Contents
CHAPTER ONE Kate
CHAPTER ONE
Kate
Kate
"Kate, psst, Kate, wake up."
I had no problem hearing my roommate's whisper from across the room. The thing was though; I did not want to wake up. I wanted to sleep and keep sleeping. Sometimes I feel as though I have given up, but the longer it has been since my birthday, the less I want to keep going. I have never seen any indication that the others even know that I turned twenty-one already, they are waiting for the subtle change in my smell. Stupid fools have no idea what I am.
I sometimes lose track of time; it means nothing when you are a prisoner. Fortunately, I have my parents to keep me updated. I wish they were here, no, I wish I was there, with them, where ever there happens to be today. But being able to speak with them mentally is one of the only things that keeps me going. Wouldn't that unique ability shock my captors. A pack can talk, mates can as well, but mum and dad tell me, what we can do, what I can do, is not a shifter ability.
I don't know if I can face another day of captivity. It is like this every morning, this up and down, I can not give up, I will not give up, but I can not keep myself from getting down in the dumps and wanting to give up. Mum says it is because I am her daughter and mornings should be illegal. After lunch, I will feel more like facing the day; if I can get Dawn to shut up and let me sleep.
"Five more minutes Dawn, or a couple more hours, too early," I mumble. I hope she takes the hint I do not want to get up. That should have been clear enough.
I know I have to find a way out of this prison but not this early in the morning. Maybe later, after I wake up.
I am running out of time to run though. I have been trying to figure out a way out of this prison for over a year. So far I have found no way out. How do you escape when your captors are wolf shifters who can track you so quickly. Dawn has not been here as long as I have. She did not go through what I went through to get here either. At first, she believed our captors were our saviors, she has seen too much and heard too much since then to keep thinking it. If she had tried to keep lying to herself, I would personally have beaten her to within an inch of her life.
They don't know I saw them kill my guardians. They don't know, and I will never tell them those people they killed were not my parents. They don't know what we are, or who we are, or even what we can do. That is going to be their downfall. If my parents can find a way to find me before time runs out. Even mom cannot break a mate bond, willingly given or not. The magic of the bond trumps her magic. My parents have been trying since the night it happened to find me. So far though, they are failing, I can't give them clues, I have none to offer, and they can not find me without clues.
The planet is a big place, and we can talk to each other no matter the distance, unusual that, and very unhelpful in a massive way. All I can tell them is approximately when it gets daylight, not that I am ever awake to see sunrise, and roughly when it gets dark, and the desert I can see at the edge of our prison. We are all indoors well before dark, and not allowed out early in the mornings so sunrise and sunset are mere guesses. Guesses that at least have my parents looking in the United States for me.
If my parents had the resources to search, or the backing of the clan. But my parents went against my mom's family to mate. And they dare not go crawling to them for help. I would be considered an abomination, a mutant, and even the clan would call for my extermination.
The shifter world has gone crazy in the last couple of hundred years. Dad doesn't know who to trust there anymore. He is afraid if they knew who we were, they would be even more determined to get their hands on me. To our knowledge, I am the only shifter-witch hybrid alive. The shifter world does not remember much of the clans. Subtle magic against the shifters caused fragments of memories about our people. I say our people, but really, they are not mine. Not mums either, not after what they tried to do to mum and dad.
Dad and mum have discussed going to the shifter council, but mom had a vision that someone on the council is behind the kidnapping of shifter females. If even their highest cannot be trusted, who does that leave? Dad had to give up all ties with the shifter community when he and mum got together. And even that was not enough for the clan. They want the shifters to forget witches exist. They want them to forget they used to be allies. All because of what happened to Meredith's daughter.
No, mum and dad can not go to the clan. The clan would tell them they got what they deserved for cross mating. Then the clan would double down trying to find me first and kill me. They can not afford to have any cross-mating, not ever again.
"Kate, you have to get up, hurry." This time Dawn sounded a bit frantic. Bugger that. I am not ready to get up. Whatever it is, it can wait. "Kate, please, I heard a scream, faint, but I think it was Julie."
This time I bolted straight up in bed. Oh hell no, I promised myself I would watch out for her. Her birthday is not for another year, but Julie is damaged. We all try to watch out for Julie. We have to, poor dear, doesn't understand what is going on anymore. We have our suspicions that the males would try to use her, take her since she would never make a good breeder. Stupid fools, none of the females they have kidnapped will ever produce a female for them. The curse will not let that happen. They just refuse to see the truth. Or maybe they haven't figured out the truth yet. If I was not a shifter, and dad was not a shifter, I would question the intellect of shifters.
Speculation later, for now, I have to find out what is going on with Julie. I never dressed so quickly in my life as I did that morning. I hate mornings, and someone is going to pay if they have hurt Julie. Grabbing Dawn by the arm, we rush out of the door and down the hall toward Julie's room.
As we get closer we can hear what sounds like muffled screams and when we burst into the room I could not control my fury. We were in time, but barely. I grabbed the closest thing I could get my hands on as Dawn jumped on the male's back. As I screamed at her to move, I swung the lamp at the male's head. The shatter of glass as the lamp impacted his head did not slow us down as Dawn and I both reached for Julie. I kept an eye on the male laying lifeless on the floor as we helped Julie to dress.
A hushed whisper reached my ears, "Did you kill him?"
Jerking my eyes toward the door I see Allison standing there, staring in disgust at the male on the floor, Jonus. I remember he was the male chosen to be Allison's mate. I worry for a moment how she is going to react to the situation. But she surprised me. She had noticed what we were doing and she had jumped to the correct conclusion. I turned back to Julie but movement caught my eye again and I whirled around toward the male on the floor, but it was not him, it was Allison. She was checking on him. I shrugged and turned back to Julie. Dawn had managed to get her calmed down some, but the sobs coming from her were heartbreaking.
Fury dripped from Allison's voice as she told us something we already knew, "This is who they chose for me? A rapist, and they think I would ever feel safe with him? Did you," looking back up at us she faltered a moment, "did you get here in time?"
I nodded my head and turning to Dawn told her to take Julie back to our room. I did not intend to allow a rapist to live among us. I had a feeling the males had known just what Jonus was going to do today. We knew the schedule of the males fairly well at this point. They did perimeter checks in the morning then they had breakfast with us and we, the females, spent hours going through our schooling before having the rest of the day free. The males courted us and treated us like honored guests but when you know you aren't, well, the time they spent with some of us was wasted. But we let them play their games while we tried to gather all the information we could to make an escape.
But a male, alone, in our wing was unacceptable. They had security watching the doors to our section and no one made it through without setting off an alarm. Since the security room was always manned, according to what we had been told, that meant the males knew Jonus was here. No one was courting Julie, poor lucky dear, but I had seen some of the looks some of the males had given her. If they could not use her as a mate, I guessed they had found another use for her.
Mouth agape I watched in disbelief, but no small measure of satisfaction at what I saw next. Allison, apparently not satisfied with whatever she had found upon checking the male, was currently kicking him in the head. I had no problem with her actions, none. I did turn Julie away and whispered to Dawn, again, to take her back to our room. From now on Julie would be bedding down with us. I was determined to protect her. And even more determined now to get her out of here--to get us all out of here.
As Dawn led Julie to the door, whispering assurances to her, she took a moment to kick the male in the balls. If the male were to have recovered from our attack, he would never have children after that kick. Dawn was wearing something she called her shit-kicker boots. They just looked like what the Yanks call cowboy boots to me. I had no intention of allowing the male to survive, and from the looks of it, neither did Allison.
Once Julie and Dawn had left the room Allison asked me what I intended to do next. I did not answer her at first, I was too busy trying to figure out how to kill a man. He had been turning toward the door when I grabbed the lamp from the table near the door, Dawn on his back. Dawn had jumped backwards toward the bed when I slammed the lamp into the side of his head. When he had fallen, he had landed on his back with his head near the edge of the bed and blood was pouring from the wound. Allison had some blood splatters on herself from kicking him, but I doubt she had noticed yet. The blood was pooling around his head and part of the cover hanging from the edge of the bed was beginning to get soaked with blood. I carefully eased a glass shard closer to me, but thinking, I then motioned for Allison to hand the pillow to me that was by her feet. The bedding was scattered about the room, making me believe Julie had put up a struggle before he finally overpowered her.
I was terrified as I put the pillow over his face. If he recovered he would hurt me. I had no idea how long it took to smother a man. I did not have to find out though because Allison motioned toward the glass shard at my feet. "Just reach under the pillow and slice his throat. Or give it to me, I will slice it for you. We don't have time to smother him, what if he wakes up?"
I looked up at her from my position and she gasped and jerked back. "Holy hell girl, what the hell is wrong with your eyes?"
Gritting my teeth I ignored her while I picked up the piece of glass with a corner of the bedding and jammed it into his throat. I kept the pillow between us so the blood that I hoped would spurt from his neck if I had hit the artery, like I tried to do, would not hit me. The the amount of blood soaking the pillow and spilling onto the floor reassured me that maybe I had done enough.
Allison was looking at me with a bit of fear on her face and I was afraid she might run out of the room. I saw her take a deep breath, watched her eyes widen as she swallowed hard before speaking.
"You know you are giving off faint whiffs of maturity and uh, your eyes, they sort of have flames in them. I don't know about the shifters down in Australia where you are from, but we don't have flames for eyes here in the States. What are you? You are not one of us. I mean, you smell like us, but I swear girl, we don't have those flashy flames for eyes. That is ten kinds of scary, and that is saying something considering we just killed a man. Oh my god, what are we going to do now? We did kill him right? Cause if you didn't I will try next. I am not mating a rapist. Do you remember who they told us his daddy was, other than important? What are we going to do with the body?"
I looked around the room, then at the blood soaking into my shoes. I noticed the blood on my hands, but it was almost like the hands belonged to someone else. Feeling kind of floaty, like I was not in full control of my body, I dashed over to the bathroom. While washing the blood off my hands I took a moment to look in the mirror. Oh, oh my, the reflection staring back at me was not one I could allow others to see. I would terrify Julie; and the males, I had no idea how they would react. My eyes had what could only be described as dancing flames inside of them. My normal green eyes looked just like dancing flames, not something I was used to seeing stare back at me. When I came of of the bathroom I saw I had tracked blood across the room.
Allison was peering out of the mostly closed door, like someone holding watch. I don't know what she thought the point of that would be, surely they would know we killed the male as soon as they found him. No one would believe Julie had killed him. And the first thing our captors would do would be to come to us and find out what had happened. I think we are worth more to them than the male was. I worried about what the repercussions would be when they found him dead in Julie's room. We had to find a way out of this prison, now, today.
I was surprised that no one had come to check the noise yet. We were, none of us, quiet about the situation as it was happening. Julie's screams, when the male fell from the the lamp being shattered against his skull, his hand falling limply from her mouth, should have brought any number of our captors running. Fury began to rise in me again as I realized, my feeling was most certainly correct, the only reason they would have had for not checking on Julie, was if they knew, if they were expecting the male to attack her and had condoned his actions.
Allison, snarling looked over at me then back at the male on the floor, "That was the one they had chosen for me to mate, a worthless, would--be rapist. They must have planned this, allowed this to happen, why else would no one have come to check on the noise?" So I was not the only one reaching the conclusion that the attack had been condoned.
I reached out to my parents though our bond and briefly filled them in on what had just happened. My parents complained that I was not making sense, but it was my mum who figured out shock was probably setting in and affecting me. Knees shaky I grabbed Allison and together, we almost fell. She seemed no more steady on her feet than I was, and at that moment she pointed out something I had not realized. I was also losing a little blood, some of the glass shards must have gotten me when I slammed the lamp onto Jonus' head. My blood loss was from minor cuts though, we did not see anything major. Arm in arm we staggered back toward my room, tiny drops of blood dotting the hallways along with our bloody footprints, we never noticed. Taking the life of someone was harder than I had thought. Well, taking his life had been easy, but now we had to deal with what we had done and we were not prepared in any way to deal with killing someone. I had a sick panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach about what we had just done. I could not remember who the parents were of the man we had just killed, but none of the males at the prison were anything but important men, or sons of important men.
I was having problems masking the mature smell with my magic and Allison was still darting wary looks at my eyes. I could not do anything about the eyes, when a witch get upset the flames rise. And I was one half witch and beyond upset. I would have to keep my eyes trained at the floor until I could calm down if I did not want to out myself to anyone else. As it was I was going to have to figure out what to tell Allison, and soon.
When we entered the room we found Dawn and Julie huddled on Dawn's bed eying the door. The shattered look in Julie's eyes was almost too much to bear. The fury and fear on Dawn's face was sobering.
Allison was still waiting for an explanation, unfortunately, I would not get the chance to tell her anything because almost as soon as we reached my room the most incredible wave of pain reached me. I screamed and continued screaming. I heard Dawn scream as I looked her way. I felt like I was being ripped apart. As the pain became greater than I could bear my wolf rose.
Feel Mate, Mate hurt, help Mate.
Turning fear filled eyes toward Dawn, a whisper all I could manage, "My mate
, we have to help him." Trembling hands reached for me as I felt myself begin to fall. My screams of agony echoing in the room. My hope of escape will vanish if I fall. Something--call it instinct--call it self-preservation, maybe even words of my mother, wisdom learned over the years, pull at me.
The pain was so great, I barely heard her reply, "Now? He's here?"
I knew I had to hold on for a little longer. I knew I could not go down, not until I knew Dawn understood. "Now, oh god please."
Allison had traded places with Dawn, who now struggled to hold me upright, clutching her hand tightly, the scent of terror in the air, I remember the late night conversations we have had. The dreams the rogues have never killed rise up. "The mating bond, say it, whisper it, call it, please." My voice implores her, my hands grip hers like a vice, a weak vice, all I can manage, but I can not let go, I must not fall.
I could feel darkness closing in as I struggled against the pain. The shock of killing Jonus forgotten with the new onslaught of pain assaulting my body. My parents were screaming in my mind but I could not concentrate enough to understand what they were saying, much less answer them. I could feel my self falling as Dawn implemented a plan we had both dreamed about for so many nights. A dream we both knew would never come true, except it seemed, at least for me, the dream was coming true in nightmare form. Wincing she begins the words that call the wolves forth. We have had many discussions about the mating ceremony. We have dreamed of having a mate show at the last moment and directing our wolf to our mate in the middle of a ceremony to a rogue. I have no idea if what I am asking can be done. Males may have their theories, but with a witch for a mother, and a more complete history of the curse done to the shifter community, I came to the prison more informed than even the males holding us as prisoners.
Kate (Safe Haven Wolves Book 3) Page 1
