Page 44 of Sold Wolf Slave

I waved her off, still studying the lock. “Don’t worry, Morgan. We’re going to figure it out. Maybe we can still try topick it or brute force it. Knowing Ronan and Lucas, they’re the types to underestimate their slaves. They don’t think any of them would dare to escape.”

“Kendra!”

The forcefulness in Morgan’s voice was so startling that I finally stopped and glanced up at her. My stomach sank with dread as she shook her head, shrinking back into the cell. Her pretty auburn hair fell in a curtain around her face as she glanced at the ground, but I knew her well enough to picture the pained, guilty expression on her face at that moment.

“I can’t go with you,” she said, her voice strained.

I shook my head. “Don’t worry. We’re getting you out of here. Once you’re here, we can get to the portal and…”

But Morgan was shaking her head. “You don’t understand. He’ll just come after me. He…” She trailed off.

I came up to the bars, stretching my fingers through them to reach out to her. She didn’t reach back to me.

“No, he won’t,” I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. I was painfully aware of the ticking clock, but I kept my voice low and soothing. “I have a way out of here. People will help us to get to the portal, and then we can get out of these chains and…”

My voice faded away as Morgan glanced back up. The pain and guilt in her expression set my stomach churning.

“You don’t understand,” she said again.

“I don’t understand what?” I asked. I would have been angry if things weren’t so desperate. I needed to keep her safe. I had a way to keep her safe. All we had to do was get her out of here.

“Kendra,” Chris muttered, and something in his voice tore my attention away from Morgan back to him. He was staring at Morgan, but this time in a grim, almost resigned sort of way. As if there was something there that I hadn’t noticed yet.

Slowly, more dread creeping into my stomach, I turned back, following Chris’s line of sight.

A golden collar wrapped around Morgan’s neck. Unlike the onyx color of all the other collars, this one glittered, almost ornately. It was the type of collar you only gave to special slaves. One Cain would have taken a particular interest in.

The collar. The special room. The fact that Cain refused to sell her to anyone. It all led to one terrible answer, one that couldn’t be real. Because if it were real, then I didn’t have an answer on how to fix it.

“Oh, God,” I muttered. I took a step back as the implications washed over me.

“I told you. He’s not going to let me go,” Morgan whispered. “He… he plans on making me his mate.”

The world wanted to crash around me, and my head spun as I tried to get a grip. This was like a bad dream. This couldn’t be real. There was no way it could be real. I wanted to collapse on the ground, but knew I couldn’t.

“When?” I asked, my mouth dry as I forced myself to stay composed enough so I wouldn’t break down in front of Morgan. I couldn’t do that to her. I had to stay strong.

“I’m not sure,” she muttered. Her eyes darted side to side, as if expecting someone to show up. “He told me the other day.”

At first, I stared, mouth open, as I gawked like an idiot, disbelief overriding every other emotion. He couldn’t do that. Not to Morgan. He couldn’t. It had to be a lie, some sort of trick.

The more the reality of the situation crashed into me, the angrier I got. My hands curled into fists.

“I can’t let you stay, then,” I said. I hated the desperate edge to my voice, the edge of panic that made it nearly impossible to think straight. Right now, the only thing that registered was that Morgan was in even more danger than I’d initially thought. I turned back to Chris. “Get her out. Now.”

“I’m seeing what I can do,” Chris said, infuriatingly calm and patient amid my own panic.

When I swiveled my head back around to Morgan, she was shaking her head, regret and fear in her eyes. “He’ll track me down and kill all of you if you let me go,” she said. “Then he’ll just take me back, anyway. You’ll be dead, and he’ll have his way.”

“You don’t know that,” I snapped. “You can’t just give up.”

My sister, my sweet, caring sister who didn’t have one mean bone in her body and didn’t deserve any of the things that had happened to her over the years, gave a sad, tired smile. Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks, but I tried to hold them back. I couldn’t let Morgan see me cry. I needed to stay calm for her.

“I’m not letting you stay in here,” I said, unable to hide the crack in my voice. “I’m not letting him do this to you.”

But Morgan was still shaking her head, already backing away from the bars. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “You know that. He’s already decided.”

“No,” I said, that edge of hysteria creeping in, starting to overshadow my façade of calm. “He can’t. I won’t let him. There has to be something I can do. I can’t… I can’t…”

---