Chapter Four

I’m glad he’s gone.

I don’t think I would have known what to say if I’d woken up after… that and found him still in my bed.

The thought hits me a second later, delayed and unwelcome: I had sex with a wolf.

Jesus. Was I really that desperate?

…Yeah. Apparently, I was.

I grunt as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, then immediately regret it when I stand. Pain blooms low and deep, radiating outward until my whole body feels sore. Even places I didn’t know could ache are protesting now. I half expect something inside me to give up entirely.

Incorrigible douche bag, sure. But more than capable of leaving me rearranged in ways I’m going to feel for days.

“Oh my god,” I whisper when I feel the dampness tracking down my thighs, slow and undeniable.

Fantastic. At least my birth control is finally earning its keep.

Gravity: one.

Greer: zero.

A shower is going to hurt like hell.

Unfortunately, it’s not optional.

I walk, limp actually, into the bathroom and start the shower. I make the mistake of trying to stretch and immediately wish I hadn’t. Even my shoulders are sore.

While the water heats, I cross the hall into the workout room to check on the cable machine. I’m annoyed all over again when I see it’s moved across the room, and one of the arms is bent inward. It’s fucking dented.

Jesus Christ.

I was so lost in whatever that feral heat was that I didn’t even notice him slamming me into it hard enough to dent a metal machine.

I should stop and wonder how I’m still in one piece, but I’d rather not.

That would mean giving that man more space in my head, and that’s… no, thank you. If I don’t see him again, it’ll be too soon.

I shuffle my way back into the bathroom and step into the shower, wincing as the hot water hits my skin. Suddenly, every inch of me is on fire again, and not in the way it was last night. I’m almost scared to try and clean myself. Especially between my legs.

As I’m rinsing conditioner out of my hair, I hear a faint scuffing sound.

What the hell is that?

I didn’t check to make sure he locked the front door on his way out. Shit. Come to think of it, I didn’t check to make sure he left at all. I assumed he did.

Oh, fuck me. He could have been downstairs this whole time.

I hear footsteps in the hallway outside of the bathroom and groan, rolling my eyes. I turn the water off and shove the curtain to the side, ready to tell him off…

and find myself face to face with a completely different man.

He scowls as we lock eyes, like he’s offended to find me here, in my own fucking bathroom.

“Who the fuck are you?” I screech, scrambling for the shower curtain to cover myself.

He grunts, like the very thought of looking at me disgusts him, and crosses to the sink. He snatches the folded towel and throws it at me, then folds his arms over his chest.

“Dress, cur.”

Cur? What the—

“Get the fuck out of my—” I start to scream, but he steps closer, invading the space of the shower. His brown eyes burn with open hatred as he spits on the tile by my feet.

“You should consider yourself lucky I’m giving you the chance to dress.”

I try to speak again, but freeze when I catch movement in the doorway.

He’s not alone.

“You’re coming with us,” the man in the doorway says. “It’s up to you how much clothing you’re wearing when you do.”

I look back and forth between the two men and feel my bravery deflating. I could fight, but something in me tells me that would make things worse.

I take the towel and wrap it around myself, stepping hesitantly past the first man and skirting around the second into my bedroom. I almost cry when I see a third man already there, leaning against my dresser like he owns the place.

“Can you, like, leave?” I ask as I yank clothes from the closet and toss them onto the bed.

“No,” he says.

He turns and yanks open the top drawer, grabbing the first bra he finds and tossing it over his shoulder. He slams it shut, opens the next, and pulls out a pair of underwear. That goes flying too. He glares at me as I scramble to catch them.

“Hurry up.”

“So sorry to be too slow for your kidnapping,” I mutter, then immediately regret it. Not because he reacts. He doesn’t.

But because I still don’t know what’s happening, and running my mouth suddenly feels like a very bad idea.

I dress as quickly as possible, trying to juggle pulling clothes on while keeping the towel clutched tight to block my body from the three men watching me.

Somehow, it feels worse that none of them seem particularly interested in seeing what I’m hiding.

“Will one of you at least tell me where you’re taking me?”

“You escaped your sentence, cur. We’re here to make sure you don’t escape again,” the first man says.

The moment I pull my socks on, the second man tosses my shoes at me, then looks genuinely offended when he misses my head.

I decide he’s the one I like least. If I’m assigning rankings to my kidnappers, anyway.

“My sentence?” I ask, my eyes darting between the three of them.

As soon as my shoes are on, the first man grips my arm and hauls me upright with one hand.

Maybe I should have realized it sooner, but something about being lifted that easily makes the power difference undeniable. Any lingering belief that I might fight my way out of this dies on the spot.

“Laws were broken. You’re going to set it right,” he says near my ear. He pulls back just enough for me to see the grin on his face.

I barely manage not to lunge forward and smash my forehead into his perfect white teeth.

“Let go of me. I can walk,” I say, twisting uselessly as he starts dragging me toward the door.

Dresser-man snorts, like that amuses him. “I can smell him on you. I bet every step hurts, doesn’t it?”

“You should’ve seen her trying to waddle out of the bathroom,” Shoe-thrower adds, smirking as he yanks the front door open.

Bathroom man half escorts, half carries me outside.

“Can you blame him? She’s…” Dresser-man pauses, narrowing his eyes as he gives me a quick once-over. “What are you. Twenty-something?”

I grunt as Bathroom-man shoves me into the backseat of a newer sedan, then slides in beside me. He sprawls across the seat, legs wide, one arm draped along the back. He glances down at me, then looks forward as the other two get in.

“I say thirty.”

“Fuck you, I’m twenty-four,” I snap, then immediately regret it when I realize it was a setup and I walked straight into it.

Shoe-thrower looks back from the passenger seat, eyes skimming over me. “Jesus. That’s seven years of heat built up.”

He lights a cigarette and blows the smoke directly in my face.

“I might even feel bad for you,” he adds. “If I wasn’t disgusted by your existence.”

I scowl and turn my face to the side, trying to breathe air that isn’t thick with cigarette smoke. I lean forward to roll the window down, but catch Dresser-man hitting the lock button instead.

Fucking prick.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, risking a glance at the man beside me. He’s texting one-handed, completely unconcerned.

For half a second, I consider throwing myself at the door. Then I remember the windows are locked. Which means the doors definitely are too.

“I already answered that,” Shoe-thrower says.

“Not really,” I mutter.

I start to say something else, but Dresser-man cranks the radio louder, drowning me out completely.

The drive stretches on longer than I expect. I’m not sure how long I expected it to be, or why I had expectations.

It’s long enough for the city to thin out. Long enough for streetlights to give way to trees and narrow roads that don’t show up on any route I recognize.

No one speaks. The radio stays loud. The cigarette smoke settles into my clothes.

I stop asking questions.

Shoe-thrower is a chain smoker. Bathroom man is locked in a text war with someone. Dresser-man looks unamused by both of them. Those are the only things I’ve learned. The clock on the dashboard tells me we’ve been driving for an hour and twenty minutes.

The fact that they didn’t take me somewhere and kill me immediately tells me they aren’t here to hurt me. I think. Which, unfortunately, means whatever they’re taking me to is serious.

Eventually, the car slows and turns onto a dirt path in the middle of the woods. There are no signs. No mile markers. Nothing to suggest this place exists on any map. I don’t think it does.

A large metal gate appears out of nowhere. Two people step forward and pull it open just long enough to let the car through. I hear it slam shut behind us, metal grinding against metal, and my heart drops into my shoes.

There are lights ahead. Too many of them. Not streetlights. Torches. Floodlights. Shapes move beyond them, silhouettes gathering instead of dispersing.

The car rolls to a stop. No one rushes. No one looks at me.

The door beside me opens and bathroom man grips my arm again, pulling me out of the backseat.

The night air hits my skin and I realize how exposed I still am. Shirt too thin. Jeans. Shoes. Hair damp and hanging down my back. I feel ridiculous. I feel small.

People are watching.

Not staring. Watching.

They don’t whisper. They don’t shout. They stand in loose clusters, faces turned toward me with the same expression I saw this morning. Disgust. Certainty. Interest, but not curiosity.

Judgment.

Bathroom man steers me forward. I stumble once on the uneven ground, and he tightens his grip, not to steady me, but to keep me moving.

“Head down,” he mutters.

I don’t.

As we slow, I see it ahead of us. A raised wooden platform. Chains. A post sunk into the center, the wood darkened and sticky with old stains.

My stomach churns. That isn’t red paint.

My mouth goes dry. Shoe-thrower’s words echo back to me now. Laws broken. Sentences escaped.

Fuck me.

They’re going to execute me.

I start fighting against Bathroom-man’s grip, planting my feet, trying to wrench myself free. “I didn’t do anything!”

He snorts, like it amuses him that I tried. Then he fists the back of my shirt and lifts me one-handed onto the platform.

That’s fucking embarrassing.

“You escaped the sentence handed down to you at conception, mangy cur. Now it’s time to set that right,” Shoe-thrower says near my ear as he and Dresser-man fasten chains around my feet, locking me to the platform.

“On your knees,” Dresser-man says.

“Not on your life,” I spit, then cry out as Shoe-thrower kicks the backs of my knees.

The chains bite into my ankles as they force me down. Wood scrapes against my knees. The platform is rough and uneven, stained dark in places I don’t want to look at too closely.

Splinters bite into my palms as I struggle uselessly to get free.

The crowd shifts.

Not closer. Just enough to settle, like this is the part they’ve been waiting for.

I can’t believe this is about to happen. It’s all that raggedy bitch Valerie’s fault. If she hadn’t seated that wolf in my section, I would have gone home and been none the wiser.

I always knew that bitch would be the death of me. I just didn’t realize it would be so literal.

Bathroom man steps back. So does Dresser-man. Shoe-thrower lingers a moment longer, looking pleased with himself, then joins the others at the edge of the platform.

I’m alone in the center.

A man I haven’t seen before steps forward. Older. Taller. Gray threaded through his dark hair. His presence quiets the space without him saying a word. Conversations die. Movement stills. Even the torches seem to burn lower.

He’s the leader. He’s going to be the one to hand down my death sentence.

Great. I’m getting executed by Gandalf the wolf.

He looks at me like a butcher assessing a cut of meat.

“Greer,” he says.

My name sounds wrong in his mouth. Too casual. Too familiar. I want to snatch it out of the air.

I lift my head despite myself. “You know my name,” I say hoarsely.

“Of course we do,” he replies. “You were recorded the moment you drew breath.”

A murmur ripples through the crowd. Approval. Confirmation.

The man turns, addressing them instead of me. “This one was born of violation. A contamination of bloodlines. Concealed. Smuggled. Allowed to grow unchecked.”

Bile burns up my throat.

“She escaped her sentence at birth,” he continues calmly. “And again, by circumstance, as an adult.”

He looks back at me. His gaze sharpens with hatred. Disgust. The same way Diner Man looked at me. The same way they all look at me.

I’m getting really tired of being looked at that way.

“Did you think ignorance absolved you?”

“I didn’t know,” I say. My voice shakes. I hate that it does. I hate more that they can all hear it.

“I didn’t even know what I was.” I’m still not entirely sure I do.

“That,” he says mildly, “is irrelevant.”

A blade is brought forward. Long. Curved. The handle is carved with old symbols and a howling wolf. It isn’t raised. It isn’t brandished. It’s placed within reach of the post like a tool waiting to be used.

The crowd does not react. That’s somehow more terrifying than if they started cheering. This isn’t anything new for them.

“This sentence is not punishment,” the man says. “It is correction.”

My throat closes. My pulse roars in my ears. It feels a lot like punishment.

“You will kneel,” he tells me. “You will lower your head. And when the blade falls, order will be restored.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. It comes out thin, cracked, and wrong.

“Go to hell,” I say.

There’s a pause.

Then the man sighs, almost bored.

“Greer,” he says again, and this time my name is not casual. It’s final. “By law of the pack, by blood and lineage, your existence is a violation. Your sentence was set before you ever took breath.”

I open my mouth. I don’t know what I mean to say. An apology. A denial. A plea. Nothing comes out. My tongue feels too big for my mouth. My chest tightens, breath turning shallow and useless.

“This correction will be swift,” the leader continues. “Order will be restored.”

Someone steps forward from the edge of the platform. I don’t look at his face. I look at his hands.

Hands press my shoulders down. Firm. Efficient. My cheek meets the wood again, rough against my skin. I can smell iron. Old blood. Something sour beneath it.

I stop struggling.

There’s nothing left to do.

The metal comes into my vision, close enough that I can see faint scratches along its edge. It lowers until it rests against the side of my neck, cool and solid, a line of pressure that makes my breath catch and lock in place.

My pulse hammers there, wild and exposed.

This is it.

For one terrible, suspended second, the world narrows to the point of contact. Skin. Metal. Breath held so tight it burns.

Then the air changes.

Not sound. Not movement. Pressure. A weight that slams into the space like a storm breaking all at once. The crowd stiffens. Someone gasps. Someone swears under their breath.

The blade jerks away.

“Stop.”

The voice cuts through the clearing, low and absolute, and everything stops.