Page 21 of Redeem Me
Her eyes flicked back to my attacker. “What are you doing in here?”
When he smiled my blood ran cold. “Damian said we could take turns if we behaved. I figured it was my turn now. I have watched over her for weeks now. I’m getting really tired of waiting.”
Sheeva’s eyes grew wide. She bit her bottom lip before she nodded once. She wasn’t going to help me. She was going to let them have their way with me if Damian said so? My lip lifted in a snarl. “Go clean yourself up.” Her words were a command but her tone was anything but. Her voice shook as she folded her arms over her chest. I wondered if she was doing it to hide the trembling there too.
“I will do no such thing, I am going to bring her to Damian.” The guard sneered. “He told me to bring her to him if she started to get out of line.”
Sheeva’s face went from scared to confused. “Damian is back in the Ro-” She stopped herself from revealing his location. “Damian is at least an hour’s drive from here. If you take her off of the pack lands, the Crimsons will get suspicious.”
The guard grinned. “Good thing Damian got here yesterday.”
The color drained from Sheeva’s face. “I wasn’t prepared. I am still not prepared.”
The guard pressed his lips together before he rolled his eyes. “Damian didn’t want an audience. He came to see the girl here.”
Sheeva nodded once. She wouldn’t question the authority in front of her. “Be quick about it.”
The guard stalked toward her, all swagger and danger in his body movements. “Keep this between you and me. There are certain things Damian does for himself. He doesn’t want the pack here knowing what he is up to. If you gossip, I will make sure your family pays for it.”
Sheeva nodded once before she fled the room. The man threw my shoes at me and didn’t wait for me to dress before he wrapped his hand around my bicep and hauled me from the room. I recoiled from his touch all the way out of the cottage and to the tree line. He released me as soon as we were far enough away.
I stumbled a few steps before I contemplated running. “I’m sorry,” his words came out choked and sad. I stopped walking and looked at him. His face wasn’t full of overinflated confidence anymore. “I wanted you to pretend like you were fighting me but I could hear her in the hall, I had to do what I had to do in order to get you riled up.”
It made sense. I should have listened but everything had happened so quickly, I didn’t know what to believe anymore. There were traitors around every corner and I didn’t know if there was a single person in this damned place that was willing to help me. Lucas was the only one but I still had my doubts about him. I couldn’t trust so easily but now? I didn’t have much choice tonight. I hung my head as we walked. This was all so heavy. I wouldn’t be able to trust this guard until I saw my pack.
My pack.
Why hadn’t I pledged to them when I had the chance? I could have prevented all of this. A tear slipped down my cheek and the guard beside me went rigid. “They know you’re out here.”
“Who?”
The word fell flat as Rafe’s scent wrapped around me. My body sagged in relief. Tracey’s scent was with him and then there was Knox.
“If you run with them, you’ll make this harder on yourself and your pack.” The guard whispered. “He will kill my family too. He will slaughter this entire pack. I won’t blame you if you go with them but this was simply to help them so they can fight again in the future. We want freedom and we need allies in order to get it.”
All the planning I had been doing in my head to run came to a halting stop. He was right. Damian would kill every single person in this pack. He would do it as an example and then he would come back for me harder. He wouldn’t stop until everyone I loved was dead. He would make sure I suffered for deceiving him. I squared my shoulders. I knew what I had to do, even if I didn’t like it.
