Chapter 17
Darcy woke slowly with an intense headache. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but when she tried to touch her head, she couldn’t. Her hands were tied behind her back.
Lifting her head, she blinked away the blurriness. She appeared to be in a decrepit one-room cabin that smelled of dust and mildew. A lantern was on a small table and offered the only light.
Memories flashed through her mind: walking into the apartment and seeing Cruz’s note on the fridge.
A feeling like she wasn’t alone, and seeing someone out of the corner of her eye coming from her bedroom.
She’d tried to get to the door and had been tossed around the room like a ragdoll, before a sharp pain in her head and then nothing… until now.
She could see it was dark outside the dirty windows, but she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious.
Footsteps echoed outside, and she tensed, testing her bonds and finding the rough rope not giving an inch as she tried to wiggle her wrists or ankles free.
Damn it, she was trapped.
The door swung open and a man stood in the doorway. His eyes were gleaming in the lantern light, wild and unhinged.
He strode in, all confidence and swagger, and as he drew near, she tried to lean away but was bound too tightly to move much.
Stopping when he was close enough for her to smell the sour tang of sweat pouring off him, he said, “Do you know who I am?”
“Colton,” she said, making an educated guess. Who else would have been waiting for her at the apartment? And was Ford okay? She was pretty sure she was alone with this loon, and that was kind of a relief, because it meant Ford was safe. But she certainly wasn’t.
He grinned. “Correct. The rightful alpha of the Little River Herd. Crew is a usurper, claiming the farm for his herd. He had a chance to walk away with his people, but he refused. The farm is supposed to be mine. Mine.”
She knew from what Ford and his friends had shared about Colton’s actions, that he was definitely not the rightful leader of the farm, but she sure as heck wasn’t going to correct him. He sounded insane.
“You think Crew’s a good leader? You think Ford can rescue you?
You’re human and very fragile. There are plenty of ways that I can use you to make sure the herd does what I want.
” His brow lowered as he smiled in a way that made her feel like her veins were filled with ice.
“They’ll die screaming. All of them. I might let you live.
I don’t really care about humans. But you know the truth of us, so…
” He tapped his chin like he was thinking and then just let the words hang in the air.
A threat that she was helpless to do anything about.
Another man walked through the door. He had dark hair that was matted to his forehead and grease-stained fingers. He set a duffel on the table by the lantern and opened it, taking out wires and duct tape and placing them on the table.
She wasn’t about to ask what he was doing, but she had a good idea he was making something to hurt Ford and his friends if they showed up.
Which… how would he find her?
Her heart clenched as she thought about him, a pang of longing and worry mixed up together.
He was a horse shifter. A stallion. Her soulmate.
Which made him the one guy in the world for her.
They were mates now, and he’d shared the truth of his shifter nature with her.
She was a liability for anyone who thought she might tell the secret.
She watched the other man as he used clippers to cut the wire and wrapped the length of wire around a metal canister. She’d seen enough police shows to know a pipe bomb when she saw one.
Colton chuckled. “He’s great at that. Molotov cocktails are easy to make, but this sort of thing takes skill. Crew and his herd like to fight hand-to-hand. I don’t mind having some insurance to make sure we take them out when they come for you.”
She wanted to warn Ford away, but she had no way to do that. How could she save him when she needed saving herself?
“Why don’t you just find a new place to be with your herd? Why do you keep going after them?”
Colton’s smile disappeared. “Because he shouldn’t be alpha.
I want that farm. I’ve claimed it for my herd.
My brother lost his life!” His voice grew louder and he moved closer, getting in her face.
“That female bitch Zara left my herd to join up with Crew. She betrayed me, and then he refused to pack up and give the farm over to me. I’m a better alpha than him.
It’s mine because I have staked a claim to it. ”
He was talking so loudly that another guy looked in from the door.
“You okay, Colton?”
“Get back to your patrol, Asher.”
“I don’t see why I have to patrol. There’s no way they can find us here.”
“You forget Grey is a trained tracker,” the male at the table said. “Plus, Ford will definitely come for her, and his friends will be with him. We’ll take out the ones who come here and then we’ll take over the farm.”
“Tracker my ass,” Asher said. “If they could, they would have found us before we took her, I’m telling you.”
Colton stared at Darcy for a long moment.
“You forget,” he said, turning to face the man at the door, “that Ford has claimed this human as his mate. Even if he’s not a trained tracker, he can certainly find her because he’s supernaturally connected to her.
Like an invisible link. He can’t help himself but come to rescue her. ”
Levi lifted the metal canister and smiled. “It’ll be the last thing he does.”
She was scared.
Down to her bones scared out of her mind.
Scared for Ford. For the herd.
For herself.
But she could feel that link Colton talked about. Something other that connected her and Ford as soulmates. He was coming for her, she was sure of it.
She was going to hold onto that hope like a lifeline.
* * *
A compass.
That’s what Ford’s relationship with Darcy felt like to his stallion. A compass that was pulling him in her direction. He could practically see Darcy in his mind’s eye and feel the pull between them.
Two soulmates, their hearts joined in mating.
Fury pulsed through him as he ran toward her.
Away from the apartment and past the neighborhood behind it, through stretches of woods and over pavement, as cars and scenery blurred by him. His focus was wholly on Darcy.
The woods thickened as he ran, his boots pounding on the ground as he easily navigated toward her. And he knew he was getting close, because that invisible tether between them was growing stronger.
He could sense her fear.
He hoped she knew he was going to come for her.
His herd was tracking him by his phone, the weight of it in his pocket letting him know that he wasn’t in this fight alone. They had his back because they were family. Not by blood, but by choice. They would fight with him, stand by him, through anything.
A cabin came into view.
It was old and looked deserted, but he could feel Darcy inside.
He didn’t stop or falter, calling on his stallion to give him more strength and speed.
With a leap, he turned his shoulder and crashed through the door.
It splintered apart with the hit. He jumped over the debris, cataloging the inside of the cabin.
Colton. One of his buddies.
Darcy.
Ford froze just inside the cabin, even though his stallion urged him to attack.
“I knew you’d come,” Colton sneered as he stood next to Darcy, who was tied to a chair. She looked pale and scared, but as their gazes locked, he saw the relief in her eyes.
“So freaking predictable,” Colton added.
“Let her go, this is between you and me,” Ford said, muscles coiling to fight.
He caught movement from Colton’s crony and picked up the scent of explosives and metal.
Where was the third guy?
“Nah,” Colton said. “I think I’ll kill you in front of your little lady here, and then I’ll kill her. Eventually.”
Ford growled, deep and feral. Threaten his mate? He could fuck all the way off.
“Behind you!” Darcy shouted.
Ford ducked to the side as a crowbar sliced through the air where he’d been standing, narrowly missing his head.
He’d wasted enough time.
Launching himself toward Colton as something whizzed through the air once more, Ford let his fury take over.