Saving Scarlett by R. E. Butler Page B

angrily waited for news of his promised mate.  Well, he could go fuck off, because Christian was not going to give Scarlett up.  He and his brothers had spent too many years standing idly by while their father played with her future.  They’d all had enough.
    Their father snarled angrily and Christian steeled his spine.  His father’s half-shifted hands swung out toward him and clawed through his shirt.  Joseph struggled nearby to get past the wall of wolves keeping them apart.  “For fuck’s sake, Dad!  Stop this, it’s madness!”
    “You will address me appropriately,” their dad snarled.
    “Alpha, please,” Joseph said through clenched teeth.
    Christian dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth against the ache in his chest.  He heard a soft, feminine cry of pain and he gasped in shock to see his mother being dragged into the building by the beta and theto of the pack.  One eye was blackened, her lips swollen and cut, blood dripping down her chin.
    He rushed to his feet.  “Mom!”
    His father stopped him with a clawed hand on his throat.  He squeezed tightly and drew Christian close, and his hot breath wafted over Christian’s face.  “I’ll kill her.  If you’ve never believed me capable of true violence, then know this truth – I will mate my only daughter to Arven whether your mother is alive to see it or not.  If you love your mother, you’ll spare her the pain that will precede her death.”  He squeezed harder and Christian’s lungs burned from lack of oxygen.
    His mother, hands bound together in front of her, met Christian’s gaze, tears slipping down her cheeks.  “Don’t worry about me, Chris.  Keep her safe.  I love you.”
    His dad’s growl echoed in the room and he dropped Christian, who fell to the floor with a thud, gasping for breath.  Then he stalked to his mate.  He picked up the rope holding her wrists together and wrapped his hand around the pinky finger of one of her hands.  He stared at Christian as he bent her finger back until there was a loud snapping sound.  She screamed in pain, struggling as the males held her tightly between them.  Christian and his brothers shouted, begging him to stop.
    “You know how to stop this.  Tell me where she is.”  He squeezed his fist around the next finger of her hand and broke it.
    She sobbed and the sound broke Christian’s heart.
    “No, Chris,” she pleaded, but he couldn’t stand it.
    “I don’t know, okay?  I don’t know where they took her.”
    His father wrapped his hand around another finger and Chris screamed, “I said I don’t know!  I’m not lying, please!”
    His father’s lip curled and he said, “You know who would know, though, don’t you?”
    Christian’s shoulders slumped in defeat.  “The mountain lions.  Melody is living in Ashland with them, and even if she doesn’t know where Scarlett went, she’d know how to get in touch with her or the men who helped her.”
    “Helped her?  You mean kidnapped her,” his father said.
    Christian bit the inside of his cheek to stop from cursing his father out.
    To one of the wolves, his father said, “Bring me Scarlett’s phone.  It’s on the dresser in her bedroom.”  The male disappeared quickly.  When it had been discovered that Scarlett had left, their father had personally searched her apartment, but there was nothing to indicate where she’d gone.  Christian had known that Melody might have an idea of how to get in touch with Ray and Wesley, but the males had said that no one knew where they were taking her, so Melody wouldn’t be useful for information.  Christian now wished he’d destroyed Scarlett’s phone.
    The male handed Scarlett’s phone to Christian’s father.  He looked down at it dispassionately and then tossed it to Christian, who caught it easily.  “You will call Melody and tell her that she must find a way to get in touch with Scarlett because her mother is very ill – near death.  You can tell her I have