Authors: Janet MacDonald
He was without a
mate now. She’d died five years ago, and he’d been having a hell of a time
finding one who he thought would make a good alpha female. His mate had only
been with him for a month. They really hadn’t even gotten to know one another.
It’d been an arranged mating, and it’d benefited both their packs. The loss was
hard, but he knew all too well if he’d had feelings for her it would have been
so much worse.
As he unlocked
the padlock and removed the chain, he had to wonder what had happened to Anya’s
mate. She was far too pretty and more than old enough to have been mated at
least once, so he assumed she had to have lost hers. Dante walked inside and forced
his face back into the menacing stern glare he’d put on before. He didn’t want
her to see any weakness in him, which would not be good in trying to gain the
information he so desperately needed to learn.
His little
sister, Cora, had disappeared, and it was rumored that one of the Silverbacks
had her. Taken forcibly by one of their males, no doubt. The pack had done it
before, taking another’s mate against her will. It was what he assumed had
happened to Cora, but without proof there was nothing he could do. This girl
would have answers, and he planned on getting them from her.
Chapter Three
Anya looked up
from the bed as the man again entered the tiny room. His gaze locked with hers
and held it. She trembled ever so slightly as he closed the door and then stepped
up to the bed.
“Anya, it’s time
we had a little talk. My name is Dante, and you have some information I need,” he
said as she stared up at him.
“What do you
want?” she asked, trying not to sound afraid.
“I want to know
what your pack did with Cora,” he said with a growl.
“Cora? I don’t
know anyone by that name.” Anya lied. Lying was not really something she was
good at, and although she managed to hold his gaze, she knew he didn’t buy it.
“You’re lying to
me.” Dante snarled, verifying her thoughts as he glared down at her.
Cora was her
twin brother’s mate. Alex had met Cora in town. The two started seeing one
another behind everyone’s back. Everyone’s except hers. As twins, they shared a
great deal, and Anya was Alex’s closest confidant. Mitch had refused to allow
the mating, and Cora had told Anya there was no way her family would allow it
either. When the two decided to elope, Anya had given them all the money she
had saved so they could run away together. But there was no way she was about
to tell Dante any of that.
The man sat on
the bed, suddenly tearing her mind from those thoughts as his weight made the
wooden frame creak slightly. His gaze had not left her, and Anya refused to
look away. She would not be made submissive to him by doing that.
“You should
really think hard about the situation you’re in. If you don’t tell me what I
want to know, you’ll never leave here.” He growled.
“I told you I
don’t know anyone called Cora,” she snapped, trying to move her body away from
his hip that was against her waist.
The feeling was
too close, and her insides quivered at the brute’s nearness. It was such a
strange sensation, one of fear and excitement blended together. She hoped he
wouldn’t smell the excitement he’d caused to race over her.
“You know I can
do as I please with you.” Dante seemed to notice her attempt to get farther
away.
Anya hatefully glared
at him. He wouldn’t, would he? The unasked question was answered as he moved
his hand to stroke the side of her face. She slapped it away.
“Don’t touch me,”
she said with a growl.
“I’ll do
whatever I want with you. Now tell me where Cora is.”
He yelled the
girl’s name as his hand fisted in her hair. The move stunned her, and she
gasped in spite of herself. His grip was firm but not painful. It was actually
more thrilling, and that more than left her confused. The feeling caused her
lips to part slightly, and she saw a surprised look momentarily flash in his
eyes.
“Tell me,” he
roared, and that snapped the needful sensation that had flooded over her. His
demand only pissed Anya off in spite of the strange attraction she felt. She
fed that anger to help wash away the unwanted feelings she had.
Anya would never
tell anyone where Alex and Cora had gone. This man would most likely kill her
brother if he knew, and she would rather die herself then let that happen. With
renewed courage, she spat in Dante’s face. His glare intensified as he wiped
the spit from his skin.
“Anya, you will
tell me what I want to know.” He growled menacingly. “You trespassed. You
belong to me, and if you want your freedom, you should really think long and
hard about telling me where the fuck my sister is.”
With that, he
released his grasp on her hair and abruptly stood. He eyed her one last time before
he stormed out of the room. Anya was a bit dazed. This was Cora’s brother. That
was something her brother’s mate had not told her. Tears welled in her eyes,
but she fought them. She’d been stupid. She’d been caught on enemy territory.
Trespassing on another pack’s ground was like forfeiting your life. It that man
killed her, no pack would bat an eye at it. It was the way their kind’s laws
worked.
That was
something her brother would not be able to fix, not unless they attacked the
island outright, and the last time that had happened the Silverbacks had lost
half their men in the battle. With steely resolve, Anya pulled herself up to a
sitting position, her lower half useless. Nevertheless, she was not about to
let that deter her. With a soft
thud
, she pulled herself down to the
floor.
After peeling
the dress off, she shifted forms and dragged herself under the bed, creeping to
the far back corner. Slowly she dug her front claws into the wood, scraping
away at it. It would take days to rip a hole big enough for her to get out, but
there was no way she was going to stay a captive if she could help it. Not with
the knowledge of what they may do to her. After all, it was because of her uncle
that a war had broken out between the two. Dante, like herself, had lost loved
ones in it, both sides never forgiving the other for what had happened.
* * * *
Mitch stormed
into his house. Rage filled him as he grabbed the house phone and looked at his
mate. “There’s still no sign of her,” he said. He tried to quell the anger and
fear rising in him. It was a hard battle. Anya needed to learn to be more
responsible, had sworn she would stop these foolish childish games of taking
off alone on her adventures.
When Anya hadn’t
shown up by supper, they’d called all the usual suspects, but none of her
friends had a clue where she was. Normally, his overly curious sister would at
least be back by dark, but as eight o’clock rolled around, and she still hadn’t
shown, he knew something was wrong. A search party was now being organized, and
his very pregnant wife ushered his older two sons to bed, not wanting them to
know their aunt was missing. He could not handle it if anything happened to his
sweet little sister.
His mother had
entrusted him to take care of his little brother and sister. Although Alex had
left the pack, he knew his little brother was okay. He couldn’t condone Alex’s
relationship with Cora. She was an enemy, and their kind had nearly destroyed
the Silverback pack when Mitch was just a young boy. Now Alex and Cora were
living in Fairbank, a six-hour drive south of there. No one knew Mitch still
kept tabs on them, not even Anya.
As he dialed his
beta, Reese, he watched Kari come back from the children’s room, her face
showing her worry.
“Yeah?” Reese
asked as he answered before the second ring.
“Any luck?”
“No. We’re
getting the search teams organized right now at the high school and are
starting the grid sweep assignments with the teams.”
“All right. I’ll
meet you over at the school in ten minutes,” he told him and then hung up.
“No news?” Kari
asked. She looked upset, and being so close to her due date, it was the last
thing she needed to be.
Anya was like a
daughter to Kari, having only sons so far. Anya was the closest thing they had
to a little girl, even if she was twenty-one.
“I’m sure she’s
fine. You know how she gets,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as
his mate that there was no reason to worry.
After leaving
home, he drove down to the high school. The parking lot was busy with people
getting ready to go out and look for his sister. He prayed that any moment his
cell would ring and Kari would tell him Anya had arrived home. It didn’t happen,
though, and as the hours passed and they searched, they found nothing. Her
scent had long since faded in with many of her older tracks, none of which led
to her. Anya was an avid hunter. She loved to run in the woods, and he’d told
her on more than one occasion not to go alone. Men still hunted wolves in these
parts, and she could get killed.
Hours drifted
by, her scent still in and around the woods, but it was faded, telling them
they were older trails of his sisters. When it started to rain, any fresher
trails would be dampened, making tracking damn near impossible. As dawn
approached, Mitch was tired, wet and consumed with all the worries of losing a
loved one when he got a call and he frantically answered it.
“Yeah.” His
heart raced as he hoped it was the call telling him they’d found her safe and
sound.
“It’s me,” Reese
said. “We found something.”
Visions of his
sister lying shot dead in the forest, or in the ditch after being hit by a car,
flooded his mind. Motorist didn’t tend to stop if they hit a wolf, they just
kept going. It’s what had happened to their mother. That memory had him nearly
in tears.
“Anya.” His
voice cracked as his worst fears washed over him.
“No, we’re at
the boat launch and your boat is missing,” he said.
“Was Anya
there?”
“It’s hard to
tell if it was her or not, the scent’s there, but it’s too old to tell. Too
much time has gone by, Mitch.”
“I’m on my way
there,” he told him and then hung up the phone. It was less than three miles to
the tiny cove in which they kept their boats, and Mitch ran the whole way
there.
After they found
nothing of real value other than his missing boat, they started the search out
on the water as well. Anya was forbidden to take his boat as the bay could get
very dangerous without much warning, and the small single engine vessel was
really not made for the openness of the inlet. Now he thought she might have
gone out and capsized, drowned and was lost to the depths.
Nearly five days
came and went. The search ran nearly day and night. The men and women of his
pack doing rotation shifts, but still they found nothing, not even his boat.
Hope had faded fast that they would find her. Most believed her dead and gone.
Mitch was giving it one more day before he made the call to Alex. He knew she
wasn’t there as his little spy in Fairbank had not seen her, but he needed to
tell his little brother what was going on.
* * * *
As Dante walked
he tried to carefully balance the two trays in his hands. The one with the food
wobbled, and he had to stop and maneuver it so the soup wouldn’t spill from the
cup he’d put it in. It wasn’t much of a meal—soup, a sandwich and a muffin as well
as a cup of hot tea. Hopefully Anya liked tea, he thought as he made the last
few yards to the rickety old shed.
As he walked up
to the building that held his prisoner, Dante took a moment to quell the
excitement rising in him. He sat the tray of food, as well as the basin with
warm water, soap, facecloth and towel on the step so he could unlock the
padlock and remove the heavy chain. Dante opened the door and retrieved the
things before walking inside. The girl lay on her back, looking at him
carefully.
He tried to
control the urge to smile, and again Dante scowled at her. It earned him a
hardened glare as he stepped to the small table and set the trays down.
“Here is some
food, and you can wash up,” he said gruffly. He looked at her. She made no move
to go for the food, nor did she say anything. Dante reached for the girl, wanting
to lift her into a sitting position. Anya slapped his hand before he could
touch her. “I’m just going to sit you up so you can eat,” he said with a growl.
“Relax for Christ sakes!”
Anya’s gaze
never left his face as he lifted her with ease. Her small frame felt good in
his arms, and he struggled not to kiss her as he moved her. The urge was
strange to have. She, after all, was an enemy. He should not feel this kind of
attraction to her, but yet he did.
As he moved her
into position, their gazes met. He found she had the most brilliant blue eyes
he’d ever seen, and for a moment, he was lost in them. Still holding her, he
had to struggle to remove his arms from around her, wanting only to continue to
feel the warmth of her body. Finally letting go of her, he swallowed hard. The
attraction was so strong he had to wonder if she could sense it.
With her back
against the wall for support, he pulled more of the thin quilt over her lap before
he took the tray and set it on her. “It’s not much, but it’ll fill the void until
supper time.” She eyed the tray without saying a word. “As soon as you’re
finished eating you can wash up. If you need help I’ll send for Beth.” He
watched her pick up the cup of soup and sniff. “It’s beef and barley. It’ll
help you heal. The sandwich is smoked meat, and the carrot muffin Beth made.”
Dante made sure
there was no need for a fork, spoon or knife. Any of them could be used as a weapon,
and he was not going to chance her attacking anyone or getting away. As he sat beside
her on the bed, he eyed her. Dante couldn’t believe how beautiful his captive
was.
“Anya, you
should really tell me what you know about where my sister is,” he said. Anya
looked up at him. Her eyes narrowed and turned a darker color, but she spoke
not a single word. “I’ll let you go if you tell me.” She cast her gaze back
down to the food and seemed to tune him out as she continued to eat. “Very well,
Anya, have it your way.”
He huffed and
stood. The girl was more stubborn than a mule. Definitely a sign of an alpha
female, and that had his wolf stirring.