Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson

Chapter 1

Divide and Conquer

Being chained up in a basement wasn’t as bad as being chained up in a cave, an outhouse, or a condemned poultry-processing plant. What did it say about my life that I could draw that comparison? Some might’ve pointed out that I ought to stop doing the shit that led me to be chained up, period.

I disagreed. That was victim-blaming, if you asked me. What was a little necromancy, anyway? Like, the guy I’d turned into a giant wolf-zombie-thing the other day was a complete asshole to begin with. I might’ve even improved his personality.

Not that anyone had asked me. As usual, I’d been ignored other than being locked into spelled manacles and dumped onto the floor of a secured room like so much dangerous trash — the radioactive waste of the supernatural world. Too hot to touch. Too toxic to discard in the open. Nearly worthless if I didn’t cooperate, but still with some potential to be used, if my captors figured out how.

First they’d try to get some magic out of me. Then, when I refused, they’d rape and beat me — they’d get some entertainment that way, if nothing else.

At least, that’s how it had gone before, more than once. Who knew what addled, bullheaded Matthew would do to me, or let his pack do to me, while under the influence of my spell? I’d never been raped by someone who thought he loved me before. Maybe this time I’d get a new experience. Broaden my horizons. Let another fraction of the miniscule bit of faith in humanity I’d held onto all these years shrivel and die. Not that I’d had much to begin with. I had faith in myself. Everyone else was a threat or a mark, and often both.

For now, though, I reclined on the beat-up orange shag carpeting, inhaling the acrid dust of decades that puffed out of it every time I shifted my weight. I closed my eyes, finding my center as well as I could with chains wrapped around me and cutting off my magic, the one thing I’d ever been able to control — other than the occasional undead monster.

I was Arik. I held on to that — the one, unshakable foundation of my identity, the name I’d been given by the only person I’d ever loved.

I was a shaman. A little quiver of ironic laughter there, because I hated that title as much as every alpha I’d ever encountered craved the use of someone who held it.

Sam Kimball was dead.

That allowed me a flicker of a smile.

And lastly, I had the Armitages’ alpha pack leader by the balls. And if he thought he could use me without reciprocation, he was about to have a rude fucking awakening. Chains, torture, and even fucking shag carpets couldn’t break me. Nothing could break me.

I was Arik, shaman and necromancer and survivor. I did the breaking.

Deep breath. I’d repeat that until I believed it.

I had the chance to repeat it several dozen times before anything happened to disturb me. Footsteps — several sets of them, it sounded like. Fucking yay. Maybe it would be all three of the stooges this time, instead of just Ian Armitage, Matthew’s brother, who’d come downstairs once the day before to growl and shout at me.

I’d ignored him. Then he’d shouted more. Then his mate, that little fucking asshole warlock Nate Hawthorne, had stomped to the top of the stairs and shouted at Ian about how they’d agreed he was going to deal with me himself. Really, I’d had better conversations.

By the time the door to the staircase opened, I’d managed to prop myself up into a half-seated sprawl against the end of an ancient ratty plaid couch. Couldn’t they have put me on the couch? No, of course not, but given how gross it was I was probably better off on the floor anyway.

I stopped short of laying the back of my hand against my forehead like a Victorian lady with the vapors, mainly because my arms wouldn’t stretch like that with the length of my chains. But I thought I probably got the point across. Limp arms, labored breaths, fluttering eyelashes, check check and check. That love-struck fool Matthew didn’t stand a chance. He might take his anger out on me at some point, or let his pack do it for him, but that would serve a purpose too. The more pathetic I looked now, the more guilt he’d store up for me to tap