Layla woke up alone. She immediately began to worry. It was far too long for Henry to be gone.
There hadn't been a note or any kind of message from him the entire day.
She might not know anything about the gangs, or even what life in Lunavia might be like for a wolf, but she knew that there was no way this was anything good. She knew herself well enough to know that she couldn't stay in the apartment the entire day, waiting for him to appear. She had to go looking for him.
She knew it was insane and probably wouldn't be able to find him, but she knew she had to try.
With that thought in mind, she left the apartment, determined to at least not sit around doing nothing.
She wasn't the best tracker in her pack. That had been Jake. It was no small surprise that he was the one most likely to be her mate. He was not only strong enough to kill any game he hunted, but he also was a great enough tracker that he chose his game perfectly.
It was no small surprise that he had found her in.Lunavia. It would have been a simple task for him. She couldn't match him. She wasn't even close, but she had seen him do it often enough that she figured she could probably do a decent enough job at it.
She reached the bottom of the apartment building. She was still inside the lobby when a thought occurred to her. If Henry was in trouble, maybe the better thing to do would be to simply wait for him to come back and not make the matter worse. She didn't know much about Lunavia herself, so maybe this wasn't the right choice to be making.
She wasn't part of his pack, but she knew that he did belong to one of the strongest and biggest packs in Lunavia. He was also the Alpha's son, so there would be wolves looking for him, or someone to check in on him if they didn't hear from him for an entire day.
But they might not, she told herself. They might not check in with him today. They might only even think about him when it was too late to do anything substantial.
With that thought in mind, Layla exited the building. She sniffed the air until she found Henry's scent and began following it.
She had barely reached the sidewalk when she noticed a black van parked on the side of the street. However, she didn't stop walking. She was nearly on the other end when she decided it would be better to turn around and head inside. Layla turned just as the door of the van opened, and she thought to run.
It was too late, in a moment, she was surrounded by five wolves. In another, they had a bag over her head. She smelled rowan dust and knew nothing further
Layla woke up to find herself sitting upright with her wrists bound behind her back and tied to a chair. The chains around her were just normal.metal, and the chair seemed to be bolted to the floor.
"She's awake," one of the wolves told the other.
"Just in time too. He'll be here soon. We should have some answers for him by the time he gets here."
"She would have been awake sooner," one of the wolves reprimanded the other, "if you hadn't drugged her so heavily."
"Couldn't take the chance," the wolf said nonchalantly. "You never know what a wolf is capable of."
"She's an Omega," another wolf said, clearly annoyed. "We could have been done by now."
"It doesn't matter now," a different wolf said.
"Let's just get this over and done with before he gets here."
The wolves went quiet. They then seemed to focus their attention on her, each of them stepping closer to her. They must never have done this before. This just wasn't the way to interrogate Someone.
They should have come in one at a time. They should have tried to make her feel safe. Now, Layla knew there were many of them. She knew there was a very good chance that no matter how she cooperated, she might not live to see the other side of this room.
"You've come twice out of Henry's place now," one of the wolves told her. "You're going to answer a few questions for us."
It hadn't mattered whether they had used better tactics or not. Layla wasn't going to answer anything they asked her about Henry, so her chances of survival were completely gone.
This wolf was insane if he thought that she was going to tell them even a single thing about Henry, but Layla knew that there was no reason for her to speak just yet. Her father used to interrogate wolves that broke onto their land. He had taught her.
They thought she was an Omega, and they thought that she was easy prey. Her father had known that too. He had known that other wolves would smell her scent and know they could take advantage of that.
It was one of the reasons he had wanted her to marry Jake, so she could be protected by having an Alpha mate and a stable home. But it hadn't been his only plan.
He had also taught her to fight and run until she was equal and better than almost any Beta in their pack. He had taught her how interrogations worked so that she would never break under them. A wolf who betrayed the pack, even under extreme torture and pain, was exiled. That was the law of the wolves in the packs of Silva Forest.
'It must be different here,' Layla thought. If they thought they could get her to turn on Henry, then the wolves in the city were more forgiving of betrayal than the forest wolves.
"Otherwise," another wolf picked up where the first had left off, "this is going to get very painful for you, Little Omega."
Layla snarled. She couldn't fight it back. They were more degrading than the wolves in the forest, the wolves of her pack. Did they think because she was an Omega that she couldn't withstand the pain? They were sorely mistaken.
Omega's were mostly known for birthing children.
No greater pain could be inflicted, and they bore it with grace. These wolves had no idea what they were doing. A Beta wolf could be broken, not an Omega.
"Who all lives in that apartment with Henry?" someone else asked, but Layla didn't bother looking up.
She was quiet. She could also lie and give them false information, but she wasn't in the mood for those kinds of games.
"You should learn to cooperate, Omega," one of the wolves told her. "Or this isn't going to end up very well for you."
She was tied to a chair with five wolves around her. She was past thinking that there was a good ending for her here. She was terrified. This was so much worse than what had happened when Henry had found her. She was in an entirely helpless situation here, but there was no chance of anyone finding her.
Still, she was silent. She wondered why they would want to know all these things about Henry as confusion filled her.
Through the confusion, Layla found anger inside of her too. None of this was fair. She was just trying to live her own life, trying to get away from her pack customs that she didn't believe in. So far, all of this had happened to her.
"When does he come back?" one of the other wolves demanded, kicking at her chair lightly.
"He's been gone for hours, and no one has seen him."
Layla wanted to know the answer too, but she still said nothing, keeping her head resolutely down.
They kept asking her questions, but she refused to answer. Henry had been the one wolf who had treated her well. She wasn't going to betray him, especially not for these wolves who had only put her in danger.
She wished she could get out of her chains. She wanted to rip them all limb from limb. Even if she couldn't get out of here alive, she wanted to tear them apart. She wanted them, and the wolves who had attacked her the first night that she'd been in the city, to suffer. She wanted them all to suffer just for putting her in danger.
But she knew that she couldn't break these chains.
Layla bit down on her teeth, locking her jaw. They could do what they wanted to her, but she wasn't going to tell them a thing.