Page 34 of Desire Him

“How the fuck did that happen?” Eme leans back in her chair as if completely confused. Val is too if she is being honest with herself. How did the man she grew up seeing as a good husband and father stoop to this level?

“I’m an alpha.” He shrugs. “They needed organizing. It wasn’t too hard.”

“Low-life piece of shit,” Val mumbles. How could he do this? Never in her wildest dreams would she expect this from someone like Jim. She assumed that he’d go about his own business as a rogue banished from his pack, but this? This is far-fetched. So far-fetched that it’s actually believable.

“What was that?” Jim growls low and deep.

Val squares her shoulders and juts her chin defiantly. She doesn’t normally speak to an alpha this way. She’s a submissive wolf, but she won’t stand for this. “I called you a low-life piece of shit.”

Jim stares at her long and hard and then looks at one of the guys. The one he looked at pulls away from the wall and comes forward. Val stares up into his brown eyes and doesn’t see it when his hand comes flying at her face. Her head whips to the side and her cheek burns from the sudden and forceful slap.

“Stop it!” Eme yells. “Stop it right now!”

The guy steps away at Jim’s command and returns to his spot by the door. “She’ll know better than to disrespect me next time, don’t you think?”

Val spits blood on the floor and sneers at him. “What do you want with us? We didn’t come here to cause problems. We only came to the city to shop. And then you kidnapped us for no reason. What do you want, Jim?”

“Like I said, I have questions.” He pushes off the wall, crosses the distance, and bends down to Val. He studies her face without expression and then lifts his hand to brush the handprint on her cheek. “You’re the weak spot, aren’t you?”

Val attempts to bite his hand. “I’m not weak.”

“No.” He tips his head to Eme. “But you’re her weakness. I think I’ll use you to get my answers.”

“Ask your questions, and let us go,” Eme demands.

“See?” Jim says to Val. He smiles, and it makes Val sick to her stomach. “The weakness to the great Brook Mountain alpha female.”

“Screw you,” Val hisses. She spits on his face.

Jim lashes forward and grabs her by the throat. Val sucks in a breath before his fingers close around her neck, and she starts choking. His hand squeezes harder, and Val can feel blood pool in her face. Eme starts screaming in the background, but Val can barely hear it with the blood pumping in her ears. She struggles, and everything almost goes black, but then he finally lets her go. She gasps in the fresh air, chest heaving.

Jim wipes the spit and blood off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “I want to know why your wolves have been sniffing around my town.”

“You already know the answer to that, Jim,” Eme whispers. Her shoulders sag, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. Val has never seen her look so broken. She’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, just like Val knew would happen. She’ll give answers to keep Val alive; this Val knows without a doubt.

“You’re right. I do. They want to discover if we are making and distributing wolfcalm. Tell me what they know.”

“No,” Eme continues in a whisper.

Jim punches Val in the gut, and the air whooshes out before the pain begins. “Tell me.”

She heaves in more air. It hurts, but Val is glad that they’re not hurting Eme. She wouldn’t be able to hold out even the slightest. He doesn’t know this, but Val isn’t the only weak spot. Eme is Val’s weak spot. She wouldn’t be able to hold out. She wouldn’t be able to be so defiant, so button-pushing.

Staring at her feet, Eme says nothing, though Val can tell she wants to tell him everything. They both know what will happen if she defies him. He’ll keep hurting Val until he finally kills her.

Jim raises an eyebrow, probably seeing that she’s almost ready to talk too. “Your beta has been spotted sniffing around town, talking to a rogue.”

Eme lifts her gaze to his. “Then why don’t you ask the rogue?”

“Because he’s been hiding ever since.”

“Then that’s your problem, not ours. If you can’t keep them under control . . .”

He lashes forward with his fist again and punches Val in the gut once more. It hurts worse than the last time, and it takes longer for her to catch her breath. Streams of tears are rolling down her cheeks and dropping onto her chest, and sweat is starting to break out over her skin. “Tell me, Eme.”

“I said no.” Her tone is stronger than Val’s would have been.

Jim reaches around behind his back and pulls out a gun. He points it to Val’s head, and Val stiffens. “Tell me, or she’s dead.”