The Silver Siren
Chapter 20

Where was I?

Wherever I was, it wasn’t at Lucien's prison. The smell of rogues was still overwhelmingly strong but behind that it smelled different. Damp and dark. It must be underground somewhere. It would help if I could remember what happened but everything is blank. A dull ache festering in my head isn’t helping.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. Everything is blurry but I know it’s dark. I tried moving my head to look around as I tried to focus. Urggghhh.....bad idea! Pain everywhere. What the hell happened?!

Ok. Gonna have to take this slow. I placed my hand down to steady me and discovered that I’m laying on a cot. So not the Ritz then!

Slowly, inch by inch, I managed to roll over onto my side. Gradually things are coming into focus. There's some light coming in through the ..... bars. Great! Out of one prison and into another.

“Indie?” I asked my wolf, “are you there?”

“Yeah. Are you ok?” she asked me.

“Feel like I’ve fallen off a cliff, but I think I’m ok,” I replied. “Any idea where we are?”

“No,” she said, weakly, and retreated to the back of my mind to rest some more.

With a fuzzy head, I lay on the cot willing the headache to pass. Moving was nearly impossible and all I could do was wait it out.

It had been a rough couple of months. Since leaving the pack things had got worse. I knew it would be hard to leave the safety of my pack, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t stay. I would rather be a rogue than stay. At least I was free at first, hiding out in the forest while I healed. Then Lucien's thugs captured me.

Arggghhh. Even thinking hurt. I closed my eyes and took some deep even breaths, trying to clear my mind and summon up the energy to figure out what is going on. I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I next opened my eyes, my head felt clearer and there was more light trickling down from the corridor on the other side of the bars. I still had no idea what had happened or how I got here but I was too weak to care right now. My mouth was dry and I licked my cracked lips. My vision had become clearer and I slowly moved my head around to take in my surroundings.

Damp walls greeted me and a lonely toilet stood in the corner of the cell. I gradually pushed my body to sit up. At least I wasn’t in chains in this prison, I thought as I absently rubbed at the angry bruises circling each wrist. I heard the muffled sounds of other rogues in nearby cells. It sounded like nurses were treating them. Maybe they were the same rogues captured by Lucien? I could hear footsteps approaching and a nurse and a guard came into view. The nurse smiled as the guard unlocked the door to the cell and allowed her to enter.

“Hello. I am Rita,” she said, “The Alpha has sent me to check you over.”

“The Alpha?” I asked.

“Yes. Alpha Spencer of the Gold Creek pack,” she said as she opened a leather doctors’ bag and took out a stethoscope.

So, I definitely wasn’t being held by Lucien. Nurse Rita reached for my hand and took my pulse, covertly examining my bruised wrist.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Penny”

“Any pain?” she asked.

“A headache earlier but it’s gone now,” I said. She spotted the scar above my eyebrow.

“What happened here?” she asked, pointing to it.

“Just an old injury,” I lied. She didn’t believe me, but didn’t ask any more questions.

“I’m just going to listen to your heart. Can you lean forward?” she said. I nodded and slowly leaned forward and she gently lifted my shirt up my back for the stethoscope. I heard her gasp slightly at the sight of my protruding skeleton, but she recovered quickly and carried on and I felt the cool metal of the instrument on my back as she listened carefully.

“Ok, I’m all done. You are dehydrated so I will send in some water for you. Try and drink small sips often. I’ll be back to check on you later,” she smiled kindly.

“A member of the pack will be along shortly to ask you some questions,” she told me, as she gathered her equipment and beckoned for the guard to open the door, “In the meantime, try and get some rest.”

I nodded and thanked her as she left the cell. The guard locked the door behind her and went back to his station.

A few hours spent drifting in and out of sleep, and I felt a little stronger. The water the nurse promised sat next to the cot and I took a few small sips of the heavenly liquid to moisten my parched mouth. A new scent filtered through the air as I savoured the cool liquid. It caught Indie’s attention and smelled like decadent chocolate swirled together with mint. It was delicious. Indie was getting more excited as the seconds ticked by.

“What is it, Indie?”

“I think it is our mate!” she said. “We are safe!”

I froze. My chest tightened with fear and I needed more oxygen. My lungs tried desperately to breath deeply as footsteps approached.

“We are far from safety, Indie,” I told her, sadly. “We have rogue status. We are nothing. Our mate could quite easily kill us.”

That heavenly mint chocolate scent enveloped me in every possible way and as the footsteps got closer, my eyes widened.

He finally came into view. He was huge, well over 6 foot, with the most dazzling green eyes imaginable. And even with the severe expression on his face he was beautiful. He came to a sudden halt as he looked straight at me.

“Mate! Mate!” Indie squealed excitedly.

His mouth opened slightly and he looked visibly shocked. A tormented expression spread through his features and in a split second he turned and bolted back down the corridor.

“Mate,” Indie cried weakly after him, as his scent dissipated into the air, and the sound of his hasty footsteps faded down the corridor. The empty feeling in my chest was almost too much to bear. Indie whimpered mournfully and I laid down on the cot, hugging my knees to my chest and let the tears take over.

Allie.

The dungeon was a depressing place. The atmosphere changed as soon as I walked in. Dark drippy walls lined the corridors and the smell of rogues was almost too much to bear. Reece led me down a branch of corridors with cells on each side. In each cell, I saw a cot on the floor and a toilet in the corner. It was like a mini jail. Reece came to a stop about halfway down the corridor at cell 4. Inside the cell, a small figure sat hunched on the floor in the corner, with her head resting on her knees. She was wearing a baggy black t-shirt and grey sweatpants that looked ten sizes too big for her. She had short dark hair which looked lifeless and messy. She heard us approach and scrambled to stand. I was surprised to see that she was quite tall but, despite the oversized clothes, I could see she was painfully thin. Pointed bones jutted out at her joints and her face looked hollowed. She bowed her head, sensing Reece’s rank and power.

“Where am I?” she asked quietly, almost whispering, her voice sounding raspy and weak, “Why am I here?”

“You don’t know?” Reece asked her. She shook her head.

“I can’t remember,” she answered, bringing her hand up to her temple and massaging it gently.

“You were involved in an attack on this pack,” Reece told her, “You and dozens of other rogues. You were knocked unconscious by a powerful force field and brought back here to recover. What is your name?”

“Penny,” she said, nervously.

“Are you working for Lucien?” Reece asked, getting straight to the point.

“Not by choice,” she answered.

“Explain,” he ordered.

She paused and looked uncertain. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were wide, making her look fearful.

“It’s a long story,” she finally said, reluctantly.

“Explain,” Reece repeated, more firmly this time using his alpha tone.

She took an unsteady breath and sat back down on the floor. “I was born into the Spirit Moon Pack from the West. I was raised in the pack orphanage. My life was uneventful and relatively normal. When I turned 16, I got a job and started to help out in the kitchens at the pack house. Mostly, people were kind. I had made some friends in the pack house, other Omegas who worked there, but I still tried to keep a low profile. Things were going well. I was enjoying being useful but a few months before I turned 18, I ….,” she paused and licked her dry lips. She took a deep steadying breath and continued.

“I somehow caught the attention of the packs Beta wolf. He became obsessed with me, hanging around the kitchens whenever I was working, and then following me wherever I went. He even attacked a male friend when he saw me talking to him one night on my way home. I asked him to stop but he said I belonged to him. Then he started touching me, forcing me to hold his hand and kissing me. He was everywhere, I couldn’t escape him. He was so sure that I would be his mate. I turned 18 six months ago. I wasn’t his mate.” Silent tears were trickling down her pale cheeks. I leant in closer to Reece and squeezed his forearm. I felt a strange pressure in my chest and overwhelming desperation like I have never experienced. I don’t know how, but I think I was feeling her pain.

Penny wiped her face with the hem of her shirt and cleared her throat. “He found his mate a few days later but rejected her because he wanted me. He told me that I was his and always will be. Once he rejected his true mate, he became insufferable, always angry and irritable. Almost deranged, wanting to know where I was at all times. When I slipped away from him one time, he got angry and slapped me. He dragged me to his room and said that he would prove that we belonged together. He beat me until I told him I loved him and promised him I would never leave him. He fractured my eye socket and damaged my eye. He tied me up and forced himself on me. When he finally fell asleep, I somehow managed to untie myself and escape out the window. I ran and I ran until I cleared the pack borders. I kept running. I became a rogue. I’m never going back there,” she said, vehemently. “I did ok as a rogue for a few weeks, hiding out in dense forest while my eye healed. And then Lucien found me. He offered me protection if I were to join his pack, but I didn’t want to be part of any pack again. So I turned him down. But he wasn’t happy with my answer and had his hench men capture me. They took me to an abandoned warehouse, probably about 100 miles from my old pack. I wasn’t the only one he was keeping there; the warehouse was full of other wolves, rogues, locked up in different rooms. We were kept there for months before he started using dark magic potions to control us, forcing us to shift and fight. I still don’t know why. I overheard one of the other rogues say that the dark magic makes a rogue savage enough to kill another werewolf, but, once drugged, you have no memory of it. I think I was drugged before I ended up here.”