Page 21 of Broken Forced Mate
Then we’re falling through darkness, and the last totally coherent thought I have is wondering which man is telling the truth.
Wyn lands hard, absorbing the impact with bent knees while keeping me cradled against his chest. Even semiconscious, I can feel how carefully he protects me from the jarring contact with the ground.
He starts running, and he carries me through the desert scrub with sure-footed confidence. Behind us, I can hear Bastian shouting orders to someone as his voice carries across the night.
Orders in that same foreign language.
The chloroform pulls me deeper into unconsciousness, but some stubborn part of my mind keeps fighting it. I need to stay awake, need to understand what’s happening, need to figure out which version of reality is true.
Through the chemical fog, I try to piece together the events of the past few days. Bastian’s smooth answers to every question today. The way he seemed to have a prepared response for everything. How perfectly he fit the role of diplomatic student, like he’d practiced it.
The way he knew exactly what to say to make me feel special, valued, and desired. Like he’d studied my weaknesses and crafted his approach accordingly.
Details I dismissed at the time now seem ominous in retrospect. How he always steered conversations away from specific details about his past. The way he deflected when I asked about visiting his home territory. His reluctance to introduce me to anyone from his supposed pack, always having reasonable excuses for why that wasn’t possible, yet.
Even our first meeting feels suspicious now. The carefully orchestrated “accident” in the library when he spilled coffee on my notes. How quickly he offered to help me rewrite them, creating an excuse to spend hours together. The perfect gentleman act that made me feel like I’d found someone genuinely different from the aggressive alphas I’d grown up around.
Was any of it real? Or was I just an easy mark, so desperate to prove I could build a life independent of my family’s influence that I ignored every red flag? The thought makes me sick, even through the chemical haze clouding my thoughts.
But I also remember the way he looked at me when he proposed. The genuine emotion in his voice when he talked about his family. The tears in his eyes when he mentioned his dead sister.
Either he’s an incredible actor, or Wyn is lying.
Or maybe they’re both lying, and I’m trapped between two men who see me as something to be possessed rather than someone to be respected.
My body betrays me and goes totally limp in Wyn’s arms as he carries me further from the guest house. From safety or danger, I can’t tell which anymore.
The night desert surrounds us with its alien beauty. Stars wheel overhead, brilliant in the clear sky, while the scent of sage and creosote fills the cooling wind. Under different circumstances, this might be romantic.
Instead, it feels like the end of everything I thought I knew about my life.
“I’ve got you,” he promises, his voice barely audible over the sound of our movement through the brush. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The promise should comfort me. Instead, it terrifies me.
Because three years ago, Wyn made it clear that I meant nothing to him. That protecting me was just a job, a duty to his alpha rather than any personal feeling.
So why is he risking everything to take me now? Surely, he knows my brother is going to have his head for this. He abducted his sister in the dead of night.
There will be consequences.
The questions follow me down into darkness as the drug finally wins its battle against my consciousness. My last sensation is the steady rhythm of Wyn’s heartbeat against my cheek and the careful way his arms cradle me against the night.
When I wake up, nothing will ever be the same again.
Chapter 7 - Wyn
The drive to Hysopp Coven territory passes in silence so thick it’s choking my wolf.
Raegan sits in the passenger seat with her hands zip-tied in front of her, staring out the window with murder in her hazel eyes. Every few minutes, she turns that lethal glare on me, and I force myself to keep watching the road instead of drowning in the hate radiating from her.
The chloroform wore off an hour ago. She woke up screaming and trying to open the door until she realized we were moving at highway speeds, then went deadly quiet. That quiet is somehow worse than the screaming.
When she finally does speak, her voice could freeze desert sand. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe,” I try to reassure her.
“Safe from what? My fiancé? My family? Or just safe from having any say in my own life?”
