Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,196

right! We don’t need to-”

“We don’t need your boyfriend and his bears to throw us a fucking pity party!” Vince screamed, slapping Brooke hard across the face. She toppled sideways with the force of it, unable to pull herself up again. She growled. Around the room shouts of agreement echoed off of the walls. Damn them and their fucking pride.

The witch stayed in the corner and said nothing, walking forward only when Vince turned to her and beckoned her forward.

“Now, Sabine here just needs a few things for her little spell, and then tomorrow we can get this show on the road!” Vince grinned.

He was practically rubbing his hands together, Brooke thought in disgust. Sabine’s hands were cold but unnervingly gentle as she pulled Brooke gently back to her knees. Brooke couldn’t take any comfort from the light touch. It wasn’t as if this witch cared about Brooke - that much was clear from the spell she was about to perform. She just needed Brooke in one piece until it was over. The witch pulled a pair of ornate looking gold scissors from her pocket and snipped a long auburn lock of hair from Brooke’s head, plaiting it quickly into a tiny braid before stowing it back into her pocket. She worked in silence and Brooke looked at Vince, eyebrows raised in her best unimpressed look.

“Doesn’t talk much does she?” Brooke used her best cock-sure voice, nodding at the witch, and Sabine made a warning noise before cutting a deep slit in Brooke’s forearm, using more pressure than she needed to. Bitch.

“Her considerable talents lie elsewhere, I assure you,” Vince told her, eyes narrow.

Sabine climbed gracefully to her feet and stepped back, intoning,“It is done.” Her voice was as soft as her hands, barely above a whisper, and it made Brooke shiver involuntarily.

“Thank you, dear,” Vince said to her, then turned to sneer down at Brooke. “Well, I’d love to stay and watch you stew and whine but this place is even more of a shithole than those apartments you have us in, and I have a battle to plan.” He walked to the door, the other wolves following closely behind. Some of them sent glances to Brooke over their shoulders as they passed, but most of them didn’t give her a second glance. Brooke felt her heart start to crack in her chest, she truly had lost them.

Vince waited until they were alone and turned back to her. The moonlight framed his figure, making him look larger and more menacing.

“I’m going to take them from you Brooke; you don’t deserve them.”

“And they don’t deserve you.”

He grinned maliciously, showing too many teeth. “You know what the first thing I’m going to do once you’re nothing more than a shrivelled up husk? I’m going to take your precious Connor’s lodge and I’m going to kill every last bear within its walls.”

The door slammed shut behind him and Brooke was left in the dark and the damp, heart beating wildly behind her ribs. The ritual would take a day to prepare, if she was remembering her history correctly. That wasn’t a lot of time; she had maybe twelve hours before Vince and the pack would come back. Twelve hours, at the most, to escape and find her way back to Connor to warn him.

God, she hoped it would be enough time.

Brooke tested the rope binding her hands, trying to find a weak spot. She contorted her wrists, ignoring the rope burn as she pulled and twisted until… there! There was the slightest give around her right wrist, the rope was fraying slightly. She grinned.

It would take time to ease the rope apart, but it was hope, at least.

76

Connor

After the meeting with the pack, Connor and his brothers sat down in his office with several bottles of whiskey and talked about their half of the truce. Connor knew it was ultimately he who had the final say on what they did, but he still wanted their support, and they were willing to give it.

Cody had been the hardest. Eric had a bleeding heart and Nathan was willing to help anyone that he thought deserved it, but Cody had been more worked up about the pack’s being on their territory than even Connor himself. At one point he simply got up, told them he was going for a run, and left. He’d returned an hour later having killed three bobcats and claimed he was feeling ‘much better.’

“Do we really have to give them that