With Her Capture (24 page)

She only had her imagination, however, when
it came to understanding why they hadn’t done so already. Magda
didn’t know why this shed they’d brought her to and locked her
inside existed. She’d given thought to the possibility that there
was leniency in this pack. Possibly if someone stole, or wronged
another werewolf they were put in here instead of killed. Maybe
Ayden didn’t come from a large pack. It was possible if the
majority believed a rogue might conform, they were locked in here
instead of killed. Isolated packs only survived if they had the
numbers to fight to keep their territory. Magda already knew that
leopards ran on these mountains, and owls. If the Cariboo
lunewulf
killed every male or female for smaller offenses
they would lose their breeding stock and eventually not have the
strength in numbers to hold on to their hunting ground. In time
they would die off.

It was only a theory. Her cage didn’t smell
of anyone else. The entire time she’d been here she hadn’t smelled
another male or female. Possibly the shed had been used for some
other reason. Her imagination hadn’t been able to conjure up what
that might be.

Although she’d done it many times already,
Magda strained to see out the window as far as possible. She leaned
forward and pressed against the gnarled wire until it poked into
her flesh. Then looking outside, Magda tried seeing past the trees.
They were too thick around her. Wherever she was, it was far from
where his pack lived. She hadn’t detected fire places burning, or
even an open fire. There were no smells other than that of the
trees around her. There weren’t even the sounds of small animals
scurrying. She was alone in her imprisoned, cold world.

It would have been better to have been ripped
apart by his pack then to die in isolation like this. Maybe that
was the point—to die dishonorably without a fight or a pack around
her.

Another tear fell. Magda chewed the rest of
her beef jerky and thought about opening a granola bar. It wasn’t
the best diet. She’d lived off worse, however, before meeting
Ayden. And, she reminded herself, almost starved until she barely
had the strength to hunt.

Stepping from the window, she took a granola
bar, tore the wrapper and tossed it with the rest, and counted ten
bars left. It seemed imperative that she hold on to her strength.
Magda had slept as much as she could and had eaten. She’d paced,
done calisthenics, believing if she maintained her strength and
stayed alert that somehow she would get out of here. And she’d
tried every means possible to escape. Magda was in a werewolf-proof
cage.

It was becoming clear that she’d die in here
with the smell of her pain and remorse strong enough it would
probably reach anyone before they smelled her decaying body. And
there was so much remorse. It tore at her as much as trying to cope
with losing Ayden. Even now she still smelled the terrible pain
that had ripped him away from her.

“Ayden,” she said, staring again out the
barbed window.

Breathing in the breeze when it hit her face,
the cold burned her cheeks. She shivered but didn’t move. There was
no warmth in her prison. She wouldn’t huddle under a blanket and
wallow in pity. Instead she took in another breath and swore she
smelled him.

“Ayden!” she yelled.

It wasn’t the first time she’d howled for
him. He was out there, possibly not too far from her. Possibly
around a cliff, down in a valley, just far enough on the side of
the mountain for his scent not to be obvious.

“I was protecting you!” she yelled. There
wasn’t any malice. She hadn’t meant to kill his littermate.

Again, not for the first time, she glared at
the barbed wire. Studying the knarled path of the wire, she
pictured it unraveling in her mind. Magda willed the wire to fall
from the window. She shifted her gaze to where it was secured to
the steel on the window frame. Someone had welded it. Why would
anyone create such a secure prison like this?

“Fall away,” she snarled, her teeth clenched,
her focus wrapping around her gift. She ordered the barbed wire to
disconnect from the window.

Sucking in a deep breath, determined to make
it happen this time, Magda was instantly distracted when she again
smelled her mate.

“God damn it,” she hissed, and backed up. She
doubled over and pressed her cold hands to her forehead. “His scent
is on you. That’s why you smell him.”

Her stomach clenched, forming a knot of pain.
The food she’d just eaten suddenly burned like acid in her gut.
Ayden’s powerful, all-male aroma—the smell of his flesh, of his
sweat, of his confidence and determination that never
swayed—surrounded her until it seemed to coat every inch of the
small shed. She started breathing harder, sucking in each breath
with a vengeance. It was so strong. If she inhaled fast enough she
might not lose any of his scent on the next breeze.

“Magda.”

“Ayden,” she cried, squeezing her eyes shut
and pressing her fingers hard against her temples. Her gift allowed
her to pull giant trees free from the earth, roots and all. She was
able to hurl other objects with her mind. “Including large
boulders,” she wailed.

What good was any of it if she wasn’t able to
bring her male to her?

“Ayden,” she whimpered, and her stomach
twisted harder in pain when she heard the pathetic sound of her
voice.

“Magdaline.”

Magda straightened, her eyes wide and
suddenly burning. There were sounds outside her prison. She heard
twigs breaking, dried pine and leaves crunching. It was footsteps.
She smelled werewolves. Males. She choked and began coughing. Their
anger was so spicy her eyes watered. Not tears this time. She
smelled her own anger as well. Hers was as justified as theirs.
Magda didn’t want another male ruining Ayden’s scent in the
air.

“Magdaline, answer me,” Ayden ordered.

She flew to the window, moving so fast she
slammed her body into the wood that covered the steel walls of her
prison. Barbed wire pricked her nose. She touched herself with her
finger, feeling the trickle of blood from where she’d just
scratched her nose.

“Ayden,” she howled.

Magda didn’t smell her own blood. She didn’t
care about the scratch, which would mend soon enough just as the
bites and scratches left by his pack members had after being in her
prison for three days.

“Are you okay?”

He was really there. They weren’t planning on
leaving her to die alone in this awful place. Magda’s heart swelled
and she almost laughed. It came out more like a choked cough.

“I’m sorry, Ayden,” she told him.

Ayden wasn’t alone. Two other males, their
hostility so strong she had no way of sniffing out which one was
angrier, stood on either side of him. Like Ayden, they were tall,
very muscular, and blond. Unlike Ayden, neither male held her
attention.

She stared into Ayden’s blue eyes. They were
flatter than she’d ever seen them. It dawned on her that she
smelled the other males’ anger so well because there was no emotion
coming from Ayden. Other than his scent, the natural aroma created
from his physical person, she detected nothing. Her heart imploded
making her short of breath.

All the pain she’d endured during her three
days of imprisonment hit her tenfold when she lost herself in
Ayden’s pain-riddled, dead eyes.

“These males are going to ask you questions,”
he said without ceremony.

Nor did he acknowledge her apology, or even
appear to hear it.

Magda nodded once. Her hands were pressed
flat against the wooden wall. She pulled them away and felt how
damp they were. Rubbing them on her pant legs only made them itch.
She smelled her nervousness but didn’t have the strength to weigh
in her emotions. Instead she shifted her attention from one male,
to the other. Her eyes burned.

“Where is your pack?” the male to Ayden’s
right demanded. His face was puckered with scars and his cheekbones
wide. His thick barrel chest and stocky build forced his arms away
from his sides. He stood with his legs spread and his hands fisted.
He narrowed his eyes to slits and sneered at her. One of his front
teeth was missing.

Magda looked at Ayden. Had his packed asked
him these questions and doubted his answers? Ayden’s expression
remained blank. His eyes were still flat. He looked pale.

“I don’t have a pack,” she answered.

“There are more of you. Where are they?” the
other male pressed. This Cariboo was young, possibly younger than
Ayden. His strawberry blond hair was tousled from the wind and his
eyes bright and opened wide. He frowned when he stared at her
through the barbed wired window she stood behind.

She didn’t understand. Ayden knew the answers
to all these questions. “Only my littermates. But they aren’t like
me,” she added, needing to protect Liesa and Katrin but knowing
without being told that her life depended on her not lying.

“You want us to believe that you and your
littermates are the only fucking Malta werewolves out there?” the
puckered-face male barked. He took a step toward her. “Tell us
where the rest of you mutts are or you’ll be praying you were left
alone in that shed.”

Ayden didn’t move. He made no attempt to stop
the stocky male, who not only smelled of anger, but when he moved
closer it became clear he just smelled mean. The strawberry blond
male standing next to Ayden glanced at him. Ayden never quit
looking at Magda. She almost wished he would. The pain that had
stolen the glow in his eyes ripped at her soul.

“I’m not pure bred like you are. I’m half
Cariboo
lunewulf
.”

“Tell us where they are!” the male
roared.

Magda swore she felt the heat from his breath
as he came closer to the window.

“I haven’t been there. I’m not sure.”

“Lying bitch!”

It was impossible to hide her fear. Obviously
Ayden had refused to out her litter. But apparently he had no
intention of stopping his pack from torturing answers out of her.
If she were to die today, she would die with honor.

“I’m not lying,” she said, her voice low and
for a moment silencing the ugly mother fucker who glared at her
while damn near seething at the bit. “I haven’t been to where my
litter is now. Although even if you were somehow able to sniff them
out, all you’d find is a den full of Cariboo
lunewulf
. My
littermates look just like you.”

For a moment the male glaring at her sobered.
He paled, which made the scars on his face stand out even more.

“Are you saying that there are Cariboo out
there with evil power inside them like you have?” he growled.

Magda thought she smelled fear. If she had,
the icy breeze quickly stole it away. In the next second, the
grotesque male roared and lunged at the front of the shed. She
backed away from the window, and further into her prison when the
door frame noticeably rattled.

“Lying evil, half-breed bitch!” The lock on
the door shook and made almost enough noise to match the loud roar
from the male. “Even if we don’t find out where the rest of you
are, you’ll die today before you hurt anyone else in our pack.”

Hurt? Magda stumbled backward until her back
pressed against the wall opposite the door. The male said hurt. Was
Ayden’s littermate still alive?

The door flew open and the large male lunged
inside the shed. Her eyes had adjusted to her dimly lit
surroundings over the past few days. Even though tall trees
surrounded them, more light than she’d been used to flooded the
shed. All Magda saw was a smelly, luminous shadow leaping toward
her.

“No!” she screamed.

She wasn’t sure if she squeezed her eyes
shut, or not. It all happened too fast. If she had, when she opened
them, the puckered-faced male had flown backward out of the shed.
Magda ran to her freedom. Large arms imprisoned her the moment she
stepped outside.

With only the one window offering her a view
of her surroundings, she hadn’t been aware of the cliff not too far
beyond the trees outside the door to the shed. Before the male who
grabbed her blocked her view with his large chest, Magda saw the
puckered face male fly backward through the trees. His arms and
legs were flailing. In the next moment he tumbled off the edge of
the cliff.

“Fucking tail!” the strawberry blond gasped.
His voice sounded very far away.

“Calm down.” It was Ayden. He sounded much
closer.

Then Magda realized she was fighting her
captor. Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. She kicked and
scratched but the powerful arms only squeezed tighter.

“I can’t breathe,” she gasped.

Instantly she was freed. Ayden cupped her
face and brushed her hair back with his fingers.

“You’re okay,” he assured her.

Magda pressed her hands against Ayden’s
chest. She ran them up his arms, touched his face, and worried it
might be the last time she touched him.

“Is your littermate alive?” Her heart thudded
in her chest. As desperately as she needed to smell the truth, she
dreaded knowing it.

When Ayden nodded her world crumbled
underneath her.

Once again strong arms wrapped around her.
“God damn it! She’s so thin. Were they starving her?”

“I swear I didn’t know she was here until
this morning.” The strawberry blond male walked around both of them
and glanced inside the shed. “Looks like granola bars and
jerky.”

“What is this place?” Ayden still held Magda
but now looked over her head at their surroundings. “Puck was a
waste of werewolf flesh to have a cage like this.”

“You know the pack is only going to stink of
more fear when it’s howled that she killed him.”

“Sure he’s dead?” Ayden asked, and at the
same time released her.

She hugged herself, watching as Ayden and the
other male traipsed along the path of broken branches and debris
Puck’s body had created when he flew backward. The two of them
stopped and looked down.