Page 15 of Dark Wolf Soul
“You think this is funny?” I demand. “This is my fucking life you’re messing with. I will kill you for this.”
“I’m sure you want to,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s an option for you at the moment.”
“Fuck you.”
“Contrary to what you think, I’ll pass.”
I respond by letting out an ear-splitting scream. It echoes against the silence of the night, but there’s no response. No one else out here to come save me.
I know that because, instead of looking worried at the noise, the asshole groans, and a second later, he wraps an arm around my waist and picks me up off the ground, shoving me back inside the car.
“You said I could go,” I protest, wiggling against him, which is, apparently, all I’m capable of at this point.
“I was making a point,” he growls.
The snarl he makes as he wrestles me into place reminds me of before when I’d watched him literally change from a wolf to a man. My stomach drops, and I stop wriggling just as he leans across me and straps the seatbelt across my body.
“Do I have to duct tape you to the seat?”
“What are you?” I can’t help but ask.
“What?”
“I saw you. You were a wolf. Then you turned into…this.” I glance at his body, which is now clothed in a pair of black pants and a matching tee that hugs his biceps in ways I wish I didn’t notice.
“You’re incredibly observant,” he says dryly, but the way he’s watching me suggests he’s testing me somehow. I pretend not to notice our sudden closeness and remind myself he’s a kidnapper.
“Don’t patronize me, asshole. And let me go.”
His brow arches. “Or what?”
“Or my boyfriend and his gang will make you wish you’d never laid eyes on me.”
“You’re not a very good liar. You should work on that.”
He reaches into the car along the sideboard and produces a roll of actual duct tape. I stare at him—and it—with wide eyes.
“What the hell are you going to do with that?”
“Look, despite what you think right now, I’m the safest person in this fucking town for you. And since your self-preservation is at a negative number tonight, I’m going to help you live through this experience.”
He makes a show of unwrapping the duct tape and then reaches in and presses the ends of it to the leather seat—with me strapped between.
“Oh, hell no,” I say.
Fighting him is useless. My limbs are still unresponsive. He’s easily able to hold me down and tape me to the seat. When he’s finished, he tosses the duct tape onto the floorboard and shuts the car door.
A second later, he slides back into the driver’s seat and puts the car into gear. We ease onto the highway, headed to whatever destination he’s decided on. And I know with startling clarity that, whatever happens next, I’m completely at his mercy now.
6
GREY
Her shock over my wolf is real, I’m sure of it. Not only because her comment about a boyfriend earlier was so clearly a lie—a terrible one at that. But not even my wolf can sense a manipulation in her words, and he’s got a gift for that sort of thing, which means this girl really doesn’t know shifters exist. And the only way she can be oblivious to that is if she’s never shifted herself. It’s nearly impossible to think about, but there’s no other answer. Not impossible, I remember, thinking of the other shifters I’ve heard about recently whose wolves were blocked.
Ash Lawson, co-alpha of the Lone Wolf pack, didn’t shift for the first time until she was almost Lexi’s age. I don’t know the details or how they muted her wolf for so long, but at least I know it’s possible. Unfortunately, Lexi clearly isn’t ready to know it too. Not while she’s convinced I’m going to force myself on her.
I grip the wheel with white-knuckled frustration.
