Manix by Grace McGinty

2

Naja

Iwas in the middle of my set when chaos erupted. The sprinkler system kicked in, soaking the ground and all the clientele. I didn’t mind really; I’d been running a fever for a week and the water felt blessedly good on my overheated skin. But my heels weren’t made for wet weather, and I slipped across the stage. I was about to scramble down, when my heel went out from underneath me completely, sending me flying.

I screeched, but strong hands caught me around the waist, pulling me upright. I looked up at the man who’d caught me. And I do mean up. He must have been close to seven feet tall. And he was handsome, literally steal your breath handsome.

“Thank you—oof!”

He hauled me over his shoulder and pushed his way into the staff hallways toward the back entrance.

“Hey, asshole! Put me down. I can walk,” I screeched, ignoring the fact that I’d nearly fallen on my face moments before.

That’s when I noticed the other two. They closed ranks around the other guy, and fear began to replace my outrage. Shit. Fuck. I was being fucking kidnapped. I hammered at the guy’s back, shrieking obscenities and god knows what else, both in Spanish and English, but none of them seemed to pay me any attention.

No one could hear my calls for help over the wailing of the alarm, and my panic turned to icy fear in my veins. Everything they’d ever told me in self-defense classes came roaring to the front, such as never let them take you to a secondary location, and go for the soft bits. But over this guy’s shoulder, with his arms banded around my leg like a vice, and his back impervious to my nails and bites, I didn’t know what my self-defense instructor would have wanted me to do. There were no soft bits back here.

I was going to be a statistic, going to my death in only a fucking thong.

My kidnapper stopped outside a black minivan and one of the other guys zipped around to open the trunk. Oh hell no.

“Let me fucking down, you cocksucking piece of shit asshole!” I screamed, twisting my body up to grab at his hair and yank hard. He hissed, but I swear to fucking god, he grinned at the pain. He went to put me into the back of the van, but this fucker probably thought I was a human. He couldn’t have been more goddamn wrong. As soon as my ass chafed against that cheap auto carpet, I twisted hard, putting my ridiculous heel into his stomach. He flew back with a grunt, and I was out of the car and sprinting across the parking lot back toward the building. I’d take my luck with the fucking fire and lock myself in the boss’s office.

I made it a few more steps before I slammed into a wall. Or at least, it felt like a wall. When a set of arms wrapped around me again, my stomach sank. I craned my neck to look up into a gorgeous face, the kind with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw that made a person look cruel. This guy definitely belonged with the other group.

I opened my mouth to scream, but another set of arms yanked me away from him. The new guy was shorter, but still towered over me. He looked down at me with the softest blue eyes I’d ever seen. “It’s okay, Omega,” he whispered, and my entire body went lax. It was like someone had shot me with an overdose of Xanny, making my body languid and chasing away the terror.

He picked me up in his arms, and while my brain wanted to run from the other predators, I found myself snuggling into this one's arms. The hell?

“Ah, little one. You must be so uncomfortable. Let us take care of you,” he cooed, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him how sick I’d felt the last few days, how exhausted I was all the time. But at the same time, I wanted to claw out his eyes and run away as fast as my stupidly tall heels would let me. As if he could sense my thoughts, he tutted his tongue. “We mean absolutely no harm, Omega. We couldn’t hurt you if we tried.” He stared down into my eyes, finding a truth there that I desperately wanted to remain hidden. “How hard it must have been for you.”

I sniffed, realizing I was crying and also now in the back of the fucking minivan. Goddammit. What an epic fail.

But one thing was clear—these guys were some kind of supes. “Not an Omega,” I said groggily, fighting the pure calm that was radiating from the guy currently holding me. “Shouldn’t take me. I’ll bite off your dick.”

One of the guys in the back of the van laughed. “Some of us might like that.” When the guy holding me tutted, the other one bowed his head. “Apologies, Omega.”

Whatever effect the designated nice guy was having on me was beginning to wear off, and I rolled off his lap and onto the seat beside him. Unfortunately, that put me nearly in the lap of another giant. How the holy hell did they all fit in this freaking van?

He smiled down at me happily, his head brushing the roof. “Hi. I’m Ellar.”

“I don’t care.”

His face fell, and I tried not to feel bad. Step one of feminism: you did not have to be polite to people who were trying to abduct you in nothing but a thong. Maybe that should be steps one through five. There was a lot there to unpack.

The nice guy—the one who made me feel like he could cure all my problems—grabbed for me again but I shuffled closer to Ellar. At least I could think around him. I toed off my stupid shoes, just in case I got a chance to run.

“It will be fine, Omega. Once we get you up the mountain, we can take care of you how you deserve.” It sounded wonderful when he said it but in reality, it was creepy as fuck. Pretty sure that’s what someone would say before they wore your skin as a suit.

Then his words began to sink in. Back up the mountain. No. We couldn’t.

Panic raced down my spine and I launched myself into the front of the car, grabbing at the wheel.

“No!”

The driver swore as he swerved all over the road. We were lucky it was reasonably late so there was no oncoming traffic, but still, I kept trying to drag us off the road and onto the shoulder. If I could get out of the car, I could run.

I’d always been fast. I just had to get out of the car.

Strong arms grabbed me and dragged me to the passenger side, arms like steel vices. “Omega! Calm!” a voice commanded, and my body reacted of its own accord. I went entirely limp like a rag doll.

The fuck? I inhaled, though my senses were weak for a shifter. But what I scented was definitely Alpha.

“What our Omega said was true. No injury will come to you while you are with us; I swear this to you on my life.” The pledge was murmured softly beside my ear, his tone calm.

“Can’t guarantee that if you are trying to crash us into a fucking tree though,” the driver snarled, obviously a little rattled.

The Alpha who currently had me clutched to his chest let out a rumbling growl. “Finlo…”

The guy huffed. “Apologies, Omega.”

I looked at the guy, Finlo, with his strawberry blond hair and sharp jaw, and decided he was actually sorry. Also, they still actually thought I was an Omega.

I looked up at the Alpha holding me, at the small dimple in his chin and soft gray eyes staring back at me. I had a feeling they weren’t always soft though, because there was something about the lines of his face that spoke of bitterness.

“Look, I meant what I said. You guys have snatched the wrong girl. I’m a half-breed tiger shifter. We don’t even have Omegas. I can’t even shift forms, for fuck’s sake. I just wanna go home, and I promise to forget this ever happened.” The guy just shook his head, so I went to Plan B. “I have a kid. You can’t steal me. Who will look after her?”

Well, that got their attention. The whole car went dead silent. I mean, there wasn’t a single rustle or exhaled breath or anything.

The guy driving looked at me. “You already have a mate?” There was an actual whine in his voice, like he felt pained by the thought. “How did Seven’s nose miss a mate?”

I interrupted the other guy before he could speak. “Yep, I do, and he’s a Navy Seal. Real badass. I’ve watched him kill a man with nothing more than a yellow pencil.” I blurted out the lie. “He’ll look for me, with all his buddies. They’re wolf shifters, good noses. They’ll definitely rescue me. Better you let me out here and go and find your Omega. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

I silently apologized to the unknown Omega.

All eyes turned to the guy in the back, who just scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose. She’s definitely an Omega, and I don’t smell any other supernatural scents on her. She is days from her heat. We can all scent that. If she had a mate, he wouldn’t have let her leave the house.”

I gasped. “Excuse me? I don’t need a mate who tells me what to do. Uh, Frank lets me do what I want. He respects my choices, and doesn’t try and kidnap me.”

The guy in the back with the nose—Seven, I think they said his name was—scoffed. “Uh, Frank doesn’t exist.”

I gritted my teeth and tears burned my eyes. “Okay, so no mate. But I do have a kid. Luisa. She needs me.” I implored the Alpha who was still holding me tightly, but it had started to feel more reassuring than restraining.

The guy with the Xanny essence cleared his throat. “I believe her. We cannot steal her from her young.”

The whole car was silent and the guy holding me was stiff. “Fine, we will return to her home. She would be more comfortable there during the heat anyway.”

“What?” I squeaked. “No fucking way. I’m not telling you where I live.” I wasn’t taking them home to the place that was a refuge for Luisa and I.

There was rustling in the back, and Seven chuckled softly. “I grabbed her bag on the way out. Her scent was all over it.” I looked between the seats as he pulled out my purse and read my address off my drivers license.

I would have to run again. Luisa was still too young to understand, so it would be fine. She wouldn’t hate me, despite us already setting down roots here, and me promising that things would be better now.

The Alpha’s arms tightened. “Hear us out, and then I promise, if you want us to leave, we will. We pose no threat to you or your young. You hold all the power here; you just don’t understand yet. But I promise, you will.”

I nodded in defeat. I’d have to play it safe, especially as they now knew where I lived. I was gambling with both mine and Luisa’s life for the second time in a year, but there was no other choice.

“If you hurt her in any way, I will skin you alive,” I growled under my breath, and he made a humming noise of agreement.

“And I will hand you the knife. I vow this.”