Reluctant Alpha (17 page)

“
This is your fault too, Airic. He shouldn’t have hit you, but had you run, I wouldn’t have had to send him to bring you home. Then poor…I don’t know his name, but it’s unimportant. What is is that you are responsible for so much; it may take me years to make you pay.” He was pacing as he talked.

She hadn’t been hurt by him yet, but it didn’t take him long to start. She had quickly learned the hard and painful way not to question him or his judgment.

“
How on earth do you figure this is my fault, you moronic ass?” Pow! He punched her in the face. And the beatings began.

She knew his name now. He had told her over and over, having her repeat it every time he hit her; Alpha Christopher Alistair, my mate. She had refused the “my mate” part for as long as she could, but in the end, had said it. He had gone on for an hour on what a great catch he would have been for her, how he had had plans. Plans, he said, that did not include her running away. When she had tried to explain that she hadn’t run away but had been rescued, he slapped her across the face again. She was pretty sure he had broken her jaw that time.

She was hanging from a silver chain from the ceiling of what she thought to be a large cave. There was a clamp around her waist as well, and her ankles were braced apart by a metallic bar and clamped to it by silver as well. She knew it was silver because it was burning into her skin like acid.

It was damp in here and cold. And there was very little light. The shirt she had donned…how long ago she didn’t know, but it was mostly stripped from her body in tatters. The cat o’ nine tails he had used had ripped it to shreds when he had beaten her with it earlier. She could barely stand on her feet and he had beaten the bottoms of them with his belt just after he’d found her. He told her he was going to take what was rightfully his, but he was going to have a bit of fun first.

Moving her head in very slow movements, she saw him in the corner. He was sitting in that damnable chair again. If she, no, when she got out of this, she was going to have the fucker burned. Preferably with him tied to it. She didn’t make a sound, she thought, but must have because he came bounding out of the chair immediately.

“
Ah there you are, love. You fell asleep on me earlier and we didn’t get the chance to finish our discussion.” Fell asleep! She had lost consciousness; the pain had been unbearable. He looked as if he were waiting on a response, so she gave him a weak moan. It was the best she could manage.

He began pacing again, and she closed her eyes. It made her dizzy trying to keep up with his blurry movement. She didn’t think he was moving all that fast, it was just a general dizziness.

“
As I was saying, you will be punished for every day you were gone. You were a bad girl letting them take you from me. That comes to a total of nearly five hundred and eighty days of punishment for you to receive. And thinking to have sex with that upstart to thrall me was unforgivable of you. I shall have to think long and hard what you shall have to endure for that. You positively reek of him; I doubt I’ll ever be able to beat that smell out of you before the end of your life.”

She looked up at him then, opening her one good eye. “Kill me later?” She had hoped for a quick death, even after a few days, but to have to wait and be tortured like this for almost six hundred days. She would be dead long before that, she thought, and wondered how he would punish her then. A giggle escaped her mouth. She was as mad as him. As soon as the lash hit her back again, she drifted away into the welcoming blackness.

***

Bradley was slowing going insane himself. He could feel her pain, and whenever he tried reaching out to her, he was blocked. He was sure it wasn’t Christopher, but one of his underlings blocking him. Peter had said that his brother had tried to work with magic, something their mother had dabbled in, but had not been able to make the simplest spell work.

“
Bradley, are you paying attention? I know you’re in pain, but you need to focus. We need your wolves ready when the time is right.” Dominic had been called in and was in charge of the hotel. He had been working the security in the building since it had been rebuilt only a few months ago.

“
They’ll be ready.” And they would be too. When the Howling had been sent, he expected his people to be upset and maybe a little angry. News that the alpha’s new bitch, a queen alpha at that, had been kidnapped got everyone stirred up, fired up.

He didn’t have the seven thousand wolves he had told Aaron he had on hand, but more than likely twice that many. All the neighboring territories had called to give support.

It made him a little nervous. He wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if they didn’t find her, or if they didn’t find her alive.

“
David went by her house today to gather things of hers that would have her scent on it, and there was a…an issue. There were several wolves guarding the house, waiting for her to come home again, he figured. They didn’t play well with mine. They’re gone; we won’t be bothered by them again. But what bothered David was is that they didn’t pull away when Christopher took Alastriona. They didn’t know. Could he not have her?” Bradley and his brother had talked about it for an hour this morning before the vampires rose.

“
He has her. He just let me know that his bitch is paying her price, but he didn’t tell me how or where he has her. I’d like you to teach me how to command him.” Peter had walked in the room as Bradley had asked Aaron and Dominic.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Airic woke up to the sound of music. Classical music. Bach, she guessed. She moved slowly, felt the wounds opening up all over her body, and a tiny moan escaped her throat. She waited for him to say something to her, hurt her in some way. There was nothing.
There mustn’t be anyone here,
she thought, for surely she hadn’t worked through her punishment schedule yet.

She looked up her arms to her hands and saw that the silver was cutting deeply into her skin. She wondered if she worked hard enough, could she maybe open the vein in her wrist and bleed to death before he came back? But she knew that she wouldn’t do it. Well, at least, not yet. Crying softly, she realized she was a coward. She couldn’t even end her own life.

“
Oh now, we can’t have my mate crying now, can we, love? What’s the matter, did you miss me? Well, I’m here now. I just thought I’d give you a little more time napping. Thought it’d make our conversation so much longer this time.” She heard the whip slither across the rock floor of the cave.

“
Please, please don’t hurt me anymore. I can’t take it. I hurt so badly, please no more.”
Begging, I’ve been reduced to begging,
she sobbed to herself.

She watched as he moved around to her side. He was running the long strips of leather though his fingers as he walked. He was taunting her; he liked her begging. Had she’d been able to, she would have straightened her spine. Fuck this shit. I either die with dignity, or I die a coward.

“
You beg so prettily, sweetheart. Of course, it will do you no good. You’ve made me do this. You’ve brought this all on yourself. I’m only doing what…”

“
Fuck you, you slimy piece of shit. I’m not saying another word to you. I will not beg, I will not moan, you will not get any pleasure from what you, you inflict onto me.” She saw it coming, welcomed it as a matter of fact. The fist connected with her mouth so hard it snapped her neck back and opened her lower lip wide. Blood poured from the open wound fresh and hot and poured onto the rock and along a thin seam inside it straight to the earth below.

***

Dominic and Bradley had been going over the maps of the area for nearly six hours. Both were tired beyond anything they could remember for years, but they hadn’t stopped. He knew that Dominic would need to rest soon, as he had been up for over twenty-four hours.

Dominic, Aaron, and Colin, all vampires, had mated with magical beings, and it had afforded them special powers that were unique to each of them. Kyle, Tucker, and Tristan, three other vampire friends, had also mated with extraordinary and magical women as well. The one thing that they all received through their mating was the ability to withstand the sun. Not the hottest part of the day, between two and five, but the rest of the day was theirs.

“
This is base. I need you to go to section seven dash six and search there. There are three other teams along either side of you.” Bradley listened as Scott, one of his pack bodyguards, gave a new location to search for Alastriona.

They had divided up into teams of twenty; ten were to be the main human contacts with radios and the other ten wolves were to search. They had covered a great deal of area and had a lot more to go. Everyone had been working around the clock. He watched as Duncan, the MacManus’ butler friend, came in with another tray of sandwiches and drinks.

“
My lord, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look as though you could use a nap.” He took the food offered and set it on his thigh. He had tried to tell him he wasn’t hungry earlier, but Duncan had said the new bride would need him to be strong for her when she returned, that he needed to eat. And he did, not realizing until he’d taken the first bite that he actually was very hungry.

“
Duncan, my man, I feel like I could use one too.” He leaned back in the chair again, thought of nothing but Alastriona while staring at nothing at all. The room moved around him, almost through him, but he didn’t take any of it in. It wasn’t until a large, tattooed face appeared in front of him not two inches from him that he realized he was being spoken to.

“
Welcome back. Feel better?” Colin. Colin was grinning at him. He watched as the man stood—Christ, he was tall—and walked over to the huge map that had been hung on the front of one of the massive bookshelves in Aaron’s study.

Bradley sat up and looked around. He must have dozed off for a bit. He actually did feel a little better. He stood and stretched. His wolf moved along with him and he felt the first brush of need. The full moon, it was tomorrow night, well, tonight, he thought.

He went to the patio door and opened it wide. With his excellent night vision, he could see some of his pack members moving along the property. They were guarding their alpha; he could sense that from them. Each member of his household had pledged to find his mate, their queen, this morning. And he believed that they would.

“
Bradley! They’ve found her, sort of. Pete and Shade are on their way here now to show us on the map where they felt her essences enter the earth.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“
Her essences? I don’t understand.” Bradley knew he had asked that question at least ten times now, but he was anxious and wanted the women to hurry the fuck up. It was either keep repeating himself, or start howling. He figured this was much better for all concerned.

“
I don’t know, Pete said that they had found her essences and that with the maps, they could finally direct us in the correct direction. Sit down, Bradley, before I have to hurt you. You’ve been pacing for the past fifteen minutes and it won’t make them get here any faster.”

He wanted to snarl at Aaron, but he knew he was right. He sat down. Then he popped right back up again and went to the door. He knew it wasn’t them, his wolves would have warned him when a car pulled into the drive, but damn it…

“
They are at the gate. If you behave yourself and not rush them, I’ll let you go to the door,” Aaron said to him while he was gripping tightly to his shoulders.

“
I’m not a child, stop treating me like one.” But he could feel his heart pounding in his chest in a hard, painful thump.

“
Bradley, your canines have been down since Colin told us the women found something. Your hair looks like you’ve been running your…paws through it for days, not just hours. Get a grip, you’re kinda scaring my kids. And you stink. Badly.”

He looked over to where Aaron and Sara’s six-year-old twins were huddled on the couch. They were looking at him like he was going to shift at any moment and eat them alive. He didn’t like that look. He pulled his wolf closer to him and soothed him. He felt him curl around the warmth of his body like a caress. Taking a deep, cleansing breath he looked back at him. “I…I’m sorry Aaron. I need her.”

“
Yes, and she’ll need you. The women will need to look over the maps with Scott and Dominic. Go take a shower and put on some fresh clothes. I’m begging you. Actually, we’re all begging you, to take a shower. You smell like a wet dog.”

Smiling stupidly, he took off for the stairs and went up them two at a time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d showered and shaved. And that was bad. He would shower, but shaving would have to wait.

Bradley went to the bedroom he and Airic had shared so much. He would get her back. Turning on the hot water, he stripped down to his bare skin. He glanced at his mark, the mark that had made him the true alpha.

When the oldest male was born in the Wolff family, he was born with a mark. It was a small wolf foot print about an inch wide and two inches high, just over his heart. When the male pup went through puberty, the mark changed to a deep red and grew another inch each way. Sometimes, like in this generation of Wolffs, the second male child would be born with the same mark. Most times, it didn’t grow, but faded over time, and by the time they reached adulthood, the mark would be completely gone.