Page 12 of Betrayed Kidnapped Mate

“You’re our first,” Linnea says, smiling sheepishly and shrugging. “I don’t want to pressure you into staying, but I’ve been trying to put the word out through appropriate channels for a while. It’s tough to communicate resources without revealing them to abusers.”

I nod, hand on my chin. Olivia gives me a look, and I roll my eyes.

“I guess—” I can’t believe I’m about to say it. “We could stay. Just for a night or two.”

“That’s great!” Linnea says, clapping. “I’ll send someone from the pack for groceries right away. Any allergies? Preferences?

“Kaila is lactose-intolerant,” I say, “so dairy-free milk, but everything else is fine.”

Kaila has climbed onto the top bunk of each bunk bed, squealing in glee. I’ll tell her later that I intend for her to sleep right next to me. It’ll make her feel like a baby, but I can’t stand the thought of letting her out of my sight.

No matter how kind these people seem, I know better than to let my guard down. I did it once with Bigby, and I’ll never do it again. I can’t stop thinking about the shout we heard from the hallway when we came in.

“Rosa,” I say, grabbing her arm before she can leave. “Can I speak to you privately?”

Linnea glances at Olivia and Kaila, then nods, leaving me back out into the area outside the women’s shelter. We stand there for a moment, and I hear another sound coming from down the hallway.

“You need to tell me what that is,” I say, jerking my chin in the sound’s direction. “I don’t want to be complicit in some sort of torture chamber.”

Linnea’s face whitens.

“Oh, it’s nothing like that—it’s complicated, actually.” When she sees my face, she stops, sighing heavily. “Actually, I’ll just show you. I believe in transparency. It’s not fitting for Kaila to see, so I’ll ask you not to share this with her. I also want to reiterate that nobody from the other side of the compound can access this area—none of them even know that it exists.”

I nod, not saying anything until Linnea sighs, moving to a different door and scanning her thumbprint. We walk quietly for a moment before turning the corner. I wait for Linnea to scan her thumb again, and then we walk into a large white room.

Chemistry equipment lines the walls—some of it nicer than the stuff I trained with at Stanford. I eye it, wishing I could get my hands on it, but Linnea keeps moving. A couple of scientists are in the lab, working with their eyes on microscopes, and Linnea says a passing greeting to them as we go.

“Okay,” she says, stopping outside of a door. There’s a loud, pained shout from inside, and Linnea winces. “Please brace yourself for this. Before Aris became the Alpha of the Rosecreek pack, there was a corrupt alpha named Varun, and he was experimenting with a serum that would prevent a shifter from using their animal form. The people inside here are shifters he tested on. We’re currently working on an antidote.”

I take a deep breath when Linnea opens the door, leading me inside. A man shrieks the moment we walk in, growling and gnawing at the glass on his cell, though he’s still in his human form. A woman sits in the corner of one cell, whimpering, rocking back and forth with her head in her hands.

“I’ve seen enough,” I say, not wanting to subject these shifters to any more leering than they probably experience.

My father is a ruthless alpha, but even he hasn’t resorted to chemical warfare. I hate to think of what might happen if something like this serum ended up in his hands.

Linnea leads me back to the compound, and I thank her for letting me see. When the door closes behind her, I sit down on the couch, putting my head in my hands and trying to avoid the images of those suffering shifters in their cages.

Chapter 7 - Bigby

Kaila is crying.

I can’t see or hear her, but I can feel the waves of sorrow rolling over me like I’m floating in the ocean, drowning little by little, sputtering and trying to catch my breath.

I’m in the old bar, above the underground area. Linnea has told me, in no uncertain terms, that I am not to go down there. Apparently, it wasn’t easy for her to convince Rosa to stay; she doesn’t want me jeopardizing that. Those are just the general rules—to create an atmosphere in which abused women feel safe, it’s important that none of the men go down there.

“It’s not you,” Linnea had breathed, “well, in this specific circumstance, it is you, but when women have gone through something like this, they tend to develop a general fear of men.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” I’d said, waving my hand. “I don’t like being around strange men, either.”

What I didn’t tell Linnea is that my body starts physically hurting any time I get too far away from Rosa and Kaila. It’s been a week already, and I’ve spent basically all day, every day, in this old, shitty bar.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m taking on projects just to pass the time.

“I wish we’d done this a long time ago,” Linnea said when she saw me tearing out the old bar and carrying the lumbar to my Jeep to take it to the burn pile out on Aris’s property. “This is a great head-start on the renovation.”

Over the week, I tear out the bar, bottle storage, and booths. I sand down the floor. I take down all the bug-filled light fixtures. By the end of the week, it’s practically a big, empty room.

“Well, at least you haven’t been completely useless this week,” Aris says when he drops by to bring me lunch. I gratefully accept, wolfing down my burrito in record speed. I can feel him staring at me.

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