Chapter Four

The beast's eyes glittered in the split second it took for our gazes to lock before the fur snapped back around his pale skin and he bounded towards me, the slap of his footfalls on the cave’s stone floor loud enough that it froze me in place.

“Get away from me! No! I am not going back there! Mmph!” I screamed wildly, pumping my legs as hot hands encircled my midriff and lifted me from the floor.

This was it, this was the day Nola Reynolds would die.

 Sam had always said it was my curiosity that’d do me in the end. 

The blood pounded hot in my ears as my heart beat a jagged dirge, but the beast remained silent. 

I felt a wave of vertigo hit as he carted me off into the deep slanted shadows, through a hidden corridor I hadn’t seen before. 

“Stop! Where are you taking me?” I shrieked, unable to control the note of fear in my voice. I didn’t want him to think I was frightened of him! It was the one thing uncle Ben taught us- Sam and me after our parents died.

“Round these here parts, fear’s like a drop of blood in shark turf, they get one whiff of it and they hunt you down! Might as well jump in head first and be done with it.” Uncle Ben had boomed our first night on the dinner table, A wicked glint in his swamp water eyes with his bald head glinting ominously in the yellow candescence of the low-light overhead chandelier.

I’d promptly lost my appetite after that, dreaming instead of human-legged sharks that chased after me and took great, chunky bites out of my derrière.

Silence. 

I struggled to upend the thick fingers that pressed into the soft of my abdomen almost painfully before he let out a warning growl and I froze again.

Something about his scent, the smell of freshly upturned earth and the musk of testosterone were making my eyes swim in my head, dizzy.

Goosebumps collided on my exposed arms when I remembered the sounds, the cracking of his transformation!

No wolf should be allowed to move like that! 

Dennis and the girls! They must have heard me scream and assumed the worst! 

Fucking hell, why couldn’t he just have killed me already? 

My back was hot and it pressed against the hard lines of a chest that felt like it’d been cut out of stone and slapped on the beast.

Because whatever he was, sure as a firecracker up the asshole- he was not your average hillbilly from the wild west.

I could make out the icicle stalagmites in the dark that dropped like obscene crystal beauty from the roof of the cave as we approached a door. 

The wolfman hadn’t dropped me yet, but somehow, it was less painful. Nothing like near-death experiences to put things in perspective if you ask me.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked and instead, he threw open the huge oak wood door that I could see was reinforced with steel, even in the dark.

Talk about a warm welcome.

The hands released me from its prison to the cushiony lumps of a bunk mattress.

I whipped my head to the door again when his footfalls receded with frightened disbelief.

“You’re one of those psychos who like to torture innocent girls aren’t you?” I spat caustically and watched the straight shadow of his back pause as he tilted his head to the side as though to turn to me, the branch of twigs on it snapping unnervingly before I braced myself, squeezing my eyes shut.

The click of the door lock engaging had me scrambling out of bed to test the cool brass of the knob, pushing my shoulder against it and wincing painfully when it stayed shut. 

I didn’t know what I thought was going to happen anyway, I was a low-class wolf, not some iron-bending, demi-god true-blood.

“There has to be a way out of here!” The soft notes of my whisper sounded feline and unsure even to my ears.

I couldn’t see much in the dark room, but I could make out the shape of what looked like a cedar wood dresser and the unstable metal of a prisoner bunk bed that rattled noisily when I put my weight on it.

What kind of psycho puts a poor girl in a windowless room?

The kind that doesn’t want you to escape Nola, don’t be silly! Ugh!

 I mean it WAS smart, considering I’d have chipped away at the glass with my tooth for all it was worth until I was old and wrinkly and all my teeth had fallen to bony stumps at my feet.

Something crawled over my hand on the foam and I let out an ungodly screech, scrambling off the Dias and shaking out my hand wildly.

Hell to the fucking no! I needed to find a way out of here quickly. I resumed my search, frantic now as cobwebs stuck to my face when I pressed my palm into the uneven insides of the cave room, my teeth chattering as I dug my fingers into the stone until it was raw and tender.

I’d heard of secret tunnels before, one of the stones had to give surely? 

“Fuck!” I cried, managing to swallow past the lump in my throat. I was okay in tight spaces, for the first few seconds, but the anxiety of claustrophobia tended to grow on one after the adrenaline had worn off, seizing the throat at shaking the person’s form delightedly-I was the person, that person was me.

“Let me out of here you bastard!” I screamed at the unimpressed iron of the door, rattling its frame before banging on it and freezing when something, someone whistled on the other side.

There were enemies in this place, I couldn’t very well tarry here like some badly scripted Rapunzel princess waiting until whenever the fuck dawn broke.

Do something, Nola! But what?

I turned back to the room in a frenzy, it could just have been me, but I was almost certain I’d heard something scurry across the floor.

That was what got you killed in the highlands, turning your back to the threat and having your heart clawed out of it and grilled fresh for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

I heaved a deep breath that fogged up in my face as I counted to three-might have been four or five- and bounded across the small space, jumping maniacally on the bed and tucking my legs in under me.

Because not today Satan!

I realized then that help was not coming, no knight in shining armour was going to chisel through the cave rock and scoop me up in his arms, slaying the beast and dashing for the mountains where we’d live happily ever after. At least not in this dreadfully frigid weather. It was all the same anyway, I sucked at mountain climbing, even for a wolf.

Sam! My brother’s name made the hollow in my chest heavy with dread, he wouldn’t eat well with me gone, and those village bullies would close in on him again like flies closing in on diabetic diarrhoea.

Fucking pigs!

“No!…get away from…help!….Nola-“ The distant caw of a girl’s shout reached my ears and I scrambled out of bed again to bang on the door, before pressing my ears to it, the ring of the silence that followed twisting my heart to an unhealthy knot in my chest.

“Amelia? Dennis!… Layla is that you?” I screamed, flexing my ears to listen to the air and knocking a hand to my ribs as a wave of dizziness fell over me.

How long had we been in the beast’s den? Would the village Alpha be looking for us too? Even if it was just the bones they were after?

I had zero doubts that Alpha Romero would chain us and throw us back to the beast if we ever made it out and back to the village. What with his pompous air and slick black hair that I suspected had too much of whatever gel liquid he used? It was horrendous! 

“The fuck does he know bout sacrifice!” I cursed bitterly, remembering Alpha Theo’s fancy little speech before reigning in a scream.

My feet, bare on the floor! I’d forgotten all about the feet of fungus that were roaming wild on the cave floors in my anticipation.

I scurried back to the foam, flicking my eyes over the shadows I could make out, the weight of exhaustion pulling me taut like dried-out tea bags.

I would close my eyes for a minute or two, then I would wake up and figure out how the hell I was going to get the fuck out of there.