The Alpha’s $12 Million Bride

Missing

I woke because I was cold.

I pulled my knees toward my chest and reached blindly for the blanket I always kicked to the floor.

My hand found one.

Wrong texture.

I frowned without opening my eyes.

My frown deepened as my head started spinning, and suddenly, I was clenching my fists to my temples and falling back onto the surface below me.

I groaned, reaching further, looking for the texture.

Nothing.

I kept my eyes closed, pressing harder against my temples, waiting for my skull to stop splitting.

Dark.

I blinked.

Still dark.

My studio got this dark when I forgot to leave the light over the sink on. No streetlights through the warehouse windows. No neighbor's porch light bleeding around curtains. Just the occasional headlights sweeping across the ceiling when someone took the road too fast.

I waited.

Nothing.

My mouth was dry.

I needed water.

I pushed myself upright, waited for the spinning to slow, then swung my feet onto the floor.

Cold wood met my toes.

I froze.

My bedroom floor was concrete.

I pressed my foot down again.

Wood.

Wide boards. A shallow seam beneath my big toe.

I stood too quickly.

The room tipped.

I reached for the wall that should have been beside my bed and found empty air.

I screamed as I crashed through the air, my hip slamming into a hard corner.

Pain shot down my thigh.

I grabbed it.

Wood.

Square edge.

A table.

I pulled myself up.

I don't have a f*****g table here.

My hands went still.

I knew my studio in the dark. I knew how many steps it took to reach the bathroom. Where the concrete dipped near the kiln. Where the edge of my workbench waited to take out a hip if I cut the corner too tightly.

This wasn't my studio.

Glass exploded.

I dropped.

My hands flew over my head.

There was no glass.

No screaming.

No wolves.

But I could see them.

Cal on the ground.

A hand around my arm.

The needle.

Silver fur.

Black threaded through it.

Gold eyes.

Roman's wolf fighting toward me.

My hand snapped to my neck.

The puncture.

The plunger.

My legs disappearing beneath me.

Being dragged.

Roman bleeding.

Still coming.

Roman.

My stomach dropped.

I'd been kidnapped.

The tack slipped and stabbed me in the thumb.

My breath sucked in sharply.

I looked at the bead of blood on my skin, wiped it on my jeans, and went back to work.

At least my kidnappers had given me something to wear that wasn't a wedding dress.

I looked at the poor thing, crumpled in the corner.

Torn. Muddy. Covered in blood and grass stains. The lace had been ripped almost completely away from the dress, hanging from the bodice in long, ruined pieces.

I still didn't know whose blood it was.

I went back to my work.

One more line.

I dragged the broken point through the wood behind the headboard, carving it beside the others.

* * ||

Twelve.

Or thirteen.

The first day was questionable.

I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious before I woke up, and the window was f*****g useless.

I leaned sideways to look at it.

It was barely a window. A small rectangle cut high into the wall, too narrow to fit my head through even if I could reach it. Something gray covered the other side of the glass. Fabric, plastic, metal. I still couldn't tell.

Light made it through.

That was all I got.

Gray in the morning.

Brighter gray sometime later.

Dark.

Repeat.

No trees.

No sky.

No sun moving across the wall to tell me which direction I was facing.

I had tried standing on the chair the second day.

Then the table.

Then the table with the chair on top of it.

That ended with me falling off, the chair locked between my legs, nearly snapping my shin in half. The bruise smarted at the recollection.

All I'd learned was that the gray thing was on the outside.

The room itself wasn't much more informative.

A bed shoved against one wall. Metal frame, thin mattress, headboard made from cheap pine. One chair. One table. No drawers. No lamps. Nothing hanging on the walls.

The floorboards were old and filthy enough that the bottoms of my feet stayed gray no matter how often I washed them.

Someone had painted the walls beige at some point.

Or white.

Hard to tell anymore.

The paint had yellowed near the ceiling and peeled away beside the bathroom door, exposing an older layer underneath.

Green.

Not an intentional green.

The color of something left too long in the back of a refrigerator.

The bathroom was technically a bathroom in the same way a cardboard box was technically architecture.

Toilet.

Sink.

Shower stall.

All packed into a space barely wide enough for me to turn around.

The grout around the shower had once been white. The mirror over the sink was small, spotted, and permanently foggy around the edges. The faucet had two plastic knobs, one of which squealed every time I turned it.

The toilet gurgled day in and day out, whether I flushed it or not.

There was no window.

No outlet.

Nothing loose enough to pry off the wall.

I'd checked.

Repeatedly.

The tack had been my greatest discovery so far.

I'd found it under the bed on Day Four while running my fingers along the floorboards, looking for anything.

I'd hidden it in a split along the back of the headboard and started carving days.

I put it back now.

By Day Thirty-One, I'd stopped yelling when the door opened.

Not because I'd stopped wanting answers, but because I never saw anyone, and no one responded when I screamed.

Food and water came twice a day.

The portions weren't small, but they weren't enough either.

I'd started noticing it around the third week.

The jeans they'd given me sat lower on my hips now. My waist had gotten smaller, enough that I had to keep pulling the waistband back into place whenever I moved.

I felt weaker too.

Probably keeping me weaker so I can't fight back.

The lock would turn, and the door would open just wide enough for a tray to slide across the floor.

The first few days, I'd thrown myself at it every time.

I'd wedged my foot into the opening once.

The door closed on it.

Hard.

I'd screamed.

Whoever stood on the other side hadn't said a word.

The door opened again just enough for me to pull my foot back, then shut.

After that, they started waiting.

If I stood too close to the door, nothing happened.

I could hear someone outside. A shift of weight. A shoe against wood.

But the door stayed closed until I moved away.

So I experimented.

Six feet.

Nothing.

Eight.

Nothing.

The bed.

The lock turned.

I tried hiding beside the door.

They knew.

Behind the bathroom door.

They knew.

Flat against the wall where I thought whoever opened it wouldn't be able to see me.

They f*****g knew.

I'd searched every seam in the walls. Every screw. The smoke detector. The light fixture. The vent in the bathroom. I'd taken the mattress off the bed and gone over the frame with my fingers.

Nothing.

But they knew where I was.

Every time.

Thirty-one days, and I hadn't seen a face.

Hadn't heard a voice.

I didn't know if there was one person outside that door or ten.

I didn't know what they wanted.

They fed me. Gave me water. Left clean clothes every few days.

I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and squeezed the plastic water bottle between my hands.

Thirty-one days.

Roman should have found me by now.

That’s IF he survived.

The constant ache in my gut lurched.

I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know if I was still near Roman’s territory.

For all I knew, I'd been unconscious for three days after the wedding and woken up three territories away.

Roman could be anywhere.

I closed my eyes.

Silver.

Black.

Gold.

Cal on the ground.

Roman's wolf bleeding.

Fighting.

Coming for me.

That part hadn't changed.

No matter how many times I picked through the pieces of that night, the last one was always the same.

Roman trying to reach me.

He was alive.

And if he's alive, I knew he’d be looking for me.

On Day Thirty-Five, I woke to something hitting the wall.

I shot upright.

The room was dark. The gray square over the window had gone black hours ago.

Another crash.

Somewhere beyond my room.

I kicked off the blanket and stood.

Voices.

I froze.

Thirty-five days.

I hadn't heard a single person speak in thirty-five days.

Another shout.

Something shattered.

Then a snarl ripped through the walls.

Wolf.

I backed toward the bed.

Feet pounded down the hallway.

Something heavy struck the floor outside my door.

A scream followed.

I grabbed the chair.

Another crash.

Closer.

The door burst open, splintering into the room.

I lifted the chair over my shoulder.

Light flooded the room, blinding me.

I swung, blindly, and met strong hands grabbing my wrists, pulling the chair away from me.

“Josefina!”

I blinked, my eyes finally adjusting to the light.

My heart hammered in my chest as I grew lightheaded from the adrenaline and effort.

A man stood in the doorway; blood ran from his temple into the collar of his shirt.

I knew him.

One of my father's guards.

My grip loosened.

“Where's Roman?”

His face changed into a grim line.

“We need to get you out.”

“Where is my husband?”

A gunshot cracked somewhere behind him.

He looked over his shoulder.

“Josefina, we need to leave. Now.”

“Is he alive?”

“As far as we know.”

My knees almost gave out.

“Then where the f**k is he?”

The guard didn't answer.

Thirty-five days.

Roman was alive.

And my father had found me first.