Chapter 23
XANDER
My head hurt.
The ground was cold. Whatever I was leaning against was colder. Cold as ice. Shivers racked my body, which just made my head hurt worse, spikes of pain lancing through it. I couldn’t get far enough away from the fucking cold. Why was it so cold? Why was I cold?
Where the fuck was I?
As consciousness came creeping back, I opened my eyes, blinking hard, trying to make sense of the darkness around me.
It wasn’t the dark of the forest. No calming odor of eucalypts or freshly disturbed earth, no trace of the myriad living creatures large and small that inhabited the forest. I resented that - I'd been enjoying it, feeling more in touch with my wolf than at any time I could remember.
Instead, the air was heavy with a damp, musty odor.
It smelt of disuse, and of something faintly metallic.
I was in a room. A cold, dark, miserable room. There was no light source, no window, no place where even the faintest luminescence entered. Across the empty space from me, the inky shadow of a set of stairs led upwards. Nearby, within my reach, a dark cylindrical shape was recognizable as a bucket.
A shudder racked my body and a rusty chain dragged against my wrist with the movement. Staring into the gloom in horror, I began to recognize where I was. No, no, no! I’d only seen this room once before, but fuck , how had I ended up in here?
And more importantly, how the fuck would I get out?
No-one – except for one person, maybe two if he’d had a helper – knew where I was.
I might stay here forever and no-one would know.
My teeth clattered with fear and cold, the sound loud in the empty room.
The chain clinked dully as I pulled my arm forward, testing it.
Only one arm was chained to the wall, but it only needed one.
And although I still had a lot of movement, I wasn’t going anywhere.
My free hand explored the manacle encircling my wrist, a fine coppery-colored dust crumbling onto my fingers.
Despite the superficial rust, the metal beneath was robust, sturdy.
I wouldn’t be breaking that anytime soon.
I tried to calm the racing of my heart, ignored the pounding in my head, and tried to think.
A few sharp tugs on the chain told me I wouldn’t be releasing myself that way, so I inspected the manacle more closely.
I had no idea how to pick a lock, but I searched around desperately anyway, looking for something I could use as a tool.
Feeling around on the cold floor didn’t reveal anything at all, other than a couple of thick metal rings embedded in the concrete, similar to the one pinning my chain to the wall.
Escape was impossible, unless I managed to get free when someone came to feed me. That I would actually get fed was a big assumption, given where I was and who had likely put me here. There was a high chance I had been abandoned here to die.
I didn’t want to think about it, but no-one ever succeeded by ignoring the things they didn’t like.
The grim prospect made my heart sink, and for a minute, that thought combined with the throbbing of my head made me want to throw up. At least I had a bucket, I thought wryly.
I refused to give up. If I couldn’t escape, I had to consider alternatives. What were the alternatives? Rescue? But who would know where I was?
With a little ripple of excitement along my nerves, I remembered my telepathic link with Darius. Trembling, barely willing to acknowledge the kernel of hope budding within me, I concentrated my thoughts into the space between us, searching.
I didn’t really know what I was doing, because I’d never had to search for him before. Ever since it had developed, the link had always been open, Darius readily available to me. This time was different.
My first efforts produced the weirdest sensation – like a firehose waving around under pressure, or the sparks of a firework shooting off in different directions… I had no control, I was just stabbing around randomly in the dark. To be fair, I didn’t know what I was looking for.
Until I found it. A rush of excitement and optimism had my pulse racing.
Darius would get me out of this fix, right?
But… when I tried to push a thought towards him, it bounced away, as if reflecting off a screen between us.
There was no answering response, no acknowledgement, no emotion.
He was there - I could feel it - but there was no response coming back down the link.
It was as if he didn’t hear me at all. Or, a cold thought chilled me, was he choosing not to hear me?
Once the link had established, we’d had no trouble using it before.
Why wouldn’t it work now, except by choice?
Fuck! I knew I wasn’t the easiest omega to deal with.
And I’d screwed things up big-time at the beginning.
We’d gotten past that – I thought - but maybe he’d decided he wanted a submissive omega, something I definitely wasn’t, and was never fucking gonna be.
Shit! Maybe he’d sent me back to my uncle.
It was phenomenal how quickly my thoughts had begun to spiral.
Darius would never have done such a thing.
Even if he’d changed his mind about me, he was a decent, honorable man.
He would never have sent me back to the misery I’d come from.
Hell, he’d been willing to help me financially even if I’d decided to leave.
So no, he couldn’t be responsible for me being here, and those stupid thoughts could just fuck the hell off.
But he might have thought I’d run away and decided to cut off our link. In which case, I was in deep shit.
Miserable, I slumped back against the wall, then jerked away from it just as quickly. Goddess, it was like ice! So cold it stung.
I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, the chain clinking obnoxiously.
Huddling in on myself, I tried to still my shivering.
But the cold, the fear, and the gnawing ache at the prospect of never seeing my mate again were too much.
My head sunk onto my knees, the warm tears cooling rapidly as they ran down my cheeks.