OKAY! I
know
this is a long time coming...but I wanted to get it just right! Hopefully it doesn't disappoint...I just want to thank my editor LaRascasse for being such a good sport and putting up with me. And for everyone who comments both the good and the bad. Enjoy!!
-Gia <3
She kicked and screamed for all it was worth. The door in front of her was ajar like the gateway to a foreign world.
"Let me go!" She screamed.
It was like she hadn't even spoken. Her gaze was drawn to the scene Dennis was forcing her to watch. The two other men had gotten Eric tied up. The one she knocked out, Anton, was taunting her mate. Her wolf surged forward furiously. Time seemed to slow as the black hooded figure rose from the couch. It had somehow become dark as her vision tunneled to the glinting steel of the wickedly curved knife in its hand. Thessa felt the color leech from her face. Those brightly gleaming green eyes flickered in excitement. She opened her mouth and felt the scream leave her lungs as everything rushed back to her: the color of the bright yellow walls, the green and gold throw pillows and the earthy brown wooden floor. The sound of Eric's struggle drew her attention when, like a lamb led to slaughter, the two men pinned his shoulders down. The slick sound of flesh being sliced into almost caused her to faint, but Dennis shook her awake.
Watch. He seemed to say to her. Watch as that monster ripped her helpless mate to shreds. The drug they shot into his veins paralyzed him, but his incoherent screams of pain were clear as he was mutilated in front of her. Body parts littered the wood, his blood seeped in between the boards as his last gurgled breath left him.
NO! She screamed surprised to find herself free from Dennis' grip. She looked around. He wasn't behind her. Thessa raced down the too long hallway to the room, slipping on her mate's blood to land on her hands and knees in the pool surrounding him. She clutched his shoulders and ignoring the awkward slump of his dislocated shoulder, Thessa half expecting him to scream in pain and beg her to take him to the hospital. Or to shift and heal. But he did neither. His stiff body lay cooling and dead in her arms as she screamed her sorrow at the walls. She pressed kisses all over his bloody face stopping at last where his lips once were. She felt a cold breeze in the room and looked up. There was Dennis, smirking with a needle in one hand. "There you are my pretty. Looks like you will be mine after all." He smiled, sticking the needle into her arm.
Thessa gasped as she opened her eyes. The same scenario had been playing itself over and over in her head every time she went to sleep so much so that she didn't know if it was a memory or just a dream. Her wolf refused to make an appearance anymore, and Thessa herself had become less and less responsive to Dennis' torture. She looked down at her leg, scared at her lack of response to the skin rubbed raw by the leather cuff and the twenty foot chain that connected her with the bedpost.
"So you don't get any ideas."
Dennis had smiled down at her.
Thessa squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to breathe deeply and count backwards from ten as the door squeaked on its hinges. The sound of the door opening didn't get the response it used to. When she first woke up, and Dennis opened the door she fought him with her last breath as he tore at her clothes.
Since her only companion was her wolf and she didn't feel the need to get to know the omegas she saw enter the room to replace untouched bowls of soup and glasses of water, Thessa felt like she'd been in that room forever. At first, after she dreamed, Dennis would come into the room and stand there looking at her. He would ask her if she slept well, knowing very well that her drug induced memories caused her to scream so loudly that omegas would run in with heavy ropes to restrain her as she thrashed on the bed. He kept the high windows open enough that she could smell the summer air as it turned into fall. The sunlight that streamed through mocked her. She would rather be with Eric than in this beautiful prison. The soft bed was piled high with even softer pillows that were like rocks under her restless head. The honey brown duvet that Dennis tucked lovingly around her was the same color as Eric's eyes. The walls were painted a soft yellow: her favorite color. Thessa closed her eyes, preferring the endless darkness of keeping her eyes closed to the sick movie she was the star of.
"You haven't touched your soup..." Dennis frowned, leaning against the tall post of the bed.
Thessa opened her eyes and looked up at him listlessly. The first week she was there, her eyes blazed with anger and defiance. The light slowly began to fade as her nightmares worsened.
"Oh come now, it's been a while, he's dead. You watched...remember?" He laughed as if sensing the direction of her thoughts. She turned her head and let her eyes close as he walked over to her side and caressed the soft skin of her arms.
"Look at me." He commanded, his voice going hard as she didn't even flinch away from him. When she didn't move, he grabbed her chin and yanked her face in his direction.
"You are MINE!" He growled, ripping the duvet off.
Thessa just stared back. She knew what was coming. The first time he raped her, she cried as he held her and fell asleep spooning her. She decided that there were worse things than what he did to her body. She kept her soul locked away in a place even she wasn't sure she could reach. Her wolf was there pacing with the knowledge that only their mate could bring Thessa back to life.
As the bed squeaked, headboard slamming into the wall, Thessa closed her eyes and imagined Eric's smiling face as she last remembered it. They were on the cliff where they'd made love for the first time, watching the sunset and feeding each other Severin's apple tarts. She ignored the drops of sweat covering her body as Dennis exerted all his energy. She was tight and dry. He pinched her clit hard, frowning over her as her body responded, but lay more still than death under her. Thessa wasn't aware that she held her breath until he left to use the bathroom. She was covered in sweat, semen and the blood he'd drawn when his elongated talons dug into her soft legs as his penis tore at every opening to her body. The only hole he hadn't abused was her mouth. She hadn't retreated far enough into herself that she didn't bite him whenever he tried.
The only comfort she had was the feeling that he hadn't dampened her will to escape. Something was horribly wrong with all of it. Girl meets boy...girl falls in love with boy, they pledge their love to one another and then a witch and her deranged crew kidnap and torture them. She was getting out of this soon and alive...when the opportunity presented itself, and she would kill everyone in that damned place if she had to. Survival had become her most important goal. She decided that she could heal later. Eric had to still be alive somewhere. Wherever that was, she would find him and she would kill anyone that dared separate them. Before now, this thought would have scared her. Thessa laughed aloud as she heard the toilet flush and the shower turn on.
It's funny what we do when we have to find a way to escape our situation. I refuse to lie here forever, waiting for him to realize he wants me dead.
She told herself.
I've been in this shithole for weeks, maybe a month. I'm leaving when I get the chance. And he will die.
Thessa promised her wolf with a grim finality.
As the door to the room opened, she spared the omega a passing glance. A child: a little girl. Thessa wanted to cry. No one so young should be sent to clean her up. Forced to make what just happened to her another horrible memory in her subconscious.
"You, girl, what's your name?" Thessa rasped, startled to hear her own voice come out so coarse and hollow. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to inject emotion into her words.
"I'm sorry. I'm just a little tired." She flashed what she hoped was a smile.
"Can you tell me where I am?" Thessa moved to sit up.
"I'm n...not 'posed to say." The waif of a child muttered.
"It's okay to tell me. I'm a good person. Do you think I'm a bad person?" Thessa pushed her hair behind her ears, wincing as she touched the scar on her cheek, preferring to not remember the cut her torturer had made when she tried to escape him and run to Eric that day so long ago.
"No, but..."
"Please?" Thessa begged. "I won't tell anyone that you told me."
"Humbart Manor. You're on Eferrie Humbart's pack lands." The child whispered after a few seconds of silence, darting nervous eyes to the door of the bathroom.
"My mamma said I'm the one to clean you up when Mr. Dennis sends for someone." She eyed Thessa warily.
"Well tell your mamma he won't need you anymore." Thessa smoothed the child's choppy brown hair back.
As the child turned to leave, Thessa started.
"What's your name?"
"Amelie, Miss. What's yours?"
"Thessa."
"That's a real nice name."
Thessa smiled genuinely at the little girl, forcing herself to calm down as she heard the shower shut off.
"Now Amelie. I don't have any friends." She said quietly, averaging the amount of time she had before Dennis would come back out. He was crazy and he really was a doctor. He would take forever to make sure that everything was fairly clean...if not spotless, before he left.
"What? But you look like you would have lots of friends!" Amelie gasped.
"Well I don't." Thessa frowned in an exaggerated show of sorrow.
"Wanna be friends?"
"I was just about to ask you that, Amelie. You're a really smart girl." She brightened.
"Then you want me to keep what I told you a secret, right?"
"Exactly. Pinkie promise?" Thessa held out her smallest finger and Amelie ran up and quickly linked hers with Thessa's.
"Can I come back even if you don't want me to bring the rags no more?" She asked hopefully.
Thessa nodded. "Just make sure no one else knows."
"Who was that?" Dennis asked as he came out of the bathroom.
Thessa let her eyes close.
"I'll get a response again. Fear makes you look so beautiful." He stroked the side of her face and she held back her shudder of revulsion.
"I've decided that, since you continue to reject and defy me...that we'd play a little game. Would you like that Thessa?" He pressed a kiss on her cheek; she held back a shudder of revulsion and forced herself to remain unresponsive.
"I want it to be a surprise. You love my surprises huh?"
Thessa braced herself for the bite of the needle pumping sedatives into her body. When it didn't come, she opened her eyes, hoping her surprise didn't show in them.
"I know. You were expecting the drugs, right?" Dennis played with a lock of her hair.
"I've got something better. Just wait a moment." He hurried out the door, letting it slam ominously behind him.
Thessa felt herself begin to sweat when he returned with three burly looking men. In his hands, he carried a black plastic circle with another black block of plastic attached to it. Thessa's eyes shot to the three men when she realized they were putting whatever that was on her.
With an almost imperceptible nod, Dennis motioned for the men to hold her down.
"I don't see why we gotta put this on her, D." One of the men said, taking in Thessa's frail body.
"I didn't ask you for an opinion." Dennis snapped back.
"This is an anklet...of sorts." He chuckled to himself.
"It's very special because it will tell me where you are whenever I want to know. And if you take it off...well. Let's just say you'd have a hard time and I'd have so many people coming after you it would feel like a hunt." He added, dropping his voice to an almost whisper.
"No." Thessa whispered, real fear causing her already empty stomach to roil.
