“Stop it,” I told myself uneasily. “None of it means anything—it’s all just more of that weird werewolf bullshit.”
But I was beginning to wonder, just a little bit, if there was something to all this crazy talk I kept hearing from everyone around me. Could there be something to it? How could so many people have deluded themselves into thinking that werewolves were real unless there was maybe a tiny kernel of truth in the whole thing?
I told myself not to be silly—lots of people had convinced themselves that the Earth was flat too, but that didn’t mean it was true. But at the same time, a seed of doubt had been planted. A seed that was soon to sprout and grow, and flourish in my mind, especially considering what happened to me next…
It didn’t happen right away, though. I took a shower and got ready for bed, putting on my comfiest PJs—the warm flannel ones with pink bunny rabbits all over them. My mom had given them to me as a gift last Christmas, and I loved them, even though they looked a little ridiculous.
I climbed into bed and turned out the lights, trying not to think of the strange events I had just been through. At last, using some meditation techniques I had learned when Madison and Ashley and I used to take Yoga together, I managed to purge the weirdness from my mind at least long enough to drift off to sleep.
I thought it was purged, anyway. But the minute I drifted off, what did I dream? It was Sorenson and he was chasing me with a leash and a collar. He was screaming something about how I must be bred and saying he would tie me down so I couldn’t get away.
Then Jake appeared and he was really angry. His pure-gold eyes started glowing and then he started changing. His face lengthened into a muzzle and his ears moved up to the top of his head and fur sprouted all over his body. Soon, in place of my stepbrother, there was a huge wolf—almost as big as a horse—standing there.
“No!” In my dream, I began backing away. “No, please, Jake—don’t hurt me!”
The huge, black wolf threw back his head and howled at the full moon that was floating overhead. Then he put his head down and began to stalk me, his golden eyes glaring like pale lamps from his transformed face.
It was a horrible dream—a nightmare really—but I would have traded it for what happened next. Because what woke me up was a hand over my mouth and a voice whispering in my ear,
“Come on, you little bitch! It’s time to do your duty.”
SEVEN
I tried to scream but I was barely awake and I thought the hand and the angry, unfamiliar voice might be part of my nightmare. By the time I realized I was awake and this was really happening, someone had tied my hands behind my back and shoved something hard and cold between my shoulder blades.
“Feel that, you Royal Omega bitch?” someone—a man, it was a man’s voice—snarled in my ear. “It’s a .44 Magnum and it’ll blow a hole the size of a barn door through you if you so much as twitch a toe out of place. Now fucking march!”
His last words were accompanied by a hard shove that nearly sent me to my knees. I staggered and somehow managed to keep from falling. It was dark in my room but from the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Binker’s green eyes shining from under the bed. Good—at least my cat was safe! But what was happening and where was this man taking me?
“Downstairs,” he hissed at me, as we exited my room. “And don’t bother screaming, girly,” he added, just as I was wondering if I could shout for help and duck away before he could pull the trigger. “All your security is gone and the Absent Alpha and his Omega bitch have been drugged.”
It took me a minute to realize he was talking about Marcus and my mom and then I stumbled over a dark shape in the hallway and nearly fell over again.
“Watch it!” The man grabbed me roughly by the arm and hauled me upright. I stepped over the thing I had tripped on and my foot landed in a warm puddle of something sticky. Gasping, I looked down and saw something horrible.
Moonlight from a nearby window fell on a still face, the eyes upturned and sightless. Branson—my bodyguard. The thing I had tripped over was his body. And the stuff I had stepped in was his blood.
I let out a horrified sob but my attacker shoved me between the shoulder blades again with the cold muzzle of his weapon.
“No whining unless you want to end up just like him,” he snarled. “Keep it in, girly. I don’t care if you’re royalty—I don’t fuckin’ like weepy women!”