Page 17 of Claimed By Two Alphas

I jumped when John slammed something down on his counter. “Where in the hell is he?”

“Nezat?” I arched a single brow.

John whipped around, narrowing his eyes. “What do you know about him?”

“You made some kind of deal with him, didn’t you?” My heart was racing like crazy. I should have known that this was his doing. Why else would John Brooks want me? I only knew about him because my parents used to go on airboats a few years back, my dad’s way of making my mom happy. He was always doing stuff like that, taking her on one-day trips, buying her flowers, cuddling her while they watched television.

As much as it had hurt that they’d treated me differently, I’d always wanted what they had. That special someone in my life who treated me like I was their precious gift. There weren’t a lot of choices in Hungry. For a gay man, the pickings were slim, and I’d just about given up until I’d met Delvin and Joshua.

I might have acted as if they weren’t flirting, as if they were just concerned for their employee who suffered from severe headaches, but that hadn’t stopped me from fantasizing about them.

And now that fantasy had come true. Somewhat. We’d had sex. That didn’t mean they were committed to me. Unless I turned out to be their mate. Why on earth was I thinking about any of this right now? I should be trying to come up with a plan to get out of here, not mooning over the Bailey brothers.

Get your mind off their dicks and figure out how to escape before Nezat shows up.

I kept working the duct tape, wishing it wasn’t so damn sticky. And tight. It felt as if the binding was cutting off my circulation. My fingers were tingling, and my wrists felt like someone was cutting into them. I couldn't give up, though. Delvin and Joshua had said that Nezat called me a chosen one. A breeder. No way was I breeding anything for him.

“You shouldn’t have made a deal with him,” I said a little too loudly. I was covering up a noise I’d heard outside. Quiet splashing, as if someone was using the second rowboat. What if it was Nezat coming to get me?

“Shut up,” John snarled.

“What did you do? Make a deal to hand me over for cash to keep your business afloat? I hate to tell you this, but you need a better location. No one in their right mind would want to come out to this tangled mess deep in the bayou. You should have had your business closer to town.”

John narrowed his eyes. “I don’t recall askin’ your advice.”

I shrugged then looked around, pretending I was interested in something against the wall, when I was really straining to see out in the dark, to see whoever was approaching while still trying to get my hands loose.

The frogs croaked loudly as more gator snaps could be heard. Someone was out there, or the gators had found something to snack on. I hoped they ate Nezat.

The floorboards of the dock creaked.

“Damn gators,” John muttered. “If they come close to the door, I’m shootin’ the bastards.”

It wasn’t alligators. At least, I hoped it wasn’t. I would be the first one they attacked since I was closest to the door.

Then the screen door slammed open and Joshua came through, pointing a gun right at John as more men filled the room. Too many men for this shack to hold. The floorboards were rotting, and I prayed they didn’t fall through.

“What the hell!” John’s eyes rounded.

A wolf padded inside the cabin and came right up to me. He was huge!

Jack and Ken eased me off the couch, turned me, and started removing the duct tape. The blood shot back to my hands, and it felt like a thousand ants were crawling through them. I rubbed them, or tried to, but there were tiny cuts along my wrists where the tape had dug into my skin. I was bleeding. Not much but that made me afraid the gators would come for me because they smelled blood.

That would be just my luck.

“You took what didn’t belong to you,” Joshua snarled as he lowered his gun. Was the guy nuts? Why would he lower his weapon? “Give me a good enough reason why you took Shane, or I’m blowing your fucking head off.”

The wolf started lapping at my wounds, as if he thought the same thing I had, that the alligators would scent my blood and attack. It still felt gross, though.

“I…” John looked between the men. “He should have been here by now.”

“Who?” Mikhia asked. “Who should have been here by now?”

“Nezat,” I said. “They made some kind of deal.”

Jack and Ken led me outside, the wolf trailing right behind me. Then Delvin shifted into his human form.

Delvin pulled me into his arms. “Did he hurt you?”

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