Hey guys! Check out my message board to find out how you can contribute greatly to IN HER HEAT through my CHARACTER CONTEST! Enjoy the chapter!!
***
For four long days I sat in my cage, watching the unmoving bodies of my friends. Sawyer and two other men would take turns watching over us, but they never said a word.
Sawyer seemed agitated, especially when he caught me watching him. His nerves made me nervous, and the cage was beginning to make me claustrophobic. Things were not looking on.
On the third day, Irina came back, dagger in hand, to finish what she had started. By then, I was weak from a lack of food. I managed only one scream of pure, lightning-white pain before I finally passed out. My unconsciousness didn’t deter Irina, though. It only fueled her creativity. When I awoke, not only did I had a scar similar to hers, but I had a tribal-like design carved into the skin just above my jaw. I knew neither of them would ever heal completely, even with my Were blood. She had cut too deep.
On the morning of the fourth day, I finally got food. It was like magic, seeing Sawyer come in for his shirt, holding a bottle of water and a cheese sandwich. It was hardly the breakfast of champions, but it was better than the saliva I’d been washing down day after day. I’d been starting to feel like my stomach was eating itself, it craved food so desperately.
He slid the food the food to me through the bars. I bit into the sandwich, watching him with steady, unblinking eyes. He shifted uneasily. I chewed slowly, trying not to throw it all back up.
“No thanks?”
Was he kidding? Did he want me to curtsy and thank him for the cage too?
“What’s wrong with my friends” I spoke with my mouth full. My manners wouldn’t be wasted on animals. Wait? Could I still say that, being Were and all? Probably not.
He rubbed his scar as he tried not to meet my eyes.
“Answer me, damn it!” I grabbed the bars of my cage, sandwich forgotten, and shook. I was not playing games with him. I was tired of watching my friends, slumped in their cages, now caked with dried blood. I was sick of staring at their chests waiting, hoping to see any kind of movement from one of them, but instead, being met with nothing.
I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I’d had enough. “Tell me what’s wrong with my friends.” It was a demand, not one to be disobeyed. It pinched slightly to speak as the skin around my scarred jaw attempted to heal, but it couldn't have been any worse than what my friends had gone through.
“He can’t.”
I whirled around to look at the door. Irina stood there, fierce as ever. “Might I say you’re looking particularly lovely these days?” As she looked over the scars she had carved into my face, I could sense her satisfaction. She was pure evil.
“It’s unfortunate I can’t say the same about you,” I shot back.
She arched an eyebrow in surprise, before grinning mischievously. When she spoke next, she savoured every word.
“I can’t wait to break you.”
We stared at one another. I refused to break contact first. She may have broken me physically, but not mentally. I had to stay strong for my pack. For my friends and for my mate. But most importantly, I had to stay strong for me.
Irina looked away. It was a small victory, but one nonetheless. “Sawyer, I have another guest waiting with our guards. Can you bring him in?”
Who had she captured this time? Reese? Damon?
Alone with Irina, the air was still but charged with tense electricity. Her eyes blazed at me.
“What happened to my friends?” She’d said Sawyer couldn’t tell me, and he seemed to be her right hand man. She had to know.
“They had an encounter with some of my soldiers. As you can see, they lost.”
“Why are they here?”
“Are you unhappy seeing them?” She asked innocently. She moved to Kat’s cage.
“Don’t touch her,” I growled. My voice was pure steel.
Irina’s eyes flashed rage. Clearly she was not used to being ordered around. Her blade slipped from its sheath at her hip. She stalked towards me, all predator.
“Don’t push me. I will slash the throats of your entire pack. I will kill each and every one of those pathetic mongrels and make you watch. Make you listen. I will keep you so close, you will feel their blood splatter across your scarred face and taste the copper sting of their bloody defeat. And I’ll save Cade for last, so I can relish the sound of you begging for his life.” Did I say pure evil?
“Ladies, please. What happened to civility?
I froze and my retort withered on my tongue. That voice...
Irina caught the look on my face and smiled triumphantly. “Meet my guest, Gabriel.
I was furious. My body shook with barely contained fury and I couldn’t stop. Irina and Sawyer slipped out of the room as Gabriel made his way towards me. As Irina passed him, she slipped him his blade. “Just in case she acts up,” she said. Then they were gone.
“Don’t come near me.” My voice was shaking and quiet, anger coursing throughout the words. I could feel tears in my eyes and they infuriated me even more.
Gabriel? Cade’s own brother, his twin? I’d kissed the man, for goodness’ sake! And here he was with Irina, clearly not a prisoner, but one of her own. What a cruel twist of fate.
“Aw come on, Ainsley. I thought you’d be happy to see me.” He crouched in front of me and linked his fingers around the bars of my cage. He lowered his voice. “Especially after we-”
I spat in his face, cutting him off. “Nothing happened between us.”
To his credit, he barely flinched, but I could tell he was pissed. It was there in those green, green eyes.
He wiped his face clean and shook his head. “Don’t be a bitch, sweetie.” He smiled ruefully, as though laughing at a private joke. “Maybe if you’re extra nice I’ll do something about your friends.” He shrugged nonchalantly, as though he were making a casual comment, as if he didn’t know my heart was beating furiously.
“Don’t mess around, Gabriel. It’s not funny.” To be able to do something like that would require him to have some pull with Irina, some kind of intimate relationship where they would do favours with one another. Relationships like that didn’t happen overnight, or even weeks. It took months, years even, to establish a rapport with someone. How long had Gabriel been working with Irina?
“I never mess around.”
“And what would you want in return?” Nothing was ever that simple, and I’d gone through enough betrayals to stand another. “What are you even doing here?”
Gabriel stood up and grabbed a chair. He sat. “I can’t tell you that.”
I had to look up at him now, which I hated but I knew he relished. It was the whole Alpha male mentality. Not only was I physically at his mercy but mentally I was as well. Teasing him with the promise of saving my friends meant he had me by my proverbial balls. Pleasant.
“Then you’re useless,” I shot.
“Don’t be like that, Ainsley,” said Gabriel.
“Like what? What did you expect? You show up here, clearly not a prisoner all buddy-buddy with my torturer, which means you must be working with her. You’re a traitor.” I spat the last words, wishing I was closer to make contact.
“I’m sorry if you feel betrayed-”
“You’re not sorry! And this is not about me! You betrayed your pack, Gabriel. You betrayed your own brother, your blood. Look at him, Gabriel. Look at him! Do you see his blood covering his body? That’s your blood too! He could be dead for all you care! You did that! You.”
“Just listen to me, Ainsley.” His voice was ragged and tired.
“No.”
“Well I’m going to talk and since you’re in a cage you’ve got nowhere to run.”
Again, proverbial balls.
“You need to take Irina’s deal,” he said, watching me careful. His voice was urging and concerned. Damned good actor. “It’s the only situation that’s remotely close to a win-win. Cade would stay here with you so you wouldn’t have to be away from him. Nothing would change, you’d just be a part of this pack. Irina’s not so bad…”
“Not so bad?! Look at my face. Gabriel! Look at my face and tell me she’s not that bad. I felt my skin split open and I was forced to taste my own blood and tears. Do not tell me she’s not so bad.” My rage was climbing higher and higher with every word he said.
“There’s no way you’re getting out of here, Ainsley. Not unless it’s in a body bag.”
“Damon escaped,” I pointed out.
“He’s not you. He’s not the one who has the fate of the entire Were world on his shoulders.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“And you don’t know Irina. She will do anything to make sure she wins that war. What you want, no longer matters. Unless you really want her to gut your entire pack and video tape it so you can watch it again and again, your wants don’t matter. Unless you want to hear Kat and Declan and Cade scream for mercy every night, unless you want to smell their blood in their hear, your wants don’t matter.”
He seemed to turn inward to his thoughts. For a little while he was lost in himself, wrapped away somewhere in his head. Something about this quiet Gabriel made me think there was more going on here than I knew about. This was not the Gabriel I knew. No matter what I said, we had shared something. I knew who Gabriel was and this wasn’t him.
“What does she have on you?” I asked softly.
Silence resonated. Finally, Gabriel looked at me, his eyes sad and soft.
“I have a daughter.” Gabriel swallowed hard and swiped over his face. This was news to me. I hadn’t heard anything about this, not even from Cade. “Nobody knows about her. Not even Cade. Her name… Her name is Harley. She’s three. I hadn’t seen her in two years…not until Irina showed me a video clip of her dead mother and her crying…” He looked upwards and away, needing the moment to compose himself.
“She’s the only good thing I have in my life, Ainsley. I can’t, won’t let Irina hurt her.” His eyes locked on mine, a passion I’d never seen before blazing there. “No matter what it takes.”
Things just got real.