Chapter Twenty-One

Jack

"It'll be okay." I held him on my lap, hoping that I wasn't lying to my little boy.

I wasn't sure exactly where we were or how far we were from home. The entire thing had been a whirlwind. I'd let my guard down then the car started messing up, and it cost me my freedom. Worse than that, it cost the freedom of my children. But I was going to get us out of here. I just had to be smart about it.

They had me blindfolded me when he and his cohort threw me into their vehicle. They said if I attempted to take it off, to shift, or to run, that they would take Bryant from me while they tapped their gun. It wasn't a risk I could take, instead complying with not only that request but any and all of them.

I'd been on top of the world when I left the healer, and then with one decision, boom—here I was. So far, they had been decent to us…as decent as one could be while holding someone prisoner. But, unlike when I was in the mansion, they gave me a soft chair to sit on, cheese sandwiches for Bryant and me, and water. It wasn't great nutrition, but at least Bryant still had my milk, though it was drying up the further along in my pregnancy I got.

My plan was to listen, plan, and escape, in that order. And the more I listened and didn't speak, the more I realized it wasn't an accidental engine failure and a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was planned from the very beginning. No wonder it had been so quiet. They wanted us to let our guard down and, like fools, we did.

They wanted me here, and I still couldn't figure out why. There were mostly hyenas here but didn't have the same scent undertones as my mate. And clan usually did. It was how you could tell who belonged wear. And yes, Aziz's life was with all of us; he'd been mated to their pack alpha. So that begged the question: who were they? A rival clan? A coincidence? Something else entirely?

I sang softly in my son's ear. He'd been really good this entire time. And the times he acted like a toddler, they asked me to control him but didn't give any more threats. The understanding was there—if I messed up, he would pay, but they didn't seem to mind him messing up. The entire situation was so freaking weird.

"They're coming," somebody said from outside my door or possibly window. I was disoriented, not having seen the space. The only reason I knew I was in the corner was the walls on each side of me. I switched from sitting here to the comfy chair to the cot, never wandering past those three spaces, the ones they gave me permission to use. I was being Mr. Compliant.

"Yeah, they're coming. Told you they would," a second voice said.

"Yeah, having them come in—"

Bryant started to talk and I lost the conversation. I whispered quietly in his ear, "Let Papa listen. Then I'll do the ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider' with you."

That caught his attention. He loved the hand gestures I made while being the spider. "Okay, Papa." He snuggled in close.

The two people kept talking back and forth about whether they were coming or if it was a trick. I listened for who "they" were, terrified that it was the old breeder organization wanting me back or, worse, that they were using me to get my mate. I couldn't bear something happening to him as well as us.

"I don't know why they thought they were better than us. It's in their souls. It's who they were meant to be. They got some bullshit in their sights, thinking that just because they found some omegas, that they were suddenly better than us, but they're not. They'll come back, trust me."

My stomach dropped. Were they talking about the guys and their refusal to keep doing their dirty work? No. That didn't make sense, but also, I couldn't think of anything else that fit this conversation.

"Well, if they bring everybody," the other guy scoffed, "we are good as gone."

"They won't. They're gonna protect their little omega house, and they're going to protect that warehouse of theirs. At most, we'll have a few, and we can take them."

Fuck. They were talking about the guys, and I was their freaking bait. If it had been only me, I'd have tried to do something—anything not to let this meeting happen. But I had two little ones, one in my lap and the other in my belly. I had to trust that the guys knew what they were doing.

"How do you know that's true?"

"Because they're soft now. They won't risk their omegas. They're going to want to make sure that they are safe and that they are going to remain that way. We've got them by the nuts."

I wouldn't call them soft. They were the strongest men I knew. Caring for others isn't a weakness, despite what those assholes thought.

They kept on talking, and the more they said, the more I was able to piece together that I was not only on hyena grounds, I was on my mate's old clan lands. Although it sounded like they weren't the clan anymore, that some major shit had gone down.

This was 100 percent to do with the guys no longer taking jobs—the ones they left when they realized that they weren't working for the good guys after all.

What the fuck? That made no sense. Why would you try to force someone to do a job? There were so many ways it could go wrong.

I just needed to be strong and to protect Bryant while this played out. If need be, my mate would rescue us, but I crossed everything that I'd get us out of here first.

What a cluster.