from nowhere.
That, or I blacked out for a second there.
Possible. “You can take him at his word; he’s not the sort to break a promise.
And he’s right. None of us would touch a rescue.
Kinda goes against our whole ‘kill abusers and rehabilitate their victims’ shtick. ”
“Not a victim, fucklord,” I spat, trying to open my eyes but finding it difficult enough to breathe let alone adding in more bodily functions.
“Sure, asshole,” he agreed.
“Cobra,” Devil hissed. “Don’t call her asshole. I’m so sorry—what’s your name, darling?”
I forced my eyes open to give Devil a lethal glare. “Call me that again. I dare you.”
“You’re not in a position to attack anyone,” Cobra pointed out, almost amused.
“Hi, there,” a soothing, motherly voice interrupted our conversation, and a school-teacher-ish woman with a white coat over a lemon yellow cardigan pushed the men aside.
I braced for their temper, but they allowed themselves to be bustled back a few steps.
“I’m Miranda, one of the doctors the Knights called in. ”
“Knights,” I echoed, managing to summon some scornful attitude.
“I know,” she replied, assessing me with her eyes, seeing my broken hands, my bruises, my blood, the way I hunched, the arm that hung so fucking wrongly from my shoulder.
“It’s a ridiculous name, but they really do charge in like knights on their chargers to save people.
And they end the lives of monsters, so I’m inclined to think they deserve their name. ”
I hissed when she came a step closer. “Are you a real doctor?”
“Yes.”
“What field?”
“I’m an anaesthetist,” she admitted, her steady look just daring me to fight her on this.
“What are you gonna do, drug me?” Honestly, I could go for that right now. If I wasn’t surrounded by unknown quantities, I’d ask her to knock me right out.
Miranda came closer, and I gritted my teeth, kicking my foot into her knee.
“Well, that wasn’t very nice,” she sighed.
The world went black for a moment, but I held on. “I’m not very nice. Fuck off and anaesthetise someone else, Miranda.”
“You have very serious injuries, and really ought to go to a hospital—”
An omega did me a favour right then by breaking free of the line and running away screaming, “You’ll never touch me!”
“Yeah, tell ‘em girl,” I muttered, frowning when huge, leather-clad men went chasing after her shouting things like you’re safe and we will never harm you and no one will touch you without your permission and watch out for that tractor.
“Try it,” I dared Miranda, and knew she would back off when she sighed.
“You need a full physical assessment immediately,” she argued.
“Gee, after weeks of sustained assault, I wonder why I’m not jumping at the prospect.”
“After weeks of sustained assault, you have injuries that need to be treated.”
“Yeah, well, suck it, lady,” I spat, swaying into Cobra.
When she moved on to the next woman in the row—a silent omega who’d just sat beside me, leaning against the edge of the trailer, staring into space, I exhaled a breath of relief. And found my new fanclub watching me.
“You going to force me into an assessment, too?” I demanded, my head spinning.
“Nah,” Cobra replied, his arm out, still propping me up. Dammit. “I don’t pick fights I won’t win.”
“Good,” I hissed. “Because I would—”
I curled my fingers into fists on instinct, and the pain was so severe that this time I blacked out.