Adri tried to snap at the mayor’s fingers with blunt teeth as he reached out to grab his jaw and tilt his head to the side, but he was still too lethargic and weak to resist. Hehatedthat. Hated being vulnerable. Hated being confined again. It took everything he had not to start hyperventilating as he forced himself to focus on a single trail of stains on the concrete ceiling. It was earthy and damp, suggesting he was somewhere in the tunnel system under the city. He pretended the stain was arterial blood spatter, letting his mind drift in a fantasy where he ripped himself free of his restraints and slashed this asshole’s throat with his claws.
“It’s just a bruise,” one of the scientists muttered, distracting Adri from his thoughts.
“He’s a fucking shifter. They don’t bruise like this. Who did this to you?” Stewart asked, wrenching Adri’s face around to look at him.
Glaring up at the mayor with what he knew was a reckless grin, Adri decided to see how much he could mess with the humans. “Mymate.He’s going to fucking disembowel you and string you from the ceiling by your guts. He’s good at that because he’s a doctor. Arealone. Not like these wannabe evil scientists you’ve got going on.”
“You were refusing to complete the bond. The other fighters we took confirmed it,” Stewart said, a hint of real fear seeping into his voice.
“How come I’ve got an unhealed bite mark on my neck, then?” Adri asked, hoping they didn’t look close enough to realise the teeth marks had never broken the skin.
“Fuck!We can’t risk exposure of this location. We need to move him now!”
Adri smirked as he smelled terror and weakness in the air, despite the absence of his jaguar from his mind. This was his chance to maximise the likelihood that his people would be found. “You need to moveallof us. My Alpha isn’t going to leave our fighters behind, and my mate will already have locked in on the location.”
Chaos ensued as Stewart and the head scientist started barking orders, a flurry of more humans descending around them.
“We need to move himnowand hope they haven’t managed to map his location yet. The shielding on the entrances won’t stop them from digging down to us.”
“Get the Sabatini warehouse cleared. We’ll put all the pack’s people there and draw them away from the tunnels. If they get their people back, they won’t be able to justify a further attack to the Council, and the magic needed to break through our defences is too much to hide from them. Move the rest of our forces back to the blue district so we can collapse the tunnels here if they’re breached.”
“Shall we terminate the subjects before we move them?”
Adri’s blood ran cold. Once again, he tried and failed to tear himself free of his restraints.
“Not yet. By the time the pack finds them, they’ll either be feral or under our control. Either way, they should be able to take some of them out. We can always detonate the chips remotely if we need to,” Stewart said. “Knock him out again so we don’t have any more fuck ups.”
Adri snarled at the scientist who stepped close to mess with his IV line, and the human looked down at him with derision. “I’m going to put you down like the animal you are as soon as I get the word.”
“I’m going to get my mate to keep you alive and conscious with his power while my pack tears you into pieces as tiny as your small-minded fucking brain.”
“I wouldn’t be making threats about my brain in your position. That chip you have in yours is controlled by an app on my phone.”
Unconsciousness pulled at him, and Adri’s vision darkened as whatever this asshole had inserted into his IV started to take effect. The human’s last retort followed him down into oblivion.
“Sweet dreams, asshole. If you wake up, you’ll be nothing more than another weapon. With any luck, you’ll kill that mate of yours for us.”
CHAPTER 17: RAFE
“Areyou sure this guy is trustworthy?” Rafe asked, knowing he’d been driving Emmy up the wall the entire drive with his questions.
It wasn’t Rafe’s fault. It had been two fuckingdayssince his mate went missing. Two days with no sleep. Two days of his wolf howling non-stop inside him. Two days of feeling like his heart had been ripped in two and his soul was stretched tight enough to shatter.
“Seth’s young, but he’s good people. His tips have always been solid, and he hates vampires as much as we do.”
“Heisa vampire,” Rafe pointed out.
“He’s a vampire who was turned against his will and pimped out to the scum of the city. He’d take down Kyan and the whole coven without batting an eye if he had the power and connections to do it.”
“How young are we talking?”
“Twenty-five. He must’ve been turned in the last three years or so because he’s still figuring out what he’s capable of. His control is shaky.”
“And why is he willing to give us the time of day? I would’ve thought he’d hate all supernaturals with a history like his.”
“He’s definitely wary of us, so don’t go all alpha-Dom on him. I helped him out with a problem he was having. We had a bonding moment.”
Rafe’s mouth twitched in as much of a smile as he could manage right then. “Why do I feel like your bonding moment involved bondage and blood?”
