Page 10 of Hide or Die

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just sore and bruised. Drink this, but don’t blame me if you get dysentery or something in a few days.”

At this point, I would have drunk muddy ditch water if it meant getting some moisture back in my mouth and throat. I steadied the ladle he lifted for me and sipped, covering a grimace. This... might havebeenmuddy ditch water, actually. It was stale tasting and unappealingly lukewarm. I swallowed carefully until the desperate edge disappeared from my thirst.

“Where are we?” I asked. My eyes wandered back to the alpha in the room, and I frowned. “Jax? That’s your name, right? You’re injured. How badly?”

A bunch of half-formed thoughts and memories buzzed around my head like angry flies. I had a feeling that when they finally swarmed me, it would be...bad.

“I took metal shrapnel from the limo in my left arm and side, Madam Ambassador,” Jax said. “It will be all right once I can dig it out and get the bleeding stopped. Alphas are hard to kill.”

“I’ll try to help you with that as soon as I make sure Leo’s okay,” Kam said.

It was matter-of-fact. Jax seemed to accept it, even though he had no way of knowing the horrors that Kam had seen as a youth in the omega breeding pens. All he would see was a pretty, soft-spoken and slightly effeminate beta diplomatic attaché.

“Thank you,” said the alpha. “And although you’ve got no reason to think all that highly of us after what happened this morning, you should both know that no one will hurt either of you while I’m still breathing. The others will come and extract us as soon as they can.”

The buzzing memories settled into place. I’d been right—it was bad.

I swallowed convulsively, and focused on pulling my shit together. “Right. I’m sure they will.”If they’re even still alive, I didn’t add. Clearing my throat, I continued, “Don’t be in such a hurry to throw your life away in the meantime, though. Getting yourself killed won’t do anything to keep us safe.”

Jax clenched his jaw stubbornly, but he didn’t correct me. He had to know I was right, after all.

“My pack will come for us,” he repeated, rather than contradicting me.

“Do we know who the kidnappers are, or what they’re after?” Kam asked. He tilted my head toward the inadequate light coming from the hallway, and peeled my eyelids back one at a time, staring at the pupils.

“Same size, I hope?” I asked dryly, well aware of the protocol for suspected concussion.

“As far as I can tell,” he said.

“They were speaking Turkish earlier,” Jax mused. “Separatists, maybe.”

“I’m pretty sure at least some of them understand French,” Kam said. “Do you speak Turkish?”

“Only a few phrases,” Jax replied. “Mostly curse words and insults, if I’m being honest.”

“If they speak French, we can communicate if we need to,” I told him. “Assuming they decide to listen to us, of course.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up on that front, ma’am,” Jax said.

Unfortunately, I suspected he was right about that.

“Do we have any idea where we physically are?” I asked. “This place is underground—I can tell that much.”

“I’m afraid I was unconscious during transport,” Jax said stiffly, sounding like he blamed himself for not magically overcoming his injuries sooner.

“I wasn’t,” Kam said. “They tied bags over our heads, so I’ve got no idea on direction, but this is a cave system in the mountains—possibly a retrofitted mine. It has to be in the Southern Carpathians, I’m pretty sure. The drive only lasted an hour or two.”

“Paved roads?” Jax asked. “Or dirt?”

“No roads, at least for a good chunk of it,” Kam told him. “Bad roads for the rest. I’m sorry—I couldn’t tell if they were paved or not, but there were lots of potholes.”

Jax nodded, shifting in place against the rocky wall, only to flinch as he aggravated his wounds. His ambergris and cypress scent soured, and my omega hindbrain helpfully poured stress hormones into my system in response. I tamped down the urge to stumble upright on shaky legs and go try to comfort him.

“Kam,” I said instead. “I’m okay. Go help Jax get patched up as best you can, all right?”

I had no doubt Kam was fighting the same urges I was, when it came to the magnetic male sitting on the other side of the cell. He nodded and gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze before rising stiffly to his feet and heading over to join our resident injured alpha.

“Can you stand?” he asked. “The best light will be right by the door, and we’ll need to get a proper look at the situation. It might be better to leave the shrapnel alone if pulling it out would cause too much additional bleeding.”

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