Mia
I was terrified. Of all things that I was expecting to see here, it certainly wasn’t a woman who was alive and locked away like she was some sort of criminal.
I glanced at the talisman on the cage and realized that she might not be some criminal alone. This could be related to dark magic and I was sure that wasn’t what I wanted to dabble into.
This was already unknown waters that I was dipping my legs into and I had no doubt that I was going to sink if I tried to wade in too much. The thought of sinking made me remember when I had drowned at that party and almost died and I couldn’t help the shivers that ran through me. I was afraid of dying and this seemed like the fastest way to die without anyone knowing of me.
It seemed like she sensed my fear as she moved forward, her eyes pleading as she bore them into my skin.
“Please help me. ” She said. “Get me out.”
I shook my head. There was something about her voice that bothered me. It sounded too calm for someone who needed help and I wondered if she was using hypnosis on me.
Could it be possible that magic was present here? After coming across werewolves, I was ready to believe anything. I didn’t know what this strange woman was but I knew that she wasn’t ordinary, not with all the talisman around her.
I must confess that I was scared of her. I didn’t dare to move any closer to her. Her eyes seemed too intelligent and mischievous for someone who looked as ragged as she was with captivity.
I knew Albert was a good man and concluded that there had to be a good reason why she was locked up.
She had her eyes on me and sensed that I wasn’t eager to help her as she wished. She sat back and regarded me with an odd look in her eyes.
“You aren’t going to help me get free, are you?” She asked, with a slow smile on her lips.
I wondered what was there for her to feel amused by. I shrugged at her words. “You can’t blame me. An unknown woman in chains asked me to release her. I can’t just do that without knowing what she had done.”
She smiled. “You seem like a smart kid.”
That sounded like a compliment but strangely, it didn’t feel like one. This woman was scary and even though she was smiling at me, all my nerves stood on end and my throat ran dry.
I swallowed repeatedly as I forced myself to ask the question burning in my mind.
“Who are you?” I asked her, afraid of what her response would be.
She had to be a powerful being with all the talismans and I hoped that they were strong enough to keep her from attacking me with her magic. I wondered if that was why the hypnosis I had suspected in her voice hadn’t worked on me.
I doubted that she had seen anyone since she was locked in here and must have thought that her powers would still work on me. I had to be the first one in ages – I had no idea when she had been locked up – and that thought didn’t make me feel comforted.
I was surprised when her face changed, contorting with pain and she suddenly started crying. “I’m the original mistress of this house.”
I scowled at her words and wondered if she knew what was going on in the house despite being locked away. If she was the same breed as Albert, it was possible that she had superior hearing and could hear everything that was going on in the house.
What did she mean by the original mistress of the household? Was she saying that my mum was fake? I knew that wasn’t what she meant but that didn’t sit right with me.
I was surprised at her words though. I couldn’t believe that my stepfather, who had always been kind to me would abandon his own wife and imprison her like this. There had to be a story I didn’t know of.”
“You mean you are the mother of the triplets?” I asked to be sure I had heard her right but couldn’t keep the disbelief away from my voice.
I hissed to myself. I was a bad actress. I should have kept my emotions to myself.
She saw my doubt and moved closer once again. “Let me tell you a story.”
I didn’t respond to her but I was interested in what she had to say.
She began to tell me of her past. “I was once a noblewoman of the wolf tribe. Albert was an ordinary werewolf and it wasn’t until he married me that he gained his supreme power and riches, everything that you see that he has.”
She paused, letting out a hiss from her throat. “He wouldn’t have become alpha without me. He used me as a pawn in his dirty little game.” She sighed. “If only I had known the kind of man that he was before marrying him.”
She continued. “After giving birth to our triplets, he grew dissatisfied with being under the control of my family and imprisoned me here.”
I had a hard time believing her tale, as touching as it was. “I have never heard the boys talk of this. They said their mother had died a long time ago.”
Suddenly, she got aggressive, her emotions spiraling out of control. “This is Albert’s conspiracy. It is nothing but deception.”
I was still confused. There was no way for me to know who was trying to deceive me between the Albert I was certain I knew and the woman I didn’t know.
“The triplets have been kept in the dark about the truth.” She insisted. “He locked me here and lied to my kids about me.” She cried.
She looked frail and had disheveled hair. It was hard to believe that she had once been a noblewoman of the wolf tribe, if she was indeed telling the truth. I couldn’t help but feel compassion at her pitiful state.
Sensing the change in my emotions, she asked me to remove the talisman from the cage.
I approached the iron cage to get a closer look at the talisman, still struggling to believe everything that had happened that night. It felt like I had been thrown into a fantasy book.