Gracie - Sherry Foster Page 0,51
anyone who gets in his way to get the female. But if you carry a female? You don’t know how to hide her from those with no pack. You can’t protect her and they will kill you to get to her even if she is still nursing at your breast. Our females are rare and a treasure with no price and rogues will do anything, destroy anyone and anything to get one. If she is too young they will lock her away until she is of age. I see the disbelief on your face but I don’t lie to you. Willow? Tell her.”
Gracie turned her head to look at the woman sitting beside Mia. The woman sent a look of malice her way and she remembered this then was the mate to the man she shot.
“We are the safe haven of our world. Other packs rescue females and bring them to us. Broken females, minds shattered with one thing in common. Almost all of them watched their families killed in front of them before they were taken away by the killers. Some were imprisoned for years before being rescued. You could say they have similar lives to the ones you try to save with one exception, they are almost always safe till the day they turn twenty-one. And by safe I mean they aren’t taken sexual until that day. But on that day? All bets are off. We had one female here for years, she refused to leave after she came of age. It was her choice to stay. It was her choice not to go out with others to find a mate. Her family was killed, she thought, when she was twelve. Her uncle sold her to an Alpha who kept her chained in the basement of a house for four years. Four years with no contact other than her captors, with no sunshine. No playing outside, no wind upon her face. One room, not even a private bathroom, for four years. Are you willing to take the chance on your child? Will she be the next Trisah whose mind we have to mend? You see, they don’t traffic the females, not like the ones you hunt, so they leave little to no clues. But then, if that happens they won’t leave you alive to search for her so it won’t matter if they leave clues.” She leaned back and crossed her arms and turned her face toward Mia.
“I don’t want you here. You are human and humans are nothing but trouble. But the child you carry? You won’t leave here with the child and that means you will be here until the child is born. If you choose not to stay after that.”
Gammon stopped talking but Gracie didn’t need him to finish, she did it for him. “I can’t leave after the child is born either, not alive. I know too much. You will keep the baby and kill me. I’m not stupid. At least not completely stupid. So what now? I can’t go home and I don’t want to live with Hendrix so what happens to me now.”
“Well, the first thing is learn not to lie to me. I don’t like it.”
“I didn’t lie to you.” Gracie started to say but her protest died in her throat when she saw the anger on Gammon’s face. “I didn’t intentionally lie to you.”
“Intentional or not, you lied. I suggest you figure out what your heart wants before your mouth gets you in more trouble.”
Gracie pushed back in the chair and sent a glance toward Hendrix but he hadn’t moved. His stony expression hadn’t changed either. She turned back to look at Mia. “What will happen to Halo? If I stay, what will you do to him?”
“They are hoping like hell he and Jerrod get along. If they don’t, well he will probably be locked up for awhile until Gammon decides what to do with him.” Dimitri told her.
“Jerrod didn’t look too happy about having Halo around. It doesn’t matter that Jerrod is gay, you can’t just shove two gay men together and think they can be a couple because they are both gay.”
“We don’t expect that, but a friendship between the two would go a long way toward winning your friend a bit of freedom to move around the territory.” Gammon told her.
Gracie saw Hendrix give a start of surprise before he straightened. Moving toward her he reached out his hand. “Come on, you look exhausted, let’s get you