I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
I should have taken the truck. Should have waited for one of them. Should have listened to the worry in Reid's eyes, the fear in Kol's voice, the silent warning in Sawyer's watchful gaze. But I'd wanted normal. I'd wanted one small piece of my life that Easton hadn't touched, hadn't ruined, hadn't taken.
Now he'd taken me instead.
Easton's hand closed on my thigh, possessive and threatening, his fingers digging into the muscle hard enough to make me gasp, and I closed my eyes against the wave of revulsion that crashed over me, my whole body going rigid with the effort of not screaming.
"Don't worry, little Omega." His voice was a purr, satisfied and cruel, his breath hot against my ear, his other hand coming up to grip my jaw and force my face toward his, his dark eyes boring into mine with terrible intensity. "I'm going to take very good care of you. By the time I'm done, you'll have forgotten all about those ranchers. You'll wonder why you ever settled for sharing yourself between four men when you could have had just one."
I didn't answer. Couldn't. Just sat there with my eyes squeezed shut and my body shaking, my mind reaching out desperately across the distance to the four Alphas who held myheart, willing them to feel me, to find me, to come for me before it was too late.
The truck turned off the main road, onto something rougher, gravel giving way to dirt, the smooth ride becoming jarring and uneven. I didn't know where we were going. Didn't want to know. Could only think of Longhorn, of home, of the men who were probably just now realizing something was wrong.
Find me,I thought, putting everything I had into the plea.Please find me.
Help me. Someone. Please.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ASTER
I woke to the smell of wrong.
My head throbbed, a dull ache pulsing behind my eyes, and for a moment I couldn't remember where I was or how I'd gotten here. The surface beneath me was soft — a bed, my foggy brain supplied, with sheets that felt like silk against my skin — but everything smelled like chemicals and that cloying cologne that made my stomach turn and my hindbrain scream danger. Not cedar. Not pine. Not earth or sunshine.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
Memory returned in a sickening wave. The road. The black truck with its tinted windows. Easton's cold smile as he blocked my path. The blow that had split my lip and sent stars exploding behind my eyes. His threats whispered hot against my ear, his blood dripping onto my face, his hands pinning me to the gravel.
I sat up too fast, my vision swimming, bile rising in my throat. The room spun around me — expensive furniture in dark woods, heavy velvet curtains blocking out the light, crystal vases filled with flowers that smelled too sweet and too artificial. Adoor across the room, solid oak from the look of it, probably locked. My ankle screamed when I tried to move it, swollen and throbbing from where I'd twisted it during the struggle, the pain shooting up my leg in nauseating waves.
A cage. A gilded, expensive cage with silk sheets and crystal chandeliers, but a cage nonetheless.
I forced myself to breathe. To think. To assess.
The windows were tall, flanked by those heavy curtains. I dragged myself across the bed, ignoring the agony in my ankle, and yanked the fabric aside. Bars. Decorative wrought iron, painted to match the window frame, but bars all the same. Beyond them, I could see manicured gardens stretching toward a distant fence line, guards walking the perimeter in crisp uniforms.
No escape that way.
"Ah, you're awake." Easton's voice came from somewhere to my left, and I whipped my head toward the sound, a snarl already building in my chest, my lip curling back from my teeth. He was sitting in an armchair by a cold fireplace, one leg crossed over the other, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. The scratches I'd left on his face had been cleaned and bandaged, white strips standing out against his tan skin like badges of shame. His suit was different — fresh, unwrinkled, expensive as everything else in this room. "I was starting to worry. You've been out for hours."
"Where am I?" My voice came out rough, scraped raw from screaming, but I forced steel into it anyway, my eyes scanning the room for exits, for weapons, for anything I could use. A fireplace poker by the hearth. A heavy vase on the mantle. The lamp on the bedside table with its solid brass base. "What do you want?"
"You're at my home. Branston Ranch." He gestured with his glass, the ice clinking softly, his dark eyes watching me over therim with an intensity that made my skin crawl, his lips curving into that predatory smile I'd come to hate. He looked relaxed, comfortable, like a man entertaining a guest rather than holding a prisoner. "The main house. Guest wing. I thought you'd be more comfortable here than in one of the outbuildings."
"How considerate." The words dripped with venom, my hands fisting in the silk sheets, my scent going sharp and bitter with fear and fury intertwined. "You kidnap me, threaten my pack, and then give me a nice room. I'm overwhelmed by your generosity."
"Sarcasm." He smiled like I'd done something amusing, something charming, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I like that. Shows spirit." He took a sip of his drink, savoring it, making me wait. "As for what I want... I thought that was obvious by now."
"You're insane." I pressed myself against the headboard, putting as much distance between us as possible, my eyes darting to that fireplace poker, calculating the distance, the angle, whether I could reach it before he reached me. "They'll come for me. All of them. And when they find you?—"
"When they find me, what?" He laughed, the sound echoing off the high ceilings, bouncing around the cavernous room like mocking applause, his head tilting back to expose the column of his throat. "They'll call the sheriff? My cousin Marcus?" He took another sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving my face, his posture deliberately relaxed, confident. "They'll try to fight me? Four ranch hands against my security team — twenty men, all former military, all very well paid to do exactly what I say?" Another laugh, darker this time, his fingers tightening on the glass until his knuckles went white. "I've been planning this for a long time, little Omega. Did you really think I didn't account for every variable?"
"Why?" The word burst out of me, raw and demanding, my nails digging into the expensive bedding. "Why are you doing this? What did Reid ever do to you? What did any of them do?"
Something flickered across Easton's face — a crack in the polished veneer, a glimpse of something ugly and wounded beneath the sophisticated mask. He set down his glass on the side table, the crystal ringing against the wood, and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes boring into mine with sudden intensity.
"You want to know why?" His voice was softer now, almost conversational, but there was a razor edge beneath the silk that made me want to shrink back, that made every instinct I had scream danger. "Fine. Let me tell you a story."
