CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The curdling of Bailey’s stomach nudged her out of sleep. She felt her forehead crease. Jesus, she felt awful. Dizzy. Off. Her throat was dry as a bone, and her head pounded like a drum.

More, she ached in too many places to count, more particularly her wrists and the back of her neck. But that wasn’t what set off her inner alarms and brought awareness racing back to her, it was the fact that her snake was going nuts—hissing, striking, whipping her tail.

Her pulse doing a little hop, Bailey resisted the urge to freeze. She knew she wasn’t alone. She could hear soft breathing coming from across the room.

Tranqs, she remembered. She’d apparently been not only drugged but taken. And now she was bound by her wrists and ankles to what felt like a chair.

Oh, someone’s ass was getting caned.

Her mind jumped to Deke. Had he realized she was missing yet? Would he know who’d taken her?

If their imprinting had been a little more advanced, he’d have felt her lose consciousness.

Her snake sprang, pushing at Bailey’s skin, wanting out; wanting to kill.

Zero point in that.

Bailey recognized the smell oozing from her as that of a shift-suppressant drug. Its stench almost overrode the scents of dust, mildew, stale air, and the woodsy scent of a familiar female. A traitorous female.

Bailey probably would have panicked if this was the first time she’d found herself bound to a chair. It wasn’t even the second. And if there was one thing she was good at, it was getting out of shit. Which was fantastic, considering she had a habit of getting herself into shit.

And it was definitely time she got herself out of this particular pickle.

She blinked several times to clear her fuzzy vision and then lifted her head, inwardly wincing as her stiff neck cracked. Ow.

The sound made the female sat near the opposite wall look up from her cell phone. “You woke sooner than I thought you would.” She didn’t sound too concerned about that.

She should be. Because she was in for a world of hurt.

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother trying to free yourself—that rope is shifter-resistant.”

But hopefully not Bailey-resistant. She rolled her throbbing neck and then glanced around, taking in the stacks of chairs, tables, and other various things. It was a storage room, she realized. One she recognized. “We’re still in our apartment building.” It was the other half of the basement.

“Yup. No one really comes in here unless they need to get something out of storage. It isn’t worth screaming, by the way. As you know, every room in the complex is soundproof.” Therese pointed at her phone. “That’s why I need to watch the damn CCTV footage to know what’s going on outside. Someone noticed the cameras were off and switched them back on. I hacked into the security system; I’m good with technology.”

Well, how lovely for her.

“Don’t count on anyone coming here to look for you. They won’t assume you’re hiding here,” Therese added, idly stroking a hand over the tranquilizer gun on her lap.

Bailey frowned as she repeated, “Hiding?”

“When they find Dayna dead, they’re going to conclude it was you and that you then faked your own kidnapping and ran off.”

Whoa, back up. “You killed Dayna?”

“Of course not. But she was as good as dead when I left her after our little argument, so she’ll have croaked by now.”

And apparently Therese felt that that wouldn’t make her responsible for the woman’s death. Huh.

“You’re not wondering why you’re bound to a chair?”

“I suppose I am a little curious.”

Therese crossed one leg over the other. “You know, back when I was a kid, I was teased a lot for being latent. Like it was my fault. Like it was a weakness on my part rather than a simple error of nature.”

Shifters did tend to be assholes toward those who were latent.

“The only friend I had was Dayna. She never really saw me as an equal, though. I was more of her sidekick; always in her shadow. Dominant and beautiful, she cast a big shadow. I didn’t really mind. I’m not a person who feels the need to stand out.” Therese’s jaw hardened. “But I did mind that she made a move on the only guy I had any interest in.”

“Deke,” Bailey easily guessed. It had to be him. Why else would Therese have come for her?

“He was one of the people who didn’t tease me. If he caught anyone giving me crap, he intervened and chased them off.” Therese lightly drummed her fingers on her thigh.

Ah, the glows of hero worship.

“Dayna knew how much I liked him,” said Therese, “but she came onto him anyway. I was upset and angry and felt betrayed. And she just … waved it off. Said I’d never land him anyway so what did it matter?”

Bailey remained silent, subtly working to untie the rope securing her wrists together. It was not gonna be a quick process. Not when the knot was tight and she had Therese’s eyes on her.

“I was delighted when she left for Australia. I thought he’d be free of her. But they made that damn vow,” Therese said through her teeth. “She wanted me to ‘look out’ for him while she was gone. What she really meant was that she wanted me to spy on him. I was, of course, happy to help.”

Bailey could guess why. “You could tell her whatever you wanted her to believe; poison her mind against him.”

“I tried. It didn’t work well.” Therese pressed her lips together. “She had too much faith in Deke to believe that the ‘rumors’ I claimed I’d heard of him bedding other women could possibly be true. But I thought it would only be a matter of time before she and Deke parted. Except … weeks became months, and months became years. It was maddening for both of us.”

Bailey felt her brow pinch. “Us?”

“Me and Gerard. He loves her. Really loves her. He wanted another chance with her. But he couldn’t talk her into detaching herself from Deke. We needed to do something.”

“What did you do?” Not that Bailey really cared, but keeping Therese focused on telling her story—which she seemed relieved to be able to do, as if she’d held it in for what felt like too long—meant she wasn’t paying too much attention to Bailey’s movements.

“Little things at first. We would each tell her that we saw him having drinks with human women or leaving bars with them. She was skeptical, though. She called up a few other pride mates to ask if they’d noticed Deke hanging with other females. They, of course, said no.” Therese curled her fingers into a fist. “We needed to have what looked like concrete proof that he had other women in his life.”

“Enter the fake profiles,” Bailey drawled as realization hit her. “That was you. You set them up. You pretended to be Deke.”

“It was Gerard’s idea.” Therese lifted her shoulders. “Who better to pose as Deke than someone who knew him inside out? A simple voice-changing app enabled me to sound like a guy over the phone.”

So this hadn’t been about striking at Deke. It had been about hurting Dayna.

“Gerard was so sure Dayna would be so furious about the profiles that she’d fly over here, confront Deke, break it off … and then of course Gerard would make his play.”

“And as Deke would be free, you could make your own,” Bailey mused.

“You say that like I was delusional to think it would work. Well, here’s something you should know, then,” she added with a smirk. “Gerard overheard Deke talk to Shay about how he would have dated me if it wasn’t for his promise to Dayna.”

Bailey inwardly snorted. That didn’t seem likely. He looked at the woman with utter disinterest—he had done for as long as Bailey had been part of the pride. So she was getting the distinct feeling that Gerard had lied to secure Therese’s assistance.

A small movement caught the attention of Bailey’s peripheral vision. A movement that came from beneath one of the chairs. A similar movement came under Therese’s chair.

Bailey didn’t need to look to see what it was. Didn’t need to. She’d mastered the art of looking without looking. She knew exactly what little creatures were hiding here. And it was hard not to smile.

“Don’t get me wrong,” began Therese, “I didn’t believe it would be easy to convince him to act on what he wanted—he’s not a guy who’d be good with sleeping with his ex’s BFF. But Gerard’s theory was that once Dayna railed Deke for ‘cheating,’ he’d be so furious with her for not believing his protests that he wouldn’t care if sleeping with me might ruin my friendship with her. Still, I was skeptical. So when touch-hunger struck him, it seemed the perfect time to expose the profiles and get things moving.”

Anger spiked through Bailey. “You meant to take advantage of his situation?” Cruel little bitch.

“A few subtle prompts were enough to encourage Maisy to surprise him with a visit.” Therese’s expression turned sullen. “She was the only person who acted as they should have. Dayna believed the profiles were fake, not real. Worse, Deke turned to you for sex.”

“And you didn’t like it; wanted to punish me. Hence the acid attack.” Bailey gritted her teeth as her snake lunged hard to battle the drug. It didn’t work. “Was Gerard in on it?”

“No. He wasn’t mad that Deke marked you. He was thrilled. He thought that would be enough to send Dayna spiraling; to spur her into freeing herself from the vow. But she still didn’t want to pull away from Deke. Not even when he basically dumped her via video call. Not even when he made it clear to her that he wanted you.”

“You didn’t like hearing that, so you sicced extremists on me again.”

Therese sneered. “He barely even knew you, yet he made you the freaking focal point of everything.”

“Is that why you sent Journee his way and then later made the call to Maisy? You wanted Deke’s attention to switch from me to you, even if he didn’t know it was you?”

“Well, it worked.” She glanced down at her phone. “No one has left yet, unfortunately. But they will eventually. Which is excellent, because your ride will be here at some point tonight. And then you’ll be gone for good. From my life, and from Deke’s.”

Bailey’s insides seized. “Ride? What ride?”