Page 14 of Hide or Die

The leader ignored me. “Learn speech, or we torture you.”

He turned and left without a backward glance. The others followed him, the gunman backing out cautiously, with his eyes fixed on Jax the whole time. The door slammed shut. They hadn’t left us food or water.

I curled forward, burying my face in my hands.

“What’s in the notebook?” Jax asked. “This is bad, but the details might give us a better idea ofhowbad.”

I let my hands fall to my lap. Kam must have realized I was too far gone to manage even such a simple action. He slipped past me and picked up the notebook, taking it to the door to make use of the limited light. I watched listlessly as he flipped through the pages from front to back, my skin feeling too tight and too hot.

He flipped back to the beginning and scanned the pages more slowly, his brows drawing together. When he was done, he swallowed and cleared his throat. “It’s... uh...”

“Just read it,” I said. “Don’t try to sugarcoat things.”

Kam swallowed again. “First we’re supposed to say our names. Then, ‘We have been taken prisoner by the glorious forces of the Beta Liberation Front, and will be executed for our government’s crimes against beta supremacy.’” My heart sank. “’Even now,’” Kam continued, “’right-thinking beta scientists are perfecting a weapon that will eliminate the alphomic threat once and for all. When it is ready, the whole world will know.’ And then there’s some BS about how wonderful the terrorists are and how we totally decided to support their cause despite the fact that they’re going to cut our heads off.”

It was all I could do not to break down weeping on the spot. I could barely think, the entire situation was already poised to go down in flames the moment Jax caught a whiff of my oncoming heat... and now we also had to come up with a way to keep from getting executed, while somehow preventing a terror organization from producing a weapon of mass destruction for use against our people.

It was impossible. Itcould not be done, and all thanks to a vicious joke of biology.

This disaster was going to be my fault. My responsibility.

“I can’t do this,” I murmured, barely audible. “Oh, god—Kam. I’mso sorry. I can’t stop this.”

Our eyes met. He heard the words I wasn’t saying, and the same agony shone in his eyes as was doubtless shining in mine.

“Let’s not panic,” Jax said after an awkward moment—and abrupt, incandescent anger flooded me in all its irrational, hormonal glory.

“We’re going to die,” I ground out, biting the words off one by one. “A lot of other people aregoing to die. And where the hell is your team? Yourpack, that was supposed to magically appear and rescue us?”

“Leo,” Kam warned.

“They’ll come,” Jax said with a perfect, serene complacency that only fueled my anger. “I have faith in them. But in the meantime, let me take a look at that notebook, Mr. Patel.”

Kam handed it over, while my impotent, unreasonable anger twisted around to point firmly inward. Ihatedthis. I hated the knowledge that I was losing control of my mind, my emotions... my body. My clothing felt like it was made of nettles. Clammy sweat was breaking out across my back. I was about to plunge into what would be the worst, most horrific day of my tragically short life, and I’d be dragging the others along for the ride before we all died.

My sex began to throb and ache with emptiness. Any moment now, I’d start to manufacture slick. I choked down a moan and crawled to the section of wall where the lone blanket in the cell lay in a crumpled heap, wrapping it around myself to form a pathetic, threadbare cocoon. Kam closed his eyes and bowed his head. Jax shot me a sharp look of concern before visibly recalling himself to the notebook. The faint scent of honey and orange blossom rose around me, and I pulled the blanket tighter.

“There’s nothing else written in the book,” Jax was saying. “The light’s not really good enough to see if there are indentations from writing on other pages that might have been torn out, but...”

He trailed off, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. An instant later, the alpha’s eyes landed on me like a physical weight. My entire body tightened. Black market pheromone suppressors gave up the ghost beneath the onslaught, as my scent glands pumped out perfume in fragrant clouds.

My heat had begun.

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