Page 12 of Bullied Wolf Mate

“What do you want?” I demanded, forcing myself to stay focused.

“I want you to reconsider,” he begged. “Look at what these witches have already done to you. It’s only going to get worse if they figure out you’re actively working against them.”

“It’ll get worse if something isn’t done about them,” I argued, folding my arms.

“Sure, but let us handle that. You don’t need to put yourself in more danger.”

Rage bubbled inside me. “What does it matter to you, anyway?”

“It just does,” he snapped back.

“Well, it shouldn’t.” Decades of rage and resentment spilled out of me as I glared at him. “And even if it does bother you, too fucking bad. My decisions don’t affect you in any way, and you have no right to have any input in any of them in the first place. Stop acting like you have some bizarre right to make choices for me just because you used to chase me into bogs when we were younger.”

“I don’t care,” he said, standing straighter, a spark of infuriating self-righteousness glinting in his eyes. “I’m putting my foot down. You’re not helping.”

I snorted. “Have fun trying to stop me.”

He sighed, seeming to deflate. He took a step closer, and my heart leaped traitorously into my throat. Some primal part of me wanted to strip him and fuck him right then and there, despite my rage and hate. I took a step back, only to feel rough bark between my shoulder blades.

“Is that your final say in the matter?” he growled. His hand moved behind his back.

I nodded, chin out in defiance. “It is,” I said.

He nodded, eyes sweeping the area. “In that case, I’m sorry, but you leave me no choice.”

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled too late. His hand grabbed something from his back pocket, reemerging seconds later with a cloth. Before I could run, his free hand grabbed my wrist, holding me in place. He shoved the rag against my face as I opened my mouth to scream, smothering the sound as a sweet smell filled my nose.

Then everything went black.

Chapter 5 - Lorelei

I let out a scream of frustration, rattling the locked door and banging on it while I called Mark every foul word I could think of. By the time I had finished, my throat ached and my head throbbed. I hadn’t fully recovered from Inara’s captivity, it seemed. Sighing, I turned to face my surroundings, looking at what had effectively become my new cell.

Granted, it was a lot nicer than the one Declan and the others had rescued me from. The entire basement had been converted into what could be considered a small apartment. A small kitchen sat tucked in one corner, and there was a full bedroom and bath down the hall. You could live comfortably down here, no problem.

That didn’t change the fact that it was a cell.

I ran my fingers through my hair as I scanned the room, then looked back at the door. There wasn’t a chance he was going to let me out any time soon. I might as well relax.

The instant I told myself this, the thought of a hot shower after weeks of captivity sounded like heaven.

I found the shower, as well as a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants. I assumed they were Mark’s, but they would do.

Turning the heat on high, I waited a minute before stepping into the stream of water. I moaned as the hot water hit my skin, soothing my muscles and reassuring me that I was truly out of Inara’s grasp.

As I continued to shower, another question popped into my mind. Why the hell did Mark care? The guy hated my guts in high school. And now, he suddenly cared about my safety? It didn’t make sense. I knew the type of person he really was. Sowhy go to all this trouble? Was it some new sick joke? Something more? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care to think about it. If it wasn’t Mark, and if he hadn’t gone to the lengths of kidnapping me, the fact that he cared this much might have been sweet. But it was Mark. And there was no way he cared that much about me.

So what was his plan?

***

I could still remember the worst of his bullying. My parents had always been considered odd by the pack. We stayed where we were because, according to my parents, we had to. Something to do with protecting the entrance to The Trove.

The pack nearby didn’t particularly care for my family, but would still use them begrudgingly. Always at night when no one would see them. The adults were fine. It was the kids who were the real problem.

I couldn’t escape them at school. The nicest thing they called me was “freak.” The meanest was a tie between several things that I didn’t care to think about. On top of the gum in the hair and the constant giggling behind my back, I turned into the resident scapegoat. Every time one of the kids acted out in class, they always blamed me. Considering I had almost the same social status with adults as I did with the kids, they took the kids’ side with such frequency that I stopped arguing with them.

Mark had been the worst. I still didn’t know what I’d done to earn that distinguished honor, but he came up with any number of creative and mean ways of picking on me. His friends followed along.