Page 72 of Shaken Knot Stirred

Too late. I saw the hypodermic, too late.

He stabbed it into my neck. The force of his punch then to my chest blew me back five feet. I heard the clank of a metal bar coming down to barricade the steel door. And the click ofa padlock. His disgusting laughter echoed in the hall. I threw myself against the door. Again and again.

Instantly, I lost control of my heartbeat as the adrenaline flooded my system.

Chapter 40

Moxie

I pulled the metalchopstick from my hair and wedged it into the handcuff keyhole. It wasn’t at the right angle, but I still might be able to make it work.

“What a dick,” I muttered.

Nico quickly gave up on the door, knowing that even a rutting alpha couldn’t break through solid steel.

He pulled the chopstick out of my hand and wedged it between two pipes to bend the tip. While he went to work on one cuff, I held up my arm and supported it with the other. My arms werealready tired. Any longer and they’d be sore as hell. The lock clicked, and my arm fell. I groaned as I rubbed my wrist.

“Okay, new plan and it involves stairs,” I said as I uselessly jiggled the door handle myself. I was going to have to pee at some point.

I heard the sharp ratcheting sound of the cuffs snapping in place again. Spinning around, I took a horrified step back. Nico’s aura was not right. It had gone pure white. Muted colors flashed through it like watching fireworks on a foggy night.

“Nico?” I took a step towards him, and he barked at me. A real alpha bark.

“Don’t.”

“What’s happening?” I fought that sick feeling of my insides squeezing.

That’s when I saw the tiny trickle of blood flowing down his neck and staining the top of his shirt. An unearthly sound came from him, somewhere between a groan and a growl.

I heard the second handcuff click. Nico had strapped himself to the vertical pipe with his hands behind his back. He groaned again and lowered himself to the floor. The command of his bark evaporated.

He shook his head violently when I called his name again. I sank to my knees and reached my hand out to touch his foot. He jerked and pulled away from me.

“What is happening?” I asked, swallowing the fear that threatened to take over.

“Rut.” The word got lost in a growl

My eyes went huge in horror remembering that line of vials on Beg’s desk. I marveled at the diabolic evil of this. The chances were extremely high that an alpha in rut might not have the ability to stop when a person said no. Nico would understand that. The guilt that he would wake up to tomorrow would be the thing that destroyed him. And I would have front row seats.

I crept closer, forcing physical contact with my hand on his leg. He tried to shake me off, but I refused to let him. Rut dumped pure adrenaline in your system. Hallucinations were common and worse yet, you could act on those hallucinations.

“Nico,” I said in a soothing voice, “it’s okay. We’ll get through this. Together.”

“Don’t Moxie,” he managed to get out through gritted teeth. “You don’t want this. You don’t want me. Get out!”

“I am not leaving you.” I pinched his chin and made him look at me. He looked awful. Sweat was already dripping down his beautiful face. The circles under his eyes were blackening.

I racked my memory for all the facts I had stored away about rut. It was similar to heat, a temporary state where hormones went out of control. Rut wasn’t cyclical like heat. An alpha could go their whole life and never hit rut. I had my suspicions that rut was what happened to touch-starved alphas.

I touched his face and he jerked away. I stood up and tried the door one more time, yanking at it, putting all my weight behind it. Screaming wouldn’t help as the house music would mask the noise. Besides, who in their right mind would go against Beg and help me, anyway?

Fuck Beg. He chained me in a room with a rutting alpha because he knew exactly what would happen.

I took a deep breath, needing a second to process. I had tried to do heat by myself once. It was so horrific, I’d given up and checked myself into a heat hotel. Rut was worse.

There were only two ways to get through rut. Fighting or fucking. And the fucking, generally wasn’t pleasant for either party. Even if you took drugs to mute the effects, people often died.

Drugs.

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