Page 62 of The Piece You Stole

An almighty smash rings out. I rip my attention from Nathan at the furious sound and take in glass fragments strewn over the floor. It must have contained nuts at one point because there are a few shells dotted among the shards. Eva, tall, blonde, and perfect in a pink Chanel skirt suit, widens her pale green wolf eyes. “Oh, how clumsy of me, I’msorry.”

She’s not.

Nothing that woman does is ever accidental.

Rylan barely pauses his conversation with Chance about a new restaurant that might be worth his time. “Clean it.”

He doesn’t look at me, but I know who he’s talking to. Me. It’s why I’m here and not chained up in his bedroom. So, I push off the wall and head for the kitchen to get a dustpan and brush.

I make it one step before Eva’s voice, soft with false apology, halts me. “The alpha gave you an order.”

Turning, I meet her hard green eyes. “I was going to get—”

“Clean. It,” she interrupts, lifting her pointed chin. “Thatwas what he said. Not wander off on some little errand you’ve set yourself.”

My eyes go to the glass shards on the floor. “I need—”

“What you need,” Jacob interrupts, “is to learn to do what you’re told. Honestly, Rylan, you need to be harder on her if she struggles to follow the simplest of orders.”

I feel their bloodlust, and I know what they all want. For me to suffer in whatever small or large way I can, just because.

And Felix. They know what I did to Felix, so they stare at me, wolf eyes sharp and glinting, salivating over their pound of flesh.

Trapped in a high-rise apartment with a pack of predators, I do the only thing I can. I do what I’m told before they think of other, more painful ways to get back at me.

Their eyes track me as I cross over to the mess beside the glass coffee table. I go to my knees, watching out for any smaller pieces that are too small to see but not too small to cut. I start picking the biggest pieces first, placing them in my palm.

“Really?” Eva sniffs. “Rylan, look at how slow she is. Youdidintend for us to go on this pack run tonight, didn’t you? Well, we won’t if she insists on dragging this out for the next hundred years.”

I pick up my pace. Glass cuts into my fingers and palms, and splashes of thick red blood drip onto the pale stone floors. I don’t make a sound. Just bite my lip and keep my head lowered so my hair shields my face. If they knew how much it hurt, they’d push at me to move even faster so they could soak up even more of my pain.

Kade didn’t look at me as if I were a piece of shit he had to scrape off the bottom of his shoe, yet Rylan’s pack have made it their life’s mission to treat me this way. And in the years I’ve been here, I’ve never come close to working out why they hate me so much. They can’t hate all humans like this, can they?

“We should blindfold her for this run tonight,” Tyler suggests. The red-headed shifter is one of the quieter ones, but that doesn’t mean he’s harmless. He likes it when I’m unconscious or asleep before he takes his turn with me. Helplessness is what gets him off. “I think I’d like that.”

“And have her too busy running into trees and tripping over her own feet that it won’t be any fun at all? No, we should strip her like last time.” Jacob never lets any opportunity go by to suggest I get naked. He’s the exhibitionist out of the pack. His apartment has a balcony that overlooks a park people like to picnic. It’s there he likes to fuck me, and where everyone who looked up would see him do it.

“What would be the point of that? No.” Chance’s voice is a low growl, and I tense when I hear it because he’s more of a monster than most of the others. “Whoever catches her gets a prize.”

Glass slashes deeply into my thumb. I choke back my cry.

“Just because you want to fuck her as a wolf doesn’t mean the rest of us do.” I feel Nathan’s gaze on me, but I don’t lift my head to see. “And Rylan gave her to me for a week so whoever wins her has to wait their turn.”

This sets off a minor disagreement as they argue about the unfairness of it all.

As they raise their voices, I hold my breath as I wait for Rylan to shoot Chance down. To remind Chance that even if he caught me at the playground, he can’t have what he wants.

Not after the last time Chance had his turn with me and brought me back half-dead. There are some things worse than dying, and with him, I learned what those things were. He didn’t only nearly break my body. He nearly broke my mind.

“Hmmm.” Rylan’s thoughtful sound has me raising my head. He studies me as if he’s trying to decide what to do with me. Coldly. As if I’m just a thing. “Perhaps.”

“No,” I whisper. Better I spend a month in Nathan’s bed than Chance’s.

Rylan’s clear blue eyes narrow as he leans toward me. “Need I remind you that you’re mine to do with as I want, Saige.”

He stares down at me as if daring me to argue, to fight.

“Because I’m your mate?” I ask, my voice low, full of doubt.

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