Deal With the Devil Read online

  Being chained naked to the stone altar was every bit as bad as I remembered. The only difference was the moon overhead wasn’t full this time and it wasn’t ropes that bound my arms but real silver manacles that burned and chafed my wrists. Apparently Frank and the other alphas weren’t taking any chances that I might escape. They hadn’t bothered with putting silver on my legs, though—they didn’t need to. My ankles had been tied with a thick rope to a kind of pulley system at the end of the altar so no matter how hard I tried to close my legs, I couldn’t manage it.

  The altar was set in the middle of a small clearing, surrounded by the woods that were the pack’s hunting grounds. The stones were rough and cold under my back and a cool breeze played over my naked body, making me shiver. I felt horribly exposed, laid out bare and helpless as the uncaring moon wheeled overhead and the alphas of the Arm Gard pack surrounded me. They were all shirtless and silent, their bare chests gleaming in the silvery moonlight. But I could still feel their eyes on me, wolf gold and as cold as the surface of the moon, as they stared at me dispassionately and waited for the ceremony to begin.

  I closed my eyes to shut it out, praying it would be over quickly. But since Engle had been waiting fourteen years to have me, it didn’t seem likely that he would settle for a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am approach. Calm. Be calm. You can get through this. You’ll be all right. I didn’t know why I was trying to calm myself down—maybe going into full panic attack mode would put Engle off fucking me. Then again, he might enjoy it even more and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “Well, well—so the prodigal returns.” It was Engle’s voice in my ear and I jumped—or would have if the silver chains and ropes hadn’t been holding me down.

  “Leave me alone,” I said but with no conviction. There was no way he was going to leave me alone. He had me right where he’d wanted me and he was going to make the most of it.

  Engle stood up and raised his arms over his head. He always was all about the drama. “Brothers of the Arm Gard pack, tonight we come to the end of an era. For tonight I will step down and name another to take my place—but first I have a little bit of unfinished business to attend to.” Deep, trollish laughter greeted his words. Engle smiled to acknowledge his own wit and continued.

  “Fourteen years ago when I ascended as your pack master I was promised this girl’s virginity to mark the occasion. Well, as most of you know, that didn’t happen. Luz Velez,” he continued, looking down at me. “You stand accused of willfully refusing to shift in order to avoid giving your pack master his due.”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” I said angrily, yanking at the chains that held me down. “I was thirteen when my parents offered me to you—too young to consent to any kind of sex, especially with a man twenty years older than me, you sick fuck.”

  There were angry murmurs from the alphas of the pack and Engle leaned down and slapped my face. It must have looked like a casual blow to those observing but the force of it rocked my head to one side and split my lip. I tasted the warm copper flavor of my own blood and there was a ringing in my ears that hadn’t been there before.

  Clearly it was a warning but I didn’t care. I spat the blood in Engle’s direction and had the grim satisfaction of seeing it speckle his cheeks. He wiped his face with one hand in a quick, angry motion. “You’ll pay for that.”

  I was sure I would but I was sick of being a victim, sick of hiding in the shadows and trying not to think of what he’d done to me. “Fuck you,” I said and the alphas murmured again. Some of them even came forward but Engle held up a hand.

  “As I said, Luz Velez is finally being brought to justice after all these years. I regret, however, that her virginity is gone—given to another when it should have been saved for me and me alone.”

  “She should be punished!” shouted one deep male voice that I recognized as Frank’s.

  Engle nodded. “And so she will be. For I will have this girl and though I am not the first, nor will I be the last.” He looked at me, a cruel smile playing around his slash of a mouth. “Luz Velez, it is my ruling that tonight every alpha in the Arm Gard pack will taste your favors. Beginning with me.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You-you can’t do this,” I said frantically. “There’s no law that allows you—”

  “As pack master I am the law.” Engle gave me an ugly grin. “Prepare to be mounted, bitch.”

  I closed my eyes, trying desperately to remember the dulce de leche flavor of Jude’s blood, trying to keep the panic from overtaking me. But I couldn’t breathe and my heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it were trying to break through my ribs with a sledgehammer. Oh God, I can’t…I can’t…

  “Stop!” Another voice rang out, just as Engle was about to climb on the altar with me.

  My eyes flew open and I saw Diego standing there, shirtless in the moonlight.

  Engle snarled and suddenly there was a gun in his hand and it was pointed at my little brother. “What do you want, cub? We’re conducting a ceremony and you’re trespassing on our pack grounds.”

  “I want my sister, untied and unharmed. Let her go, Engle, you fucking pendejo, or I swear to God I’m gonna rip you apart.” Diego’s eyes were wolf gold in the moonlight but he was all alone this time and Engle knew it.

  “Move along.” He waved the gun in a menacing manner. “Or would you prefer to be shot? This gun is loaded with silver bullets—you’d never survive.”

  “My pack will take revenge if you dare,” Diego warned.

  Engle laughed. “No, they won’t. Your pack master is very unhappy with you right now—he’d know you got what was coming to you.”

  I wanted to beg Diego to just go, to run as fast and as far as he could. If Engle said he would shoot, I had no doubt that he would. There was no way Diego could save me without backup and there was no sense in him being killed to save me from a fate I seemed doomed to endure.

  But before I could say anything, Diego took a deep breath. “Pack Master Engle,” he said in an official tone I had never heard him use before. “I offer you formal challenge for the rights to my sister, Luz Velez.”

  “Diego, no!” I gasped, having finally found my voice. But neither man paid any attention to me.

  “Formal challenge, hmmm?” Engle frowned. “You’re really a glutton for punishment, aren’t you, cub?”

  “Unless you’re too chickenshit to accept.” Diego bared his teeth in a silent growl.

  Engle shrugged. “Formal challenge it is.” He nodded at the alpha standing closest to him. “Darius, take him out.”

  I could barely stand to watch what followed. Darius, who was built like a Mack Truck, lumbered toward my much smaller brother. I was afraid he would bulldoze right over Diego but that didn’t happen. At the last minute Diego stepped aside and stuck out a leg to trip him. The other alpha went down and then Diego was on his back. He grabbed the other male’s head and twisted until a low cracking sound echoed through the forest around us.

  It was only then, when my brother got up and turned to face Engle and the other alphas again, that it really hit home with me. This was a fight to the death and in order to free me, Diego was going to have to take on every one of the fifteen remaining alphas and Engle as well and kill them all. Even as fast and as deadly as he was, there was no way he could do it. He would get tired or injured and one of them would kill him instead.

  “Please,” I murmured to Engle, pitching my voice so that only he could hear. “Please, just let him go home. I…I’ll give you what you want. I won’t even struggle, I swear.”

  Engle uttered a harsh, barking laugh. “Stupid little bitch—don’t you know the struggle is part of the fun? Besides, I think it’ll be much more entertaining to fuck you after you watch your brother die trying to save you. This little family drama is really whetting my appetite.”

  “You cold-hearted bastard,” I snarled but he only laughed again.

  “You should have given it up