Page 9 of Prey for Me

It’s time to end this moonlit chase. The sun will rise soon enough, and she might break her ankle at the pace she’s going. She’s loud and clumsy. She’s not used to hunting. But the animals and alphas of this forest are.

Thankfully, she’s close to our fortress. She’s so close to being under our protection. Does she know she ran straight into our arms? Does she feel the same invisible pull? I don’t know; I’ll ask her soon. But first, we have to make sure every alpha and beta on this forsaken rock knows that she is ours.

We rule the South Shore. Crown princes of this feral mayhem, we call the Island. It’s about time my long-suffering pack found their omega princess and future pack queen to rule beside us.

CHAPTER FIVE

GRACE

Look,I’mnosurvivalist.I can admit I’m even a spoiled brat. But even I’m not naïve enough to not notice the way this monster is herding me. He’s been at it for at least an hour, maybe more. And at this pace, I’m going to pass out.

I’m not an athlete, so I can only maintain a staggering run for a few minutes at a time, in fitful starts, but now I can barely pretend to run. I’m walking while being watched, and it makes my skin crawl. I lean against my stick not just for physical support, but also for moral support. The weapon allows me to pretend I stand a chance againsthim.

My masked stalker. I have to hand it to him, he’s not only a freak of nature because he’s my masked stalker, he’s also an Olympic-level champion when it comes to seeking and destroying. He’s not only persistent, he’s outwitted me and could easily outrun me. Which means I’m walking straight into a trap. I’m just too afraid to think where it may be, wherever he’s leading me. Or worse,whoever he’s leading me to.

As I venture deeper into the city, the forest long gone on the path I’m on, I start to piece together where it might be. Probably one of these abandoned warehouses that look like they used to store tanks, lining each side of the street. They’re so huge that they look like iron giants next to the houses and shops. At least, the remnants of houses and shops. I wonder if they were barracks of sorts, these warehouses. I mean, the worst of the worst were kept here: serial killers, terrorists, and even war criminals. It makes sense to me more and more as I mull over it, why Providence is so fortified like an army base.

My shoes smash into branches, glass, and scrape against thorns on the overgrown road, and I’m so thankful the monster salvaged my pumps from the sea, even though my calves burn like hell. They’re not doing much to protect the top of my battered feet, but they’re keeping me from opening up a gash that will surely get infected.

Focus, Grace. You got a hellhound on your heels—no time to think about anything else, or you might break an ankle.

They are throbbing, and I hate the fact that the fox was right. I should’ve tried to run or even walk. But what choice did I have? It was either that or succumb to whatever lunacy a serial killer would’ve demanded.

I round a corner and jerk to a stop, almost crumbling to the ground from the sheer agony of the charley horses trying to rip the tendons out of my calves. The muscle spasms force me to lean against my branch as I hit a wall–literally—a dead end. I’m standing at aliteraldead end. A colossal wall of turned-over machinery blocks the path, blocking it off from escape. They’re so overgrown with plants and moss that I can’t even tell if what I’m looking at is more nature or machine. Doesn’t matter. He’s already behind me.

“Caught you, princess,” he whispers.

This time I don’t fight. What’s the point when I can barely stand? The fox-masked alpha drops from the sky, probably from some building he scaled like a monkey. He snatches me up, and the lizard part of my brain does attempt to fight despite my rational mind saying it’s a lost cause, kicking, scratching, biting, and yelling like a wild animal. But it does nothing. He doesn’t move. He’s more solid than the wall before us. He doesn’t even flinch when I twist enough to slap him.

He licks the blood off his lips–I cut him with a jagged nail–and smiles, “Gentle… My omega. It’ll be alright soon.”

Is he asking me to be gentle? If so, he can go fuck himself. I won’t be gentle when he’s ready to abuse me. I expect him to palm my breasts and do his worst, just like the wolf. But instead, he maneuvers me until he’s carrying me bridle style, cradling me close to his sturdy chest.

“Gentle,” he murmurs again, and I realize it’s for his ears rather than mine. He’s reminding himself to be gentle with me. But I guess they have different definitions here since he’s squeezing the life out of me. He wants to be gentle with me while he leads me to a pack of wolves. What a hypocrite.

Or foxes, I guess. I still don’t know the reason behind the masks the alphas I’ve met here wear but they seem more than important.

Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. I’ve failed my sister by failing myself. I close my eyes, not wanting to see my demise.

I’m so sorry, Faith…

CHAPTER SIX

GRACE

“Yaaah,”Iscream,asI’m abruptly woken up and yanked from the abyss.

I’m being unceremoniously dumped in a cage when I come to, rolling on a concrete floor. When I push away, hands shoot out and hold me down. I wriggle, not able to put up much of a fight from sheer exhuation. Something is being tied around my head, straps pulled tight against my skull. My field of vision narrows into two large circles, the bottom half of my face free from whatever mask was placed on me. Moments later, I’m collared and chained like the bitch in heat I am. Then, the shadow is gone and my blurry eys see that it’s him, my stalker, my savior, and now it seems, my captor.

“Ugggh,” I groan, barely able to sit up as I pant.

“You’re so beautiful, bunny,” he chirps, as if he didn’t just locked me inside a metal cage like a dog.

No, not quite. As I slowly stand up, fighting nausea, I realize my cage is more like a cell, one that was made for a human,only it’s freestanding in the middle of the warehouse like it was ripped out of its former cellblock.

I turn away from my fox, and look out, and try to get a grasp of where we are. Somehow, I’d fallen asleep in this freak’s arms, the fox masked alpha smiling down at me so sweetly as he bolts the lock. He steps away, and just like I guessed, I’m in one of the warehouses. But it’s nothing like the empty, rusted tombs I saw on the side of the road. What I’m looking at is like a scene out of an active apocalypse.

Around a grand bonfire, alphas and betas circle a great flame under a hole in the ceiling where moonlight streams in. They stomp and chant and dance, if I can call their jerking, grunting, thumping their painted chests, smacking the floor, and howling dancing at all. There’s some type of purple colored drink sloshing around tin cans they take to the head and share with each other. There are two circles, and the inner circle is wearing red masks. Those men don’t carry a scent, so I now know the red-masked foxes and wolves are betas. So the black is reserved for alphas, the outer circle that simply stands, unmoving, gazing up at the rising sun.

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