1. Still A Prisoner.

~ LAYLA ~

I will not die today.

The shackles of the cold metal biting into my wrists are cruel and unforgiving. A dull ache is throbbing mercilessly deep inside the base of my skull.

I still do not want to believe the truth I currently feel deep down inside my very being, but that harsh truth keeps hitting me like a painful blow to the gut.

I am chained. I am a fucking prisoner once again, despite everything I did to ensure that I will never be in this dirty, worthless position again.

But…. something is different now.

I do not fully know where I am.

All I know and feel is that I am not in Kaliq's cage again like some rabid animal he locked up and almost turned me into.

But, I am a new prisoner in another cage nonetheless. Another cage much bigger and colder than Kaliq's.

I am in a fucking dark and stale prison cell.

Pain shoots through my wrists as I yank at the chain restraints binding my hands upwards to the wall, the clinking of the chains echoing in the small, dimly lit space. I wince when the pain returns as I yank again.

Nothing.

Nothing is happening. I am still chained. Still hanging like a crucified piece of shit.

I am still a prisoner.

I will never be free.

Despair slithers a dreadful shiver down my spine. I think about my dead parents. About my dead brother Erin.

They sacrificed their lives trying to protect me, and I made a promise to them that I will never let myself be captured by the one man who has sworn to own and destroy me and my entire family.

He got to them. He got to me too. But luckily for me, I escaped him.

I escaped Kaliq.

But why am I locked up here? Did he eventually succeed in dragging me back that night?

Is that why I'm here?

Fear grips me.

My breath hitches as I desperately try to cling to something—anything—around me that might make sense.

I look up frantically towards the roof of my cell to make more meaning of my dim surroundings, and all I see are black, cemented bricks and tons of thick cobwebs.

A small window is high above the wall to my right. And open too. From it, I can vividly see clear rays of bright, white, natural light shining into my cell from it, dispelling the darkness around me a bit.

The light forms puddles of luminescence right on the wall and on the center of the cell floor. Also, I can hear the chirping of birds outside.

Just where the fuck am I?

I need to know where I am, how I got here. And to do that, I need to remember every detail that brought me to this place.

Closing my eyes, I force myself into recalling anything, anything at all I can grasp onto in order to help me at least know where and how I got myself here.

In a split second, I am pulled into my mind. Image after image flash through my subconscious—blurry and messy and loud.

I remember gasping for breath and running—running from Kaliq and his men that were chasing me to drag me back into that smelly cage that night.

And… and then, I think I remember—

“She is awake, Alpha.”

I snap my eyes open at the sound of the gruff male voice coming from just outside my cell. Just then, a sharp twinkling light from one of the bars of my cell catches my attention, making me squint my eyes towards it.

Dear Selene.

No! This… this can't be happening to me!

The twinkle is from a metallic symbol carved into one of the huge iron bars of my cell.

A symbol I can recognize anywhere—a crest consisting of three deep claw marks bound by a crescent moon.

A pack symbol that only belongs to the Blood Hounds Pack.

Instant panic surges through my entire body—my veins, my blood. My pulse hammers in my ears, my breathing coming out in ragged pants.

I am a captive, a rogue captive in the hands of the Blood Hounds Pack.

The Blood Hounds are notorious against rogues—ruthless, merciless, and led by an Alpha who is rumored to be as cold as he is lethal.

His name is Raelin Michaelson, but he is infamously known as the Midnight Alpha amongst the rogues—the untamed filth where I come from.

He earned that title three years ago when he wiped off the entire clan of rogues that murdered the fifteen women and children members of his pack on the night of his Alpha Ascension Ceremony.

The massacre happened in the dead of midnight, and ever since then, every rogue pack has steered clear away from his territory.

I am such a fool. A big, massive, rogue fool who somehow stumbled into the territory of the Midnight Alpha after that night I escaped Kaliq.

I am doomed. I am never getting out of this wretched place alive.

“No no no…” I mutter frantically under my breath, straining against the metal cuffs until I feel my wrists burn and bleed.

Despite the piercing pain, I keep pulling at the shackles again and again, but my efforts are completely useless.

Tears start streaming down my cheeks. Whoever put these chains on me knew exactly what they were doing.

I freeze when I catch the echoes of thudding footsteps now approaching my cell. The clicking rattle of keys, followed by the opening squeak of my cell door, fills me with an instant pang of fear.

Am I fucking scared? Yes.

But will I die today? No. I don't think so.

I will fight until the last drop of my blood if that is what it will take for me to keep myself alive.

Silence—except for the sounds of the footsteps still approaching me now inside the cell—fills the stale air. The darkness around me seems to fade a little at the recognition of the person that just entered my cell.

My body goes instantly still and rigid as the scent of cinnamon, pine, and earth, floods my entire body system. My wolf purrs and stirs deep inside me, restless, recognizing the immense power and aura that just entered my cell room.

An aura I instantly realize and unmistakably know that belongs to an Alpha.

Something…. something else tugs at my chest, making my heart pound and caressing a desire and longing deep inside the trenches of my soul that I have never felt before in my entire life.

Just when I recognize it, I feel it snap into place.

No!

More tears stream down my cheeks. I pull harder on the chains still binding me to the cold wall like an animal, the rattling of the shackles intermixing with the harsh desperation I feel clawing everywhere inside me.

The desperation is in sync with the truth also burning through my veins—the truth that I just found my fated mate in a dark, forsaken place like this.

And he is a fucking Alpha.