Chapter 4
Konrad
Iwas cold. My head was pounding, and I was of a mind that the ache in my stomach wouldn’t ever go away.
I’d long ago given up trying to figure out why I was here.
I was shackled to the wall, as I’d been since I’d first woken up here.
I’d tried many times to call for my dragon, but it was no use.
It was as if he was forced to sleep, that he, too, was somehow chained up.
The only things that were really constant were the small amount of food they tossed at me daily and the strange man that came into the room and stared at me. He was unnerving. He never said a word, just stood at the doorway and stared at me for several long minutes.
We hadn’t yet been able to figure out what language they were all speaking, but we knew it wasn’t our native language. We heard that as well, but it was always the same nonsense. Someone would come in to throw a bit of food at us each day, but beyond that, we were left chained to the walls.
“Hey, Lukas? Wilhelm? Which one is next to me today?” I called out.
“Lukas. I think they took Wilhelm to the room next to me. Elias is down at the end still. I’m not sure why they’re keeping the two of you so far apart.”
I ached for my closest friend. We’d had such plans.
Sadly, the predicament that we were currently in was exactly why my alpha father was so against me moving out or setting out on my own.
It wasn’t as if I would have been any safer in my own bedroom with the twins.
Elias’s father had been not far from us when we’d been taken.
“Do you know what season it is?” I asked, trying to come up with anything that I could to keep my mind engaged.
“I don’t know. Maybe summer? There’s a window in here, and the sun shines bright during the day. Although when they saw I was staring at the window, they came in and placed a heavy wardrobe in front of it, then for good measure, they stacked two trunks on top of it,” Lukas said.
I had to chuckle at that. What were we going to do?
Somehow suddenly regain the ability to shift, and then we were going to all leave through the window?
I looked around the room that had been my prison since I’d first woken up here.
There were no windows. There were two doors though, and that led me to believe that this had once been a lady’s maid’s room?
Or possibly the nursery? The second door was blocked by a heavy-looking bed that did not seem to fit in the room.
“There’s a bed in there, correct?” I asked, wondering not for the first time what their plans for us were.
“Yes. There is in the other one beside me where Wilhelm is too. Elias has said there is an overly large bed in the room he is in as well. And the one on the other side of him. Although I don’t remember his name off of the top of my head,” Lukas replied.
I shivered, not quite sure if it was because of the thought that had just gone through my mind or the fact that I could not seem to warm up.
I might be an omega, but I was a dragon shifter, and I had never been this cold in my life.
I had the internal fire of my dragon that had always protected me as well as kept me warm.
Now when I needed him most, he couldn’t seem to wake.
Frustrated, I pulled on the shackles on my wrists again. It was no use though. I didn’t have the strength to break them. I could sit here, could even move around a bit, but I did not have the strength that had been there before. Neither did the others.
I tried to lean back, slouching down as far as I could in hopes of getting somewhat comfortable.
It was no use though, and I knew it. I knew the last time I was able to lie down flat, and it was the night I’d fallen asleep next to Elias.
When was that though? It was still winter, and Lukas had said it had been bright on the other side of his window.
Had that much time actually passed? We had no way of knowing.
I let my head fall forward and had just started to doze off when I heard the familiar sound of the lock being disengaged on my door. Immediately on alert, I raised my head just as a man stepped into the room.
He didn’t say anything to me, simply walked close enough to come over and crouch down in front of me.
His hair was pitch-black, and his eyes matched.
His skin looked grayish, and I wondered if he were ill.
I couldn’t really scent him, my ability to do that having left when my dragon seemed to fall into a deep slumber.
He spoke something that I couldn’t understand, but I just stared back at him. I hoped the hatred I had for him and the others that held us here could be conveyed in my gaze.
The man chuckled, then shook his head. He stood, then called out to someone else who came into the room carrying something.
I didn’t want to take my eyes off the evil-looking man, but when the other set a tray down next to me, my attention was pulled to the tray.
My eyes widened as my stomach let out a loud growl, one that was more painful than the others had been recently.
The man chuckled again, then said something to the man that had been carrying the food. He left, and when the scary guy stood there observing me, he simply told me to eat in my own language, then left the room.
I heard the lock reengage, and the little bit of hope that I would somehow escape or be rescued was dashed. My stomach knotted up, and I couldn’t deny the tray of food that had been placed in front of me.
I reached for it, frustrated when my hands stopped just short of touching the tray.
Of course the bastards would do that to me.
I growled in frustration, but when I took a moment to think a bit more clearly, I moved my leg and used my bare foot to reach out and pull the tray closer.
When I did, I saw a thick stew, half of a small loaf of bread, and a cup of liquid.
I was almost certain the food would make me ill, that it was somehow poisoned, but at this point, I no longer cared.
Death would be preferable to a lifetime of being chained to a wall without my dragon.
He was part of me, and since he’d been gone, it was as if my soul had been ripped in half and a big part of me was missing.
There was no silverware, not that I needed it. I picked up the bread and tore a hunk off, and after trying to smell it to see if there was anything on or in it, I gave up even trying. It smelled like bread. I used it to scoop up a big bite of stew.
It was bland at best, but beggars couldn’t be choosers in this case, and it was food, something I’d not had a whole lot of for quite some time.
It didn’t take long for me to finish the bread and stew, and when I picked up the cup, I discovered it was most likely mead.
It wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but again, I wasn’t going to turn it down.
It didn’t take long to drink the contents. I placed the cup back on the tray, then used my foot to push it away from me. My stomach was already protesting, but I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d just put more food into it than I had for the past week combined or if I had, in fact, been poisoned.
I closed my eyes, hoping that if I relaxed, my stomach would calm and I’d finally be able to get some decent rest now that I had food in my stomach.
After several deep breaths, I felt my body start to warm just a bit.
I wasn’t sure if it was the warm food, the fact that I had finally had a somewhat decent meal, or again if it had been poisoned.
I was simply beyond caring and let the drowsiness that suddenly overcame me claim me.
I woke with a pounding head and a cotton mouth. There was certainly something in either the food or the drink. Or both. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to harm me any more than causing me to sleep and waking with a pounding head and a very dry mouth.
I blinked several times, trying to focus in the dark room. It was dark now, but did that mean the sun had gone down or that my candle had burned out?
“Lukas?” I called out no louder than a whisper. My tongue felt thick and as if it wasn’t working properly. I didn’t think I’d be able to talk louder, but I tried. “Lukas?”
It was no use. My voice was but a whisper of what it had been before. I was frustrated and wanted to berate myself for falling for whatever trap they’d tried to set. What was it they had wanted to achieve by tainting the food or drink?
Not able to think too clearly, I leaned my head back against the stone wall and tried to relax.
If I was able to relax enough, I would fall back asleep.
There wasn’t anything else to do while chained to the wall.
We all felt fortunate that we’d been able to shout to one another.
It had been such a relief to learn that Elias was here with me.
Not that I wished being chained and starved on any of my friends, simply that it was a relief that they’d not been harmed.
I often thought about my fathers and brothers.
Would they know we’d been taken? Would Elias’s?
Or did they perhaps believe that we’d suddenly decided to take off in the midst of the night?
That was certainly something that Elias and I would consider doing.
Although, to be fair, Elias’s parents were so much different than mine.