Chapter Five
Sebastian
The shooting pain in my right hip caught me by surprise, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it before my legs went numb and buckled beneath me. When I came to, I was naked and hogtied on a cold concrete floor with my bodyguard’s hot back pressed tightly against my own. A low groan from beside me announced that Alrick was also returning to the land of the living although, if he felt anything like I did, there was no guarantee that that was necessarily a welcome change. Between the shakes ravaging my body, the bone-numbing lethargy, and the roiling in my belly, it was a thousand times worse than the worse hangover that I had ever experienced.
“Sebastian?” Alrick’s ragged voice was barely a whisper but still managed to echo through my pounding head.
“Yeah,” I tried to answer. It came out more of a pitiful whimper, but Alrick must have heard me, because he continued. “Hold still; I’m going to try and cut these ropes.”
I could tell from the expanse of hot flesh pressed against me that he was just as naked as I was. Still, as curious as I was about how he planned to accomplish such a feat, I was in no shape to ask. As it turned out, I didn’t need to. I caught the faint cracking bone-shifting noise, felt a sudden twinge of pain across my wrist, and the tightly cinched rope fell away, leaving me free.
Alrick flexed his hands, his claws quickly reverting to human fingers, and gently stretched my limbs, massaging my aching muscles until they relaxed enough to be usable, then drawing me to my feet. Once I was upright, he surprised me by running his tongue lightly over the scrape on my wrist, cleaning off the thin line of blood left by his claw and depositing the enzymes that would speed healing.
“Thanks,” I croaked out, overly conscious of his naked body still touching mine as he held me up. His muscular body was dripping sweat, his impressive cock was fully erect and tight against his abs, - side effects, I assumed, of whatever drug was kicking my butt. “What happened?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Alrick admitted, his face stormy. I would have pulled away, but he was holding me tight. “It looked like you were shot, but before I could get to you, I was hit as well.”
Alrick spun me suddenly, turning me around and gently placing my hands on the wall in front of me for support before he dropped down to his knees, leaving him at face level with my butt.
“What..” I gasped, startled.
Alrick ignored me, tracing his index finger lightly over my hip.
“Right here,” he said, his angry tone at odds with the gentleness of his touch. “You were hit by a dart of some sort.” Another touch ghosted over my skin and I started. Had Alrick really just kissed my bare skin? Before I figured out how to respond, he’d moved on, rising to his feet and stepped away, twisting his torso to see his own backside, the action dragging his erection across my body before breaking contact.
I swallowed a moan and tried to fight my body’s reaction to being in such intimate contact with the virile Alpha.
“A matching set,” he said, anger turning to self-disgust in his voice. “I let them take me down like some half-wit pet dog.”
“N..not really,” I forced myself to respond. “Th..they must have be..been well hidden. I never heard or s..saw anything.”
Alrick nodded once, sharply, but the frown stayed in place. “Still, you’re not a..”
He stopped himself, and I raised a brow in spite of myself.
“Not a..a.what? An A..alpha?” I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes, but barely.
Alrick colored slightly, the flush climbing up to darken his cheeks, and I forgot that I was annoyed.
“No, Sebastian. I was going to say that you’re not a trained soldier and then I realized how egotistical that sounded.” Alrick met my eyes and gave a small, apologetic smile. “There’s nothing wrong with not being an Alpha.”
My anger dissipated as quickly as it had mounted and I sighed, suddenly realizing that, for the first time since we had met, I wasn’t uncomfortable being in a room with him. Which, if I was to dwell on it, really didn’t make sense since he was naked and, even though it was a reaction to the drugs and not to me, definitely aroused.
“Wh..what do we do now?” I asked, looking around our prison for the first time. The small room was nearly bare. A single cot covered by a rough brown blanket occupied one corner. An odd five-gallon sized bucket sat opposite it.
“First, we rest for a few minutes to rebuild our strength and let more of this poison wear off,” Alrick said firmly, taking my hand and leading me over to sit on the cot. “Then, we find a way out of here.” He grimaced. “Wherever here is.”
I started laughing. Just a little snicker at first but soon it had morphed into a full-fledged chortle.
“What could you possibly be laughing at?”
“Sorry,” I managed to get out, “but believe it or not this isn’t my first kidnapping.”