The Alpha's Hunger (18 page)

She’d had enough. She didn’t know where they’d be going from here, but she was damn sure she wasn’t going to let it continue like this. She couldn’t go on feeling this unsteady. She didn’t give herself to a guy only to have him vanish every time things got intense.

Chapter Ten

That afternoon, Ben sat in his office, the quiet deafening. Zolla had come to consult with Ben’s IT guys to get all the servers back up and running and the security back in place.

His stomach stayed in knots all day thinking about Ashley. The fact that she didn’t take his call provided a fresh source of torture. He tried again several times, but each time it went straight to voicemail, as if she’d shut her phone off or her battery was dead.

He prayed she wasn’t suffering. He had doubts about how well Zolla had cared for her. Maybe he should’ve insisted she be taken into emergency for stitches. Had she been given any painkillers? Would she ever speak to him again?

As he walked out to his car, he tried her again. Once more it went straight to voicemail. He hadn’t left a message the other times, but he made an attempt. “Ashley,” he said. His mind went blank. What the hell did you say in this situation? Was there a Hallmark card for this?
I’m sorry I almost tore your throat out, will you be my valentine?
Or maybe
I’m ready to go to the next step with you… do you mind if I permanently scar your flesh to embed my scent?
No, even better,
I’d like to endanger you by making sure all my enemies know I care. Hope you don’t mind the scarring.

Damn. He was really the biggest asshat, wasn’t he?

He drew a breath and exhaled. “Please call me. I really need to talk to you. I—I’m sorry, Ashley. I need to see you…” He started to say
please call me,
but realizing he’d already said that, hit ‘end,’ and rubbed his forehead.

What if she didn’t call? Should he show up at her house? Or wait to see her at work? God, would she even come to work? The thought of running Stone without her left him empty. In less than a week, she had become his everything. Because of her, he wanted to fix Stone, he wanted to man up and be the leader his brother had expected him to be. Leon deserved that. Ashley somehow had woken him up from the stupor he’d been in since his brother’s death.

He got in his car and drove to her house. The lights were on and he could see Ashley and Melissa sitting together on the sofa. He sat with the car idling for a moment, considering. Both women probably had a lot to share with each other. Maybe it was better to let them lick their wounds together without him interrupting.

He put the Mustang back in gear and drove home.

* * *

Turning off her phone when she was angry with Ben for abandoning her rivaled cutting off her nose to spite her face. Probably some part of her wanted to punish him. And maybe the other just wasn’t ready to talk. She needed to sort out her feelings about the whole ‘marking’ thing.

By the time she had told the entire story to Mel, she’d begun to feel the magnitude of it all. It wasn’t just about being shocked over the violence or angry over the abandonment. Ben had forever marked her as his mate. She had to admit her heart did a giddy dance when she realized the implications. She’d been right—he did have a thing for her. A serious thing, by the sounds of it. She didn’t know what it meant to be a wolf’s mate, but if they could work past the walls Ben put up, she sure as hell wanted to give it a try.

She had turned her phone back on before she went to bed, and was satisfied to hear Ben’s message. He’d sounded terrible. She still hadn’t been ready to talk to him, but she felt a lot better. Today, she could face him at work. They would talk and could move forward from there.

She drove in early and found a place in the garage close to the elevator. “Hang on,” she called out as the elevator doors shut on a man she didn’t recognize. She shoved her hand between the doors to open them and slid in. “Thirty-fifth floor, please,” she said.

He pressed the button without looking at her. She took in his shiny shoes first, then his crisp, clean designer business suit. He had dark hair, graying at the temples, and olive skin, darker than Ben’s. His eyes met hers and he wrinkled his nose as he sniffed the air.

She froze at the distinctly wolf-like gesture.

Her tension seemed to be the confirmation he needed because his lips curled into an ugly smile. “You’ve been freshly marked,” he observed in a thick Spanish accent.

She jerked her gaze away and looked up at the illuminated floor numbers above the doors. “I don’t know what you mean.”

In one swift movement, he pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at her. “When the elevator reaches the destination, you will stay on, close the doors, and take it back down to the garage.”

She held her breath, trying to organize her thoughts. Who was this man? Someone from South America… Leon had died in Venezuela. What had Ben told her about it?

The doors opened and the gun disappeared into his jacket pocket, still pointed directly at her. “Close them.
Now
,” he growled.

She hit the ‘close door’ button. The elevator continued up to Ben’s floor. Please, she prayed, let him be out by Karen’s desk where he would see her standing there with the wolf she presumed was his enemy.

No such luck. The doors slid open to an empty reception area. Karen wasn’t at her desk, and Ben’s door was closed.

“Close the doors and hit P1.”

She hesitated.

“Do it!” he snarled.

She obeyed. “Who are you?”

The shifter’s lip curled. “I am Sandoval.”

She looked at him blankly.

“He has not told you about me?” he asked, sounding offended.

She shrugged, trying to look unconcerned.

“I am the wolf who’s going to make your lover boy pay.”

“What did he do to you?”

The doors slid open in the garage and the nasty wolf shoved her forward, out of the elevator. “Tomás Solís murdered my wife and children.”

She sucked in her breath, the blast of hatred from the man almost palpable. She didn’t know who Tomás Solís was, but she didn’t think it was the right time to ask.

He marched her forward, his fingers on her
upper arm digging into her flesh. Two younger men jumped out of a dark car and one of them held the door open for Sandoval. “Get in,” he snapped, shoving her forward.

“Who’s this?” one of the younger men asked. He resembled her captor—perhaps he was his son or nephew.

Sandoval pushed in to sit beside her. “The Solís pup’s mate.”

“What do we want with her?” the other man asked.

“Just drive the car,” Sandoval snapped. “Back to the house.”

The car backed out and sped out of the parking garage. She scanned the cars coming in, thinking she might try to flag down help, but she realized the windows were too tinted for anyone to see her inside.

The older wolf’s son twisted around in the front seat to look at her, and then his father. He said something in Spanish.

The older man said something back, then turned to her, a nasty smile on his face.

“I killed Solís too fast. I should have made him watch while I tortured his pups before his eyes.” He picked up a lock of her hair and twirled it between his fingers. “But now I can rectify that.” His dark eyes glinted. “His son can watch his mate defiled, then killed. And then, when I finish the youngest Solís, my vengeance will be complete.”

Was Ben the youngest Solís?

“I-I’m not actually Ben’s mate. It was a mistake—he didn’t mean to mark me. I’m human.”

“Which makes you all the more fragile.” The man smiled. “Torturing a human is so rewarding.”

She shuddered.

The car pulled up to a villa-style vacation rental—a self-contained unit, two stories high with a wall surrounding the property.

Terror had seeped in, turning her entire body cold. She took deep breaths, trying to keep her wits. She had her phone. Maybe she could find a way to text Ben or Zolla. Zolla might be able to trace her location.

Sandoval shoved her out of the car and pulled her into the house, sitting her down and taping her ankles to the legs of a chair. He taped her wrists behind her, so tight the wood from the chair dug into her arms. Rummaging in her purse, he pulled out her phone and scrolled through it. “Where is lover boy’s number?” he asked, not seeming to expect an answer. “Ah, here it is.” He hit dial on the number and held it to her ear. “Say hello to him.”

Ben answered on the second ring. “Ashley,” he croaked, sounding relieved. She remembered with a painful twist in her chest that they were at odds, and she hadn’t returned his phone calls. Tears of regret stung her eyes.

“Ben—”

Sandoval took the phone away from her and said something in Spanish.

“Ben, don’t come—it’s a trap,” she yelled.

Sandoval struck her with the back of his hand, slamming her head back. She tasted blood as pain exploded in her mouth, jaw, and neck.

“Don’t come,” she repeated, as Sandoval walked away with the phone, still speaking into it.

* * *

Sandoval had Ashley. Ben’s vision domed, his senses razor-sharp. It took him only three seconds to determine his course of action. He called Zolla as he drove to the address Sandoval had given him.

“Are you crazy?” Zolla demanded. “You can’t go in there alone—you’ll never walk back out. Tell me where and I’ll meet you.”

“No. I’m going alone and unarmed, as instructed. I’m not taking any chances where Ashley’s concerned.” He hung up before Zolla could begin his arguments and pressed his foot down on the gas.

He pulled up at the address and stepped out of the car. For once, his mind was perfectly clear where Ashley was concerned. A strange peace had settled around him like a cloak, giving him a serene sense of power. He walked to the door and knocked.

The curtains moved and a shadow passed in front of the peephole of the door. It opened a crack and the butt of a gun emerged. “
Pásale.
”

He stepped in and waited as he was patted down for a gun with his hands on his head. Two thugs from Sandoval’s pack flanked him and walked him into the living room, where his female was bound to a chair. Seeing her like that—her face bruised, her eyes wide in a pale face—almost caused him to lose his calm determination.

“Ben,” she whispered. “I told you not to come.”

“It’s going to be all right, Ashley,” he promised. Hands still on his head, he walked forward and dropped to his knees before Sandoval.

His father’s nemesis curled his lip, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

“Take me,” he said. “Have your revenge—lord knows, you deserve it. But let her go.”

Sandoval’s face split into an ugly smile. “Look at this, Rodrigo, he’s begging already, and we haven’t even started.”

Some of Ben’s clarity chipped away. He shook his head, keeping his hands glued to it. “You don’t have to prove anything,” he promised the drug lord. “I know you were wronged. I heard about what happened to your family,” he said, referring to the deaths of Sandoval’s wife and daughters. “If I could change the way things happened, I would. I would change a lot of my father’s misdeeds.”

Sandoval looked angry now, as if the very mention of Tomás Solís enraged him.

Ben plowed forward before Sandoval stopped him. “For what it’s worth, I think it was an accident—that you were the intended target—but I honestly can’t be sure. My father was a real asshole. He wanted you out of the picture, and he took the coward’s path instead of just challenging you. He lost his honor and I’m not proud to be his son.” His eyes traveled past Sandoval to his son, who sat beside him. “I didn’t come to his aid when he called me back to fight you. But I will offer myself up now. Do not hurt Ashley. She has nothing to do with this.”

Sandoval’s smile fell away and he regarded Ben with a narrowed gaze. His son looked uncomfortable.

Ben would have appealed to Sandoval’s honor, except the man had even fewer scruples than his father had. He glanced at Ashley, who had tears streaming down her face. She shook her head at him, as if trying to communicate that Sandoval could not be trusted.

Sandoval stood and walked toward him. “I lost my wife and both my daughters because of you,” he said.

“Not me,” Ben said. “I wasn’t even in the country. I didn’t know anything about it.”

Sandoval pointed a shaking finger at him. “You should’ve stopped him,” he shouted.

Ben closed his eyes. Sandoval’s sanity appeared to be slipping, which didn’t bode well for his plan of sacrificing himself to save Ashley. “You’re right,” he said. “I should have. If I had known about it, I would have,” he said, even though it was a lie. He had never stood up to his father, had only run away from the abusive and controlling parent.

Sandoval walked to Ashley and cut the tape from around her ankles, yanking her to her feet.

He tensed.

“I want you to suffer the way I have suffered. The way Mia and Sofi and Ana suffered.” He bent Ashley over the table and lifted her skirt.

Ben tensed, his vision changing, a roar in his ears.

As if from a distance, he heard Sandoval saying, “You’re going to watch while every one of us has his way with your woman and then you’re going to watch her die.”

Ben shifted before Sandoval had finished speaking, launching for his throat. Sandoval fired a bullet into the back of Ashley’s calf and she screamed. Two wolves met Ben’s launch midair and brought him down, snarling.

“Freeze or she’s dead,” Sandoval shouted, the gun at Ashley’s temple.

A second gunshot rang out at the same moment the glass in every window of the room broke. Ben leaped once more for Sandoval, but he already lay on the floor in a confusing pile of blood and bodies. Ashley was under him, screaming. Wolves were flying in through the windows, snarling and attacking the South American pack. He recognized Zolla and Mark, Stanley and others.

He tore Sandoval from Ashley and found him dead, shot through the back of his head. Crouching over Ashley to protect her, he bared his teeth and growled, but no threat came. Though jaws were still snapping and bodies still tussled, the Denver pack had taken control. A few moments later, they subdued the remaining South American wolves to whimpers and tucked tails.