But that didn't stop her…because she felt that she had no other choice.
So Vonn was going to have to give her one. If he didn't shut this down right now, her next idea might be to gnaw her damn hand off at the wrist.
"Is that you or a mouse chomping at that rope?" he asked, calling his own bluff.
Stacy froze once again, but this time, she let out a sigh after weighing her options. "Must be a mouse."
"Well, it had better stop that and get some sleep, or I'll have to set some traps. And trust me, neither of us wants that."
"I'll pass that warning along to the mouse," she whispered after another long pause.
Vonn pulled a pillow over his head to stifle a laugh. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, but he was pretty sure the little mouse heard it anyway.
"While you're at it…you might want to remind it who's in charge around here."
Chapter Nine
The human brain was at its least efficient in terms of cognition and decision-making in the wee hours of the morning. It was a lot worse when exhaustion was factored in. Stacy had learned that during her SERE course, the U.S. military's little-known Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training. And her experience in the field had proved it true over and over again.
And yet last night, after her escape efforts proved fruitless, she'd still refused to fully climb on the bed in order to get some decent rest. Instead, she'd compromised by bending over at the waist, her toes still barely touching the floor, with only the top half of her body resting on the mattress.
In this position, she was not only just as vulnerable as she'd have been if she climbed all the way on, but because of the pressure of the footboard on nerves in her thighs, she'd suffered paresthesia and peripheral edema—legs "falling asleep" and swollen ankles, in lay terms—and wouldn't have been able to run if she needed to. Also, her shortness of breath from the pressure-induced reduction in lung volume meant that she'd never achieved the deep REM cycle her body needed.
But the worst effect of the position she'd chosen was that she'd unthinkingly put her ass on display while unconscious for several hours. The moment she woke to find the bedroom filled with bright sunshine, Stacy jerked to her feet in horror, realizing what she'd done.
By some miracle, though, Vonn hadn't taken advantage of the situation. He hadn't touched her in the night—Stacy was certain she would have known instantly.
Even stranger, he wasn't in the room now.
The bed was made up except for her small corner, the blankets smoothed into place, and the pillows neatly fluffed.
Stacy checked the room, bracing herself to find him primed to attack. Still, even as she determined he wasn't under the bed or in the closet, she realized how ridiculous she was being. Not only would an alpha have a hard time hiding in such compact spaces, he had no need. Whatever Vonn had planned for her, he could do it anytime and anywhere he wanted.
Her brief inspection had revealed something else: her pack was gone.
Shit.
Without that pack, Stacy was in deep trouble. She was down to less than twenty-four more hours of protection against her dormant nature, and if she wasn't able to inject herself in time…No. It would do no good to go down that road, and Stacy forced herself to focus.
Her first objective right now had to be freeing herself from these bonds. Only then could she turn her attention to retrieving the suppression serum. Then came escape and extraction. It didn't matter that she had almost no chance of success. Until the moment when her mission's failure was complete, she would keep moving forward.
At least Vonn's absence meant that Stacy could drop her efforts at stealth while she worked. The dossier that Fulmer had given her had described extraordinary powers of hearing, but it was shocking to experience them in real life.
She would have sworn that she'd been almost completely silent last night, but it was clear now she couldn't trust her own senses here in the Boundarylands. Maneuvers that worked with betas wouldn't come close here. Whatever she did, her efforts couldn't just meet her usual high standards—they had to be perfect.
She had to be perfect.
Stacy felt the old, familiar tension building inside her, starting in her temples and spreading through her body—the same tension she'd felt since her first day in the service. From the moment she'd signed her recruitment paperwork, the message was loud and clear: women weren't half as competent as their male counterparts. They never would be.
Stacy had been passed over for promotion close to a dozen times before she'd bested every other candidate in both physical and written tests. Eventually, no one could come up with an excuse to hold her back, but even then, the handshake from her senior officers had been grudging.
But Stacy had made a habit out of surprising the men in her life, starting with her father, who never expected her to follow his footsteps into the army. She'd endured repeated drubbings from her drill sergeant until the day she beat his time on the Indoor Obstacle Test. Since then, she'd proved herself to every damn skeptical officer who came to watch her train recruits in hand-to-hand combat.
She wasn't about to back down now just because the man she had to outperform was over seven feet tall and currently holding her captive.
Stacy examined the rope where she'd been gnawing at it when he caught her and saw with dismay that she'd barely made any headway at all.
On the other hand, something about the knot at her right wrist caught her eye, something she hadn't noticed in the dark. Vonn had used
