Page 8 of Bosse
She sighed heavily as if he inconvenienced her with such a question. “Everyone has a duty to be a good pack member. You never even tried.”
Was she serious? “I amnotgoing to breed a female I have no desire to mate with then hand off my cubs as if they have no more value than livestock. For that, you stand with a man who thinks to sell your only child?”
Placing a hand on her middle, she looked longingly at her new alpha. “Not my only child for long.”
Unbelievable. Bosse released a harsh breath and a mean laugh along with it. “You don’t have enough shifters, even if you add the pack, to force me to go anywhere.”
Speaking confidently, the alpha said, “I have been assured these two shifters sent to transport you to your new home will be sufficient.” He ended that statement with a sly smile.
What the hell had been put in motion here?
Bosse backed away, warning the strangers, “Get your money returned. I have no desire to kill you, but neither will I come willingly.”
He continued to back up another five steps.
Not a person spoke or made a move. They were smarter than he’d given this bunch credit for. Once he had reached the dense woods and was too far for someone to rush over to grab him, he turned and lunged into a run.
Something sharp stabbed his back and burned.
He ran harder, but his legs became rubbery. His jaw went slack. He stumbled.
Drugs!Titan yelled in his head.
Bosse’s vision blurred, and his stomach revolted. His last thought was that his own mother had betrayed him.
Shaking off the bad memory and returning to the present, Bosse glanced at the empty arena covered in drying blood. He tested his injured foot. He’d limp, but he could walk.
Ten minutes had come and gone. With Krol no longer present, the guards weren’t as worried about returning Bosse to his cage. No reason to move yet if the guards were ignoring him.
He stayed put for what felt like another ten or fifteen minutes.
Titan said,Walk now.
Bosse took a couple of careful steps. Not bad. Blood might be drying on his back, but that would require food for him to heal. For now, he’d take being able to walk to the cage.
He went to the steel bar door and shouted, “Krol said ten minutes. I don’t care, but your boss must.”
Someone cursed and came pounding over to the gate. “Get out.” The guard carrying a crossbow loaded with a barbed titanium tip arrow who most often walked him back to his cage stood ready.
While a shifter would survive a stab that didn’t slice up an organ too badly, the titanium would kill a shifter if left inside the body long enough.
For that reason, he strolled quietly down the dirt corridor and passed through a wooden door on handmade metal hinges into the basement area where captured shifters were kept in ten cages. He paused, pointing his hand at the doorless room on his left that the guards calledkúpelna—abathroom.
Dark and noxious smelling, it held only a rusty bucket.
The crossbow guard nodded. Bosse had to hold his breath when he went in there, but his cage stayed cleaner than most of the others.
On his way to his cage again, Bosse passed the stairs on his left that led up to the main floor. Just past the stairs, two guards held down wooden chairs and used an empty barrel for a table until shift change at midnight.
He rarely thought about what day it was or the time.
What purpose would that serve?
His cage waited twenty feet ahead, the second one on the left and one of the two largest in a space that contained an additional eight when at full capacity. Revolting scents of shifters in animal and human form permeated the stale air.
When Bosse managed to sleep and not suffer nightmares, he dreamed of Titan feeling the air rush over his coat as he ran wild.
As he neared the first cage on the left, Beast lunged, slamming into the inch-thick titanium bar wall. Metal creaked at the seams.
