Chapter 21

A staircase twisted and turned, leading to a long corridor lined with cells. At the end of the hallway, a heavy metal door loomed. Each cell was a home to at least one battered and bruised individual, some smeared with blood.

As Shemika navigated the hallway, she sidestepped a pool of blood, bumping into a cell behind her. She spun around to find a bruised man, his face almost unrecognizable.

“Simu?” she gasped, bending down to get a closer look. It was indeed Simu, a man from Vale. She didn’t know him well, but his thick arms, bald head, and the swirling black tattoo on his upper left arm were unmistakable.

Simu barely managed to lift his head, letting out a pained groan. His eyes met Shemika’s and a tortured smile spread across his broken lips. “Mika, you’re here.”

She knelt down, reaching through the bars. “Why are you here, Simu?” she asked, her voice filled with sympathy for his severe injuries.

“Dancescu wants you back,” he groaned. “He plans to mark you the first chance…he gets.” He coughed up blood.

Shemika recoiled as Simu’s blood splattered on the cement floor. “I don’t have any plans to return. You can let him know,” she said, her voice firm.

Simu seemed to deflate at her words, the very image of a defeated hero. “This pack’s alpha has no plans to release me. I won’t tell him why I’m here, no matter how many times his brute beats me.”

“His brute?” she echoed, confusion etched on her face.

“Yes, the beast who brutalizes these men.” He gestured around at the other bloodied men.

Understanding dawned on Shemika. “Right, of course. Well, still, I am not going back to Vale,” she insisted. “If you ever return, you can tell Ylenia I said hi and tell her I’m doing fantastically,” she added, a hint of glee in her voice.

He blinked, taken aback by her statement. “Oh, right,” he finally said. “Of course you wouldn’t know,” he murmured.

“Know what?” she demanded, leaning closer to the bars.

“Ylenia’s gone,” he said.

Shemika felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “Gone?”

He nodded. “Nobody knows where she went. When you disappeared, Ylenia demanded Dancescu send out search parties immediately, but Alpha didn’t think you’d been abducted. He thought you were hiding or sulking. He thought you’d return on your own. When you didn’t, he put everyone under lockdown. Every she-wolf had a bodyguard, but in one night…Ylenia had disappeared. No trace of her, no scent trail. She’d just…disappeared.”

Huh, she must’ve gone in the night to search for witch artifacts like she always did. Or maybe she was looking for Shemika. The thought warmed her. “Why are you here though?”

“After she disappeared, Dancescu sent me, Avram, and Ionut out in different directions to search for you two. I don’t know about the other two’s luck, but I was captured the moment I set foot into this pack’s territory,” he said, his voice heavy with shame.

She’d been captured quickly as well. Damn. “I don’t think I’ll be able to help you escape, Simu,” she said honestly. If she even showed him kindness and tried to insist to Lyosha, the man might take offense. She was beginning to see that Lyosha was a very jealous man.

Simu sighed. “I figured, Mika. Don’t worry about it,” he croaked.

A loud scream suddenly pierced the air and Shemika’s head jerked in the direction of the door at the end of the hall. She stood slowly, forgetting about Simu entirely. She remembered her objective and trembled. She needed to end her relationship with Caturix. Shit, association.

She was worried, clearly he was already in a bad mood. Making grown men cry in agony. She moved tentatively to the door. It was as if the air around her thickened. It got harder and harder to move down the hall.

Before she got to the door, it swung open and out stepped Caturix, holding a man by the back of the neck with such ease. As if he were holding a kitten by the scruff. He was covered almost completely in blood and so was the man he held. He glared down at the man with such menace that Shemika felt like maybe he’d never scowled at her before.

His gaze raised and landed on her, and his anger softened immensely. She almost saw a smile tug at the corners of his lips and her heart skipped at…just the thought of seeing him smile.

God, no, stop. She was ending it. She needed to stop viewing him so favorably. She planned to end it right then and there but when she opened her mouth to speak, she didn’t get a single word out.

He jerked his chin in the direction of the room he’d exited from. “Wait for me,” he ordered, then he made his way past her to deposit the man back into a cell.

Shemika entered the room awkwardly and tried to just stand to the side and wait for him to return. It was a large-sized room with cement flooring as well, but a desk at the back like an office. There was a surgery table looking platform off to the side with bloodied tools on a small metal table.

Shemika shivered at the thought of their uses. He was the brute Simu had been referring to. Of course he was. He was called the punisher, why had she expected differently?

Unexpectedly, a thought struck her. She’d…never gotten to kiss him. She’d made plans to kiss him when she’d visit. She was going to end their relationship without having ever kissed him. She was sure just one little kiss would be fine by Lyosha. Considering they’d done far more before.

She’d decided then. She would end their relation-association and ask him for just one little kiss. They’d share their one little kiss, then Shemika would go back to visiting Lyosha at dinner time. She would be the trophy wife she’d always fantasized about being. The end.

Caturix entered the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Oh, uh hi, I was just coming by. Only for a moment, there have been a few more developments—”

Caturix closed the distance quickly. “Only a moment?” he said in a teasing voice, before sliding his hands behind her legs. He lifted them and wrapped them around his waist before guiding her over to his desk.