Page 10 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
I hear them, too. The low murmur of voices, the occasional burst of booming laughter, the sharp, clipped orders barked across the decks. Somewhere, there’s the rhythmic clank of machinery, the groan of the Rig’s massive structure settling under its own weight. Boots on metal grating, a sound so deeply ingrained in my nightmares that I feel the ghost of it vibrating through my ribs. No women talking…because they aren’t even allowed outside.
It’s all the same.
Exactly how I left it.
And it makes me want to scream.
I sit in my own sweat and silence, my pulse hammering behind my eyes, my body still aching from the heat and the lingering drugs. My wrists are raw from the ropes. My mouth is dry from the gag. My skin still burns with the knowledge of who touched me last.
I should have been ready for this.
I should have known nothing would change.
The Rig is a place where time rots instead of moving forward. A fortress that devours everyone who steps onto it and refuses to let them go.
It should smell different after all these years.
Instead, it just smells like hell.
And I’m back in it.
Boyd comes over and fiddles with the ropes on my ankles, untying them and letting me move. I try to kick at him, but he just catches my foot with a laugh. I wish I was stronger—that I had taken up Tilda or Arden on teaching me how to fight—but I’m so, so weak.
Maybe I deserve this. Maybe I earned it.
I can sense the milling alphas as soon as we dock, their signatures pressing against my skin like hands on bare flesh, then Javi’s big hand wraps around my bicep, solid and steady, pulling me to my feet before I can sway. His touch shouldn’t feel like anything more than rough hands and brute force, but my body—traitorous, omega-soft, ruined by whatever this is between us—responds to him differently.
Like safety, even though I know it’s not.
Boyd comes up on my other side, and together they haul me up and out of the boat, my bare soles scraping against worn wooden planks, picking up splinters the whole way. They don’t bother being gentle, so I have to assume my father doesn’t care.
My father.
What is he going to do to me?
Will he just kill me…? Or will it be worse?
Tears burn hot as they spill down my cheeks, unstoppable, soaking into the hood covering my head. By the time we hit the dock, I’m drowning in scent signatures I wish I’d never smelled again.
Abel is there.
So is my oldest brother, Ephraim.
Two of the cruelest men I’ve ever known.
I shake, my stomach twisting as Javi and Boyd hold me still. I don’t know if it’s my heat or my panic, but my body won’t stop trembling, and I hate that Javi notices first. He adjusts his grip, big fingers spanning my whole upper arm, his hold firm but not crushing. Steadying. Like I might fall, and he won’t let me.
The dock moves under us, rocking, unsteady, the waves sloshing over our feet. I’ve never liked the floating docks, even when I was a kid—my balance was always a little off, my stomach always a little weak.
But the weird gravity isn’t the only thing that almost knocks me down; it’s also him, the unmistakeable presence of someone I wish I’d never seen again.
My father.
No—no, no, no?—
“Let me see her,” he barks out.
The hood is yanked from my head, my red curls flying free, and I blink as the blinding floodlights burn through the darkness.
