“The time for niceties is at an end. We’ve amassed our fortune. It’s time for the next step. You will choose one of us and evolve your abilities as you were born to do.”
I barely heard his words. His teeth claimed my attention. As he spoke, they grew. Elongating. Already panicked because of the hand at my throat, my racing heart kicked into overdrive at the sight of his canines. His face changed slightly, his jaw expanding to accommodate his teeth.
He can’t be human. What is he?
He tightened his grip with his next words.
“You will allow each male here, and every male I bring from this night forward, to scent you. If we decide you are his Mate, you will bite him and establish your Claim.”
His hold loosened. Still gasping for air, I didn’t immediately register that my feet again touched the ground. Bite one of them? He dropped his hand and moved away from me, but his piercing gaze continued to hold me in place.
“Frank, since she offended you, you can go first.”
Frank quickly leapt over the table, his teeth also abnormally long and pointy. Swaggering toward me, he leaned in close and licked my neck. A shiver of revulsion ran through me.
“You’re mine,” he whispered before he moved to allow the next man close to me.
I turned my face from them and pressed myself against the wall. Despairing, I closed my eyes. Tears fell from their scrunched corners. I couldn’t escape.
After the last man leaned in close to my neck and inhaled deeply, Blake commanded me to leave. I fled to my room and locked the door behind me.
When I woke, I found a manila envelope shoved under my bedroom door. A Post-it decorated the front of it. I easily read Richard’s scrawl.
Run as fast as you can. Everything is in your name.
I gazed at those words with a growing feeling of dread. Somewhere in the house, a phone rang. I quickly stashed the envelope in my pillowcase without looking at the contents and started to make my bed. Before I finished, a key rattled and the door swung open.
David eyed me as I stood next to the bed, tugging the quilt into place. I still wore my pajamas.
Since Blake needed Richard in the office and didn’t trust me home alone, he’d brought in David as my keeper. Well paid, David did as Blake said. I wondered if David knew about Blake’s teeth.
“You’re not supposed to be in here until I knock,” I said, repeating Blake’s rule.
“Today’s an exception. Blake’s on the phone.” David held out a cell phone.
I stared at him a moment before I approached to take it. What game did they play now?
“Yes?” I said, putting the phone up to my ear.
“Richard’s dead. This changes nothing. We’ll be back tonight.” The line went dead. Richard’s scrawled message ran through my head.
David walked further into my room a suspicious look on his face. He moved past me and pulled back the quilt.
I looked at my shelf where my softball participation trophy from middle school sat. When he lifted my pillow, I quietly lifted the trophy.
I could hear my brothers’ muffled voices on the other side of the wall, still locked in their own room, waiting.
David never heard the envelope crinkle.
In just over forty-eight hours, the spark of hope, ignited by the escape from my bleak life, grew dim. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going as I pulled into the almost empty parking lot of a small town diner.
Parking, I glanced at the mirror and cringed at my reflection. Naturally olive-skinned—thanks to my mom—I would never look pale, but I did appear ashen. My light blue and brown-flecked eyes looked bloodshot and glassy from lack of sleep. My long, warm brown hair that I’d pulled back into a ponytail, needed to be washed and brushed.
I shifted my attention to the passengers I also saw in the mirror.
Liam and Aden stared at me from the backseat of my mom’s car. The means of our escape. I was thankful Richard had held onto it after she passed away, letting it sleep peacefully under a dust cover in the third spot in the garage.
My brothers’ solemn faces hadn’t changed since we’d left. They were taking their cues from me. Barely holding myself together, I leaned my head against the steering wheel.
David’s knees buckled, and he tipped forward as he crumpled. My broken trophy fell from my hand. The top half of David’s body landed heavily on my mattress. With my heart seizing in my chest, I grabbed the envelope from the pillowcase and quickly broke the seal to look inside. Keys, cash, and a few important documents fell to my bed when I shook out the contents. Nothing else from Richard to explain what I needed to do to escape.
The keys I recognized from my mom’s car. But how did I drive it? Since I hit fifteen, I’d been locked in Richard’s house. A secured house. I didn’t know how to disarm the alarm. As soon as I opened the door to the garage, it would go off.
Run as fast as you can...