Chapter 9: Kidnapped Before The Moonfire

There are exactly zero good reasons for a masked man to be standing over your bed at three in the morning. The fact it was the night before the Moonfire made it even more cosmically fucked.

"If you wake them, I will kill them. Nod if you understand."

Nova stared up at the masked man, eyes wide.

Marley, Benjamin, and Kyra were all fast asleep in their bunks. This guy was big so there was no question he could do it.

She gave a single nod.

Satisfied, he turned away like her compliance had never been in question.

Wrists tied. Gagged. She lay in her bed frozen as he opened the closet door, stopping it halfway before the spot where it always creaked.

Then he gathered everything she’d been issued for the Moonfire tomorrow. Jumpsuit. Sports bra. Gym shoes. Travel bag. Done. It took two seconds because he knew exactly where everything was.

Before moving on, he pulled what looked like a coin from his pocket and carved a small notch into the closet doorframe with it.

Nova went still. At least fifty identical ones were tallied there. This man was keeping track of his break-ins and somehow she had walked past that every day without noticing.

That revelation got exactly zero seconds to breathe before he moved again. He closed the distance and grabbed Nova’s arm, where Celeste had left a bruise.

She winced automatically.

He shifted his grip lower. She glanced down at his hand, then back up at him. Had he done that on purpose? He yanked her out of the bed and pointed at her boots.

"On."

That answered that. Definitely unintentional. Not a friendly abductor. Boots on.

What he did next would have made her jaw drop if she wasn’t gagged. Just when she thought it couldn’t get weirder, he started to make her goddamn bed.

It took her a moment to understand why. He was doing it so that when her roommates woke up tomorrow morning, they would think she’d left early.

No time to process that either. He was back in front of her. Blindfold on. Cloak over her shoulders. Hood up.

That’s when she caught his scent: the forest after rain. It was rare that she even noticed due to her silver bands. But his was distinct.

Without warning, the world tipped sideways. Muscles moved against her cheek. He was running while carrying her. Then a falling sensation. His hand covered her gag and her nose before the scream escaped.

WUMPF.

They landed softly. She gasped, every muscle in her body locked, completely disoriented.

Something growled from under his ribs. His wolf. She had heard wolves do this when threatened.

Was it growling at her or someone approaching?

The growl cut off abruptly. He squeezed her once.

"Hey. I’ve got you. Relax."

She was currently being abducted while gagged, tied, and blindfolded, and he was telling her to relax. The audacity almost made her laugh.

Which did make her relax, ironically.

She felt his muscles move and the wind got loud. Direction and speed were unclear.

By the time they stopped, she was shaking. Tears she’d been fighting finally slipped free. She was afraid. There was no other word for it.

The growling was back under his ribs.

"Who the hell are you carrying?"

"She passed out."

The kidnapper’s arms tightened around Nova hard enough to bruise. The message was received loud and clear. Shut up. Don’t move.

"It’s three-thirty in the morning. Please don’t tell me she’s part of the Moonfire."

"She’s mated."

"You’re carrying another wolf’s mate?"

"He asked me to."

"At a bar?"

"He’s a shitty mate."

"Is she okay? She’s breathing weird."

"She’s fine."

Only then did she realize she was wheezing. He stepped up into something. A door closed behind him. Then he set her on a soft leather armchair.

"Hey, Nova. Deep breath."

Nova. Other slaves called you by name. Everyone else used slave numbers. Why was she surprised? He knew his way around her closet. Why wouldn’t he know her name too? Sure.

She wiped her cheeks with her bound hands and inched down her blindfold enough to see. If she had to guess, they were in a hover yacht.

He was standing at a table with his back to her.

On a board behind him was a map of the arena with four circles drawn on it. Next to it, a flow chart with one word.

FAILED.

To his left was the door.

Her eyes locked on it.

Too late.

He turned, holding a plastic tool, and knelt in front of her. Two pulls freed her wrists. Then his attention shifted to her left cuff.

Instinct took over. She yanked it out of his grasp and spoke through her gag, muffled but intelligible enough. "The cuffs track biometrics. If you tamper with them, they’ll send a sig—"

"Signal to the monitoring hub, which triggers the kill switch, which detonates the silver charge inward through the radial artery and into the bloodstream." He said it like he had recited it a million times. "I know."

Her blood went cold.

"I can disable the tamper sensor for three seconds per cuff. We have two minutes before the GPS activates in all four. I need you to hold still. I won’t ask twice, Sweetheart."

The door was still there.

This was stupid. She went for it anyway.

Out of her seat. Two steps.

His arm latched around her waist. To her absolute horror, the plastic tool in his hand was actually a capped syringe. Like he had fully expected her to do that.

"Twenty-five seconds. You’ll feel warm. Then heavy. Then nothing. In that order."

"No."

It was already in her arm before she got the word out.

The pinch was small. The warmth that followed was not. Her fingers went first. Then her wrists. Then the fear, which didn’t leave so much as get buried under something heavier.

"Count backwards from five."

She made it to three. Possibly four. The last thing she saw was his hands on her left cuff, already working.