The Reluctant Mate

Amanda

I woke with a start, confused for a split second before everything flooded back to me. Being caught spying, Porter, werewolves, being held here against my will. I had stayed up all night, on guard against the monsters who were holding me, but the exhaustion had gotten to me in the end.

The door had been pushed open, that was probably what had woken me up. Two men—or probably werewolf men, if I hadn’t been tripping on some airborne drug last night—came inside. I grabbed a plate as I got up from the couch and held it threateningly. If I kept throwing things at this rate I was going to run out soon. Maybe it was time to risk an attempt at exploring the rest of the trailer, since they hadn’t actually tied me up or anything.

Both men approached me. The younger looking one shot me a tentative smile. I glared at him harder. I might not be able to beat these monsters, but I could at least break dishes on their faces. “Hey, Amanda. I’m Lee, and this is Nash.”

The older one scowled at the younger, who stared off into space for a moment as if stunned. He was sort of fidgety, and his eyes held something that I could not name, but it made me uneasy. I wasn’t going to show them my fear though. I hoisted the plate higher so that they would see I was serious, just in case any of them hadn’t figured it out yet. “Stay back.”

“We’re just here to talk to you,” Lee said, his expression pleading.

Nash’s gaze swung back to me and I resisted the urge to cower. “Cooperate and we won’t do anything other than talk,” he said.

The threat scared me, so I lobbed the plate at him. Unlike Porter, he didn’t even try to dodge, it just hit his chest and fell to the floor with a crash.

“Ready to talk? Or...” Nash asked, a slight growl in his voice.

I almost gave in. They were werewolves, so they were probably even more dangerous than Steven had been. But no. “I’m ready to leave,” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes.

Lee met my eyes pleadingly, and then I saw he was holding my phone, the very one that Porter had taken away from me last night before I could call emergency services. “Give me that!”

“I will, but you need to text anyone who might worry that you went on vacation or something,” he said.

Yeah, right. Like anyone would believe that I had the money to do that. They’d definitely know something was up. Which made the story perfect. I sighed and pretended I didn’t want to do it. “Fine,” I said, dropping the plate back on the coffee table as if in defeat.

Nash’s eyes narrowed on me suspiciously, and then the two just stood there looking at each other for a long awkward moment.

Then Lee turned to me. “Do you have a grandma?”

“Yeah. Why? You going to kidnap her, too?”

“No, you’re going to tell everyone she had a medical issue and that you’re going to stay with her for a while.”

That was a way more believable story. “No.”

Nash grinned and a shiver ran down my back. “Yes, you will.”

I looked to Lee, since he at least seemed to feel bad for the whole forcible confinement thing. He sighed. “If you don’t cooperate, Nash will go after the people you care about next.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Nash just grinned at me evilly for a long moment, as if assessing me, and then shrugged. “Be easiest just to kill this human. Dead humans don’t talk.”

My heart slammed in my chest. Lee looked pained. “That would probably be the simplest solution.” His eyes pleaded as he looked at me. “But we wouldn’t need to do that if you just, you know, told them something believable, something that will keep them from being suspicious for the next few weeks. You know what we are, I bet you can imagine what we can do.”

It was more confirmation that I hadn’t hallucinated what I had seen through the gloom the last night.

He brought me my phone, and I was forced to sit with one werewolf on either side of me on the couch while I pretended that I was upset about my grandma and made excuses for work, and then with Lisa who was inconveniently suspicious. Then I called Grandma to tell her how busy I was going to be so she wouldn’t possibly look for me either. The whole time I had werewolves looming over me, one I was pretty sure wasn’t quite right, and the other seemed slightly regretful that they might kill me. How nice.

I was scared, but I was also furious, especially after they left. What made these monsters think that they had any right to confine me in any way? Sure, in retrospect, sneaking here was the stupidest idea I’d ever had, but holding me against my will was a crime, and I wasn’t going to just tolerate it.

By the next time the door opened, I was ready to attack again. I’d ventured into the kitchen and renewed my supply of weapons, and found a few better ones. Maybe they didn’t do anything much against the monsters, but at least it had seemed to piss of Porter when I threw things at him, and making him angry made me feel a bit better.

I had a cup in my hand, and I got ready to toss it, but I stopped when I saw it was a kid, maybe a teen if these creatures aged like humans did. I didn’t know.

“Who are you?” I snapped.

He held up his hands like he was surrendering. “Peace. I just want to get some stuff, okay?”

I lowered the cup, but I didn’t let it go.

He retreated down the hall, and came back with a bag a few minutes later. He glanced at me and left with a shrug. Strange kid. Probably was hard to grow up in a werewolf cult though.

My captors left me mostly alone. Lee or Nash came back from time to time to make me respond to texts. I wondered why they didn’t just do it themselves, since I was sure they’d seen my passcode. Weird.

The next time the door opened, it was the person who I was most angry at in the world. I didn’t know why this whole situation made me feel betrayed. It was a stupid feeling, like he should be on my side when he was the one who had trapped me here.

I grabbed the toaster and hurled it as his stupid face.

He dodged, just as Carrie followed him inside. Her eyes widened with shock as she just barely got out of the way. I almost felt guilty.

And then Porter snarled. “Amanda, stop it!”

His tone set me off and my temper exploded. “I’ll stop it when you let me go, you bastard! Let me go! Get away from me!” I punctuated my sentences by throwing more things. Carrie ducked out and Porter followed her, with one final frustrated expression back at me.

Once they were gone, I sat back down on the couch and cried myself to sleep without meaning to.