Chapter 101
Thorne’s POV
“Why hasn’t my sight been fully restored?” I growl, lifting my hand in front of my face. A shadowy blur moves where I know my hand should be as I wait for Anders’s answer.
“It’s difficult to tell, but the fact that you can see shadows is a good sign,” he says from my right. When I look up, I see the large blob that is his body.
“It’s not enough,” I hiss, standing. My body sways, still weak from the poison even though it’s been a day and a half. I’ve been having nightmares and dreams about Aurora never returning, and it’s starting to drive me crazy.
Anders sighs and touches my shoulder.
“I understand, but you can’t go running off to save your mate if you can’t see. Need I remind you that when night falls you won’t even be able to see shadows?” Anders asks, and I growl. I don’t need the reminder.
I’m the one who has gone blind.
“The moment my sight returns, I will be searching for my mate.”
Aurora’s POV
My body hurts, and at the same time, it doesn’t. It feels heavy and numb, like it’s slowly being dragged into the depths of a pool of mud. The further down I’m dragged, the colder and more hollow I feel.
Every question they asked disappears as the thin man’s words sear themselves into my mind.
“Your Alpha is dead.”
“He’s dead.”
“He’s gone. Forever.”
“Dead. Dead. Dead.”
“We killed him.”
I curl further into the corner of my cell and press my hands tighter over my ears, trying to block out his voice. It’s like he’s right in my ear, laughing at my pain.
A loud clang from the front of the cell makes me jump and look up.
“Food,” a man calls out as a plastic tray of food is shoved into the cell. I glare at the man as he takes the uneaten tray from hours ago. Or at least I think it was hours ago. He hasn’t come for a while, and there doesn’t seem to be a pattern to his timing. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.
There are no windows to tell me if it’s day or night, and he doesn’t come often enough to know if he’s bringing breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The food is the same soupy substance as before, and I scoot back into my corner.
My stomach growls in protest, but I merely wrap my arms around myself and pull my good leg up to my chest. After they drugged me, I’m not taking any chance of it happening again. I need to be more alert and aware, and I’m already failing at that because I keep getting sucked into my thoughts.
Every time they come to question me, they ask the same questions. I give the same answers. They hurt me when they believe like the answers I give.
Has it been hours… days… since I woke up tied to that chair? I don’t know, actually. Time seems like it isn’t moving, making me feel stuck.
It could have been days since I was taken, and I wouldn’t know.
With each passing minute, though, I realize these people are going to end up killing me if someone doesn’t show up to save me. If there’s even anyone left to come save me.
My heart squeezes at the thought, and I curl my fingers into my palms, digging my nails in. Thorne can’t really be dead, can he? He’s strong and has people like Anders and Jace who would save him before he dies… right?
There were just so many rogues attacking him, and then he looked so hurt when I last saw him that…
Shaking my head, I try to think of all the reasons and ways that Thorne could be alive because that’s the only piece of hope I have. If he’s gone, everything else is pointless. I won’t have anyone to save me, I’ll be alone, and I’ll probably die in the thin man’s hands.
He has to be alive.
I have to believe that he’ll come for me.
“Ready for more fun, little princess?”
I jump at the scratchy sound of the thin man’s voice. The squeak that falls from my lips is traitorous when I see him standing over me with a syringe in his hand.
“Come on,” he says, hauling me up. My right leg instantly gives out beneath me, the bone throbbing and making me cry out. “Oh, come now. You’ll heal soon. I didn’t mean to break your leg in our last round of questioning. It was just a happy accident.”
Pain flares and races up my leg and into my chest, sending bile into my throat as he drags me back to the chair. I can’t fight back as he ties my arms down. He doesn’t bother with my legs, since they’re pretty much useless.
“Hold her head,” the thin man says to his helper. “I don’t want her biting me again.”
The man comes around and grabs me by my hair, yanking my head back. Pain sears at my scalp as he pulls so hard that I feel some of my hair rip from my skin.
“I’m just taking more blood to test,” the thin man says. “I’ve found some interesting anomalies in your blood, princess.”
I growl at him, not wanting to seem as weak as I am.
He smirks that chilling smirk and nods to the man behind me. Something sharp pricks at my neck, and I gasp before that heavy, dull feeling washes over me again. The man behind me releases my hair and reaches past me.
With the last bit of consciousness, I turn my head and sink my teeth into his wrist. I feel my canine teeth elongate, and I rip my head back.
He screams, something slams into the side of my head, and darkness takes over.
Pain is all I feel.
Pain in my head. Pain in my leg. Pain in my chest.
However, the longer I lay here, the less pain I feel… until it flares to life somewhere new.
“There’s no question anymore,” someone says.
When I open my eyes, light blinds me, burning my eyes. I try to lift my hand to block it out, but something around my wrist keeps me from moving. I try the other hand, then my feet. They move slightly, but they’re strapped down too.
“Looks like she’s awake,” someone says just before the thin man leans over me and blocks the light with his body.
“Where am I?”
He grins, and the sight makes me sick. “You’re in my lab. While I run tests on your blood, I want to test your healing ability. You seem to be healing faster now than you were when you first arrived.”
“So?” I snap, wishing he would lean a little closer so I can tear his throat out with my teeth. Like I did to that guard’s wrist.
I pause at the violent thought but push my fear back. It’s him or me, and I’ll choose me every time.
Just a little closer.
A little more.
The thin man pulls back, standing up, and I growl. I let my annoyance replace the fear that I continually shove deeper down. Fear won’t help me now.
“Ready?”
I don’t answer, just bare my teeth at him as he leans and slices my arm open from elbow to wrist. Gritting my teeth, I hiss from the pain, blink back the tears, and watch as the wound slowly closes back up.
As if time was reversed, the skin seals itself like there was never an injury in the first place.
“You heal so fast, which means you definitely have Lycan blood,” the thin man cackles, lifting a pair of pliers and moving toward my fingers. “I can’t wait to see what else you can heal from.”
