Read Sassy Ever After: A Hot Piece Of Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) Online
Authors: Melanie James
“G
et your fucking paws off me, you creep!” Hannah screamed, but her captors held her tight. She had been so wrapped up and lost in the little make-out session with her mate, she’d let her guard down and hadn’t realized what was about to happen until it was too late.
The sight of blood gushing from Tanner’s head sent her into a panic. She prayed to God that he was okay, all the while kicking and screaming, trying to fight off two of the men who held her captive. But even with her extra cushioning and heightened strength, she was no match for a couple of full-grown mutts.
If she could only reach her phone, she could call for help. She had to let her aunt and uncle know about the rogue wolves, and get help for Tanner.
Hannah’s head flew sideways as her captor delivered a sharp slap to her face. She would not give him the satisfaction of crying out in pain. Blood filled her mouth as she turned her head to meet his stare. Spitting the blood in his face, she ignored the pain that radiated from her cheek. God love her, she really did try not to let the men know she was wounded, but she couldn’t hold back the groan that escaped her.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Hannah could feel her eyes glowing from the anger coursing through her. They’d knocked her mate out cold. She had to do something to distract the men; hopefully it would give Tanner a chance to recover.
Her plan was cut short when one of the guys picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She kicked and screamed again for Tanner. Her fists landed hard blows on the guy’s back and shoulders, but it did no good. He had her in a firm grip and there was no getting away. All she could do was bide her time until she could make her escape.
“I’ve got her. You grab Scott. Let’s get out of here before anyone else decides to take a stroll through the woods tonight.”
They carried her deep into the forest until they came upon a small, dilapidated shack. Hannah wracked her brain trying to figure out where she was. Bouncing around upside down on a smelly stranger’s shoulder wasn’t exactly the best way to gauge one’s location, especially if you were already geographically challenged.
“This one’s pretty feisty, Mac. She’ll be fun to play with.”
“Let me go!”
“Now why would we want to do that?” her captor teased.
“You’re making a huge mistake. I’m the Alpha’s niece. He’ll come looking for me, and so will my mate.”
“Sounds like we’re fixin’ to have a party on our hands.”
The guy named Mac kicked open the door to the shack, strolling in like he owned the place. He dumped his friend’s limp body on the stained sofa as her captor chucked her onto the floor.
Hannah’s feet hadn’t even hit the ground before her wolf took charge. Her shift came hard and fast. Snarls flew from her muzzle.
“We’ll take the little one down first.”
“You better shift back to human form before someone gets hurt.”
Even in wolf form Hannah managed to roll her eyes. It wasn’t her who was about to get hurt. On the contrary, she was about to take a chunk out of his nasty ass.
Just as she was about to make her move on the smaller guy, Mac lunged toward her. With gloved hands, he pulled a small silver chain from the pocket of his jeans. Hannah backed up to avoid being hit by the deadly silver he flung at her like a lasso.
Hannah dodged his sloppy attempts to hit her the first couple of times, but then her luck ran out. Mac had her backed into a corner with nowhere to go. She lunged for his leg, her teeth sinking deep into the muscle. He let out a scream just as he wound the chain around her neck.
Fuck!
The silver instantly singed her fur, burning straight through to her skin. There went her plan to rescue herself and her mate. Until she could find a way to free herself from the silver, she was stuck. Now she knew exactly how the woman she’d rescued in the woods had felt.
Mac quickly recovered from the bite with a fast shift to his wolf form. As soon as he resumed his human form, he removed the silver from her neck. Then he swung his booted foot at her as hard as he could in order to deliver the hardest possible blow to her side, forcing her back to human form.
Hannah collapsed.
The kick knocked the wind out of her. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mac wrapped the silver chain around her neck again. Pulling her head back to expose her neck, he knelt down behind her.
“Oh God, no!” Hannah struggled, knowing exactly what he intended to do.
“Hold still, you little bitch.” His fangs lengthened, contorting his already-ugly face before sinking deep into her neck.
This mating mark was nothing like the one she had expected to receive. Her wolf crumpled to the floor. Being marked by a male who was not her mate would set off a chain of events she was powerless to stop.
“Now what do we do?”
Hannah asked her wolf.
Her wolf whined in response.
“He becomes our mate or I die.”
“There has to be another option.”
She was just too tired to think of it.
“Let’s leave the little bitch here with Scott while we go take care of that wolf,” Mac suggested.
A glimmer of hope passed through Hannah. If she could regain even a portion of her strength, she would be able to get the silver off and escape. She had to do something to save her mate.
T
anner’s eyes opened slowly. Confusion and pain swept through his head.
What the fuck happened?
A strange burning in his neck left him weak and lethargic each time he tried to move his head to look around. He reached up to touch his neck, nearly screaming in pain when he felt a thin, cold chain rubbing up against his skin.
“It’s silver.”
His wolf confirmed his thought.
Through the pounding in his head, he tried like hell to recall the last thing he remembered. The taste of his mate was still fresh on his lips. He had been swept away by her allure, and the raw need to mark and claim her. Now he was on his ass with a throbbing headache and silver wrapped around him.
His nose twitched as he tried to pick up Hannah’s scent, but it was nowhere to be found. The smell of blood surrounded him. Tanner slowly felt the back of his head. His fingers came away covered with a warm sticky substance. His blood.
A pang of fear surged through him. What happened to Hannah? He had to find her. Whoever did this to him must have taken her.
The sound of branches crackling around him sent him into a frenzy. His nose worked overtime, cataloguing the unfamiliar scents surrounding him. He held back a gag when the same putrid smell he’d stumbled upon earlier reached his nostrils.
Biting back a shout, Tanner ripped the silver from around his neck, and commanded his wolf to take control. He needed the added strength the animal would give him and the majik healing that would come with the shift.
He winced, his shift slower and more painful than normal. Tanner could feel every damn bone in his body reshape as they all shifted into place. Each and every hair sprouting from his skin felt like a needle slicing through tissue. When the shift was finally complete, he shook off the lingering twinges of pain and took to the trees, quietly keeping a safe distance from the approaching men.
“I know we left that bastard around here somewhere.” Jimmy looked around as if he was lost.
“He should be right over there, near that tree. Did the brand to the balls make you lose your memory?” Mac said with a roll of his eyes.
“Good. Let’s finish him off, then get back to that sweet little thing he had with him. I can’t wait to make her scream.”
“Sounds good to me. After all, she’s going to be my mate. Whether she likes it or not.”
“Man, that chunk you took out of her neck looked like it hurt like a motherfucker.”
“Yeah, well, some bitches deserve it.”
“We need to make this quick. We have to check on Scott when we get back, too.”
“Fuck Scott. He’s a pussy. The dude didn’t hit him that hard. I can’t believe I had to carry his big ass back to camp. He should have been the one carrying
me
back. My balls are still burning.”
Tanner’s blood boiled as he listened to the conversation. They had to be talking about his Hannah. She was the only female around. The mere thought of someone else marking his mate made his stomach churn. There would be hell to pay for the harm they inflicted on her.
“What the fuck? I thought you said he was out. Looks to me like he found a way to escape.”
“We wrapped silver around his neck. That should have held him till we got back. Someone had to have helped him.”
“Whatever. He’s as good as dead anyway. Let that fucker try to come for the girl—I’ll kill her the second he shows up.”
“I must admit your plan is fucking brilliant.”
Tanner saw red. He wanted his mate safe. If only he’d been able to mark Hannah, they would share a mating connection that he would be able to speak to her through it. He would have known exactly where she was and what he had to do to get her to safety. Instead, he had to wait for the jackoffs to think about the location where they kept her hidden.
Tanner was barely able to keep his violent urges contained as thoughts of ripping the heads from their bodies poured through his mind. But he had to wait. He had to know where they’d taken his Hannah. His unfamiliarity with the area left him at a huge disadvantage.
“If Scott wakes up anytime soon, he’ll have the girl to keep himself occupied till we get back.”
The other man laughed. “He’ll break her in good for me.”
“The broken ones are always the best.”
“Remember the marks he left on the last girl? Those were pretty sweet.”
Oh, fuck this.
He only needed one alive that he could pry the information from. Tanner snarled as he jumped from behind a tree, landing directly on top of one of the men and knocking him to the ground. Going right for the man’s throat, he ripped it out instantly. Blood covered his face and neck. The other man looked down in horror before shifting into his wolf form and growling at Tanner.
Tanner’s wolf dwarfed the other wolf easily. There was no doubt who would walk away from a fight, and who would not.
The wolf lunged at Tanner and missed. He lunged again, and this time Tanner caught the back of his neck with his canines, drawing blood. The wolf held it together, remaining in wolf form and lunging a third time.
Tired of playing games, Tanner spun, grabbing the wolf by his hind leg and tearing through the muscle with ease. The pain broke his opponent’s will and he immediately shifted back to human form. Screams of agony filled the air all around them.
“Tell me where she is, you piece of shit, and I’ll consider letting you live.”
“Fuck you. If you kill me, you’ll never find her.”
Tanner pulled out his cell phone to call Barbara. He wanted to be the first to tell Barbara that her niece was missing. Within minutes he was surrounded by the Wolfes’.
“W
hat the hell happened?” Barbara shouted as she and her mate Tristian reached Tanner’s position in the woods. “Where’s my Hannah?”
“I don’t know. They’ve taken her somewhere and this punk won’t tell me where.” Tanner kicked the man on the ground.
“How did this happen?” Tristian asked.
“I was out for a run earlier when I found these two pieces of shit, along with one of their buddies. They were busy torturing a young girl. Hannah showed up and freed the girl while I fought them off. I didn’t want to kill them, so I just knocked them out. I thought they’d be unconscious longer than they were. Then it all happened.”
“All
what
happened?” Barbara asked.
A blush crept over Tanner’s face. “I didn’t expect to find her. Or that she would be my mate. I turned around and there she was.”
Tristian looked at Tanner like he’d grown a second tail.
“I was so distracted by the fact that I’d found my mate, I forgot about everything else, including the three I’d just fought. Next thing I knew, I woke up with a bloody head and a silver chain wrapped around my neck. I managed to free myself just as these two came back. I heard them talking about their plans to hurt Hannah, and my wolf got the best of me. I killed one of them, and by the grace of Odin I managed to keep the other one alive. It took all of my willpower not to kill this one too.” Tanner motioned to the man writhing in agony on the ground.
Tristian approached the man. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you need to tell me where my niece is.”
“Fuck off.”
Tanner motioned for Tristian and Barbara to step away for a brief second. He needed to speak to them in private, out of the range from the injured man’s ears. “If we can get him to think about the location where he and his friends took Hannah, I can pull the thoughts directly from his mind.”
“You’re a mind reader?” Barbara asked as a light blush stained her cheeks.
“Yes, ma’am. It was a gift from the gods that I was born with. It’s funny, all my life I thought of it as a curse, until now—when I need it the most, and haven’t been able to use it. I don’t think I’ll ever complain again about being able to hear other people’s thoughts.”
“What about Hannah? Can you hear her thoughts? Do you know where she is?” Barbara asked.
“No, as a matter of fact. I couldn’t hear her thoughts at all, which is strange, because I’ve always been able to hear everyone else, under any circumstance. No matter what. I figured maybe it had something to do with the drive to mark and claim my mate. I’ve never been so distracted in my life. It was like every thought, every emotion, every feeling was about Hannah.”
A knowing smile passed across Barbara’s face, but Tristian looked less than amused.
Tanner shifted his gaze to Tristian. “One thing Hannah did mention was that Barbara had a hand in secretly setting us up.”
Tristian looked at his wife and smiled. “That sure sounds like my wife, meddling again.”
“Does it really matter? What’s important right now is that we find Hannah before anything happens to her. We can discuss the logistics later.” Barbara motioned for the men to hurry it along.
Tanner’s attention snapped back to the man on the ground just as he was trying to sit up. “Oh no you don’t. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to tell me where the fuck my mate is or I’m going to rip your goddamned throat out.” Tanner was ready to make good on his threat.
Tristian approached the man again, kneeling down in front of him. Grabbing the guy by the throat, Tristian unleashed the power of his Alpha. The man screamed in pain at the surge of raw energy flowing through him from Tristian.
“We just wanted to have a little fun with her. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Maybe you should just kill him and be done with it,” Tanner suggested. “If he doesn’t tell us where Hannah is, I’m going to kill him myself.”
If Tanner were home at Black Paw, the situation would’ve been much different. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d watched Rafe strip a wolf from his human. The sad and disgusting sight would be forever burned into his mind. Normally, he would never wish that kind of pain or life on a fellow wolf, but this one had it coming.
“So where did you take Hannah?” Tanner asked again.
This time he was able to pick up the man’s thoughts. “He’s thinking about a small, rustic cabin deep in the woods.” Tanner turned his head and closed his eyes, concentrating on the images running through the guy’s head. “I see a stream nearby, and a large clearing. I’m not seeing much of anything else. Does this place ring a bell for either of you?”
Tristian was the first answer. “There are several old outbuildings around the property, and all along the edge of town. However, there are only two places that I know of with streams nearby. Let’s start with those.”
“Sounds like a plan. What do you want to do with him?” Tanner asked.
“I sent a text for some of our enforcers to come pick him up. They should be here any second,” Barbara replied.
“I’m going to shift to see if I can locate Hannah’s scent.”
Barbara and Tristian nodded.
With all of his injuries healed, the transition from man to wolf was seamless, and he thanked Odin for that. He reveled in the power that surged through his muscles as his wolf took command.
“Holy fuck! What do they feed you at Black Paw? Steroids?” Tristian’s mouth nearly hit the ground.
Barbara chuckled. “Grace wasn’t kidding, was she? She told me over the phone that you were roughly the size of a bear. I honestly thought she was exaggerating, trying to make her pack look better.”
“So you
did
know about this?” Tristian glanced over at his wife.
“Well, only a little bit. Grace said she had something she wanted to send me for the Scenting Ceremony. I really didn’t think he’d be that big.”
“Wait. What?”
Barbara’s eyes widened, a warning, in their private code, for him to stop talking. “I’ll explain later.”
As usual Tanner felt awkward because of his size. It wasn’t something he could help; it wasn’t like he was fat or overweight. His parents had always told him that his size came from his berserker.
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Tristian joked when he glanced back to Tanner. “I may be an Alpha, but I wouldn’t want to meet you under a full moon.
Tanner huffed before putting his nose to the ground, setting off in search of Hannah’s scent.