Amelia
Kidnapping and murdering his way through his own pack. Failure after failure. Until he took three children.
And kidnapped the wrong female.
Everyone still hated him. Everyone still hated me.
Of course, most knew why he hadn’t killed me. I was his mate. The wolf his wolf had chosen to be faithful and loyal to.
Bullshit, if you ask me. Lucien let me live because he liked having me as a prisoner.
He’d set me up here. At the time, it had been a dirty hole in the wall where even shit-faced drunks didn’t sit down without sliming sanitizer all over their hands.
The night Lucien had all but thrown me into the bar, Parker met him out front. He was an old and grizzled man even then.
Lucien said a few words to Parker and walked away without a second glance back. I figured he was giving me to Parker. Like, literally. Instead, Parker set me up in the small apartment above the bar and left me alone.
After about six months of not knowing what the hell I was supposed to do, I figured I’d focus on the bar. A year later, I’d really turned the place around.
It became a hub for shifters passing through, whether they were Black Diamond wolves or not. We even started getting some of our own as regulars, although most came to enjoy the good food and harass me.
“I’d heard that Lucien let her live. You working off your father’s crimes, little girl?”
My wolf threatened to surface, but I shoved her down. When he reached for me, I snagged the knife next to him and embedded it into the wood, right next to his pinky finger.
With a gasp, he jerked his hand back. “First of all,” I said calmly. “I’m no little girl. If that’s your fantasy, you let me know, and I’ll show you just how much of my father I have in me. Secondly, there is nothing that would make me spread my legs for you. Do you understand?”
“Amelia,” Paul growled and pulled me away. “Is that any way to treat the customers?”
His hand curved over my hip, and I turned and slammed the palm of his hand against his nose.
Blood spurted out, and his growl turned feral. When he turned to me, his eyes glowed gold.
“On your knees,” he howled. “Now.”
I couldn’t control her anymore. I’d gone too far, and now my wolf, always prickling just below my skin, rushed forward. Her fear overwhelmed me, and I hit my knees and exposed my neck.
Luckily, I didn’t let her out. I never let her out. She was just as trapped as I was.
“Bitch. Beg for my mercy.”
I tried to will the wolf away, to ignore her submissive behavior, but tears pricked my eyes.
“Forgive me. Please,” I whimpered.
He was my superior when it counted the most, and like everyone else, he could order my wolf. When she was this close, there was nothing that I could do to stop it.
Gary had broken her to the point that she couldn’t stand up to anyone, and I was at her mercy.
The front door opened, and Paul looked up. I couldn’t see over the counter, but I knew exactly who had walked in.
Not because Paul and the customer both bowed their heads in reverence. Not because I recognized his scent or the sound of his voice.
But because of the way my wolf shivered inside of me, keened with want and desire. It was all I could do to keep myself from launching over the counter and wrapping my body around him.
Can’t stand a man’s touch but his, and the man hated me with every bone in his body.
Really, my life was the stuff of dreams.
Sitting at the bar, Lucien plucked the knife out of the wood and rubbed his finger over the gash. “Hello, Amelia. I see you’ve settled right in.”
