Saving Grace (11 page)

“We’ll get acquainted later. Right now these ladies would like to give you their welcoming gifts.” Jagger turned to the ladies. “Have your fun with her but no damage to her ovaries or I’ll have my way with you.”

The three she turned to female charged her, knocking her to the ground. She couldn’t fight back. Her arms and legs all too heavy, too weakened by whatever they put on her. They started kicking her and stomping on her.

Grace cried out in pain. “Stop!”

“Bitch!” one screamed back. “I want my dick back!” He drove a heel into her rib cage. Grace felt a sharp pain and heard a loud snap.

Lycans were durable, that much she knew. She could survive a lot, but how much?

The three continued the assault on her, kicking her in the face, back, and legs.

“That’s enough. We don’t want her too beat up.” Jagger laughed and knelt down. “We need these breedin’ hips intact.” He smacked her hard on the ass.

She stopped crying at some point before the assault ended. Her limp body was dragged, barely conscious, as she tried to make sense of things.

Everything hurt. Her head throbbed, the broken ribs burned and poked at her. She should be healing already, but she wasn’t.

Roman. Katarina. Gustav. Someone help.

Her body finally stopped moving and she heard a metallic lock slide closed. She was now a prisoner—a very badly beaten prisoner.

“Colin!” Roman screamed. “I can hear her in my head begging for help.” He paced around wildly, pushing his hands in his hair. They’d missed her at the school and missed her at the diner. It wasn’t until they went back to Tiffany’s room and she told them Grace had just left that they finally had confirmation she was okay. Then…on the way home, they spotted her car on the side of the road with a flat, and a bullet hole.

“I know. I know, my friend. Try sending her a thought back to tell you where she is because we don’t know where to start looking.” Colin tried to calm his Beta. He knew the devastation of losing a mate and didn’t want Roman suffering the same loss, bonded or not.

“Why is your princess screaming for help?” Katarina appeared next to Roman. “I came as soon as I could and I didn’t find her in her room. I checked every spot I could think she’d be and didn’t find her anywhere. Why isn’t she here?”

“She’s missing!” Roman growled.

“Obviously!” Her worried expression mirrored his own. “But why and how?”

He rolled his glance skyward, annoyed. “Can’t you use some kind of special power or some vampire zoning thing to track her down?”

She cackled. “I’m a vamp, a supernatural being, not a god! She’s your mate. Can’t you sniff her out and find her? I can only pop in where I believe she’ll be….whether she’s there or not is a whole other thing.”

“Shit!” He was losing it. Someone had his Grace. She was in pain. He knew his impression were impossible. They hadn’t sealed the bond, but he could feel it. “They took her!”

“The breeders!” Katarina screamed and disappeared.

“That was helpful.” Colin complained taking a deep breath. “Xander has been tracking the Scottsboro pack. I believe they took her.”

“Why would you think that?”

“It’s logical. She insulted their Alpha and changed those three Lycans to females. If anyone has a vendetta, I’m sure it’s them.”

“Let’s go!” Roman demanded.

Colin grabbed his shoulders. “Roman, like I’ve told Xander, we have to get organized. If they are force breeding, as we suspect, Grace is okay for now. She just came out of heat. We have time. We have no idea how many of them there are, nor do we know how heavily armed they are.”

Roman felt sick. His ribs hurt. His head throbbed. But his symptoms were faint—and phantom. Grace was badly injured and she wasn’t healing. It didn’t make sense. As impossible as it was, he could feel her anger, rage, and fear.

Pushed his thoughts out he tried to reach her.
I’m coming, Love. Hold on.
Roman barked to Wendy, who’d been silently sitting in the corner of the room. “Get Xander in here.”

Wendy nodded, on the run she shifted into her wolf before clearing the threshold of the door, and then she was gone.

Moments later, Xander rushed into the conference room. “What?” His face pale, he grabbed a chair to steady himself. “What is it? Why is Wendy frightened?”

“They have Grace.” Roman’s voice was low, shaky.

Xander spun around, punching the wall. A two foot hole appeared where drywall once stood. He grimaced, shaking the pain from his hand. “Are we going to go now? I’ve been telling you. It’s them. Now they have my mother
and
Grace.”

Colin shook his head. “We have to contact the High Council. We can’t just invade another pack. We have laws now.”

“Laws
they
don’t follow!” Xander huffed.

“Look, I know I haven’t been performing my Alpha duties like I should. It’s because I don’t want to be an Alpha, but I can’t forget that I am an Alpha, and I can’t forget my duties to the pack, or to the Lycans. This is why I can’t let you two go off halfcocked. We have to proceed by the Laws of our people or everything will revert back hundreds of centuries.” He held up his hands in a pleading manner. “Please, Roman. Please understand as the soon to be Alpha, you, as their leader must always remain level headed as an example to the rest, or all that we’ve accomplished up until now will be for not. We have to wait.”

“Fuck that! She stood up for me.” Xander flopped in a chair near him and stared at the floor. “I’m tired of waiting.”

Grace hurt everywhere. She’d never felt pain like this before. Someone was there with a damp cloth wiping her head. Her vision was blurry and she couldn’t make out the face, but it was feminine.

“You’ll heal. It will just take longer,” she whispered. “Bastards. This is just wrong.”

Grace couldn’t tell but it sounded like the woman was crying. She shifted her weight and cried out as broken ribs moved within her. The pinching and burning in her chest radiated through her whole torso. She lost her breath for a moment before vomiting, which only increased the blinding pain.

“There, there. I’ll clean it up. Don’t you worry.”

She closed her eyes. She was in hell. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She felt warm breath on her ear. “Rest easy, there is a plan to get you out of here.”

“Grace!”

She recognized the voice in her head. It was Katarina.
Oh God. Help me!

“I’m coming. I will find you. I will kill every last one of them!”

She found comfort knowing someone knew she was missing and in need of help. Finally, the Calvary would come. Roman would scoop her up and wrap his warm and loving arms around her. She hated they’d been on tense terms when this happened. She hated that she’d left him that stupid note and ran off. She’d bonded with Roman without discussing it first like she wanted. It may have been unintentional, but it just ate at her.

Consciousness came and went. She had no gauge of time. Blinding pain, nightmares and visions plagued her along with bouts of vomiting. They’d really done a number on her.

She thought about Tiffany and prayed she was safe. That they’d left her alone.

Grace opened her eyes. It was night time, though she didn’t know how many days had passed. She forced herself to sit up through the pain. When she leaned forward she realized she was tethered to the wall by a chain.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

A woman in a robe walked to her side. “Here, drink this. It’ll help you feel better.”

Grace stared at her. She looked familiar. “Were you at the party?”

The woman frowned. “Party? No. I’m not allowed to go to parties.”

She saw the silver collar around the woman’s neck. She reached up to touch her own throat, realizing the same metal collar was on her. She was chained…like a dog. She wanted to kill Jagger for what he’d done, and what he continued to do to his pack. Her jaw clenched and she winced feeling the pain radiate through her face.

The woman knelt down. “Please, drink. You’ve hardly eaten or drank anything in four days.”

“I’ve been out of it for four days?” Four days? Where was Roman? Where was her pack?

The woman nodded. Grace looked at her again. Those familiar green eyes. Her brown hair wound in a bun. Worry lines forming around the edges of her eyes.

A loud horrifying shriek filled the air. The two women looked at each other.

“What in the hell was that?” Grace turned her head toward the door, straining to hear more.

“I’ve never heard a sound like it, not in my two hundred years.” The robed woman stood with her hands folded on her chest, as if to keep her heart in place.

Grace held her stomach, for fear her bones would move again, piercing a lung.

The door to the room Grace was in flew open. A man was standing there, his eyes ablaze.

“Your fucking vampire thought she could take on a pack of Lycans!” He threw something at Grace. It rolled across the floor and stopped just short of her. Amidst the bloody white hair, she recognized what was at her feet: Katarina’s severed head. Her perfect white skin turning an ugly shade of gray green, eyes open and lifeless, mouth slack.

Grace screamed. It was all too much, too much physical pain and now Katarina. The horror of her decapitated head rolling across the floor at her. Michelle knelt down and Grace curled into her for some sort of comfort.

The man who’d thrown the head strutted over, tossed the older woman aside and kicked Grace in the ribs, re-breaking what had just begun to heal. She immediately coughed up blood.

“Moron! I didn’t give
you
permission to do that!” Jagger yelled as he walked in. “A beating is one thing, I can’t breed her if you kill her!”

“She sent her blood sucker to kill us.”

She fell to her side, coughing, crying, and trying to catch her breath. The other woman was plastered against the wall. Grace could see her looking at the floor.

Jagger walked up to her and smacked her in the face. “Get this mess cleaned the fuck up!”

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip off his head, shred open his chest and dance in his blood.

“Your name is Grace,” a voice whispered into her ear.

“Yes,” she croaked.

“Grace, I’m going to get you out of here. Trust me. I’m going to save us all.” The woman whispered to her again.

She cried into her own hair, which was already crusted with blood. Images of Katarina’s severed head would not stop flashing before her eyes. She died trying to save her.

It’s my fault. I reached out to her. I didn’t think it through.

“Grace. It’s not your fault. She should have brought help.”

She ignored her wolf. The physical pain and emotional agony swallowed her into a dark, negative pit.

“Grace,” the voice whispered again, “open your eyes.”

She opened her lids and saw the face of an exotic beauty looking back at her.

“My name is Nala,” she whispered. “I have a plan. Hang in there, okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffed.

“This is Michelle. She is going to try to get something in you. You’re very dehydrated.”

The other woman knelt down next to Nala. She had something in a cup. She held it to Grace’s lips.

The cool tea tasted like heaven, wetting her dry mouth.

“Now listen to me, Grace. You’re going to hear me say things that won’t sound right. I’m going to sound like I’m friends with the enemy, but it’s part of my plan. Please trust me.”

She trusted no one, but nodded anyway.

“I’m very sorry about your vampire friend. She did manage to take out five of Jagger’s guards though. That really helps our cause. He’s distracted and more vulnerable with those men gone.”

She nodded again and sipped at the tea Michelle was giving her.

“I have to go. We never spoke.” The woman stood and Grace recognized that Nala was also wearing a collar, beyond that, she wore only a loin cloth and no top.

“She’s a good Lycan, that one.”

Grace looked at Michelle. Her face was scarred. Her life had been a difficult one.

“How long have I been here?”

“About a week. We have a group of Lycan’s just outside here. This will end soon. Very, very soon. We’ll all be free. I can find my children.” The woman sniffed.

“How many children do you have?” Grace leaned against the wall, wincing at the pain in her side. She was hoping a discussion would distract her from her own agony and dread.

“Six. My first born I haven’t seen since she was tiny. The rest I managed to sneak out of here a while ago. I pray to the Gods they found packs to take them in.”

“I’m sure they have.”
Xander!
Grace’s gaze shot up to the woman’s hair. “You wouldn’t happen to have a son named Xander, would you?”

Michelle put her hands over her mouth and nodded.

“His hair looks just like yours. He’s a member of my pack and he’s very worried about you.” Grace smiled through the pain. “He’s very smart.”

“And stubborn,” Michelle added. “Your pack took him in?”

Though her head felt like a sixteen pound bowling ball, she nodded. “I don’t know how it went for him. He was there before I arrived.”

Michelle scrunched her face. “Arrived? What is it, a pack of rogues?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? Rogues. You’re a Lycan, how could you not know that?”

Grace gave her a weak smile. “I just discovered I’m a Lycan a very short time ago. My grandmother had hidden me because of my royal status.”

The woman shot straight up like a lightning bolt went through her body. “Ada?”

“You knew my Gran?” Grace’s mind raced.

Michelle dropped back to her knees and started sobbing.

“What the hell? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? I’m the one with broken bones.”

Michelle looked up at her, her eyes flashed violet. The only time Grace had seen that color was in her own eyes.

It can’t be.

“I haven’t seen you since you were little. There was a war and I was captured. It was so long ago. I…I always wondered about you.”

“You…you’re my moth—”

“Did you get some food in her yet?” Jagger stormed through. “Why the hell are you crying? Get up, bitch.”

He kicked the woman hard in the hip.

Michelle yelped and jumped back.

“Stop it!” Grace yelled, grabbing her sides. “Jesus Christ, leave her alone.”

Jagger knelt down and took a whiff. “You stink.”

“Fuck you!” She spit on him.

He slapped her in the face.

Grace growled at him, her eyes burning violet. “One day, Jagger. One day you’ll get your just desserts. My pack will be coming for me and my mate is going to rip out your throat.”

Jagger laughed. “They’ll never find this place, you dumb bitch. No one will.”

He lunged at Michelle, dragging her over to Grace’s feet and threw her to the floor. “Get her cleaned up, unless you want another beating. And I want her fed. We need to keep her healthy so she can produce healthy pups.”

“I won’t have your pups. Ever.”

Jagger laughed. “You act as if you have a choice. I’m Alpha and my word is law.”

Grace smiled at him. “I’m royalty. I can do things to you that you can’t reverse. I can turn you inside out, make you a little kitty cat, or better, turn you into a werebitch and make you have your own damned pups.”

Jagger laughed. “If you could do that, you wouldn’t be chained to a wall, broken, and bruised. Face it, Princess, you’re as weak and pathetic as the rest of your kind. You’ll be bred and you’ll come to like it.”

He stormed out of the room.

“Why am I so weak? Why can’t I shift? Why don’t I heal? These wounds should be better by now.” She asked.

Michelle pointed to the collars. “Silver laced with wolfsbane. That’s why we have to wear them. The only one with the key is Jagger.”

Grace slumped over. There had to be something she could do being a princess and all. She had powers she didn’t know how to summon. She had a wolf she couldn’t even shift into. What good was having all of this power if someone could take it away so easily?

Dread, fear, mourning…all of Roman’s emotions flooded in. Grace could feel him. He was angry and scared.

Roman. I’m okay for now. Please know I’m okay.

“Grace? Grace is that you?”
Roman’s voice came through crystal clear through her mind. Was she imagining it?