Page 14 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
I stopped sharply and let him barrel after me, landing a punch to his stomach. Aidan hunched over, coughing heavily. I grinned at him, triumphant for a minute. “Fuck you, Aidan.”
He snarled at me and came at me. I ducked beneath his blow, spun, and leaped onto his back, wrapping my thighs around his hips. With the thick-soled trainers I wore, I crushed them into his stomach, making him heave. I was fighting dirty, I knew, but I used what I could. I punched his chest, scratching at his neck and shoulders. My knuckles ached and stung, the skin torn from them, but I clung on, digging my nails into him.
I could tear him apart, I thought. Icouldn’t, but the fight’s adrenaline made me believe I could.
I hooked an arm around his neck, getting him in a headlock. The wheezing sound he gave was satisfying enough that I pushed harder on his windpipe.
Aidan scrabbled at my arm, slapping to get me off, but I held firm, gritting my teeth. I spat at him, snarling.
“Fuck—fuck, Dakota,” he choked out. But I didn’t relent. He’d had medrugged, captured, and bound for over the past twenty-four hours. I slammed my heel into his thigh, knowing all the weak points to hit, and he crumpled to the floor on his hands and knees.
I slipped off his back and walked around to face him. “Let me go.”
“Like hell I will,” he snapped, winded, a hand held over his throat. “Bitch.”
“Not so pretty anymore, am I?” I asked drily. “I amnotweak, Aidan, andfuck youfor thinking that.”
But then Aidan came at me and I braced for his attack as a human until he shifted into a dark gray wolf, mid-air. His mawopened, canines snapping right at my face. I shouted and tried to push him off, feeling his fur tangling beneath my nails, and I wrapped my fingers in it. I yanked and he yelped, snapping at me again. I couldn’t sustain my fight against a wolf but refused to return with him.
However, resistance was futile when his teeth came for me, and I screamed, shielding my face on foolish instinct. Aidan only dropped his head and got my ankle between his teeth, not tight enough to pierce the skin. He started to drag me through the leaves and wet mud. I scrabbled to pull away but he growled a warning at me.
I fought him every step of the way back, even when he stopped dragging me. His teeth got into my t-shirt’s collar and tossed me onto his back. I conceded that the fight drained out of me, knowing I was no match for him in this form.
I hated every minute of returning to his house, my only victory was in knowing I had run so far into the forest and almost got away.
Next time, I would make it further and escape him completely.
***
As soon as Aidan deposited me in the living room, ordering his anxiously awaiting pack to clear out, disappeared into his room to put on sweats, and came back, holding two lengths of rope, I swung a punch at his face. He’d been distracted by something he saw in the room we were all in as his pack left. I hadn’t understood what but I’d seen my window of opportunity. He stumbled back, and I cursed at the sting in my knuckles, glaring at him.
I spat at him again for good measure. “Fuckyou.”
He only stared back at me with icy silence. Anger tightened in his features as he pushed me to sit in the chair, and he kneeled in front of me, holding up one length of rope. When I didn’t give him my wrists willingly, he yanked them and slammed them onto the arm of the wooden chair. He knotted the rope tighter than they had been, and I wondered if even I would be able to undo them.
His eyes stayed on me the whole time. I winced as he yanked the lengths of rope for my other wrist. They pinched my skin and crushed the bone, but not enough to permanently heal. No, he was clever. This would ache over time, waiting for relief that would not come unless someone undid the knots or loosened them.
I breathed hard through my nose. I did not stop fighting him, not until he had my wrists bound and then my kicking feet.
Finally, he spoke. “Do not do anything stupid like that again.” He picked up a length of cloth and held it up to my eyes. My heart rate spiked in panic. “Will you be good, Dakota?”
I answered him with stubborn silence.
“Fine,” he spat. The cloth went over my eyes, bringing with it an awful darkness.
“Okay, okay!” I cried. “Fine. I won’t. Just—not a blindfold,please.”
He faltered, his brows pulling together as he lowered the length of fabric. Like the other day, he grabbed the other chair, spun it backward, and faced me as he dropped into it. “We will sit here for as long as it takes. You will tell me everything there is to know about Fenrys’s pack. No detail is too small.”
“I hope you like sleepless nights, then,” I bit out. “You can’t scare me into talking.”
“Oh, I think I can.”
There were scratches covering his neck and chest, and bruises on his throat, and I prided myself in knowing that theyhadto be affecting him in some way. He was angry; I had gotten through to him by fighting back. And while that anger had me in a worse position,back hereand tied up, I had won a small victory. I had shown him that I wouldn’t back down without a fight.
My own body stung but I could ignore them in favor of knowing I had donesomethingto him.
He grabbed a tie from his wrist and pulled his hair up into a bun, a few strands falling loose around his face, and I hated how I watched the way his biceps bunched and moved with the action. I hated how quickly it had me reassessing the way I’d straddled him in the woods. God, he was getting under my skin too much.
