Sage POV
Sierra wakes me as she shifts back, her terror settles over me like a suffocating fog, and at first, I am confused as I look around and find myself on the floor. “Why did you block me?” I ask her, knowing she must have or I would have felt her get off the bed.
She doesn’t get a chance to answer when a scream echoes off the walls from downstairs, making my blood run cold.
“Sierra, was that inside?” I whisper, my eyes on the closed bedroom door, she growls and the screaming gets louder before I hear it cut off. I glance out the window and see it is still dark outside.
“Andrei has someone in the basement,” she explains, and I choke on my gasp. Another one, who is it this time? Was this one innocent, or was this one like the other ones, my torturers?
I stand up looking for some clothes, and find one of Andrei’s shirts. I slip it on before tip-toeing to the door. My hands tremble as I clutch the doorknob, making it rattle. I pull it open, creep over to the stairs, and peer over the railing at the basement door.
I jolt back when the basement door swings open. The stench of blood and rogue fill the air, and Andrei is arguing with someone when his Beta steps out covered in blood. My stomach drops and cold envelopes me.
“Go on, get home, I will deal with it,” Andrei snaps. Zane slams the door and rushes toward the front panel stopping as he wipes his hand on his shorts, leaving bloody smears on his clothes before he places his hand on the panel to unlock it.
He turns and spots me frozen on the stairs. His chest and face are still covered in blood, and I take a step back and nearly trip up the steps. He holds a finger to his lips and looks at the basement door as the main door swings open.
Zane stares at me worriedly. “Never upset him, Sage. He tells you to jump, do it,” Zane suggests, and I stare at the basement door.
“And if I don’t?” I squeak. I hear a noise, my eyes dart to the basement, and so do Zane’s before he rushes out the main door. Andrei steps back into the hallway and shuts the door muttering to himself. I can’t move, completely frozen at the state of him. His eyes are wild as he turns to walk up the steps before stopping as his eyes land on me. He is drenched in blood as if he bathed in it.
“Sage?” he questions, looking down at himself before his eyes dart to me. “It’s not what you think,” he whispers, but I don’t know what to think other than he is a monster. What did he do to the person down there to be covered in blood like that? Why can’t I hear them anymore? Andrei slowly starts walking up the steps, and Sierra screams in my head.
“Run, Sage!,” she screams, and I race up the steps toward the bedroom before slamming the door shut and locking it. Sierra lurches forward and forces the shift as she darts under the bed.
“Sage, open the door,” Andrei orders, and Sierra whimpers, her fur all hackled up. Donnie tries to talk to her, but she blocks him out.
“No more lies, I don’t want to hear their lies,” she whines at me.
“Sage!… Fuck!” Andrei swears before the door bangs loudly as if he had punched it.
His breath comes in heavy pants on the other side of the door before his body slumps on the other side of it and his head thumps against it as he leans. “Please open the door. I haven’t hurt you before and that isn’t going to change Sage. Mates don’t hurt mates,” he promises before letting out a breath.
“He is a monster,” Sierra stresses. The stench of rogue, and the copper tang of their blood seeps under the door and perfumes the room. I can’t get the image of him out of my head. I don’t understand, why does he hate rogues so much, and what did he do to his Beta for him to fear him?
The silence is deafening, after a while he scrabbles to his feet, and the soft fall of his footsteps, as he heads to the bathroom, pounds through my head. The click of the door is deafening. A few seconds later the shower water pounds against the tub and Sierra’s breathing finally slows, and so does her heart rate. I try to press forward, but she forces me back.
“Sierra?” I ask her. I can feel her unease, which is odd because she liked Andrei and Donnie only a few hours ago, but now she is convinced he is like the others, just another monster in disguise. The evidence is damning, but I find myself questioning his intentions because he is right, he hasn’t hurt us and has had plenty of opportunities to.
“It’s all a front, Sage. Can’t you see it? Beneath it all, he is a monster,” Sierra points out, and I breathe. She is right. Anyone that could do things like that had something seriously wrong with them. To enjoy others’ pain, you would have to be pretty twisted and dark inside, rotten to the core, right? Then why isn’t he like that with us?
“Just because he hasn’t yet does not mean he won’t,” Sierra lectures, listening to my tumultuous thoughts. Eventually, the shower cuts off, and Sierra tenses as he walks closer to the door the handle twists.
“Sage, open the damn door,” he comments in a bored tone. “Fine,” he mutters to himself before the metal handle crinkles and bends. What was left of the handle falls to the floor with a heavy thud and the door swings inward. He bends down and picks up the broken handle.
Sierra scoots back under the bed further, and Andrei walks into the closet. We can only see his feet, but he no longer smells of the pungent combination of blood and Rogue. He lumbers back into the bedroom before stopping at the foot of the bed, Sierra’s tail tucks around us as she remembers him ripping her out from under the bed by it last time. Instead, he sits down.
“Sierra, you can’t stay under there forever, give Sage control,” he orders.
She growls and tucks herself smaller, and a low growl escapes her. Andrei sighs before laying down, his feet leaving the floor as the bed creaks above us as he shifts his weight.