Page 10 of Ensnaring Their Rabbit

The corded muscles in Reeve’s neck constricted as he watched me, trying to get his words together. “Because you’re our Goddess given mate,” he finally landed on. “You can’t tell?”

I frowned, trying to make out his words. Of course I heard of it before. That the Goddess had selected the one perfect person for each of her children. Or I guess in my case, two. I only knew one fated mate couple though. The fox shifter couple that ran one of the children’s shelters that I spent a lot of time in before I aged out. Their love always fascinated all us kids, who’d never seen anything like that. But besides them, I never met anyone else who’d found their mate, and I started to think the whole thing was bullshit. Or at least not for someone like me.

“You really believe that?” I asked him skeptically. It wasn’t like the three of us spent a lot of time talking, but Reeve seemed pretty sensible to me. He was dead serious now. This whole situation was confusing as fuck. Wolves were natural predators of rabbits, we ran from them; we didn’t mate them.

“Yeah. We scented you from the minute they pumped your pheromones through the vents. It was why we were fighting so hard to find you. Before that, we had decided we weren’t going to participate.”

That surprised me. I saw how vicious they were in their pursuit to claim me. It was hard to believe that they were going to avoid that bloody scene altogether.

Riven snorted and squeezed me tighter. Somehow they could tell I was skeptical. “Believe it or not, we’re not usually that bloodthirsty. We’ve been here for ten years now, all we feel is pity or disgust during the hunts. You changed that for us, Mate.”

Ten years? Goddess.

I wanted to ask…I didn’t even know what. I had a thousand questions. Why were they here? How could they be so sure we were mates? What happened next?

Before I could settle on one, both alphas tensed, their attention immediately going to the door.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

Instead of answering, I was shoved back into the corner and now Riven was squatting in front of me in a defensive position. Reeve stood up, dropping the rag to the floor and placed himself between Riven and I and the cell door.

I concentrated. My sense of smell might not have been as good, but I could hear really well. There beyond the sound of our heartbeats and the shitty ventilation system were footsteps, multiple pairs of them. Fuck, someone was coming.

CHAPTER8

REEVE

I could feel my wolf.It wasn’t strong, kind of like he was trying to reach me through a miles long tunnel, but still, it wasn’t just an empty space inside me like it usually was with the collar on. He was there, deep below the surface and desperately clawing and scraping trying to get closer. I didn’t have to be able to sense his feelings to know it was because of Brynn. Whoever was coming would try to separate us, and he’d do everything possible to stop that.

Well, so would I. No one was taking our fucking mate without a fight. I stood tense, ready for anything and wondering how the fuck I was getting the three of us out alive.

The guards stopped on the other side of the door. Unlike our regular prison cell, this door was solid so I couldn’t see through it, but I could still hear three heartbeats, and the scent of cigarettes was overwhelming. It meant my least favorite guard Markel was out there. I growled despite myself. If that creepy fucker even looked at Brynn…

“Back away from the door, Balthazar. We’re just dropping off food and supplies, but you need to calm down.” The voice warned me. That wasn’t Markel, it was one of the new guards, Lionel. He seemed decent enough, and it didn’t seem like he was lying. I took a deep breath and took three steps back, still keeping myself between the door and Brynn and Riven.

The small door at the bottom of the cell opened, and a tray was slid inside. Then a thing of baby wipes and three sets of jumpsuits.

“Eat, clean up and get dressed. It’s your lucky day. There was an incident we have to deal with, so you have more time with your plaything.” that was Markel, even the slimy fucker’s voice set me on edge, “But we’ll be back later.” With that the door slammed shut and locked, and the three of us were left alone again.

“What was that?” Riven asked, his eyes glued to the fucking door. He was still crouched in front of Brynn who he’d pushed against the cinderblock wall.

“I don’t know,” I answered, picking up the tray. There wasn’t really enough food for three people on it, what a surprise. Fuckers. “But it looks like we have a few hours to come up with a plan.”

“A plan for what?” Brynn asked. He snuck around Riven’s defensive stance and was peering at the food. He hadn’t eaten much over the last few days, just a few bites of whatever we force fed him, so now that his heat was over he was probably starving. Once again I had to hold in my frustration that I couldn’t care for my mate like I should be.

The only things in this cell were a bed, a sink, and a toilet, so I put the tray on the end of the bed and started to divvy out the food the best way I could. I looked at Brynn, his gray eyes sucking me in. “They’re going to take you away,” I told him bluntly. “Then throw Riv and I back in our regular cell. But I won’t let that happen.”

I handed him a plastic bowl with some kind of mushy mixed vegetables and a stale roll. It was disgusting and made my stomach turn, but Brynn admitted he was a vegetarian, and his human body could only withstand small amounts of dairy. Byproducts of being a rabbit shifter, I guessed. The big slabs of mystery meat that Riv and I’d gotten used to would only make our omega sick.

“What are they going to do with me? Will they just let me go?”

I looked at Riven who just shrugged. “Honestly, we don’t know,” he told Brynn. “But I doubt it. Most of the omegas don’t make it out of here alive after the hunt. The ones that do, well, we never see them again. I guess they could just let them go, but I seriously doubt this is legal.”

Brynn snorted. “Considering they used magic to drug me and forced my heat, I’d go with no.”

I growled again. It was becoming a really bad habit. “They forced your heat?”

“Yeah. That was my first heat actually, well since my very first one. I usually use suppressants.” Brynn laughed harshly. “That’s what started this whole mess. I was trying to get more.”

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