Oh my God, Rachel thought to herself. It was all true. Lewis wasn’t killing me. He was making me a monster like him, like the other bears. Now I am one of them. She lowered her head back down to the gurney. She felt different all of a sudden, strong and powerful. Her senses felt heightened, and she could feel a stirring inside of herself—something primal and animalistic in its nature. She knew what it was. It was the bear Lewis had somehow put inside of her.
* * *
Lewis checked his watch. Half an hour had passed since the agreed pick-up time had come and gone, and he was beginning to feel a bit nervous. The District 212 alpha was never late to pick up his girls. Not that Lewis had ever actually met him. He didn’t even know the man’s name. He had a contact within the pack, someone who made the necessary arrangements on the alpha’s behalf. Lewis had always been paid on time and it had never bothered him before that he was mostly kept in the dark about the man at the other end of the deals. Now it was bothering him. If the alpha bear didn’t bother coming for the girl, he would be stuck with her.
He would end up having to kill her, something he didn’t much want to do. She had seemed nice, nice enough that he had almost felt guilty about taking her in the first place. Almost. But business was business. He didn’t really want to have to kill her, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to find another buyer for her—no shifter would want a mate whom he had already turned. And even if he sold her cheaply enough to make the idea slightly more attractive, it ruled out every one of his contacts except bears.
Lewis felt his temper rising. He had put weeks of his time into sourcing Rachel, tracking her down once he learned of the presence of the Sanmere protein in her blood. Not to mention trailing her for a few days to find a good time to run his ruse on her.
Annoyed, he snatched his cell phone up and tried to call his contact. The call went to voicemail. Lewis swore and hung up. He told himself to calm down; maybe traffic was particularly bad this evening. He paced the floor and when his cell phone rang a couple of minutes later, he snatched it up immediately, feeling relieved to see it was his contact calling him back.
“Hello?” he said. “Are you almost here?”
“Actually, there’s been a change of plans,” he said. “We’ll no longer be requiring the girl.”
Lewis opened his mouth to argue, but the man went on.
“You will still be paid your fee, but instead of it being for us to receive the girl, it will be in exchange for her freedom. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” Lewis said.
In all honesty, it wasn’t clear to Lewis at all. It made no sense. But he was still going to get his fee and he wouldn’t have to kill the girl, so he would make it work.
“The fee will be in your account within the next five minutes. I am under strict instructions from the pack alpha to remind you that the girl is to go free and be totally unharmed. If he finds out that didn’t happen, then there will be trouble.”
“It’ll happen,” Lewis assured him. “May I ask why? Is there a problem with this girl? If there is, it will be easier if you tell me now and I can make sure it doesn’t reoccur on any further transactions.”
“There will be no further transactions,” the man said. “That’s all I know.”
“Okay, thank you,” Lewis said.
He ended the call feeling a little confused. No further transactions? Perhaps the alpha had decided he now had enough female children to keep the pack growing without his help. Lewis shrugged. It wasn’t his concern. He had plenty of other customers and he was still getting paid for the work he had done on this so far. He sat down to wait for the notification telling him the money had gone into his account. Once he received it, he would let the girl go.
* * *
Rachel cringed when she heard the door to the room where she was being held opening once more. Did this mean her buyer was here? Was it time to go off and become a breeding machine? She turned her head to look and she saw only Lewis coming toward the cage. That didn’t mean that the buyer wasn’t here and waiting in another room, though.
“Well, Rachel, it looks like today is your lucky day,” Lewis smiled as he opened the cage door.
Rachel didn’t reply. She couldn’t fathom for even a second how she was meant to believe that anything about this was lucky. Lewis came toward the gurney and unfastened the strap across her chest. When it was open, he looked at Rachel.
“In a second, I’m going to undo the other straps and you’re going to walk away from here. If you try anything, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?” Lewis asked.
“You mean you’re letting me go?” she said.
Lewis nodded.
“I won’t try anything,” she said quickly.
It felt like it was too good to be true, like he was setting her up for something, but he had made no effort to conceal her destiny from her before and why would he start now? She decided to just go with it and see if he really would let her walk away.
“Don’t even think about going to the police or telling anyone about this, because if you do, one of two things will happen. You’ll either be deemed crazy and most likely be locked away for your own good. Or they’ll believe you and lock you away in a lab somewhere,” Lewis said.
Rachel knew that what he was saying now was the truth, and while the idea of him being free to
