She felt her brow arch before she realized she’d done it.
Chuckling, purr amplified as he leaned over, Toby grinned. “Trust me, sunshine.”
Wren trusted a burning building more than the madman with his dangerous fetishes.
“I’ll learn how to love you however you like best. You have my word on that, Jax. I’ll buy you pretty baubles, give you pretty dresses, and feed you all the water a girl could want.”
On and on went the diatribe, Wren’s eyes growing heavy. When well-muscled arms snuck around her and a shamefully misbuilt nest buckled under the Third Alpha’s weight, she slept.
That is until Caspian barged in, dragging Rosie behind him. “Get out. Your time with her is over.”
Chapter 3
Red lips painted to perfection, dressed in blue to bring out her eyes.
Rosie.
Perfect and pretty and not at all scarred.
Rosie, who didn’t bear the mark for defective upon her face.
Weight in the nest shifting at her back, Toby rolled his shoulders, stretching from his nap. All of it for show, Wren could sense that bone deep.
With a wink and a quick stolen kiss on parted lips, the dismissed Third Alpha said, “Be my sweet sunshine for Caspian.” In a snap, his gaze turned toward the couple at the door, all semblance of gentleness replaced with a murderous sneer. Voice loud enough to assure every word was heard, he announced, “And if Rosie touches you, I’ll kill her. It won’t be quick.”
Graceful, hazarding on careless, Toby climbed from the nest, heading out the door with no further word. Not even a glance at his scowling leader.
Nor did he so much as twitch at the snarled, “Later,” that came from his First.
The first thing someone learned upon being thrust into the Warrens was that bad things would always get worse. If you starved so hard your belly protruded, the next thing you knew, your first meal would give you dysentery. Many died this way.
Those who grew so thirsty they drank from the puddles knew the microbes would rot their teeth. What could be worse?
It would also rot them from the inside out.
Decaying that way took time… and led to an ugly death.
A female might be captured and forcibly mated. Perhaps three of them took her, used her, and toyed with her future for sport. Out of estrous they might mark her. They might threaten her family. They might break her and pretend at putting her back together.
They might contaminate unwelcome bonds that rattled bones and made her innards ache.
They might insult her by bringing in a more adequate female. By fucking her in front of them.
Reminding the Warrens rat that, claiming marks or no, she was nothing… and that it could always get worse.
Perhaps this knowledge was why Wren didn’t blink, expected nothing but ugliness from these males.
No matter Caspian’s promises, they would not keep Alec safe. But that didn’t mean she refused to play their game and put him in direct harm either.
Heal, earn their trust, flee.
Take her boys, sell her body along the monorail tracks to get them all out of Dale City. Steal if she had to. Run so far Caspian could never find them.
But these things took time. So for now, Wren sat up, the soft blanket Toby had used to cover her nakedness falling away to show bite-marked breasts. Each little matching crescent had almost healed thanks to the doctor’s advanced tech, his diligence, and his forced captivity it this room.
And he had been murdered for it. Wren didn’t doubt that for a minute.
He had been murdered because she’d slipped. A single errant whimper, that is what his life had been worth.
She wouldn’t slip again.
These men wanted to play house? Fine, she’d be their pretty mouse, their sunshine, their whore.
She’d eat their food, drink their water, take their medicine and grow strong. Eyes glowing with intention, Wren met the muddy gaze of a very bad man.
One look, and Caspian make a hungry sound, one so desperate she almost thought she’d heard him whine.
And maybe he did. Rosie certainly turned his way, an incredulous look on her perfect face.
“You’ve eaten today?”
Two bowls of the black goo, yes.
“Drank plenty of water?”
So much that Wren felt bloated and was annoyed by the near constant urge to pee.
“Are you in pain?”
So much fucking pain she hardly knew how to force the simple head shake of no.
Her nailbeds, though coated in scabs, stung. Her broken fingers itched and ached. Her skin had been sealed on the surface, thanks to the kind Beta doctor, but deeper wounds, all the bruising, were days away from anything but leaving her a pulped mass of aches.
Worse than all the physical ailments was the unseen one. The bone-deep internal twitch that was Toby’s crudely forged link. The buzzing pinching of her internal organs marked Caspian’s cruelty and connection.
The pair of them had infested her living corpse.