Page 18 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
The alpha nods and stutters. “Yeah. Yeah, just—just let me go. Please.”
I toss the bastard to the floor, making sure he lands on his ass, his breath leaving him in a pained wheeze.
The room goes still.
Not silent, not completely—there’s still the clatter of dice, the scrape of glasses, the low hum of conversation—but there’s a shift. A moment where the air feels thicker, where the alphas around me are watching, deciding.
If they want to challenge me.
If they think it’s worth it.
They don’t.
I turn back toward the girl without another word, rolling my shoulders, pushing down the instinct to keep my fangs bared. My blood is still running too hot, my body still tight with the need to rip something apart. But I already know that feeling won’t go away—not here.
Not in this place.
The bartender is shaking, Boyd’s jacket hanging too big around her shoulders, her eyes darting between me and the man still groaning on the floor. She won’t look at anyone else. She won’t move—like she knows that the second I’m gone, the second I turn my back, it’ll happen again.
And I hate the thought that it will happen again…and not just to her.
To the girl in the tower.
The one with the wide brown eyes, soft and pleading, voice hoarse when she whispered, Please help me.
I grit my teeth.
"Let’s get out of here," I mutter to Boyd. "She’s coming with us."
The bartender startles. "I—I can’t," she stammers. "I have to— I can’t leave the bar."
"As far as anyone else is concerned," I say, voice low, measured, "my friend here took you to our room for a good time. Someone else can tend bar.”
I glance back at the room, making sure everyone hears me.
No one argues.
Boyd doesn’t press me. Just guides the girl toward the door, keeping his arm around her shoulders, and I take up the rear, making sure no one follows. The bartender’s footsteps are too soft, unsteady as she walks, and I know—I know—that tomorrow night, someone else will be in her place.
Not just someone.
Her.
Because when Abel talked about the hunt…he was talking about Peaches. He said it that way to me because he knows it pisses me off. Someone—some bastard like him—will grab her by the hair, shove her to the ground, and take what he thinks he’s owed.
I exhale through my nose, trying to push the thought away, but it’s too late.
The image is already there, burned into me—her body pinned to the rusted out deck of the Rig, her throat bared, her sobs muffled as she waits to be broken.
And Abel, standing over her, waiting for the moment she breaks.
5
PEACHES
The pressure is building again, low in my belly, an ache that pulses in time with my heartbeat. It’s always worst at the full moon—always at its sharpest edge the night the moon is highest in the sky.
And tomorrow night is the peak.
