Page 2 of The Russos
Unless either Julie or I reminded her to eat or drink, she forgot. And she was still too thin for my liking. Annie had said she was in a type of mourning and to give her time. She had faith that all would be fine in time. Since her captivity and torture, Hannah couldn’t feel her tiger anymore, and it was hitting her hard. As shifters, we all understood where she was coming from. It wouldbe like missing a limb to suddenly not have the other part of your soul there to communicate with.
If I could, I’d go back in time and punish and kill them all over again.
I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
For now, I had this clusterfuck to sort out, thanks to Reggie’s sister Jaq. And I wasn’t happy. The three males who had arrived with her seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t in the mood to be sociable, so I’d locked myself in the office to call our contacts and get police checks done on the three of them.
I’d left them in Luca’s care as he’d known I wasn’t in the right place to entertain. I don’t know what I would have done without my brother this last month. I’d left running the ranch and security business solely to him. We had always been close, but this had brought us closer, and I knew that he would continue being there for both Hannah and me. He’d already started changing the house and had moved from the room next to mine into rooms on the other side of the house, so we’d have more privacy when Hannah was ready to move here to our home.
Sighing, I rubbed the tiredness from my face and picked up the phone to continue with the checks. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, but we had rules in place for a reason, especially where humans were concerned.
It was going to be a long night, but the sooner I got finished, the quicker I could head back to Joel and Julie’s place.
CHAPTER 3
HANNAH
Waking up, I was disoriented at first, because I was cold. The cold was nothing new; since my captivity and torture, I struggled to stay warm. The other reason I’d woke up was because of the hardness beneath me, which meant I wasn’t in my bed. For a horrified minute, I thought I was back in the cage and about to be tortured again.
That was until I heard a strange but soft voice speaking gently to me, “Hey, pretty lady. Are you okay? I’m going to lay my shirt around you, okay? I promise I won’t look.” I jerked as something soft was laid across my shoulders.
Pulling the shirt around my shoulders, I pulled my legs up tight to my body and realised that I was completely naked. Lifting my head, I looked up into kind blue eyes. I knew straight away that he was human; he didn’t have the muscular physique of a shifter, and when I inhaled, I could only smell human. At least I hadn’t lost that ability when I’d lost my tiger. Not taking his eyes off me, he spoke softly, and I realised that there was someone standing behind him, “Drake, go get Anton and Luca.”
Sniffing again, I smelled the scent of wolf and whimpered deep in my throat, pulling my legs tighter into my body and hiding myface in my knees. In the back of my mind, I know it’s not likely he’s a threat if he knows Anton and Luca. That didn’t stop me from breathing a sigh of relief as the wolf left to do as he was bid without speaking to me. Leaving me alone with the human male. I wasn’t too worried because even as weak as I was. I was still stronger than the average human male. The strange male continued to talk to me.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m just going to sit here and keep you company until one of the Russos arrives. I’m Jeremiah, but my friends call me Miah. Can I ask your name, pretty girl?”
Lifting my head from my knees, I looked at the human who had sat down a little way from me and pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around his knees, quietly waiting for me to give him my name.
“Hannah,” I croaked out. My throat was so dry and now that I’m more awake, I realise my whole body hurt, including my bones. It’s a familiar feeling. Like the feeling I got after the first time I’d shifted.But that can’t be right. I’m so confused, and tears are welling in my eyes. Looking around, I see I’m in what looks like an old machine shed where farm equipment had once been stored. It’s not quite light yet, but dawn is nearing. I can see the first light peeking from behind the trees. I don’t know how I got here.
“Hello, Hannah, are you thirsty? You can have some of my water. I promise I don’t have any weird bugs, and I don’t backwash,” Miah informs me with a smile, holding out the bottle of water to me with the lid still on.
I’m desperate for a drink, but I can’t make myself reach out and take it. That was one way they used to drug me to make mesleepy before they’d inject me with the other shit to keep me docile.
Licking my lips, I look longingly at the bottle, but in the end, I shake my head.
Miah nods as if that was the right response, “Good girl, not taking a drink from a random stranger. I can see you’re thirsty, though, and I can’t let you suffer, so I’ll drink half the bottle, and you can have the rest, okay? That way, if there is something wrong with it, I get dosed too.”
Taking my silence for agreement, he opens up the bottle of water and drinks half of it down before reaching his hand out to hand the bottle to me. I study him as he patiently waits for me to make up my mind. With a shaky hand, I reach for the bottle and take it from him, bringing it to my lips. I sip the water, and it feels so good as it slips past my dry lips and down my parched throat. I drink a little at a time, knowing from experience that drinking it fast on an empty stomach will make me throw up.
“That’s it, pretty girl. Slowly does it,” Miah encourages as I finish the water and hand him back the empty bottle.
I pull his shirt from around my shoulders and slip it over my head and down my body. It covers the most important bits, and I smile a little as he lets out a relieved breath when I’m covered. It doesn’t smell right, and I don’t like that I have another man’s shirt touching my skin. It feels like it has needles pricking in it where the shirt touches me, but I’d noticed Miah kept his eyes on the roof or above my head when he spoke to me. I figured he was uncomfortable with my nudity, and going by his relieved sigh, I was right. I wasn’t too happy about being naked in front of him either, given how much of my scars he was seeing.
A smile tugged at my lips when he said, “Thank you, it was getting hard to talk to you and not look at your eyes.”
“Where am I?” I question.
He looks taken aback at my question like he wasn’t expecting me not to know where I was. “Um, you are on the Russo property. About two kilometres from the main house. Drake and I were out for a run when he said he smelt something in this shed. So, we came to investigate, and we found you.”
Nodding my understanding, I don’t reply. I know I should get up, but I’m just so tired. It’s about then that I hear him coming, and I struggle to stand up. I growl slightly in warning as Miah stands to help, and he backs away with his hands up just as Anton and Luca rush into the barn.
Anton slows and walks right up to me, his arms automatically wrapping around me, “Baby girl, what are you doing here?”
I can’t help it; I start to sob as soon as his arms envelop me. “I don’t know how I got here. I went to sleep at Julie’s and woke up here. Naked. My whole-body aches, Anton, like I shifted, but my tiger has disappeared. I don’t understand it.”
“Okay, baby girl. Don’t cry, let's get you home. We need to call Julie and Joel to let them know where you are. But first I need you out of this shirt. I don’t like that you have another male’s shirt covering you,” Anton croons softly in my ear.