The Forsaken Mate

Chapter Twenty- One.

“Wavke up bitch!” A bucket of ice cold water was dumped over my head and I growled at the man above the tiny cage I was in. It only offered maybe three feet of moving space as a wolf between my body and the silver bars.

My head pounded and I snarled at them, still a wolf, as men sneered at me from above in a viewing deck. I growled and bared my teeth and tried to stand but my head hit the bars and I swallowed a whimper; silver burns werewolves badly.

“So dis is de notorious Jenna Knight; Rory Tannin’s daughter, traitorous bitch zat she vas.” A man rasped in a heavy Russian accent as he stood at the front of the crowd.

He had greying hair that was slicked back, beady black eyes sat under thick bushy eyebrows. He wore a crisp grey suit that accentuated his hair and on his fat little fingers were numerous rings. He sneered at me and spat into the cage. “Got vrid of my bvsiness partner.” He said, rolling his ‘r’s.

I growled, desperately wanting to get out of this cage and kill them all; I wanted to see their blood splashed across the floor, their hearts ripped out and body scattered.

“Now, now; zthey’ll be time for zat laters.” He nodded to one of the men next to him who begun turning a heavy wheel. The door at the front of my cage slowly creaked open.

They were letting me go? No, they wouldn’t go to the trouble of catching me just to let me go; that didn’t make sense.

“Ye vill fight.” The man ordered as the roar of a massive crowd reached my ears. The cage continued in a kind of hallway which hunters herded me down like a cow for slaughter with silver rods that pierced my fur when I didn’t move.

Bright lights blinded me as I walked into a large dusty arena, raised stands surrounding every side like a stadium. The sound was deafening as people booed at me and yelled insults.

I growled as another wolf was pushed into the arena; a huge male, though he was thin and mangy with a wild look in his one remaining eye.

Once the gate shut behind him with a definitely bang, he wasted no time in attacking. I dodged as the reality of the situation set in; I was in a fight ring. Not only were these rings illegal in the human world, but also illegal in the supernatural world and only hunters dared disobey as it usually ended with a lot of wolves dying.

I growled when he tried to bite my side and swiped my paw at his head, claws scraping his neck when he twisted his head out of the way.

This was sick. I could see that in his eye, he didn’t want to fight me; but the thought of what the hunters would do to him drove him on.

I pounced on top of him and tore his head from his body quickly, ending it; the only way to let him escape. In the last few months I’d had reports of these kind of fighting rings coming across my desk where wolves were being snatched.

I growled as the hunters pushed wolf after wolf into the arena with me; some weren’t even werewolves and I was becoming madder by the second.

When they pushed the tenth wolf in, I couldn’t handle it any more.  He was big; as big as Ace but he was covered in cuts, fur was ripped off him in tufts, he limped severely and where his right eye should have been, was a bloody, mangled mess. I knew that he would have been a great warrior from the way he carried himself and I was enraged that they had done that to such a proud, mighty wolf.

Instead of attacking me, he slowly approached and bowed before me, licking my blood stained snout with a whine only I would be able to hear.

I stood over him and looked at the people boing at us with absolute hate and I vowed in that moment, I would kill every single one of them. I would track them all down, and I would make their deaths slow and painful. It would be worse for the ones who ran these games; they’d regret the day they were ever born.

The gates opened and a huge grey wolf strolled in like he owned the place. These one was different from the others; he were huge, bigger than even the wolf under me, and unlike the rest, was muscled and well fed. I growled at him as he began circling us and I felt absolute disgust as the man, repeat, the man, under me whined.

This wolf was obviously a favourite of the hunters and got fed in exchange for being their bitch. He approached me and snapped at the wolf lying under my legs so I wrapped my jaws around his snout and shook my head from side to side; I’d break his fucking mouth if he tried anything again.

He glared at me and swiped me with one of his paws, claws fully extended. He caught me on my side before I could twist away and his claws sunk into my fur like it was butter.

Pain hit me full force as he ripped his caws down my body and I pulled away, jumping on his back and clawing his sides as I tried to get a good grip on his meaty neck. But he was an experienced fighter and bucked me off swiftly.

This continued for what felt like hours; each of us wounding each other with our claws and teeth but neither of us got the upper hand. I noticed that he had been trying to push me away from the wolf that’d collapsed in the corner and I wasn’t going to give him an inch of room to herd me away from him.

Something in the air changed and the wolf lost his footing for one millisecond and it was all I needed. I tore out his throat and watched in satisfaction as his dead body fell to the ground motionless.

Movement from where the wolf lay caught my eye and I watched in horror as the wolf tried to stagger to his feet when a loud bang went off and he hit the floor, blood leaking from his chest. I watched as he drew a shaky breath, his pain filled brown eyes watching me. Blood gushed from his chest and I watched as the life in his eyes was snuffed out.

Yet another person I’d failed.

Hunters swarmed the arena as the lights dimmed. I watched them with a murderous glare and killed seven before the first dart hit.

They would pay; each and every one of them would pay their dues in blood and I would be there to make sure it was more painful than they could ever imagine.