Chapter 10: Colt

Chapter 10: Colt

There was no chance I could salvage any possible relationship between my fated mate and me. I never suspected I had a chance with her, to begin with, but after tying her up and choking her, I knew without a doubt that she would hate me more than she would ever have any other feelings for me. That was going to make this next week until the full moon the hardest week of my life.

I wished that I could block out all the nagging emotions in my heart. What did I have to do to never feel anything again? I wanted to kill every flutter of sorrow, anger, and yearning that tormented me.

The rest of the journey back to my car, Kiara periodically woke and fought me, only until I found a way to knock her out again. I worried that by the time I loaded her into my car—now bound up in bungee cords—I might have given her brain damage from all the oxygen I deprived her of. She didn’t make it easy to kidnap her. Then again, I’d never kidnapped someone before. All through the drive, I heard her thumping in the trunk.

We pulled up to Hexen Manor around midnight. Light rain cascaded around us, glittering in the headlights pointed at my home until I turned the car off. I wore an extra sweater I kept in my backseat, but cold gripped me all the same. Opening the trunk, I looked down at the hybrid incapacitated in the colourful bondage of the bungee cords. Her legs bent close to her body, and the whites of her eyes flashed in wrath. She would gore me with her horn the first chance she got. My hand still throbbed and was bleeding through the makeshift paper towel bandage I had wrapped around my palm. Now, how was I going to get her out of my trunk?

I started with her haunches, pulling her up and out into the rain. She twisted her body, trying to stab me. At least I could avoid her by sticking close to her rear end. The hybrid dropped heavily onto the concrete driveway, and I winced a little when her head smacked the ground. Then, by her hind legs, I dragged her around the side of the house, through the wet grass, and up onto the deck. She never stopped fighting. I fumbled for keys out of my pocket and unlocked the glass doors into the dinette. Much like a carcass my pack had hunted, I hauled her inside and toward the stairs leading into the basement. She left behind a trail of mud and blood, but I didn’t care to clean it up.

It would have taken three or four people to get a body her size down the stairs, but after her thrashing made it difficult to keep a good grip on her, I just let her tumble to the cold cement floor below. “Sorry about that,” I said, not sorry at all. She grunted indignantly.

Then I brought her into the cold room where I used to butcher game. She would be fine for a few minutes while I rummaged through the rest of the basement, looking for a wire cage once used for the trapping of a coyote just beyond Dalesbloom’s borders. That was years ago when my father had been training Catrina and me for the hunt. Gruesome as it was, he’d wanted live prey, something as close to a wolf as possible. I knew now that he’d been testing how willing we were to massacre our own kind. Catrina was the one who made the kill.

I set up the cage in the cold room, then pushed Kiara inside and locked it. Finally, exhausted and sweating, I stood back and wiped my brow. “You should be okay in here. I don’t think anybody’s gonna come down into this room. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

The hybrid glared at me from over her shoulder, uttering primal animal noises.

“No? Okay. I guess I’ll just clean you up then,” I decided, grabbing the hose hooked up to the sink on the wall that I usually used to spray blood into the floor drain nearby. It wasn’t that I particularly enjoyed treating her like this, but there was something marginally satisfying about the way she helplessly lay inside the cage while I drenched her. I knew it made her angry from the fire brewing in my own chest that I felt through our connection. It was fucked up of me, but I liked having so much control over her.

Once all the blood and muck were rinsed out of her fur, she laid on her side, ribs sharply rising and falling as wet fur clung to her body. The curves of her anatomy were exposed by her soaked pelt. I watched her shiver.

“If that’s uncomfortable for you, why don’t you shift back?” I suggested. “I’m sure the bungee cords will just fall off once you’re human again.”

The hybrid raised her head, and I was sure if she could speak, she would be laying all sorts of curses upon me. Her tail cocked up in a silent, ‘Go fuck yourself.’

“You’ll probably have to use the washroom at some point too. I mean, you’re welcome to soil yourself right here, but I can’t imagine it would be very dignified. Besides, if you don’t want your horn to be harvested, it would be wise for you to be human. Really, I’m just trying to make things easier for you.”

She growled and lowered her head again. I sensed she wasn’t going to budge and turned for the door. The hybrid was bound and locked up in the cage—I’d secured it with a small padlock—so, confident that she wouldn’t escape, I closed the door and went back upstairs for a change of clothes.

In the dinette, I nearly slipped on the trail of muck she’d left behind. Only then did I realize how unnerving it was, how quiet and lonesome the manor had become since we’d left it to hide in the mine. Catching myself with my hand on the table, I gazed through the dark kitchen, listening, half expecting to hear movement upstairs. Or to smell the recent footsteps of a packmate. I looked guiltily at the filth smeared on the floor, and before I did anything else, I found the mop and wiped it clean.

Upstairs, my room remained untouched since I’d left. I stripped out of my rain-soaked clothes and put on black sweatpants and a blue pullover, then rustled up a towel to pat dry my hair. Finally, in the bathroom, I cleaned and bandaged my hand. There was no way I’d be able to hide this from my coworkers tomorrow. I’d have to think of some explanation as to why I hadn’t gone for stitches.

On the way downstairs, I stopped for a bottle of water out of the fridge. She might have refused to speak to me, but I wasn’t entirely cruel. I knew she’d need something to drink, at least.

Opening the heavy metal door, I froze mid-step at what I found in the cage next.

The bungee cords and my t-shirt lay on the bottom of the cage. A pale, thin girl was reclined on her hands and knees, shiny silver hair hanging off her shoulders and framing her face. The ridges of her spine gleamed wet down her back, the delicate soles of her feet poised under her supple buttocks. Her thin eyebrows were the only thing dark about her, that and the look she cast at me, violet eyes shaded in fury. “Get me out of this cage.”

“No,” I replied, stunned.

Kiara sat up, exposing the full, round breasts on her chest, pink nipples at attention, and skin uneven with goosebumps. “If you care about me as your fated mate enough not to slaughter me, then you’ll care enough to let me go so I can rescue my mother.” There was no begging in her voice, no sweetness of manipulation, just cold hard demand.

I didn’t want to step any closer, or else she’d see my excitement through my sweats. Just the image of her aroused me, disregarding the merciless tone she spoke to me in. “I never said I cared.”

She frowned, and even that was beautiful. “What do you intend to do with me then?”

“I’m not sure.” But I was starting to have ideas.

“Give me the water,” she said.

Without thinking, I stepped closer, then silently scolded myself for giving in. Standing in front of the cage, I wondered how to pass off the water without leaving too much of an opening in the door for her to escape, but it wasn’t possible. I’d have to open the door, and I wasn’t about to give her a chance to get out so soon after I’d finally gotten her in my grasp.

“Give it to me,” she urged.

“Open your mouth.” I started to unscrew the cap.

Kiara sneered and wrapped her fingers around the metal wire frame. “You already know what you want to do with me, don’t you?”

Could she read my mind? No, not yet, not until we were marked. More likely, she could feel the heat stirring in my groin.

Unwilling to admit it, I set the bottle on top of the cage and walked around her, observing her from all angles. She watched me back. I stopped beside the cage, meeting her eyes as I carefully reached my fingers inside, hooking the closest bungee cord and pulling it out. She didn’t stop me, even as I maneuvered it to grab onto the other ones until there were only two left. “Pass me those.”

“No.”

“They won’t be any use to you.”

Kiara gathered the cords in her hand. “Open the door to give me the water, and I’ll give them back to you.”

I knew opening the door would lead to an altercation, but the stalemate we had reached left me sizzling in my gut for something, anything, to happen. I wanted an excuse to touch her, imagining the fight we’d had in our Moondream.

If only for the opportunity of physicality, I rounded the cage and stood in front of it, clutching my cords as well. I took the key for the padlock and unlocked it, then grabbed the water bottle and met her stare as I opened the door.