The truth of that statement abruptly took any wind I had left in my sails out. He was right. I was alone, completely without aid. Seeing this realization flash over my face, Eric moved in closer to me. He reached around my back to where my hands were shackled and wiggled my ring off. He then held it up in front of my face.
“You won’t be needing this anymore, and frankly, I’d love to have a token to remind me of you in your absence. I really am going to miss our time together, Ruby. It’s regrettable that we didn’t have a little more.”
I felt a single tear spring from my eye and roll slowly down my face.
“Oh, don’t worry, Ruby. I’ll miss you too, but I’m sure one of the fine young gentlemen here will suit you just as well. They’re very eager to make your acquaintance,” he said as a self-pleasing grin crossed his face. “I’m done with her now. You can take her away,” he shouted to the dark-haired man, all the while never taking his eyes off of mine. Another male emerged from the house to aid with my removal. They both grabbed me around the biceps and hauled me away like a criminal. A prisoner. I guess that’s what I was about to be.
I looked back to see Eric and the Alpha shaking hands as they exchanged a large metal briefcase.
“The hood, you idiots. I told you to hood her,” the Alpha shouted to my escorts. We stopped briefly, just long enough for one to pull a black bag out of his pocket and roughly pull it down over my head. Our journey then continued.
Just as I was dragged up the front steps I heard two loud clicks followed by a high pitched whistle that trailed off in both volume and pitch.
“So it’s all here?” Eric asked.
“It is,” the Alpha replied, ”Tell Marcus it’s been a pleasure doing business with him.”
26
The darkness was strangely calming and familiar amidst the chaos. I took solace in it while I was ushered into a building, bound by the wrists, surrounded by a frantic crowd. My captors wound me through the corridors for a minute or so, and my sense of direction by that point was completely lost. We ground to a halt suddenly and I was wedged into position between my two delightful escorts. I could tell little about my surroundings other than that the room was vast and lofty; it echoed with the slightest sound. As the pack closed in around us, the noise boomed through the air, obscuring my hearing. The only senses I had left at my disposal were taste and smell, which seemed to be the worst hand I could possibly dealt - they were useless for defense or escape.
My head pounded from the mob’s cacophony, my body completely overwhelmed by the energies around me. My mind couldn’t process them all. I could only assume that the group was moving about based on the sheer number of emotions swirling around me, assaulting me unknowingly. I tried to reassure myself that at least I had that one trick up my sleeve. Eric hadn’t known about my gift, so therefore the clowns who abducted me didn’t know either. The downside was that there was little advantage in that for me.
The crowd started to settle down, unprompted by any audible cues. When it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, a lone set of footsteps could be heard approaching me. Alpha. As he neared I knew I was right. Evil has a very distinct feel.
“My gift to you has arrived,” he declared. The crowd instantly roared its approval, then settled without prompting. “My plan can now be put into motion. I’ve made promises to you for decades, and now, my children, we will make them realities.”
The crowd exploded.
“Once she is bound to the pack, we will have the power we need. An unstoppable power that will change the way things are and have always been.”
I shifted in my stance unknowingly, trying to understand his cryptic speech. I drew attention to myself in the process, which proved to be an unwelcome move. The Alpha grabbed me violently by the back of the neck, lifting me up onto my tiptoes.
“It starts tonight,” he screamed. “You will make her one of us!”
The males of the pack, which seemed to be the overwhelming population, went crazy. That did not bode well for me. I sensed their energies pressing closer, until I physically felt people brushing up against me, sniffing me, sizing me up like a steak for dinner. I tried to find a happy place in my mind. I knew there was no physical escape for me right then, but they couldn’t imprison my mind. I thought of home. I saw myself dancing to music I loved, blocking out everything else around me. Dance could always do that.
I heard the Alpha’s voice in my ear as I was released from his grip.
“Now the fun begins, my dear. You have no idea what you’re in for; they’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”
On a creepy scale, I gave that speech a nine out of ten.
Why can’t any of these assholes actually get to the point and say what they mean?
Without a chance to ask that question out loud, I was on the move again, although this time I was carried. I could only assume they wanted to further skew my sense of direction. The irony was I had a horrible one to start with, so they were going to great lengths to accomplish something that could have been done with a couple of quick turns in place. I laughed to myself inside.
My transporters took me through various halls again, though this time those halls were silent except for their conversational chatter. I gave up on paying attention to my surroundings and focused all my energy on what they were saying, hoping to get some idea of what was going on.
“Where are you in the order?” the one asked.
“I don’t have the seniority you do, but I’m somewhere in the top fifty, I think,” the other replied.
“You don’t stand a chance then,” number one snickered, “It’ll never make it that far. She’ll never make it past me.”
“Oh yeah, Bryan, she’s totally losing her shit for you. Look at her; she’s chomping at the bit to get to you.”
“Fuck you, Aaron. You’re not exactly having an effect yourself. Besides, he said it didn’t work like that.”
I assumed that ”he” was the infamous Alpha yet again.
Doesn’t this psycho have a name?
“How do you know how it works?” Aaron asked.
“The Alpha pulled a few of us aside one day and explained it all. He said that once we were placed together, there would be an inexplicable connection. Once truly mated, you could never be parted. Only by death.”
This. Is. So. Not. Happening.
“So we’re just gonna walk in the room and see if sparks fly? That’s so lame.”
“Oh, I never said we were just going to be in the room together,” Bryan said, chuckling to himself.
“Oooh,” Aaron replied, joining in with the laughter.
Not wanting to acknowledge where this conversation was going, I started to think about what the Alpha had been telling them. How could he know how this worked? Eric and I were bonded from across a room in a crowded club, and we certainly weren’t mated, and he sure as hell parted with me pretty easily. No, the Alpha was wrong, though I doubted those two chuckleheads would be interested in that little tidbit. I was about to be subjected to what I assumed would best be described as speed-dating from hell, and for nothing.
“So what’s the big plan after my mating?” I asked casually.
“Ah, ah, ah. No pillow talk until after, girlie,” Bryan chided.
“Why all the secrecy? It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” I said, hoping upon hope that they’d buy my act and fill me in. I hadn’t given up on escaping, but I wanted to know everything I could while these guys were in the talking mood.
“Let’s just say that he wants to shake up the division a bit,” Aaron replied.
“The division?” I asked.
“Between our world and the human one.”
“Enough,” Bryan commanded. He seemed irritated with what Aaron had told me, which was amusing since it made precious little sense. “We’re almost there. No more questions from you, Bitch. You can ask all the questions you want when I see you later tonight. Unfortunately for you, I’ll be too busy to answer them.”
The anxiety that I’d been trying so hard to stifle was edging upwards. I hadn’t reached the point of blacking out, but I was starting to near that line. The shaking started as my pulse raced without end.
A hand reached up into my hood and stroked my face.
“Shhhhh, it’ll be over soon,” Bryan said. “We’re here.”
He put me on my feet and pushed me through a doorway. My hood was removed, as were some other clothing items I’d rather have kept on. It did nothing to control my shaking.
I could see his face now and realized that Bryan was the black-haired guy who had shackled me outside in the yard. He grabbed me by my hair and yanked me towards his face.
“Like I said, this will all be over soon. I’ll be back for you in an hour,” Bryan said as a smile danced across his face. “I get second dibs.”
I could only assume that meant the Alpha was going to be visiting me shortly, and I choked on a whimper that threatened to escape at the thought.
The two of them slammed the door to my cell and left me alone in a dark, cold, musty room, nearly naked, and completely terrified. There would be no white knight coming to save me. There certainly would be no saving myself.
The proverbial shit had hit the fan, and I was neck-deep in it.
27
Time passed slowly, and the process was starting to break me. I was deprived of virtually all sensations and the few I was granted were not the sort I would have chosen. The darkness was so complete that I had no concept of night or day, date or time. I could have been there three weeks or three months for all I knew; it was all the same to me. I tried to count my meals to gauge how much time had passed, but that was based on the premise that they were feeding me three squares a day, and judging by how skeletal my naked body felt, that was a terrible assumption.
I was cold to the core in a way that I could not be certain I would ever warm up again. Then there was the coldness that wasn’t temperature related at all. Sometimes cold evolved from an evil so pure, so thorough, that it could permeate the soul of even the most God-fearing individual. I had that, and it scared me to death.
The smell of must and dankness had coated my mucosa so thoroughly that I couldn’t escape it. If it hadn’t been for my ability to hear and feel the footsteps coming, I’d have never known when they were approaching. Normally, when alone, I was surrounded by thick, heavy silence. It was inescapable. Only those brief visits by the others broke that silence. Those were the only times I wished it back.
As I sat on the damp, packed-dirt floor I tried to keep the images of what I’d endured pushed way down deep in my mind. Just when I felt my sanity slipping, my attention was snapped back to the more pressing issue of unwelcome footsteps echoing through the corridor to my cell. The sound started faint and distant, gaining strength and vibration to become deeper in tone and more rapid in pace, as though the approacher couldn’t wait to see what was behind the door and rushed with anticipation.
My body rushed with adrenaline.
My heart quickened, blood racing to extremities that begged to either run or fight. I was unable to comply with either, still bound in iron shackles to the wall. Apparently my not-so-good behavior had done little to impress my captors and even less to gain their trust.
I sprang to my feet as always, making me look less like a victim, even if only to myself. I waited for the door to open. Whoever was out there appeared to be hovering by the door, a very unexpected behavior as everyone else had all but taken it off the hinges to get in. I didn’t enjoy his theatrics, knowing that he was either taking his time in either an effort to frighten me further, which really wasn’t possible, or was contemplating how best to impress me with his entrance.
Awesome. I so need one with a flair for the dramatic!
My skin itched and crawled, a final plea from my nervous system to react. Though I couldn’t do what it wanted, I tried to release some of the energy I was amassing by the second. I screamed as loudly as I could.
The door came crashing in, and in an instant, a tall, lean but muscular man came flying through it straight towards me. I backed up as quickly as possible, completely unprepared for his attack. I needed room to figure out some way to defend myself, or anything I could find to gain leverage with. I was almost frantic when he stopped just short of me. He did nothing but look.
I realized in our proximity that he wasn’t as threatening as the others had been. With that victory I slowly released myself from my defensive posture and looked right back at him. We stared at each other for what seemed like a lifetime; apparently he was in no hurry to get down to business.
“You were screaming,” he said, eyeing me closely. “Are you hurt?”
I was completely puzzled. Days and days after treatment so vile the UN would’ve been writing sanctions for years, and he asked if I was hurt.
Ah…now they send Captain Perceptive. I knew there had to be a MENSA candidate in this bunch.
“No, I’m fucking peachy, and you?” I snarled at him and his mock sympathy. He looked sheepish after my response, running his hand through his golden curls as he let out a deep breath. It appeared as though he had been holding for quite some time.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said quietly. I cocked my head to the side and gave him my very best “And I fucking do?” look. He seemed to catch my drift. “I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t want a part of…this…any of it,” he said while making a dismissive wave of his hands around the room, at my restraints, and at me.
“Really? This isn’t your dating scene? Seems to work for everyone else in your little group,” I said with venom on my tongue. ”But hey, if you’re so morally opposed to this, why don’t you get me the hell out of here?”
“That was my plan,” he said as his voice drifted off quietly. “To get us both out of here.” I stared blankly at him, completely mute. Usually my mouth served to get me into a lot of trouble, especially when cornered.
Imagine my surprise.
“Us?” I asked gently, as though I was afraid in that fraction of a moment the answer had changed.
“Yes, Ruby. Us.”
I slid down the wall I was backed up against, landing inelegantly on the floor. I pulled my knees tight to my chest, and rested my head atop them. Somehow modesty, in light of my new situation, became a top priority.
I couldn’t look at him. Embarrassed, drained and emotionally scarred, I tried to hide my relief from the only ally I now had. I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt his fingertip brush across my cheek. I snapped my head up to see him kneeling in front of me, our faces so close I could feel his breath on my face. The silence was back and I couldn’t tolerate it one second longer, my panic starting to rise.
“Why?” I asked, if for no other reason than to hear something echo through my cell.
”Because I never wanted to be here. You never wanted to be here. You’re not safe here, and you never will be. I’ve heard the Alpha speak of his plans for you.” He broke contact with me after his last sentence, looking down at the ground, taking a sudden interest in the nothingness there. “No one should live like that and I want no part in it. The only part I’ll play is the one that sees you free and safe.”
It was in that moment I knew he wouldn’t harm me. He was so earnest. His chivalrous nature was from another era, one where people died over principles, over right and wrong. I reached down and grabbed his hand, careful not to move from my carefully chosen position. I pulled him in close to me so that he could hear my whisper.
“What do we need to do?”
28
“First we need to remove your bindings, don’t you think?” he asked with a mischievous grin. Without any pomp and circumstance, he removed what I could only assume was the key from his jeans pocket. He held it up and turned up the wattage of his smile. “Sometimes it’s good to go unnoticed. For once my unimportance serves me well.” There was a bite to his statement, and as curious as I was to know why, I was learning that my feet bes
t served me when they were nowhere near the vicinity of my mouth.
I reached my arms out towards him with my wrists pressed together like a prisoner in a bad cop movie, anticipating my freedom. He took one wrist in his hand and winked at me as he fit the key into the lock and gracefully sprung the shackle open. He repeated this with the other side, sans wink.
The inside of the shackles gleamed in the fraction of light that spilled in through the tiny opening in the door. The silvery metal was in great contrast to the iron exterior I’d been looking at for God knew how long. I rubbed my wrists gingerly as they’d been worn raw from my fruitless attempts at escaping them, and the others’ overzealous attempts to win my “affection.”
He quickly eyed my nearly-naked state and mumbled something as he removed his shirt. He leaned closer to me and drew it around my shoulders, letting it drape delicately before he slowly stood up and backed away a few paces. He then turned both his eyes and body away from me.
“It’ll be too big for you. I didn’t know you had nothing else. I’m sorry I didn’t plan that better,” he said remorsefully. I slid my arms in and buttoned the front as quickly as my frozen hands would let me. The sleeves were much too long so I rolled them to the elbow just to be sure they wouldn’t get in the way while we made our escape. I stood up tall to ensure the length of the shirt was sufficient. The white, collared oxford fell to just short of mid thigh, which was a vast improvement in my eyes. I cleared my throat to get his attention and he turned to see if his offering would do the trick for now. He looked very pleased with himself.
“So where to now?” I asked. His smile quickly faded.
“Unfortunately, this was the easy part. Nobody will be suspicious of me being in here; it was my scheduled turn. However, we have many other things working against us,” he observed solemnly. Things working against me was beginning to be a theme. I made a mental note to find the perfect theme song to go with that when I got home. If I got home.
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