Page 174 of Lonely Alpha

Then again, maybe he should be.

The goddamn Ashby pack was still here, all three of their auras out. An open threat in case I dared try anything. They would be able to contain me quickly.

“See? An animal. She’s worse than your pack, Cordian.”

The Ashby pack lead was walking in front of me, almost at the bottom of the stairway. He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes steel, and expression flat. Cordian didn’t look at me, only at Tobias.

“Maybe we wouldn’t be animals if you didn’t treat us like them,” he said.

He kept going down, turning a corner when he reached the bottom. He was out of sight for only a moment, and then I was at the end too, being shoved to the side.

“I don’t appreciate the sass,” Tobias said. More glee infused his tone, though. He enjoyed being challenged, so he could remind himself that he was on top. “I doubtsheappreciates it either.”

The inflection of the word ‘she’ was… wrong. He wasn’t talking about me. Who the hell was he talking about?

Whomever it was, all three of the Ashby pack stiffened at the mention of her. Noel growled softly. Hideki made a choked sound. Cordian was silent, but his aura’s flare wasn’t only to keep me contained. It was cutting the air with his rage.

“Let’s get Leighton settled, shall we?”

Tobias wasn’t phased by the tense air.

For a beta, he had far too little care about alpha auras in general. We could take him out easily… if he didn’t have threats hanging over us. I imagined there was something he had on the Ashby pack, too.

And it related to the ‘her’ just mentioned.

The guards shoved me through the basement. It smelled dingy down here, the air dry. Antique furniture covered in a layer of dust lined the walls of what seemed to be an unused rec room. The crown molding was high end, as were the other finishings.

The room I was shoved into was not high end in the slightest.

It was all concrete with a draft coming in through the high, small window. The window was barred like this was a prison—and that’s what it seemed to be. Only a mattress laid on the floor of the unfinished room, a tiny dirty bathroom attached. Some dust covered things in here, but not nearly as much.

A growl rumbled from my chest as I realized what this place was.

Kiara was sent here as punishment. To be isolated. I confirmed it when I inhaled, finding her scent was the only one layering this room.

I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to turn around and punch Tobias in the face. It wouldn’t do any good. Technically, it was her father who’d put her down here, anyway. Her brother had only made it far worse for her.

When I’d regained my balance from the ungraceful shove, I turned to face the doorway. Tobias was leaning against it casually, looking me up and down.

“I hope you like your new accommodations. You’ll be here for a while.”

“They’re stellar,” I said dryly.

“My sister thought so too.”

He was trying so hard to get a rise out of me. Damn it, it was working too. My omega had suffered at his hands for years—I’d never forget the terror that washed through her when she realized he might catch up to her again. Or the look on her face in the restaurant when he’d touched her shoulder and made his presence known.

Tobias abandoned the relative safety of the doorway, striding confidently toward me. I stood my ground and tried not to bare my teeth.

When he was close to me, he held out a hand.

“I’m going to need your phone.”

My cell was in my small purse, still slung around my neck. The sensation of it seemed to burn me, because I had a bad feeling about what he was going to do. Kiara’s number was on that phone.

Tobias laughed. “Oh, yeah. You can’t give it to me with your hands bound.”

He made a grab for my purse. I let my aura pulse, trying to intimidate him. The sudden intensity of it was far more than I’d ever forced out before.

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