Chapter 6

RIVER BROWN

It hurts.

It also felt good. Felt feverish.

The elders didn’t say it was supposed to feel like this.

Like falling down a cliff and then landing on a pillow.

Guilt curls its cold fingers around my neck cutting my air supply. My heart is thrashing against my ribcage as two men escort me to the car outside.

I get into the car without any resistance because what happened a few minutes ago has my mind preoccupied.

Shane hates me. I hate him too but why did he do that?

Why did I like it? Why do I want more even though it hurts so much down there?

Why do I want more even though every minute I spent listening to his words felt like I was being choked again?

It shouldn’t hurt but it hurts.

It hurts the same way Connor strangled me and looked me in the eye while he did it.

It hurts the same way I thought Neo would visit me but he didn’t.

My breathing is rugged, my dress is slightly torn at my right thigh and my smell…I smell like Shane, that monster, that bastard—

A violent screech thunders through my ears as the vehicle I’m in flings sideways across the road like it’s about to fly in mid-air.

“Ma’am, hang on!”

The driver shouts.

My heart picks up speed, my hands grab the edge of the seat like it will somehow save me from whatever is happening.

In the distance, away from the driver who is trying to get hold of the vehicle by stepping on the brakes, howling and more aggressive howling resonates in the air.

The howling sounds close. Like a whole pack hunting, chasing their prey relentlessly.

I’m afraid to even think of it but what if…what if I’m the prey? We are the prey?

I’m shivering now, I’m scared as fear drips like blood all the way from my brain to my toes.

I try to pray to the Moon Goddess but it all sounds like jumbled confused words. My words are shaky, my hands are shaky, all of me is shaky!

After a short struggle, the car comes to a stop rocking me from my seat slightly but I’m thankful everything is over.

Everything will be alright.

I’m alright.

“The tires are ruined, I’ll have to replace them with new ones”, The driver says opening the door and stepping out before I can tell him, ‘I want to join you’.

Seating inside this car that has tinted windows all by myself in the middle of nowhere scares me.

Two minutes barely pass when someone screams, a loud ear-shattering scream that sounds pained and tortured and one that has me jumping from my seat cowering in the corner.

“S—Sir? Umm…driver? Is someone-is someone there?”

I get my answer when the door to the right is yanked open and ripped from the car.

Cold wind rushes into the car peppering goosebumps all over my skin.

The trees outside brush against each other like it’s a competition to see which one flies with the wind first. The clouds hang low like they are about to pour down a flood.

Everything is dark and terrifying.

No one answers me, no one takes responsibility over the door that is currently missing.

The only logical thing is to get out through the open space in front of me and hope that my driver wasn’t the one who screamed.

Trembling, my heels clawing my feet with a vengeance, I step outside.

My heels land on the tarmac and not just on the tarmac but on red liquid that has pooled around where am standing.

Mortified I follow the trail of blood and just by my side, lifeless and cold, my driver’s body lays sprawled on the ground and I scream.

I move away from the vehicle, from my driver’s body, from the blood.

My screams aren’t stopping and if I’m being honest crying and shouting is the only thing that makes me not vomit or faint on the spot.

“River? River!”

Someone calls from behind me. I turn around scared out of my mind.

It’s not just someone, there are two men.

Two shirtless men with ‘X’ tattoos on the right side of their chests.

“W-Who are you? D-Don’t come any closer! Don’t…don’t come any closer! Stay away! Stay away from me”

“Hey, hey”, the first man tries to pacify me and I take a step back with chills coursing through my spine, “we are not going to hurt you”

“You hurt him! You killed my driver. He’s dead!”

The howling? The reason why they are shirtless. They shifted into their wolves and killed him in cold blood.

“He put up a fight. We did what he had to do”, the second guy says matter-of-factly.

No. No. Killing is wrong. Shifting and killing another being is wrong.

I lift an eyebrow blurred with confusion and fear. If I run, I’ll end up dead too. It’s as simple as that.

“W-what do you want? I have nothing to give you. I don’t have any money- “

“We are here for you, River. We are here to rescue you”

“From what?”

I don’t know them. They are not from Brackenridge.

“The brothers”

Shane, Connor and Neo?

“I don’t…they’ve never- “

“They haven’t hurt you yet but they will. That’s what they do. Wanna know what they did to my mother and brother? They burnt them alive River just because she couldn’t pay her debts to them.

Wanna know what they did to his wife-?”

“They killed her”, the second guy finishes with forlorn eyes that make me believe him.

The information is like a punch to the stomach. Shane could absolutely murder anyone, I’ve seen it in his eyes, the thunder that grows in them.

Connor strangled me, murder wouldn’t be beneath him but Neo wouldn’t kill a kid, I think.

“My boss Xandar sent us here to help you. You want to go back home yeah?”

“Yes”, I whisper.

I want Brackenridge. In Brackenridge, betas don’t kill. Alphas kill but only if the Moon Goddess has allowed it. In Brackenridge, men like Shane don’t lift your dress up and shove their thick finger inside you unless you’ve accepted him as your mate.

“Xandar can help you”

I might be scared, might have even peed a little but my brain is still functional.

Their boss wants to help me even when he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him? Yeah, there’s a catch.

There must be one.

“What does he want in return?”

“You. You are the key to destroying the Kincaid brothers”

They are not mates. I don’t owe them any loyalty.

My voice is a steel blade.

Sharp.

Cold.

Cutting.

“I’ll help Xandar if it means I’ll be going home”

And destroying my so-called mates in the process.