Page 9 of Kidnapped By the Alpha

Next to a tree, the Dark Moon alpha stood over the body of the man who had attacked me.

“Idiot,” Jasper spat at him. He turned to face me, and I saw that blood covered his hand. He wiped it on his shirt and strode toward me.

I jumped to my feet, knowing he would only return me to my prison if he caught me again. I bolted. It was hopeless, I knew, but I could never live with myself if I didn’t try.

“Stop,” Jasper commanded, and the power of the alpha bond forced me to comply. I turned to him, knowing that my last bid for freedom was gone.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Of course,” Jasper replied. “Do you think I could allow him to live after he put his hands on my mate?”

“Why do you care?” I asked. We might have shared a mate bond, but I knew that I meant nothing to him.

He stalked toward me as if he were a hunter and I was his prey. “I would think that the answer to that question is obvious. You belong to me.”

I bristled at his response, unable to keep my mouth shut. “No one will ever own me,” I said defiantly.

“That is where you’re wrong,” he argued. He grabbed my arms roughly, and I felt the sticky blood of my assailant on my skin. A mixture of fear and disgust overwhelmed me as I looked up into his eyes. “You are mine until you die.”

I was getting braver by the minute. “Then I will pray that day comes quickly.”

Jasper let out a guffaw of spontaneous laughter at my answer. The laugh started in his chest, causing his body to shake until he threw his head back in amusement. He seemed truly entertained by my statement, which caught me off-guard. He had been stoic and serious since he had kidnapped me. His genuine laughter surprised me, considering the circumstances.

A smile crept onto my face before I could stop it. I realized I wouldn’t mind hearing his laugh more often.

“If you aren’t careful, that day will come much sooner than you think. This—” he waved one hand at the body of the man he had killed “—has only been a taste of the horrors my pack is capable of.”

The smile dropped from my face as I shivered, knowing he was telling the truth. I surveyed the corpse, wondering what other terrors would await me in the coming days. If one of his own was willing to risk death to force themselves on me, then I feared I wouldn’t last long as the luna of this pack. If he was willing to kill a dedicated soldier without a second thought, what was he willing to do to me?

I returned my gaze to my new mate, unsure of what I should do next. He seemed to read my mind.

“Do as I say, and maybe you’ll survive,” he said.

“Is that what you want?” I asked. Something about his tone gave me the impression that he might actually want me to live, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, I wanted to tease that information out of him. Part of me couldn’t help being attracted to the power he had over me.

“Yes,” he said in a low voice. He was still holding me—a fact I became acutely aware of as we stood chest to chest. I nearly leaned into him as we stood there but stopped myself. No matter what kind of pull Rae and I felt toward him, I could not allow myself to ignore my common sense.

Chapter 5 - Jasper

I had meant it when I said I wanted April to survive here. Without her, I wouldn’t be able to exact my revenge on Sparkle Hollow, of course, but I had more complicated feelings about it than just that simple fact. She belonged to me, and I’d be damned before I let anyone else touch her.

When I saw my underling straddling April on the ground, I was furious. He should have known better than to put his hands on what I had rightfully claimed as mine. There was no question about what needed to be done. I had to end his life.

“Let’s go,” I said to my mate. I kept one hand on her upper arm, guiding her back to the cabin she had escaped from.

Surprisingly, she came willingly. Her attack seemed to have scared some sense into her. For that, I was grateful.

It hadn’t crossed my mind earlier to lock the cabin. She had been bound tightly, so I had assumed she was trapped. I would have been impressed with her if I hadn’t been so angry. No one in the pack had dared to defy me, and her betrayal had cut me even deeper since I had been forced to dispose of a loyal wolf.

April was far from the first female to let me down. Even my own prostitute of a mother had treated me worse than the dirt under her feet.

From the moment I had been born—a shifter, like my father—I had been abused by her. I had hoped that when she became the proprietor of the whorehouse, things would get easier for me, but I had been wrong. Instead of being taken advantage of by one woman, I had fallen to the mercy of my mother’s entire workforce.

If I had been born a girl, my mother could have made money off of my services, but I was only a burden to her. She had forced me to earn my keep by doing all of the manual labor—including getting rid of any clientele that had needed to be removed from the property.

I was a small child when I saw my first dead body. A man had refused to pay one of my mother’s workers and had instead paid with his life. After my mother killed him, she made me dispose of his corpse and clean up the mess left behind.

This is what I expected of all females. Their only abilities were to hurt, manipulate, and use sex to get what they wanted before leaving their victims in ruin. I hated each and every one of them.

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