The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (17 page)

He chuckled but it was forced. Suddenly he
felt like something wasn’t quite right. He met Peter’s eyes again
and Peter said, “We’ll, um, holler into the bathroom for them to
hurry up.”

They walked together as a group and as they
rounded the corner, he opened the door a few inches and said,
“Karly? Baby are you okay?”

Silence followed. Frowning, he opened the
door further and a woman he didn’t know looked at him from the
sink. “Do you need something?” She asked.

“Yeah, my fiancé came in here like ten
minutes ago with a few other women.”

“It’s just me in here, but three of the
stalls are locked with people in them.” She shrugged and walked
past him and he stormed into the bathroom and pushed one of the
closed doors but the lock just rattled.

Peter and his grandfather both joined him and
Bo stuck his head in, “Linus, Teller is freaking out. He says he
can smell that rust wolf around here. Is Karly okay?”

His wolf snarled in his brain and he smashed
the flat of his palm on the door and the metal lock broke apart as
it opened. Tina lay slumped on the toilet, her head resting on the
wall. “Oh no,” he breathed, darting his hand to her neck. Relief
washed through him as the other doors popped open and his mother
and grandmother were found in a similar position. Drugged into
unconsciousness but otherwise unharmed.

He ran out of the bathroom to leave them to
tend to the women and found Teller, a young wolf and one of their
best trackers growling and flexing his hands like his claws wanted
to break free. At the back of the small building, a service door
had been broken and inside lay a man in a janitorial uniform, dead
from a broken neck. Inside the small service room was another door
that led to the women's restroom. It's clearly how Phoenix got
inside.

He shut the door on the dead body and closed
his eyes. Bo pressed his hand on his shoulder and handed him
something. It was Karly's shoe. "Teller found it at the tree line
and I brought it back for you."

Linus took the shoe and squeezed it in his
hands and let loose a howl of rage that the others echoed.

Phoenix took his mate! He would suffer slowly
when he was found.

Chapter 13

She had the worst headache ever. She tried to
roll over so she could get up and get some aspirin, but something
on her wrist tugged and prevented it. She pulled harder and the
feel of something enclosing her wrist made her try to force her
eyes open. She was met with a wooden ceiling that didn’t look at
all familiar, and dropping her slightly blurry vision to her arm,
she saw that her wrist was tied with a thick length of rope to an
iron headboard. The knot had been pushed down to the mattress and
there was a foot of rope between her wrist and the headboard.

Fear spiked through her as a door creaked
open and she jerked up but was prevented from doing anything but
scooting against the headboard as her eyes found the door and
Phoenix walked through it, a paper grocery sack in one arm.

His eyes lit up when he saw her. “Hey, you’re
awake!” He kicked the door shut and put the sack down on a tiny
kitchen table and walked towards her.

She screamed, “Stay back!”

He paused and quirked his brow and then kept
walking, sitting on the end of the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Why am I here? Where am I?” Panic clawed at
her throat and she tried to tamp it down. She focused on slowing
her breathing to calm her racing heart.

“You’re here because you belong to me,
Lynnie. And where you are isn’t as important as why. Because you’re
mine. We belong together. I told you that when we were kids, and
I’ve let you have your fun playing around with other wolves, but
enough is enough.”

“No, Phoenix. It’s not as if I chose this
life, but I have to follow my nature. You’re not my mate, or I
would have chosen you right away. You’ve known that all along.”

His pleasant smile disappeared as if someone
poured hot water over his face and melted it into a severe frown.
Standing abruptly, he snatched the hair at the side of her head and
jerked her off the bed until her arm wrenched painfully against the
rope. “You. Are. Mine.” Releasing her so she bounced hard on the
mattress, she sobbed loudly at the pain where he’d pulled strands
of hair free in his anger and gritted her teeth together until she
could quiet the waves of despair that threatened.

He went back into the kitchen and unloaded
the supplies from the paper sack. Groceries. A few loaves of bread,
peanut butter, jelly, and bottled water. She looked around while he
put the things away. It looked like a one room cabin. Everything
was made of wood, from the floor to the ceiling. If there were
windows, they were boarded up now. There were three doors. One that
led outside that he’d come through, and two others. A bathroom
and…a closet maybe? Or another bedroom? The furnishings were dusty
from disuse. A worn couch against the wall looked over a large
stone fireplace. There was a small kitchen table and chairs and a
short counter by the sink and stove.

“Like what you see, Lynnie? I found this
empty cabin when I first was scouting a place for our honeymoon. No
one’s been here in years, but even if there’d been a whole family
here, it wouldn’t have mattered. It would be empty now.” Phoenix
sat down and smoothed her hair away from her face. She flinched and
he gave her a sad smile. “Aw, don’t be like that. I can’t have you
trying to get away from me over some ridiculous thing like destiny.
You and I were meant for each other and now that I have you, I’m
never going to let you go.”

She licked her dry lips. “How did you, how
did you bring me here?” Her thoughts flashed to Linus, to his
family and friends. Had Phoenix killed them all to get her? She
couldn’t remember anything after kissing Linus goodbye at the rest
stop.

A smug smirk crossed his thin lips. “Ah, that
was easy. I masked my scent using some strong deer musk and watched
your activities for the last few days. When you were heading back
to West Virginia, I knew that you’d hide out there with the old
pack because your pathetic cub of a boyfriend can’t handle me.”
Snorting, he relaxed and leaned over her legs. “Anyway, I just
followed you, figuring you’d stop eventually and the rest area was
perfect. I broke in through a back service door and waited until
you were all in the stalls and then I tossed in a little bomb. It
was a potion mixed in a thin glass vial. It knocks anything out in
less than two seconds and spreads incredibly fast in small areas
like that. Caught everyone with their pants down.” He laughed and
patted her thigh like it was a big joke. Her heart dropped into her
stomach.

“Anyway, I grabbed you from the stall after
pulling your pants back up and carried you through the back door
and into the woods. Had my car waiting on a service road, put you
in the trunk, and they didn’t know what hit them, that’s for damn
sure.”

“What are you going to do to me,
Phoenix?”

“Do?” He sat up and loomed over her, his eyes
wild. “I’m going to mate with you, Lynnie so we’ll be together
forever.”

She stared at him in shock. He was completely
delusional. Fear trickled through her again and he closed his eyes
and took in a deep breath. “Ah, that smells great. You should be
afraid, because I’m pretty pissed at you for walking away from me.
And spare me about your fate and all that bullshit. You’re mine and
I’ll kill you before I let you go.” She knew that was as true a
statement as any that she'd ever heard.

He gave her a long look. “I know he won’t
choose her over you, Lynnie. But I know you’ll choose her over
freedom, so you’re not going anywhere. She’s my little insurance
policy.”

She looked at him in confusion but before she
could ask him who he was talking about, he crossed the small room
and opened one of the two doors revealing a small closet, and to
her surprise, Linus’ ex Brenda, tied up, gagged, and totally
freaked out. She whimpered as she sat in the tiny space and Phoenix
looked down at her as if she were not a person but something
insignificant like a pair of old shoes. Her throat tightened. She
knew the look in her eyes spoke volumes to what she’d suffered
already at his hands. She had a black eye. There were probably more
bruises she couldn’t see. And the simple fact that she didn’t
appear to have clothes on at all made Karly's eyes sting with
tears. Dirty, disheveled. How long had he had her?

“Why do you have Linus’ ex-wife,
Phoenix?”

“She’s the one that contacted me.” He
continued to look down at Brenda and she started to hyperventilate.
“I could take her; show you how submissive I like my women now.
Would you like that, Lynnie?” He looked up at Karly and the man
staring back at her was a virtual stranger.

“I don’t want to watch you rape her.” Her
voice trembled and she tried to keep the fear away but it was damn,
damn hard.

He snorted and slammed the door shut. “Can’t
rape a willing accomplice. She wanted me to get you out of the way
and I snagged her two days ago and have been keeping myself busy
with her. She tried to escape so I had to tie her up. But,” he
shrugged and sat down next to Karly again, “that didn’t stop me
from playing with her. I could let you play with her. I think I’d
enjoy watching her eat your pussy, Lynnie. Maybe while I fuck
her.”

Karly's eyes went wide and she wondered how
she’d been so devastatingly wrong about him. He was so casual. So
cruel without thought, like some kind of mindless robot. She knew
her best defense was to get on his good side so he would let his
guard down and she could escape. Brenda was a complication for
sure, and she didn’t want to leave her behind. He had her by the
scruff.

She tried not to jerk on the tie around her
wrist. “I don’t, I don’t remember you being so aggressive, like
this, Phoenix.”

His brow arched and a sneer pulled up half
his mouth. “I was vanilla for you because it’s what you wanted,
what you would tolerate. That,” he gestured towards the closet, “is
what I’ve always enjoyed. There were some she-wolves from another
pack that I used to fuck around with back then so I didn’t go crazy
being so boring in bed with you. You’ll learn soon enough that pain
for pleasure’s sake can be quite enjoyable. At least in my
opinion.”

Her poor heart stuttered to a dead stop and
her breath seized in her chest. When a jolt made her come back to
awareness again, she blinked hard to keep the tears away and said,
“Was all of it a lie? All those sweet promises in the dark in my
bed?”

The sneer deepened. “Maybe. Maybe not. We
could have kept things like that for our whole lives. Vanilla for
you and not-even-close-to-vanilla for me with other she-wolves.
Perhaps if you hadn’t walked away from me, if you’d believed me to
be your mate in truth, then I wouldn’t have indulged my darkest
fantasies for the last year and a half. Now, I don’t think I could
even get it up for vanilla.”

The sneer disappeared and he stood up and
walked over to the small kitchen. “I’ll make you something to eat,
I’m sure you’re hungry, Lynnie.”

She gaped at his back. It was like someone
had flipped a switch. Sadistic rapist one minute, kind hearted
gentleman the next. He looked over his shoulder, “Are you
hungry?”

Remembering her plan to get him to let his
guard down so she could get free, she licked her dry lips and
nodded, “Yes, Phoenix, thank you.”

“I take care of my girl. I remember how you
liked to eat peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches. I made
sure to get what you liked, so I don’t have to risk taking you out
of the woods anytime soon.”

While his back was turned at the counter, she
inspected the knot that bound her wrist to the headboard. It was a
double knot of some kind. She wriggled her wrist back and forth and
it could move but was not loose enough for her to even consider
trying to pull her wrist through. And she knew if she tried, that
her wrist would swell and then she’d be even more miserable.
Keeping an eye on Phoenix’s back, she worked at the knot, stopping
just as he turned towards her.

He sat next to her on the bed and put a paper
plate in her lap with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in it
and held a bottle of water up to her mouth. She reached for it with
her free hand but he knocked it away. “I’ll take care of you,
Lynnie.”

Accepting the water, she drank half before he
pulled it away and then tugged a corner of the sandwich off and
held it up to her mouth. She
so
didn’t want to be hand fed
by a nutcase, but she couldn’t exactly do anything about that so
she opened her mouth dutifully and he placed the wedge on her
tongue. In truth, she didn’t really have much of an appetite. She
hadn’t, really, since she saw his wolf form outside of Jason and
Cadence’s house. That seemed like an eternity ago.

“Do you remember, Lynnie, when we found that
small creek near the lunar meeting place and made love on the
bank?”

“I remember almost getting busted by the
alpha.” She smiled at him even though it was the last thing she
wanted to do.

“That was a long time ago. A lifetime.” He
quieted as he fed her the rest of the sandwich and the last of the
water. He ate the other sandwich and then put the plate in the
trash.

Phoenix was on edge, bouncing on his heels as
he wavered between talking about their past and their future. Every
opportunity that he turned his back to her, she worked on the knot,
millimeters coming free and filling her heart with hope.

She wondered where they were. She wondered
how long she’d been unconscious. She wondered how long it was
before Linus realized something was wrong. For the thousandth time
she shouted Linus’ name in her head and begged him to find her.

Phoenix lit a match in front of the stone
fireplace. Sulfur filled the air for a moment as he knelt down.
Crumpled newspaper flared to life underneath a stack of wood that
began to crackle. She tugged on the knot while he was absorbed in
the fire.