Page 53 of The Delta's Rogue
The squealing of brakes and the jostling of the vehicle punctuate his words as the driver carelessly shifts into park, and I tense, bracing myself for the jolt through the gurney that’s sure to follow. Gold Tooth grips it, holding it steady, and Eye Patch leans over me, leering at me with a syringe in hand.
I shake my head frantically, ignoring the icy burn of the silver. “No. Nonono.Por favor,” I beg, though my words are just a jumble of sounds through the gag. I tug and pull andheaveagainst the cuffs, my back arching off the surface.
They laugh. Their eyes, colder and crueler than the silver burning my flesh, scan my body as their gazes linger on my heaving chest, where my breasts strain against my unpadded black bra. My stomach curdles, and I glare at them.
Pagarás por esto, I think, shooting daggers at them with my eyes, still squirming and trying to pull away.They’ll pay for this.
Eye Patch lowers the syringe towards my neck, and I revolt, twisting my head as fast as possible so he can’t find a spot to insert the needle. Gold Tooth snarls, grabs my hair, and tugs—hard—angling my head up and to the side. I choke, the silver collar pressing into the front of my throat at the rough hold, and the tears pooling in my eyes fall unbidden down my cheeks.
Someone else presses their hands into my torso, pinning me down, so other than my heaving chest and brief twitches of my arms and legs, I’m immobile.
The needle pricks my neck, and I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing through it all. The searing, acidic pain hits my veins as the wolfsbane enters my bloodstream. The silver touching my skin burns cold yet hot, and as I strain against the hold on my body, an aching anguish reflects the exhaustion of my muscles. All of it, however, is inconsequential compared to the heart-wrenching, isolating agony I’ve carried in my soul all these years. That pain is buried deep within my being and will only be eased by one event—by one person.
“There.” Eye Patch yanks the syringe from my skin. “That should help.”
Gold Tooth chuckles gruffly, and the hands on my torso roam, ascending from my belly and descending from my chest to meet in the middle, on my breasts.
Bile rises in my throat. They touched me through my clothes when they cornered me in the alley, but this is different. I’m more exposed, more vulnerable than I was then, and I’m helpless to stop it.
The wolfsbane courses through my veins, pushed along by my racing heart into the tips of my toes and the pads of my fingers. My limbs fill with lead, and my struggling slows to the pace of a snail until fighting takes more effort than it’s worth. I inhale shakily, waiting for the unwanted touches.
But they never come.
I dare to peek through a half-opened eyelid. Above me, Crooked Nose’s hands hover a hair away from touching my skin. They shake, and he twitches, but he can’t move them further.
“You know the rules,” a silky, distant voice says from near my feet. “No touching them until we know their status.”
I lift my chin as much as I can and find a cruelly beautiful female standing at the end of the gurney. Her ash-brown hair falls in large, glamorous waves around her face and shoulders.
She stares right at me, her perceptive honey-brown eyes cutting through my skin like lashes from a whip. A smirk grows on her face, and her features sharpen as she scrutinizes me, examining me with the keenness and intensity of a hawk.
“Nuncio groped her when we caught her,” Crooked Nose says, his voice slicing through the thick silence.
Her wicked gaze slides from me to him, brow lifting. “Did he now?” Those vicious eyes flick to Gold Tooth—Nuncio—on the other side of the gurney, and her smirk drops. “Did you touch her?”
“I had to touch her to catch her.” His voice is casual, but his body tenses. “She ran. She’s a feisty one.”
“But did youtouchher?” Her pitch lowers and fills with an ember of exasperation. “No, don’t answer that.” Her gaze flicks back to me, that pitiless, inhuman smile returning. “I’ll ask her.”
She strolls closer, fingertips trailing the edge of the gurney. She keeps her hands off me, and yet I feel the absence of her touch as intensely as if she was scraping her long, painted nails over my skin.
She leans over me, and her hand cups my cheek. Her palm is colder than the silver wrapping around my extremities. I flinch, but I don’t pull away. I don’t let her glimpse my fear. Although she can probably sense it, the predator that she is.
“Did Nuncio touch you, sweet thing?” Her voice turns so sugary sweet it makes my teeth hurt, setting them on edge, and raises the downy hairs on my arms. “Did he let his grubby, sullied hands have fun with you while weakened and restrained?”
I blink at her and swallow, forming fists at the memory of his filthy hands freely roaming my sluggish, powerless body.
Butterflies swarm in my stomach. I’m unsure why I’m nervous. I’m not the one who broke the rules, and I shouldn’t care what happens to any of these disgusting males who captured me. Especially not the male who fingered me through my shorts and kissed every inch of exposed skin he could find while restraining me so the others could cuff me.Es un cabrón feo—an ugly bastard, the lowest of the low—and I would love to see him pounded into a pulp.
Hopefully, I will. Hopefully, I’ll be the one to do it.
“It’s okay, sweet girl.” She lifts her other hand to join her first on my face, mistaking my silence for reluctance. “You can tell me. You won’t be in trouble. Just nod once if he played with you when they found you.”
I nod, jaw clenching against the gag shoved into my mouth as pain shoots through me from the silver collar.
Her hand slides up to my hairline, smoothing my strands away from my forehead, and she smiles softly. “Thank you for being honest.” Her focus switches to Nuncio, and she stands, towering over me and waiting for him to say something.
Arms crossed over his chest, he grazes his teeth across his lower lip, eyes raking over me. “Can you blame me?” He chuckles at the end of his question, but it’s humorless, lifeless, and unconvincing.
