Chapter 3 - Sienna
My eyes darted between Franco and the door behind him as he looked at me menacingly. His eyes were wild. I could practically feel the hate rolling off his tall, sinewy frame toward me. He held himself like a predator: watching and waiting for his prey to make one wrong move before he took them down.
I had heard the stories about him from Killian but never expected to be face-to-face with the monster who had taken over Pinedale and intimidated the packs there. It was only through sheer determination and luck that they had driven him off, and I knew my chances of escape were dwindling by the second. That door was my only hope. Somehow, I needed to find a way out of this cabin and away from this madman.
“Come, sit with me,” he said, pulling up two chairs so that they were facing one another.
The last thing I wanted to do was sit close to him, but his expression told me there was no room to decline. Hesitantly, I moved toward the chair. As I approached, his blue eyes flashed at me, and I was reminded of icicles.
“Just as cold as you,” I mumbled.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, loud enough for him to hear me. “So, what’s this story you wanted to tell me?”
“It begins as you might expect. Once upon a time, there was an evil witch, a princess, and a valiant knight.”
I scoffed. “Please, tell me you’re not the knight in this story.”
“But of course I am,” Franco replied. “The knight was bound by a sacred oath to protect his people from the power of the evil witch, but the witch’s magic was very strong. It overcame the knight and his people. He searched for years, looking for a way to exact revenge on the witch who had hurt them. One day, he heard of a princess. One who the witch was quite fond of.”
“I’m not a princess,” I pointed out.
“Maybe not, but it works better for my story,” he said nonchalantly. “As I said, the witch was very fond of this princess. With the witch’s weakness discovered, all that remained was for the knight to capture the princess and take her back to his kingdom. She was the key to stopping the witch’s evil from spreading across the land.”
“And who is this ‘evil witch?’” I asked skeptically.
“Tom Mowry.”
My heart dropped. Of all the names he could have spoken, the last one I expected to hear was my father’s.
“You took me to get revenge on my dad?”
Franco nodded, keeping his unwavering gaze on my face.
“My father has made mistakes, but he is a good man,” I said. “You must have gotten your information wrong.”
“I’m not wrong,” Franco argued.
“This doesn’t make any sense. My father would never—”
“Don’t!” Franco shouted, interrupting my defense. He leapt from his chair toward me, placing his hands on either side of my seat. His face was mere inches from mine as he seethed in rage. “You either know nothing about what your father is, or you’re just like him. A witch, and a deceiver.”
My blood boiled at how he’d spat “witch” from his mouth like a bad taste, turned into a perversion by his hate for my kind. He remained close to me, breathing heavily after his outburst. I knew I was facing one of the cruelest men possible, but I couldn’t bring myself to cower to him. I wasn’t a spoiled princess, no matter what he wanted to believe. I was a warrior.
“I am no deceiver,” I whispered menacingly. “But I am a witch. You would do well to let me go.”
Franco moved his hands quickly from the chair to my arms, grabbing them roughly and forcing me to my feet. “Outside, now,” he spat.
I had no choice but to follow as he dragged me after him. My legs struggled to keep pace with his long strides and quick speed. My long legs, try as I might, weren’t cooperating with my efforts to move faster. Pain coursed through my body from the savages’ attack on me as I followed Franco as best I could.
“Can you slow down?” I asked.
He pushed us through a crowd of men and women, cheering and throwing insults at a spectacle I couldn’t see yet. The sudden onslaught of noise was overwhelming after the quiet of the cabin, and I whipped my head around, taking in the new scene. I stumbled over my feet, and Franco caught me abruptly before I could hit the ground.
“Hurry up,” he snapped.
He pulled me after him once more, and we finally reached a break in the crowd. Everyone was circled around two men who were trading punches.
“Watch this, and maybe you’ll understand,” Franco said.
I did as he commanded. At first, I tried to see what the link was between our conversation and this fight, but after only a few moments, all I could think about was the brutality in front of me. It was clear from the jeers that the smaller of the men was an outsider—a rogue, who had found himself captured just as I had been. He had received numerous injuries, but his attacker kept allowing him to heal before advancing once more and pummeling him.
“Why don’t they shift?” I asked.
“Rules of engagement,” Franco replied tersely. “The rogue will be allowed to live if he defeats Sven in human form. If he shifts, the entire pack will kill him.”
I watched in horror as the sickening dance continued. Sven had grasped the rogue’s arm, twisting it in an unnatural direction. A loud snap reverberated from his arm, and he fell to the ground screaming in pain while the large man laughed. What was left of the rogue’s clothing was drenched in sweat, blood, and dirt. On the other hand, Sven seemed to be enjoying himself. His face dripped with sweat, and blood covered his hands, but it was obvious that it wasn’t his own.
“You need to stop this,” I said to Franco in a quiet voice. He didn’t reply, except to shake his head tersely.
Sven lifted his arms up as he walked around the outside of the makeshift arena, eliciting whoops and cheers from his admirers. A scuffle behind him made him turn around just as the rogue rammed into his legs. The impact caused him to fall to the ground with a lurch. He roared in anger at the upheaval and immediately grabbed for the rogue, grasping his neck with one arm.
He rained a fury of blows down on the rogue’s skull, over and over, as the crowd went wild. Blood flew with each impact, and I looked away, knowing that these seconds were the last this man would spend alive.
A wet-sounding crash soon followed as his skull was broken open. I tried not to look, but I glanced back at Sven. Although his foe was defeated, he continued to pummel his lifeless body into the ground. I felt bile rising in my throat at the grisly spectacle and turned toward Franco.
“Look at the rest of them,” he commanded me, tilting my head toward the crowd.
I watched as the entire pack became even more animated than before. A frenzy seemed to be moving through them, as if the sight of the man’s death had caused them to turn insane. A few of them began to shove each other, and others clawed at their own bodies as if they were tormented by something unseen.
“What’s happening to them?”
Once again, Franco didn’t respond. Instead, he grabbed me roughly and pulled me back toward his cabin. When we were inside, he closed the door, bolting it firmly behind us. He leaned his head against the wooden frame. His shoulders slumped, and I could see that he was emotional. Whether it was about the events we had just witnessed or something else entirely, I couldn’t tell.
He turned slowly, looking at me with madness in his eyes. I shrank back, fearing that whatever had overcome the pack would cause him to lash out at me as Sven had done to the other rogue.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Not needlessly, anyway. I have more control than most of the pack.”
“Why are they acting like that?”
“Your father,” Franco said. “I told you before. Tom did something to us—a curse of some kind—that has caused all of us to devolve into the worst kind of monsters. All humans and werewolves have a dark side to them, but whatever he did to us triggered the darkest desires of our kind. We need to harm and kill. If we don’t sate our desires, we are in constant, agonizing pain.”
Franco winced as he said the word, and I realized that he was fighting against that very desire right now. The strength of his alpha blood seemed to be helping him stave off the need, but if what he was saying was true, then he wouldn’t be able to last forever—especially not with his entire pack in a frenzy just a few dozen feet away.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said to him as I processed his words. “I don’t deny that something may be causing this, but it isn’t my dad. He has never used magic for evil.”
“Forgive me, princess, but your assurances mean nothing to me,” Franco replied.
“I’m not a princess,” I reminded him.
“But you will be a luna,” he said.
I gave a sharp intake of breath at his words, sensing the meaning behind them immediately.
“No,” I replied.
“Yes,” he argued, stalking toward me. “You will become my mate as soon as possible. We will marry, and then you will be forced to deal with your father’s curse for the rest of your life. However long that might be.