But I shoved him back before he got any closer, his pressed white shirt now smudged with my dirt. “Get away from me.” And then I looked to Will. “Will!” I barked.
He just stood there, his gaze rising to meet mine without a care in the world.
“Will!” Jesus, snap out of it!
To hell with this. I ran for the stairs, jiggling the double doors to get out.
“I wouldn’t try that,” the alpha said. “It’s cold, I’m guessing y
ou don’t know how to hunt, and believe me when I say you can walk a day in every direction and see nothing but your own footprints when you finally give up and drag your freezing ass back here because you have no other choices.”
I growled, pushing and slamming my body into the doors, but all I could hear were chains on the other side, holding it secure.
“Give it back to her,” I heard him say behind me.
I looked over my shoulder, seeing him speak to Rory who now held my knife, turning it over in his hands and inspecting it.
He narrowed his eyes. “She sliced Micah,” he argued.
The alpha stepped up to him, looked down into his eyes and didn’t say another word. Rory tightened his lips and stalked over, tossing me the knife, now sheathed.
I caught it, stepping down off the stairs and holding it firmly in my fist.
“I’m Aydin,” the alpha said, looking at me. “Aydin Khadir. No one will touch you again. You have my word.”
“Your word…” I almost laughed. “Does that mean anything when all I know about you is that you were despicable enough to get locked up in here?”
He quirked a smile, walking over to a small steel door on the wall and opening it.
Flames burst inside, and he reached down, taking a couple of logs and tossing them inside the oven. “You may know me,” he retorted, taking the poker and churning the wood. “My family probably owns one of the many sweat shops in Vietnam where your cheap Target blouse was manufactured.”
Taylor laughed, and I steeled my spine.
I watched as Aydin unwrapped a cut of meat from the same white butcher paper I saw on lots of the fare inside the refrigerator upstairs.
Picking it up with his fingers, he slapped it on a metal tray and slid it into the brick oven. I flinched as the flames engulfed it, the oven looking deep enough to hold a whole damn person.
I tensed.
“No one will touch you,” he said, staring at the flames before turning to look at me. “Until you want us to.”
Snickers filled the room, and I licked my lips, unnerved.
“Why am I here?” I demanded.
But he just taunted me. “Right?” he said. “Why are any of us here? We’re all innocent.”
Rory and Micah laughed, and I inched forward, the knife clasped in my hand.
“I’m not a prisoner,” I told him. “I don’t come from wealth. All I remember is leaving my office in San Francisco for lunch and waking up here. Where are we?”
Aydin just stared at the flames, the light dancing across his face.
“She knows Will,” Taylor said.
“Does she?” Aydin looked over his shoulder at Will. “Is she family? Please say it isn’t so.”
Will hung back, his hands in his pocket again as he leaned into the crates. The fire reflected in his gaze as he stared at me.