#Chapter 3 Scoundrel

Aurora

“Slow down,” Paul grumbles, snatching away my glass before the bartender can refill it.

He is sick of me trying to numb my ache but in the same breath, whatever he mixed into that muting potion he gave us leaves such a sour taste in my mouth, I just need to get rid of it with something else; anything else.

He tries to push my glass away, but Ann follows his moves, sticking another glass in front of me and tapping it with the top of hers. We giggle, throwing it back quickly while Paul turns to see what has transpired with his back turned.

He snarls, Row busy paying the bartender, Ann and I loose and warm in the cheeks.

“You will make yourself sick like this, Aurora,” Paul hums, reaching for my newest glass. I snatch it away first, pulling it to my chest like a mother bear clinging to her pup. He rolls his tan eyes. “Really, girls?

“Blame Ann,” I snicker, both her and I breaking into a cackling episode of laughter.

She elbows my side and we are sent into another streak of hysterical laughter.

“Let them have fun,” Row says, leaning back in his chair, eying the gambling tables just outside the bar ropes. “What do you say we go try our hand at cards, Paul?”

He eyes me, then my glass, then the bartender who is happy to oblige serving us drinks as long as Row is tossing gold chips at him every few minutes. I watch Paul struggle to answer before finally nodding. The boys leave, Ann and I staring at each other for a split second, just long enough to get the same idea.

“Another,” we say in perfect unison.

The bartender hands over the next set of drinks.

My wolf is sick in my head, my own mortal body already taken a hit from seeing Luke earlier. Now with the alcohol and the armature potion Paul made, I really feel like my body is trying to shut down. I try to stand, stumbling, looking to find the bathroom so I can throw up or pass out; I don’t care which at this rate. Ann stays behind, too loopy to follow, and I search around the gambling floor for what feels like forever.

I give up, needing to find Paul and Row for help.

I find something else, though, mistaking the curtained room for the table where they play cards, instead stumbling into a situation I can hardly make out.

There’s six or seven, maybe ten, large figures in black outfits kneeling through the room where several stuffed duffel bags spill gold chips onto the floor. I blink slow, the world pausing for a short moment, unsure why I see a man in a dealer’s outfit laid out on the floor behind the group, face-down with a puddle of crimson near his neck and shoulder.

I aim to turn around, to attempt to slip out of here unseen. I don’t make it two steps, hefty hands grabbing my shoulders and spinning me around so fast that I stumble, hitting the floor on my knees. Someone grabs at me, dragging me behind their long, hefty steps, the world so blurry before I’m thrown against a hard wall, my head hitting the ground a second later.

“Shut her up,” someone growls, their voice so otherworldly deep.

I only realize now I’m whimpering, my head throbbing with a new pain. He rips a long strip of cloth off of my shirt, exposing my midriff, and it’s then tied around my mouth without leaving much room for me to breathe. I can’t make sense of what is going on around me, but my wolf let’s my head tilt in submission.

The stench of a rogue hits me now, radiating off the one that tied my mouth up with the cloth of my torn shirt. I can hear him humming a noise of pleasure. It makes me cringe. I feel sicker now, his eyes heavy on my outfit, now leaving my shirt to be just as long as my bra, my skin cold and exposed.

“I’m keeping this one,” the rogue closest to me growls, pushing me to lay down, his fingertips caressing my neck.

I realize now he is searching for a mating mark, something that the royals will take as a reason to leave a female behind but not rogues. They have no care if they ravish a mated wolf or not, they just want to get their pleasure and kill anything in their path.

“We have an unmated wolf, guys,” he says, gleefully surprised. “I heard the royals came through here four times in the last moon cycle and they didn’t manage to snag this slut? She must be really good at hiding.”

His hand slides down my neck, cupping on of my breasts. I struggle, trying to pull away, but he only retaliates by slamming his knuckles across my cheek, throwing my body sideways in a sting of pain before his hand crawls down further, hooking onto the hem of my shorts, an obvious threat.

“I want the honor of taking this one’s innocence,” he jokes, cackling in laughter. “I can smell the virginity in her damn blood.” He leans in closer, speaking against my neck as my nose dribbles with blood from the slap. “Smells like fear.”

“Let’s pack this up and get out of here first,” another rogue says, busy trying to zip up one of the many bags they have strewn over the floor. “At least she can be the bait if we run into trouble. Better than that useless mutt,” he grumbles.

I instinctively look to the man on the floor nearby, breathless and bloody.

“That’s the last of it,” another says after a long moment of coins being pressed into bags and then slung over hefty shoulders.

The rogue next to me bares his dark black irises down the length of my body. “Come on, pet, you’re not staying here,” he growls.

I’m forced to my feet, the alcohol making me unstable, but it doesn’t seem to bother the rogue. He pulls me with him, throwing me in each and every direction he commands me to go in. I heave a breath, pulling on the tie over my mouth and managing to get it down to my neck. He only takes it as an opportunity, snatching it in his hard fist and leading me around with it like a collar.

“Ugh,” I groan, needing to stop and throw up, maybe catch my balance. I’m not allowed to do either, thrown into a stairwell in the back of the casino, empty and dark. “No, please—”

“Let’s go,” he barks, pushing me up the stairs.

Each step is a struggle. I’m sick and miserable, and muted with a damn potion that still blocks my entrance to the mind link. All I can think about is yelling for Luke through the link and it hits me in this moment that I can’t rely on him anymore. He isn’t my mate. He is some friend of mine, a friend who is mated to another female, and he can’t swoop in to save me.

We breach the surface, the air colder than I recall and under the deep shade of the night sky with a thin, skinny moon overhead. I hit my knees on the forest floor, hoping they will leave me behind, but I’m mistaken. The rogue infatuated with my virginity pulls me off the ground like a limp towel, tossing me over his shoulder with his hands dangerously high on my thighs.

The feeling of his grip makes me struggle.

“Feisty, pet,” he jokes with a laugh.

His rogue buddies laugh, holding bags full of stolen coins, leading the way up the hills of the mountainside. They have obviously planned this out in advance. We take an old hunting trail, so old the brush has begun to cover the worn ground back up with heavy tree limbs and annoying vines that brush my body while I’m whisked away through the woods.

I would scream if I thought it would help.

We are far from the pack lands that are populated, let alone town where everyone has already closed shop and gone home anyways. No one will hear me out here. If they do and only royals show up, I’ll be taken advantage of all the same.

I still think of Luke, wishing I could reach him through the link, but only so I can tell him that I’m happy he found his mate; I’m happy that he is happy, even if it hurts my heart in the end.

“You smell that?” one of the rogues says in a small whisper.

The entire group halts.

“Smells like a damn royal,” someone else grumbles.

Everyone kneels, hiding in the brush.

Dread fills me instantly.

The rogue holding me throws me on to my back. His hungry eyes are dark, the white missing from his glare, staring through me with an appetite I have never seen before. That’s when I feel the ache in my side, creeping on slowly. I cringe, trying to hide the pain on my expression but it doesn’t work.

He smiles wide at the sight of me going flush.

“Little pet is going into heat,” he says, just loud enough for me to catch his words.

“We have a bigger problem,” one of the rogues says nearby. “Royals are closing in.”

“They’ll pass,” he growls, his hands grabbing for my shorts. He tears them off, the fabric ripping against my skin and making me gasp. The air is cold as he tugs on whatever is left of my top. I try to fight his hands off of my body, but he is stronger, quicker, and my top is ripped off in the process of our scuffle. “She’s going to need some relief. It’s only right that I help her.”

“The smell of her hormones is going to get the attention of the royal warriors,” someone barks in whisper. “Even I can smell them from over here.”

“Kill the damn mutt. She’s going to blow our cover.”

“Not without my fun,” he says, his hand grabbing a fistful of my thigh, parting my legs. I groan, trying to lock my knees together but the pain in my abdomen only seizes. I hold my breath, breaking into a hot sweat. “It smells too delicious.”

He leans over, biting my throat.

I release a scream.

His hand swats at me sideways once, then twice, heat dripping off my busted lip while I feel his hands drift somewhere near my legs, grabbing and searching, his wolf so damn greedy that I can practically feel the fang marks punctured into my throat. I hold my breathe to keep from screaming again, trying to block out the world around me.

“Rogues!” someone new shouts, their voice so crisp and clean in tone that it’s impossible to be anyone other than a royal. They yell again, this time making my heartbeat cease in my chest. “Find them and kill them all!”