I felt like he had punched me in the stomach. A whole host of childhood memories I’d tried to suppress rushed toward me like a puddle of filthy water seeping under a locked door.
“You…you…” I fought to catch my breath. “You’re the one…” I clenched my cuffed hands into fists. “You’re the one who murdered my father!”
He snorted.
“Murdered? Guess again, girly. I killed him in a fair fight—him and Drew Callahan both—even though the two of them tried to double team me by becoming blood brothers. But I was too strong for ‘em. Ripped out both their throats that night.”
“No! No!” I wanted more than ever to put my hands over my ears—I didn’t want to hear his words, didn’t want to remember the awful past they brought up! But it was too late, the locked door was creaking open and more of the filthy water was rushing into my formerly pristine mind.
The strange things I’d seen under the full moon as a child…the searing pain when the branding iron bit into my flesh…Mamma screaming at Daddy that he was crazy for branding their baby and then later, standing at the door with a stony face while the two policemen told her that Daddy was dead, that he’d been killed in a fight and we would never see him again…And then, just a little while later, the car wreck that took her life as well and landed me in the hospital with no one to come see me or soothe me when I cried and cried…
It was all the worst parts of my childhood rolled into a big ball of shit and shoved right in my face. It was too damn much! And that wasn’t even all—the memories wanted to keep coming.
The time spent in the foster system—my years at the Spauldings’ house and the way my foster father, Gary Spaulding’s eyes followed me once my body started to ripen…the things he tried to do to me…
“No!” I gasped again, pressing my cuffed hands to my eyes. My forearm burned and throbbed—I didn’t want to remember this—any of it! I had made a good life for myself up in New England—a safe place where I could forget all my childhood trauma and live a normal, healthy adult life. Why had I ever come back here? What was wrong with me, throwing myself into the lion’s den this way?
More like the wolf’s den, whispered an ominous little voice in my head that I tried desperately to ignore.
“Hey, Chief—what’s wrong with her?” The voice of my original captor—Deputy Boyd—sounded worried.
“Nothin’ a little hard breeding won’t fix,” the voice of my father’s murderer answered easily. “Leave ‘er be, Boyd. I’ll tend to her myself once we get going—gonna finally claim what’s mine.”
His words sent a cold chill down my spine. Was he intending on breeding me himself? The thought of him anywhere near me with his stale cigarette breath and his yellow teeth made me want to retch.
“You stay away from me!” I said in a trembling voice, glaring up at him again. “You touch me and I…I’ll kill you!”
He smirked at me, his yellow teeth gleaming in the moonlight.
“That’s fine—you fight if you want. I like a bitch with some fight in her. Makes the breeding even more interesting.” Then he turned his attention back to the vanload of single women and raised his voice importantly.
“Listen up now, the moon’s getting high, so this Open Breeding is about to begin. I just want to remind y’all that as Were bitches, it’s your sacred duty to slake the Alphas’ lust.” He winked at the assembled women knowingly. “Things can get a little ‘hairy’ around here on full moon nights, as I’m sure y’all have probably heard, but that don’t make no difference. Once an Alpha catches you, you must let him breed you—even if he’s in his Fur Form at the time.”
“But…isn’t that breaking one of the Unbreakable Rules?” a soft feminine voice asked timidly. It was the green-eyed girl I’d been sitting by and she looked scared out of her wits.
McCain snorted and made a shooing gesture, dismissing her fears as though he was waving off a pesky fly.
“We don’t believe breeding in Fur Form is a problem here in Wolverton,” he said shortly. In fact, we think there are some definite benefits to it. Did you know a Were bitch is nearly twice as likely to get a big belly after being knotted by an Alpha in his Fur Form than if he just took her in human form? And don’t you want to bear an Alpha’s child?”
“I…I guess so,” the girl whispered. “But the Alpha wolves are so big.”
“Hell yeah, we’re big, girly!” Deputy Boyd gave a nasty sounding laugh. “Big everywhere if you know what I mean!”
“Now, Boyd, don’t scare the girl,” McCain admonished. “An Alpha licking you can help you stretch for his knot, which is something you ought to know by now,” he told the frightened girl. “We got compounds in our saliva to make you open up. So you just be a good girl and get on your hands and knees and spread your legs wide when you get caught. If you’re lucky, the Alpha who catches you will put his tongue inside you first, before he shoves his knot in—all right?”