Chapter 1

 

All things considered, it hadn’t been the worse three months of Reese Warren’s life. That top honour still went to the months following her parents’ deaths, but the last three months certainly had been the weirdest.

As she paced restlessly back and forth in the room she had begun to think of as the ‘waiting room’, she wished for the hundredth time that she had never gone outside to investigate the round ball of light hovering in the back yard.

She almost hadn’t. She had almost chalked it up to some weird surge of electricity from the massive thunder and lightning storm and gone to bed, but in the end her natural curiosity couldn’t be contained.

She snorted bitterly. Her mother had always told her that curiosity killed the cat and although it hadn’t killed her, it hadn’t prepared her to be sucked into some alternate universe like a woman in a bad science fiction movie.

Not an alternate universe, Reese. An alternate world. God, pay attention would you?

She could almost hear Louisa’s disapproving tone in her head. She sighed and sank to the floor beside the barred window. She missed the old woman, missed her more than she would admit. She had been the only link to her world - to her earth - and with her gone, she was terribly lonely.

It’s your own fault, she scolded herself fiercely. Louisa tried to warn you to keep your mouth shut about your earth but you didn’t listen, did you? You just had to try and convince them that electricity and cars, and airplanes and stores that served nothing but coffee, existed. Tried to convince them that a giant ball of light had sucked you in and threw you down into this strange world.

The men who had captured her only hours after she had walked out of the woods, dirty and bruised, had laughed and called her “barto”. She had found out later that barto was the word for crazy in this world.

Perhaps because she was still numb from the deaths of her parents, or perhaps because she half-believed she was in some strange never-ending dream, she hadn’t really freaked out when the men had chained her and taken her to a large, gated complex. She had been left in a room full of other women. They had been nice enough to her until she had started babbling about her own world. After that they had avoided her.

Only Louisa had gone near her and that was only because she was from the same world as Reese. She had taken Reese’s arm in a firm grip and dragged her away as Reese was trying, very patiently she thought, to explain to a young woman named Rhea about cell phones and the internet.

It had taken Reese a few days to understand exactly what Louisa had explained to her. Even now, three months later, she wasn’t sure she still entirely believed that there was no way back home for her ever again.

She sighed and stared out the window. Louisa had been taken to auction two weeks ago, and Reese missed her more than she thought possible. She hoped the old woman was okay, hoped that someone kind had bought her and was treating her well. She sighed again. She would never see Louisa again and now it was her turn to go to auction.

The door to the room opened and Reese watched with a numb disinterest as the man she inwardly called the warden walked through. He was followed by three of the biggest men she had ever seen in her life. All three of them had dark hair and dark eyes and they were all pulling and tugging on their clothing with obvious discomfort.

Malana was standing near her, her eyes wide and her mouth a quivering “o”, as she stared at the three men. Reese tugged lightly on the young woman’s arm.

“What’s going on? Are we not being taken to the auction room?”

Malana must have been truly desperate for comfort because she immediately wrapped her arms around Reese’s waist and clung to her like a frightened child. “God help us.”

“Help us from what?” Reese asked. “What’s going on?”

“It’s – it’s a private sale,” Malana whispered.

“Well, that has to be better than being paraded around like a cow in front of a roomful of men, doesn’t it?” Reese replied.

Malana gave her a frightened look. “You don’t understand. Those – those men are not men.”

Reese glanced at them. They looked like men to her. Big men, but still just men. “What do you mean?”

“They’re shifters, Reese,” Malana whispered.

“What do you mean shifters?” Reese frowned at the smaller woman.

Malana gave her a look of frustration. “Shifters! They shift into animals.”

Reese blinked in surprise. “What kind of animals?”

“If I had to guess, these ones are wolves or bears,” Malana replied. “They’re so big.”

She stared wide-eyed at the men. “We’re dead if they choose us.”

As the warden waited and the three men talked amongst themselves, Reese rubbed Malana’s trembling back. “Why would you say that?”

Malana swallowed thickly. “Shifters rarely have anything to do with humans. Many of them hunt us like – like we’re deer.”

A trickle of fear ran down Reese’s spine. She took a deep breath and shook it off. “Why would they pay money for us just to hunt us down and kill us, Malana? Don’t be silly.”

Malana gave her a look of stark fear. “If they not buying us to hunt then they’re buying us for sex. I would rather be hunted.”

Before Reese could reply the warden moved to the middle of the room. “Line up, ladies!”

Reese and the other women, there were more than fifteen of them crowded into the small room, lined up obediently. The three men walked back and forth in front of them. Malana squeezed Reese’s hand painfully when their gazes landed on them and Reese winced. She tried to free her hand but Malana refused to let go until the men had continued past them.

After a few moments, the men had a whispered conversation with the warden. He nodded and walked to the line of women. He began to pull a few of them forward roughly. When he stopped in front of Reese and Malana, the young woman started to cry.

“Stop your blubbering, girl,” he said roughly. “They have no use for you.”

He took Reese’s shoulder and pulled her out of the line. “Stand there.”

Reese and four other women stood silently as the warden herded the other women from the room. He shut the door and stared at the women.

“These men are going to look you over. Resist and you’ll be beaten. Do you understand?” He snapped.

The women nodded. A few of them were crying as two of the men stepped closer. Reese, her body trembling and her breathing shallow, straightened her back. If these men really were some kind of half-man, half-beast mutation, her job as a vet tech had taught her not to show fear around animals.

She watched with wide eyes as the two men examined the women standing to her right. They had the women open their mouths so they could look at their teeth. The men held the women’s faces, studying their eyes and probing at their ears like they really were cattle.

Her mouth dropped open and she took a step back when the men slipped their hands under the plain blue blouses that all of the women wore. When Reese had first arrived they had stripped her of all of her clothing except her underwear. She had been wearing the same blue blouse and brown skirt that the rest of the women wore since then. Although it was actually sort of freeing to not be wearing a bra, she wondered exactly what her heavy breasts would look like ten years from now. She was young enough that they were still perky but after years of no support, she guessed they’d be hanging around her goddamn knees.

She shook her head. What the hell was she doing? She was about to be touched and examined like a piece of meat and she was concerned about her breast perkiness? She snorted and forced her attention back to the other women. The men were squeezing their breasts before running their hands over their abdomens and then grabbing their asses through their long skirts. The smallest of the men even bent and lifted one woman’s skirt, studying her thick calves and thighs with interest.

Reese realized that all four women were similar to her. Although she was the tallest and heaviest, all of the women had large breasts and wide hips. As the two men worked their way down the line, she felt the hot breath of the warden on the back of her neck.

“Behave yourself, woman,” he snarled softly.

Reese tensed when his hand stroked her back.

“Keep that smart mouth of yours shut or the beatings you received before this will be nothing compared to the one you’ll get,” he warned quietly.

She arched her back away from the despicable man’s touch. She hated the warden, hated him with every fibre of her being and it was all she could do not to turn around and spit on him. Her temper had always gotten her in trouble and it had been no different in this world. Even the frequent beatings she had received had not yet been enough to curb her wayward tongue.

The smallest of the men stopped in front of her. He smiled at her in a friendly way and reached for her as the third man stepped forward. Unlike his companions, he had not bothered to examine any of the women. He had been standing back, staring at them with a bored expression on his face while the women had been touched and examined.

“Move back, Theran.” His voice was low and hoarse, as if he didn’t use it much.

The man in front of her stepped away immediately and Reese stared up at the man who took his place. She was just shy of six feet but she still had to crane her neck to look at him. He was the biggest of the three men, and she judged his height to be somewhere around the seven-foot mark. His shoulders and chest were broad and heavy with muscle. His lower body was clad in a pair of loose cotton pants but she had no trouble seeing how thick and strong his thighs were. Dark scruff covered his angular jaw, and there was a strange twinge in her stomach when she stared at his full lips. She forced her gaze up to his and saw surprise in his dark eyes. The rest of the women had cowered and stared at the floor while they were being examined, but she would be damned if she stood meekly by while some strange man groped her.

He stared at her eyes and she wondered what he was thinking. They were her most striking feature. Technically they were considered blue, but in most light they looked very close to violet.

She stood still when his large hands cupped her face and his thumbs pressed at her mouth. She opened her mouth and did nothing when he examined her teeth before checking inside her ears and running his hands over her thick, dark hair.

His breath was warm on her face and she continued to stare at him as he ran his hands over her neck and shoulders. It wasn’t until he reached for her breasts that she jerked back and shoved him hard in the chest. He grunted in surprise, his eyebrows drawing into a frown, but didn’t stumble back. She might as well have tried shoving a large boulder.

Reese cried out when the warden punched her hard in the middle of her back. Not expecting it, she pitched forward into the chest of the giant standing in front of her. He made a low growl, she could feel it vibrating in his chest, and his arms clamped around her hips when she started to struggle back.

“She’s a wild one.” The warden reached to cuff her across the head and Reese cringed. Before he could land the blow, the man holding her grabbed the warden’s arm in one hard hand.

“Enough,” he grunted.

The warden winced and nodded before stepping back and rubbing at his arm.

“Hold still, human,” the giant rumbled.

Reese glared at him. It wasn’t like she had much choice. His arm was still clamped around her hips like a band of steel. Her back was throbbing where the warden had punched her and she flinched when the man ran his hand down her back.

He frowned and moved his hand to her ass. He squeezed it firmly. Reese hissed at him like an angry cat and slapped at his hand. He scowled and took her wrists in one large hand, holding them firmly.

“Hold still,” he repeated.

His free hand reached for one full breast and Reese twisted violently in his grasp. “If you touch me there, I’ll kill you,” she warned.

He stared silently at her for a moment, his hand resting on her round abdomen, before dropping his hand to her hip. He rubbed it gently before slipping his hand under her shirt and stroking the bare skin of her side. She was dismayed to feel a tingle of lust go through her.

Shit, she thought frantically as a strange look came over his face. Big men had always been her weakness, probably because she was so tall herself, and this was the biggest man she’d ever met. It didn’t help that he was actually kind of handsome with his dark eyes and full lips.

He leaned in and buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply. Goosebumps rose on her flesh and she whimpered softly when he suddenly licked her throat with his warm, wet tongue. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her. Lust had roared to life within her and without realizing it, she leaned into his warm body.

This time when his hand reached for her breast, she made no attempt to struggle away. He cupped her bare breast. His thumb rubbed over her erect nipple and she made another soft whimper of need.

She stumbled and nearly fell when he abruptly pulled away from her. She stared mutely at him with her pulse pounding and her blood roaring through her veins. He snorted derisively and turned to his companions.

“He’ll like this one. She’s easily aroused.”

Reese’s face flamed with embarrassment and she bent her head and stared at the floor. What the fuck had just happened?

The warden cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want this one? She’s not obedient. I know your – your kind like your women submissive.”

The man ignored him and stared at his companions. “Do you agree?”

The one named Theran shrugged. “We can’t take just her. He wanted a choice, remember?”

The man snorted angrily. “So we have to feed a bunch of humans because he could not be bothered to make the trip himself and pick out one.”

The second man laughed. “They’ll be useful in other ways. You know that as well as I do, Kane.”

Kane sighed. “I never thought I would live to see the day we had humans in our pack.”

The second man pulled at the collar of his shirt. “We cannot disobey our alpha’s demands.”

“I know that, Hanif. Do you believe me to be simple?” Kane growled.

“Of course not,” Hanif said hurriedly. He bowed his head in a show of submission to the bigger man.

“We will each pick one. He can choose from them. If he doesn’t find any of them pleasing, he can come back and choose his own mate,” Kane said with finality.

He turned back to the warden and pointed at Reese. “We’ll take her and two more that my brothers will choose.”

The warden nodded as Kane stepped forward and took Reese’s wrist in one large hand. She pulled futilely and he growled at her. “Enough or I will drag you from this room by your hair. Do you understand?”

She glared at him and nodded shortly before following him toward the door.