Chapter 3 - Dorian
I know I’m dreaming because my surroundings are lush and full of the sun’s golden rays as a testament to the freedom I haven’t experienced for a few days.
The sweetness of that freedom is a taste that feels appetizing on my tongue, unlike the bland meals presented to me over the past few days. Forced to eat only to stay alive for the sake of my captors, I make a conscious decision to bask in this dream while I’m here.
I make the most of it by crossing the river and watching how my feet disappear into the crystal, rapid waters of the flowing stream. Since it’s only a dream, I can’t feel the stones beneath my soles, but I do imagine that the earth is warm and welcoming. Though the hems of my folded jeans become wet, I can’t feel the temperature of the water, but I imagine that it’s crisp and cool, a stark contrast to the warmth surrounding the air to create a perfect symphony of earth’s abundant pleasures.
Right now, I’m relishing the comforts provided by Mother Earth, even if it’s only a dream. It was a moment of awe that I’d neglected to indulge in while I was walking in either my human form or wolf form in the real world. I guess it took being kidnapped by the rogues and locked in a dungeon for me to finally understand how blessed I was in Fort Smit. Even while I had a lot to worry about, there was so much to be grateful for.
Perhaps my kidnapping is a blessing, allowing me to understand and appreciate the present moment and my life for what it is. The Moon Goddess’s mercy was evident in every breath I took.
Now, all I can do is enjoy these little bouts of escape that come in the form of blissful dreams, while there is no escape for me when I wake up.
I finally make it across the river, the bountiful meadow opening up to blooming flowers in all the colors of the rainbow, the trees bearing fruits that hang heavy as if in the offering. I know that the dream is simply for my viewing pleasure, and I won’t be able to enjoy the juicy tastes on my tongue. Still, I can imagine how sweet they must be, making a conscious mental note to enjoy these simple pleasures when I’m free again.
If I’m ever free again, I think, the gloomy thought echoing through the forest and eerily vibrating off the tree trunks.
“ Of course, you will be free again, Dorian Walker…” a female voice echoes back to my eardrums, the sweet, lilting sound spreading around me like a hopeful embrace.
I turn my vision slowly, scanning my surroundings with my brows pulling taut on a frown.
Was that the Moon Goddess Herself who spoke to me? My ultimate savior in a time like this when even my true Alpha blood cannot save me…
My creator?
Out of the corner of my eyes, I catch something flying from the skies, gliding down toward me with magnificent wings of silver catching the golden sunlight and reflecting iridescent metallic shades I’ve never seen before. It’s too large to be a bird, and only as it soars closer, do I notice a human body of solid silver landing on its feet just a few meters in front of me.
I’m compelled by awe and curiosity to walk toward it, noticing that the human figure is a woman with silver hair billowing out and flowing like the river behind me.
“Moon Goddess…” I ask aloud, but the woman whose face is made of solid silver light shakes her godly head, and the soft voice from before whispers,
“Angel…”
My guardian angel… I realize as I reach out to touch the cheek of my savior. She doesn’t recoil, doesn’t show me the animosity I’ve grown accustomed to from those I thought would care about me, but instead gazes at me with silver eyes beholding a sense of comfort and compassion I have yet to find in the real world.
I’m about to touch her solid cheek when I’m abruptly and ruthlessly snapped out of the dream by a gallon of ice-cold water thrown at my face. Clambering for air, a fist flies into my cheek and knocks me to the ground with the chair I’m tied to.
“Get up you fucking mutt!” a gravelly voice bellows harshly before the wind is knocked out of my gut by a booted foot crashing into my ribs. “He was fucking smiling in his sleep, can you believe that?!” the man chuckles maliciously before grabbing me by the collar and lifting me along with the chair back on its feet.
“If Jackson hears about this, he won’t even let him sleep ever again,” another voice chuckles from behind the first man.
“Ya up, sleepin’ beauty?” The man slaps my face a few times.
Opening my eyes while droplets of water trickle from my hair down my lashes like a curtain, I glare at the rogue werewolf who flashes me with a smile of yellowing teeth.
“Aha! Enjoying yourself, huh?” he chuckles sardonically. The blonde, greasy-haired man grabs a fistful of wet hair and forces me to look at him when he stands up. “The boss wants you cleaned up. Zach…” he beckons to the other rogue werewolf in human form. “Let’s get this mutt ready.”
“Wh-what’s h-happening…” I croak, my throat dry and voice hoarse from the torture I’ve been facing at the hands of the rogues.
I’ve lost count of how many days I’ve been here, the confines of the dark dungeon making it impossible to tell when it’s day or night.
“Don’t ask questions,” the other man, Zach, grumbles as he steps forward with a bucket. Their idea of cleaning me up entails another gallon of water thrown over my head—this time lukewarm when it’s meant to clean me.
It’s not like I have the liberty of taking an actual shower. Not while they have me shackled to a flimsy metal chair with chains made from pure silver.
It’s the only metal in the world that acts like a kryptonite to a werewolf. The natural material hinders my supernatural powers and ability to shift, while whatever they’ve been injecting into my bloodstream has me too weak to fight them with my human fists.
Without my strength, I’m no match for the rogue wolves who’ve captured me and kept me locked in this dungeon. All I know is that they want my blood when they roll over a machine and stick needles into my arms to drain my veins.
What they’re using it for, I’m not sure. But I do know that it can’t be any good.
When they’re satisfied with how dripping wet I am, the pair of rogues begin ripping my clothes off—the same clothes I’ve been in since they caught me on the Nightclaw border—then bring out a white silk cloak similar to the ones we use during holy rituals in the pack den.
The first rogue—whose name I haven’t caught yet—drags over another set of chains with gloved hands.
“This should keep him paralyzed for a bit,” he says to the other one, who comes over with a syringe that has the murky liquid they’ve been using to knock me out.
I’ve been floating between long periods of unconsciousness and brief, hazy bouts of wakefulness only to be force-fed before my blood is harvested. Mentally, I’ve given up any hope of leaving this place. There’s no escape for me while I’m all alone here, bound by silver and the poison that burns my veins when it’s injected into my bloodstream.
Surrendering to its effects, I have no reason to care about why the boss suddenly wants to see me while I’m cleaned up. The only thing I have to look forward to right now is the hope of meeting my guardian angel in my dreams—if I dream at all.
***
The sting on my cheek jolts me awake from the void of darkness I’d been swept in thanks to the poison. My eyelids are heavy as I blink them to adjust my vision, and I find myself staring at a face I haven’t seen before.
“Hello, Alpha Dorian Walker…” The bearded man with dark, menacing orbs leans closer, perching his chin on the backrest of the chair he’s sitting on in front of me as if he’s inspecting my face. He winces and clicks his tongue as he reaches out and touches my cheek with a pointed finger. “I told those fuckers not to leave bruises. They forgot that you can’t heal by yourself.”
“You’re Jackson, aren’t you?” I ask, glowering at the man and taking a deep breath only to discover that my suspicions were right. I knew it when I felt how cold his finger was.
Werewolves are hot-blooded creatures…
“You’re human…” I point out, to which the man chuckles.
“Keen observation, considering that you have all that wolfsbane in you.”
“I can sniff out a measly human from a mile away,” I snapped back. “I don’t need my wolf powers for that.”
Unlike the rogue werewolves, this human doesn’t respond to my bitterness with violence. Instead, he gives a condescending pat on the top of my head, almost like he’s belittling me.
“I’m no ordinary human, Dorian,” he sneers. “Where do you think all your blood’s been going?”
I narrow my eyes at the man, and when he leans back and boastfully fills out his chest with a deep inhale, realization dawns on me.
“You’ve been using the blood for yourself…” I gasp in horror. “You wanna be like me?”
“Well, not like you, per se,” Jackson sniffs as he stands up and walks away. That’s when I notice that I’m not in the dungeon anymore, but in a dimly-lit room with a high ceiling of steel bars criss-crossed at the top. It appears to be a lab, where automated machines beep behind glass shutters.
What catches my attention is the two rows of red candles on the floor that create a sort of pathway leading from the door to where I’m seated. I frown, trying to make sense of what’s going on, when Jackson comes back, rolling over a metal tray on wheels. He stops in front of me, then lifts an empty syringe along with a vile of my blood.
He pricks the needle at the top of the vial and draws out the blood into the syringe, then proceeds to stick the needle into his arm and inject himself with my blood.
“... I’m not like you, Dorian Walker,” he continues, sucking a breath through gritted teeth as my blood flows into his veins. “I’m better, obviously,” he smirks.
“This will only lead to your destruction, Jackson,” I retort, shaking my head in disbelief. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Am I?” he muses as he returns to the chair and leans in so close, that I can smell the tobacco and rum on his breath. “Or are you just being selfish? What gives you the right to be the only species capable of shape-shifting, huh?”
“I was born this way…” I grate. “It’s not up to us to decide who gets these powers.”
“Right. Lemme guess it’s up to the creator.” He cocks his head to one side, blackened eyes glowering at me. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to be a creator of my own.”
“Why are you doing all of this?” I ask in my last-ditch attempt to make sense of everything that’s coming to light.
Jackson flashes a cocky grin at me. “Because I can,” he boasts, glancing over his shoulder and pressing two fingers between his lips to whistle aloud. His beckoning call is heeded when the doors to the warehouse are thrown open, the metal screeching against the cement floors and allowing the bright light of the moon to filter in. It’s the first time in days that I can see the outside. Beyond those doors is freedom, as well as the silhouettes of leather-clad rogue werewolves in human form, forcefully pulling along what appears to be a woman in a flowing dress with her hands tied behind her.
Her struggle is evident in the way she squirms and wrestles against the rogue men, her protests muffled by the duct tape covering her mouth. As she’s being dragged along the path lit up by the candles on the floor, Jackson uses a remote control to adjust the motorized chair I’m tied to until my feet touch the floor and my spine straightens.
Standing now at full height, I’m towering over Jackson with at least a head taller than him, but there’s no fight left in me. Not with all the wolfsbane poison in my system and the silver shackles dampening my strength.
I hang my head with my broken spirit weighing on my shoulders as the woman is brought down the path like a sacrificial lamb.
“I can’t kill her, Jackson,” I murmur. “I won’t do this.”
“Kill her?” he muses as he steps in front of me, hooking a hand under my chin and forcing me to look into his eyes. “That’s not what’s happening tonight, Dorian.” He steps aside, his hand forcefully directing my eyes on the woman. “That is your bride. Your mate.”
The single word brings with it a pounding in my eardrums, my heart skipping a beat as I turn to stare at him with petrified eyes.
“You’re not serious…” I shake my head as vigorously as I can in my weakened state. “She’s human…”
“Oh, but I am very serious, Dorian,” Jackson smirks. “You’re gonna impregnate the human, and give me a hybrid child.”
“It’s not possible…” I breathe in horror, to which Jackson chuckles cynically and takes a step forward. Behind his shoulder, the woman is closer now, her terrified eyes glossed over with tears as she meets my disbelieving gaze.
Jackson leans close to my ear and whispers menacingly, “If you don’t mark her tonight, I will wipe out the Nightclaw Pack. You’ve seen what I’m capable of, and I’m only just beginning…”