The Captive

CONNOR

My skull throbbed from the red-eye flight, and I stank like I’d wrestled death in the tropics—which, in a way, I had. Twice.

But alpha duties came first. They waited for no man, not even one who needed a shower the way a sinner needed salvation.

“So, updates, please,” I barked, glancing at the four gathered men.

Josh, our pack’s IT guru, cleared his throat and sat straight.

“Yes, Josh?” I nodded at him. “You have something?”

“Not really, Alpha.” He leaned forward. “We’ve received no answer from whoever sent that email. No meetup, no proof of the threat—no evidence it’s even real.” He glanced at Travis, the pack’s head of security, before lowering his gaze.

“Travis?” I turned my attention to the burly redhead. “Have something to add? Maybe about that rogue you caught?”

I remembered vividly when Ben had told me about that. I’d been disembarking in Caracas when they’d let me know they’d found a rogue female matching the description of the so-called threat.

“Do you think she’s the one the email was talking about?” I continued.

The men around the table, who made up my security council, exchanged glances. Two seemed upset, while the other two appeared satisfied.

“That’s where we’re disagreeing, Alpha,” Ben said.

~I’m gone one week, and already there’s dissent.~ I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t understand. Isn’t she the only one here with dark hair and green eyes?”

“No,” Carl, my delta, answered, the scar down his cheek twitching how it always did when he was eager to speak. “I’ve ID’d three. Two sisters, born and raised here, mated and raising pups. The other joined about three years ago, mated to Jackson, our butcher.”

“They’re clearly not the threat, then, right?” I looked around the table as Josh and Ben shifted in their seats. “So it must be this rogue, no?”

This time, everyone glanced at Travis.

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming before the corners of his lips curled up. “~We~ think it is.” He motioned with his head toward Carl.

“Okay… And you two”—I jerked my chin at Ben and Josh—“don’t think it is?”

Ben shook his head. “No. Because she’s a rogue,” he said matter-of-factly.

He and I were of the same mind here, which was why I hadn’t gotten my hopes up when he’d first told me about capturing her at our southwestern border.

Rogues weren’t capable of maintaining a stable mental state. Without a pack and the guidance of an alpha, they went feral. Meaning, they were aggressive, unpredictable, and extremely dangerous. More animal than human and impossible to reason with or tame.

“And I don’t think she is,” Travis said. “A rogue, that is.”

“Oh, so she’s sane enough to talk?” This was news to me, and annoyance filled me that I was only now hearing about it. “What has she said?”

“Nothing,” Josh chimed in before shooting a glare at Travis. “Not a fucking word, Alpha.”

“That’s my point!” Travis sat forward on his chair, excitement lacing his words. “She’s literally said nothing!”

A knot of unease tightened in my stomach. Absolute silence during an interrogation was extremely rare—impossible, if you asked me. My wolf stirred, sensing something amiss.

“If she’s a rogue,” Travis continued, shaking his head, “she’s not like anyone I’ve encountered before.”

The room fell quiet as each man seemed to get lost in his own thoughts.

~It’s like pulling teeth with these guys today!~ My frustrated sigh broke the silence before I said to no one in particular, “Elaborate, please!”

“We know she hitched a ride with a human, in a truck,” Travis began, “so she must have some conversational skills, right? But all of a sudden she’s not saying jack shit? I mean, that takes control, doesn’t it? Especially considering…”

His words trailed off before he shrugged, wobbled his head, and looked down at his hands. He shifted in his seat, and I caught the others doing the same.

~They’re uncomfortable. What the fuck is going on?~ That twinge of unease twisted beneath my skin again, quickly replaced by anger. “Keep talking,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Um, well, my usual techniques didn’t work on her.” Travis didn’t meet my gaze when he spoke, giving me the first clue about why they were acting this way.

I couldn’t sugarcoat it; these interrogations were nothing more than torture sessions. I hated it, but my pack’s safety always came first.

And an alpha couldn’t show any weakness. If something were to happen, and I hadn’t done everything in my power to stop it, I couldn’t live with that—and neither could my pack.

“At some point,” Travis continued, “I thought that maybe she’s not a rogue, just a runaway from another pack.” He raised his head and sat straight. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has alpha blood or something because, damn, she’s strong!”

Ben scoffed, earning a glare from Travis, but he didn’t add to the conversation.

“Okay, so there’s disagreement about her rogue status,” I said. “I can settle that myself. Rogues don’t bend to alpha commands, so I’ll test her later. Right now, I need to know if she’s a threat to this pack. So, Travis, as head of security, do you believe she is?”

“Oh, yes. She’s a threat, all right.” He scooted forward and placed his elbows on the table. His hands narrated along as he spoke with growing excitement. “You see, I wasn’t sure at first, but then I saw all those scars on her body.

“I thought, that’s not normal, right? Werewolves don’t scar. So who did she piss off to earn those kinds of scars? Especially at such a young age? And, fuck, you can’t be that strong and also not a threat—”

“Travis!” I stopped him, and he looked at me half confused. “You’re rambling. Focus. You said she’s young?”

My question caused another ripple of discomfort to go through Ben and Josh, which knotted my insides further.

“How young?” I asked, almost dreading his answer.

Travis’s smile faltered, his confidence seeming to waver. He cleared his throat. “I can’t be certain—it’s not like she told us—but, I don’t know… eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?”

~So young?~ A chill ran down my spine. ~She couldn’t be the threat, then, could she? Have I ordered her torture for nothing?~ It was time to handle things myself.

“We’re done here.” I stood. My chair scraped back hard. “Carl, check other packs. If she’s not our threat, she could be a fucking decoy. Stay alert.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Carl said.

“As for the ~girl~”—I locked eyes with Travis at the word ~girl~—“I’m taking over her interrogation.”

“Alpha, if I may,” Travis said with a slightly bowed head, “I think I should continue. She’s close to cracking. I’ve been pretty creative in exploiting a nasty wound on her lower back, and she finally started whimpering. So at least we know she’s not mute.”

His words and his pride-filled tone left me speechless. I’d seen Travis’s handiwork before, and it’d always been precise. Clinical and purposeful, as much pain as necessary but as little as possible.

“I have to admit,” Travis continued, “I’ve never been this frustrated interrogating someone before. I mean, it’s been a week! I’ve tried every technique I know, and some new ones. But this girl…” He chuckled and shook his head. “She’s tough.”

Ben and Josh both looked as green as I felt.

But there was no going back now.

We’d been warned of a threat. We’d caught someone fitting that exact description at the borders of our land. And that someone was showing abnormal behavior under interrogation.

Those would be red flags to anyone, regardless of the perceived age of that threat.

I couldn’t punish Travis for obeying my orders, and I certainly couldn’t show any weakness. So, I thanked Travis for getting her this far and told him to stand down, that I’d try to get answers.

“I’m grabbing a shower and a bite to eat,” I added. “I’ll meet you at the cells in thirty. Ben, you come too. And Travis”—I looked him dead in the eye—“if she dies before I get there, I swear on the moon, I’ll make you wish you were the one chained up.”

“Yes, Alpha,” he muttered.

***

The walk to the cells cut through the woods, ten minutes of silence broken only by the crunch of boots on pine needles.

I’d built the place after a quake had taken out the old dungeons. This one had no windows, concrete walls thick enough to muffle screams, and a roof covered in moss and grass. It was hidden from satellites, hikers, and drones. Impenetrable.

Travis led the way to one of the interrogation rooms, all swagger and zero conscience—his “I’m the bad cop” persona. He motioned for the guard to open the door, and it creaked ominously, engineered to unsettle.

Like a freight train, her scent hit me: lavender, vanilla, and mint. My wolf stirred, and I inhaled deeply. The smell of blood and rot registered next, right as my eyes locked onto the figure hanging from chains in the middle of the room.

My blood turned to ice.

“Holy fuck, Travis! What did you do to her? Get her down! Get her down now!” In a flash, I was lifting her up to take the pressure off her wrists.

Her weight was nothing in my arms, prompting me to wonder how anyone could think this little girl could ever be a threat.

When I got a better look at her, what I saw made my blood boil.

A bruised and swollen foot, likely crushed. A knee out of socket. Gashes all over her body. Fingers bent at unnatural angles. Burned skin on her breasts and stomach. Both eyes swollen shut. A face unrecognizable as human. And blood, everywhere.

~Fuck!~

Travis finally lowered the chains, and I sank to the floor with her.

“Get me the doctor now!” I barked.

The guard bolted, but Travis looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“What the hell, Alpha?” he said. “I told you, we were just about to—”

“And ~I~ told ~you~ to get answers, not fucking kill her!” I shot him a glare and radiated my alpha aura, which brought him to his hands and knees in submission. “How can you get answers out of a corpse?”

“I can’t, Alpha, you’re right. I just—”

“Silence!” I commanded while my insides roiled.

Underneath the swollen, black-and-blue bruises on her face, I could almost make out her delicate features. The coppery tang of her blood hung thick in the air, overpowering her natural scent. Something in me yearned to smell it again, but I had to fix this mess first.

With an uneasy feeling, I picked up on something more disturbing: Her heartbeat was slowing.

~Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!~ “Bring me a defibrillator! ~Now~!”

Ben ran.

“Hold on. Hold on, please!” I said to the woman in my arms.

Her pulse fluttered before she opened one swollen eye. It was green, an impossible, beautiful green. Our gazes locked, and her life slipped away in that stare.

And then, her heart stopped.