Page 99 of Cursed Bonds: An Alpha's Destiny

The words tumbled from my lips so easily, so naturally, as though I’d been saying them my entire life. It had taken this moment for the blinders to come off, for the walls to come tumbling down. Jace was my mate, and I was his. Why the hell had I run? Was one fight a reason to end what could be the best thing that ever happened to me?

“I don’t know why you’re so fixated on me,” I said, glancing around the car at the other shifters, trying to think of a way out with my tires slashed. “But I will always be Jace’s mate. Nothing will change that.”

Eren pressed his palm to the glass and leered at me. My magic crackled like static electricity. Something was happening in my mind. At the back of my throat, I tasted something like dirt. Soil or mulch or something. Earth? My mind fled back to the hours and hours I’d spent reading the books Tinsley had given me. Geomancy witches. Witches who could control the earth with their magic.

But why was I thinking about that now? Had my panic at being cornered unlocked more of my powers? Great. What did it matter if I couldn’t figure out how to use them?

“You will give me a child after you make sure I’m cured. Don’t worry about it; I’ll make it good for you. Hell, tell me how many times you want to come, and I’ll make sure to do that number—plus one. See, I’m a nice guy.”

“In my experience, men who call themselves nice guys are anything but.”

He ignored that. “If you don’t, I’ll simply let you rot away in a cell. And don’t get any ideas about the big bad Jace Stone coming to save you. Once the fight he and I have scheduled for next month is over, he’ll be nothing more than a bloody stain on the ground.” He grinned and chuckled as if he’d just made the funniest joke in the world. “Hell, maybe I’ll have his pretty little wolf head stuffed and hung over our bed. You can look up at him while you ride me. How would you like that?”

God, where was Jace? Why had I been so fucking stupid? Why’d I leave so early? I was nearly forty miles from Crestwood. How fast could he drive? How long had I been sitting here? Ten minutes? Fifteen?

“Now, are you going to unlock this door or not?” Eren asked.

“Why the hell would I?” I laughed at him, a humorless, desperate sound. “You basically just said you want to rape me.”

“No.” Eren held up a finger. “I don’t do stuff like that. You’ll beg for it in the end. Won’t need to take what’s given freely.” The smile vanished, and his eyes flashed darkly. “Now open the fucking door, Kirsten.”

“How about no? How about that? Fuck off.”

All I had to do was stall for time. Give Jace a few more minutes to get here. My phone still sat on the passenger seat. Could I call the cops? Would they get here in time? Probably not.

“I think you forgot one thing,” Eren said.

“What’s that?”

“I was only being nice in asking. A shifter doesn’t really need permission to come in.”

His face warped into a snarl, and he slammed his elbow into the window, crashing it into the cab in a shower of glittering glass. I screamed and watched in horror as Eren and another of his guys reached through the busted window and grabbed the inside of the door. Both men twisted, grunting in effort, and ripped the door off the frame. My God, I knew they were strong, but I never imagined this.

Two flat tires be damned, I had no other choice. I slammed the car into gear and hit the gas just as Eren tried to climb in. He tumbled to the side, rolling onto the grassy shoulder as I pulled away. The other shifters jumped aside, but my car did not rocket forward like I’d hoped. In less than a hundred yards, twin streams of sparks began shooting up from my rims as the flat rubber of my ruined tires peeled away.

I hissed curses at the car as the speedometer crept upward, slower than I wanted but still picking up speed. Thank God they hadn’t slashed the front tires, too. Eventually, I got to almost forty miles an hour, but that wasn’t good enough. The wolves were racing toward me, Eren in the lead.

Seeing them getting closer, the taste of dirt at the back of my throat became more intense, and I squinted in concentration, allowing instinct to take over. As I watched the wolves in the mirror, my magic flooded out of me. To my utter and complete shock, tendrils of dirt erupted from the ground on either side of the road, like an earthen octopus coming alive. The tentacles surged forward, wrapping around two of the wolves, hauling them back with surprised yelps of horror. Two more tentacles swiped at Eren and the others but missed as they dodged and jumped out of the way.

I smiled despite the situation, proud of what I’d done.

As proud as I was, I’d made a mistake in keeping my eyes on the mirror and not on the road. I was rushing toward a curve in the road. Too late, I slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel. It caused an overcorrection, and without the back tires, the rear end of the car went sliding toward the shoulder.

I screamed in terror. The edge of the road dropped off the side into a small ravine. In an instant, I remembered Jace’s story about his parents’ accident. Was this the same spot? I wondered madly as I yanked on the wheel and jammed my feet on the brakes.

Eren and two of his other wolves leaped forward, slamming their full weight into the back fender of my car. Three hundred pounds of wolf muscles and mass, and that was all it took. The right tires skidded across the gravel of the shoulder, then over the edge.

Time itself froze. I sat, eyes wide with shock, mouth open in a silent scream, the menacing wolves gazing at me with hungry, yellow eyes. Then, in a flash, the world became chaos. Time resumed and the car went into a tumble, rolling over and over. Items flew from the boxes in the backseat, careening around the cab. The roar of the engine and crashing sounds of metal bending and glass shattering drowned out my screams.

The front end clipped a tree, and the airbag exploded out, my eardrums already ringing as my head slammed into the window. Pain shattered my mind like I’d been kicked in the side of the head by a horse. My vision blurred, and the final two rolls of the car went by in a haze.

My eyes didn’t want to work and my ears rang with a high-pitched whine, but through all that, I could hear a strange tick-tick-tick as something in the car made its last dying sounds. Opening my mouth, I tried to call out. For who? I had no idea. Maybe Jace? Maybe even my dead grandmother. Regardless, all that came out was a raspy hiss. My throat felt like it was coated in glass. The smell of burning oil, hot metal, and blood filled my nose. It was only then that the thick, dripping ooze sensation registered as it rolled down my head. I barely managed to lift my hand to my forehead. Blood.

The sight of it made me even more dizzy, and my sight grayed out for a moment. The next thing I remembered was the driver’s side door opening with the sound of bending steel and cracking fiberglass and plastic.

Rough hands reached inside, tearing at the seatbelt and dragging me out. Through my blurry vision, I saw Eren’s face as he pulled me forward. Fear and terror urged me to do something. I summoned all the strength I could muster and punched him. My fist—limp-wristed, off-target, and lacking in any real strength—struck his shoulder instead of the nose I’d been aiming at.

“Still got some fight, I see,” he said as he slung me over his shoulder. “That’s good. Strong blood to pass down to my heir.”

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