Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
“Come on, let’s get out of here before the rangers find us.”
She heard a door slamming shut, along with the tailgate. Heather was breathless, trying to escape her confines. What would they do with her? Hunters usually wanted pelts, so why was she still breathing? She couldn’t shift and give away the centuries-old secret of shifters.
Why couldn’t she have stayed home in the warm bed with her mate? Why was she allowing demons of her past to control her actions? She couldn’t save everyone, and she had to realize her life had to go on even though it would never be the same.
Any realizations she had were pointless now. She was a caged wolf with more than half a dozen illegal hunters. Her fate was mapped out, and it wasn’t looking good for her.
If she could cry, she would have. Instead, her wolf thrashed in the cage until her muscles and bones ached. Would she get a chance to escape? All she needed was for them to have a second of weakness, then she could find her freedom again.
She noticed the moment the truck began to slow down. Panic overwhelmed her. It didn’t make sense for her to still be alive. Hunters killed for pleasure or reward. No one wanted to see a wolf in a zoo. To most humans, wolves were a menace to be dealt with.
Two men grabbed a side of her cage and hoisted it out of the truck, dropping it unceremoniously to the ground next to an old wooden cabin. That was when she heard the growl. Heather noticed two other cages in the near distance. One had a mountain lion and the other had a bear. Her thoughts went to the young she-bear she’d been unable to find earlier.
What the hell was going on?
“This is going to be good,” said one of the men.
“I want in for five hundred,” said another.
“Keep them agitated until they have the pit ready.”
Someone prodded her with a stick, making her wolf yelp. Then she whirled around, on high alert, swatting and lunging at anyone near her cage.
She wished her pack was there, her mate. Then again, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to them by rescuing her. This was her doing. No one knew she was gone or where she’d been taken. Maybe her death would be a cold case, leaving David and her family forever wondering what happened to her.
They used a metal hook to drag her cage along the forest floor. Some spotlights had been set up and dozens of men hooted and hollered around her. It was pure madness.
“I can’t believe you trapped a wolf. They’re usually hard to get in this part of the woods.”
“This one was asleep.”
“Plain good luck. Make sure you bet big on that one.”
She began to piece together what was happening. Especially when the crowd cleared enough for her to see the pit. They were going to force them to fight each other. Heather had no clue what other animals or shifters they’d captured. She didn’t want to kill anyone or anything. They couldn’t force her to fight. She wondered what would happen if the she-bear lost control and shifted into her skin in front of the humans. It would be front-page news and the beginning of the collapse of their entire society of shifters.
Everything was too loud, too bright, and her senses were on overload from all the sounds and smells. Her cage door was opened, and a metal wire immediately looped around her neck, cutting off her air. They dragged her out forcibly and then released her over the pit. Her wolf rolled all the way down, landing in the dust and rocks. She shook out her fur and stood, surveying the area.
She was deep in the pit with sheer sides, the entire upper perimeter lined with filthy human males waving money and flashing greedy smiles. Heather looked around the pit. She was alone. Once the cheers grew in intensity, she noted the other wolf being pushed down into the fighting pit. It was a feral wolf, no sign it was ever a shifter.
And it looked more angry than scared. Had they starved it? Tortured it to make it more volatile? She didn’t want to find out. Even though she was a shifter, she had no desire to hurt wild wolves. They were beautiful creatures and would forever be a part of her, just as humans were.
Rocks rained down on them, the men whipping things down in an attempt to rile them up. It worked on the wild wolf as it snarled and rushed around the pit. When it came at her, she tried her best to avoid it, running away or jumping over it. There was only so long she could keep away from it when it was so agitated.