“Zane,” Nero and Caleb said.
“Struggling to wedge that great big knot into your sopping pussy?” His grin was empty of humour, pleasure, anything. “You’ll be backing up to him, screaming for more dick as you drown the fucking lot of us in your scent.” He jerked away from the glass. “You’ll keep going back, over and over, until you give them what they want—little shifter babies that can control other shifters. Not alphas, not people who’ve proven themselves able to lead our people, that have our best interests at heart, but ones like you. My abuela warned me about your kind, witchy women who take our souls.”
“Zane,” Caleb growled.
“They’re gonna use your kids to control as many shifters as they can get their fucking hands on.”
“That’s enough!” the wolf shifter snapped.
“You can soft soap her all you like and try to get her on your side when it’s your turn—” Zane snapped back.
“Your turn?” Jai said, bristling beside me.
Caleb was a tall man with light brown hair that had gone shaggy and a beard that was going the same. I could still see those yellow eyes of his as he turned to face me.
“Caleb. Wolf as well. American. Was a member of the Yellowstone Pack before I went rogue. What our inconsiderate friend is trying to say is becoming mates, formalising the bond between you would be actively encouraged, but that she’ll be placed in each of our pens at different times of the day nonetheless. At least that’s what we assume.” He nodded when he heard Jai’s growl. “I know, pal. None of us are pleased by the idea either. Respect for one’s mate? That’s Shifter 101. Keeps the peace, keeps us safe.” I didn’t know if Jai was hearing any of this, his snarl getting louder and louder. “Look, buddy, I’m gonna bore the shit out of her talking about the mountain range I was living around when they caught me. Antelope kills, rabbit kills. Fucking anything but that scent of her.”
“You can smell her?” Jai grated out.
“Damn, straight we can,” Zane said, rubbing the obvious lump in his pants. “I dunno if I’ll be able to behave that well with that scent in my nose.” Snarls went up all around the room. “I’ll confine myself to jerking off. But if she can’t resist my kitty dick… Jaguar,” he said, his thumb pointing to his chest.
“Hollingsworth made a big deal of how small big cat dick is,” I snapped.
“In beast form? Sure.” He waited until I was watching to rub the heel of his palm against the long, thick lump in his pants. “In human form? Well, you’re about to find out.”
Jai’s hands went slamming down on the glass, the sound reverberating around the room.
“They’ll fry you until you’re passed out to punish you and her, until you do as you’re told,” a massive man in the cage closest to us said. He had long white-blond hair that was at his odds with his bulky physique. “If she’s still recalcitrant, they’ll reorder the cells. The corridor between them doesn’t have to exist. They can bring down the glass barrier between your cell and Gaden’s…” He gestured to slots in the roof. “And then remove all the internal barriers between the cages. They did that at my previous site. Threw a girl between us, to see what happened.”
“No…” Jai’s eyes scanned the cells, one by one. “No.” I could feel the whip of his words begin to bite my skin. “No one touches Shannon but me.”
“No one has a choice.” Our heads swivelled around to see Gaden walking across his cage. He was a tall, lean man, with longish black hair, from somewhere in Asia by the look of him, brightly coloured tattoos spilling down his chest on the right-hand side. “We won’t have a choice but to spend time with her, if that’s what they want, to touch her, to mate her. You’re still adjusting, but you don’t get it. Not yet. Your will, your decisions, your bonds?” His eyes slid to me. “They mean nothing here. If you’re lucky, they won’t tranquillise you every fucking day to extract the cum from your balls, but they’ll make her do it instead. Might make her do it to all of us.” He settled where he was, thrusting his hands in the pockets of the scrubs, looking for all the world like a high fashion model instead of an imprisoned shifter. “It’ll take you a while. It always does, but you’ll see.”
“You will never let Shannon touch you,” Jai snapped, his voice a sharp, merciless crack, and I found myself stumbling under its weight, but when I looked up, none of the other guys had moved.
“They’re careful about who they take,” Gaden replied. “I’m sorry, but every single one of us has enough alpha power to withstand your orders, just as you can us, I think.”
“Formalise the bond,” Caleb said. “That’d at least take me out of the running as another wolf, but I can’t say if it’d have the same effect on the others.” I glanced around and saw the shaking of the men’s heads. “But that’ll trigger her heat, which is just what they want. She smells pretty damn tasty right now.” Jai growled again, so Caleb held up his hands. “You’ve got to make whatever decision you think best, but bear in mind, we’ll see all of it. They don’t turn the lights off, they don’t allow for privacy ever, except for one reason.”
“Thinking it’ll put us in the mood,” Zane snickered. “They shut off the audio too.”
“Keeps us divided,” the lion shifter said. “Creates a feeling of competition for a mate. Making us focus on beating the others rather than them. They know what they’re doing.” He dropped his head for a moment. “You’ll need to work out between the two of you how you want to proceed.”
Jai didn’t react to that, just grabbed my hand, rubbing his thumb across the back of it before pulling me after him as he zeroed towards the bed. He pulled me up beside him.
“We just have to wait, Shan,” he whispered. “The pack, they’ll come.”
“How? They got the drop on us from my house. We didn’t leave a note or instructions.”
“They’ll find Buster and Max, read their minds, see what they saw.”
“If they’re still alive,” I said, my eyes dropping down. I remembered Buster barrelling towards me, full of confusion and delight that I was lying down for him to lick and cuddle, moving in close to me and licking before—
My memory stopped abruptly.
“Can you…could you reach them from here?”
I shook my head. “I have to be reasonably close to have an effect. I couldn’t even touch the other shifters here from where we are.”
“But could you?” The many details he left out of that question hung between us. What this might mean. How the pack would respond if I was able to. How the other shifters would. How he would.
“I…I’ve never done it. Never learned. Never even tried. Nan, she said—”
“Shan, you know I love you, that I want you as my mate. If you want to explore things with any of them, with all of them, I’ll step aside. But fuck, to have you forced into their cages, smelling all receptive… Maybe if I behave, they’ll let me come with you.”