Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The fire crackled and spat, seven pairs of eyes avoiding Snow’s. Shame etched into their expressions, their bodies appearing wearier than they had just moments before. A wave of sorrow engulfed Snow, and he struggled to breathe against it.
“We are,” Shen replied when no one else did. “We are prisoners here.”
“And what were your crimes?” Snow whispered, his fingertips digging into the soft leather of the armchair. “What led you all here?”
He’d blindly walked into a den of thieves—or worse. Half of Snow grew terrified. The other half felt guilt. They’d been nothing but kind to him so far. Assuming the worst was wrong of him. Yet, he was a tiny omega in a room full of massive alphas.
Alphas who may have committed horrendous crimes.
“The only one of us who might deserve his punishment is that one,” Klaus said, throwing a snarl towards the door Greer had disappeared behind.
“The rest of us are guilty of being flawed humans that crossed the wrong omega. I was imprisoned for being selfish, the wizard claimed. Shen was trapped for his pridefulness. Hwa, for his quick anger. Lazlo for his idleness. Owan for his lusts.” Klaus’s gaze moved from Snow to Vor.
“And what of you, Vor? I don’t think you’ve ever told me your sin. ”
“Hunger,” Vor muttered, his gaze lifting to Snow for a split second before lowering.
Snow’s belly tightened more from that look, a hunger of his own growing deep.
Klaus scoffed. “That’s all I get, hmm? Hunger? I’m sure it was more to it than that.”
“That’s all you need to know,” Vor grumbled.
“I daresay it’s not,” Klaus snapped.
“Enough!” Hwa roared, looking at Klaus. “I tire of your constant bickering and jealousy.”
“I am not envious of Vor,” Klaus bellowed back, jumping from the chair. “He lords himself around as if being the first here gives him the right to rule over us. He is no one. I am the second son of an earl. If anyone should lead us, it should be me.”
“And there it is,” Vor muttered without turning around. He never lifted his gaze from Snow’s legs. “Noble birth means nothing here, Klaus. You can stick your father’s title up your backside and fuck yourself with it for all I care.”
As several of the others snickered, Lazlo laid an arm across Klaus’s chest, holding him back.
Klaus didn’t try very hard to reach Vor, though.
As small an alpha as Lazlo was, Klaus could’ve easily overtaken him in Snow’s opinion.
Instead, he shoved Lazlo away and dropped back into his chair in the shadows, simmering with rage and leveling his angry stare at the back of Vor’s head.
“I am no leader,” Vor said to no one in particular.
“I simply ensure all do their fair share. Unlike the world outside this prison, we have no kings. No lords to laze about and have the low men do the hardest of the labors. Here, we are all equal in our suffering and equal in our work to survive. We all do what must be done.”
“You assume I would laze about?” Klaus said, rolling his eyes. “I, too, have the curse of laboring placed upon me. I must cut, just as you all do.”
Vor spun to face him. “But when the sun goes down? Tell me you wouldn’t lord over us and make us do your bidding if we allowed it.”
Klaus turned his gaze away.
“You tried that when you first got here,” Vor said. “Remember? You commanded we serve you, as if we all hadn’t done three times the backbreaking labor you had that day.”
“My hands were covered in blisters,” Klaus lamented, lifting his hands as if they were still raw and painful. “They were bleeding.”
“Had you asked with a speck of kindness, we would have helped you—as we all have done for others who were new here or injured,” Shen said. “Instead, you acted the spoiled, entitled lord and demanded we tend to your every need. Little has changed since.”
Klaus’s face fell, eyes widening. “I’ve not asked anyone for a single thing since that night.”
“No, you haven’t,” Vor said. “You withdrew, sulking in the shadows. You’ve grown angry and spiteful that we didn’t seem to know our place, continuing to see yourself as the rightful leader because of some imagined birthright.”
Klaus blinked a few times before muttering, “I haven’t.”
“Then why do you continue to claim dominance all these months later, as if being the second son of a know-nothing lord has any bearing here?” Vor asked.
“How little you’ve learned,” Hwa murmured, shaking his head at Klaus.
“We’re all stuck here together, all of us the same.
You work alone, toiling for toiling’s sake because you cannot allow yourself to work with us to make the day’s labors easier.
You sit apart from us, rarely speaking to anyone but Lazlo. It must be so lonely being you.”
Klaus cringed, turning his face away from them. Snow almost pitied him. From the look of exhaustion that appeared to take over his body, perhaps the reality of his situation had finally been made clear in his mind.
“Leave him be,” Vor murmured lowly when Owan opened his mouth to add on. “We’ve given him enough to think about this eve.”
Owan nodded and turned back to the fire without argument. Vor sat back down on the stool and took one of Snow’s feet in his hands.
“I can do this,” Snow whispered. “We are all equal here, are we not?”
The corners of Vor’s lips curled slightly before he murmured, “You and he are not the same, Little Prince. Had you’d been like Klaus, the offer of help would’ve never been made.”
Snow blushed as Vor took his foot again. As Shen and Vor continued to pick at the many thorns and briars, a question circled loudly in his mind. “Am I now a prisoner here, as well?”
“Hold your peace,” Vor murmured softly. “Only the wizard can curse you to this prison. He comes rarely to the cottage. In all my years, he’s only stepped foot inside this abode thrice. You’ll be safe tonight.”
Snow wasn’t sure he felt safe. “You have a jailor who rarely inspects his prison? That makes no sense.”
“Nothing here makes sense,” Hwa replied.
“The only times I’ve seen the wizard are when Hwa and I were first captured and when one of us has made an attempt to escape,” Shen said. “It seems that as long as we remain here and do what we are tasked, he leaves us alone. If not, he’s upon us within minutes.”
“What are you tasked?” Snow asked.
“Chopping down trees,” Vor replied.
“Trees that reappear by the morning, fully grown,” Hwa snapped, his face contorting into an angry mask. “Our punishment is never-ending, our freedom a myth.”
Snow’s frown grew. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do we,” Owan replied.
“I was the first,” Vor said. He pointed halfheartedly towards the door.
“After my capture, I was handed that axe and told to clear the forest for the wizard’s new tower with promises that I would be freed when I’d finished.
I refused to do his bidding, though. As I walked away, he cast a spell upon me, one where either I chopped down his trees, or I endured a pain so great and terrible, it would be like Hell itself.
Even after I was bewitched, I fought against it, but the pain grew excruciating.
” Vor winced. “It broke me. I thought I might die then and there. It only stopped when I gripped his silver axe and plunged it into the trunk of a tree. I kept cutting to avoid feeling that nightmare again.”
Vor paused, scrubbing a palm over his face and scratching at his stubble, his unfixed gaze traveling past Snow, as if he replayed the evil in his mind. The others remained silent, their expressions suggesting they understood that pain all too well.
“Once he seemed assured I would work diligently, he left me alone to my labors. I thought him senseless and laughed at his foolhardiness,” Vor said, his gaze returning to Snow’s.
He scoffed, his chuckle dry and without humor.
“Straightaway, I attempted escape, chopping down trees along my path to avoid the pain, but I found invisible barriers on all sides imprisoning me to one part of the forest. I couldn’t break through to the other side, to freedom.
So I focused on cutting down his trees as quickly as I could, in hopes I’d free myself that way, but that ended up an impossible feat, as well. The trees grew back.”
“There must be a way to break the spell,” Snow said.
“Perhaps, but without magical knowledge, what are we to do? None here have the skill.” Vor said. “Escape, on the other hand, seemed more probable. It took me years and the help of most of these men, but we’ve mapped the entire boundary, searching for weaknesses. We’ve yet to find a way out.”
“We have all sought escape in a myriad of ways, trying everything imaginable to spring us from this trap,” Hwa said. “Nothing we’ve attempted has worked thus far.”
“Either we cut—or we die,” Owan muttered.
Snow gasped. “You’d actually die if you stopped?”
“Ask our eighth alpha,” Hwa said. “Oh, wait—you can’t. He refused to cut one day, claiming he was stronger than the pain. By the time we returned to the cottage that evening, his body was as cold as the winter’s ice.”
Snow stared at Hwa dumbfounded.
“So we chop down the trees,” Shen said, pulling Snow’s focus to him. “Hoping for the day we find a way out—or the day we choose to end the suffering for good.”
Snow cringed. That they might choose death over the life they were forced to lead caused the blood in his veins to turn cold.
“But his purpose? What is it? He wanted to build a tower on the cleared land but can’t if the trees return.
There has to be something else. Something he gains from your continued imprisonment and labor.
Learning that might lead to its undoing. ”
The alphas shrugged, clearly as confused by that as Snow.
“Besides breaking our spirit?” Vor asked before his jaw set tightly.
“Control?” Owan asked. “Perhaps alphas wronged him in the past and he’s taking his vengeance out on us. He didn’t have power then, but he does now.” Owan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as any of ours.”