Page 84 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
Abel opens up a cooler of beers and passes them around, trying to force one on me with a smirk. I put my hands up and push it away before strolling over to the edge of the boat and looking in. I can see fish swimming below, and the vague shape of a building on the sand. This must be the Mer base they were talking about, long abandoned since the Heavenly Host took possession of this part of the planet.
“Javier, come take a look at this,” Gideon says from the other side.
I walk over, something making me deeply uneasy. When I look down, I realize this is the best view of the base in all it’s alien glory. The waves drift softly, and I start to make out the shape of a group of buildings about two hundred feet down. The water is crystal clear, spherical bubbles and twirling towers across the sand. I squint when I see something closer—a fish, maybe, ghostly white and drifting.
I almost stumble back when I realize what it is.
A person.
Someone with a face I recognize.
I stop myself from reacting, keeping my eyes trained on the water—and on Lila, the beta Boyd and I took out of the mess hall before he left. Her body moves slowly in the waves, decomposing and chewed up by fish, her hands bound behind her back and her ankles tied to a rope that goes down into the blue depths.
“See?” Abel chuckles from me. “What better bait than a beta?”
“What the fuck?” I curse, glaring at Gideon.
Gideon clicks his tongue. “Sweet Lila tried to stowaway on your friend Boyd’s boat. We caught her on her way out of the barracks.”
My mind races as I think about Boyd—and I start to wonder if he actually got away. If Boyd was captured, if he’s down there too, then Peaches and I have no one coming for us.
We’re alone out here.
“And Boyd?” I ask. “Did you…”
“Didn’t catch him, but we made sure his boat went down,” Gideon says. “Y’see, you two came in with bad intentions for my pack—and I can’t allow that, can I?”
“Why did you…?” I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
I don’t want to finish my sentence—that I don’t get why I’m still alive.
“This is what happens when our people don’t follow the rules—they go to the deep,” he says.
I realize with horror that she isn’t the only one. There are other corpses tethered to the sea floor with stones and ropes, dropped in like garbage. Most are just skeletons now, featureless and falling apart.
I wonder if Peaches’ mother is down there.
“Why did you bring me out here?” I demand. My senses are in overdrive, waiting for someone to stab me in the back. It would be easy enough; they’ve brought me to their killing grounds and I’m outnumbered four to one. And if they killed Boyd and Lila, there’s nothing stopping them from doing the same to me.
“You know the terms carrot and stick, Javier?” he asks.
I grit my teeth. “Of course I do.”
“Good,” Gideon says. “Because here’s the thing—I wanted you to see where we’re sending dear Esther if you don’t get your act together and start treating her like an alpha should.”
I should kill him right now—toss him and Abel into the ocean, and slaughter the other two while I’m at it. I’m confident I could take them, but I can’t risk dying and leaving Peaches alone in that prison.
Already, my relationship with her is interfering with my ability to do what needs to be done.
“I’ve collared her,” I say. “I punished her, bit her, bred her. What the hell else do you want me to do?”
“Stop pampering her,” Gideon says. “Don’t give her an inch. She’s a sweet thing, I know—I used to spoil the shit out of her when she was a little girl. But if you don’t make sure she knows who’s in charge, she’ll turn around and stab you in the back the minute you give her the chance. And if she makes a single move like the last time she left…well, I’ll have no choice but to send her straight to hell with her mother.”
I don’t know what to do.
I can’t threaten him, can’t kill him, can’t so much as talk back. They can hear us in the citadel; they know when we’re fucking, when we’re arguing, when I’m making her scream with pleasure. As far as I know, they’re always watching, maybe navigating through secret halls and doorways in that house of horrors.
“I’m gonna need you to be specific,” I grunt.
