by Alexis Davie
The guards dragged Brooke through the woods and toward the castle. At first, she fought them every step of the way, making her body a dead weight, and flailing out with her arms. She gave it up halfway through the woods. Her protests and her attempts to fight the guards were barely even slowing them down, let alone hurting them. All she was doing was hurting herself. They dragged her like she was a rag doll, not caring whether her feet were beneath her or not.
The procession soon made it out of the woods, across the courtyard, and into the castle. Once inside of the castle, one of the guards ran to fetch the queen and Brooke was dragged down a long passageway and into a large room with a raised platform that held two chairs.
The guards marched her toward the chairs and stopped a few feet in front of them. One stood on either side of her, holding her arms out. They held them in a way so that she wasn’t quite stretched out enough to injure her, but the slightest movement did hurt.
She didn’t have to stay in that position for long. The messenger guard returned and seconds later, Queen Alexandria breezed into the room. Brooke felt a jolt of hatred run through her body and she tried and failed to tug her arms free, achieving nothing but instead sending a shock of pain through her own body.
The queen moved casually to the raised platform and sat down. She smiled down at Brooke.
“Well, look what we have here. A female hunter, and barely more than a child.”
It was instantly clear to Brooke that the queen didn’t recognize her. Why would she? Brooke had been one of the many children in the village at the time, and she was nothing special. She wouldn’t forget the queen, though. She would recognize that haughty beauty anywhere.
“So, I take it this means the Order isn’t quite dead, then,” the queen said. “It appears that we have some new recruits. So, tell me dear, where are the new headquarters? Where will I find the new leader?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brooke snapped.
She was terrified, but she had learned not to show it, masking her fear with anger.
“I think you do,” the queen smiled. “But I also know that you won’t talk until you’re made to talk.”
She looked away from Brooke for the first time since she had come into the room and turned her attention to her guards.
“Guards, rough her up a little. Don’t go too far. Make it hurt, but nothing fatal. When you’re done, throw her in the cell in the dungeon and get word to the other guards that we’ve neutralized the immediate threat, but that there’s still a hunter on the loose.”
The queen stood up and handed a key to one of the guards. Brooke felt her pulse speed up. She had given these brutes permission to hurt her. She felt a stinging blow to the side of her face as her arms were released. At least they would allow her to fight back. Blows rained in from all sides, and Brooke threw kicks and punches of her own.
In the midst of the chaos, Brooke saw the queen smile, pleased with her guards, and then she began to make her way back out of the room.
“Your Majesty? May I speak to you? I have something important to tell you,” the guard who had pinned Brooke down said.
The queen paused and the guard approached her.
“It’s of a sensitive nature, Your Majesty. I would feel more comfortable discussing it in private,” he said.
“Yeah. He’s going to tell you how out of two dragons, one of them had to lose his life to subdue this hunter,” Brooke shouted after them.
The queen ignored her completely, but Brooke was still glad she had said it. She wanted the queen to know she had drawn blood too.
“Come and walk me to my chambers. We can talk there,” the queen said to the guard as they walked out of the room.
She was still talking, but Brooke’s outburst made the attack on her faster, stronger, and more brutal, and she missed the rest of the queen’s words. She hoped she hadn’t told her guards to disregard her last order and just kill her.
A punch to Brooke’s jaw made her stumble and she fell to the ground. Feet rained kicks down across her whole body, and at that point, all she could do was curl up into the fetal position and protect her head with her arms.
The onslaught went on for what felt like hours. Brooke hovered on the brink of unconsciousness. On the one hand, she would welcome the oblivion passing out would give her. It would stop the agony that she felt in every part of her body. On the other hand, she wanted to hang onto consciousness for as long as possible. She wanted to show these brutes that as small as she was compared to them, and as outnumbered as she was, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Eventually, the guards began to tire of hurting her. She had almost bitten a hole in her lip, gnawing down on it to keep herself from crying out, and the guards had soon grown tired of her lack of a reaction.
“Come on, let’s lock her up,” one of them said.
The others muttered their agreement and Brooke was dragged to her feet again. She was half dragged and half carried across the large room, through a door, and down a flight of stone stairs. They dragged her to a stone cell with thick metal bars lining the front wall. One of them hurried ahead and unlocked the cell. Brooke was thrown in, landing hard on the ground. She stayed where she had landed as the door slammed shut and the cell was locked again. She heard the guards walking away, laughing and congratulating each other.
I was right. They’re monsters. All of them monsters, Brooke thought to herself as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She winced as pain wracked her body. She began the laborious and somewhat torturous process of probing her injuries.
She had more cuts and bruises than she could count, a black eye and a split lip. Her ribs were bruised and she thought one of them might be cracked. Other than that, though, nothing was broken and Brooke knew she was far from dead, which meant this nightmare was still far from over.
She dragged herself to her feet and walked to the cell door. She shook it, already knowing it was hopeless. The door didn’t so much as rattle. She looked both ways along the stone corridor as far as she could see. When she was as sure as she could be that she was alone, she sank to the ground, drew her knees up to her chest, and finally allowed herself to cry.
7
Adonis moved along the corridor with a heavy heart. Esmerelda had been to his room again only half an hour before, saying his mother would like to see him once he was dressed. She had hung around for a few minutes, checking that he was okay and swooning over him like he was some sort of hero. He felt like anything but a hero. He had saved the girl, but in the process, he had killed Leonardo, something he would have to live with for all eternity.
He already had a cover story worked out, one that absolved him of the blame and also made Leonardo look like the brave soldier he always had been. Adonis hated having to cover up his crime, but his only other choice was to confess and risk eternal imprisonment or even execution. He would be punishing himself for all of eternity for what he had done. He didn’t need the queen laying it on too.
He was confident she would believe his version of events. She had no reason to suspect what had happened. If she did, she wouldn’t have sent Esmerelda to fetch him. She would have come herself, all guns blazing. He had a feeling she had sent for Leonardo, and upon being told he was missing, she had instead sent for Adonis to find out what had happened.
His cover story was simple. He was going to say they had sighted the hunter and that she had fired an arrow at them. They ducked for cover, and the hunter fled. He would say Leonardo had jumped up a second quicker than him to give chase and he had lost them when their scents crossed with the scents of the guards. It would make Leonardo look like he had bravely chased down the hunter, and his mother wouldn’t be angry he had left Adonis behind, because he had kept himself between the prince and the hunter. When his body was discovered, as unlikely as it was to think a human could have done that to Leonardo, it would be the only explanation. The pack would speculate that perhaps he fell and broke a leg and the hunte
r got lucky and got to him before he could regenerate. And eventually, they would stop talking about it, and Leonardo would become a distant memory, until eventually, he was forgotten about altogether by everyone except Adonis. Adonis would never ever forget Leonardo and he would never let himself forget what he had done to him.
Adonis reached his mother’s chambers and went inside. He found her sitting in her private library, a book open on the table in front of her. She looked up when she heard him come in. She smiled and gestured to the seat opposite her. Adonis sat down and returned her smile, hoping he didn’t look nervous.
“The guards caught the hunter last night,” Alexandria said. “Only it wasn’t who we thought it was. The hunter they caught was female. The original Order member must still be out there.”
Adonis felt like his heart would break when he heard the news. After everything he had done, the girl had still been captured.
“How do you know she’s not the Order member you were looking for?” Adonis asked, genuinely curious.
“Because when I ordered the guards to torture her, she stayed silent. A person being tortured who genuinely doesn’t have the information you need does one of two things. They protest, saying they don’t know what you want from them, or they make something up to try and save themselves.”
Again Adonis felt his heart break. His dragon stirred inside of him, his emotions making it restless. He tried to keep his face neutral once more, but when Alexandria jumped to her feet, her face a mask of rage, he knew he had slipped up. His face must have changed for a half a second, more than enough for the queen to see it.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You killed Leonardo. And don’t you dare try to deny it. One of my guards saw you. I thought he was lying, or at the very best, mistaken. But it’s true.”
Adonis looked down into his lap. He knew he couldn’t deny it convincingly enough to fool his mother, and even if he did, he was condemning the guard to a punishment that should be his. He couldn’t let anyone else suffer because of his ridiculous infatuation with the girl.
“Leonardo had a clear shot at the hunter, and you stopped him. That’s two of the guards dead because of you. Leonardo, my best soldier, and Farquinn, the guard the hunter took down. What were you thinking?”
Her rage had about burned itself out, but Adonis’ own rage had started to rise. Leonardo was hands-down his fault, but the other guard was out there on her orders, not his. He jumped to his feet himself, facing his mother.
“Have you ever thought that if you stopped going after mortals, they would stop coming after us? The majority of the Order is gone, and we’re in a secure location. They’re not even a threat to us anymore!” he shouted.
“I refuse to hide away any longer. And besides, look what happened the last time we attempted to live in peace with the mortals. Do you think I like killing people? Is that it? Well, I don’t. But I do what I have to do to protect this pack,” Alexandria shot back.
Adonis sighed wearily. For all his mother was ruthless at times, he knew she was telling the truth about this. Everything she did, she did because she believed it was right for the pack.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Until that moment, Adonis and Alexandria had been faced off against each other, locked in a battle of wills, their eyes fixed on each other. Now, Adonis looked down at the ground, ashamed of himself.
His mother watched him for a few seconds and then her top lip curled up in disgust.
“Dear God, Adonis. You’ve done it now, haven’t you,” she seethed.
Adonis looked back up at her, wondering what he had done now.
“You’ve fallen in love with her, haven’t you? The hunter,” she added.
“That’s ridiculous,” Adonis said, but even to his own ears it was just words. There was no conviction behind them.
“Adonis, you’re a disgrace to your own kind,” Alexandria said, shaking her head sadly.
“I tried to fight it,” Adonis said quietly. “But my dragon is telling me that she’s my destiny, Mother. You know what it’s like when your dragon claims your mate. You can’t fight it, no matter how much you might want to.”
Alexandria looked at Adonis, her face softening, and for a moment, Adonis dared to believe it would be okay, that she understood. But then her face clouded over, once more a mask that showed nothing of her true emotions, and he knew he had been too hasty in thinking this might be all right.
“I’m sorry, Adonis, but I have to put you in the cell. You can’t be trusted now. You have proven that you will choose the girl’s life over the life of a pack member,” she declared.
Adonis felt his heart start to beat faster. He knew that anyone who ended up in the dungeon didn’t come out again.
“No, please,” he said. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake, but I swear it won’t happen again.”
“It’s too late, son,” Alexandria said flatly.
She moved to the door of the library.
“Guards! Get in here,” she yelled.
Adonis bit his tongue. He wasn’t going to plead with his mother to see reason in front of the guards. Two guards ran into the library. Alexandria nodded toward Adonis.
“Give him a dose of Debellatorque and throw him into the dungeons,” she commanded.
The fact that Adonis was a prince did nothing to halt the guards’ actions. Their queen had spoken.
“Mother, no!” Adonis shouted as the guards seized his arms and began dragging him from the room. His earlier thought about not begging in front of the guards was gone now. “Please don’t do this. If you give me the Debellatorque, I won’t be a dragon anymore.”
His mother smiled sadly.
“Son, you stopped being a dragon the moment you chose the hunter over the pack,” she said.
The guards didn’t react to Alexandria’s revelation, or to Adonis’ pleas. They took him down to the dungeon. He knew better than to fight them. He might be able to break free, but he couldn’t fight every guard and every soldier in the castle, and that’s what it would come to if he tried to escape now.
They paused beside a tiny door in the wall and opened it, pulling out a vial of yellow liquid. The Debellatorque. The Debellatorque was a potion his mother had paid a local witch to concoct for her decades ago. The potion stopped a shifter from turning, leaving him stuck in whichever state he was at the moment of him taking the liquid. His mother used the threat of it to keep any unruly pack members in line.
Adonis knew why she was giving it to him. While it felt like it was solely to humiliate him, he knew the real reason. As a dragon, he could use his fire to melt the bars of the cell. He had already made his mind up that this was something he would fight. He wouldn’t take the potion. He would hold it in his mouth and pretend to swallow it and then spit it out when the guards weren’t looking.
It was all academic, as it turned out. Adonis felt a sharp pin prick in his arm and he knew what had happened without having to check. The guard had administered the potion through a needle so there was no way Adonis could trick them. He tried to bring forth his dragon, needing to know if he still could. There was nothing. He tried again, and again there was nothing.
He felt like he was dying inside, but he kept his game face on. Showing weakness now would only humiliate him. It wouldn’t change his fate. He didn’t know of anything that could undo the effects of Debellatorque.
The guards didn’t mess around after that. They had the cell open, Adonis inside it, and the door locked back up within half a minute. They walked away, leaving Adonis to examine his surroundings. The cell was all concrete except for the bars, which he didn’t need to touch to know were unbreakable with his bare hands.
He was a little surprised to see movement against the back wall of the cell, and he realized with surprise that it was the hunter girl. His mother had locked him in the same cell as her, obviously thinking they were partners in crime, so why not?
He felt pain inside of himself when he saw the mess
of the hunter’s face. His mother’s guard had really done a number on her. But the pain didn’t last long. All he could see now when he looked at her was the woman who had ruined his life. He was a prince, destined to one day lead the pack. And now, because of her, he was a prisoner, confined to a cell.
None of that changed the way his dragon reacted to the sight of Brooke, though. His mother might have been able to stop his dragon from emerging physically, but she hadn’t stopped it from emerging mentally. When he looked at Brooke, he felt angry, but he also felt something that wasn’t quite lust. It was more than that. It was a physical need for her.
She had long, blonde hair and pretty, light blue eyes, the color of the sea on photos of tropical island getaways. She had a body to die for, large, pert breasts and curvy hips, and try as he might to keep hating her, Adonis still felt an overwhelming need to protect her.
8
When Brooke heard the footsteps approaching the cell, she jumped to her feet and moved to the back of the cell, pressing herself into the shadows in the back corner, shrinking away from the noise. She was still determined that she wouldn’t give up her Uncle Steve, but the thought of being beaten again while every part of her body still hurt was a thought she couldn’t bear. She had only been in the cell overnight, and already, she was starting to feel cabin fever setting in. There was only one window in the cell—a tiny slit of a thing so high up, the only thing she could gauge from it was whether it was day or night. Even in the daylight, the cell was dingy, lit only by the lights from the corridor which had so far been left on constantly.
Brooke’s cell door clanged open and she shrank even further back, flattening herself against the wall. The guards didn’t come for her, though. Instead, they shoved someone else into the cell. Someone who she almost instantly realized was Adonis. For a moment, Brooke was seized by a fear so strong, she thought she would lose her mind completely. They had sent Adonis to torture her and they were leaving him in here with her until she broke.