Chapter 1 - Like it was nothing
POV Saina
Bound face-down on the bed, pumped full of silver, I only had a limited field of vision available. I saw the knife hissing over the skin of my forearms. Burning them.
In this state, my enhanced senses were as far from my reach as my wolf was. If she had even survived the years of torture. I prayed to the goddess that she had.
Still, I knew it was him immediately. The rogue king.
As much as I hated to admit it, his aura was so strong that the air shifted whenever he entered my room. My skin pricked over with the cold of his domineering presence.
“Your daddy is going to break when he finds your body like this.”
I let the threat wash over me. I had heard it a thousand times before. Never fully believing that I would make it through the next hour, let alone long enough to be found. A perpetual state of fight or flight, yet unable to do either. It was exhausting. I was exhausted.
He twisted the knife so that the blade pierced my skin, then dragged it down the length of my arm - red immediately pouring out and dripping onto the dirty sheets below me.
“You stink Princess. You look disgusting. So weak. Your daddy is going to break hard.” His dark chuckle made me shiver again, I hated it when he talked about my family. “He’s going to go feral....I can’t wait to watch his downfall.”
The V-shaped scar on his hand caught my eye again, it was the only distinguishing feature I had ever seen. He never showed me his face, always staying behind me, but I still stored away every scrap of information.
He bent and whispered the next threat into my ear. “Are you ready to beg for me little princess?” A hint of cedarwood clung to his skin. My dad was the only person I had ever met who smelled like that. Had he been near him? That wasn’t possible, was it? Tears filled my eyes at the first hint of comfort I’d had for years. My dad’s scent.
The king hummed with satisfaction, thinking the tears were for him. “Good girl. Crying is a good start.”
Then the blade dug in deeper, and I whimpered involuntarily. He laughed. “I have all day to get you begging. I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
***
Waking up to screaming was nothing new in itself, but today it felt different. Sounded different. There were more screams. Short screams of death, rather than the long moans of torture.
The rogue stronghold was under attack. Had my family found us at last? Tears filled my eyes at the thought.
After just a few more minutes I could hear the distinct sound of wolves roaring out in triumph. Then quiet.
I perked up my ears and strained to hear something, anything. My wolf was still subdued with silver infusions, but I reached out to her anyway. “They are coming for us Luci; we will be free soon and together again.”.
Nothing.
Every night they came to stitch us up and administer the transfusion that kept her away. Silver and the basic nutrients and liquid to keep me barely living. I tried not to think about the skeletal mess that years without much in the way of real food had turned my body into. “I’m here Luci. Stay strong for me.”
The blood loss from my earlier torture session was significant and I hadn’t been cleaned up yet...the oozy sticky liquid still dripping down my legs as I stood chained to the ceiling. I’d long since lost the feeling in my hands. They didn’t usually leave me standing like this for long. Something must have happened.
Suddenly sounds started up again. Deep voices. Doors opening, feet rushing. I tried to summon the energy to cry out, but my voice was dry after years of silence. Silence apart from the sounds of pain that I tried to keep inside. As I tried again to speak, I heard a key in the door of my cell followed by retching and choking. “Ah, fuck - someone has died in here. Fuck.”
I could see the silhouette of a man, bright light from the corridor mostly blocked by his huge frame. He was not one of my captors, he felt safe. “Here. I’m here”, I called out weakly as he started to move away. He turned back, clearly covering his nose, and light from a torch fell on me. He gasped, then choked again on the fumes from my cell. “Luna?”
With a sudden burst of energy, he charged forwards - his strong hands roughly tearing down my chains, flinching away at the feel of silver before discarding them and pulling me to the corridor.
Once we were out he started coughing violently, before breathing deeply into his sleeve. He was obviously affected by the stench. I had been covered in shit for years, and without my wolf, I barely noticed the smell anymore.
I knew it was disgusting though - especially to a wolf. My torture sessions were always short and brutal because of it, that was why I’d done it. They couldn’t stand the odour.
I had lost count of the number of days I had been here, the years I had been here. Was this man really going to free me? He was big. Tall for a wolf, probably an Alpha by blood. As I assessed him that feeling of safety returned. He felt like a friend even.
I sat on the ground waiting, and not long afterwards he shrugged off his shirt and covered my naked body with it. I appreciated the gesture, the security of being covered for once gave me even more warmth than the material.
He stood, fumbling with a large set of keys before he found the right one to release my cuffs. Then he discarded them carefully, frowning as my skin peeled away with the silver. I kept the cry of pain inside. “I’m sorry Luna. We have doctors here. They will help you.”
He had kind eyes, and I allowed myself to relax. I didn’t even flinch when he pulled my arms through his shirt, tugging it closed before he picked me up and started carrying me up twisting stairs.
It was at least five minutes before we reached the exit, people all around us carrying out prisoners. Excitement making the air buzz. Were my friends still alive? Had they suffered like I had....or worse?
“Alpha” The man carrying me stepped into a room I’d never seen, one with a window. My eyes went immediately to it. I could feel a smile forming on my lips. I could see the moon. At last.
I longed to go out to her and sit in her gentle light. Longed to feel her rejuvenating beams warming my skin again. “Alpha, I have found our Luna. Your mate was in the dungeons.”
What? I hadn’t thought anything of it when he said Luna, many people confused my natural aura as being that of a Luna.
My eyes snapped to the other man in the room, and his narrowed. He was obviously angry; he was already wound up with it. I barely had a moment to take in his features before he snarled out his distaste in me. “No. No. She’s disgusting”.
That hurt.
He wrenched open the shirt to look at me. Exposing the ribs that jutted out, the complete lack of muscle or fat anywhere. “She’s weak. Pathetic.”
I’d like to see you after years of torture and starvation.
He growled and pushed me away, striding across the room before turning and fixing cold eyes onto mine. “I, Alpha Dominic of the Blood Pack, reject you as my mate and Luna”.
I had barely processed the declaration before he stumbled.
Then he clutched below his heart, screaming out in pain as his eyes turned black. “Don’t accept, mate. My mate. My perfect mate. Don’t accept it. I’ll kill him for this.”
It was his wolf. No wolf would reject a mate like this. The Alpha was a fool if he thought he would come out of it unscathed. Still in control, his wolf dropped to the floor and started to crawl towards me. He halted suddenly, pain from the broken bond making his body convulse. Eyes still pleading with me not to accept the rejection.
Watching my former mate writhe in pain made me tense, but I couldn’t do anything about it without my wolf.
I looked to the other man in the room, he seemed as shocked as I was - his mouth slightly agape as he tried to process the last few moments. He looked at me. “You have to accept.”
I could say the words, but they wouldn’t truly mean anything without Luci. Still, I tried. “I, Saina of the Golden Arch Pack, accept your rejection”.
Nothing happened, he simply continued to shout out in pain. More pack members flooded the room, two men and a woman. I sat down, feeling weakness as my mate struggled.
“What happened Ben?“. The female embraced him, they must be mates. Lucky them.
The man with me shook his head, “The Alpha. He rejected our Luna”. He gestured to me, and I shrank into the sofa as all eyes turned towards me. “He just rejected her like it was nothing. Like she was nothing to him. To us.”
The woman came to me, shielding her face against the stench “Accept it, he’s in pain. I’m sorry Luna. You have to accept.”
Ben spoke again, “She did. She did accept it.”
The Alpha had blood pouring from his nose now, it was hard to watch. I had to speak up, they didn’t know why I couldn’t truly accept.
My voice was husky, unpractised, as I pushed the words out. “No wolf. They gave us silver. I can’t really accept it without her.”
“We’ll have to sedate him”. The second man said, his eyes glazing. Moments later and a doctor came in, a needle in the Alpha’s arm finally gave some respite from his loud groans of pain. From the violent shaking of his body.
I watched in a daze as they all fussed over him.
He had rejected me.
I was a rejected mate.
A rejected Luna.
Rejected…
I needed to get outside, to feel the moon on my skin. I couldn’t do it alone though; I was too weak. Just as my mate had said. Weak.
“Ben?” It was barely a whisper, but they all stopped, and he knelt before me. “Help me outside?”
He did as I said and my whole body relaxed as I dropped to the grass. Nature.
I could hear water lapping on a shore nearby, no salt on the air so we must be next to a lake. “Can you take me to the water Ben?“.
He nodded again, and in no time I was submerged in icy water. Beautiful, cold, fresh water. I felt a rush of energy, as if the moon herself were sharing her own life force. Pulling from his arms I dipped down, washing the excrement from my body. I swam, washed and scrubbed at my skin for a good twenty minutes before the cold took over. I was painfully thin. I could feel every bone as I rubbed down my body.
I was free though. Free from the rogue king, and free from the mate bond. I smiled as realisation hit me. I was free to choose.
As the cold started to take over, Ben called out that it was time to leave and held out a blanket for me before he placed me into a car. He passed me a stuffed toy that was so warm, it must have held a hot water bottle. In the warmth of the blanket, I fell asleep almost instantly. Instinctively trusting in Ben to keep me safe.
