A tear slipped out of my eye, my breathing shorter, raspier. "I'm not telling you where to find my sister."
His blue eyes flashed. "Sister. Mmm, I've never had two sisters before."
He emphasised his vile statement by grabbing my shirt and ripping it open, buttons popping everywhere. I whimpered, trying to crawl away. The collar yanked on my sore throat.
"You'll tell me where to find her," he disagreed after a moment, holding me captive by a bruising grip on my hips. My jeans tangled around my knees. He hadn't even bothered to remove them. "You just need a little incentive, hmm, beta?"
I shook my head, choking on tears. "No."
"That's my least favourite word," he muttered, and flipped me onto my front, the chain pulling at the collar around my throat until I choked, gasping for air.
"Whoops," he laughed, untangling the chain until I could breathe shallowly. "Don't want you to suffocate before I've got what I need, do we?"
Oh, god.
I kicked behind me, but I couldn’t do much with my legs knotted in denim, and then his jeans brushed the backs of my thighs as he loomed over me. A rough hand pressed my chest into the old mattress. I choked on the smell of stale fabric and Anatoly's scent of burnt, blackened meat. I'd never eat meat again. If I survived. If I ever got out of here.
Chained and collared like this, he could keep me here for days. Weeks. Longer.
My stomach cramped, bile splashing my throat, but I pressed my lips together and refused to be sick. I had nothing left except my dignity and an iron-willed refusal to put my sister in danger. I couldn't stop the tears spilling hot tracks down my face, but I could hold back the vomit. If only because I knew what was about to happen—and could find no way to stop it—and I didn't want my face pressed into a pool of vomit while this monster violated me.
"Stay still," he growled so loud that my breath caught, my tears flowing faster, and my body betrayed me, going deadly still. "Nowrelax, beta. This'll make you feel good, promise."
The sound of a zip made my heart stop.
I shook my head, pulling against the collar around my throat, not caring if I choked, just needing to get away, to run, to doanythingin my power to stop him—
A hand slid under me and pawed roughly at my bra, yanking it down to squeeze my boob; his body arched over me with a purr.
My body dropped flat to the mattress with an automatic gasp, but there was nothing comforting in the sound, no reassurance, only a cold determination. And a command that I relax.
"Come on," Anatoly muttered, yanking down my underwear and ignoring my choked sob. With his purr, I was too weak to get up, to push him away, but I tried, batting uselessly at his thighs as they knocked mine apart. "Get wet, beta."
I choked on a sob, a plea for help whining out of me when he purred louder. The sound was so deep and all-consuming that my breathing fell apart and I burst into wrenching, awful tears.
"Fun fact," Anatoly murmured, grabbing my hips and dragging them up off the bed, propping my knees against the creaky mattress. "Tears turn me on."
"Please," I rasped weakly, my eyes screwed shut and vomit on my tongue.
"You'd better get wet, beta. Not for me; I couldn't give a shit. A hole's a hole. But don’t scream when it hurts; that's Mads's thing, not mine. Too fucking loud."
"Please," I begged again, trying to crawl across the mattress but only gaining two inches before he gripped my hips and hauled me back.
"Fine. Your choice."
I bit my lips together, refusing to give him the cries he liked. But when he finally forced into me, my lips parted on a violent scream and Anatoly answered with a growl that promised I'd regret the sound.
3
Priest
My heart drummed against my chest as I waited by the front door of the Hunter's house. Guardian hovered beside me, his hands flexing at his sides and his back rigid with stress. These rescue operations were never easy, but no matter how haunting they were, it was the right thing to do. As alphas—and the betas among us—we were in a position to get people away from their abusers.
If my niece Lavinia hadn't been abducted and raped, I might have turned out like one of those alphas inside. I'd had the right cocktail of circumstances; I came from a low-income, morally grey family of criminals and bastards. By the time I was twenty, I'd already been in jail twice.
But finding my niece the way I did, and then seeing her unravel afterward changed me in ways I was still recovering from twenty years later. If there'd been someone like the Alpha Knights MC back then, it might not have taken my family aslong to find her. We might have been able to help her before hopelessness covered her like a funeral shroud.
We might have been able to stop her killing herself.