Page 101 of Rejected By My Stepbrother Alpha
But I never got to finish my sentence as something heavy hit the back of my head, and a blinding pain made my vision swim.
Shit!
Asher and I had become so wrapped up in each other that we hadn't been paying attention to our surroundings. But this was part of the plan. We needed to be captured so that they would bring us to where our son was being held. As a powerful Alpha, Asher had probably heard them coming, but stuck to the plan and chose not to fight.
That was hard to do when a powerful blow came from my right side and knocked me to the ground. Nausea and pain coursed through me, and I blindly reached for Asher, but someone kicked my head, and I flew through the air.
I lost consciousness before I hit the ground.
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the horrible taste in my mouth. When I looked at my surroundings, my blood ran cold.
Asher was slumped over in the chair beside me, his hands and ankles tied to a chair with rope. He was unconscious, and my stomach stiffened when I saw that he had a black eye and his lip was bruisedand bleeding. My heart skipped a beat when I realized that I was tied to a chair, too.
I tried to remember how we ended up like this, but my head was pounding so much that I couldn’t think straight. My body wasn’t that much better off. It seemed like I took one hell of a beating. Every inch of my body was aching with pain. I couldn’t tell whether it was sweat or blood that was dripping down my face. I was probably better off not knowing.
Slowly, I looked around—wincing as my head throbbed from the motion—and took in the large room. Asher and I were tied to one of the many chairs that faced a wooden stage. It seemed like we were in a pack meeting hall, but I knew we weren’t in the BloodMoon or the ColdCrest pack’s territory. The scent here was unfamiliar.
Where was our son?
As I thought that, memories pulsed painfully into my mind. Waking up in the middle of the night to find out my mother had taken my son, seeing that awful video of him being kidnapped on the roof, getting that note, and losing consciousness after being attacked in the forest.
I could see from the large windows that it was dark outside. Asher and I had been taken in the forest early in the afternoon, so I knew that we had been unconscious for a couple of hours at least.
That meant that Adrian had been missing for nearly twenty-four hours.
Fear coursed through me, and my hands began to shake.
“Adrian!” I yelled, not caring who heard me. “Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here to save you!” I tried to fight against my bindings, tried to transform into my wolf, but my body was too groggy and weak.
My screaming did wake up Asher, though. He stirred and blinked a few times. Asher could only open one of his eyes because the other was too bruised.
“Asher!” I yelled, beyond relieved that he was awake. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, and his good eye searched my body. His chest rumbled with anger when he noticed allof my injuries.
“Whoever did this to you will pay,” he growled. “Have you seen Adrian yet?”
”No, I woke up just a little bit before you,” I answered, continuing to tug on my bindings, but that just made the rope tighter around my wrists and ankles. “We seem to be alone, but I don’t think we will be for long.”
Asher closed his good eye and let out a deep breath. I realized that he was trying to focus to shift.
“I can’t transform,” he said and let out a frustrated growl. “Can you?”
I shook my head as fear shot through me. A single tear rolled down my cheek.
Asher noticed and caught my gaze. “Hey, we're going to save him. I promise,” he said.
“And we're both getting out of here alive,” I added, his words from earlier making my anxiety spike. He was planning to sacrifice himself if it came down to it. “Say it, Asher. Say we're both getting out of here alive.”
At this point, I was begging him.
He sighed. “Yes, we're both getting out of here alive.”
I didn't think he meant it, but just hearing him say those words was enough for me to hold onto for now.
Asher began to try to escape from his bindings, but his movements were slow and unsteady, like mine.
“I think those bastards drugged us,” I said. “Maybe with chloroform to make us pass out, and they could have given us a potion so we couldn’t shift.”
