The Unforgiving Moon

10.

I was dragged through the city, and when I found the brief strength to open my eyes, I found that the streets were dimly lit by the white lights and the blue hues of our Moon. Had it been one full day?

Not many people roamed the streets at first, but whispers traveled fast, and soon I heard rummaging around me, and people enjoyed the spectacle that I had become.

The streets filled, as the two males kept dragging me with them, my feet scraping against the ground. I couldn't find the strength in me to get up, to find my feet, to walk—Moons, to escape. I was headed to those awful dungeons, where I would undoubtedly spend the rest of my days. However few of those were left.

I had only been there once, when Dexter had requested an audience with me and Aven had agreed to it. I had been on the other side of the cell, in the safety of my Alpha's protection. No one could protect me now.

Would they put me in the same cell? Would I be the only one there?

How long would I remain there?

Death had rejected me, but Life had never accepted me. Life had never given me a chance—it had always refused.

The streets seemed endless, my feet harshly bouncing off the wet stones, my ears refusing to hear the horrid words that were thrown at me. But the louder they grew, the harder they were to miss. They aimed straight at the center of my soul, and the more words they shot, the less words missed their target.

Some were even cheering when we passed. I never found the courage to open my eyes, to look at them, to see their hatred for me.

The shouts eventually dulled, but the stinging in my feet had shot up to my legs and my body was aching and burning and tiring and everything wrong.

Soon, I heard a metal gate creak open—the entrance of the dungeons. Next, I felt myself nearly being thrown down the stairs, my eyes still keeping me in the darkness. I was only able to open them in slits occasionally—but the world was too harsh and cruel, and I was too tired and broken.

The dungeons felt cold, and humid, like the last time I'd been here. The smell was just as horrid.

I was dragged to a cell, where I heard another cell-door open, after one of the guards fumbled with his keys.

I was expecting to be thrown in the cell, but the two males kept their grip on me and dragged me in the small chamber. I was expecting them to let me go, but their hands refused to rid my body of their touch.

Instead, they hosted me up, as they ordered some other guards or wolves or just men—I didn't know, to get the chains.

And only a fleeting moment later, I felt it close around my wrists, a cold metal straining against my skin.

"No," I tried to protest, but the word didn't find its way out of my mouth. Didn't they know there wasn't any need for these chains? I wouldn't escape—I couldn't escape, because where would I go? Why would I want to leave, when I had no place left to be?

Not long after, I felt the same cold metal shackles close around my ankles.

I heard the sounds of the metal chains being pulled, and I felt my arms being strained up, and my legs pulled apart.

Is this how Aven must have felt? Powerless, humiliated, knowing there was nothing left to be done? Would I be tortured the same as him? Or would Mallee show me more mercy than Beckett had found in him?

It didn't matter, because the room suddenly felt empty, and I heard the metal gates, bars, door close and the keys cling and the footsteps walked away and I was entirely alone in this cell, in these walls, in this cursed body.