Chapter 42

Aurora

I can no longer tell day from night; I just know the light never come on. I’m in a cell of sorts with thick metal walls, only a few feet wide in each direction, enough to stick my arms out and tough my fingertips on either wall. When I sleep, I curl into a ball on the floor, my back pressed against a corner, and I watch the solid door, waiting to see if maybe today it will open.

Xander hasn’t come by. I don’t know what I expected, or what will happen to me, but even weak and depleted, I can still smell Luke’s scent sometimes. It gives my wolf hope, and it heals my hurt heart. If this is all I have, then I guess I will have to suffice.

I run my hands over my scalp, missing the feeling of my long, clean hair. At some point when I was brough here, it was cut short, into a mere stubble, and I was thrown into a thick, long shirt with nothing else to wear. I don’t know if this is meant to humiliate me, or frighten me, but both are true.

My eyes crane to the light as the door is thrown open, the room so small it almost hits me if I wasn’t quick enough to see it coming. I back up into the corner, trembling, my wolf is weary at the sight of the silhouette in the doorway, standing through the streaming light of the packhouse.

“Come here, princess,” Xander sighs, something not so harsh about his tone but rather, exhausted. He ushers me to stand, linking a hand around my upper arm, and forcing me to stand and follow his trail out of the cage. “Right here,” he hums, leading me down a narrow hallway, not a rogue pack-member in sight.

I feel my body panicking, shaking all over, as he leads me into a bedroom that reeks of his scent. He shoves me forward and locks the door, walking straight past me and into a washroom nearby where he begins taking his clothes off, piece by piece.

My heart aches, looking to the door, wondering if I could unlock it, throw it open and run before he would even have tome to realize what I am doing. I don’t attempt it though. I can’t leave without Luke and even though I catch a brief whiff of his scent time to time, I don’t actually know where he is.

“If you run, you will get hurt,” calls Xander from the washroom.

I don’t doubt that threat.

“Come here,” he adds, his tone stilted by the sounds of water sloshing around.

I make my way toward him now, pacing into the doorway to see him stark naked, head laid back over the edge of the bathtub. My chest seizes at the sight, wondering what he is planning to do with me while he is naked in the bathtub.

He throws me a bottle of shampoo and I take the hint, kneeling by the head of the bathtub and squeezing some into my palms. I reach up and begin to run my fingers through his scalp, his body relaxing into the warm water with a deep exhale.

“Princess,” he hums, half falling asleep as I methodically move my fingers through his curly, light hair. “You might be of better use to me than I thought.”

I only nod, keeping my tears to swell in my eyes but refusing to let them fall. I can’t keep crying. It only turns him on.

“Tell me this,” he huffs, tipping his head to the side so his cheek rests on the edge of the bathtub. My eyes catch his, something so depleted in his soul, same as mine. “Did it hurt when you rejected my pitiful, mutt brother?”

I swallow hard, knowing he is toying with me again, but I might as well be honest. “Yes, Alpha,” I admit, trying to play nice. I don’t want to feed into his ego but if I don’t, I know he will only get that satisfaction by hurting me, screaming for me to call him that disgusting, false title.

He hums, a fresh smile spread onto his lips to let me know I chose the right path in kissing up to him for now. “Tell me about it,” he commands. “Don’t spare a trivial, single detail.”

“I rejected him a few days ago,” I groan, still sore from the ache it caused me. “I was poisoned the night of the blue moon gala and he told everyone I died so he could find out who was responsible. We thought it was your fault.”

I pause, grabbing a warm, wet rag and dampening it in the water to spill over his hair, careful not to let it drip down his face. He groans, pleased by my methodical movements.

“Eventually, it was days, then a week where we would go without linking one another. I figured he was moving on, or at least just trying to buy time that we can’t afford. I rejected him and the pack,” I say, clenching to my stomach with one hand, the other finding the conditioner and lathering it into his curls. “I made a mistake, kissed Luke, and Jaxson was furious through the link.”

“Yes, I can imagine,” he says, laughing softly, his eyelids relaxed shut.

I ponder shifting right here and slicing his throat with one hit.

He’d never see it coming.

But honestly, no matter what happens to me, I don’t have it in me to kill someone.

“Keep going,” he says, his jaw locking through his words.

“I felt bad, but I think Jaxson stopped caring about me, anyways. I was surprised he felt the kiss through the link. We’ve been apart for over a month now without much communication lately,” I say, pondering how long I’ve been with Xander here, but I know better than to steer off topic. “It burned in my chest, like I drank fire.”

I stifle a cry, the pain so fresh in my mind that it still twinges at my wolf.

He only laughs, arms hanging off the edges of the tub, kicked back and so relaxed while I feel like I’ve gone days without food. At least this time I don’t have to drink a potion to break the mind-link to Jaxson. I have already done that for him.

He sighs heavily, soothed with my pain.

I can’t help my curiosity anymore. “What are you going to do with me, Alpha?”

I watch his excitement flicker, like a tease, and it makes me wish I didn’t feel the need to feed into his ego but right now, it’s the best way to stay alive. “I’m going to keep you around,” he says simply, shrugging in the steamy, bubbly bath water. “You will do whatever I say, and I will parade you right under my half-brother’s nose so he will concede, and I will kill him.”

“Then what?” I ask, sure that he wouldn’t kill Jaxson, but my mind cannot escape the horrid possibility. “What will you do with me then?”

“Then you will be my little consort,” he hums, amused at my cries of dread.

If anything, I’ve learned that while Xander is crazy, horrible, and downright filthy, one thing has been made clear to me tonight. He doesn’t plan on killing me.