TWO

Kane

CLINKING OF METAL WAS the first thing I heard that morning. Then, the voices started. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they got closer. Some were heavy, where others were light. It was hard to discern what they wanted. Footsteps clattered about the base of the cage I sat in, my feet and hands bound by silver chains.

I had been alone for days, experiencing the worst kind of torture imaginable. Ever since they injected me with a strange white liquid, I lost his voice — something I had come accustomed to hearing and knowing I was safe. Oliver was my inner wolf, my brother, my companion.

I shifted my weight inside the cage, trying to get a little more comfortable.

The cloth tarp they had thrown over my cage was yanked off, and a blazing bright light cast down upon me. Raising my hands, I tried to shield the light when I noticed the feet of a dozen or so dragonthorns outside the age, their champagne glasses clinking. An enthusiastic balding man in a tailored blue suit spoke to them as if I were a piece of art, announcing that the first ever werewolf was to be auctioned off.

I growled.

A few jumped back and then snickered. One took their glass and splashed the champagne at me.

Yanking on the chains, I leaned further back in the cage, my back pressing against the cool silver bars. Their faces gleamed with power as they called out bidding amounts. Four-thousand. Ten-thousand. Twenty-thousand. My throat seized. They were fighting over me like I were a toy they could buy.

A young man with chubby cheeks stepped closer to the cage, midnight violet markings painted onto his alabaster skin striking a familiar chord in my memory; that shade of purple was reserved for the royal family.

“One-hundred million,” the man said, voice sharp as glass. His scarlet eyes never wavered from mine.

My mind didn’t have time to react. The auctioneer called out last-minute chances before giving the bid to the royal man, who stood straight and smiled down at me. With a flick of his wrist, the auctioneer addressed that my time was cut short. The cloth covered the cage again, and I felt the cage jerk.

Wheels ground over wood as the cage drifted through whatever maze I was in. With an abrupt stop, soft whimpers of other captives echoed loudly over the silence. It was dark, save for the bits of light that swung from above.

In my head, I counted the moments of silence. One. Two. Three. It kept stretching on forever.

Finally, a voice boomed from a ways down. I didn’t dare inch forward. My breath felt shallow, thick like lead. I touched the chains around my feet. This was it. I was going to die.

My pack was going to lose me. Their heir dead and slaughtered for sport.

Snapping my eyes closed, I waited. The cloth was pulled away once more, and the flickering light of a white light bulb danced overhead. Standing outside the cage were two burly men, one with a silver taser and the other with a black gun and a set of keys in hand. He slipped the key into the lock, a nasty sneer on his face, and turned the key.

The cage door swung open, and the man reached inside, grabbing at the chains. My body went rigid as the chains yanked forward, and my back slid from the bars to the hard silver floor, and then I found myself outside the cage, the taser pressed to my neck. One switch and I was done for.

“Looks like we get to carve a wolf pelt,” the man with the gun said.

A growl rumbled in the back of my throat, and the taser lit up. In an instant, my entire body spasmed, back arching, fingers coiling into contorted positions as my teeth ground together from the icy hot electrodes coursing through my body.

The smell of burnt hair was the first thing to render me conscious again. I laid on the stone floor, mind reeling. A pair of dark leather shoes came into view. Then, his voice.

“What is going on? He’s my wolf.”

My eyes drifted to peer upwards as my body had yet to regain the ability to move. Spasms and twitches still racked me. The man who had bought me towered over me and pointed a finger toward something.

“Were you going to kill my property? That’s seventy years in prison for harming a royal’s maspet! You’re lucky I don’t kill you myself,” he snapped.

Glancing down at me, his coldness faded into a look that perplexed me. Was that concern? He crouched down, touched my face, and then ran his hand down to my shoulder. He spoke a simple word in an unfamiliar language. Warmth spread over me, and I could taste ginger pastries.

Behind the man stood a tall male with weathered tan skin and peridot green eyes hidden beneath sunflower blond curls. He placed a hand on the saber at his side.

“Prince Dante, we must meet up with Anton. It’s of dire emergency,” the blond said.

The royal nodded his head, dark locks falling around his face. “Understood, Mason. Carry my maspet.”

The blond man, who appeared to be a guard, grumbled, but crouched next to him and grabbed my arm, still twitching from the taser. He picked me up as gently as one would toss a rock at a window. My fingers itched and twitched when I tried to move them. How badly I wanted to rip out Mason’s throat.

“Take it easy, wolf,” the royal said. He pulled a black glove onto his hand. “I eased some of the tension, so you’ll be able to walk again in a few minutes.”

He briskly strode forward, and I laid there helplessly in Mason’s arms as he walked behind. The corridors were endless, with cages stacked upon cages and the stench of urine and feces filling the air.

The royal paused mid-step as a younger man stepped out from the shadows, face ashen and streaked with blood. His russet-brown hair was matted, and he pointed toward a hatch in the floor.

“Prince Dante,” he gasped, voice choking with agony, “His Highness needs your medical expertise.”

Dante’s stoic expression dropped. He dashed forward, feet barely hitting the floor as he ran for the hatch. He tore it open with great ferocity, and my body lurched forward. A scent like fresh peppermint cookies wafted through the air. My skin tingled, as if invisible insects were crawling along its surface. I stopped breathing, and let the scent envelop me.

Without even thinking, my body moved on its own, tearing from Mason’s arms and dropping to the floor with a thud. A single word left my lips.

“Mate.”