Bound by Danger (The Alliance, Book 6)

  BOUND BY DANGER

  Brenda K. Davies

  Copyright © 2020 Brenda K. Davies

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Smashwords

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  Books written under the pen name Brenda K. Davies

  The Alliance Series

  Eternally Bound (Book 1)

  Bound by Vengeance (Book 2)

  Bound by Darkness (Book 3)

  Bound by Passion (Book 4)

  Bound by Torment (Book 5)

  Bound by Danger (Book 6)

  Bound by Deception (Book 7) Coming 2021

  Hell on Earth Series

  Hell on Earth (Book 1)

  Into The Abyss (Book 2)

  Kiss of Death (Book 3)

  The Edge of the Darkness (Book 4)

  The Road to Hell Series

  Good Intentions (Book 1)

  Carved (Book 2)

  The Road (Book 3)

  Into Hell (Book 4)

  The Vampire Awakenings Series

  Awakened (Book 1)

  Destined (Book 2)

  Untamed (Book 3)

  Enraptured (Book 4)

  Undone (Book 5)

  Fractured (Book 6)

  Ravaged (Book 7)

  Consumed (Book 8)

  Unforeseen (Book 9)

  Forsaken (Book 10)

  Relentless (Book 11)

  Legacy (Book 12) Coming Spring 2021

  Historical Romance

  A Stolen Heart

  Books written under the pen name Erica Stevens

  The Captive Series

  Captured (Book 1)

  Renegade (Book 2)

  Refugee (Book 3)

  Salvation (Book 4)

  Redemption (Book 5)

  Broken (The Captive Series Prequel)

  Vengeance (Book 6)

  Unbound (Book 7)

  The Coven Series

  Nightmares (Book 1)

  The Maze (Book 2)

  Dream Walker (Book 3)

  The Fire & Ice Series

  Frost Burn (Book 1)

  Arctic Fire (Book 2)

  Scorched Ice (Book 3)

  The Kindred Series

  Kindred (Book 1)

  Ashes (Book 2)

  Kindled (Book 3)

  Inferno (Book 4)

  Phoenix Rising (Book 5)

  The Ravening Series

  Ravenous (Book 1)

  Taken Over (Book 2)

  Reclamation (Book 3)

  The Survivor Chronicles

  Book 1: The Upheaval

  Book 2: The Divide

  Book 3: The Forsaken

  Book 4: The Risen

  CONTENTS

  Books by the author

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Shadows of Fire Excerpt

  Where to find the author

  About the author

  CHAPTER 1

  Callie huddled in the shadows with the four women who shared this cold, inhospitable place with her. The women were strangers to her, but they all shared the same horrible fate. They’d all been brought here against their will, and she was sure they were about to die.

  Callie tried not to let panic get the best of her as she recalled the events that led to her being here with these women. When the van first pulled up beside her on the quiet, country road, and the door slid open to allow someone to slip out, she thought it was Carter barreling through his restraining order to attack her.

  She was certain he’d come to make her pay for filing that order, but though she’d been more than a little buzzed, hence the walking, she quickly realized it wasn’t Carter who captured her and put a hood over her head.

  She wouldn’t put something like this past him, but no matter how sick and demented he was, there was no way he could have found at least four others—judging by the different voices—to go along with his crazy plan.

  Or, at least, she hoped he hadn’t. After Carter, she didn’t have much faith left in humanity, but she had enough to hope he hadn’t been able to find four more psychopaths to help him do this to her.

  She’d spent her entire time in the back of the van sobering up as the reality of her situation sank in. She was in a van with her hands bound behind her back and her feet roped to her wrists. Every horror movie and scary news story she ever heard started this way.

  When they first grabbed her, she’d thrashed against her captors, but it did little good as she was lifted and tossed into the van. Despite being a little tipsy, she was aware her struggles were frighteningly ineffective against the freaks holding her.

  Callie bit her lip to keep from crying out as the van bounced over potholes and weaved in and out of traffic. The further they drove, the more the sounds of a city greeted her. Horns blared, car engines revved, and when they stopped for what she assumed was a red light, she heard the shout of someone telling someone else to do the anatomically impossible with their head.

  Uncertain of what to do, Callie’s mind spun as she tried to figure out her best course of action. However, everything she considered terrified her. In the end, knowing that her chances of survival were dwindling with every mile they traversed, she waited until they stopped again before screaming as loud as she could.

  She would rather take the chance of being punished than not doing anything.

  All her actions got her was a lift of the hood and a foul-tasting rag shoved into her mouth. She tried to spit it out, but a hand clamping over her lips stifled her attempt. When that hand briefly closed over her nose too, it cut off her oxygen and her lungs started to burn. She tried to squirm away, but the hand followed her as the bastard trying to kill her laughed.

  Then those fingers moved away and a low, amused voice spoke. “Keep your mouth shut.”

  Callie tried to tell him to go fuck himself, but the rag made it impossible, and she was too scared to be def
iant. Not only were these assholes insane, but at least one of them took sadistic amusement in toying with her. She had no doubt he would also enjoy torturing her.

  Callie refused to sob, even though it was all she wanted to do. However, she would not give them the satisfaction of listening to her break.

  The noises of the city became more muffled and she suspected they’d turned into a quieter area, maybe a warehouse district, or something like it. The van bumped over a road full of potholes before coming to a stop. She strained to hear something more, but it was eerily calm until the van door slid open.

  Rough hands grasped her arms and flipped her over. At the possibility of being raped, she tried to squirm away from them. No, no, no!

  The hands ignored her thrashing as they yanked free the rope connecting her wrists to her ankles before undoing the rope around her ankles. Once freed, she kicked out blindly at her captors but connected only with air.

  Hands gripped the rope binding her wrists and hauled her from the van. When they set her on her feet, the movement was so abrupt she swayed and staggered a little before righting herself.

  Before she fully recovered, they jerked the hood from her head in a sharp yank that tore free some of her hair. She was still trying to get her bearings when they removed the gag. With her scalp screaming in protest, Callie glared at the faces of the four men surrounding her.

  She’d already ascertained Carter wasn’t part of this, but she still searched for his face amongst the stony ones surrounding her. She didn’t know any of them, so why was she here? What had she done to deserve this?

  The same she’d done to deserve Carter, absolutely nothing. However, that piece of garbage had found his way into her life. After only three months of dating, he’d shown his true colors, and she ran screaming for the door.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten far from him, and she wouldn’t get far now as the three men and one woman closed in on her. They reminded her of jackals surrounding their prey as amusement glittered in their eyes and they smiled smugly at her.

  She had no idea who any of them were, but she’d watched enough true crime TV to know the fact they weren’t hiding their faces didn’t bode well for her survival. She glanced frantically around, but the night and their bodies obscured most of her view. A couple of buildings rose behind them, but she didn’t recognize anything about her surroundings.

  You’re never supposed to let them take you to a secondary location. You’re supposed to fight to the death if that’s what it takes, but you never allow them to move you.

  She couldn’t recall where she heard that advice, but now it screamed across her mind. It wasn’t like she’d had a choice. She tried to fight, but it had proven useless, and it all happened so fast.

  One minute, she was walking down the road, smiling over the night out with her friends and glad she’d turned down the offer of a ride and left her car behind. The fresh air dimmed the glow of the alcohol but not her excitement.

  She’d relished the stars, the chirrup of the crickets, and her growing happiness as she walked. She couldn’t recall the last time she took any pleasure in the simple things in life, but she did then.

  At one time, a night out with her friends was commonplace, but it had been months since she went out with them. She’d been too scared Carter would show up, so she hadn’t been good company in a long time. However, she refused to be afraid anymore, and she refused to miss out on her life because of him.

  So, when her friends asked if she would join them at the bar tonight, she leapt at the opportunity. Being back with her girlfriends, laughing and joking as they drank beers and swapped stories, had been so freeing.

  For those glorious hours, she was her old self again, and she loved every second of it.

  And then it had all gone so wrong.

  CHAPTER 2

  It had been hours, maybe a day—she had no concept of time anymore—since she was taken from the back of that van and into a building. They led her into a basement before entering a tunnel carved out of the wall there.

  She didn’t speak and didn’t try to get away as they guided her deep into the cool, damp earth. The beams of their flashlights played over the jagged rocks surrounding her. She worried about spiderwebs, but they were so far beneath the ground that spiders didn’t dwell here.

  At the end of the tunnel, they turned right, then left, before going right again. Despite having a good buzz before this all started, she was completely sober, and she memorized their turns as they walked.

  She held out little hope of ever escaping, but if she did, she would know how to do it. That little hope vanished when they came to a cross section of tunnels. They entered the second one before making a couple more turns.

  The place was one gigantic maze; even if she remembered every turn, she would most likely end up lost in this hellhole. The walls were so close, she felt like she was walking through her tomb. And then she realized this most likely was… her tomb.

  Finally, they came to a stop, pulled open a gate, unbound her wrists, and shoved her inside. Callie spun back to them as the gate slammed closed. She opened her mouth to scream at them to come back, but she bit back the words. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing her pleas.

  When she turned back, she discovered she was not alone in her narrow cage inside one of the tunnels. There were four other women with her. They huddled in the shadows, their eyes wide and their arms around their legs as they sat on the ground.

  “Where are we?” she demanded.

  Two of them shook their heads, a third cried, and the fourth choked out. “We… we don’t know.”

  “How did you get here?”

  That only made the two cry harder while the third remained little more than a vegetable. The fourth told her they’d taken her from a jogging trail, tossed her into an SUV, and transported here. She had no idea how long ago that was.

  Callie paced the confines of the tunnel. She could traverse about thirty feet before another gate stopped her. Standing on her tiptoes, she gripped the bars of the window high up on the door and tried to see what was on the other side.

  It was too high to see anything, but the light flickering in the room beyond dimly illuminated their prison. At least they had that light. She couldn’t imagine being trapped here and completely unable to see anything. Just the idea of it made her feel a little insane.

  She continued to pace before realizing she was wasting her energy and slid down to sit on the ground near the fourth woman. It took all she had not to leap up and start pacing again, but if she had any chance of getting out of this, she had to conserve her strength.

  However, it was difficult to sit still when she was becoming increasingly sure her life was about to end.

  One of the crying women became so loud she drowned out all other sounds. Callie almost told her to be quiet, but if these were the last moments of the woman’s life, who was she to tell her how to live them?

  The third woman remained unmoving as she stared straight ahead with glazed eyes. Callie had worked with enough animals to recognize the look of the rabbit caught in the crosshairs of a coyote. Instead of taking off, this rabbit had decided not moving was her best option.

  She’s in shock.

  But Callie guessed she was in shock too. However, she would not spend her last seconds crying or trying to hide in plain sight. She wouldn’t go down without a fight; she just wanted to know what she was fighting.

  Was she facing sex traffickers or a group of serial killers? Would they auction her off or stick her in a pit and lower a bucket of lotion to her? Or maybe they were a Satanic cult looking for a sacrifice.

  Out of the many unnerving options, she wasn’t sure which she preferred. Killing her right away would be better than being a sex slave or skinned alive. But considering she was sitting in the dark with four strangers, she didn’t think the odds of instant death were in her favor.

  How swiftly her life had changed. Earlier she was celebrating her newfound
freedom, returning to her old life, and laughing with her friends while she looked forward to a shining future.

  Now, she was sitting in these dank shadows with her back against a cold rock wall while she prayed for instant death.

  Something shifted, and she turned as stone scraped against dirt. The two crying women sobbed louder, and for a second, Callie almost joined them, but then she gathered the remaining dregs of her courage.

  Resting her hand against the wall, she ran her fingers over its damp surface as she rose. If they decided to sell her off as a sex slave, she would make them regret the decision by biting off the first dick shoved in her mouth. The idea of it made her stomach turn, and the action would most likely get her killed, but death would be preferable.

  Beyond the bars of the gate they led her through, a dim light pierced the gloom of the tunnel. She had no idea what was coming toward them, but dirt crunched beneath the weight of whoever approached.

  When those footsteps got closer, the person lifted the beam of their flashlight and focused it straight on her face. She recoiled and held up her hand as she turned her head away from the light.

  As soon as it no longer hurt to do so, she lifted her chin and glowered at her approaching jailers as they stopped on the other side of the bars. These three were different from the ones who brought her here.

  How many people are involved in this? And how can something like this exist?

  She knew there was a lot of evil in the world. She didn’t live under a rock, she saw the news and heard the horror stories, but she chose to believe there was more good than bad in the world. Obviously, she was a naïve idiot.

  She had no hope any good would come out of this mess. People didn’t kidnap you and take you underground so they could surprise you with balloons and a giant check.

  Though she was determined not to show any fear, she stepped away from the man who approached the gate. The key rattled in the lock before the door swung open. The callous smile the man gave her, and the malicious gleam in his eyes, made her blood run cold.