Arabella’s POV
Time lost value and blurred together. I didn’t know if it was minutes, hours or days since my torture had begun.
I could no longer scream, my throat was hoarse and my voice was gone. I held on to consciousness by a thin rope. Or more appropriately consciousness held onto me. Anytime I was on the brink of losing consciousness, he made sure to bring me back. To stimulate my senses again. To make sure I was aware and fully cognizant as the pain threshold mounted.
He had a lot of experience with this it would seem. Because he continually kept me on the brink, I lost all sense of self. I think I would have told him all I knew already if I didn’t hate him as much as I loved him.
The little food in me came up as I projectile puked. Some still got on my clothes soiling them.
The pain soared and lulled. Rising in waves and carrying me along as an unwilling passenger.
The pain stopped and the absence of pain seemed like a different pain on its own because I knew the relief was only temporary.
The nausea remained and I didn’t know if it was because of the pain or if he had given me something to make me feel sick. I wanted it to end. I think I would have bawled like a child if my tear ducts weren’t dried up already.
“Tell me, Arabella. I really don’t want to hurt you. I just want to know one thing. One thing and you can leave. And this could all stop.”
I should just talk. It wasn’t like I even knew much about Natasha’s plans. I wouldn’t even be betraying her. At least not really. She was a big girl and our partnership was over. Had been over for a while. Well, some hours or days.
I opened my mouth.
“Go fuck yourself, Luciano.”
*******
Alpha Luciano’s POV.
For the first time in my life, I was rendered speechless.
Never would I have thought that Arabella could be that tenacious. It was admirable, courageous even. Too bad I would have to break her in. I had clients waiting on that batch. If we didn’t deliver, our credibility would plummet.
Natasha knew that and she had partnered with Arabella to take me down. I wondered where they had even met and how. Arabella almost never left the pack so how had she even gotten in contact with her? There were so many questions and too few answers.
Arabella might be tenacious but I would show her that I was even more formidable. She wanted to take the secret to the grave. Like I would ever allow that.
I would come back to continue later, I decided.
I hadn’t even started prying out her nails one after the other. She would speak then but I was already feeling the pressure from my wolf. He refused to understand that once again she had gone and betrayed us. He didn’t like seeing her in pain and that was it, period. But I wasn’t going to be overtaken by my instincts goddammit. I refused to.
I went to my room to shower and change before reaching the office hoping beyond all hope that Mikah had found her.
Naturally, I was disappointed.
“She is untraceable. After ordering the hit, no one has been able to get a hold of her. ”
Mikah hesitated.
“She had a letter sent to you before she went offline.”
“A letter?” Why the hell would she send me a letter after stealing my money?
“It is filled with unflattering comments about you and um…all manner of unsavoury comments about using your genitals in impossible sexual positions.” Mikah said looking more uncomfortable than I remembered in a long time.
I considered what he said. “She asked me to go and fuck myself? After stealing my drugs, she asks me to go and fuck myself?”
I laughed but the truth was nothing was funny at this point. Once I got my hands on Natasha, I would personally wring every drop of life from her neck. But first I had to find her.
The route of the interrogation was leading me nowhere so naturally I had to do something so that it led me somewhere…
“Did you get the runner as I demanded? ”
“Yes Alpha?”
“Good.”
********
Emery’s POV
It is always particularly pleasing when things go your way without prior manipulation. Luciano had put Arabella in the dungeons again? It was nearly unbelievable.
So unbelievable that if I hadn’t seen them forcefully take her out of the harem myself I wouldn’t have believed it. Even now in the pack, the information was still under wraps for some reason. No one seemed to know where Arabella Bianchi actually was. Most assumed she was still recovering in Luciano’s room after that flagrant display of affection when he’d lifted her and carried her off.
Even I had thought that their relationship was solidifying. I couldn’t tell what went wrong or where for them but things were now going exceptionally well for me.
I wondered why he was hiding her. It was though there was something else that I knew nothing about.
Naturally, I went to see her, I had to see her in person and confirm that she was really down there.
The guard was a little bit harder to bribe than before but I knew my way around things and soon I was descending the staircase into the dark, mouldy dungeon.
I heard things skittering in the dark and repressed a shudder. The amount of time that Arabella had spent here was crazy. Didn’t her skin crawl in this place? But then again, she was a Bianchi. They probably were thoroughly acquainted with places such as these.
When I saw her, I was shocked. She looked terrible. She sat -no- she was strapped to an interrogation chair looking nearly out of it. Her legs were in a bowl of water.
Had Luciano tortured her? Maybe he hadn’t changed so much after all. This was the Alpha Luciano that I knew and adored.
“Emery?” Oh, she was awake.
“I’m not hallucinating you, am I?” She sounded disjointed and distant like she was actively trying to form sentences.
Luciano had really fucked her up. I couldn’t help the grin that came to my face.
“You would have to be desperate to hallucinate me, don’t you think?” I said standing outside the cell. The door was locked.
“It is you. What are you doing here? Came to rescue me again? I don’t even think you can do anything this time.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
*****
Arabella’s POV
It felt unreal seeing Emery after experiencing so much pain. The respite from the pain combined with the unlikelihood of the event had made me believe it was a hallucination until her laugh.
“You actually thought that I would come and save you? Even if I could, I wouldn’t.” Her voice was as cold as ice chips and her tone was covered with dark amusement.
“But earlier…”
During the entire Anastasia saga, I felt like we had been bonding. Like I could learn to understand Emery.
“Earlier, we had a common enemy, now we do not. Earlier, my life was threatened by Anastasia, now it is threatened by you.”
“Threatened by me? Emery, what the hell are you talking about? ”
My head throbbed and my vision swam. I felt building nausea again even though there was literally nothing within me. It was taking all I could to even speak.
“What the hell am I talking about? You took Luciano from me.” She paused as though lost in thought.
“He is the one thing that I have left and you will never have him. You act like you hate him. Like every moment with him was torture but I know that you are pretending. You love him. How would I not recognize it? I see it in the mirror every day. I don’t know exactly what you did wrong but I will find out and I promise you, Arabella Bianchi, you will die in this dungeon, alone.*
“He will never love you.”
I don’t know why I said that. Maybe because it was something I also needed to hear.
“He is not like a normal person, Emery. He exerts a certain toll on people but the biggest thing is the fact he will never love you. He’ll just use you for sex and never become emotionally attached to you regardless of if I am there or not.”
“Shut up.” Emery sounded like she wanted to reach beyond the bars and strangle me.
“You don’t know anything about Luciano and me. He cares about me. It’s not just sex between us. Not that I would expect you to understand because that’s all you are good for. Vengeful payback sex and now death. I will become the Luna of this pack and his woman and you will become a dirty memory no one speaks of or remembers.” Emery gathered herself, her regal stance back as though it never left.
I almost laughed but I didn’t have the strength to. So instead I watched her leave the dungeons all the while wondering how true what Emery was saying was.
I wondered if Luciano would actually pick a Luna and settle down, and wondered if after he found out what happened to the drugs and how they were gone, he would still forgive me.
I looked down at the basin of water at my feet.
Yeah, I didn’t think so. He was so going to kill me.