rich asshole who owned him. I doubted that would end well. Then again, why in the hell would Blue ever meet Waib? She was a prisoner. I shuddered, my heart squeezing hard. There was no way I could have prevented her capture, but that didn’t make me feel any better.
Worn out by the shocks, I drifted in semi-consciousness, only stirring when the plane tilted, and the engines changed pitch. We were landing.
Chapter 3
Connor
* * *
A wave of power bristled against my skin. I cocked my head as I internalised my anger. Standing behind me, my brothers growled as one, a resonant rumble that fed my own need for blood. I watched through my wolf's eyes, unconcerned that he was at the forefront running the show. For four years, my wolf and I worked as one to keep our pack together and alive. The other shifters in this hell hole were expendable, but my brothers were not.
The stench of burned flesh seeped into the air as the new recruits tried to shift. Even if they realised fighting the silver collars was pointless, most were unable to control the need. That compulsion to free their animal side would soon become as painful as the broken bones they were about to sustain if they didn’t back down.
A blonde haired surfer dude snarled, his eyes cold and hard. He inclined his head at the row of cells behind him. “This is ours now. So are the women.”
My eyes didn’t even flicker to the woman who had wrapped her skinny arms around one of the newbies. It was a matter of survival. These women weren’t fighters, so they saved themselves in whatever way they could. I didn’t judge them, and I didn’t care about them. So long as they kept out of my way, I left them alone.
My wolf snarled at the newcomer, who believed himself an alpha. Maybe he was, albeit a new one, but he would still bow to me—or he would die.
The first challenge came from the tall, ripped man in front of me. He kept eye contact as he lowered his head and snarled. My features twisted into a vicious snarl to mirror his, and I released a wave of power. All noise in the vast underground prison wing ceased, and a space opened around me, my brothers and the newbies. I glanced down at the body of the previous alpha. I didn’t care that he was dead, the guy had been an arsehole, but, then again, so were most of the inmates in this place—including me. In fact, I was the worst of them.
My wolf growled at me and scraped his claws against my insides. He didn’t care who died, so long as it wasn’t our brothers.
“Owen.”
My beta grunted an acknowledgment. My brothers, the men who had been with me from the beginning of this sick adventure, followed his lead. They prowled around this new pack, surrounding them, their wolves rolling across their eyes. No one stepped in to help the newbies. The north wing wolves who had just lost their alpha, shifted from foot to foot, moving away from us.
I gave a feral grin. There would be no mercy for these new recruits. If this newly self-made alpha didn’t submit to me and ordered his new followers to fight, they would all die.
This prison was mine. In here, I was king. I kept the shifters in line.
I curled my lip as the cowards and weakest members of the group hunched their shoulders and dropped their eyes to the ground. It was easy to dominate them, but the alpha didn’t budge, nor did five of the males around him. Instead, aggression rolled off them in spades.
I straightened to my full height and kept the predatory grin on my face, enjoying the knowledge that my wolf stared out from my eyes, right at the alpha. It would be a waste to kill him. He was just the kind of vicious shifter that would make a lot of money for the warden and Doherty.
So long as the alpha submitted to me, he could keep his new followers and take the north wing pack, too, if he wished. But if he challenged me, he would die, and I would send all of these shifters out into the general population. I should care about the hopeless existence of those in gen pop, but I didn’t—nor did my wolf. He was a killer, an apex predator who didn’t give a shit about anyone since the