Wolf Shattered: A rejected mate romance (Wolf Underground Book 1) Read online

  WOLF SHATTERED

  WOLF UNDERGROUND – BOOK I

  JJ KING

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU’RE ON THE WRONG SIDE?

  Want More Fated Mates & Hot Wolves?

  ALSO WRITTEN BY JJ KING

  About the Author

  The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fiction and are in no way meant to represent real people or places.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this eBook with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2022 JJ King

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN- 978-1-989794-20-3

  For everyone who craves a bit of darkness with their romance.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For my boss bitches.

  CHAPTER 1

  A moan slipped between my cracked lips, echoing too loud in the small space, alerting me to two truths I couldn’t deny any longer.

  One, the world I’d thought I knew was a much darker place than I could have ever guessed.

  Two, I was going to die in here.

  Twisting, I tried to find the space to stretch out my leg so the cramping would calm down enough to let me sleep again. It would only get worse as dehydration dried me out.

  I’d been in his cage for three days now… was that right? I thought it was three days, but there were no windows in this room, and I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious when they’d first dragged me in.

  If I didn’t smell like vomit, piss, and other unsanitary things, I’d try to estimate the time by my scent. My enhanced wolf senses were usually an asset, especially in my job at the hospital, but right now, not so much. So, I gauged the time on the regrowth of fine blond hair along my calf. I’d shaved before going out with my friends.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to remember my last hours with Eliza and Finn. We’d gone out as a group for her twenty-eighth birthday to celebrate.

  We’d danced until the lights glistened off our sweat and took shots at the bar, laughing until our stomachs hurt. Then I’d gone outside for a bit of fresh air and…

  I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and opened my eyes, unwilling to relive what had happened next. It haunted my dreams—I didn’t need to see it while awake as well.

  I’d thought about Finn, Eliza, and our friends a lot the first few days, praying they were safe, that they’d find me soon. The Old Ones refused to answer my prayers or send the help I begged for until the lack of food and water made me weary enough to pass out again.

  A sob escaped my lips before I could stop it. In the dark room filled with cages, it sounded like thunder.

  “Shhh,” my closest neighbor murmured, reaching her fingers through the metal bars of her cage, even though she couldn’t possibly reach me. Her name was April, and she’d been visiting her sister in the city when they’d taken her. She’d been here for two weeks and was the defacto den mother. “Shut it down. Go somewhere else in your mind, like we talked about.”

  I nodded, sniffing back tears, and took a shaky breath. Closing my eyes, I tucked the memories of my life outside this cage away in a pretty little box inside my mind to keep it safe. It was the only safe place I had anymore.

  The screech of the heavy metal door that barred me and my companions, other girls who stayed as silent as me, inside this dark dungeon, dredged fear from deep inside my soul.

  I’d never known fear like this existed—until huge grime-covered hands closed over my mouth and dragged me back into an open van.

  Now all I knew was fear.

  Heavy footsteps hit the concrete, which was always cold, always wet, and moved down the line of cages that housed their belongings.

  Women. Girls. Wolves.

  I’d begged and pleaded for answers from the others my first few days here, but when the answers had come, I’d been unprepared.

  Another man, equally big, equally terrifying, had prowled through the room, licking his lips and rubbing his bulging crotch, watching us like a predator in the night.

  “Eenie meenie miney mo,” he’d said in a singsong voice made of gravel, moving his pointing finger from cage to cage.

  When his finger had paused for a second on my cage, my heart had stopped.

  Then he’d moved on, singing that childish song, and laughed as he dragged a petite brunette from her cage and pinned her against the wall to grope her breasts and paw between her legs. I’d heard him promise the girl, whose name had been Athena, that whoever ended up buying her would love her tiny tits and pay big for his new fuck toy.

  I’d been abducted by the scum of the earth, dragged kicking and screaming into the shifter underground sex trade, and my turn was coming.

  This time, the man who walked through the door didn’t sing, taunt, or threaten. He just strode forward, passing girls whose shoulders sagged in reprieve. Just one more day for them.

  Not for me.

  He pressed a card against the electronic lock of my cage. The click of it opening would have turned my bowels liquid if I hadn’t already been lying in my own waste. He wore gloves to protect his skin from my filth but was far from delicate. His fingers wound through my hair and pulled me up and out from the ball I’d curled into as my muscles screamed.

  “Stand up!” he shouted, coating my face in spittle, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate.

  Unlike Athena, whose five-foot-two frame had fit neatly into her tiny cage, my long legs and torso had never stood a chance. I buckled, falling to the hard floor. My knee split, spilling blood down my dirty flesh onto the floor.

  The man made a sound of disgust, then reached for me again. This time, he grabbed my arms, yanking them back so far, my shoulder blades creaked and nearly shattered.

  I thought about wrenching myself forward so they’d snap. Maybe they’d leave me alone for another couple of days while I healed.

  He shoved me forward, toward the open dungeon door, toward the light and warmth on the other side. I stumbled toward the warmth, drawn like easy prey toward an angler fish’s bioluminescent light, toward a hope that could lead only to death. The sound of the door slamming shut behind me sealed my doom.

  The glaring lights blinded me. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain and winced when more hands touched me, pulling me forward. My feet touched cool flooring, not painfully cold like the concrete, but tile of some kind. I recognized the echo of footsteps and realized I was in a shower stall.

  Water hit me a moment later, not warm like the luring lights had promised or soft as I’d hoped for in the seconds when I realized where I was. The shock threw my system into overdrive and jolted me out of the fog I’d been living in the last few days. I gasped and choked as water sprayed my face, filling my mouth until I gagged and rea
ched out to stop myself from falling again.

  Then it was over. Hands grabbed me, pulling at the shreds of clothes still covering parts of me. I’d been wearing a short black dress and heels to celebrate my best friend’s twenty-fifth birthday. What was left of the dress I’d splurged on was ripped from my body, leaving me naked and shivering. I’d used my panties and strips of my dress to clean myself up days ago.

  The water turned on again, this time incrementally warmer. I didn’t let myself believe the lie and braced for whatever came next. Hard brushes grated over my skin, scrubbing away proof of the depravity I’d experienced, along with several layers of my skin. I leaned into the bristles, anxious to be clean again.

  Though deep in my soul, buried beneath the remnants of hope that still clung to me, I knew I’d never feel clean again.

  When I was spotless, except for the lines of blood that ran down my body from the scratches of the brush and the scabs they’d sloughed off, a burly woman with slack features dried me briskly, then pulled me into an adjoining room.

  “Lie,” the woman barked in an eastern European accent so thick, I barely made out the word. She shoved me toward a table and slapped the hands I tried to cover myself with.

  Anger and pent-up frustration surged inside me, rising to just below the surface. I squared off and opened my mouth to tell her, “No!” when one of the two guards leaning against the door, blocking my exit, twirled a baton casually and arched a leering eyebrow.

  I snapped my mouth shut and slid onto the table.

  The woman—who I’d nicknamed Helga—set to work, covering my body in hot wax and linen strips, which she ripped away with sadistic glee. Squeezing my eyes shut, I swallowed sobs of humiliation and rage when she lifted my knees into stirrups, ignoring the tears that escaped from the corners of my eyes.

  When I was as smooth as a baby’s ass, she lathered me in cream that smelled of coconuts and ordered me to stand.

  Girls appeared with nail polish, curling irons, and makeup. In another place, I would have reveled in the attention and enjoyed the pampering, but I didn’t enjoy the way they grabbed my chin and yanked me around to stare at me as if I wasn’t human, as if they didn’t see the person in front of them.

  Maybe they didn’t. How could they do this work if they understood what they were condemning me to?

  When it was over, and I was fluffed and primped like I usually only pulled out for New Year’s Eve, I followed Helga into a room not lit by overhead spotlights. No, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the lower light, not a room, a closet, but unlike any closet I’d ever seen.

  It was a sex shop. That was the only thing that made sense. Scraps of material—they couldn’t really be called clothes—hung on velvet hangers, arranged by level of allure. The section closest to me was full of gossamer fabrics, shimmering in the light and completely sheer. The farther back my gaze moved, the more the tension in my stomach knotted.

  Leather, dresses, tops, boots, garters, and tiny triangles that would never cover all of me were laid out as if we were in a fancy sex boutique showroom in Paris. We weren’t in Paris, though, and these clothes weren’t meant for consensual fun.

  I would be dressed like a slut or a virgin, then sold to the highest bidder.

  If there had been any real food in my stomach, I would have heaved it onto the floor. Luckily for me and for the showroom, I hadn’t seen a scrap of food since yesterday.

  Helga turned to one of the guards. “What you think? She is good girl or bad girl?”

  His gaze raked over me, leaving me with a greasy feeling that permeated my skin. “Good girl gone bad,” he said with a grin that showed off a gold tooth, then walked into the showcase and lifted a black lace lingerie set I would have otherwise found appealing. “High class,” he added, handing it to Helga. “The boss will make a shit ton off this one.”

  My mind seemed to float away as I sat on the edge of a chair and delicately slipped on the sheer hose, then clipped silky garters onto the black lacy belt that cinched around my waist.

  In another life, I would’ve loved this outfit. I would have bought it for a special event, maybe Finn’s birthday or our anniversary, and been proud to see the look in his eyes when I’d stepped out of the bathroom, head held high, confident in my sexuality and womanhood.

  There was nothing beautiful about this moment, about wrapping myself up like a birthday present, to be fought over by men with money and no morals. What other kind of men could be here? I was in the underworld, the seedy underbelly of wolf society no one talked about, which I’d had no idea existed.

  Exhaling a shaky breath, I slipped my feet into the pair of beautiful Christian Louboutins shoes Helga had put beside me, then rose to my feet, ready to be presented to the sick bastards who would battle over me.

  Inside, my heart fractured and bled.

  “Perfect,” Helga said, walking around me with critical eyes. She tugged at my bra, adjusted the straps to make my breasts sit higher, then shoved me into the guard’s waiting hands.

  His callous-roughened hands palmed my breast and painfully pinched my nipple, taking his turn when he knew there was no one around to stop him. I shifted my head away, willing myself not to cry, and wished I had the strength to fight back.

  “Come on, then,” he grunted when I didn’t respond to his touch. “It’s time.”

  I followed the other guard, sandwiched between the two of them as if I was a dangerous criminal or a precious asset. The farther we got from the prepping area, the more the decor changed. Lush curtains hid thick doors with intimidating locks. Another guard pulled one back to let us through, then let it fall again, hiding the ugly truth behind.

  Music pulsed, and the din of voices surprised me. My gaze flitted wildly, taking in as much of the room beyond the corridor we traveled. I’d expected dirty, disgusting men with leering grins and bloodied fists, but these men were wearing suits and impeccably groomed, laughing and chatting casually as if at a party. There was an air of sophistication about them and the smell of money.

  But polished surfaces couldn’t hide the predator within.

  One man glanced my way and paused with his drink of amber liquid halfway to his mouth. His eyes raked over me, and a glint of lust shone in his dark eyes.

  A shiver of terror raced up my spine, then I was past the opening and through another door.

  I wasn’t the first to be taken here, and I wouldn’t be the last. Not when the sex trade auctions brought in so much underground cash. These kinds of things would not stop, not even once my sale was completed.

  The guards shoved me roughly through to the next room, where a raised platform waited under dim lights hanging from the rafters. Still sophisticated but barren, the central focus remained on the steel cage directly beneath those lights.

  I was the main event.

  Just like many others before me and the countless hundreds or thousands of others who would come after.

  “Get in the cage,” the guard to my left grunted. Harsh, no-nonsense syllables. He didn’t have time for my fears.

  I knew there was no way out of this, no way to go down fighting when they had me cornered with the proverbial gun to my head. Not that I thought they’d do any physical damage to me. I was the commodity.

  The second guard brought the electric prod from the rear holster at his hip and gestured toward the cage again. I knew it would be the last order I got from him.

  Gingerly, I stepped toward the large cage with its bars gleaming. Polished to perfection and slender enough to show off the goods inside while also strong enough to…

  Hold a shifter.

  A wolf.

  Through a shiver I couldn’t stop, I watched the guards lock the gate behind me as the lights over the audience rose. Through the gloom, I saw more men in their pressed jackets. Their silks and silvers and drinks. Their cigars and their easy money.

  This was nothing but a game to them. A bigger sport than gambling and one where they had a beautiful prize at the end
.

  My empty stomach grumbled, and I pushed my fears to a dark place in the back of my mind, where I wouldn’t be tempted to concentrate on the future or what would happen to me.

  A low voice sounded from speakers placed discretely throughout the room, telling the buyers about my statistics. My height and weight, my intelligence. Listing my qualifications like I was less than a person.

  Actually, more like a toy with a pulse.

  “Shift, girl. Show them what you’ve got,” one of the guards urged me with a leer. “It’s time.”

  I bared my teeth to show him how I really felt about his suggestion and where he could put it. I guessed I should be happy about that. Through the anxiety, nausea, and crippling terror based on my unknown future, I had a little fight left in me.

  “I said shift, dammit.”

  The prodder poked through the steel bars, and I jerked back in time to avoid the electricity they wanted to shoot through my veins.

  I wasn’t lucky enough the second time.

  The two metal prods dug into my thigh, and the volts were pure lightning through my stem.

  They forced the change whether or not I wanted my wolf released.

  My limbs obeyed. All the pampering, all the time spent getting my human body ready for show, and for what? Only to have the predator forced from my soul and shown to the outside world. Black fur covered my skin, muscles expanding and bones strengthening. My eyesight sharpened, nostrils flaring and drawing in the dark scents of the darker world around me, smoke and liquor and lust.