Chapter VIII
Freyr
Being awake is overrated, and it’s barely been two minutes. My muscles ache, and the light from the sconces in my room burns too bright. “Can you knock me out again?”
“No one did that in the first place,” Soren says dryly, watching me from his place, leaning against the wall. His arms are crossed, and he looks angry, though not directed at me. I don’t think.
“What happened?” My recollection is fuzzy at best.
Golden eyes.
Teeth.
Claws.
Fear and a pulling agony.
I sit up too abruptly, a twinge in my side. Lain, seated on a chair beside my bed, lunges forward and helps steady me.
“The wolf?” I ask, glancing between them.
“In better condition than you,” is Soren’s terse reply.
“Soren told you to stay in your room, and you didn’t listen.” Lain’s jaw twitches. “Why didn’t you listen?”
“Would you have?”
“I can look after myself.”
The implication that I can’t stings even if I can’t deny it. “Maybe if he’d explained what was going on!”
“At the time, I also didn’t know what was going on, remember?” Soren pushes off the wall. “When I tell you to stay, you stay.”
“Like a dog?” I snap, bristling.
“Like a prince that doesn’t risk himself for the sake of curiosity.”
I’m not dignifying that with a response. There’s a strange ache in my chest, so I rub it, trying to alleviate the feeling. It doesn’t help. “Was I badly injured?”
“No, it was a minor cut,” Soren says. “Healed before we got you to the infirmary.” He moves to stand behind Lain, a formidable presence.
Why am I back in my room, then? Where is this ache coming from? “What happened, then?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Lain says. She bites her bottom lip. “You passed out and haven’t woken for two days. Did he do something else to you? Questioning him hasn’t gotten us anywhere; he won’t say a word.”
“Not that I know of? Just the—the cut.” The memories are coming back slowly.
The heavy weight of a predator. The knowing that I was about to die.
All-consuming fear as I stared into the eyes of a monster.
An encounter I never expected to experience, not here within the confines of the castle I’ve called home my entire life. “How did it get out?”
“He’s stronger than they expected,” Soren says gruffly. “A miscalculation that should never have happened, considering he’s an alpha. The chains have been reinforced now.”
There are few vampyres that can say they faced an alpha and lived to tell the tale. The only reason I’m now one of them is because of the sheer protection I have around me; it has nothing to do with my own lack of skills.
“They’re perfectly safe,” Lain assures me, “and the quicker he’s tamed and put under our thumb, the less dangerous he’ll be.”
That sounds like a lot of “ifs” to me. Since the tamed part is my responsibility, they shouldn’t bank on anything going to plan.
Before I can voice that very important fact, my bedroom door is flung open, my father storming through with a thunderous expression on his face.
“Leave us,” he says in a tone that expects absolute obedience.
Not even my silent pleading to Lain stops either of them from doing as they’re told, the bedroom door closing too quietly behind them. Traitors.
“Come to check on me?” I ask sarcastically, hiding behind false bravado. He looks angry, and I know exactly what comes after that.
I’m hauled out of the bed in the next second and then slapped across the cheek so hard I’m flung to the floor. There’s blood in my mouth when I cough, and I spit it out. He waits for me to haul myself up, and I brace myself for another hit that doesn’t come.
“I gave you a task to do!”
“Go to hell,” I rasp, even knowing it will only make the situation worse. A grunt is pushed out of me as another hit lands against my mouth. A kick to my knee buckles my legs, and I land on all fours, blood dripping from the cut on my bottom lip.
Auden wraps a hand around my throat and lifts me onto my knees. “You will complete the task I have given to you, or you will take his place. Do you understand me?”
I refuse to answer, staring defiantly even as numerous parts of me ache from the cruel manhandling. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.
A hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back. I grit my teeth to stop myself from crying out and giving him the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurting me. I’ll never give him that.
“Do you understand me?”
He pulls tighter when I don’t answer, and I drag out a “Yes,” from somewhere, the word tasting like dirt in my mouth.
“Yes, what?”
Tugging at his wrist to dislodge myself only makes the pain worse. The hand around my throat squeezes hard enough I know there will be bruises that will take a few hours to heal.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.” What I really want to do is spit the words at him, make him choke on them. If I were someone else, someone better, stronger, not me, then maybe I could.
He shoves me away, and I fall back to my hands, gasping out a breath. Suffocating me won’t permanently kill me, but it’s not exactly pleasant.
By the time I get myself to my feet again, he’s gone. The drops of my blood on the stone floor are the only evidence he was ever here.
Soren and Lain return to the room, and I can barely look at them. I don’t want them to see me like this. It’s bad enough being on my own with it.
I can’t help the flinch at the first touch of Soren’s fingers against my chin. He lifts gently, thumb probing beneath my cut. He doesn’t say a word, which I’m thankful for.
Lain stands behind him, concern in her gaze, a restlessness in the way she holds herself, like she wants to come to me but is doing her best to give me distance. She doesn’t invade my space whenever she wants to, like Soren does.
“Take me to the werewolf,” I say quietly.
Soren’s lips flatten, and he studies me. I don’t care what he sees, not right now. He can find me lacking all he wants; it’s nothing I’m not familiar with.
He drops his hand and gives a sharp nod. I don’t look at Lain as I follow him out of the door, my focus only on Soren’s strong back and putting one foot in front of the other.
THERE ARE FOUR GUARDS standing outside the large oak door of the chamber I assume the werewolf is being housed in. I bet there weren’t that many yesterday.
The idea that there’s an alpha in there still hasn’t quite sunk in. I’d never seen one before. They’re rare, and this might be the first successful capture ever made. Any attempt in the past has either led to the alpha’s death or the death of dozens of our vampyre soldiers.
“I’m going in alone,” I tell Soren. I’m done being stared at every second of the day. I want to see the creature on my own, without witnesses.
“Are you s—”
“Yes.” I hesitate with a hand on the latch of the door. “Stay here?”
“As long as you need me to.”
There’s a comfort in that, I suppose. One sound, one call, and I know he’ll come running. What happened with my father wasn’t his fault. Nor all the other times. He’s chained in his position, the same as I am. We do our best with what little room we have to move.
There’s a different kind of relief when I move into the room and close the door behind me, enclosing me in the quiet darkness. A vague sense of freedom even if only temporary.
The dull ache that I’d almost forgotten was there eased when I walked inside, giving me respite I didn’t realize I needed. A blissful calm; it feels like I’ve been looking for it my whole life.
I can almost imagine that I am alone in here, with nothing but the flickering flames from the torches on the wall to keep me company. Except that the figure chained to the wall not three feet from me makes that impossible.
He’s not in his beast form. The sheer size of him as a human explains why his werewolf is so incredibly big, though.
The tattered, filthy clothes he’s wearing do nothing to hide what’s underneath.
I’ve never seen quite so many bulging muscles before.
I’ve heard of their brute strength, but this is the first time I’m beginning to understand.
He’s been here for over a week, and I doubt he’s been fed in all that time—or not much if he has—and it doesn’t show.
He’s still healthy, strong. Formidable enough to fight through a portion of the castle after having been burned by silver.
I can see the marks, not yet healed, around his wrists, just above where the chains are wrapped firmly and bolted to the wall.
The same is being done to his ankles, and there are three chains holding him by the waist. They aren’t taking any chances after what happened.
The marks are all that I can see; no bruises or cuts on him from his attempted escape.
A jagged scar runs down his left cheek, though it doesn’t look fresh.
It’s an ugly, painful wound that speaks of the worst kind of violence.
It’s difficult to permanently disfigure either of our species.
But this? Not even the full black beard covering his face can hide it. A mark of shame or one of pride?
Golden eyes stare at me, disconcerting intelligence clear in the molten color. Suddenly, I’m not sure about being alone with it. I almost call Soren in to protect me, the way he always does. To hide behind him, the way I always do.
What am I supposed to do here? I need guidance, and there’s nowhere to turn.
All I know about taming is that it requires breaking them down until they’re nothing and then building them back up in our image.
What that means, I have no idea. I don’t like to be around the tamers when they visit; there’s something about them that puts me on edge.
It’s more than a mere discomfort. There’s a wrongness to them that my very soul recoils from.
My father’s lead tamer, Deakin, is the worst of them, and his strange fixation on me only makes that worse.
I have a feeling that whatever he does to the werewolves is exactly what he’d like to do to me if given the chance.
Keeping my distance is the only way I know how to protect myself.
My father’s words echo. You will complete the task I have given to you, or you will take his place.
I have no choice but to do this.
How, though? I don’t know the mechanics on how to tame one of them; how the hell am I supposed to accomplish it? And with an alpha, no less. That’s never been done. I’d rather not be the first. Maybe I’m not supposed to succeed. Am I deliberately being set up to fail by my own father?
“Do you speak?” I ask immediately, needing to break from my thoughts. My words shatter the silence and replace it with uncomfortable tension.
He doesn’t answer and doesn’t look away, all his intense focus on me. I’ve never liked being the center of attention before. I like it even less now.
“Do you recognize me? You almost killed me a few nights ago. You were going to rip out my throat like an animal.” That’s what they are, isn’t it? Closer to their beast nature than their human one. That’s what I’ve heard.
He glances down to my neck, right where I’m sure there are still fingerprint marks from my father.
His nostrils flare, and the barest hint of teeth peek out from between his thick lips.
The instinctive step back that I take is pure survival.
Even trussed up like that, I don’t feel completely safe here with him.
There’s nothing docile about this werewolf.
If he got out of his shackles and came for me, I don’t think I’d survive the encounter, even with Soren standing just outside. Luck won’t favor me twice.
“Do you have a name?” I don’t expect an answer to that particular question. It’s personal. I wouldn’t give it to an enemy either.
I nod knowingly when I get the expected silence in return.
Circling the room takes a blink of an eye. It’s not that large, and all it contains is a single chair—entirely too rigid to sit on—and no windows. Since we’re in the bowels of the castle, where dampness clings like a second skin, a window would be pointless.
I should have brought a book.
And my own chair.
A drink?
Maybe I can annoy it into obeying me. Just be here every second of the day until he’s so thoroughly sick of me he’ll do anything I tell him to.
It would work on anyone else. No one willingly spends any considerable time with me, not if they can avoid it.
The prince of the vampyres isn’t half as interesting as he should be.
When they meet me, it’s easy to spot the disappointment in their eyes.
That half-murmured “oh” as they realize I’m nothing like my father.
“I don’t know sign language, so if that’s how you need to communicate, then we have a problem.” There are probably some books on it in the library.
The chair is as uncomfortable as it looks, and even wiggling to find a good spot doesn’t work. Is it used for torture or something? Is it for me to sit on, or him?
With a sigh, I stand and lean back against the wall instead, directly across from him.
I bite my lip, forgetting about the cut there, and let go with a hiss, the barest hint of blood on the tip of my tongue.
It’s taking its time to heal. My injuries always have; just another signal that I’m the weakest link in our species.
Auden says it comes from my mother, but since I don’t remember her, I only have his word to go by.
The light growl from across the room startles me, and I jump, pulling my fingers away from my cut, where I hadn’t even realized I’d been poking. The gold of his eyes has darkened to an almost light brown, and his teeth are fully bared now.
“What’s wrong with you?” What the hell set it off?
No answer. He continues to growl for a few minutes and even strains against his bonds. The smell of searing flesh gets stronger, and I wrinkle my nose.
“Can you not?” I ask, trying to sound reasonable. Of course he wants to get away, but he can’t, and we’re both stuck in this hell together.
To my surprise, he settles, and his face switches back to that impassiveness. I almost ask him to start growling again if only to get a different expression from him.
“... thank you.” What else am I supposed to say? Praise feels like it could be an effective tactic. Make it feel good?
Fucking hell, I need some help. Not from others; I don’t trust them.
Even Soren and Lain are under my father’s thumb to such an extent that they aren’t completely safe either.
That fact always hurts my heart, and I try not to think about it.
The way my father owns everyone around me and nothing I have is truly mine alone.
Guess that means it’s time to hit the library.