Eric

I didn't know what was worse: falling asleep or staying awake. Giving in to the exhaustion was good for my body but in sleep I would be plagued by images of last evening's events. Staying awake, on the other hand, meant being tormented by thoughts about those same things.

I had tried both options during the night, alternating between drifting off and staring at the outlines of the old furniture in the darkness down here. So I knew there was no escape from the painful memories either way.

Just like there was no escape from the consequences of my actions. I had taken a decision and now the person that I loved was hurting. She might even hate me. I had certainly given her grounds for that. But had I not made that decision, another woman I cared about would be suffering at his very moment.

I rested my head on the cold and damp wall behind me, wishing for the hundredth time that I could see her just one more time. All I needed were a few minutes alone with her to try to explain my decision. Our relationship had already changed inadvertently but perhaps she wouldn't judge me as harshly if I managed to make her see things from my perspective. At the end of the day, we were both driven by the need to save another – the reason why I wasn't angry at her right now, just hurt by her choices.

But Monica wasn't coming. Either alone or accompanied by the other eight pack members. I hadn't seen her since the hyenas had dragged me to this basement last evening.

A part of me liked to image that my sis wanted to come down here and tend to my deeper claw marks but they weren't letting her. She had indeed protested when their intentions to beat me into a pulp and use me as a scratching post had become clear.

Yet, another part of me suspected her protest might not have been out of care for my wellbeing. But out of concern for the goods getting damaged ahead of the trade-off.

The memory of Monica telling me about her plans for me once I had told her my story, was the most painful one from yesterday. I preferred the physical pain from my injuries to hearing how my own sister was ready to sell me into slavery.

Oh, she had called it 'paid service to a jackal pack for the greater good of shifter kind' and 'a chance to get laid on the regular that any male would beg for'. She had sounded as though she believed in thеse pretty words. But I could see the ugly reality.

I would be sold to the jackal pack. The payment for my unwilling service would be in the form of help for the hyena pack to get Lucian and the others out of the police's hands en route from custody to a more secure detention facility. I would be forced to use my Omega powers as the jackals saw fit, which might include calming other shifters for nefarious purposes. And I would have to get a pack member with child because co-existence with humans was making Omegas crucial for our kind's survival, or so the jackals preached.

This plan, put in motion the second I had called to tell Monica about the arrest, was one I never would agree to. And not because I had met my fated mate. I would never use my powers to hurt people. Being with some stranger to get her with child on the off chance the cub would inherit the rare Omega gene, made me feel sick.

Yet Monica thought that joining the jackals was no hardship. Hadn't I always moved from shifter group to shifter group in search of somewhere I could be useful? Wasn't this the least I could do to make it up to her?

She had refused to listen to my "excuses"; she hadn't wanted to hear about making a new plan either. She was desperate to get her fated mate back immediately, so she saw the jackal pack as the only solution. And since they didn't want money but me, they would have me.

When I had refused to go along with the plan, Monica had called in the cavalry. Several pack members had been waiting for her in the adjacent hotel room throughout our conversation. And I had thought she had come to the local hotel alone, as I had asked her to.

Once brought to this abandoned, no-shifter-territory house where the exchange with the jackals was to take place later today, my pack members had decided to disobey their alpha female. Instead of simply be locked up, I had been stripped of my phone and clothes and chained in the basement. Then the pack had made me pay for how I had betrayed Lucian.

Alone in the darkness now, I kept replaying every word from last evening. As if that would change anything... My sis had made her choice – her fated mate over me – and thinking about it all was doing nothing but make my head hurt more.

Perhaps staying awake was the worse option, after all. Maybe this time around in my dreams I would see not Monica, cold and calculating just like Lucian, but Samantha. Coming to kiss the pain away with her sweet lips and to free me from the chains with her gentle touch. Then I would shift so I could heal and run away from here by her side...

I closed my eyes on a sigh, which turned into a groan of pain because even the smallest move of my ribs hurt. I let sleep take me.

There were no dreams at first. Then came the sounds of enraged hyenas, flesh hitting flesh, furniture breaking as a body collided with it. Sounds of pain, too. Was this a nightmare about my beating? I fought to wake up before my subconscious added visuals to the sounds.

I managed to open one eye – the other was swollen half-shut – or so I thought. Because what I saw in the daylight seeping through the small dirty window high above my head, convinced me I was still in the grips of the nightmare.

Ashton was coming towards me, teeth bared and claws extended, eyes revealing how eager he was to hurt me. He had been the hyena to draw first blood last evening, so it was only natural for my sleeping mind to conjure him up first. Too weak to stand up and chained to the wall, I could only watch him raise his clawed hand, aiming not for my chest like yesterday but for my throat.

Aiming for the kill.

I closed my eyes and braced for the fatal cut.

It never came.

I opened my eyes to find a tiger on top of Ashton, huge teeth around his wrist. His body was pinned under the massive animal. He tried to dig the claws of his other hand in the tiger's belly but a huge paw swiped his arm away, shredding his skin like butter in the process. He screamed.

I hated horror flicks but my dream had just turned into one I would watch. So I watched as the tiger raked its claws across Ashton's face once then twice.

The hyena who had cackled gleefully while making me bleed yesterday, now lay unmoving on the floor. He had passed out from the pain or the blood loss or both.

The tiger stepped off Ashton's body and headed my way.

That was when I realized this wasn't a tiger but a tigress.

"Samantha?" I suddenly found myself wishing this wasn't a dream.

The tigress stopped a breath away from me, her big head right at my eye level. Had I been in animal form, she would have dwarfed me. Then she began licking my entire face with her long raspy tongue, purring in the process.

I smiled at the warm greeting which was also an attempt to calm me, the way I had done to her after her nightmare.

But why did my face hurt so much? Such pain didn't belong in a dream or if it did, the dream should shatter any second. Unless... this wasn't a dream?

"Lovely? Are you really here?"

She rubbed her face against mine, scent-marking me.

I could smell her, her sweet scent like a balm to my soul. I wrapped my arms around her thick neck, as much as I had strength left to lift my limbs, and felt how solid and warm she was.

This was no dream. I was fully awake, and my fated mate was here. She had just saved me from Ashton killing me to prevent me from getting rescued.

How had she found me? How had she made it down here through my sister and eight pack members? How could she take this crazy risk for me?

I opened my mouth to ask but groaned instead when she tugged at the chain connected to my metal collar. I understood she was trying to rip the cursed thing off the wall, but my neck was so raw from the collar, designed tight to prevent me from shifting.

Samantha mewled at my obvious pain and stopped her attempts to free me. She turned towards the stairs leading out of the basement and roared.

"Samantha, you're in danger. The pack–"

She resumed licking my face, avoiding the swollen parts, and started purring again.

"Lovely..."

But she wasn't listening, entirely focused on making me feel better.

And then it was too late for a warning.

Heavy footsteps were coming down the stairs. And by the sound of it, they belonged to at least three men.

Samantha didn't stand a chance.