What the—
The ground tilted below me. Axton wasn’t taking his prize; he was making space to watch.
My breath snagged as he licked his lips and the scene in the alleyway blurred with another; gravel under my knees, a different night, a different man stepping back to spectate while a girl on an old road listened for her death sentence. Cold sweat burst down my spine.
“Ryan,” Axton said. “Get over here.”
A man with lust-heavy eyes and a feral grin stepped around Axton to take my wrists like he owned them.
I forced my gaze up. Axton's glacier blue eyes darkened to a muddy brown. I shook my head—once, hard—trying to stay present and not let his irises shift the way Callen’s always did right before the laughing had started.
But they weren’t blue anymore. I was staring into molten brown eyes.
“No! Callen please–” A hand clamped over my mouth.
Fingers closed on my throat, drawing me nose to nose. “You’re going to take us all, little stripper whore,” he breathed, “and then you’re going to pay us for a good time.”
A snicker to my left. Another behind me. Two more in front.
They pounced.
Fingers dug into my skin, teeth pinched the nape of my neck–
“Hey!” Someone shouted from down the alley. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Everything is fine,” Axton threw over his shoulder before looking at me with a pointed glare. Play along or you're dead, it said. “We’re just having some fun. Aren’t we, sweetheart?”
I kept my mouth shut, hoping that whomever was shouting would go the fuck away so I could teach these motherfuckers what consent meant.
The shouting continued and a beam of light bounced with the cadence of the stranger’s footsteps as they approached.
Axton rolled his eyes, his lips thinning and jaw tensing in frustration. “I said everything is fine– ”
All of a sudden, everyone froze. Hands went stiff, the grip on my arms tightened, and the only rustle of air was the chill creeping through the alley.
“Get the fuck off of her.”
I tried to turn and see who the hell was ruining my building, murder-driven orgasm, but the shitheads were holding me too tight.
“Look man,” Axton said, his voice low and shaky as he backed away. “We were just having a little fun. No one got hurt.”
A metallic click echoed off the walls, and my heart stopped.
Was someone seriously pointing a gun?
“I said, get. The fuck. Off of her.”
Everyone released me and took a step back.
When I turned, it was to see Axton staring down the barrel of a pistol. With the gunman solely focused on Axton, the others took it upon themselves to scurry away like rats, and I committed my so-called savior’s face to memory. A strong, clean-cut jaw clenched to snapping, and a fuck-around-and-find-out glare in his eyes.
The man stepped forward until he was face to face with Axton, put the gun against his head, and growled, “Go. Come here again, and die.”
Axton didn’t say another word. Instead, he ran out of the alley chasing his pack like an alpha who’d just been demoted to beta.
“Are you okay?” The fire in his darkened eyes banked, and his features softened as one hand hovered below my arm like he was ready to catch me if I collapsed.
Weak, Dany,I spat in my head.You are so fucking weak.
