Page 21 of The Hunter's Heart
She straightened, her whole body trembling, and screeched as Lucian’s father grabbed her arm and shoved her forward. “Move, bitch. And don’t bother calling for help. All your guards are dead.”
Lucian followed her and his father, keeping an ear out for movement. The guards he hadn’t killed had been killed by his father. Blood and death coated the air. He had a fleeting impulse to go find more ravens to kill, but Mia’s safety overrode that thought as quickly as it came.
Dahlia was sobbing as she led them down a hall to a door with a security keypad. She paused, her fingers hovering just over the numbers.
Lucian’s father pressed a clawed finger to her chin. “In case you didn’t see the bloodbath we just walked through, don’t get any ideas. You will take us to Mia or I will kill you right now and we’ll find her ourselves.”
Dahlia sniffled and pressed the keys. The door unlocked and revealed an elevator. She entered another code, and they could hear the whir of the gears as the elevator was brought up. When the doors opened, the elevator was empty, but Lucian suspected that most of the guards had been aboveground anyway. They took the elevator down one floor, and he heard Mia as soon as the doors opened. Her voice was low and raw, as if she didn’t have the strength to talk. She was begging for someone to stop, her words halted by choking sobs.
Everything inside him went profoundly quiet. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Dahlia was slowly pulling a small gun from her pocket. Lucian slammed her against the wall, the gun clattering to the floor as she gasped. Mia’s soft cries reached through the rage that surrounded him, and he let go of his grip on Dahlia and raced down the hallway.
In a heartbeat he had kicked the door open and found himself in a sterile-looking room. Mia was strapped to a hospital bed, with three males standing around her. Her face was streaked with tears, her whole body flushed with arousal.
“Mine!”
CHAPTERSEVEN
Mia’s body felt like it was on fire. Everything within her burned. Sweat dripped from her skin, trailing across her flesh and soaking the sheet under her. Her arms and legs ached from attempting to pull herself free from her bonds, but she remained firmly shackled no matter how much she struggled.
The lock clicked, and she couldn’t muster the strength to lift her head. She didn’t hear a male voice or the heavy footfall that preceded one of them coming for her. Forcing her head up, she blinked blurry eyes at the door and found Fawn standing there.
“What?” Mia rasped, her throat parched.
Fawn rushed to her and lifted a needle.
“No,” Mia said, “Please.”
“It’s an antidote. I saw what they did to you with the third dose. There’s another one coming. It’s so strong, it’s killed females. This will lessen what you’re going through now so you don’t die with the next dose.”
She plunged the needle into Mia’s arm and a chill swept over her. For one all-too-brief moment, everything quieted within her. Her heartbeat slowed and her vision cleared, and the constant painful arousal ebbed.
“Let me go,” Mia said.
“I’ve done too much as it is. I turned off the cameras so no one will know it was me, but if you tell on me, I’ll find a way to make things worse.” Fawn tucked the syringe into her pocket and hurried from the room, the door shutting and locking behind her.
The peace that she got from the antidote didn’t last long; her arousal began ramping up again as the minutes ticked by. Although bad, it was less than it had been, more like the second dose than the terribly strong third one. She couldn’t imagine how bad a fourth dose would be. She shuddered to think how awful it would be to die from artificial arousal.
The door opened again. She hoped it was Fawn, coming back to set her free, but this time there was no small female at the door. Instead, a group of males entered. Dario wasn’t with them, and the look in their eyes told her they liked how helpless she was. How at their mercy she was.
She’d never felt so defenseless in her life. Her body and her mind warred with each other as the males approached. They taunted her, pressing their hands to her body, each little touch driving her arousal higher and weakening her resolve. She wished she was strong enough to break the bonds holding her and fight back. These were the worst sort of males, who took pleasure in causing harm to vulnerable females. If they had sex with her, they wouldn’t use condoms. Even though the mating heat was artificial because of the drugs, her wolf wouldn’t know the difference, and she’d be mated to the first male who climaxed inside her.
“Stop,” she begged, as another male put a hand low on her belly.
“Aw,” he chuckled. “Pretty little wolfy. I bet you’d like my big dick in your cunt, yeah? Tell me how much you want it and maybe I’ll let you come.”
She curled her fingers into her palms, her nails biting into her flesh as she struggled against the leather bindings. Tears blinded her. Her body ached so badly, far worse than any heat she’d gone through before.
The door smashed open, and the three males shouted in surprise. She lifted her head and met the new male’s gaze. Even though he looked different, she recognized him immediately.
Lucian.
His body was bigger and more muscular. His chest was bare, and the tattoos that covered his skin looked strange, as if they were fading. Normally cropped short, his hair had grown long and shaggy, brushing his broad shoulders, and his pants were ripped as if the fabric hadn’t been able to hold his thick legs.
“Mine!” Lucian roared. The word was full of possession and fury; it made her skin goosebump.
He moved so swiftly that she couldn’t track him. One moment he was at the open door, and the next he’d grabbed the male who was touching her, broken his arm with a loud crack, and sent the howling raven slamming into the wall. The two other ravens scattered, one reaching for a gun and the other a knife. Lucian killed them both within seconds of each other, their blood spraying the air as their bodies fell, lifeless, to the white tile floor.
Lucian turned slowly to face her. He was covered with blood, his hands a glossy dark red. He bared his teeth, but instead of human-shaped blunt ones, they were all long and sharp. His eyes were crimson like glowing coals. He picked the dead males up one by one and tossed them from the room, and then he stalked over to her.