Page 10 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

At the same time, I remembered the outcome of the ritual. I remembered how this man looked at me, how he had reached out for me, and how he flew toward me like a ghost. Even now, as I was staring at him through the bars of my cage, I could see the desire dancing in his eyes, which glittered as he looked at me. The lanterns on the walls illuminated them, making that dazzling color of honey walnut look more like sparkling gold ore.

Here in this basement, without anybody else around, I didn't worry about being judged for looking back at him with almost the same expression of yearning. At the same time, all the spite in the world slammed right into me, almost like I was on the edge of a highway at the mercy of a car that had careened right off the road. It was reflected in the way my face twisted up, my nose crinkled, and my mouth turned down in a grimace.

As I glared at the sexy man standing on the other side of the bars, something else hit me just like the disgust and the spite. A smell. A familiar smell beyond that of him and his wolf and the pungency of a wolf being possessed by a demon. There was a pungent odor I recognized as some kind of brimstone, resembling rotten eggs. But there was another scent, something that made my heart swell with hope and my stomach twist up. Bacon, eggs, biscuits, and homemade pancakes with fresh berries. It was such a delicious scent. My eyes were drawn downward to his barreled chest, which was still revealed by a partially opened plaid shirt, to a tray in his hands.

Honestly, there was no reason for him to look like that while holding a tray full of food. Where had the food come from? He hadn’t moved an inch. Maybe he used his demonic powers. I noticed the glass of orange juice and the cup of coffee. My stomach made a sound like a monster bellowing in the middle of the woods. The gurgle made him chuckle and he had a smile on his face.

How could a man who kidnapped me also smile at me like that? I knew that he kidnapped me; I knew his goons had dragged me out of the woods and into his home. This had to be his home because the room resembled a basement rather than a dungeon. Yet, I was in a cage. I was in a cage in somebody's house, in a basement, staring at an incredibly attractive man holding a tray of food that I desperately wanted. I had to play nice if I was going to get fed.

I licked my lips. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

He unlatched the lock on the door, and it opened very slowly, creaking like an old wooden door. The hinges wheezed so loudly that I would have mistaken them for squeals if I hadn't known the source of the noise. I kept holding his gaze, daring him to do something as he stepped inside the cage and shut it behind him.

“Food,” I blurted. “Where did you get it?”

“I went upstairs and made it.”

“But you were just—”

He squinted at me. “Time is weird here.”

The lock didn't click into place, but the door was shut. I thought about running, but I knew that I would be overpowered. Two of the guys were particularly strong. If this guy was as strong as his muscles suggested, then I knew that his demon would be ten times the strength of his normal wolf.

He took a step toward me, sat on the ground, and then set the tray on the edge of the cot in front of me. I stared at it for a minute, thinking about all the things that I could possibly think of. There was a door in the corner of the basement off to the right, which I saw it out of my peripheral vision. It was small, but maybe it led outside.

What if the food is poisoned?

As much as I was turned on by him, I was also unsure about him. I still didn't understand what I was doing here. Why had he appeared to me? And why in the world had his people taken me out of the woods? As I stared at the food, my stomach made that wretched gurgle sound again. I wanted to eat so badly, but I didn't want to touch it and get hurt. A spell could have been cast on it and I didn't have Regina by my side to tell me whether a spell was present or not. I didn't have my father hanging over my shoulder, helicoptering around me to tell me the things that I needed to do. I was by myself. Yet, in some ways, it was how I wanted things to be. At the same time, I missed them; I missed being around my pack.

The man kept staring at me, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and then his lips parted again. “My name is Harvey.”

I remembered that name from the ritual. Kiara and Harvey. This must have been him—Harvey. My head felt like it had been spun around and knocked backward from the shock I was feeling.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Harvey, I’m Kiara.”

“Kiara,” he repeated, focusing on the food. “You must be hungry. I can’t imagine how you feel.”

“Hurt.”

He smiled apologetically. “I’ll make sure Kirk gets punished extra for that.”

I stared at him blankly. I still couldn't remember how I'd ended up in the woods or why I'd gone there in the first place. My last memory was leaving the ritual, going inside the mansion, sitting on a plush chair, and drinking delicious tea.

Harvey reached for the tray, plucked a crispy strip of bacon from a plate, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it slowly, swallowed, and then stuck out his tongue to show me it wasn't a trick. Nothing happened to him in the next several seconds. Seeing as it wasn't poisoned, I let myself dig in. I didn't care about him staring at me as I gobbled it up. I also didn't care about the sound of footsteps descending the stairs on the other side of the cage. My only goal right now was to sate myself enough to be able to think, to be able to remember how I'd gotten here and figure out what this man was about to do to me.

As soon as I finished eating, he leaned forward and said, “You're going to be my mate.”

I snorted. “Oh, that's not what I meant when I woke up.”

His eyebrows rose a little bit more. “I don't care what you meant. You're going to be my mate, we're going to have children, and you'll be integrated into the pack over the next week.”

This man had to be kidding. He must have read way too many kidnapping fantasies, or maybe he had gotten a kick out of watching Fifty Shades of Grey. I wasn't about to be this guy's slave. I wasn't going to be his little breeding wolf sitting in a basement popping out babies for him. That wasn't the life that I wanted. It wasn't how I envisioned being an actual mate.

I cradled the mug of coffee in my hands. “And how exactly do you plan on making that happen?”

The two men who had taken me from the woods were now standing in the basement. One of them had a slight hunch, and the other had red eyes and red hair. I didn't like them watching me, but there wasn't much I could do about that right now. As if he could read my mind, Harvey waved his hand as if to tell me to ignore the other two. I was more than happy to do that for now.

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