Hey guys, sorry for the wait! I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with this story but I think I've got it figured out. Enjoy this chapter, it's the beginning of a new world for Ainsley!
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Dungeons, apparently, had not gone out of style.
After I’d been kidnapped and lead out of the building, I’d been blindfolded and dumped here. I didn’t know exactly where here was, but it was definitely underground. The area surrounding me was dark, damp and dripping. Mice scurried in and out of walls. I, however, didn’t have as much freedom. I was sitting in a cage, which was a lot more degrading than it sounds. I just fit and was feeling squished. I could have had more space, if it weren’t for the suspiciously red and wet puddle taking up a good part of my cage.
I sighed and tentatively rested my head against the bars of my confinement. How did I always manage to end up in situations like this? I was being held hostage, Kat had been unconscious the last time I saw her and I had no clue what had happened to Cade and Declan. Hopefully they were safe. The thought of my friends being hurt or in trouble because of me sucked. Ever since I’d gotten on the reserve I’d caused nothing but problems.
I was more of a distraction and a catalyst then the savior people were making me out to be. At the moment, it seemed like I was most likely to screw up the Were world than bring peace to the war about to happen.
A wave of homesickness slammed into me. It wasn’t necessarily for my home, but for the way my old life had been - going to school, working at the diner, hanging out with my friends. I could never go back to that and the thought made me sadder than I thought it would. Here, in the Were world, too much depended on me, and I couldn't say for sure that I could live up to expectations.
Somehow, I fell asleep. It was fitful and the cement floor didn’t make much of a bed, but it was sleep. I woke up to the sound of voices arguing. They belonged to a man and a woman and from the sound of it, the woman was winning.
“She’s already mated, I can smell it on her. What more can you possibly do?” The man sounded frustrated, as though this wasn’t the first time he’d made this point.
“Now Sawyer, that lack of strategy is why you’ll never be Alpha.” The voices stopped outside the door to my dungeon. “So are you going to help me or not?” The question was asked quietly, but was thickly underlined with a threat. Sawyer, in my opinion, didn’t seem to have much of a choice. A long pause later, the door creaked open.
Sawyer entered first, carrying a large case. He was Vietnamese with spiky brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. He wasn’t tall, but the way he held himself told me that that didn’t put him at a disadvantage.
He strode across the room, not sparing me a single glance. From the other end of the room, he picked up a chair. As he placed it in front of me, he hesitated a split second. I didn’t have time to linger on it, as the woman who entered next, took my full attention.
I’d like to say she clomped sloppily toward me, but that would be me speaking out of pure jealousy. The fact was, she positively glided to descend upon the chair. Her movements made Kat appear like a bull with its tail on fire. Her hair was a long, fiery mane that flowed around her bared shoulders. Her eyes were a haunting pale blue and the intensity with which they looked at me made my heart hurt. Her skin was tanned and would have been absolutely flawless, if it wasn’t for the scar running across her face. My blood ran cold.
“Something the matter, Ainsley?” Irina asked. Her demeanor was pleasant, as though we were eating scones while watching cricket. It belied the iciness in her eyes and the wicked glint that hide there. She smiled slowly at me, and her scar shifted, which was more than disconcerting. She looked feral and dangerous and I didn’t doubt that she truly was. But I wouldn't let her get to me. I forced myself not to react, but to meet her steady gaze head on. Sure, my heart was being agonizingly demolished, but there were always heart transplants, right?
“I can see you’re going to be as difficult as your Alpha was. Sawyer, I think we’re going to skip the pleasantries this time.” She said it as though she was planning on having a knitting session with me.
“Irina,” protested Sawyer.
She didn’t face him, but her eyes went dead cold at his disobedience. “Would you like another stay down here?” Stay? Was this a resort? Sawyer absentmindedly brushed over a ragged scar on his neck. He stayed silent. “Good.” Addressing me again, she said, “you’re going to love this.”
Somehow, I doubted it.
***
I screamed bloody murder.
As the pain suddenly subsided, I slumped, my breathing harsh and ragged. My body convulsed slightly and no matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t stop. My skin was slick with sweat, tears and my humiliation. I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at Irina. I didn’t want to see her obvious glee at my pain.
Sawyer had tied my wrists to the bars of my cage. They were tied tightly, digging into the flesh there. What I hadn’t realized before – which I knew all too well now – was that the cage was electrified. For the past half hour, I’d been shocked, just barely hanging onto the fringes of consciousness. Irina held a small dial lovingly in her hand. She was violent and ruthless in using it. I’d ask if she was raised by wolves, but it didn’t hold the same insult in her world.
“I hope you’re feeling more cooperative, Ainsley. This toy is beginning to bore me, and seeing as you don’t enjoy it either, you probably wouldn't take kindly to the others.” No kidding.
I didn’t answer her, as much as I wanted to. She responded by cranking the dial the highest yet. On a gasp, my body stretched taut and I struggled to breathe. It felt like every nerve in my body was burning alive and on the verge of combusting. Just when I thought I was (finally) going to pass out, the pain came to a sudden stop. Tears leaked down my face as I struggled to catch my breath and shudders ravaged my body.
“It’s quite simple,” said Irina. “All you have to do is join our pack.”
I spoke for the first time, my voice hoarse from my tears and my screams. “So you can get rich of the victory of the war.”
“You make it sound like a bad idea,” she chuckled. She rose from hr chair and approached me, tossing the dial to Sawyer. She knelt. She gripped my chin, her nails digging deep as she forced me to look at her. “This is going to go one of two was. I will either use you, or abuse you. It’s your choice.”
“Well then I suppose I’m a sadist.”
Her slap was quick and harsh. I bit down on my tongue and tasted the copper sting of my own blood. Another slap came, more vicious than the last. My eyes grew damp with new tears, which only added to Irina’s pleasure.
“Don’t cry now, dear. This,” Slap“Is what you” Slap “Wanted. Right?” My cheek was aflame with pain. No, of course this wasn’t what I wanted. But what I wanted even less was to betray my pack – to betray Damon, but more importantly, Cade.
From her side, Irina whipped out an ugly dagger, ragged and sharp. She tenderly stroked the wicked blade as though it were her lover. “We’ve had some good times, haven’t we?” She was speaking to the dagger. When it made a thin slice in her finger, she didn’t even blink. I shuddered.
“You see this scar on my face?” Irina asked me. How could I miss it? “A long time ago, when I was barely a teenager, your Alpha put it there.” Gently, she dragged the dagger dow the long of the scar. “This only seems like karma, right?”
Oh my gosh. She wasn’t seriously considering giving me a matching scar, was she?
Irina leaned in and grabbed my chin again. “Now hold still,” she sneered. “I want to do this right...”
The tip of her knife pressed into the skin just above my eyebrow, piercing it. I closed my eyes tight, determined not to scream. She pressed it deeper and my eyes flew open on an anguished gasp.
“Keep them open,” hissed Irina. “I didn’t get to close mine.”
Slowly, so slowly, she dragged the knife downward. Blood slid down my face, around my eye and nose and down my cheek. I could feel her hand just barely trembling as she exacted pain on me. The pain radiated from my eye, causing more tears to well up. When the burst free, they mingled with my blood; the result of my pain and the evidence of it combining together. Irina’s dagger lay on the fragile skin of my eyelid. I choked on another gasp, the pain furious. As she dug in to slash through my eyelid, a loud rap sounded at the door. I could feel her body go rigid.
“Sawyer,” she snapped, her voice tight. From my good eye I saw Sawyer open the door. He spoke in hushed tones to whoever had knocked before gesturing for them to wait just inside the room. From my angle, I couldn't see the man. When Sawyer relayed the message to my torturer, she smiled devilishly. She nodded once to him and he left with the person at the door. Irina moved the dagger from my eye and I let out a wet sob in relief.
“I wish we could have finished this, but it would appear we have new guests.”
I would have frowned if it weren’t for the throbbing pain around my eye.
“Guests?” I croaked.
“Yes,” she dragged three more cages to form a square with my own and opened their doors. “I think you’ll quite like them too.”
The door banged open. Sawyer and two men entered, half carrying half dragging three unconscious forms covered in massive amounts of blood.
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” Kat, Declan and Cade were each shoved into separate cages. “Kat! Declan! Cade! CADE!” Over and over I screamed their names but none of them stirred. “Please, no.” I sobbed. Irina slid her dagger through my wrist ties and I fell backwards in my cage, crying.
“Don’t be sad,” she cooed. “I’ll be back later. Oh, Sawyer? Keep the cages charged.” She then proceeded to glide out the door.
A gentle hum filled the room as Sawyer did as he was told. Crying, I kept calling the names of my friends, my mate, my family, but with no luck.
They were far gone.