As Lori was stretching up to peg one of Nancy’s all-in-one suits to the washing line, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. She jumped and spun around at the same time to see who it was. At the sight of a huge, hairy biker, she opened her mouth to scream, but a hand clamped down over it, and an arm coiled around her waist from behind. Panic flooded her veins. The biker looked familiar. Oh my god. It’s the guy who’s rented out my old store! A face like that was hard to forget. The yellow eyes, that she’d hoped she’d never see again, bored into hers.

“You’re going to come with me, right now,” he snarled in a harsh, ugly voice. “Do you understand? And don’t you dare try to scream or run away.” She nodded, as far as she was able to. “That your kid, sleeping there?” Her eyes widened and she nodded again. “If you scream, or call out at all, we’ll get one of our friends to come around and take care of it.” She shook her head frantically. He gave her an ugly grin.

“Ok, I think we understand each other,” he said.

The other guy, who she hadn’t seen yet, held her hands behind her back, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh, and propelled her forward. She cast a last, panicked glance at Nancy, sleeping so sweetly in her cradle. She was so scared, she thought she’d pass out. But at least they weren’t taking her baby too. Andrea was upstairs. She’d come out and look for her at some point, and she’d find Nancy. Surely that would happen. But, what if someone or something else got to her first? No! She began to hyperventilate. She wanted to ask what they were going to do with her, but she was too scared to speak, in case it made them decide to hurt Nancy. Instead, she bit her lip, and forced herself to stay quiet.

They’d been walking a good distance, through dense forest, her tripping all the time, and twigs lashing her face, without her having her hands to protect her. At last, they burst out of the woods and into a clearing. When she saw the bikes, her stomach dropped. They were going to make her sit on a bike? No way! She was terrified of motorbikes.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” the nasty guy from the store said. “Chunks here is going to get onto his bike, and you’re going to climb up behind him. I’ll stand here and wait until he’s left, so don’t get any ideas about jumping off at the last minute. If you try to escape at any point, you’ll never see your baby again.” The guy behind her let go of her wrists and her hands tingled painfully. She rubbed at them to get the circulation going again. As he walked in front of her, she gasped at the sight of him. He was tall and thickset, and he had wiry black hair standing straight up, like a porcupine. He also had one of the ugliest faces she’d ever seen, with none of his features looking like it belonged with the others. He had a wide slash of a mouth, with disconcertingly sensual red lips, a huge, bulbous nose with open pores, which made her think of a potato, and narrow, slanted eyes, the color of swamp water. His cheeks were heavily pockmarked with acne scars, and his ears were small and protruding, like handles on a teacup. In different circumstances, she would’ve felt sorry for him. As it was, he looked absolutely terrifying.

He climbed onto one of the bikes, started the engine and reversed out of the parking spot. The other guy gave her a push in the middle of her back.

“Go on, get on,” he ordered her. On shaky legs, she walked over to the bike and lifted her leg over it. She’d never even sat on a bike before. It lurched forward, and she flung her arms around the guy’s waist. Then she recoiled and let go of him. The other guy laughed nastily.

“I wouldn’t be such a princess about holding onto him if I was you,” he said. “Or you might just find yourself lying headfirst in a ditch.” Gingerly, she put her hands on either side of his waist, clutching his leather jacket rather than his body. The jacket smelled of mold and rot. “Hey, hold on,” the shop guy said. “We don’t want to be stopped cuz Miss Nosy Parker ain’t wearing a helmet. Let me put this on her.” A moment later, a heavy, foul smelling helmet was jammed over her head. It came down to her shoulders, and she could hardly see out of the visor. The bike jolted again, and then roared off along the forest track.

Where the hell are they taking me? And why? she asked herself over and over. It’s because one of them saw me at the store, obviously. He just called me ‘Miss Nosy Parker’. He’s mad at me. But why? She remembered the eyes of the shop guy and the ruthlessness she saw in them when she first met him. It didn’t make any sense at all. She was petrified, beyond belief. The bike was moving fast, and the wind buffeted them from side to side. Terrified of falling off, she moaned and whimpered, like a small animal. After a while, another bike overtook them. It was the shop guy, and they followed him as he wove in and out of the traffic. She looked out for the road signs. It seemed like they were heading to the far north of the state, a region she’d never been to before.

At one point, they stopped at a gas station and the shop guy went inside and came back with a bag of things. While he was gone, the other guy took his glove off and ran his hand up and down her thigh. It seemed to be a warning to her, not to get off the bike and scream for help, but could also have been something sleazier. She cringed at his touch, almost crying from fear, but held herself absolutely still, desperate not to show him any reaction at all.

They rode off again, and soon they left the highway, and went through some back roads, then onto farming land. Dusk began to fall, and it got harder to see. She felt like they’d been traveling for hours. They turned onto a bumpy dirt track, and the bike juddered all over as it negotiated the ruts left by a tractor. She clung on tight to her captor, having long since got over her aversion to touching him.

Suddenly, they came to a stop in front of a large, low building made out of corrugated metal. It looked like a store for grain or farming equipment. What the hell are they going to do with me now? The two guys killed their engines and the shop guy told her to get off the bike. She obeyed, her legs trembling even worse than they’d been before.

“Follow me,” he barked. He led her around to the side of the building, where there was a door. He hauled it open, pushed her through and slammed the door behind her.

It was dark. There were no windows, and no electric lighting. There was just a chink of faint light coming from where the metal walls didn’t quite meet the floor. The air was full of the smell of hay and manure. She strained her ears and thought she could hear animals moving about – big slow ones. Cows? Were they loose? What if they’re bulls, and they decide to attack me? Fear pinned her against the door. When the sounds didn’t come any closer, she forced herself to get her breathing under control. She could no longer hear anything. Maybe she’d imagined that there were animals there. She crouched down and felt the ground. It was dirt mixed with hay. She sat down on it. Why have they kidnapped me? What are they planning? Is Nancy safe? Has someone found her yet? Her thoughts spun around in her head. She didn’t care what happened to her, if she could only know that her baby was safe.

It was fully dark now and she couldn’t see a thing. Just pure, unfathomable blackness. She shivered. The day had been warm, but the barn felt dank. She was only wearing loose Capri pants and a button-down blouse with short sleeves. Would she have to sleep here? Lie down in the dirt without even a pillow or a blanket. Were there rats here? The thought of rats running all over her body while she lay vulnerable on the filthy ground made her flesh creep. She whimpered. I mustn’t cry. I can’t give in to my fear, she told herself. But it was no use. She broke into loud, wracking sobs.

Suddenly, she fell backward and smacked her head on the ground. Ow. Her pain was accompanied by the sound of dumb teenage laughter. She opened her eyes and found she was looking up at the face of the extra-ugly guy. He was cackling in glee. He’d just opened the door, making her lose her balance, she realized. The other guy stepped up and joined him. They both gazed down on her happily.

“Get up,” the shop guy said, when he’d taken enough pleasure in her misery. Dazed, she scrambled to her feet and stared at him defiantly.

“What do you want from me?” she demanded.

“Right now? Right now, we want you to prepare some food for us,” the shop guy said with a nasty smile, and the ugly guy laughed, hurr hurr hurr. She wanted to smash his face in with something big and heavy. Like a frying pan, perhaps. “Follow me.”

She followed them around the corner of a barn. There was a dilapidated farmhouse behind it made from warped wooden panels, with a broken screen door and tiles missing from the roof. They led her inside to a filthy, broken-down kitchen. The shop guy turned the stove on and the gas flame lit. He gestured to some groceries piled on a small, chipped formica table.

“Do the best you can do with these. And you better make sure it’s tasty,” he demanded. She glanced at the food, hardly seeing it, and nodded. The two of them walked out of the kitchen and left her there.

Wearily, she picked up the plastic packets of food. She hadn’t eaten for hours, but her stomach was in knots. Eating, when she didn’t know if she was going to be alive in a few hours’ time, seemed beside the point. There was beef jerky, powdered tomato soup, chili sauce and noodles. Gross. She guessed she’d make some kind of casserole. She opened the various cupboards around the kitchen and looked inside. There were some pans. They were battered and stained, but clean enough. She put some water into a saucepan and added the tomato soup. Then she looked for a knife to cut up the jerky. There was one with a serrated blade in a drawer. She ran her thumb along the blade, thinking. I could use it as a weapon! She could wait until they came back, and stab them with it. It would be self-defense. She sighed. Like I’ve ever stabbed anyone before. I’d probably miss. And what if I managed to the stab one guy anyway? The other one would probably kill me. And what if I had amazing skills and stabbed both of them. I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I have no idea how to ride a Harley. Her captors were her only ticket out of there – a deeply sickening thought.

She cut the jerky up into tiny pieces and dumped it into the tomato soup, then she added the noodles and stirred it all up. She wished there was some poison she could put into the food – a stray bottle of arsenic, perhaps, she thought with a slightly manic laugh. She went through all the cupboards, but there was nothing. She was completely, utterly helpless here, cooking dinner for two thugs who had just abducted her and were probably planning to kill her. And Nancy would be an orphan. Tears sprung to her eyes again. Protecting her baby was her number one responsibility, and she’d failed to do that. Thoughts of Nancy flooded her mind. A million moments – her as a tiny baby, all red and angry when she’d just been born, her first smile, her tiny little fist gripping Lori’s finger. Her first word – momma. The first time she sat up, crawled, stood up, walked. Lori cried harder and harder, her tears falling into the nasty stew she was making.

And then she saw Bruno’s face. His image popped up in her mind as clearly as if he’d been standing there. His intense blue eyes and those strong, tender lips that had kissed her so passionately seemed to be right in front of her. He seemed to be speaking. It wasn’t like his lips were moving; more that his voice was directly in her head. He told her that she had to keep it together and be strong; that help wasn’t far away. She shook her head. She was going crazy. Or hallucinating, as she hadn’t eaten for about ten hours. But still, the thought of him calmed her. She wondered what he’d do in this situation. He’d kick the crap out of those two morons, for a start. But failing that, he’d probably act as calm as possible, wait for an opportunity for escape to present itself and make sure he complied with their orders, so as not to excite them. And he’d probably look after his body, so he’d have plenty of energy when the time came. With that thought, she took a glass out of the cupboard, filled it with water and drank it straight down. Then she grabbed a bowl and ladled a portion of the stew out. She poured a little cold water into it to cool it down, and ate it as fast as she could, standing over the sink.

The door smashed back against the wall and the two bikers came back in.

“Food ready yet, woman?” the shop guy grunted.

“Yes,” she said sweetly. “Just about ready to dish up.” They made sounds of approval, like hungry dogs, and sat down at the table, their legs wide apart. From time to time, they scratched their crotches and grunted. She ladled up two portions of stew and put them down in front of them. They started gobbling up the food like the hungry dogs they were. Suddenly, the shop guy dropped his fork on his plate.

“What the fuck?” he roared. Lori’s heart leapt into her throat. She stared at him, transfixed. He hates the food. He’s going to kill me now. “You forgot the fucking chili sauce!”

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Lori jumped to her feet and retrieved it from the counter. He opened it and poured an unfeasibly huge amount into the stew and stirred it in. He began to eat again, groaning in appreciation.

Moments later, he put his fork down again, ran his fingers around the now empty plate and sucked them clean.

“Best damn meal I’ve had in years,” he proclaimed. Lori stared at him in amazement, stifling a laugh. “Girl, if you can cook like this, we might consider keeping you around.” She nodded modestly, as if he’d given her an amazing compliment, but her heart was beating fast. This sounds like good news, right?

“I’m pretty good at cooking. And cleaning. And fixing stuff,” she said.

“Yeah? And what else can you do?” the ugly guy said, his features distorted with a lecherous smirk. Her stomach plummeted again. There was no mistaking his meaning. The shop guy turned his head and shot him a look that was full of malice, and he shrank back in his chair, as if he’d been slapped.

“I’ve warned you about that!” the shop guy spat. “Potential mates are not to be spoken to in those terms.”

“Sorry, bro, I guess I just forgot.”

“If you forget again, it’ll be the last thought you ever have!” the shop guy said, and turned to Lori with a smile on his face. On someone else, it might have resembled a gentle smile, but on him, it was just hideous. Lori gulped. What is he up to?

“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of talents that would make a mate very happy,” he said. She stared at him in shock. What is he talking about? And did he just say ‘mate’?He kept smiling at her. He’s waiting for an answer.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she mumbled, looking down, affecting modesty again. Are they shape shifters too? She glanced at them through her eyelashes. Wolves. They look like wolves. Now that she saw it, it was impossible to unsee it. Beneath their ugly human faces, she saw something lean and hungry. There was a hierarchy. The shop guy was clearly higher in the pecking order than the other guy. Knowing that they were half animal shifted things for her. She wasn’t sure whether it made them seem more dangerous or less. More, probably, knowing how keen the senses of shape shifters were. They could probably hear her every movement; smell her when she was miles away. The thought made the hairs on her arms stand up.

“When’s that bear gonna come looking for you?” the shop guy said suddenly.

“Bear?” she asked.

“You know who I’m talking about.” He moved closer, until his yellow eyes were inches from hers and she could smell the stale sweat coming off his body. “Don’t act dumb. I know you’re mated to a bear. It was him who came and wrecked our operations after you came sniffing around the shop.” She shook her head.

“No. I’m not mated to anyone. I know a few bears, it’s true. I also know lions, tigers and wolves.” At the sound of the last word, they both snarled, and she had the impression that their wolves could burst out of their bodies at any moment. She whimpered and cowered down in her chair.

“Which wolves do you know?” the ugly guy demanded.

“Dr Harley,” she whispered. They visibly relaxed, seeming satisfied. Dr Harley wasn’t a reason to get agitated, it seemed.

“You and this bear just cost us a lot of money, and four of our pack mates. And he isn’t gonna come looking for you if he’s not your mate,” the ugly guy said. It was a statement, not a question, and she didn’t reply. The shop guy poked her in the shin with the toe of his boot. She yelped.

“Is he your mate?” he demanded.

“No, I told you he wasn’t!” she yelled, pain making her angry.

“You better be lying, bitch. And he better come looking for you, or you’ll be very sorry,” he said, with a nasty laugh. She was silent while she absorbed this news, and then she burst into tears again. She put her hands over her face and blocked them out, and gave into her fear for a moment. She was so scared. Her nerves couldn’t take much more. She was dimly aware that they were muttering to each other, but she ignored them.

“Get up,” the shop guy said gruffly. She uncovered her face and stood up. “Time for bed.” He opened the door and indicated that she should follow. “You need to go to the bathroom?”

“Yes,” she said immediately. Her bladder was bursting, but she hadn’t thought about it till now.

“Down the side of the barn. Be quick.” She ran to where he was pointing and squatted down out of his sight. It was pitch dark, and she could hardly see anything, but the relief was immense.

When she came back, he was holding the door of the barn open, and the ugly guy was dragging a mattress in there. He was sniggering like a horny teenager. Her heart began to pound and panic tightened her throat.