The Reluctant Mate

Amanda

Carrie’s offer was in my head the next week every day as I drove to work. I was very conflicted about it. Working for the pack—something I didn’t even know existed a year ago, would really be convenient.

And they weirdly felt like family, like I was accepted there when I was with them. I liked the feeling, although I was afraid of becoming too dependent on them. Would I lose myself in the process? It seemed all too likely.

And what if things went bad with Porter? Just because they seemed good now, what if that didn’t last and I had nowhere to go because all my friends were his friends? I was included into the pack because of him, so if we broke up I would lose them all along with him, and be totally alone.

It scared me. My mother and father had never given me this feeling of safety, at least not since I was too young to remember it. Steven had for a while before he snatched it away along with my naivety. Porter made me feel safe, and the pack made me feel safe, but what if something happened to it? What if they were attacked like Porter’s old pack? What if the humans or vampires or hunters or something else did something?

But if I were too scared to take the risk, I might lose it all anyway. How long would Porter be patient about the whole marking thing? It sounded like they all wanted that. How long would Jason want a non-pack human living on his territory? They were both being patient with me, but everyone’s patience had a limit.

Even though it was about the last thing I wanted to do, I needed to talk to Porter. He was the one who said to throw plates at him instead of shutting him out. Maybe the plates weren’t necessary, but I’d give him what he asked for. We were going to talk tonight, even though I really didn’t want to.

Ugh.

But first, I needed to get through my shift. So annoying.

My shift wasn’t actually that bad, as it turned out. We were busy enough that I wasn’t idle and bored, and slow enough that customers hadn’t shifted into impatient demons. I grabbed some groceries before I left, and headed out to my car, passing vehicles lined in neat rows. Someone was parked a bit close to my rear bumper, so I placed the bags haphazardly in the back seat of the car instead. There was also a van parked too close to my driver’s side, and I inwardly cursed whoever taught these shitty drivers how to park.

My car door beeped unlocked, and I reached for the handle as two arms wrapped around me, one around my midriff, the other across my face. I didn’t even have time to properly struggle as I was pulled into the van. The door slammed shut before I could even think to try to scream or properly fight.

“Drive,” snapped the one holding me. His word brought me out of my shock and I bit his hand as hard as I could and tried to scramble for the door as the vehicle began to back up.

“You stupid bitch!” he snapped throwing his weight down on me. I screamed, and after a struggle that I ultimately lost, he shoving a piece of cloth into my mouth and secured it with another one. “Don’t move or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

“Fuk ew,” I said and he definitely got the meaning even though my words were muffled because he roughly shoved me down onto the floor, keeping an annoyingly secure grip on my arms. I was too low to see out the window, and probably too low for anyone to see me even without the tinted glass. I moved my body in any direction that I could manage, but the bastard was too strong. I hadn’t even gotten a good enough look at him to describe him to the police.

Or what if they weren’t human? Oh no, that would be so much worse. How would I even know if they were vampires or not? This jerk was pretty strong, but it didn’t seem inhumanly strong, unless of course he was acting just so I would think that.

“Wehr are ew tehkay muh?” I tried again, but he either didn’t get it or decided I wasn’t worth a response. Either way, the car was silent, and I tried to figure out where I was being taken by the movements and the turns. I wasn’t successful.

It felt like we drove for hours, but it probably wasn’t that long. The bastard who kept putting pressure on me wouldn’t let me sit up, so I couldn’t see much of anything, and definitely not where we were going. The bastard driving barely spoke, but from what little they did say I couldn’t recognize their voices. With nothing to do but worry, my head spun with possibilities of who my kidnappers might be. Obviously Steven was at the top of the suspect list. Abusive exes were notoriously dangerous when the victims left, although I thought I’d been past the point when that had been a big concern.

Or possibly some other guy who didn’t understand the concept of ‘one night’ had teamed up with one of his stupid buddies to...? I didn’t even know what. Definitely didn’t want to find out.

Or maybe these freaks were human traffickers who were just waiting for a victim to get close enough to their creepy kidnap van and I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Or could it be some enemy group of werewolves? I was pretty sure Carrie would be higher on the kidnap priority list if it were someone trying to get to the pack since she was luna. But then again maybe they’d just grabbed me because I was the most vulnerable one, since I was just a human and left the territory unprotected so often.

Or maybe it really was vampires, some of those criminal rebel ones I’d heard about. Apparently vampires didn’t really like wolf blood, so if it was them, maybe they wanted a more delicious hostage. Or a snack. Oh shit. I needed to find a weapon. Would a stake work? Why hadn’t I made Porter tell me everything he knew about killing vampires while I had a chance?

By the time the van stopped, my neck ached, and my dread was making my heart and lungs work too fast. The door opened, and I was pulled out by the bastard who had driven me here. He had a face mask and hat pulled low over his brow, but I could see his brown eyes, and from what I could see, he was probably fairly handsome underneath. I hadn’t slept with him at the bar one night and forgot about him, had I?

I also saw the one who kept pushing me down onto the floor, and he pulled up his mask before he turned around. Like that was going to stop me from reporting them to the police or whoever managed that sort of thing in the supernatural world, hunters I guessed.

The guy pulled the gag out my poor dry mouth and began dragging me down the gravel driveway towards a moderate sized, modern looking house, with wide windows and glass around a balcony I could only guess was off the master bedroom. I thought about ways could fight the two bastards, but there wasn’t anything good around.

I was frogmarched up the stairs, and the door opened in front of me.