Mind Mates (Pull of the Moon Book 2) (4 page)

She wanted to go home.

Home.
Her heart clenched with soul-deep
longing.

Her phone rang, startling her. She fumbled it out.

“H-hello?”

“Emma.” Dr. Light’s voice was tight with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Gabriel took his responsibilities as owner of the Choice Buy seriously. Each employee, when hired, was offered a comprehensive benefits package including a free emergency bracelet engraved with allergies and medical conditions, plus a toll-free number to call if they were in any kind of trouble. Many wore the bracelet twenty-four-seven.

The bracelet had an added benefit—a touch of magic. If the employee felt him- or herself in immediate danger, Gabriel’s phone would chirp an alert. Thanks to basic human nature, he got an alarm from one employee or another a couple times a month.

So he wasn’t surprised when, while waiting in line with a hundred other cars to board the ferry, his phone signaled.

Not simply a chirp, but a whooping red alert.

Gabriel’s battle-mage training ensured he didn’t fluster easily. Instead he went the opposite, cool and focused. He drew the phone smoothly from his pocket, knowing he’d linked the alert spell to an app that dialed the employee directly. All he had to do was press Talk.

Cool burst into hot shock when he saw the caller ID of the employee in trouble.

Emma.

He punched the green call button, his finger trembling slightly. When she answered, he barked, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing?”

“Don’t lie to me, Emma. Don’t ever lie to me.” He clamped down on his impatience to save her
now,
throttling back his gut-clenching fear to keep his tone calm and reassuring, for her. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help.”

“I’m sorry, but…” Her high, tight voice said how scared she was. “I c-can’t get you involved.”

“It’s Bruiser, isn’t it? I mean Bruce.”

Sucked-in air. “How did you…?”

“Routine follow-up with your employment application.” He cursed himself, damned the rampant emotions roiling in him that had let the alpha’s real name slip out, a slight sign to a smart woman that he knew about the magical community, very slight, but Emma was very smart.

“Bruiser…it’s a nickname.”

“I know. What did he do?”

She hiccupped a laugh that didn’t sound amused at all, but rather on the edge of hysterical. “He locked me in his room.”

“He
what?
” Wolves were high-handed, and alphas dictatorial, but few crossed the line into downright felony. “Why?”

“H-he thinks he’s going to m-marry me.”

Wolves didn’t lock up their wives, their mates. They’d never violate a wolf’s sacred pair bonding that way. Bruiser must be submitting her to a cheaper, degrading version of mating the worst of the alphas sometimes indulged in—concubine stable.

Pretty, feisty, smart little Emma, locked away and reduced to a sex slave? She’d quickly wither and die.

He knew enough about wolf culture and ritual that this wouldn’t be something she could deprogram. If Bruiser completed the ritual, Emma’s life would be over.

Gabriel snarled. She needed his help, and she needed it now. He started his engine.

The ferry gate opened. The first car crept onto the auto deck. A glance at his phone showed it to be eight o’clock.

“Scrambled eggs and damn.” Mentally, he was already doing the math. The wolf pack quartered in a condo complex near Scottville, maybe fifteen minutes from here via US 10, another fifteen minutes back. Considering he’d have to break into the alpha’s strongroom, could he make it there, free Emma, and drive back in time to catch the ferry?

With sail time set for half an hour from now, it seemed unlikely.

He dug his free hand into his hair. Rescuing Emma might make him miss the ferry. Missing the ferry might make him late helping Sophia.

Might make him too late to save his sister’s life.

“D-Dr. Light? Are you there?”

Emma’s voice was so small, so hopeless.

Swearing again, he swerved out of line, spun a U-ey and, tires screaming, tore out of there. “I’m coming, Emma. Just hang on.”

Chapter Four

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

At the rough growl, Emma spun to see Bruiser stride into the room. Before she could stop him, he snatched her phone from her frozen hand and threw it to the floor, so hard it cracked and burst into a pile of component parts.

She stared at it, trembling, swallowing hard, swallowing again. As a Techie Titan, given enough time and spare parts, she could put the thing back together.

But the shock of his violence, the sight of her poor phone there on the floor, insulted, broken, its usefulness disrespected and ultimately devalued, made her feel fragile. Helpless.

No, it was worse than that. He’d smashed, not just the phone, but
her connection to Dr. Light.
Without it, she felt lost.

Utterly alone.

How would Dr. Light know where to find her now?
Her
condo’s address was listed on the employee application, not her alpha’s. Although Dr. Light was smart. He might figure it out.

She didn’t know if the idea relieved her or scared her worse. Human against alpha wolf—the math wasn’t comforting.

Bruiser latched onto her wrist and hauled her stumbling from the room. She tried to put on the brakes. “What are you doing? Moonrise isn’t for another hour.”

“Pre-ritual ritual.” His lecherous grin curdled her stomach.

He dragged her out of the condo and across the hallway into 1B, where three thin, bruised women cowered in a living room that had once been pretty but was now threadbare, its wallpaper faded, its furniture and decorations tattered.

“Ladies. You get another roommate tonight.” He pointed at one, a dishwater blonde. “You. Go get the drink.”

The blonde leaped to her feet—and tottered a moment, off balance because of the protuberance of her belly. She was pregnant.

Emma swallowed bile. This was Bruiser’s harem. These women looked so unhappy, so beaten.

How long would it take the he-wolf to make her look like them?

The blonde slunk back in with a plastic tumbler, offering it to Bruiser with a thin, trembling hand.

Emma’s veins iced. Her single advantage was mobility. Gone, if he drugged her. “What is that?”

“You ask a lot of questions. I thought it was cuz you’re smart, but now I think it’s cuz you’re a nosy bitch. Shut up and drink.”

He grabbed the glass from the blonde and shoved it into Emma’s face.

One whiff told her it was laced with barbiturates.

Smart? Damn it, she had to be smart now, smarter than Bruiser—or at least smart enough to think her way out of the immediate threat, drinking this crap.

Seemed impossible, with him watching so closely.

Her shoulders slumped. Maybe it was for the best. Her chances of escaping were thin; her chance of rescue even thinner. If she drank the drugged liquid, at least she wouldn’t be horrifyingly conscious for the abuse coming. She reached for the glass.

Her hand trembled like the blonde’s.

Fuck, no way.
She was
not
going gentle into that good night. Bruiser might win in the end, but she was going to fight him with tooth and claw the whole way, even if blood ran down her fur…

Wait, that was it. She had to drink—but the liquid didn’t have to go in her stomach.

“Fine.” She snatched the tumbler from him, opened her mouth wide, and lifted the rim to her lips.

His leer as he watched her turned her stomach.

She cheated slightly to the side, angling so he couldn’t see the corner of her mouth, and let the stuff dribble down her jaw, into her hair, and down the back of her shirt.

“There.” She thrust the glass back at him with one hand while pretending to wipe the taste from her mouth with the other—and actually squeegeeing the stuff off her cheek. She could only hope the liquid got sufficiently absorbed by her hair and Choice Buy polo and didn’t drip off her butt. Thank goodness the shirt was already dark.

“Good girl. You’re learning. Guess you really are smart.” His tone was mocking and his leer cruel as he tossed the glass at the pregnant woman, grabbed Emma’s by-now sore wrist, and dragged her out the door of 1B.

“Isn’t it too early to leave?” Her words were panted, cold breath rasping in and out of her lungs. She didn’t have to work too hard to slur in pretend stupor—fear did it for her. Whatever thin chance she had of Dr. Light figuring out enough to rescue her here, she’d have none at all if she was no longer here to be rescued.

Hauling her through a lobby full of wolves making a big show of minding their own business, Bruiser waggled eyebrows at her. “We need time for a little pre-ritual cavity check, if you know what I mean.”

“You’re—oh.” That went beyond insinuation straight to yuck.

He was taking her to the Manistee forest,
now.
The pack had sacred ground there, surrounded by talismans that cloaked their ritual place from the forestry service and other mundane eyes, bought at great cost from a powerful nearby witch.

Dr. Light, for all his brilliance, would never find her.

She started fighting Bruiser with everything she had, struggling and scratching and clawing.

He backhanded her into the lobby wall.

She slid to the floor. He grabbed her wrist and wrenched her to her wavering feet. As he wrestled her out the front of the condo building, she clenched her eyes in pain, a tear threading hot along her cheek.

She’d never see Dr. Light again. Never smell his crisp, masculine scent. Never see the twinkle in his blue-green eyes. Never hear another awful, beautiful bad joke.

The roar of a powerful engine and squeal of tires snapped her eyes open. A sports car swung into the parking lot, low, sleek, and topless.

And filled with a furious Gabriel Light.

“Oh no you don’t!” Dr. Light roared over the engine. He screeched to a stuck-gum stop inches from Bruiser’s toes. Vaulting from the driver’s seat, he leaped over the passenger door into a flying tackle.

Bruiser tried to hang onto her, but Dr. Light’s fists pummeled the he-wolf’s face and gut with furious speed. With a roar of his own, Bruiser released her to defend himself.

The instant Bruiser let her go, Dr. Light shoved him to the side with a stupendous flex of muscle, reached past the flailing wolfman, and lifted her from the sidewalk. Not even sweeping her off her feet, but a grab-and-go, plucking her from the ground and planting her in the passenger seat of the car with more speed than finesse.

She didn’t mind. A fairytale prince couldn’t have rescued her any better.

Another athletic leap, using one arm like a pole, vaulted him into the driver seat. He hit the gas, and the car zoomed forward.

She spared a thought for those poor women in Bruiser’s harem. First chance she got, she’d have to do something for them. But now… She twisted in her seat.

The he-wolf was running for his monster truck. As he hopped in, she clutched her seat. She knew from experience that thing could eat up the road.

Dr. Light spun a turn, switching ass for engine, and, flicking gear paddles, roared out of the lot, throwing her back in the seat, not accelerating so much as teleporting.

“Put on your seat belt,” he shouted at her. “There’s some road construction.” A sign announced
Bumps ahead.

She’d barely clicked the belt in place when they hit the first bump—or rather a plunge the size of a continental shelf. Pavement dropped away to be replaced by road bed a couple inches below. With the low-slung car’s hard suspension, she felt it like a direct hit to her skeleton.

Worse, Dr. Light had to ease off the accelerator. “Sorry.”

“I’m fine. You can speed up.” Emma twisted to check their six, her hair whipping in her face, drug-sodden hunks slapping her skin. “Really. Speed up, or Bruiser will catch us.”

“This is one of the fastest street-legal cars in the world. Nothing can catch us.” His jaw worked. “On a track or good road. Here, I’m not so sure.”

Nail-biting minutes later they made it through the construction zone and hit smooth pavement. Emma released fists she hadn’t known she’d made.

The roar of a truck startled her.

Bruiser’s monster truck clawed out of a field ahead to their left.

“Cream of Crap!” Dr. Light stomped the brake. Her belt caught her and slammed her so hard her breath whooshed from her lungs, and none came to replace it.

Bruiser popped onto the road directly ahead of them. If Dr. Light had had a normal car instead of this thing that stopped like a cartoon, the truck would’ve T-boned them.

“Hold on.” Mouth a thin line, he didn’t put the car in gear so much as jet them around the truck, directly into oncoming traffic.

An SUV barreling toward them blared its horn.

Emma’s breath returned in a sucked rush of cold fear—Dr. Light cut back in so late she felt the wind buffet them as the angry SUV passed.

“Nice driving.” Her voice shook slightly.

He flashed her a half-grin. “Thanks.”

Her insides warmed, her tension eased. Deadly danger, yes. Almost harem bitch for a slime-ball alpha, with that possibly yet on the menu, sure. But Gabriel Light’s grin still had the ability to make her melt.

She smiled back.

His grin widened, his eyes twinkling at her through his glasses so long he was in danger of running off the road. She pointed front, stammered, “W-watch!”

The grin became more of a smirk, but his gaze returned to the windshield.

She scanned the rapidly passing scenery. “Aren’t you worried Bruiser will try that again? That he’ll catch us?”

He shook his head. “We’re on straight road now, no construction. He must’ve cut the hypotenuse to catch us. Now there’s only one shortest route, we’re on it, and we have the faster car. He can’t overtake us. It’s simple math.”

“Ooh. I like it when you talk dirty to me.” She popped a hand over her mouth. She’d meant it in fun, joking that math was sexy. But in a way, for techs, it kinda was. He might think she meant it for real.

Her wolf gave a little yip, apparently hoping he did think she meant it for real—and hoping he took her up on the offer implied.

At the thought of him
taking her up on it,
her thighs tingled and her sex hummed in pleasure, making her squirm in her seat.

“You think that’s sexy?” He wagged his dark brows. “Wait till you see my calculus integrals, hubba hubba.”

Teasing her in return. She laughed in relief. Just two colleagues, joshing, humor to release tensions from a dangerous escape.

Minutes later, he squealed around the corner onto Maritime Drive. She frowned. “Is this the route to the ferry?”

His smile disappeared. “Trust me when I say I
must
make this boat. I’ll leave you the car to get away…crap. Scratch that. We’ll have to handle any arrangements by phone.”

“We…?” The ferry had come into view, a huge ship dozens of car-lengths long. Its boarding ramps were already gone.

“Yes,” he said. “I knew timing would be tight, but I’d hoped… Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” The ship’s engines were revving as it slowly pulled away from the dock. The ferry’s back end was gated with what looked like a tin-man’s hinged jaw—a closed jaw.

Dr. Light couldn’t possibly be thinking he’d make it onto the ship?

Still he raced toward the ferry’s gate. “Hold on.” He clapped one hand to his chest as if in shock.

She clutched her seat as he replaced his hand on the steering wheel, gripping the wheel tightly, and aimed for a bunch of boards set in an incline.

Boards she hadn’t seen before.

She remembered the car’s tires leaving pavement. She remembered the sound of the engine fading, no longer echoing from the road. She remembered seeing Pan’s aghast face at the rail of the ferry.

She remembered squealing, thinking there was no way they’d make it.