ANASTASIA
I don’t know how many days have gone by since I got here. The place is always dark, so I can’t tell when it’s day or night. I hear footsteps approaching me. I am sure it’s Mason bringing food for me. He brings food for me twice every day. I haven’t forgiven him for what he did. I don’t talk to him when he tries to make conversation with me. I just collect my food from him and go back deeper into my cell to eat it.
I expect to see Mason walking towards my door; instead, I see women. They are about three of them. The one in front opens my cell door, and they all walk inside. The two behind grab my hands and make me kneel. They spread my hands wide as the one who opened my cell walked towards me with a needle in her hand. I can’t see correctly, but I am sure it’s silver that’s inside the syringe. I struggle to free my hands from the two women holding me, but I am unable to. The leader finds a vein in my left hand and wastes no time injecting the syringe filled with silver inside me.
I scream in pain as the silver enters my bloodstream. The fastest way to weaken a werewolf is by putting silver into their bloodstream. It drains you instantly. If you are not lucky and it gets to your heart, you will die. I can feel myself getting weaker as they drag me outside the cell. It’s bad enough the cell made me human. Now they decided to inject silver into my body. They should just kill me already.
As my legs sweep the floor, I wonder where they are taking me. They drag me through a dark corridor and stop after a few minutes. The leader opens the door, and we walk into a bathroom. They strip me of my clothes and place me into a bathtub. My body becomes limper as the silver gets closer to my heart. I want to fight them and run away, but right now, I can barely move my body. The hand that got injected is so dead you will think I am paralyzed from the left side. They fill the tub with warm water and begin to wash my body.
“Why are you bathing me?” I ask but get no response. They continue to clean me without bothering to say even one word to me. I wonder why they are cleaning me up.
They are done bathing and clothing me after an hour or less. The dress they wore for me hardly covered anything. I feel so exposed wearing it. They took me to a beautiful room and asked me to sit on the bed. I look around the room, trying to guess why I am here and who owns it. I don’t have to wonder for long because the owner of the room walks in.
“Hello, beautiful, we meet again,” Nickolas says, walking into the room.
“Why am I here?” I ask,
“Why do you think you are here?” He says, smirking as he unbuttons his shirt.
“Stay away from me,” I say, dragging my weak body up the bed, far away from him as much as possible.
“I will do no such thing, honey.” He says, removing his shirt.
“I will kill you,” I say as I feel my back hit the headboard. I quickly move my leg to the side of the bed and drop them. My whole body follows. The silver is making me too weak to even run away.
“You see, honey, I knew you were not going to agree easily, so I made sure you won’t run away while I enjoy my time with you,” He says, walking towards me on the ground. He lifts me off the ground and throws me back on the bed.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask as tears start to fall down my face. I can’t believe this is how I am going to have my first time.
“Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?” He climbs the bed and places his legs beside mine, caging me between him. “I will tell you why,” He says, grabbing my face, forcing me to lock eyes with him. “I want to make you scream in pain the same way my beautiful Jane did when your ancestors killed her. I want you to be alive as I do unspeakable things to your body and watch you do nothing about it because you will be as good as dead. I want to break you so much you will wish you were dead,” He says, roughly releasing my face.
“What did I ever do to deserve those things,” I say, with tears flowing down my face.
“You did nothing. Your ancestors are the ones you should blame for what is about to come to you.”
“Please, I beg you not to do this. I will do anything for you to not rape me.”
“Aha, the sweet sound of begging,” He says, smiling. “When I am done with you, please would be the only word you will know.” He says and is about to rip my dress, but I stop him by placing my hands above his.
“Please don’t do this; I can give you my blood so you can revive your brother. You don’t have to do this.”
“So, you know I want to use your blood to revive my brother. I like how you know your faith in my hands.”
“Plea………….” I get cut off when someone barges into the room.
“Who dares disturb me?” Nickolas growls at the man
“Sorry, my king, but the werewolves are here. Our plan worked; it is time to go to war.”
“They are here, at night. It seems the werewolf king wants to die faster than I thought,” Nickolas says, releasing a dark chuckle.
“Theo is here; why?” I ask, wiping away my tears
“What do you mean why?” Nickolas asks as he starts dressing up
“I am asking why because there is no need to go to war with the werewolf kingdom. You already have me.”
He stares at me for a little while before releasing that dark laughter of his. He sounds like the devil when he laughs. “Did you really think I was killing werewolves because I wanted to draw you out?”
“If that’s not the reason, what is it?”
“Oh, my dear, you have a lot to learn. The werewolf war has nothing to do with you. I had planned to wipe out the werewolf kingdom for years and just decided to execute my plans when you rescued your mother. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Really,” I ask, shocked. I can’t believe I almost got myself killed for nothing.
“Yes, and as much as I would love for us to continue. I have a king to kill and a clan to wipe out. Ben, take her to Ava and tell her the time has come,” Nickolas says before he walks out of his room.
“Okay, my King,” Ben says, walking towards me.
I try to increase the space between us, but my body is too weak to move fast. He grabs my hand and makes me stand. I try to remove my right hand from his grasp, but it’s useless because he is stronger than me right now. He keeps his hold on my hand and walks us out of Nickolas ‘s room.
“Who is Ava, and what did he mean, it’s time. Time for what” I ask, Ben but he does not answer me. I continue to try and remove my hand from his hold. I am not sure exactly what the king meant, but I have an idea. I was willing to die for the werewolf kingdom, but now my death will only bring it more suffering if I allow them to revive Nickolas ‘s brother.
We are about to turn into a dark corridor when Mason suddenly blocks our path.
“Why are you blocking my path Mason,” Ben asks.
“The king asked me to take her to Ava myself. I am here to do that,” Mason says and tries to grab me, but Ben pulls me closer to him before he can.
“I don’t think the king would give such an order.”
“Who are you to know what the king will order or not. Hand her over to me now,” Mason says, with his voice a little louder.
“Did you just raise your voice at me, Mason?” Ben asks as he walks closer to Mason. Ben looks angry with the tone Mason used to speak to him.
“Yes, and what are you going to do about it.”
“Once I am done snapping your neck, you will wish you never spoke to me like that kitchen boy,” Ben says, releasing his hold on me so he can attack Mason. I fall to the ground the second Ben’s hand releases my body. My body comes in contact with the rough ground.
“Ouch,” I say, rubbing my butt with my right hand. I lift my eyes away from my burning bum once I hear the snapping of someone’s neck and feel liquid dropping on my face. “You killed him” I scream as Ben’s blood splashes on my face. Mason used a knife to slit his throat.
“Yes, I did; we have to hurry before someone realizes what I have done and tells the king,” Mason says, lifting me off the ground and into his arms.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask Mason as we run down the opposite direction Ben was taking me.
“Because it’s what friends do. They help each other not betray one another. I am sorry I betrayed you, Ana.”
“It’s fine; I forgive you.”
“Really, you forgive me.”
“Yes, I do” I forgive Mason. After all, he did not betray me because he wanted to. He had to do it to save his daughter. If I had a kid and I was in his shoes, I would have betrayed him. I was just hurt by what he did. That’s why I shunned him.
“Thank you so much, Ana; I am pleased you found it in your heart to forgive me. I will live the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“You don’t have to do that. Helping me escape right now is enough”
“I am glad you feel this way.”
Mason walks us down the stairs. He is about to open a door when the door comes flying off his hinges. Nickolas stands at the other side, fuming with anger. I am sure if he was a werewolf, he would have released a growl that would have been heard miles away.
I blink my eyes, and I see Mason hanging in the air as Nickolas chokes the life out of him. I don’t even care right now that I was thrown across the room as I crawled over to Nickolas to beg him to spare Mason’s life.
“I should have killed you the first time you betrayed your kind.”
“Please, don’t kill him. Please, I am begging you,” I beg as I continue to force my body to crawl and reach where Mason and Nickolas are standing.
“It was nice meeting you Ana, I will forever remember you,” Mason says, smiling.
“Noooooooooooo” The loudest scream I have ever released in my life escapes my body as Nickolas rips Mason’s head out of his body. “You can’t die, no you can’t die. You have a daughter. She needs you.”
I try to fix Mason’s head back to his body, but it won’t go back. He is gone. I hold Mason’s head in my hand as tears stream down my face. He is dead because he helped me. How will I live with myself now? No, I shouldn’t think like this. It’s not my fault. It’s all Nickolas ‘s fault. If he is not so hell-bent on ruining everyone’s life. Mason won’t be dead right now. I am going to kill him for killing Mason.
“I will kill you,” I say, glaring at Nickolas , who has a smirk on his face.
“I would love to see you try,” He says, grabbing my hair.
“Release me,” I say, struggling to remove his hold on my hair as he drags me down the corridor.
“Don’t worry, I will once we arrive where you were supposed to be taken in the first place,” He says and continues to use my hair to drag me.