Ruthless love

1

Blue Storm thought she had run far enough. She had hoped for a few days’ respite before having to run again. Yet here she was on the outskirts of New York in the grubbiest, most rundown diner she could have possibly found, wearing sunglasses even though the moon was well in the sky just so those chasing her couldn’t see that she was watching them.

I shouldn’t have stayed in here, she realized, thinking on how just ten minutes ago she had checked the entire diner for escape points. The restroom windows were barred. There was no back exit into an alleyway. Her only freedom would be the front door, the way she had come in alone, her stomach growling with such hunger that she had thought it was worth the risk to stay. She had been wrong.

Her eyes darted from the four men sitting on the other side of the diner, to the elderly couple sitting smack bang in the middle, to the young girl standing behind the counter waiting to serve coffee. Her name tag said Maggie. And once Doris and Derek—or so Blue had coined them—packed up and left, her father’s men would urge Maggie into the storeroom with a fifty-dollar bill in hand and tell her not to come out again until she heard the bell above the front door ding.

Once that happened, she would be alone with them and it would be too late. Luckily, she was prepared and she was fast. Her oversized handbag held all that she had left in this world and its strap never left her arm, always sitting in the crook of her elbow for just such occasions. With one swift movement, she yanked it up onto her shoulder and darted for the door.

“Hey! You need to pay!” Maggie’s exclamation came along with the shocked gasps of Doris and Derek as Blue charged past so fast she sent their napkins flying off the table. But she didn’t have time to stop, to apologize. Her father’s men were already on their feet, already after her. Panic rose in Blue’s chest. She couldn’t go back there.

Her hands slammed against the glass door so hard she felt it jar her wrists. With a suppressed squeal, she shoved the door open as hard as she could. Her inhuman strength sent it flying backward, almost ripping off its hinges. Places really ought to be more supernatural proof nowadays, Blue thought absentmindedly. Humans and supernaturals had been living openly with each other for many years now, yet little had changed, not enough to protect Blue from her father, from the man he had chosen for her. It was thoughts of them both that left her frantic, panicked at the thought of going home that made her rush out of that diner without stopping, determination not to be used that sent her stumbling right off the pavement and into the road.

Tires screeched. A horn blasted. Headlights blinded. Then, suddenly, there was an arm wrapped around her waist. Hard muscle like a brick wall pressed hard against her back as she was yanked across the street and pulled onto the pavement. Terror caused her to scream, “No! No! Let go of me!”

She pounded on the chest of the man who held her with her fists, shoving at him in an attempt to get away. Why couldn’t you just let me die? The thought flashed through her panicked mind. Dying beneath the wheels of a car would have been better than being dragged home to face her father and her fiancé. Nausea bubbled in her throat at the thought.

“Whoa, hey! Is that any way to treat the guy who just saved your life?”

The unfamiliar voice might have startled her out of her terror if not for the pounding of heavy boots on the tarmac that sounded even above the roaring of the car engine as it regained speed and sped off toward the inner streets of New York.

Blue didn’t stop to think. She moved on instinct the moment that the man’s arms around her started to loosen.

“Get off me!” she screamed again and slammed the heel of her foot down into his toes.

“Ahh! b***h!” the man yelled after her but she was already gone, haring away down the street, looking for the nearest alleyway, the nearest open door, the nearest escape route. Her mind whirled with images of what would happen if her father’s men caught her. Dragged back to a family who treated women no better than dogs. Hell, sometimes even their dogs were treated better. No, she had to get away. And so she darted for the first alleyway she saw.

Too late she realized her mistake. Dead end. Had she not been so hungry and so tired from lack of sleep, she might have been able to scale the ten-foot wall in front of her. She might have even been able to climb a drainpipe to the roof of one of the two buildings on either side of her. But the feeling in her buckling knees told her she had only one option. She had to turn and fight. Maybe her father’s men might roughhouse her enough that they’d be too scared to take her home battered and bruised. Maybe that would buy her enough time to think of another way to escape.

Her handbag dropped from her shoulder with a muffled clattering of junk wrapped inside clothing as the four men appeared at the far end of the alleyway, blocking her only exit. Their eyes glowed with an inhuman luminescence. The growled amusement that rumbled in their throats suggested they were enjoying the chase. They had forgotten she was one of their own. To them now, she was nothing more than prey, a play toy.

I won’t go that easily, she vowed to herself, allowing a growl to erupt from her own lips, a warning growl that she was sure they would ignore. Brushing back a few stray strands of blonde hair from her face, she squared her shoulders and braced her feet, allowing her fingernails to elongate into thick, black claws.

“Come now, Blue, daddy wants you back home,” snarled the man at the head of the four. He was the tallest, the broadest, and the meanest of her father’s men. The one she was most scared of save for the man he had chosen to be his second, the man who would be alpha after him, the man who would be her mate if her father had his way.

“Yeah, Blue, Hunter is waiting for you,” one of the men behind him chuckled before growing silent at the leader’s head snapping around to glare at him. At the mention of Hunter, Blue’s stomach threatened to overturn. Her knees almost buckled, but she would not allow herself to fall. She would not allow herself to be weak in front of these monsters.

They were all the same. Every single one of them would have taken her, used and abused her, if not for fear of her father. The only difference between them and Hunter was the fact that he had been chosen, he had practically been given the golden key to her body. But Blue was stubborn and she was determined, and she would never let him have any of it, not her body or her heart or her spirit, not even her wolf. The beast, though as tired as she was, was snarling and rearing inside her, preparing herself for a fight.

The four men inched closer. They even appeared a little wary. Blue guessed that was down to orders and not fear. Maybe if she had been an alpha’s son, they’d think twice about taking her on. But if she had been an alpha’s son, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She would be the next in line for alpha. She wouldn’t be running all across the United States, trying to be free.

“I’m not going back, Malcolm,” Blue vowed aloud. “I would rather die.”

She allowed her wolf to surface just enough that her blue eyes would glow silver-gray, just enough to show them she meant what she said. She would fight her way out or die trying. Deep down she had always known it would come to this. The chances of getting out alive were slim to none.

“Oh, we wouldn’t make it that easy for you, Blue,” Malcolm, the leader, snarled back at her. “Death would be far too easy. It would be over for you all too quick.”

His words sent a shiver down Blue’s spine.

“I’ll kill myself if I have to!” she vowed, raising her sharpened claws to her own throat. Malcolm and the others merely laughed. Then, at a flick of Malcolm’s hand, the others attacked.

Blue did her best to dodge out of the way, ducking and trying to dive behind the nearest dumpster for a better place to defend herself from. But she wasn’t fast enough or strong enough to yank herself free of the hands that grabbed her. They put their hands all over her, snapping her arms out to the sides and forcing her back against the nearest wall. Spread eagle and helpless against the three grown werewolves that pinned her down, Blue still fought on, snarling and snapping, clawing whenever she managed to slip a hand free even for a moment.

“Stop fighting it, Blue,” Malcolm snarled from behind them.