All color drained from his face. As quickly as his wounds were healing, I would be showing him just how much faster I could inflict new pain.
It was the only way I’d found to control the anger losing my fated mate had awoken.
CHAPTER4
Kiara
This bed wasthe most plush thing I’d been in, well, ever. And this was just where they kept their injured? I still couldn’t sleep though.
Black Creek Pack. Why was that pack so familiar? There were so many packs, but I was certain this was not one that ever visited the tiny little plague of a pack I’d called home for the last almost ten years. My father never came to visit nor my step-mother. My purpose had been to create alliances, marriage or otherwise. They’d picked otherwise.
Maybe this was still all a dream. I’d gotten good at living in my own world to escape reality.
The sting of their betrayal had never stopped hurting. I wasn’t the only girl in the situation though. All the smaller packs had given up someone or something. The more powerful the pack the more they could offer and the more they got to choose the terms. My pack wanted safety. Whatever the hell that was. The alpha I’d served or really his bitchy daughter, was useless. If I wasn’t drugged, I was certain I could have killed them easily. Maybe that was why I’d been the price. An alpha’s daughter humiliated.
I glanced out the window, the drapes still open even though it was night, and it made this place feel so much more welcoming. Maybe that male’s words had been honest. I wasn’t a captive. He was almost enough to make me wish I’d been his price. Except, I know that wasn’t true.
Even in the darkest days I’d felt like the goddess had blessed me. I’d been a servant and not a breeder. Sometimes that gave me a little joy knowing I was too much trouble to be used as one and none of the males wanted to have to tame their mates and mistresses.
If I could just get out of this bed, I could walk over to that window and, and what? Maybe I really wasn’t being held captive here, but I also had nowhere to go. It really didn’t feel like a prison, but where was I? Black Creek Pack. They seemed to be large in numbers and by the look of this place? They had money.
Maybe that was it? I’d just heard their name dropped at some point. Every pack wanted to be like the bigger ones. I understand the political advantages and needs, that was how I came to be a slave. Ten years of service to allow my dad’s pack to survive, but the stories of all the others were similar. It was to force the smaller packs hands. Have a blood oath between packs. To prove one pack was just powerful enough to take the things that mattered most.
I closed my eyes again at the all too familiar pain in my chest, except I winced as a throb started behind my eyes and my body broke into a sweat. This had to be the withdrawal, or maybe it was the wound on my head. It didn’t matter, at least I was in a comfy bed here.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through whatever was going on in my system. It wasn’t hard to distract myself as I tried to rack my brain. Where the hell was I? Memories of something were trying to remind me of why I knew this pack.
Howls shattered the silence of the night. I ached to run free. I’d never been able to embrace who I was over the years. I was always too weak, and it sucked. It didn’t stop the ache though. My wolf still begged to be free whenever she was lucid.
I wanted to smell the air, feel the breeze. I pushed myself up, and it took me a few seconds to let the world stop spinning. The howls broke the night again, and I twisted towards the window. I let my legs fall off the bed where I wiggled my toes and stretched my achy muscles. The floor was cold against the bare skin of my feet, but I didn’t mind. One goal down now for standing. It took a few more seconds for everything to align and my body to feel less foreign.
Great. I was already feeling marginally better. I’d kill whoever did this to me, someday.
I was slowly making my way to the window and reached for the latch. A second of hesitation before I smiled when the latch opened and the moonlight hit my face. On the last day I’d not only felt the freedom of the sunlight and the heat it brought, but the moonlight. Through the small basement windows I’d never been able to see anything clearly. They were so smudged and old.
The moonlight lit up the forest that surrounded me. I reached through the window to feel the fresh air as I fought the want to run. I needed to see where I was so I could escape when I was strong enough.
Except, the idea of leaving had a lump forming in my throat as I tried to swallow. That overbearing male had called me his and it should have pissed me off. Instead, it had found some invisible string inside my soul. He knew just how to strum it and I hated that even more. My wolf tried to get the strength to once again be one with me and tell me what was going on, but she was still so tired and weak.
Maybe his words unnerved me more than I’d cared to admit because I was suddenly alone without even my wolf to talk to. I blew out a breath. No, that wasn’t it. And it wasn’t that I freaked out he would take the one thing I still had control of, my body. Hell, my body seemed to be okay with the idea.
The howls came from further away now. This called to that deep part of my soul even without my wolf. I wanted to be a part of a pack.
Forest surrounded the little infirmary, and that somehow gave me peace. This is what home should have felt like. The window creaked as I pushed it open further.
My whole body ached and my wolf was still tired, but I could feel her stir at the feel of the air over our skin.
The white nightshirt they’d given me suddenly felt stifling, and I pulled it off over my head and let it fall to the floor. I couldn’t shift and join the howls in the forest, not yet. But this? This was so much better than sitting in a bed doing nothing. Suddenly my lungs expanded like I’d never truly breathed until this moment.
I sniffed the air and sighed. My eyes were closed as I focused on the feel of every small gust of wind. I drank in the smell of pine and dirt and the million of wolves I didn’t know. It was comforting all the same. It smelled like home?
My eyes flew open. The Black Creek Pack finally hit me. My pack, or the one I’d served, feared angering them because they were known for their blood thirsty alpha.
I’d heard rumors about them. They were the closest of the council packs to my old captors. I couldn’t stop my heart from racing as adrenaline pumped through me. I needed to get out of here. That’s why they never came to the pack I served. The smaller packs didn’t want that kind of trouble. They didn’t want to be on the radar and I could only guess as to why.
That pack had so little to offer. Still, this place made me wonder how many girls they kept as servants? If a crappy little pack could steal me, what could the larger packs do? I didn’t want to be here. No wonder that guy had said mine. He was claiming me as his servant, but the way he looked at me? There was no way he only wanted me to cook him meals.
The way he looked at me had my stupid body betraying me. Even the few times my wolf had decided to wake up? It hadn’t felt like fear. Was I okay with this? Would I be okay being a breeder? No. This was my damn life.