Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
VIVIENNE
The bedroom door burst inward with a splintering crash that shook the walls. Shadows filled the doorway, then resolved into hulking forms. Harris Murdoch stood at the front, a vicious grin splitting his still-bruised face. In his hand was a small, black camera.
“Say cheese!” he exclaimed, his voice triumphant and hateful.
A searing white flash filled the dim room, and I screamed, throwing a hand up over my eyes, utterly blinded and disoriented.
Kor roared—a sound of pure, animal fury. I felt him surge up beneath me, trying to shield me, to put himself between me and the threat at the door.
“Get the pup!” Harris barked. “Get him!”
Hands—rough, angry hands—grabbed Kor, hauling him out from under me.
I tumbled to the side, naked and exposed on the tangled sheets.
I saw Kor lash out, his fist connecting with a jaw with a sickening crack. One of the men staggered back. But there were too many of them—four, five Alphas—men I recognized from the town. Their faces were hard, set in lines of disgust and a kind of grim excitement.
“Hold him!” Harris snarled. “Hold him down and shoot ‘im!”
Someone at the back of the crowd raised an arm and I heard a soft, sinister phfft sound as something small whizzed through the air, too fast for me to see what it was.
Kor stiffened and his furious snarl cut off into a choked gasp. He looked down, confused, at the small, feathered dart now protruding from the hard plane of his chest.
“Kor!” I cried, still too horrified to even move from the bed.
His eyes, wide and blazing with shock, found mine across the chaotic room. His lips formed my name—Vivienne—but no sound came out. Then his eyes lost focus and his knees buckled. He sagged heavily into the men holding him, a dead weight, his head lolling forward.
“No!” I screamed, scrambling across the bed on my hands and knees. “Kor! What did you do to him?!”
Harris was already on me. He grabbed my arm, yanking me off the bed with brutal, wrenching force.
I stumbled, naked, trying to cover myself with my hands.
He wrenched my arms behind my back, and I felt the bite of rough, braided rope as he tied my wrists together, the knots pulling tight with a finality that seared my skin.
“Didn’t do nothing he didn’t deserve, you little slut,” Harris spat into my ear, his breath reeking of cheap whiskey and malice. “You’re s’posed to be a Moon Widow and look at you—letting that pup knot you and breaking the Unbreakable Laws. Disgusting.”
“Leave me alone! I don’t care about your stupid laws. Just let us go,” I cried. “We were going to leave together—let us go and you can have the town and the Pack. We don’t care!”
“Let you go without punishing you? I don’t think so. We saw what you two was up to, girly,” Harris sneered.
He held up the digital camera, the small screen glowing in the dark room. On it, frozen in the blinding flash, was a crystal-clear, horrifying image—me straddling Kor, my face contorted in pleasure, his hands on my hips, our bodies joined in the most private of acts.
“And pretty soon, everyone in the Pack and everyone in the town, is gonna see. You’re finished. Both of you,” he told me.
Terror, cold and absolute, washed through me, drowning the last embers of heat and pleasure. This wasn’t just a home invasion—this was humiliation—utter ruination. A permanent stain on my name and Kor’s forever that would follow us to any other Pack we might want to join.
Harris shoved me toward the shattered door.
“Come on, let’s get this trash out of here,” he snarled at the other Alphas.
As I was forced to move, stumbling and naked, my bare feet scraping on the splintered wood of the doorframe, I twisted my head for one last look.
Two of the Alphas had Kor by his arms, dragging his limp, unconscious body. His head lolled sickeningly, his feet trailing behind him like a ragdoll’s. They turned, hauling him toward the dark maw of the back stairs.
Harris shoved me again, a hard hand between my shoulder blades, propelling me forward, toward the front of the house, the opposite direction.
“Stop!” I begged. “What are you going to do to him?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” Harris told me. “Don’t you worry, Lady Jamison—both of you are gonna get what’s coming to you.”
The last thing I saw before I was pushed out into the dark, cold night was the sight of the man I loved, helpless and being dragged away into the darkness.
And I had no idea in the world if I would ever see him again.