Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke and Mirrors Series Book 1)

by S. N. Nair

  They had barely set foot into the arena when Sapphire pounced on them, tearing at them without a shred of humanity. Chloe let out a scream as Sapphire ripped the windpipe right out of one of the guards with her teeth, blood spewed out of his body splattering Sapphire who looked as though she had just been splattered by nothing more than water. She gave a small shake of head spitting the remains from her mouth before moving to the rest.

  It was evident to all that the real Bloodbath was not the fight before, but rather the massacre that was happening now. More guards entered the arena only to be felled the moment they entered, it seemed like the carnage would never stop till I notice Sapphire start to sway, her attacks on the guards became increasingly slower. She might heal faster than an average wolf due to her Lycan lineage, but she was still susceptible to silver and the exposure to it from the dagger was preventing her body from healing. She might not feel the pain from her injuries due to the adrenaline flowing through her veins but she was still losing copious amounts of blood, so although she could not feel it, she could not stop it from taking its toll on her.

  Seeing my chance, I waved my hand to signal for more guards as Sapphire’s movements became increasingly more sluggish and her attacks became feeble, she tried to defend herself as my guards cornered, but unfortunately for her, her once strong powerful punches were now missing their mark. She continued this for a while before collapsing in a heap to the ground. Thirty guards entered the arena and now only five remained. Pathetic

  “Sir!”

  One of my men called out, probably to ask for instructions on what to do with Sapphire’s body.

  “Healer. Bedroom.”

  They gave a nod before carrying her off, some stayed behind to tend to Karmen.

  I glanced to my right only to be faced with a pair of very angry eyes, I sighed as I raised a hand to massage my temple, great, the lecture was going to start early today.

  “Chloe…”

  “Don’t, Chloe me! How dare you? Have you lost your ever-loving mind! You gave Karmen a weapon that could actually kill Sapphire, your mate!”

  “It was a test! It was to …”

  “A test to what? To test if she was suitable to become Alpha Female? So what if she lost? Were you going to make that coward Alpha Female! For so long I have defended your name, now I see that my brother died years ago, you might as well change your name to Roland because that is who you have become and guess what, he lost his mate too. I cannot believe it has taken me this long but for the first time in years, I finally see the monster you have become.”

  She turned heel on me and ran out, ignoring my shouts. I watched her retreating figure got smaller and smaller till it disappeared, my guards who were still in the arena jumped as I roared and punched the stone parapet. This was all Sapphire’s fault, she was the snake who came into my home and poisoned it, she brainwashed my sister into defying me. I wanted to make her pay for what she did but the want for her still burned deep within me, it made me crave her every time she was near. I smirked to myself as an idea came to mind.

  I would make Sapphire my Alpha Female, binding her to me forever, my smirk became a full-blown grin as I thought more of the idea. It would be absolutely perfect as it would punish her by taking away the will she holds oh-so-dear as she submits to me as once the bond was solidified, there was no way of turning back the clock. Furthermore, this plan would greatly benefit me as my pack would see me tame the ‘Beast’ and make her mine, their respect for me will surge and I would have their unwavering fealty. Her submission would cause me to be feared throughout the other packs, my name would be remembered for centuries to come, moreover, her submission to me would ensure that my future children would have the blood of Lycans running through their veins and I would make sure that unlike my father, my mate will never leave me because this time things were different, the stakes were too high, she was too valuable for me to let go.

  I walked back to my room as I received word from my men that the healers have patched her up and brought her there to rest. I opened the door to my room and was rendered speechless when I saw her.

  She truly was beautiful as she laid there on my bed, after all that was where she belonged, her copper skin was as smooth as the satin she laid on, the skin on her face was absent of the hard expressions she usually bore and her eyes were framed with a thick fringe of lashes on each side that brushed the top of her cheeks as she slept.

  My eyes could not help but roam the rest of her body, her midriff bare, with the exception of bandages that were a contrast to the black satin. Dark blue flowers of different sizes peppered her bare arms and torso contrasting with her copper skin, I felt my mouth go dry as my eyes found her slender neck, her head was tilted in such a way in her sleep that it exposed the curve of neck that joined to the right shoulder. That would be where I would leave my mark that would make her mine, following the custom set by our ancestors thousands of years ago, my hand drifted to that curve, my fingers splayed across it as I traced it, my canines lengthen, and my head dipped down to her neck as if I were in a trance. I let out a groan as her scent filled my nostrils, my teeth barely scraped her skin before I was stopped by a hand clenching firmly around my own throat.

  I turned my head to meet the angry dark eyes that seemed as though they would burn my very soul if I continued staring into them, a force pushed against my neck causing me to stand up straight and stumble back a few steps. Sapphire was now fully awake, her face set into an expression that was beyond that rage, the dark flowers that once covered her sin were now gone, I smirked as I looked right at her, it was time for me to put my trap, one that I knew she would irrevocably fall into.

  “How dare you touch me!”

  Chapter Nineteen: Turn of Tides

  Sapphire Nightborne

  I am going to kill him…no I am going to do more than that, I am going to… I am going to… I can’t even imagine what I wanted to do to him as nothing seemed good enough.

  I growled as I paced back and forth in this glorified prison cell Damien had locked me in. I could not escape even if I wanted to as just like the rest of this forsaken house, silver barred the windows, preventing them from aiding me. Moreover, that monster had used the time I was fighting to coat the door and walls of this room in melted silver preventing me from even touching them, let alone escaping. My hands were covered in scabs from the numerous times I grit my teeth and tried to use my hands to break down the wall. I had learned enough from chatter here and there to realise that even without the silver, the walls off every room in this building were not caving in anytime soon. Damien had three layers of protection, with thick slabs of Oak sandwiching a wall of stone, this place was a fortress.

  The floor of my cage was littered with fragments of wood from the furniture I had thrown against the bars as well as the door but alas, what could wood do against silver. Why could I have been invulnerable to this instead of wolfsbane? Although, that would have been bad in past events, seeing as though I was once fully submerged in wolfsbane for a long period of time.

  My first plan, after the usual physical approach failed me, was to escape the moment they, hopefully, serve me food but curse Damien for thinking of that. That man actually had his guards sit on some type of bench before being hoisted up two floors to serve me food through the bars of my window, the window. He gets my respect for creativity, I’ll give him that. The only consolation was that whoever put their dirty paws through those silver bars left with their tail between their legs and a nice reminder of me on their arm. The food was removed untouched after an hour by the same method so whoever it was on that day received two reminders of me. Those were the small things that kept my sanity intact.

  “You’re starving yourself, Sapphire.”

  That was what he said to me after food came back untouched on the tenth day. I only consumed the water from his bathroom, it was the only source that I trusted would not be spiked and leave me at his mercy.

  “I have survived longer witho
ut food.”

  I remembered the dark and dirty cells where I chose to starve instead of fighting my own brethren for food. I refused to reduce myself to a feral animal no matter who held me captive, be it the Elders or the Hunters. That shut him up and he dropped the subject.

  The pile of untouched clothes kept growing with each passing day as Damien threw more and more expensive clothes at me as if I were his personal doll. The very thought of seeing his face made me sick to my stomach and I would almost be content with living in this gilded cage for the rest of my life if I never had to see his mug ever again, but of course, when has fate ever been kind to me. It has been my worst enemy since I was forced out into this world.

  Everyday Damien would actually get his men to hoist him to my window, so he could talk to me as if I was his princess locked in a tower and every single day the same offer came.

  “Sapphire, you are punishing yourself for no reason. Be mine and all of this will be over, you will be free again.”

  Every day he got to hear the wide range of vocabulary I had learnt from my trainer in the past. I hoped that one day he would get tired of trying and decided that I was more trouble than I was worth, I hoped that he would try to come in and kill me, but unlike the last time, this time I was ready and fit to fight.

  The rattling coming from outside my window received an eye roll from me, let the lecture begin… again. The clicking of nails, a habit of mine, quickened the closer Damien got to my window, that had always been my tell-tale sign of when I was angry or annoyed, and I felt the overwhelming feeling of both as Damien’s face came into view. That monster had a full-blown grin on his face as he looked at me through the bars, if he could just be considerate enough to lean closer everything would have been perfect...I would restructure his face so that it would actually be tolerable to look at.

  My mind decided to zone out, as he repeated the same damn thing that he had been saying for the last ten days, to think about my favourite things: animals, killing Damien, training, killing Damien…. I continued to list them down before I realised that he had stopped speaking, the ‘proposal of the century’ was finally finished. So, I decided to reply to him with a new set of words from my large vocabulary. Unlike him, I actually take the effort to ensure he hears different things coming out of my mouth every day.

  I waited for his face to fall into the scowl that had graced his face every day after I told where he could stick his idea of me becoming Alpha Female, however today was different... his lips morphed to form a grin. This caused my hair to stand as his smile looked like that of a cat that had finally cornered the canary and was about to eat it whole. I was about to ask why in the world was he smiling when he pouted, he actually pouted.

  “Aww Sapphy, and here I thought you actually cared for your pack, being the insufferably noble person you are.”

  Wait, pause and repeat. What did he say about my pack? In my rush to get answers I had gripped the silver bar, I could feel the burn spread through my hand but at this moment I did not care, I wanted answers. Damien actually laughed at my reaction, his laughter quickly died down and was replaced with a smirk as he realised that he had caught my attention. The urge to rip his lips and tongue suddenly spiked.

  “Good, I caught your attention. I just thought that you ought to know that my scouts have found some survivors of you pack camped a few miles away from your Northern Border.”

  His features morphed into a look of annoyance as he continued.

  “Your pack are just like cockroaches, you can just never seem to stamp them out completely without others crawling out of the woodwork.”

  His grin came back after he heard the growl that left my lips after that jab.

  “Anyway, my scouts were there to survey your land, or should I say my land, so long story short, your pack members are still kicking, well some of them anyway.”

  My heart started to pound faster as almost jumped for joy, some had survived, this was not the end of the Blackwater Pack, however, my celebratory mood quickly cooled when I realised that this piece of news had come from Damien’s mouth and that it was his scouts that had found them. Instantly, the memory of what happened to Antony and Ryder reared its ugly head.

  His eyes glittered as he took in the look of sheer horror on my face.

  “I’ve got a proposition for you that I think you would want to hear.”

  This was why he radiated confidence when he went up to my window today, he managed to pull out a trump card.

  “How do you I know you are not lying to me? I want evidence that you have my pack and that they are currently still alive, unharmed.”

  I felt a tooth crack as I clenched my teeth, his laugh causing my nails to dig into the skin of my palm. The power was in his hands, and I was once again... helpless.

  “You are not exactly in a good position to demand things from me, are you? I’ll leave it up to you. You can believe me and save your pack, or, believe what you will and lose any chance of saving the pack you swore to protect. Just remember the stakes which are at risk and tell me of your decision by tonight. Does your oath still hold true, or have you abandoned it already?”

  He had finally got me.

  Chapter Twenty: Sacrificial Lamb

  Sapphire Nightborne

  The temptation to rip the gold-coloured gown in front of me increased the more I looked at myself. I wanted to rip into it till it was unrecognisable, till the patterns that highlighted the triumphs of the Black Blood Pack were nothing but gold threads on the ground. It might have been the perfect dress to any other she-wolf, but to me, it only screamed one word: Slavery.

  That was what I saw, slavery, the onyx studded bracelets might as well have been shackles, because what I was about to do was not an inch different from slavery. I was about to sell my soul, power and body to someone, who if I had choice, I would not go near with a hundred-foot pole. I was going to be forced to listen to whatever he tells me and take whatever punishment that came my way. And for what price? Most slaves were sold for money, but this was not the case now. The price was not money or any other worldly jewel, it was something a million times more precious. My price was lives, the lives of my people.

  That was the proposition Damien gave me, my submission to him for the lives of my pack members… how could I refuse. I knew that there was a high chance of this being one big ruse to get me to comply with him, but if there was one teaching that stuck with me since I was young, it was that you don’t gamble lives, especially the lives of your family. If my father had no taken that gamble, my sister and I would have died years ago. I still remembered what my Generals, then warriors-in-training, told me when I returned, of what happened in Alpha Edan’s study.

  *"Xavier, I cannot comprehend the pain you must be feeling right now, but we cannot negotiate with hunters! How would that make us look to the other packs? Grovelling and submitting to the hunters. That would make us the laughing stock across the lands!"*

  *"My daughters were captured on a scouting mission, that you gave your seal of approval to! You sent out a group that I told you was not ready , and yet you went behind my back!"*

  *"Watch how you speak! You might be my friend, but I am still your Alpha!"*

  *"Will that help you sleep better at night? Knowing that by allowing a group of younglings to be tortured by our age-old enemy, you have kept the prestige of your title."*

  *"As an Alpha, I have to make the hard decisions that would not ruin our pack."*

  *"Edan, if you keep thinking like that you will not have a pack much longer."*

  *"Is that a threat, Xavier?"*

  *"No, it is a promise. Are you so out of touch with your people that you think prestige matters more to them, than their own lives? This pack might not care for my daughter, but if they realise that it could be them in her position, and will not be rescued for the sake of pride. Edan, they will turn on you in a second. Edan, lives should never be gambled for the sake of your pride or prestige. Remember that, and bring my girls home
."*

  For hours I have repeated the same thing over, and over in my head. What if I refused, for the sake of my pride, and it turned out that Damien was telling the truth? Another couple dozens of people’s blood would paint my hands red again, and my hands were already wet with the blood of their relatives. Besides, it was one life sacrificed for the lives of many. My fate was sealed from the moment I was born, I did not want to be chained by it, but I will wear those shackles if it meant they could live out their chain-free destinies. I would not even lose my life, it was just my soul and everything I stand for being taken away from me. The vows that I took on the day I became Head Warrior Commander flashed through my mind, especially one line:

  *‘I promise in front of the elders and my Alphas that I will always put my life below that of our pack’s.’*