Slater's Enchanting Mate, Iron Wolves MC 4 (11 page)

The beautiful woman’s eyes seemed to glow as she moved forward. “You stink with your lies. You came here hunting, hoping to catch your prey, but instead you are the prey.” She licked her lips. “I don’t think anyone would miss you. Have fun boys, but drag him away before you…do your thing.”

Alexa held still as the woman dressed in military fatigues glided forward to stand below her. In a clear voice she said, “you may come down now. I promise you are safer than you were.”

Not sure how to take those words, but knowing she truly had no choice, Alexa began the decent back down. When her feet touched the earth, she gasped as she was pinned to the rough bark of the tree. “I saved your life, now you owe me yours. What will you do in repayment?”

Having given up everything in order to escape a madman, Alexa had nobody who would miss her, save for Marley. She’d been given up for adoption when she was born, and fostered out of the system at eighteen. Yeah, she was a complete loser who wouldn’t be missed by anyone. However, she was smart, and had an education. “What do you want?” She asked instead.

The woman smacked her cheek, not a motherly pat. “Good answer. I think you’ll do just fine. Come with me. I don’t need more men in my ranks, nor do I want any competition with my soldiers.” She looked Alexa up and down. “You’re not ugly, but you could stand to lose some weight. I could use someone who clearly has nothing to lose. Besides, you owe me. I like that in a soldier. Come on.”

“What do I call you?” Alexa asked, running to keep up with the other woman’s longer strides.

The blonde stopped and stared, her eyes with their eerie glow held her immobile. “You will call me whatever I tell you. For now, you may call me ma’am.”

Alexa nodded, the sounds of the wolves’ howls rent the air, making the hair on her arms stand on end. “Do you need to call your
dogs
back? Will they let Danny go, or…”

“Don’t ever question me again. You will get that one free pass. I will tell you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. We clear? As long as you do what you’re told, and don’t betray me, you will be fine. Trust me, you’ll live a lot longer than you would have if you’d stayed up in that tree. Ole Danny boy had no plans to let you live past fucking and gutting you.”

She knew he had planned to hurt her, but to hear the other woman say those words, Alexa felt tears well up, choking them back to keep from showing a weakness.

“Good girl. You’ll do fine.”

“Thank you for saving my life.”

Her savior picked up the pace, leading her further through the woods, and toward a clearing. Alexa couldn’t believe how close she’d been to salvation before Danny came along, yet wondered if it was truly a sanctuary.

****

Kayan Swift aka Kai, or Kayak to his fellow team members, looked around the newly overtaken military like base. “Anyone find Jase?” Just mentioning the bastard’s name made him want to destroy everything in his path. He watched as Oz fingered the automatic rifle in his hands. Yeah, he wasn’t the only one feeling twitchy when it came to their former teammate who tried to kill them.

“He’s not among the living or dead,” Sully Griggs growled.

“Fucking son of a bitch.” Kai ran his hand through his short dark hair. Times like these he was glad he didn’t have long locks like the men he’d met with Rowan, their former team leader, he’d have been pulling it out in hunks. “We need intel on where the fucker has gone, how he got here, and why he was here. Find me someone who was close to him.” Kai spun away from his men. He felt like a failure.

“If you failed, then so did all of us.” Kai looked over his shoulder to see Coyle striding up to him. Of all their team members, Coyle was probably one of the quietest, yet deadliest.

Kai grunted. “I’m not even going to dignify that bullshit with an answer.”

Coyle squeezed his shoulder. “Right back atcha. Now, let’s move on. What we gonna do now?”

“What we do best,” he paused, “we go hunting.” Now that they knew Jase had escaped the federal prison, there was no place for him to hide.

Commotion near a large building drew their attention. A woman yelling at one of the team leaders, her words making him visibly angry had all of Kai’s protective instincts rising. His feet began moving, picking up the pace, eliminating the distance between them.

“Listen you overgrown ape, you can’t keep us here. I wasn’t here of my own free will, but because some nut job, which I’m hoping she’s not coming back, wouldn’t allow us to leave.”

Kai studied the young woman. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but bits of it had fallen free while she angrily stabbed at the soldier with one of her fingers. Her medium sized frame was what you’d call curvy, but her complexion was flawless with its tanned tones. He wondered if she had that coloring all over, then mentally slapped himself for thinking along those lines. She was aligned with the enemy.

“We are processing everyone, before we decide what to do with you. If you’ll give us your name, and social, along with all your other pertinent details, we can get the process done quickly. Believe me, we all want to get out of here.” The words held a hidden threat that Kai didn’t misunderstand, and neither did the woman. Her eyes narrowed.

“I told you my name, but I am not giving you anything else without my lawyer. I know about due process.” Her hands were bunched at her sides, knuckles turning white.

“Excuse me soldier. I’ll take over. My name is Kai. What is your name?” She turned amethyst eyes on him. He wondered if they were real or contacts.

Her gaze roamed him from head to toe. “Hello, Kai. So, are you the new man in charge?” The woman made it sound like a vile thing instead of something to be proud of. He wanted to laugh at her audacity, but kept his smile in check.

He crossed his arms behind his back, showing her he didn’t feel she was any threat to his person. Again, those strange eyes assessed him.

She sighed. “Fine, my name is Alexa.”

In a pair of cargo pants that had clearly been meant for a male, Kai wondered if they were her boyfriend’s. “Got a last name, Alexa?” He looked to her left hand for any sign of a wedding ring, seeing none. He had to rein himself in before he asked her flat out if she had a boyfriend, and then realized she still hadn’t answered him.

Alexa’s chest rose swiftly, bringing his attention to her ample breasts. “How about that lawyer I requested?”

“Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but you are so far outside the law right now you ain’t got no rights except what we give you. Now, what’s your last name? I do believe, Kai here has asked you nicely. You don’t want me to take over this interrogation.” Coyle’s deep voice cut in.

Kai held up his hand, stopping Coyle from scaring the woman anymore. “Give her a moment, Coyle, I think she’s about to tell us what she knows.”

“Alexa Gordon is my name. I’m twenty-seven, haven’t been a virgin since I gave it up on prom night to my date, Shawn. I love Italian food, hate seafood, and think my hips are too wide. I also think men with big egos and attitudes are lacking in other areas, clearly having mommy issues, and therefore they feel they need to bully those smaller than them. More than likely they also have small penises, and try to cover that little fact by bulking up.” She stared at Coyle and then Kai, eyeing their bodies like slabs of beef.

The sound of their team member Oz’s booming laugh had Kai turning to see he was bent over not two feet behind them. “Oz, you have something to say?”

Oz stood up, wheezing, one hand holding his stomach. “I fucking love her. Can I have her?”

With his right hand, Kai flipped him the bird. “Well, Alexa Gordon, I’m gonna need to ask you a few more questions. Like what the hell are you doing in a compound run by shifters, and a man who betrayed his country?” He watched her eyes and body to see how his words would affect her. The slight tremble let him know he’d struck a nerve.

Fear was an emotion he usually used to his benefit in situations such as this, however watching it flow through the woman in front of him, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and promise all was fine. Being a soldier who’d killed more than he liked to remember, he pushed aside his feelings for the small brunette. Finding the traitor was their main mission. For all he knew, she could be his partner, or at the very least know where Jase might have gone.

“Well, Alexa, I can promise you won’t be getting any seafood from us, and if you want to know the size of my dick all you gotta do is ask. It’s been a while since I’ve fucked a traitor, however I’ll make an exception for you.” He let his own eyes travel her body like she’d done his. Her jaw wobbled, tears forming in those odd eyes, and he almost felt bad. Then he remembered the little village he and his team had went in to secure, the sound of children screaming for help. If she was in league with Jase, then she deserved no mercy. Her tears were more than likely something she could turn off and on like a faucet. Kai hardened his heart.

“You are just as bad as the animals here, if not worse. At least they didn’t say or do anything like that.” Alexa took a deep breath. “What do you want to know? I just want to go home.” She used the back of her hand, dashing away tears from her dirt stained cheeks.

****

Alexa swallowed the bile in her throat. The men gathered around her were worse than the ones who’d captured her, holding her against her will, again. That asshat Jase Tyler needed to be strung up and have his nuts put in a vice. Shifters? What the heck were they talking about? She’d heard howls, but hadn’t been allowed to leave the building unless escorted by ma’am or the woman’s beloved Jase, or one of the other men she trusted, and that was only to go from one building to the next. She thought for sure she would die, without anyone ever knowing what happened to her. Now, she was being accused of being part of their…whatever they were.

She waited for the man named Kai to tell her what he wanted to know, hoping she could give him answers and he’d let her go. God, she wished Marley was here, then was glad the older woman was safe.

“Follow me.” Kai spun on his heel, entering the building that had been her prison for the last two weeks.

The space was filled with cots, she’d guess it was what one would imagine a boot camp was like. She’d never signed up, but that didn’t matter to ma’am. Every day they made her get up at the ass crack of dawn, going through rigorous training as if she was a soldier. She’d even been learning how to shoot a gun. Not that she’d tell the big oaf in front of her.

“I’d keep moving. You don’t want to piss him off.”

Jumping at the deep rumble coming from behind her, Alexa hadn’t realized the large man named Oz had followed them. Lord, he had to be well over six foot with dark red hair, and muscles upon muscles. How does a man that big move as quiet as a cat? Shit, all this talk about shifters was making her crazy.

He flashed a bright white smile, leaning down to her ear. “I’m not one of the shifters, baby girl.”

“Oz, quit flirting with the woman.” Kai’s voice held a hint of violence.

“Yes, Captain.” Oz winked.

“My name is Alexa.” She stomped toward his retreating back.

He spun around fast, making her gasp as she ran into him. His arms came up to catch her. “I know your name. What I don’t is why you’re here.” His fingers bit into her biceps for a moment.

“If I tell you my story, you’ll let me go? Just like that?” Alexa snapped her fingers.

They walked into the office that had belonged to the woman in charge. The space was filled with electronics that looked straight out of the space station. Damn, she wished she’d have known the woman had all that technology in there.

Kai’s black eyes assessed her. “You got someone you want to call?”

Alexa wanted to call Marley, but all her belongings had been taken from her when ma’am and the others had taken her to the compound. Of course, she’d memorized the woman’s number, but she’d never drag her into this mess. Having made a real friend, Alexa treasured her, and would never endanger the gentle soul that was Marley.

Sighing, the events of the last few months hitting her, she collapsed into one of the chairs. “I just want my stuff so I can finally leave. My car broke down on the road a couple weeks back. I was running from my ex, and…he was following me.” She explained about running into the woods when she realized Danny was following her, then how ma’am had found her, and how the woman’s pet
dogs
had dragged her ex away. Kai and Oz listened without interruption as she kept her eyes on the floor between her feet.

“Look at me.” Kai’s voice whipped like a lash.

Her head jerked up.

“You’re telling me you just went off with some woman with glowing eyes while your boyfriend is attacked by wild dogs? Never once thinking about his safety?”

Anger replaced the dejected feeling, standing up in a move faster than either man expected, she pressed both palms into his rock hard abs. “Listen here, buddy, I barely survived his brutal attack just months before. He beat me so bad, would have raped and killed me in a dirty dark alleyway in Chicago without a backwards glance. Luckily for me a cabbie heard my screams, or I wouldn’t be standing here in front of an overgrown asshat. So don’t think for one minute I have one moment of regret that jackhole is probably puppy kibble. His mama is more than likely torturing another helpless creature, cause yeah, she’s as batshit crazy as him. She lifted her shirt to show him the angry red scar that ran between her breasts. “He used his bowie knife to cut my shirt in half, uncaring that he’d sliced into me. The doctor said he’d actually hit bone. Lucky for me I was already passed out from the pain of having my arm twisted behind my back so far that he’d broken my forearm and dislocated my shoulder.” She pulled her shirt back down, ashamed when she felt tears tracking down her face.