Chapter 20 - Nikki
Staring out the window, Nikki tried to peer into the woods, wondering if there was a path through them that would get her away safely.
How close were they to a town? To another cabin?
If she ran out without some sort of plan, she could easily get lost in the woods and never find her way out.
But was that really so much worse than the situation she was currently in?
She heard snapping fingers and tore her gaze away from the window to look over at Lucas. He leered at her from the couch, where he was talking to some of his cronies.
“Bring me a beer,” Lucas barked at Nikki.
She glared at him, but didn’t move.
His eyes narrowed, rage simmering just below the surface. “I said get over here, so unless you want to be punished for disobedience, you’ll do what I tell you.”
He glared at her. For a moment, she debated staying where she was, just to be petty. She would have gotten a savage sense of pleasure from it. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good. After a moment, she pushed herself from her feet and walked over to the fridge.
Her bare feet moved across the rough wood.
Lucas had taken her shoes. The chains that hooked her hands together had enough length between them to give her a bit of mobility, along with the chain connecting her legs, but it wasn’t enough to give her full range.
She couldn’t break into a run, and she couldn’t fight properly, but she could move enough to walk around the rundown cabin and do Lucas’s bidding.
She could feel his eyes and those of his cronies watching her as she opened the ancient fridge and pulled out a beer.
She didn’t glance at any of them as she walked over, keeping her head high.
It was all she could do not to fling the bottle at Lucas’s face.
She handed it to him and was about to walk away when he grabbed the chain linking her arms and yanked, dragging her back toward him.
“You look good in chains,” Lucas said, his hand running up and down her arm. “It’s nice seeing you back where you belong.”
She glowered at him. “Take your hand off me before I bite it off,” she said. Her voice was flat and emotionless, but the rage radiating off her was palpable.
Lucas laughed. “You know, this new fight you have is absolutely adorable.” He tugged her toward him, hand clenching her wrist. “It’s going to make it so much more fun to break you.”
“Let go of me,” she said through clenched teeth. She jerked her arms away.
The smirk playing on Lucas’s lips evaporated, and his eyes flashed dangerously. He grabbed the chains again and yanked her back.
“I am your alpha,” he snarled. “Treat me with a little respect.”
She let out a genuine laugh, one that reverberated through the cabin. Alarm and bewilderment flickered across Lucas’s features. Even the others looked a little unsettled. Once the laughter died, her smile dissipated, and she met Lucas’s eyes.
“You’re never going to become alpha,” she said.
Her voice was even, calm, and somehow filled with venom.
“You’re nothing but a weak, pathetic excuse for a shifter.
No one is going to follow you. I can’t believe you’ve managed to find these few idiots dumb enough to follow you.
But the second you go in and try to take over Silverrose, you’re going to be laughed out of town.
You have no chance. And even if you did, Jasper and the others would tear you to shreds before you were even halfway to the town square. ”
Lucas’s eyes burned, and his grip on her tightened. “You'd better watch that mouth of yours,” he growled. “You might be pretty, but just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you get to talk back to me.”
She let out a derisive laugh. Alarm flickered in his face again, as if he were taken aback.
“You’re pathetic. You know that?” She gestured around them, metal clinking against metal with the motion.
“Look at this place. You’re stuck in this hovel, groveling for cronies.
It’s embarrassing. But it works for you.
It fits you, because this is all you’re suited to lead.
” She gestured at the other two sitting on the couch.
“Honestly, I’m surprised you managed to convince these people to join you.
Then again, they’re more pathetic than you, which is saying a lot, so maybe they just recognized another loser and decided banding together was better. ”
“Shut your mouth,” he snapped.
“If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, then you can let me go.”
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stalked away. He shot to his feet, his hand lashing out to grip her arm, yanking her toward him.
“I own you,” he hissed, his grip on her tightening. “Don’t forget that. You are mine, and you need to start treating me with some more respect. Do you understand?”
She eyed him evenly, her expression neutral. “You know, when someone has to constantly say they’re in charge, it usually means they aren’t.”
His face turned bright red, eyes flashing anger. “You impertinent little—”
“Go ahead and call me whatever you want,” she cut him off. “It’s not going to change how small and pathetic you are.”
His eyes blazed with fury, and she got a savage satisfaction from it.
“You’re going to regret saying that,” he snarled, his grasp on her tightening, threatening to bruise.
“You’re a lot of talk for someone with so little power,” she said.
With a yell of fury, he grabbed her and dragged her away from the couch. She let him haul her without complaint. Seeing the simmering rage on his face was victory enough for her.
He threw her inside the room with so much force that she stumbled and nearly fell against the far wall. She spun around to see him framed in the doorway, his silhouette framed in light.
“You can stay here until you’ve figured out your place here,” he spat. “You’re nothing more than a worthless slave, and the sooner you accept that, the easier your new life is going to be.”
A few weeks ago, she would have believed those words, but now all she did was stare at him with interest, one eyebrow raised. She didn’t utter a word. The quieter she stayed, the angrier it seemed to make him.
“We’ll see how arrogant you are once I’ve murdered your husband and the rest of his pathetic crew,” he said. “Maybe then you’ll start realizing your situation here and learn a few manners.”
A small jolt of panic flickered through her at the threat, but she willed her features to stay neutral.
She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had hit a nerve, that he had really frightened her.
She didn’t want to give him that leverage, to put Jasper’s life even more in danger.
So she remained quiet, staring up at him as he stared down, waiting for some sort of reaction from her.
When she gave him nothing, a low growl reverberated in his throat, and he swung the door shut.
The wall shook from the impact, the tremor rippling through the floor. She listened to the lock slide into place, trapping her inside the small room, casting her into darkness once again. She stayed motionless, listening to the sound of Lucas’s footsteps storming away.
“Now, then, where were we?” she heard Lucas say with what she could only imagine was forced calm.
She wondered how embarrassing it must be for him to not even be able to keep a slave in line.
She wondered how the others who had witnessed it thought about it.
She wondered if it even mattered all that much.
Murmurs began to rise from the other side of the room.
She sat on the floor, leaning against the wall and pushing her hair back away from her face.
Her mind spun. In a way, this was exactly where she wanted to be right now.
She needed to figure out a way to get out of here, and she wanted the privacy to figure out how to do it.
Sighing, she slid down to the floor, trying to ignore the rattle of chains that clanked around her with every movement. They hung heavily on her, the extra weight seeming to drag her down. Letting out a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to think.
The only way out was through the cabin. She wouldn’t be able to sneak out any other way.
Despite how dilapidated the place looked, she couldn’t break through the wall in this tiny closet.
It had been one of the first things she tried.
There were no easy gaps to pry away or anything she could use to break through.
She crept to the door and gently jiggled the handle.
It felt loose, like a strong yank would tug it out of place.
Shoddily built and rundown, much like the rest of this shack.
Biting her lip, she considered. She could probably get out of this room easily enough.
The problem was getting out of the cabin, and where would she go from there?
She was barefoot, and the rattle of metal chains would give her away no matter how far she got.
She also knew they were some distance away from town.
It had taken a solid hour of winding roads to get here.
It would take her some time to orient herself and find out which way to go.
What she needed was for everyone to leave.
The murmurs on the other side of the room continued.
She tried to listen in, to hear if there was any information she could glean, any words that stuck out to her.
From what she could make out, they were planning on striking out against the Silverrose pack in the next couple of days, before Jasper and the others could figure out where they had taken her, while they would still be scrambling.
Her heart clenched. She had no idea whether Jasper had learned about their hideout, or whether it would play out exactly as Lucas envisioned.
But for all she knew, Jasper would want nothing to do with her after their fight. He might assume that she had left of her own accord.