Chapter 11 Soraya

Gray walls again. Cold. The cot groaned when I tried to turn on my side.

My fingers and toes felt numb.

I couldn’t feel Orielle. I hoped she was sleeping somewhere I couldn’t reach. The quiet felt suffocating without her to talk to.

The bolt scraped again.

For fuck’s sake. What do they want now? There’s nothing left!

I didn’t move.

A hooded man slipped in. He closed the door softly.

He moved very measured, slow, and wary.

He stopped beside the cot. My eyes tracked him in the low light.

One hand lifted. Metal glinted. A syringe.

He leaned close. “Forgive me.”

Before I had time to protest, scream, or scurry backward, he caught my jaw, turned my neck, and slid the needle in.

It burned hot, then felt cold traveling through my body. It crawled fast…down my throat, across my chest, through every pore.

Muscles quit in waves. First the mouth, then the lungs, then everything. Breath stuck halfway, only a miniscule amount of air came in through my nose.

He watched. Glove pressed to my throat, waiting.

Orielle? The thought hit a wall. She was too far under or already gone.

My heart slammed once, twice, then slowed. The sound of it filled my head until that, too, dulled.

He checked my eyes—thumb on lid, one second, then nothing. Satisfied.

The sheet came up around me. He worked fast.

The world tipped sideways when he hoisted me over his shoulder.

The door opened again. Corridor air crawled in as he carried me up some steps.

“She didn’t make it,” he said.

The guard stepped up, heavy boots, heavy hands. He pressed two fingers to my neck like he’d seen others do.

“No pulse,” he said.

The hooded man’s tone left no room for questions. “Open the log, document the death.”

“Yes Sir.”

Boots echoed from farther down the hall.

Elder Selwyn’s voice came first—smooth, steady. “She’s gone? Let me be sure Alpha.”

Cold bony fingers landed on my neck like the guards before him. Then the sheet lifted from my face.

Through my blank stare, I committed his features to memory. I would come back to haunt him.

“She’s gone. Blessed be.”

Lucien’s answer stunned me, “She joins the pyre.”

The hooded man tightened his grip on me and said, “I’ll see it done.”

The simpering elder murmured something about rites and Lucien’s pending nuptials.

The hooded man carried me out the door.

I automatically tried to take a deep breath of the outside fresh air, but couldn’t. Panic set in as my eyes watched the world bounce from my position over the man’s back.

We stopped moving and I heard keys and a trunk open. He lowered me in, set the cloth to hide my face, and shut me away. Darkness folded down with a clean click.

The world turned into sound: engine hum, tires grinding gravel.

 The car lurched forward.

We stopped once. I heard a car open and slam shut a few minutes later. Then movement again. Longer this time. The hum changed from gravel to dirt under the tires.

When the car stopped again, he cut the engine and the world became quiet. The lid opened. Cold air bit through cloth. Hands pulled me out. The sheet slipped off my face and caught on my shoulder as he slung me over his shoulder again.

We climbed a small slope, carrying me like I weighed nothing. He stopped and shifted me to his chest, like how a groom carries his bride. My eyes scanned the environment. We were in the woods, some deep woods that didn’t look familiar.

Ahead of us, I saw what looked like a cave. We entered it and walked into darkness.

He laid me down.

The hood dropped back when he straightened. Gray in his hair. Lines cut deep beside his mouth. I immediately recognized the old Alpha’s second in command, Victor.

He checked my throat again, his eyes softening when mine blinked.

“Still with me,” he said. Maybe he saw the flicker in my eyes; maybe he just wanted one. “Good. I hoped you’d make it.”

My lips moved, but nothing came out.

He looked toward the cave mouth, listening, then back.

“I watched you after the ceremony. Alpha’s orders, he was concerned. You went to the fountain, then Wane Hall. You never touched the council rooms. The poison wasn’t yours.”

He said it plain, no drama. “You were innocent. I told him. Didn’t matter. Someone else killed the Alpha. You don’t deserve to die.”

The words didn’t fix the ache in my chest, but they marked something true in the dark.

“I don’t know who did it,” he said. “But I know killing and killers. You’re not one. Ansel told me about the bond.”

He reached back into the shadow and dragged my backpack forward. Set it by my hand.

“Food. Water. A map I drew. In town there’s a door with bad paint. Go at night. Inside’s a note. Do what it says.”

He paused like he expected me to argue. I couldn’t if I tried.

“Don’t dally,” he said. “Paralysis fades in a few hours. Tongue first. Legs later. When you can stand, stand. I bought you time, they think you’re dead.”

He met my eyes, voice hard. “Understand?”

I blinked twice. He exhaled like he’d been waiting for it.

“Good.” He tucked a folded paper under the strap. “If they find you, I’m dead before you are. Unless I find the real killer first.”

At the mouth of the cave, he rested one hand on the rock. “Move at night. The Pack is busy.”

He left. In the distance, I heard the motor come to life, then roll away until it was only wind and pine.

I lay still. My backpack waited beside me. The cave was cold, but I dozed anyway; waking when my lips started to tingle. One breath, then another. Pins and needles crawled down my neck, causing spasms in their wake. It almost felt like a first shift all over again.

Under my ribs, I ached. The space where Ori usually curled up and kept me safe, felt empty.

Alive. Alive and not in a cell.

Slowly, minute by minute, I moved my fingers and toes. By the time I could sit up, dusk fell, putting me directly as Victor instructed—move at night.

I reached for my pack and downed a bottle of water, realizing I probably should have sipped it.

Oh well.

Moving to my knees, I slowly rose to standing, bracing myself on the cave’s wall. The world spun for a solid minute, but then righted itself.

I secured my backpack over my shoulders and walked out of the small cave.

I grabbed the crudely drawn map and clutched it in my hand. Landmarks and arrows, good enough to get me further away from pack lands, but back to the same place they captured me in the first place.

But it’s not like I have any real choice in the matter.