Chapter 4 - Mara
I’m going to kill them, each and every one, if it’s the last thing I do.
I mean the ones who traded me, the ones who watched, the ones who just stood there, their faces blank in the city dusk.
Every last one. It’s the main thing tethering me to the ground as I walk alongside the shifter, the alpha, the one whose name stings my ear in a way that tells me the rumors were all true.
It’s not that I’m afraid; I’m not. I’m fed up and humiliated.
Months of infiltrating that faction, gathering intel, sleeping on that filthy mattress, playing dumb at the bar, biding my time, and earning what little trust one can earn among the Order, and for what?
To be offered up as a consolation prize to this one.
As if I were…as if I were a fucking sacrifice.
He’s got his hand on my shoulder, guiding me with just enough force to let me know that he expects me to behave, but not enough to leave a mark.
It’s annoying. I’d rather he just drag me, or throw me over his shoulder, or break my wrist and be done with it.
Show me who he really is—I’ve seen what shifters can do, after all.
This halfway gesture makes me want to bite him, which would be funny, since he’s the one with the actual teeth.
The hunters, the ones still breathing, don’t make eye contact.
There’s a new kind of fear in the way they look at me now.
Even Trish looks away like I’m just a nobody.
I was supposed to be one of them, and yet they dragged me out here and threw me at this man-mountain of a shifter as what…
a bargaining chip for their lives? After all their talk, they were too scared to fight. Figures.
I consider my options. I can’t miss the bodies lying by the perimeter fence, so I know he’s not afraid to kill.
I know the first patrol won’t be back for at least two hours, maybe an hour.
These idiots managed to sound the alarm, but they’re probably right not to fight their way out of this.
But I just don’t understand why he would even take me in a trade.
I glance at him cautiously, assessing whether my luck fending off men who either seem like monsters or actually are has finally run out.
It’s one thing to fight off Salty when he’d had a few too many beers, barricade my bedroom door, or never turn my back on the regulars; it’s another to fight off a shifter. An alpha.
No chance.
Or maybe he wants information. That I have plenty of, but I’m not done here.
I glance over my shoulder and catch Trish’s eye.
She finally looks at me, and I see guilt written all over her face.
In that moment, I know I have a way back in.
If I can escape this alpha and get back, I can pretend to forgive them; I’ve got no place else to go.
Maybe they’ll trust me even more because I’ve run back to them, and I can get what I need—find out what the Order has planned next and anything I can on my parents.
Hell, I’ll hand it all over to this shifter and his friends when I’m done, and they can tear this place apart. But not until I’m done.
The alpha walks me out to the edge of the compound, through the battered gates, and doesn’t say a word the entire time, unless a grunt or two qualifies.
I’m not sure he even notices me, not really, not when he’s still on high alert, expecting them to attack as we leave and vibrating with whatever supernatural anger is running juiced through his system.
He’s even bigger up close, and not in the way I’d glimpsed him at a distance from the roof before I got dragged down, but in the sense that his presence makes the air around us seem thinner.
At all of five-two, I feel like a child next to him.
His hand dwarfs my shoulder. I can practically feel the heat from his palm through my jacket, and I hate how it makes something deep in my chest stutter.
Every inch of him is muscle, scars, and intent.
I’ve seen plenty of men who kill for a living, but I’ve never seen someone who made it look so casual or easy.
His hair is longish, a little past his collar, dark brown with enough lighter streaks running through it to suggest he spends most of his time working outside.
His jaw is heavy, sharp. There’s a thin scar running just below his cheekbone, the only imperfection on a face that would look at home in some kind of rugged outdoor commercial.
His eyes are the most unsettling part, but not because they’re cold; because they’re not.
They’re an impossible, clear blue, so light it’s almost silver, and when he pins me with them, I see them flash gold, which seems so improbable I find myself staring as they fade back to clear blue.
His gaze doesn’t feel predatory, or at least not in the way I’m used to.
It’s almost worse because it looks curious.
Far too interested.
I look away first, which I despise, but I’m too busy running through escape scenarios.
He could snap my neck with a flick of his wrist. If I try to run, I’ll get maybe three steps.
If I scream, the hunters aren’t going to care.
They’ve made that clear. It’s just me and him and the empty field beyond the fence, and I have to admit, for the first time maybe ever, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
“Keep walking,” he says, voice low enough that it feels like a warning, but not aimed at me.
I take his point and keep up, matching his pace as we reach his vehicle.
A massive black pickup, the kind that can handle two feet of snow and anything else the world throws at it.
He opens the passenger door with a jerk and gestures for me to get in, keeping half an eye on the hunters who are still watching cautiously.
“You don’t get to act like you saved me, you know,” I say, my voice low and shaking with fury, not fear. “You made a deal. That’s not the same thing.”
Cade’s gaze hardens. “You were about to die.”
“And now I belong to you? You think I owe you?” I shoot back.
Something dark flickers in his expression. “You owe me some answers.”
I hesitate, and we stare at each other for a moment, but he doesn’t blink.
Maybe he expects me to bolt, but I don’t.
I climb in and slam the door, and as soon as he’s behind the wheel, the whole cab shrinks around him.
He smells like cedar, rain, and something sharp and animal.
I turn to the window, keeping my face in profile so he won’t see how much attention I’m paying to everything else.
He starts the truck. The engine growls. We rumble over the gravel, out onto the city road, and I have a quick, wild thought about yanking the wheel and sending us into the ditch. But I don’t.
We ride in silence for the first five minutes.
The city drops away frighteningly quickly as I mentally catalog every possible chance of escape on this road—if only I could think of how to get him to stop.
I keep my eyes glued to the window, counting flickers of passing streetlights as if the right tally will spit out the solution to this new, humiliating equation.
Occasionally, I catch his reflection in the glass, the sharpness of his jaw and the set of his mouth, and it’s all I can do not to crawl out of my own skin with frustration as we get further away from where I need to be.
What’s the play here? I’m not dumb enough to think he’s rescuing me.
Shifters don’t rescue girls from the Order; they kidnap hunters, interrogate them, and, if you believe the stories, kill them.
So, if he’s not going to kill me outright, he must want something.
Information, maybe. Or leverage. Which means I’m a hostage. I can work with that.
I give it another mile before I speak. “So, what’s the plan? Are you going to lock me in your basement and waterboard me for secrets, or is this more of a ‘keep the enemy close’ kind of deal?” My voice comes out harder than I mean, but I don’t bother dialing it back.
He doesn’t look over; he just keeps driving, his hands relaxed on the wheel. “Basement’s full,” he says, deadpan. “You’ll have to make do with the guest room.”
It’s almost funny, but I’m too pissed to give him the satisfaction. “Funny. I bet you’ve got a lot of practice with this. Taking girls from the city and dragging them up the mountain. Is that what you do for fun?”
He lets the silence stretch, and then laughs. “You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?”
That stings in a way I can’t explain. I bite back a retort, then say, “I think pretty little of you, actually. No offense, but I’m not exactly impressed with the way your people handle things.” I look out the window again, jaw clenched. “I know what shifters are capable of.”
He barks a low laugh, almost a cough. “So you’re an expert on us now?”
“I know enough,” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment, and then adds, “And I know what humans are capable of.”
The words land harder than I expect because he doesn’t say it like an accusation. Just a fact.
I think I hate that more.
His eyes cut to me, and I wish they hadn’t.
There’s something about the way he’s looking, like he’s already figured me out and is bored waiting for me to catch up.
I can’t stand it. For some reason, I find myself wanting to say something that’ll rattle him, but I can’t shake the fact that he hasn’t asked me a single question, hasn’t tried to scare me, and hasn’t even bothered to check if I’m armed.
He’s just driving, like this is a Sunday errand and not a kidnapping.
His voice is almost gentle when he asks, “What exactly do you think you know?”