Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
The pack is around us, two dozen heavily armed wolves ready to do harm to anyone who might so much as wish us ill. We have battled our natural enemies tonight, and we have won. Our superior weaponry and reinforced armor have ensured that we’ve not lost a single wolf. It is a decisive victory, one that will be remembered in our history for generations to come.
“Time to take you home,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, looking at me with a surprisingly solemn gaze.
“There’s more,” she says. “Downstairs. Can’t you smell them?”
“Vampires?”
She shakes her head. “Not vampires. They’ve been…” She draws in a deep breath. “This place is bad, Alexei. Really, really bad. I’m not the only one they took.”
CHAPTER 15
Alexei
I go downstairs by myself. Anya does not want to come, which concerns me. I cannot imagine what kind of horrors would keep her from being with me, judging by the way she has been clinging to me. I leave her with Vlad and Piotr, both of whom are well pleased to see her, and I think she is just as pleased to see them.
The pack truly has come together to save my mate. She does not just belong to me, after all. She belongs to all of us. She matters to all of us. And all of us are prepared to fight for her.
I should have remembered that.
I should never have approached the matter of saving her alone.
But I am alone now, as I go down the stairs. Whatever is down here frightened Anya enough that I do not want to expose the rest of the pack to it unnecessarily. Vampires are capable of disgusting things. I can imagine their thralls down here, half-bled out, or perhaps decomposing. That would frighten Anya, I am sure, though it would not be our problem as a pack.
The dungeon reveals a fetid, dank, and unpleasantly organic blend of scents. Large creatures shift easily in too small cages. I hear the clank of chains and the occasional groan of a beast in agony.
Anya was right. The vampires were keeping our kind down here, locked away from their families, deprived of the simple pleasure of light. Wood chip bedding only goes so far toward alleviating the stench of creatures forced to eliminate in captivity.
Every single one of these shifters is trapped in their animal form by the use of a moon-silvered collar. It is a kind of torture to be made to stay in the wolf state. The human mind starts to atrophy and eventually disintegrates entirely. What is left is a thing that is not properly animal, and yet can never, ever be human.
My stomach churns as I realize that not all of these moon-silvered shifter prisoners are male. Some of them are female, and many of them appear to be pregnant. If they give birth in this moon-silvered state, they won’t be able to tend to their young properly.
A little whimpering sound catches my attention. One of the moon-silvered females is lying on her side, her eyes half closed. Something moves in the cage with her. I risk getting a little closer. My alpha aura means that nobody is sending up an alarm as yet, but a female might if she thinks I am a threat.
Something moves again, and out from her fur comes a small pup with bright eyes. Around his neck, he wears a moon-silver collar. A teeny, tiny mind- and life-altering device.
I swallow hard as rage threatens to overcome me.
Dom has been breeding us, just as he claimed. He has reduced us to dumb animals and treated us as such. I do not know how Anya was spared this fate for so long, but I suspect that once he had me in his grip, there would have been a cage down here for us.
I have stumbled upon one of the true horrors of our kind, and it sickens me that I almost walked out the door and left them to their fate.
For a brief moment, I am not sure what to do. If I were to let them free, would they know what to do? How far gone are they? We need to get them out of here, into a pack environment, and try to see who can be shifted back sanely, and who cannot.
To do that, we are going to need a distraction. We are going to need to outsmart and outplay our greatest predator.
It takes every bit of strength I have to turn and go back upstairs without doing anything to disturb the prisoners. I find Anya where I left her, looking at me with wide eyes.
“He’s a monster,” she says. “We have to kill him.”
“Yes,” I agree. “He is a monster. And it is time for you to come home.”
“But the prisoners…”
“Are prisoners no longer. We will free each and every one of them. Do not worry, Anya. You’ve done all you need do. We’re going home.”