His voice was tentative, and both humans scrambled to press up against the bars. The woman had to hold on to the steel frame of the door to stand up, her legs shaking.
“You’re not feral? the man asked, sounding hopeful. “We’re from the Boswell pack. Is anyone looking for us?”
Bjorn didn’t know how to respond. He’d never heard of the Boswell pack.
“I’m feral,” he said, the man’s face twisting in confusion. “Don’t know Boswell. Escape plan?”
“You’re feral? Then how are you talking?” the woman asked. Her voice was raspy and hoarse, like she’d been screaming.
“Learned,” Bjorn said, shrugging. He didn’t see how that was important. “Plan?” he asked again.
The woman laughed, a broken, dejected sound. “No, we don’t have a fucking plan. These people are crazy.”
“What reason?” Bjorn asked, wishing his human was awake to talk for him. It was just so difficult to make words and put them out in the right order.
“Fights,” the man said, taking a deep breath. “They broadcast fights between werewolves on the internet. I don’t know who watches, but I’m guessing there’s a lot of betting involved. This is where they put the werewolves who don’t cooperate and fight willingly.”
Bjorn frowned. That made it sound like there were werewolveswillinglyparticipating in this.
“Willingly?” Bjorn asked, wanting clarification.
The woman was the one to answer him. “Most of the werewolves involved are doing it for money. They don’t give a shit that some of them are being forced into it.”
Bjorn couldn’t understand that, but then again there were lots of things he couldn’t understand. The world was very confusing, which was why he needed his human to wake up and take the lead and make sense of it.
“Think of plan,” Bjorn instructed the two humans. If they didn’t have one, the least they could do was help him make one.
His words just made the man laugh. “Sure. We’ll think of a plan, not like we haven’t been trying.”
The woman sighed, but then her expression turned sharp. “Don’t let them know you can talk. They won’t like that.”
Bjorn nodded, the information exactly the kind of thing he needed a human mind to figure out.
“No talking,” he confirmed. “More advice?”
“If you don’t cooperate, they’ll hurt your human, unless they were lying and they don’t actually have her.”
“Him,” Bjorn corrected, hoping that Sebastian was somewhere safe and not taken prisoner like him. “Hurt?” he asked.
In the cell next to him, Viggo let out a warning growl at the idea of anyone hurting Sebastian.
The woman pointed to her collar. “It’s a shock collar. Hurts like a bitch, but it’s not as bad as it looks.”
Bjorn stared at the bulky collar, frowning. The alpha two cells down let out a whimper, the mention of the collar distressing him, making Bjorn think that the collar actually was as bad as it looked.
“Escape?” he asked again.
The woman and man both sighed, shaking their heads and withdrawing into the backs of their cells. Neither one of them answered his question.
Taking a seat on the floor, listening to the sound of everyone breathing, the scent of blood and sweat thick in the air, Bjorn resumed his efforts to think of a plan.
27
SEBASTIAN
Sebastian glared down at the zip tie fastened around his wrists, the plastic digging into his skin and cutting off circulation to his hands.
He was in the back of the SUV, his kidnapper behind the wheel, his stomach sore and tender. He’d tried to make a run for it right after he’d woken up from being choked out, the biker and the black-clad menace dragging him out of the house, and the biker had punched his gut hard enough to make him throw up.
