Tied With a Bow

out in pain as he yanked at her wrists at the same time his fingers buried in her hair and used the thick length to jerk her up.
    “He’ll kill you!” she screamed out at him, the pain and the humiliation enraging her. “Malachi will kill you, Holden. You know he will. You stupid bastard, you just possibly killed one of the most loved Breed females in the world. There’s no way they’ll let you live.”
    She kicked at him, sobbing at the pain as he threw her against the wall before tossing her behind him once again.
    “Fuck you, bitch,” he sneered. “He’s not going to kill anyone. He’ll be too busy chasing after you and the rest of them will follow suit. And I’ll be far far away.”
    “You can’t run far enough.” She resisted, pulling her weight back and fighting his hold every inch of the way. “You can’t find a hole deep enough to hide in,” she spat in his face. “You’re a dead man walking.”
    Ashley wasn’t dead. She had seen the other girl moving, watched her eyes open as Holden dragged her from Malachi’s room to the stairwell in the next wing.
    Emma would have contacted Malachi immediately. She wouldn’t have waited. God, she had to be conscious enough to have contacted Malachi.
    Where was he?
    She stared behind her, looked up, fighting to catch a glimpse of him, to catch a glimpse of anyone that could report the abduction.
    “You’re going to make me a hell of a lot of money, bitch.” He laughed at her attempt to break free, the pain shooting through her wrists making her weak.
    Dazed from the confusing effect of his touch on her wrists, and the earlier blow to her head that he had used to keep her from escaping the room as Emma and Ashley rushed in, Isabelle found it more difficult to focus by the second.
    “You won’t get to spend a penny of it.” She stumbled on the next landing again, crying out brokenly as her knee connected with the unyielding metal beneath her.
    “Son of a bitch, what’s your fucking problem!”
    The blow to the side of her head was humiliating. Not really hard enough to be disabling, just enough to rattle her senses and draw another hoarse cry from her lips.
    Holden laughed, though the sound was filled with mockery and fury.
    “If you had just been smart enough not to fight me that night,” he snapped. “All you had to do was lie there and take it like a good little girl and everything would have been fine, Isabelle. I’d have married your stupid little ass, given you a kid or two and life would have been good. I’d have you, your daddy’s ranch, and the respect I deserve. But you had to go fuck a Breed, didn’t you?”
    “I would have died before I would have done anything but killed you,” she screamed furiously as the pain became excruciating. “I should have killed you while I had the chance.”
    “But you didn’t, did you Isabelle? You let that puke-faced little sister of yours stop you. That was your second mistake.” He was up in her face, nose to nose, his rough features twisted into a monstrous mask of anger. “The first was denying me.”
    A heavy, merciless hand gripped her jaw, pushing her head against the wall as he seemed to be trying to push it through the cement.
    “Why are you doing this?” Isabelle cried out as he released her jaw.
    The next second an openhanded slap knocked her to the side. The grip he still maintained on her wrists was the only thing that kept her from tumbling down the steps as she lost her balance.
    She was weak, the pain rushing through her was worse than it should have been. Far worse. But he wouldn’t let go of her. He kept touching her, and for some reason just his touch was like a thousand blades cutting into her flesh.
    “Hurts doesn’t it?” he rasped as he began dragging her down the steps again. “They were right about that. It hurts bad enough you can’t even fight me.”
    They, who the hell was “they”?
    Isabelle shook her head as she fought to make sense of what he was saying.
    “What did you do to me?” She could barely breathe, the pain was building so much.
    “I didn’t do it, stupid,” he bit out in disgust. “You did it to yourself when you let that dirty coyote knot you. If I’d known you like fucking dogs, slut, I would have brought mine over for a visit.”
    Isabelle shook her head, let herself fall against the wall and dragged back on his hold again as she tried trip them both.
    He laughed at her efforts.
    “Maybe if you’re a good girl the men waiting