Page 75 of Resisted

Oh, I would fight. I would fight until I took my last breath. A tall man toward the back, one with a scar down his face, offered, “Thirty grand, minimum.”

Well, that number shocked me. I hadn’t thought it was that significant. “So how much do you get for the women and children you perverts seem so fucking fond of?”

The guy in front of me, who I could only assume was the leader, smirked. “Ten grand a piece. But women are easy money. They don’t fight nearly as hard.”

Bella would. Bella would not get captured a second time. This I knew. She would go down kicking and screaming, clawing and biting, and that was without her ever shifting. I knew this for a fact. We had engrained the fight into her since she was a tiny pup, and though we prayed she would never have to use it, the skills were always there.

“So you like a fight?” Fucking prick, preying on the innocent women when it was the males he deserved to face the most.

“I live for it.”

Without warning, a chain snapped, the metal whipping against my skin. Pain instantly flared through my body, but I didn’t let my knees buckle. I barely let my body sway. They could whip me with chains, come at me with the iron crowbar, but the they would only succeed in taking down my body. They couldn’t touch my soul or the things I held dear. Never would they lay a hand on my subpack or glimpse Bella. They could do what they wanted, punish me as they pleased, and I would not cave to them.

I waited until there was a lull in their movements. “Satisfied?”

The head guy laughed. “Hardly. I need some information, and then maybe I’ll let you go.”

Please. He had no intention of letting me go. If I didn’t die tonight or any night in the near future, I’d be sold. We both knew that. “I know nothing.”

He stepped closer, close enough that the thick smell of seaweed and algae he wore on his skin almost made me gag and I could see the white of his eyes in the dark. “I don’t believe you for a second, seeing as how you don’t even know what I was planning to ask.”

“I could guess.” The man with a chain threw a punch at my jaw, causing my mouth to fill up with blood. I spit the blood onto the ground before continuing, “And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“They always say they won’t talk, but a few hours in, we always get the information we need.”

I shrugged. “You’re welcome to try.”

A sinister expression crossed his face. “Oh, I most definitely will be trying.”

As if that were a signal, a cue to get started, the half circle of men around me closed in. I couldn’t step back or go forward. The only thing I could do is stand tall and fight as long as possible. I couldn’t shift, I knew that was what they wanted, but I could fight them with my two hands as long as possible, until I had no choice but to surrender.

And I did. When the first punch hit, I reeled back, but the second I ducked and dodged. It didn’t get me far, not when they were closing fast, each with their own weapon of choice. Though I fought, fought longer than a normal human could, I was weakening fast, my body bleeding and bruised. I didn’t think I could last much longer. A final blow to the back of my head had me falling to my knees, blood dripping from my face in droplets onto the weathered board of the dock.

“Do you think they will come for you?” I fucking hoped not, but I knew differently.

“I’m not worth much.”

“Funny. I’ve been asking around about you, digging around on the dark web. As it turns out, you are worth quite a bit. You see, there’s a lot of family and friends you’ve killed off of ours.”

“Going to sell me for the thirty grand?” I spit out a mouthful of blood on his shoes before looking up at him through the one eye that wasn’t fully swollen shit.

“Thirty grand? For you?” He laughed hysterically until he cut it off, his face growing serious. “Well, the bid for you is already a hundred and ninety thousand.”

I nearly choked at that number. A hundred and ninety thousand dollars? That was sort of fucking flattering. “Well, then. I guess it’s time to collect.”

“Collect.” He snorted. “No, no, no. I need to wait until the others come, because as a trio, I could get fucking half a mil.”

I felt pride bubble up at the realization that my subpack was worth so much.

“You won’t get them.” At least I hoped he wouldn’t.

“Well, someone has got to come to your rescue.” Roth. I knew Roth would come. Gage, definitely. Rig, maybe. The others in his pack, questionable. But my boys wouldn’t be alone. I knew that for a fact. They were smarter than that.

“When they do, you’ll be fucked,” I murmured right before a fist met my stomach. My breath came out wheezingly. “So fucked.”

“You think we fear two wolves? There are seven of us here right now, more where that came from. We could handle the two of them.” A rope wrapped around my neck, and I internally I wanted to do nothing more than to struggle and fight, but I worked on relaxing my nerves. Fighting was pointless. It wouldn’t get me anywhere but dead, and I needed to be alive. I needed to stay alive long enough to see the misery that Roth would bring down on them.

“I didn’t say I think you fear two wolves.” I grunted as the rope tightened on my throat, “I’m just saying if I were you, I would be.”

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