Chapter 13 Elias #2
The boy, maybe older than me by a few years, fell to the ground in a heap, blood spilling from three long wounds in his back.
Fear crashed into me when the eyes of Watcher fell on me. He smiled that cruel way he always did when something bad happened on the outside.
I counted the others, making sure they were still here. That between falling asleep and hearing the whip, Watcher hadn’t taken any of them.
But pack was still there. Still ten. Cowered in the corners of their cages, hiding from the male who only brought us pain.
“Who here wants to give it a try?” the demon urged, his voice tainted with eager cruelness. “Who wants to make me proud?”
No one made a sound. It was either that or the pain of the whip.
Pain by shift, or pain at his hand.
“They aren’t going to shift that way,” another said. His voice was deep, easy to recognise. He liked to witness the pain sometimes. Came in with Watcher but did nothing to stop him.
We called him Warden. He kept us here while Watcher got to unleash his power upon us.
“You think so?” Watcher questioned, turning to Warden. “I think if they feel enough fear, their beasts should take over. Protect them.”
Warden shook his head. “You’re a demon. You don’t know the instincts of a shifter.” He pushed off the far wall and entered my line of sight; he had coarse, long hair neatly pulled back, the scruff of a beard, and he was larger than Watcher, with muscles that were bigger than me.
“They won’t shift from pain. They need their beasts to be brought out by an alpha.” Warden’s dark eyes flickered over us all. “They’ve been together too long and won’t answer to either of us.”
Watcher grunted, slamming the door of the cage shut and stepping away from the bleeding boy within. “Aren’t you a fucking Alpha?”
“I am,” Warden replied. “But they’ve already created a pack amongst themselves. I told you and him not to keep them together.”
“Our king doesn’t answer to you,” Watcher seethed. “Make it better. He wants them shifted and integrated. If you think you can pull their beasts out, then do it.”
With that, Watcher left, the doors slamming shut behind him. Warden didn’t react. He remained still, with his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t seem to care that the boy continued to weep from his wounds, that his blood covered him, and that the others were afraid. He eyed each of us instead.
When the weight of his stare landed on me, I didn’t move. I felt the presence of something else. A push inside my mind that shifted to a tug inside my chest. And then—
I woke with a start, heart pounding. Pain and fear radiated through my body, tight around my muscles. Each breath felt harsh, laboured as I took in the room.
There were no bars, no cages. No children naked and huddled in corners. No demon with a whip watching over me and no bear shifter wanting us to shift.
“What happened?”
I turned sharply to the person beside me. It took me too long to realise that the scent—vanilla and ocean air—belonged to someone I knew. Not a memory from my past, but someone from now. Someone I trusted—that wouldn’t hurt me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, the memories coming back in flashes. My mouth went dry at the sight of him.
“Cyrus,” I said, voice hoarse. “He—fuck.”
“Drink.” When I opened my eyes, Grey was holding out a glass of water. I took it without a word and gulped it down, letting the cool liquid calm some of the pain and fear still threatening to take hold of me.
When I was done, I handed it back to her. It was only then I realised we weren’t alone.
The demon king stood in one corner, arms folded over his chest, watching me with a blank expression.
On the other side of the bed, Archer sat with his head in his hands, unmoving.
“Cyrus was with Dante and you,” Grey said, her voice startling me. I glanced at her, noticing the red ringing her blue eyes. “That’s what you remembered.”
I swallowed thickly as I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied, sitting back. My head hit the headboard, eyes drifting to the ceiling. “He was there. When I was a child, I called him the warden. He was one of the guards who watched over us.”
“Us?” Archer asked. I glanced at him as he lifted his head. “There were other children?”
I nodded once. “Ten of us, at least I think there were. I knew about ten.” My pack, I’d considered them. Cyrus knew we had an alpha, and I realised that might have been me. It was why I’d never joined a pack before, why no one wanted me. I already had my own. “They needed us to shift.”
“That is barbaric,” Rhadamanthus said, pushing off the wall. “How old do you suspect you were?”
“Too young to be shifting.” I thought my first shift happened when I was twelve. I remembered it clearly; the breaking of my bones, the moment my wolf rose to the surface and took control.
But was that wrong? Had I shifted earlier than that?
Had Cyrus somehow made me shift when I was no older than five?
“They had to be young, between the ages of five and ten,” Grey answered for me, her face carefully blank.
It was the first time since we’d returned from the Old World that she seemed to be back to her old, team leader self.
“Elias was one of the younger ones, I assume, based on his file. I think he might have escaped not long after these memories. The eldest was a bear shifter, a few years older than him. There were three young girls. Seven boys, Elias included. One child half shifted, could have been on the older side with how they’d managed the shift. ”
Rhadamanthus shook his head, while Archer made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Do we know where Cyrus is? He needs to be brought in, unless he’s been on Dante’s side this entire time and is back with him now.”
My stomach sank. “I’ll try to contact him,” I said. “I don’t—”
I ran a hand through my hair before scrubbing it down my face like I could wipe away the memories still clinging to the edges of my consciousness.
Was it possible he’d been working with Dante this whole time?
“Did I really escape, or did they release me?” I asked, dropping my hand. “Because if Cyrus was there, then mentored me at Phoenix…”
“Then he could have become a sleeper agent at Dante’s request. Infiltrated the compound, helped lay the groundwork for Dante’s takeover,” Grey finished, her eyes darkening.
“I sent him after Black,” I murmured, guilt and anger rearing its head as I considered what I’d done. “I gave him information about Ivy.”
“What if he’s on our side?” Archer asked. All eyes landed on him as he stood. “I don’t know him well. He retired when I entered training. But is it possible he could have gotten you out because he didn’t agree with Dante?”
I shook my head slowly. “Not based on the memories we’ve recovered,” I replied quietly, rubbing my eyes. “He seemed pretty on board with brutalising and forcing us to shift.”
Archer released a shaky breath. “Then he needs to join a cell alongside Hyperion.”
The thought of holding my mentor—the closest thing I had to a father—in a cell made my stomach turn. But I would do whatever it took to find Ivy.
Even if it meant hurting him in the process.