Page 14 of Captive Mate
“I don’t know where Hawthorne was while he was supposed to be dead,” I said, because that at least was both true and not all that important to me. The asshole had faked his own death two years before, disappeared, and only returned shortly before I came on the scene. And I hadn’t known him before then. “He mentioned Seattle. I think he was in Washington part of the time. But that’s all I know.”
“Not all that helpful,” Matthew said. “And also not the most pressing issue. How did you end up working for Kimball?”
“WorkingwithKimball,” I corrected him, piqued at the implication that I was some kind of pawn, and then realized my mistake when he frowned down at me. He still hadn’t let go of my wrist, and his fingers tightened.
“So he wasn’t coercing you after all.” Matthew wasn’t even angry. He simply sounded…resigned. Disappointed, but unsurprised. Like he’d known all along that I was a piece of shit and I’d just confirmed it for him.
Fuck, fuck,shit. “It was the best option I had at the time,” I said, my throat tight. “It wouldn’t have worked out well for me if I’d tried to walk away.”
Not that Ihadtried to walk away. What the fuck did I care about the Armitage pack, or the Kimball pack, or any pack? Werewolf politics were nothing but a means to an end for me, and the end was survival and coming out on top of whatever war was brewing. The werewolves themselves were nothing to me. I didn’t do loyalties.
“Yeah, because power-hungry murderous assholes don’t like being stabbed in the back by other power-hungry murderous assholes. Big fucking surprise.”
“I’m not power-hungry.” And I wasn’t, unless you counted my own magic — I was always looking for ways to make that more potent. But that was a matter of pride and principle, not a means to getting more control over other people, or money, or whatever. My power wasmine. It was the only thing no one could take from me. Even the manacles only suppressed it and prevented me from using it. It was a part of me, and would be as long as I lived. “I didn’t care what their goals were. It didn’t matter. I needed somewhere to go. The Kimball pack was — somewhere.”
That was sort of true. An alpha pack leader from eastern Nevada had gotten it in his head that I belonged to him, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He’d knotted me and bitten me, with an allied pack’s shaman keeping watch and keeping me under control. The mating hadn’t taken, but I’d pretended it had long enough to get the fuck out and make a run for it.
I’d been lying low in southern Oregon when the Kimball shaman had come up to me in the shadows outside the back door of a biker bar where I’d been trolling for a place to sleep for the night and made me an offer. I’d seen a couple of guys who smelled like werewolves and looked a little familiar staring at me from across the street earlier in the day, and I was getting a bad feeling about sticking around. So I’d headed south across the California border with Adam, getting to the Kimball pack lands early the next morning.
Matthew’s jaw had clenched so hard I could hear the faintest grinding coming from his teeth. “Somewhere to go from where?” he gritted out. “You know what I need. Information about what you were doing. What they were doing. How’d you hook up with their shaman? Who else was involved? Who’s going to be the biggest threat in the Kimball pack? There had to be a plan beyond that travesty of a battle the other night, because that wasn’t planned at all! It’s fucking tempting just to bite you and make you talk once we’re mated and you can’t hold out anymore.”
He leaned down again, and all at once, sheer terror took over. He was going to do it. The only semi-decent alpha I’d met in years was really going to mate me against my will, bend me to his, take me and keep me and never let me go.
I fought like the wildcat I was, clawing and tearing and thrashing all my limbs, screaming something incoherent even to me. I went for his eyes, and he cursed, dodging just in time to save his sight and wrestling me down to the bed.
It was the worst thing I could have done, but I couldn’t help it. I’d hit my breaking point with being backed into a corner, and I just — couldn’t. It didn’t do any good, of course. He had me pinned within a few seconds, my arms over my head with one of his hands holding them down and his body flat on top of me.
I bucked, trying to head-butt him, and his other hand landed on my throat.
We stared at each other, our chests rising and falling too fast against each other. He was hard, his cock jabbing between my legs like it was straining to get inside me through all our layers of clothing.
The door opened, and Ian burst in.
“We have a prob— thefuck, Matt?”
I couldn’t turn my head to look at him, and Matthew didn’t bother.
“Get out,” Matthew said thickly. “Get the fuck out, Ian.”
“Nothing I’d like better,” Ian said, sounding horrified. “But you need to get off of him and snap out of it. Just got a call from some alpha from Nevada. He claims he’s this bastard’s mate, and he’ll be here in an hour.”
Matthew’s eyes widened and his hand twitched around my throat. And just like that, my chance to be honest on my own terms was gone. It shocked me how much I regretted it.
Chapter 6
Two Mates too Many
Being in the same room with Matthew, Ian, Nate, and two members of the pack council wasn’t my idea of a good time. The fact that I was sitting on Matthew’s lap made it so much worse.
My hands were clammy, and I had a twitch in the muscle next to my nose. Matthew was warm and solid. I wanted to hate it.
None of that compared to knowing that Parker had found me, was coming for me, and would be here to take me within the next fifty minutes or so. If I had my manacles off, I’d kill him.
As it was, I had to depend on the Armitage pack to protect me, and that was a losing proposition in more ways than I could count.
We were arranged around the pack house’s large battered dining-room table, in mismatched chairs that looked like thrift store rejects. Matthew’s chair, at the head of the table, was the largest — which meant it only creaked a little under our combined weight. Ian sat at our right, with Nate beside him, and the two members of the council took the other side. They were both older, and if one hadn’t been female and the other male, they could’ve passed for identical twins, what with their matching short salt-and-pepper hair, heavily muscled bodies, and uncompromising scowls. I had no idea what their names were, because no one had bothered to introduce me.
“What did he say, exactly?” Matthew demanded.
