Page 58 of Bayou Blues (Genie McQueen 1)

The urge to smash him in the face was so intense my body vibrated from trying to hold still.

“Still got some fight in you. Isn’t that sweet?”

Condescending prick was going to find out exactly how much fight I had in me as soon as I was free. I’d like to see if he was smiling after I turned his large intestines into an infinity scarf.

“If you let me go, nothing will happen to you,” I lied. “I just want to go back to my people.”

“You don’t have people.” His tone was suddenly cold and scary, and I didn’t like the way he said people, like he was mocking me. At first I was terrified he was suggesting Wilder was gone or something had happened to Cash. Then his meaning sank in, and it was much more obvious.

I didn’t have people because I wasn’t human.

Lowering my eyes to the floor beneath me, I focused on the black bloodstain. How many other non-humans had hung here before me? How many lives had these people decided weren’t important because we were different? I thought I might cry again, but this time the tingling had moved from behind my eyes and into my hands.

Not the tingling of feeling returning to my extremities, either.

If this guy didn’t want to deal with me as a werewolf, fine. But I had other ways to make him suffer.

“You’re going to want to let me go,” I said quietly. “And my friend too.”

“Oh? And why would I do something like that when I went to all the trouble of tying you up so nicely?” He ran his finger over the rope at my throat. Our eyes locked, and he seemed to be challenging me to stop him because he knew I couldn’t.

Takes a really tough man to challenge a lady when she resembles a Thanksgiving turkey.

“If you let me go, I won’t hurt you. I won’t make you suffer. I’ll walk away with my people, and I will pretend this town never existed. That you never existed.” I almost believed it myself. It might work. If I was released, I could leave. Take Cash and the Shaws and go.

Somehow, given my current circumstances, I didn’t think walk away was in the cards.

His loss.

The tingling in my fingers got worse. If not for the other sensations in my arms and legs, it might have even hurt. Instead it just woke me up, made me feel alive. It gave me something to focus on other than what he’d done to me.

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not a chance in hell.”

I smiled at him, and he must not have expected it because the uneasiness in his eyes was obvious. “Good. I might have felt bad otherwise.”

He stood up, moving out of my sight, and when he came back, he was holding a huge hunting knife. My limbs twitched in response, but I couldn’t do anything to get away or move my body out of his range. If he wanted to cut me wide open, there was nothing I could do to stop him.

“Now, I want you to tell me where your friend went. If you do that, I might not have to use this.”

Relief, a feeling almost as euphoric as an orgasm, flushed through my whole body. Wilder. Wilder was safe. He’d gotten away from this somehow, and they didn’t have him hogtied in another room. Just knowing he was okay made me let out a short whoop of pure, unadulterated joy.

If Wilder was free, that meant this might all still end okay.

I wasn’t depending on him to rescue me. His freedom just meant one less person I had to get out of this mess. Now I could focus on saving myself instead of worrying about him.

“Come closer,” I whispered.

“Do I look stupid?” He touched the blade to my cheek, but this time I didn’t wince.

“You’re wearing a ski mask in this weather. Of course you look stupid. It also makes you look like a coward.” The restraints tugged painfully as I spoke, but I couldn’t stop. My voice sounded raspier as I went, but I charged ahead. “You’re covering your face so I won’t know who you are. But what does it matter? If you’re really going to kill me, why do you care? If you believe in the cause you’re fighting for, why hide? The truth it, you’re terrified I’m going to get out of here. And you don’t want me to come find you when this is all said and done.”

He scoffed but lowered the blade. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then you must just be fucking ugly.”

My pinky stretched out, practically disjointing itself, but I was able to curl it around one of the ropes holding me. I hope that one touch was all I would need.

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