Chapter 11

Rachel

Throbbing. Aching. Pain. All over. My head. Excruciating. I tried to lick my dry lips and cracked my crusted eyes open. The weak light sent a lancing pain shooting behind my eyes, so I clenched them closed again and then regretted shutting them so fiercely as it sent another wave of agony rolling over my scalp. I must have bashed my head against something hard when I passed out.

Squinting, I was able to glance around. I was in a tiny dilapidated stone building. Only a few feet by a few feet, old and ready to cave in with a stiff breeze. The breeze did gust then, and I shivered. Something clinked. With a horror that brought bile to the back of my throat, I realized that I was manacled to the wall. Bands of metal encased my wrists with heavy chains that went to screws the size of my fist, firmly embedded in the rock wall that suddenly looked far sturdier than it had at first glance.

My breath was coming too quick and too shallow. Spots danced in front of my face and I knew if I didn’t get a grip, I was going to lose it all over again. I couldn’t afford to have another fainting spell. No matter how warranted it was. I took a big breath through my nose and pushed all the air out slowly and measured through my mouth. I did it again. I’m not sure how many times I repeated merely breathing while clinging to consciousness.

When I stopped, my knees were shaking, and my fingers were nearly numb with cold. I was wearing a shirt and a hoodie with jeans, but it wasn’t enough to keep out the November chill.

Lenny. What was Lenny going to do to me when he came? My knees knocked harder together and I forced myself to stay upright. My mind fled to a dozen horrific things that he could do to me. Panic clawed the back of my throat and I fought for control of my breathing again.

I could tell the sun was mostly overhead by the way the light came through a few holes in the adjacent wall, so I knew I had to have been wherever it was for an hour or more, assuming my judging of the sun’s position was correct. I tried to calculate how far they might have taken me from my house and how far away it might be for them to retrieve Lenny and bring him back here so he could inflict his torture.

A whimper escaped and I sucked in my bottom lip, trying to contain the noise.

Get a grip, get a grip, I chanted to myself.

Something clattered at the entrance to the shed. My body froze as a board scraped against the threshold. I willed myself not to cry, to face my future with quiet dignity and as few hysterics as I could manage.

The door creaked on its hinges, driving my blood pressure up to dangerous new heights. Light flared at the corners of my vision. My teeth clenched as I squared my jaw and I faced the door as my heart careened inside my chest, banging my ribs and making my breath painfully stuttered.

A shadow filled the doorway, its owner still hidden from me. A step. Another. A dark head, warm brown eyes.

“Kyp!” I nearly shouted and then sagged in relief. The chains holding my wrists clanked together, echoing in the empty space.

“Rachel?” Kyp’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. “What happened?”

He was across the space in three steps, grabbing the chains that held the handcuffs to the stones, examining them for weakness as I did my best to hold tight to my vow of no hysterics.

“Kidnapped,” I managed before I had to gulp back a sob. “Two guys, and maybe a girl driving, they grabbed me. Lenny. Party.” I gulped, unable to form anything more coherent.

“Are you hurt?” His eyes raked over me quickly, head to toe, searching for obvious signs of injury.

I shook my head, my red curls wilder than usual. “No, but I don’t know when they’re coming back, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with me. They left to go get Lenny. Please, help me!”

“Of course, I’ll help you,” he retorted as he checked the handcuffs on my wrists. He messed with them for a minute more with no success. Nothing was budging.

“I need to go get help, Rachel. I can’t get you out of these by myself, and my phone is dead.”

My heart pounded in my chest like a stampede of elephants. Black dots swam before my eyes and I felt dizzy. “Please! Don’t leave me, Kyp. I don’t know when they’re coming back, but if they get here before you do, that’s the end of me.”

His fists clenched at his sides, his fingers flexing in and out, his eyes shifting from my wrists to my hands to the chains on the wall.

My wrists! A sudden thought struck me with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.

“Kyp, you have to bite me.”

“What?” He shook his head, clearly not seeing where I was going with this.

“If you change me into a werewolf, when the first shift comes, my bones will lengthen before they thicken again—they’ll be skinny enough to slip the hand cuffs.” Just like Megan’s shifts, I thought to myself.

The color bled from his face. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

“Do you have a better solution?”

“I could go get help.”

“And if you take too long? Then what? I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

He huffed a breath and ran both hands down his face, seeming to age fifty years in the one gesture.

“Rachel, do you even know what you’re asking?”

I nodded, knowing I didn’t have all the facts but assuming I had enough.

He looked me hard in the eye. “I don’t even know if I can change you,” he said quietly.

I refused to believe that. He was my last hope. Becoming a werewolf was my last hope, and not something I’d consider a burden after, though that was hardly my reasoning at that moment.

“You’re plenty wolf enough to shift at will. That’s good enough for me,” I begged.

“Just say this works. This is a lifetime thing.”

“I’m well aware of that.” We were wasting time, bartering like this. My heart clacked painfully against my ribs.

“You realize this could cause a mate bond. That you will be stuck with me—possibly for life.”

“Yes. And I do realize that I’m being totally selfish,” I conceded, but at that moment, survival was top on my list.

“I’m less concerned about that right now,” Kyp countered, his eyes intense. I could see the wheels turning in his mind, examining this from twenty different angles.

“Please, Kyp,” I whispered.

“I’m the Omega. Not even legally that yet. I’m still Rogue. You’d be in the same position if I’m even able to change you. You could be stuck for life like this—with me. Are you sure you don’t want me to go get help and try to find another way out of this?”

I didn’t care if I had to follow him into the depths of a volcano at the moment. I’d happily follow him into the lion’s den if it meant I escaped whatever torture and possible death awaited me at the hands of my captors.

“Alexander Kypson, you may be my last chance of getting out of here alive. I don’t care if I’m shackled to you for life. I’d much rather be with you than dead or worse with one of them.”

His eyes regarded me with the gravity of the Grim Reaper. He gave a curt nod and took his jacket off before yanking his shirt over his head.

“Um, what are you doing?” I stammered as relief and trepidation danced down my spine.

“If I’m going to bite you and possibly screw up both our lives irrevocably, I’m going to give you the best shot at becoming a wolf as I can. That means I have to be wolf myself. Clothes don’t shift with us, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

I tried not to stare at his abs. At least if I did die in the near future, I’d have a pleasant last view. He was ripped. He wasn’t a big guy, but his muscles were definitely toned and well used. And scarred. I was jarred out of my mental wandering as his fingers undid the button on his jeans. My face flamed.

“It’s cold out there. You won’t be able to control your shifts, and if your clothes don’t make it, you’ll need something warmer than your skin. I can wear fur if I have to,” he said in reaction to my cherry-red face. I hadn’t factored in the nakedness. Not that it was going to change my mind at this point.

When he stood before me in nothing but his boxers—thank goodness he left those on—he quickly removed my shoes and socks and then moved to my sweatshirt. I was already shivering with cold and anxiety.

“You sure about this?” His face was mere inches from mine. I nodded once and then swallowed hard as I felt his fingers on my bare skin as he slid my shirt and sweatshirt up over my head and down to the manacles on my wrists.

“If we can get your paws out, assuming you do change, before they rip the seams, you’ll be able to wear these again. It’s not going to hurt anything to have a spare set of clothes,” he explained unnecessarily.

I shivered again, standing there with my sweatshirt and all bunched down around my wrists and the wretched manacles, freezing in my neon purple demi-cup.

“Purple is an excellent color on you,” Kyp said nervously as he took a big breath and heat flooded his face.

A hysterical giggle wiggled its way out of my throat. “Shut up,” I quipped.

He paused a second, staring at the button on my jeans.

“Just do it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“This is not how I imagined getting a girl naked for the first time.”

I felt the flush from my face stain my neck and shoulders. It was ridiculous that I could be this terrified, embarrassed, and self-conscious at once. His fingers were trembling as he undid the button and zipper on my jeans. I clenched my eyes shut as he tugged my pants down over my hips and slithered them off altogether.

My face burned even hotter when I glanced down and remembered that I was wearing my hot pink underwear that had cheeky stamped across the butt.

Kyp actually laughed out loud as his eyes skimmed my near-nakedness and read my rear end.

I glared at him.

He sobered. “You’re absolutely sure you want to go through with this? If this works—and I really don’t know that it will—this is it. Forever.”

I tried to swallow past the giant boulder of fear lodged in my throat. I nodded. What other choice did I have?

“You’ve seen a shift up close before, right?” He gauged my preparedness for what was coming.

“Yes,” I whispered. My nerves were ratcheted higher than they’d ever been.

“All right.” He blew a long breath out his mouth. “If this works, I’ll try to yank the cuffs off your hands as your bones narrow. I’ll try to get your sleeves off, too. We’ll probably only have about three seconds to do it. If you can, jerk your arms backward. I’m going to bite you, then shift back so I have my hands. I have no idea if it will be quick, or if it will even happen at all.” He chuffed another breath out and shook his hands out to the sides like he was flicking water off them. “If you shift, it’s going to hurt. Like ten-times worse than the worst pain you’ve ever felt.” His eyes softened and he took my hands in his. “Try not to scream. I…I’m sorry.” He gulped. “You ready?”

I took a deep breath. “Ready. And, Kyp? Thank you,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Here we go.”

In horrified fascination, I shivered as Kyp’s face contorted and changed shape. His shoulders rolled back into his spine. His face grew a muzzle and a snout. Ears sprouted and his hair lengthened to become fur. Another few seconds and a huge black wolf with red-tinged tips and soft brown eyes stood before me. It took my breath away.

He hunched his back legs, springing up so his front paws were braced on either side of my head. He ran his nose up the side of my neck, scenting me. Even in the middle of our current circumstances, the gesture was oddly intimate.

A rough tongue scraped across the curve of my neck, right where it joined with my collarbone. Kyp whined softly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my head away, shaking my curls out of the way. I took a deep breath as my heart raced.

“All right.” The words strangled themselves from my throat. “Do it.”

A warm breath whispered against my neck and then the hard sharp points of his teeth. He hesitated, his teeth resting against the bare skin of my neck. He inhaled and then four sharp stabs gouged into my flesh. I mashed my lips together, refusing to cry out. He held my flesh in his mouth for several seconds before running his tongue over the bite, then released me and shifted back to his skin.

It dawned on me that he was totally naked, and I practically was, too, but before I could be embarrassed, my vision swam and pin pricks started in my feet and worked their way up my legs, becoming nails and then daggers punching great holes into my legs, my hips, my belly, my chest, my arms. I swayed as fur poked through my skin like tiny shards of ice.

“Oh, crap. Oh, crap, it worked!” someone said near my head. “Don’t fight the pain. Try not to scream. I’m right here. I’ll get you out.”

I bit down as hard as I could to keep from letting loose the guttural, primal noises of pain that rose in my throat. My shoulders heaved and my stomach lurched, spewing blood all over the wall just the other side of the figure in front of me. I wasn’t sure what was real through the consuming flames of pain that licked at my body. I heard snapping, felt twisting, pulling, jarring, my body jerked, spasming as I was yanked. My head hit the wall but before I could sink down its rough expanse, my body curled in on itself, hands extending, feet morphing, pain coloring everything. Teeth cut through my mouth, filling my throat with blood and fear.

I couldn’t hold back the agony building in my chest and a foreign noise, something like keening and barking mixed together, came out into the quiet space. Pinwheels of light spangled at the corners of my vision. Then, mercifully, everything went black.