My head whipped around at that.
“I was,” the man, Williams, said.
“Jai,” I said, pushing his hair back from his face. I watched the rise and fall of his chest like it was some kind of flag to follow to freedom, trying to use that to reassure me. “Babe, you’ve got to come back to me. Jai?”
My voice was thready, thin, and pathetic, sounding even more so in this cold, echoey environment.
“He’ll be OK,” one of those disembodied voices said. I glanced around, saw every shifter watching the two of us together. The voice sounded deep, with an American accent.
“Who is that? How are you talking to me?”
A low, unhappy laugh responded to that.
“Nero here, and it's one of the little quirks. They let us talk to each other, like we’re standing in the same room. There’s some kind of PA system, microphones maybe? None of us have been able to figure it out.”
“Hang in there, princess. He’ll come to. Just keep him warm, and he’ll come back online. They calibrate the chips they’ve put inside us pretty well. Enough to knock us out, but not enough to cause any permanent damage. It’s more to scare the fuck out of you than anything.”
“You’re the wolf I spoke to when I ran out of here,” I replied.
“Yep, Caleb. I’m sorry they got you too.” His sigh seemed to say more than his words. “I wish I had something positive to tell you.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer but asking it anyway.
“Here? They brought us here when the place opened a month ago, but with that fucker upstairs? It’d be close to a year, I guess,” Caleb said.
“And the rest of you?”
“Longer,” Nero replied.
“Lost count. I’ve been moved to several facilities,” someone else said. “Zane. My name is Zane.”
“Too long,” came another reply, his English more heavily accented, though not an American accent. “Gaden.”
Fuck. I swallowed hard. The snow leopard I’d helped tranquillise.
“Gaden, I’m so sorry about before. I didn’t help them collect sperm. I…couldn’t. I ran outside and threw up when I realised how they were…assaulting you.”
“Assaulting all of us,” another voice said, this time with a Russian accent? “My prostate feels like it's been stung by a bee most days.”
“Introduce yourself,” Nero said.
“Kazimir,” came the short reply.
“I’m Shannon, this is Jai.”
“I want to say welcome, that you’ll be OK,” Caleb said, “but I can’t. I’m sorry, that’s probably the best thing to say. I’m so damn sorry you’re in here.”
“We will endure, Shannon,” Nero said. “Remember that.”
When Jai’s eyes opened, I felt a rush of relief, of happiness. I ran my hands through his hair as he groaned, his eyelids fluttering.
“Jai, are you OK?”
“Just give him a minute. It fucks with your head, what they do to us,” Caleb said.
“Just keep him warm, and get him on the bed when you can,” Nero said.
“Yeah, make him feel great, so they can zap us until we’re unconscious over and over and over,” Zane said. His voice was easier to identify, as there was a strong sarcastic tone to his drawl.
“Shut up, Zane.”
“Babe, I’m just going to go get you a blanket,” I said, laying him gently down on the floor.
“Babe?” His voice was a rasping mess, but he pushed himself to smile for me. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“I’ll call you whatever you like once we get out of here,” I said, and then scurried over to pull one of the thick woollen blankets off the bed. I spent way too much time swathing it around him.
“Yeah?” He took my hand. “Even mate?”
“Even husband, if you like,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and failing miserably. He reached up with his free hand when he saw the tears forming, but I brushed them away. “Are you…?”
I couldn’t get the words out. What had happened, what I’d learned currently was smashing down into me, and I couldn’t get up and out from under the weight. The guys talking about losing track of how long they’d been kept, the walls, Stuart, but worst of all, Jai thrashing on the floor. To my shame, my throat closed up and my eyes burned as I tried to stop the tears from coming.
“Hey…” Jai said, rubbing a thumb across my cheek. “It’ll be OK. The pack, they’ll come for us. They’ll get us out, all of us. Don’t cry, Shan.” I heard the crack in his voice, felt him rise up, much more slowly than he usually would have, and put his arms around me. “Don’t cry, my love. Everything will be OK. I’ll make sure of it. Now, how about introducing me to your friends.”
Chapter 23
“Um…” I wrenched myself back together, wiping the tears on the stupid gown they’d given me and tried very hard not to think about what they’d done when they put me in it. There was no point going there right now. I refused to give those fuckers even a minute of my time. “Nero?” I called out.
He stepped up to the glass in the cell farthest away from us and waved a hand. A very imposing black man with short cropped hair, the massive breadth of his chest was left on display within the transparent cage. I watched his other hand clench down, the muscles popping in his arms, but he kept his face open and friendly.
“We’ve already established with your mate that no welcome can be given here. All I can say is I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. My beast is a lion. I am a member of the Little Rock Pride. My father led our people.” His eyes dropped down, as if he could see what he described. “I was taken while I was on a hunt on the reserve my family owns. I was brought to an American facility first, then shipped to Australia in animal form.”
“I’m Jai. Wolf.” He rolled to his feet but kept the blanket around his bare chest. He’d been left in just scrub pants as well. “My family came here back in the late 1700s. Land, freedom away from the old country… It’s what brought us over.” He looked around at the facility. “Pretty much thought we’d ensured nothing like this would happen. Shannon’s…” I heard the growl rise inside his chest. “Shannon’s mine.”
This was a fucked situation, and seeing Jai being electrocuted like that would last long after as nightmare fodder, but right now, hearing the possessive ring to his voice… I went to his side, putting my arm around his waist, and his went around mine, holding me close. “She’s my destined mate. I’ve known since my first shift. It’s just her for me, always.”
“And they’re gonna love that.” Our eyes flicked to Zane, who put his hands up on the glass, stretching his spine out as he gazed at us. He had deep olive skin and long black hair, and dark eyes that seemed to see everything and nothing, and right now, they were raking over me. “A mated pair? Just makes it easier for them. You’re gonna be helpless, little girl, riding the waves of a heat, dying for your mate’s cock—”