Chapter 14: 14: Chapter 14

LEAH

“How can you be alive?” The shock of seeing her familiar face is establishing itself within me.

“You can thank your mate for that,” she replies with an evil grin on her face. She pushes me forward through the tunnel until we stop in what appears to be a larger space, like a separate room in the tunnel. Along the walls, I see several cells with prison bars as doors. I glimpse a body lying in one of the cells before she pushes me to the far end of the room.

“What do you mean?” I ask breathlessly, turning to face her and discovering that we are not alone. I see Camille with her characteristic white hair standing by the large wooden door that Lilly just pushed me through to get to the cells. I can also see the big rogue woman I encountered outside the hospital standing beside her, snickering quietly.

“Yes, the king spared me after my betrayal, but his punishment was to banish me from the pack. I was thrown out with nothing more than the clothes on my body. It’s a wonder I survived the first nights. I froze, and the deepest hunger was screaming inside me. A king should be merciful! But he showed no consideration when he threw me out of the castle!” Her voice trembles with anger, and spit hurls out of her mouth as she screams at me.

“Lilly… You betrayed us! You betrayed ME! You should be thankful that the king spared you, don’t you get that?”

Her gaze blackens. “Grateful, you say?” She takes a few threatening steps toward me and I instinctively back off. The petite little girl I once knew as my handmaid is now replaced by this harsh, cold person. “Should I be grateful for all the horrible deeds I had to do to get food in my stomach? Grateful for all the obnoxious men who took advantage of me when I was without a pack? Grateful that all that drives me is my hatred of you two?” Her eyes are pitch black with swirls of red inside of them.

Oh my god, she’s gone crazy…

Lilly pushes me into the nearest cell, three cells away from the one that has a body lying in it. She slams the metal bar door before spitting at me. I barely have time to back away when the spit lands on the stone floor in front of me.

I take a few steps forward to peek out through the grate as she walks away from me. I see how they are dragging an unconscious Boris into one of the cells opposite me. His body lies still on the floor, with slight hints of his chest rising and falling. I feel sorry for him; he hasn’t had it easy in the short time that he has been my guard.

Lilly and Camille are crouched against each other farther by the door; only small torches burning on the wall light up the room. I can’t hear what they’re saying when they suddenly glance over at me. Camille’s eyes flash with what can only be interpreted as evil before she and Lilly leave the room. They close the large wooden gate behind them, and I hear several locks being turned. There are no windows here, and I therefore have no idea what time it is. Nor can I manage to contact Ares through our bond, surely because of a spell that Camille has created.

“John?” I whisper as I press my face against the metal bars to try to look toward the cell the body is in.

“John!” I try again but louder this time, my gaze flickering between the large wooden door and the other cell.

I sigh heavily, and with my back against the cold stone wall, I sink to the floor. I hug my knees tightly against my body, the cold from the cell slowly begins to invade my body. The realization that I am all by myself here, without being able to contact anyone, weighs on me and I sob. My heart aches. I miss Ares, but at the same time, I’m furious with him.

How could he hide this information from me? He spared Lilly last year but banned her from our pack! Did he spare her for my sake? My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a sound similar to someone dragging themselves across the stone floor.

“John?!” I quickly get up, grab the cold bars, and press my face against them to try to look in his direction.

“Le… Your Majesty?” His voice is rough, and it sounds as if he is in pain.

“Are you okay? Are you injured?” I hold the bars tightly as I listen to John who is trying to get up in a sitting position from the floor of his cell.

“No…no, I’m okay. I think they’ve drugged me…” He coughs, and I close my eyes tightly, worried that he’s worse off than he wants to acknowledge to me. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

I sigh heavily. “I walked into the trap… Boris and I followed your voice, you called out for me, but now that I’m thinking about it, it was probably just one of Camille’s tricks to lure us into the tunnel.”

“Why…why did you follow the calling? Where is Boris?”

I tell him everything that happened up until now, John listens quietly and then sighs deeply when I’m done.

“You shouldn’t have come here…”

“I couldn’t leave you!”

“I’m no one to you, Leah, I’m no one to anyone, you should have let me rot here in my solitude. They won now that you’re here. They will use you to hurt the king. I’ve heard Camille and Lilly talk about how Camille wants to be the one to end your life. After last year when Jake had taken you to the cave, Camille had started doing research on your life, Leah… She’s after you because of your dad.”

I press my forehead against the cold bars. “What do you mean? My dad is dead.”

“Yes, but he’s apparently a descendant of some royal bloodline that she has a vendetta against… You are the last living descendant of that bloodline right now.”

I don’t know what to say, so I keep quiet. Nervous beads of sweat form on my forehead. What the hell does he mean by my dad being of royal blood? I only have a few memories of my father: how he and my mother used to laugh in the kitchen when they cooked together, his warm hands scratching my back when I couldn’t fall asleep.

“Leah? Sorry, Your Majesty?” John’s voice is tainted by nervousness.

“Mmm…I’m still here,” I reply, laughing at the thought that I could be somewhere else since I’m stuck here. “By the way, you can call me Leah, it’s just Ares who doesn’t want people calling me by my name. I have no problem with you calling me Leah.”

“I know,” he begins hesitantly. “But it’s not respectful of me if I call you that.”

“I think we’re past respectful greetings now, John. We are stuck in a cold and dirty cell under the castle, without anyone knowing where we are,” I say dejectedly.

“Don’t worry, Leah… I will get us out of this situation, I promise you that.”

A small smile escapes me. John, injured and broken, yet so noble that he will be my savior no matter the situation. I was about to say something when the locks on the wooden gate started to sound. I take a few steps away from the bars and into the darkness of my cell, but with my eyes locked toward the wooden door.

Lilly enters the room with two shopping bags in her hands. When the torch lights up her face, I immediately see how worn she looks to be. Scars from tear marks light up on one of her cheeks, dark circles under her eyes, and her hair is dry and damaged. The clothes she is wearing are dirty and she has become, if possible, even skinnier than she was before. Her shuffling steps echo out against the walls, and I take further steps backward in my cell as she approaches. She looks at me with disgust as she throws in a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a small bottle of water.

“Dinner is served, Your Majesty,” she says wryly, bowing with a wicked grin on her lips.

My gaze follows her as she throws food to Boris who is still lying unconscious, and I hear her throw something to John who stays quiet.

The large gate creaks loudly as she shuts it behind her, followed by the sound of the locks closing again.

I sigh as I bend down to pick up the sandwich.

“Don’t eat it, Leah. I think they’ve drugged me through the food I’ve been given.”

I hold the sandwich in my hand as I twist and turn it. My stomach rumbles loudly; I haven’t eaten since breakfast this morning.

“Okay, I won’t eat it,” I say as I walk with heavy steps farther into my cell to hide the sandwich in one of those corners that aren’t lit by the torches outside.

“We will get out of this, I promise Leah, I promise you that I will do anything to get us out of here.” He tries to be steady in his voice, but I notice a hint of hesitation.