Page 20 of Broken Forced Mate
He swears but doesn’t let go. Blood fills my mouth—his blood—and I hope it hurts. Hope it leaves scars he’ll remember every time he looks at his hands.
The pounding on the door gets louder, more frantic.
“Raegan! Answer me!” Bastian’s voice carries real panic now.
I try to call out again, but the chloroform is starting to affect me despite my attempts to hold my breath. My vision wavers, and my struggles become less coordinated.
The room spins around me, and the furniture distorts into indistinct shapes. My legs feel like they’re made of water.
“Fight it all you want,” Wyn says, his voice rough with something that might be regret. “But you’re coming with me either way.”
The bedroom door rattles as someone throws their full weight against it. Wood splinters around the lock, and I can hear Bastian cursing in what sounds like a foreign language.
Something about the words nags at me. The accent, maybe, or the cadence. Not the gentle academic tone I’m used to hearing from him.
My legs start to give out as the drug works its way through my system. Wyn catches me as I collapse, and he lifts me against his chest with surprising gentleness for someone who just drugged me.
Even through my fury and growing disorientation, I can’t help but notice how carefully he handles me. His arms create a protective cage around my body, shielding me from impact as he moves toward the window.
The contrast between his actions and his tenderness confuses me. Kidnappers aren’t supposed to be gentle. They’re not supposed to whisper apologies or handle their victims like precious things.
“You bastard,” I slur. “I hate you.”
“I know.” He carries me toward the window. “But you’ll be alive to hate me.”
The door explodes inward just as Wyn reaches the open window. Bastian fills the doorway, taking in the scene.
Gone is the gentle academic I thought I knew. This man moves like a predator, with every line of his body coiled with barely contained violence. Maybe Wyn wasn’t lying about everything, after all.
“Put her down.” His voice carries authority I’ve never heard before. “Now.”
Where did my soft-spoken fiancé learn to sound like that?
Wyn adjusts his grip on me, preparing to climb through the window. “Can’t do that. She’s coming with me.”
Bastian moves into the room, no longer the polite man who proposed to me three days ago. The transformation is startling, like watching someone remove a mask they’ve worn so long I forgot it wasn’t their real face.
His posture is different. The way he carries himself, the look in his eyes, even the set of his shoulders. Everything about him screams training and experience with violence.
“You have three seconds to release her, or I will end you.”
“Funny,” Wyn sneers, pausing at the window. “That’s exactly what I was going to say to you at the meeting earlier today.”
The two men glare at each other across my darkening bedroom, and I can practically feel the violence building between them. Whatever game they’re playing, I’m the prize in the middle.
My vision blurs further as the chloroform wins its battle against my system. The only reason I’m not a total puddle right now is that wolves metabolize drugs so much differently than humans.
Still, the room tilts and spins, making me nauseous. But through the chemical haze, I catch something that makes my blood run cold.
The look on Bastian’s face as he watches me isn’t that of a worried fiancé. It’s the expression of someone who views me as an asset rather than a person.
Maybe Wyn isn’t the only monster in this room.
“Sleep, sweetheart,” Wyn mumbles as he steps onto the window ledge. The endearment should anger me, but my brain is too foggy to maintain the rage.
“Don’t count on her forgiving you,” Bastian calls after us.
“I’m not counting on anything,” Wyn replies. “Except keeping her alive.”
