Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Zoe, no!” my mother breathed in horror.
The man who would become my stepfather glared back at me, his black eyes narrowing as he loomed over me and my mom.
“Feisty little pup, aren’t you?” he snarled at me. “I’ll give you one chance to back down—your mother’s mine now. You can come with her or join the human you call ‘father’ on the ground—and in the grave.”
“No!” my mother gasped. She yanked one arm free from the men holding her and curled it around my waist. She pulled me close to her protectively. “I’ll go with you, Esteban, but leave my little girl and Dave out of this! Let them stay here and live their lives in peace—please!”
The bearded man seemed to consider this, but then he shook his head.
“I won’t leave any loose threads behind. And the pup has Royal blood like you, Freya—especially if her Sire was from your old pack.”
“No—she’s Dave’s daughter—I swear it!” My mother was nearly sobbing now. “Just look at her. She has no Were heritage—she’s a dud! A blank! Please, Esteban—just let her stay here with her father!”
“What father?” the man said. And then he shot my dad in the head.
It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to look away. One moment he was just standing there, talking to my mother and the next minute he had a gun in his hand and my father’s blood and brains were splattered across the light tan living room carpet.
“No!” my mother shrieked but I was too scared to make a sound. This man—Esteban—was here for blood. And he held our lives in his hands.
My mother held me tight as they dragged us both to an unmarked black van and threw us in the back.
Esteban watched as it happened, a look of malignant satisfaction on his darkly handsome, hateful face.
“Take them straight back to the Compound,” he told the men who had held my mother. “The wedding is tomorrow. I want to breed her as soon as her Heat Cycle kicks in.”
I didn’t dare ask what he meant by any of that and my mother didn’t say anything either. She simply held me and we watched as the man who had killed my father got into a sleek black Escalade and drove away.
“Hey, I’m really sorry about that.” The low voice came from one of the henchmen—a tall, muscular guy with shaggy golden brown hair and green eyes. “We didn’t know the Pack Master was going to…going to…” He made a helpless gesture with one hand, but I knew what he meant.
“Stop apologizing, Christopher,” the other man growled. If anything, he was even bigger and more muscular than the first thug. He had long black hair tied at the nape of his thick neck with a leather thong and pale gray eyes that looked almost silver as he stared at me and my mom. Blank ink tattoos winked at me from his thick forearms which were bare, since he had rolled up his sleeves to do the bearded man’s dirty work.
I guess abducting helpless women is hard work, I thought, eyeing those rolled up sleeves with impotent rage. I had a mental image of jumping out of the van and trying to dodge past them both, but I knew I wouldn’t get far before they caught me. They were both well over six feet tall and their legs were much longer than mine. So I just stared at the two of them, hating them both, as hard as I could and wishing I could get away.
I didn’t know it yet, but these two were going to be my stepbrothers—Christopher and Gabriel were Esteban’s sons from two previous marriages. But at the moment, all I knew was that I hated them—all of them. They had killed my beloved father in cold blood and now they were kidnapping me and my mom and taking us who knew where to do horrible things to us!
The henchmen were about to slam the van doors closed when Mom said, “Wait—please!”
I think Gabriel would have slammed the door anyway, but Christopher stopped him.
“What is it?” he asked, and I could tell he was genuinely sorry for what had happened to my Dad—not that it made me hate him any less.
“Please—can’t I just go back in the house and get a few things?” my mother begged. She turned the full force of her pale golden eyes on them both, using her beauty in a way she usually didn’t.
“Well…” Christopher sighed. “Sure, okay—a few things can’t hurt I guess.”
“If one of those ‘things’ she gets happens to be a gun and she shoots you, you’ll be fucking sorry you let her, little brother,” Gabriel growled.
But nevertheless, he went with my mom back into the house, keeping an eye on her the whole time. Christopher stayed with me, to make sure I didn’t try to get out of the van, I guess. Not like I would try to run away without my mom. With my Dad gone and my only grandmother having died the year before, she was all the family I had left.