Chapter 13 Mirabelle
Mirabelle
The younger handler’s hands are shaky as he drags me to the transport cage and shoves me inside.
He keeps on muttering curses under his breath.
I guess I’d be pretty freaked out too if I just watched one of my friends get choke-slammed to the ground.
I have no idea how Ash did that. It was a crazy feat of athleticism, being able to swing both his legs high enough to wrap them around that guy’s neck.
I wonder if the guy is okay.
Do I care?
After giving it some thought, I conclude I don’t care about the handler. He’s probably hurt Ash a ton.
I curl myself into a ball, trying to brace myself against the bitter cold as the ATV moves. The sky is just lightening up. I think the sun will rise soon.
There’s so much adrenaline pumping through my veins that I’m not even tired, despite only sleeping for a few hours on the uncomfortable ground.
The trainer pulls up to a squat, concrete building with cracked walls and a terrifying, ominous sort of cloud hanging over the building.
All the buildings on the farm are covered in a similar amount of grime, peeling paint, or crumbling walls, but this building specifically feels off. It doesn’t look like the typical building you’d find on a farm, like all the other buildings I’ve been in so far.
Those were all stable or barn-looking buildings. This one looks like a prison.
“You gonna give me any trouble?” The handler grunts as he hauls open the door.
I shake my head quickly.
“Good.”
As I’m dragged inside, it quickly hits me that this place looks as much like a prison on the inside as it does on the outside. The handler drags me down a wide, soulless hallway to a large, thick, metal door.
“Don’t run,” the handler says, letting go of his grip on my arm. I don’t miss the way he flashes the shock collar remote at me as a reminder of the consequence of not following the rules.
“I won’t,” I say.
He shrugs before grabbing a hose connected to a spigot across the hall and shoving it into my hands.
What in the world does he expect me to do with this?
“You’re gonna make yourself useful,” he says, nodding towards the locked door. “If the boss doesn’t give a shit whether you live or die, I definitely don’t want to risk the skin on my back giving that crazy fucker a hose down. Not after the other one pulled that crazy move on Tony.”
I assume Tony is the name of the handler Ash slammed to the ground.
“You—you want me to go in there and... wash the alpha?” I ask, my brows drawing down.
“Do I have to fuckin’ spell it out for you? Yeah, I want you to go in there and wash ‘em. He’s all nasty from the fight last night.”
I stare down at the hose in my hands. The water will probably be freezing, just like it was when they hosed me down last night.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“You refusing?” The handler growls, his dominance thickening in the air around us.
“I—I don’t want to hose him down,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. “If you can get me a bowl and a washcloth or something, I can wipe him down, but I won’t hose him.”
He stares at me like he thinks I’m insane.
“Your funeral,” he mutters before dragging me into what looks like a supply closet of sorts.
A supply closet full of torture devices.
I’m starting to connect the dots about what this building is used for. There were quite a few thick metal doors we passed, far more than the number of alpha fighters they have here.
I don’t even know if Ash and Griffin are kept here, either, meaning all those other doors could lead to individual cells.
Would this have been where they kept me if Rowan hadn’t stepped in?
I keep my eyes on the floor as the handler rummages through shelves, cursing as he hits his head on one of them before emerging with a couple dusty looking old rags and a bucket.
“These’ll have to do,” he grunts.
“Thank you,” I say, shaking off some of the dust from the towels before tucking them under my arm.
He just continues looking at me like I’m insane.
I choose to ignore him as I walk back out into the hallway and fill the bucket with some water. Just like I expected, it’s freezing cold.
I’m no stranger to a cold shower. Freezing cold showers were one punishment used by the handlers at the facility, but it’s different coming out of a hose. It’s like actually being pelted with shards of ice, with how strong the jet setting is on these things.
I’d never deliberately use something like this on someone else, especially after being on the receiving end of it last night.
“When you’re done, bang on the door and I’ll take the bucket back. After that, you’re on your own. I’ve got orders to let the beast’s chains loose.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, huffing as I lift the heavy bucket.
The handler just shakes his head like I’m some sort of lost cause before pressing a few buttons on the high-tech-looking pad by the door, making the lock hiss open.
The moment the door creaks open, I suddenly realize why everyone thinks I’m going to die.
My heart leaps to my throat as a twisted, broken, metallic scent hits my nostrils. Leather, iron, and a healthy dose of blood.
“Get in,” the handler grunts, shoving me forward into the dark room.
The only light comes from a single recessed light in the ceiling. Its plastic cover is splattered with what looks eerily like dried blood.
The water sloshes inside the bucket as I stumble inside, the thick metal door screeching as the handler hurries to close it as quickly as he can.
As my eyes adjust to the darkness, they finally catch sight of where the scent is coming from.
Or rather, who the scent is coming from.
The man chained to the wall by his wrists and ankles is nothing short of a wall of muscle.
And by wall of muscle, I mean he nearly takes up the entire back wall, and this room isn’t exactly small.
I take a shallow breath, drip-feeding myself his scent as I adjust to the... enormity of this man. In all senses of the word.
Similar to Ash, his entire torso is littered with scars and fresh injuries, and he’s only been allowed to wear a pair of skintight boxers.
When I drag my gaze up his body and to his face, I freeze.
Oh my god.
Beyond his messy, shoulder-length, jet black hair, his gaze is piercingly intense, especially with his molten amber eyes.
But one of them, his left eye, is a little cloudy.
There’s a network of old, pale scars, jagged and violent, from the top of his forehead all the way down to his upper cheekbone.
It feels a little strange, trying to estimate his age, considering how much his body has been through, but from where I’m looking, he’s had those scars for a very long time.
My heart hurts at the thought of all that he’s had to go through.
I take a small step forward and his lips curl back in a snarl.
The growl that leaves his chest makes me freeze. It’s like I’m pinned under it, unable to move. The sound bounces around in my head before it strangely settles somewhere in my lower belly.
In the past few days here at the Mercer Family Farm, I’ve definitely learned what a lecherous leer looks like.
And even though I’m completely naked and this alpha’s gaze is as hot as the sun, it doesn’t leave that slimy sort of residue that I’ve expected from... well, everyone but Rowan and the alpha fighters.
“H—Hi,” I say, setting the bucket and rags down, lifting my hands up and trying to show him I don’t mean any harm. “My name is Mirabelle, but—but my friends call me Mira. I’m sorry I’m not wearing any clothes, they took them away from me earlier. I know that probably makes this a little awkward.”
The only response he gives me is another growl as his gaze dips down to my breasts. I fight the urge to cover them, because what’s the point? He’s going to see them anyway, since my hands will be occupied soon.
“I’m here to help get you cleaned up,” I say. “It looks like you were in a pretty intense fight.”
There are fresh bruises blooming across his large torso, and his legs are covered in some sand and grime. What draws my gaze the most, though, is the dried blood crusted and splattered on his arms.
Did he fight against the chains like Griffin did?
I glance nervously down at my nakedness. No clothes to tear up as makeshift bandages this time. Maybe I can use the rags if need to?
“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise,” I continue.
He offers me no answer, but his growling stops.
I pick the bucket and the towels back up and take a hesitant step forward. He lets me take four before he growls menacingly again.
“I don’t think the handlers will let me get away with not washing you,” I say, smiling apologetically. “I promise even though the waters a little cold that this’ll feel better than hosing you down, okay?”
I swallow my fear as he bares his teeth, lunging forward as much as the chains will allow, which isn’t much at all, considering the cuffs are practically welded to the wall itself.
I slowly crouch down and dip one rag in the water, squeezing out the excess before slowly reaching out and wiping away some of the sand from his knee.
At this angle, he can’t lunge out and bite me.
“I know I’m a new person and you don’t know me, but I’m not going to hurt you,” I say.
His molten amber gaze remains locked on my every movement as I slowly wipe down his right knee and down his shin.
“You’re really muscular, you know that? I mean, I haven’t seen a lot of guys in their underwear before, but you’re definitely the biggest.”
I have no clue what I’m saying. I don’t even know why I’m talking right now, since it really doesn’t seem like this guy is interested in conversation, but I can’t help but fill the silence between us.
“Technically, I’ve seen two other guys shirtless: Griffin and Ash. I think you’ve probably met Ash before, he’s been here for a long time too. They were also super muscular, but you’re, you know, big in a different way.”
His growling stops as I make my way down his left leg. Every time I peek up at him, his molten gaze catches mine, and I quickly look back down at what I’m doing.
I dip the rag back in the water, swishing it around and squeezing out the excess before standing slowly.
“I’ve gotta wash your chest now, that okay?”
His only response is that intense stare.
“Well, I’m taking that as a yes,” I say, letting out a small huff of laughter. “Don’t bite my head off, okay, big guy? Everyone else seems convinced that’s what you’re gonna do.”
As I take a tentative step closer, extending my hand with the rag out, I’m incredibly aware of the fact he could probably bite it off.
But he doesn’t.
He stays remarkably still, almost like he’s purposely keeping the muscles in his body locked, as I wipe down his chest.
His skin is burning hot when my fingertips accidentally brush against him.
Standing this close to him, it’s like I’m sinking into his scent. Leather and iron. I’m noticing the scent of blood growing less intense the more I wash him.
I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m wiping away the dried blood from his body or because that’s the way his scent shifts when he’s upset.
I have to stand on my tiptoes to wipe off the blood from his arms. Even though there are thick scars around his wrist and ankles, like he’s fought desperately against the chains that bind him now, there aren’t any open wounds. I quickly realize that the blood there isn’t his.
“Wow, I guess you won the fight,” I say, laughing nervously to try to soothe the unease skating down my spine.
The man in front of me is capable of a level of violence I don’t think my mind can comprehend.
But as I wipe down his face and stare into his eyes—one bright, the other clouded—I wonder how much of that violence was because he wanted to and how much of it was because he was forced to.