by Kalen, Cat
I take a small distancing step back and balance on the balls of my toes as my survival instincts kick into full force, screaming at me to make a clean kill and save myself. But Mario is only doing his job, I quickly remind myself, and he’s trapped inside this prison every bit as much as I am. Killing him would make me no better than the master or any other drug lord who harbors wolves to do their dirty work. Those are the ones that need to be stopped and killed—every last one of them—not the handlers who are simply marionettes under their control.
“I got lost,” I say for lack of anything else and note how breathless I sound, the threat before me rousing my wolf. I realize it’s a poor excuse but my brain is currently on hyper drive and under the circumstance I’m unable to come up with anything else that might sound credible. Not that I think my sad excuse is in anyway believable, however.
Mario braces one hand on the rubber track running the length of the elevator door to hold it open, his watchful eyes assessing me. The fear I see brimming in his dark gaze has my insides churning. With his lips pinched tightly he gives a hard shake of his head.
“If you get caught do you have any idea what he’ll do to you?” he questions through clenched teeth.
As the elevator makes a banging noise, the doors trying to slam shut, I stand there in shock, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. The handler is worried about me—about my safety—and more importantly he’s not going to turn me in. I can only be grateful that it’s Mario who found me and not Lawrence. I shiver just from thinking about that outcome, because I know I wouldn’t be so lucky.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask carefully, maintaining a safe distance between us, my body still tensed and ready for combat. My wolf is still cautious, unsure, and reluctant to trust anyone in this prison.
“It was your turn to go up for the obstacle course and I couldn’t find you. Then when I saw the two alphas fighting, and noticed you were missing, I put two and two together.”
I frown, still not convinced. “And that led you here?”
“No, Mica told me.”
I lower my head briefly and frown. “So Mica turned me in,” I say under my breath, but I know better than to be angry at the aging housekeeper. After all, I wouldn’t want her to risk her life for mine. In fact, I wouldn’t want anyone to die because of me. That thought has me remembering Jace and Clover and my stomach twists.
Mario’s head swishes from side to side, his long black ponytail flickering along his back. “You’ve got it wrong, Pride. If she turned you in, it would have been Lawrence here fetching you, not me.”
My heart misses a beat and my eyes come up to meet his. “Oh,” I say quietly, and the implication that both Mario and Mica are in my corner fills me with relief.
He gestures with a nod for me to climb into the elevator with him. “Come on. We need to get out of here before anyone notices that we’re gone.”
I nod and hurry inside. When I move to the back corner, cool air from the venting system spills over me, but the only scents I catch in the breeze are Mario’s.
Pressing my back to the wall, I fold my hands across my chest and stare at Mario’s back as he jabs the button. When the elevator begins to move, he turns to me. His dark eyes narrow as they search my face for answers.
“What were you doing down here?”
I look at him long and hard and consider the handler’s loyalties as I deliberate my next words. Is he really on my side, or is this a way for the master to figure out what I was doing in his chambers? But when I see real warmth and worry lingering in the depths of his worn and tired eyes, it does something to my insides and tells me what I need to know.
I can trust him.
I slowly open my hand to reveal the key sitting in the center of my palm, and Mario sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes widening as the overhead light glints off the shiny metal.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” His voice is low and grave, but I don’t let it shatter my focus. I can’t.
“Yes,” I say with quiet certainty.
“Really, so you know what’s waiting for you on the outside? Or even on the inside?” When I don’t answer he makes a noise in his throat and I can’t help but think he sounds like a wounded animal. “So you think you can just open your cage and walk out of here?”
“Not quite.”
As the elevator slowly carries us I think of my army, the panthers, the gang waging war against the master.
“Pride—”
I cut him off and ask, “Why do you put up with what he does to you?” I pause to rake my hands over my thin, half-dressed body. “To us?”
He glares at me. His eyes turn hard and there is real anger in his tone when he says, “You don’t know anything, little girl.”
His words feel like a sharp slap and my head jerks back with a start, but I realize my accusing words have touched on a sore spot and I wonder exactly what it is.
“I know if we all work together we can change this. We can shift the balance of power inside this household and take over,” I rush out, desperate to convince him.
“Did you ever stop to think about his connections on the outside, and what could happen to our families?”
Families?
I study him, and when I see equal measures of anger and concern pass over his dark eyes, my heart sinks, because I know. I know he’s right. I never once stopped to take his situation or his family’s into consideration.
“He’s threatening your family?” I ask quietly and think about Mica, Miss Kara, and all the others who are in the same situation.
He nods and rakes shaky hands through his dark hair and I’m not sure what suddenly compels him to open up to me but I do understand he’s sharing something very personal when he continues, “I came here looking for a better life. Once I found it I was going to send for my family.” His face softens and I see a slight smile when he says, “I have a little girl. She’s about the same age as you and I wanted to offer her more.”
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the softness in his voice disappears. His profile hardens and his head drops, his eyes go vacant as he stares at the cold metal floor beneath us. “But what I found here instead has done the opposite, and now my entire family is in danger.” He stabs his thumb into his chest. “Because of me.” He turns worried eyes my way. “He knows who they are, Pride. He knows where my wife lives. Where my kids go to school.”
Tense silence hovers between us for a long time, then he holds his hands out, palms up. “Their future is in my hands. If I make one wrong move…”
“I’m going to kill him,” I say.
His gaze flies to mine. “Things aren’t that easy, Pride. You’re still young and you really don’t know the ways of the world.”
“You’re wrong, you know. Your family’s future isn’t in your hands. It’s in the master’s and it will stay that way unless we do something about it. If we kill him, your family won’t be in danger, and then their future really will be in your hands and you can go get them.”
“I’m not an assassin,” he whispers.
“I am.”
He doesn’t speak. Instead he just stares at me, then he asks in a low, cautious voice, “Do you really think you can do it?”
I nod.
“How?”
Before I can answer the elevator comes to a halt and Mario returns to handler mode as the doors slide open. He steps off first and I’m about to follow, but when his footsteps still and his body goes stiff, I don’t need to exit the elevator to know who’s waiting for me in the hallway.
Acting purely on instinct, I quickly shove the key into my braid to hide it, and step into the narrow hallway. I harden myself and prepare for the worst, knowing I can’t break cover.
I keep my expression blank, my eyes hard as I move in beside Mario, showing my obedience.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” the master asks, his shrewd glance going from Mario to me back to Mario again.
I don’t want t
o get the handler in trouble, so I open my mouth to speak, even though I have no idea what I’m about to say, but Mario comes to my rescue and speaks first.
“She wanted to speak with you. She said it was urgent and I thought you were in your downstairs chambers, so I brought her to you.”
The master rolls on his feet and juts his chin out as he considers this information. Then after a long agonizing minute he turns to me. “Is that so, Pride?”
I nod quickly, my brain scrambling to catch up. Then I realize that not only has Mario given me the perfect opportunity to prove my loyalties, he’s also given me a rare opportunity to gather information. I have to clear my head and struggle to think straight, because I can’t screw this up. I just can’t. I have to give the master enough information to appease him, but I can’t let him figure out how much I know.
“When I was in the courtyard today,” I begin, and work to make it look like my concerns are for the master.
“Go on,” he prompts.
“There was a strange new smell in the air.”
I pause and wait to see if the master is going to react, but when he just continues to stand there, hovering over me like a silver bullet, I continue. “It was rank, like a cat.”
He waves his hand. “We’re in a vineyard, Pride. There are always stray cats about.”
I open my eyes wide to accentuate the importance of what I’m saying. “This was different.”
“Different how?”
“The scent taunted my wolf. She gets the sense that whatever is out there is a danger. To all of us.”
“Is that right,” he says, his eyes narrowing as if to figure out how much I know. “How so?”
I watch him carefully and that’s when I hear it—the increased flow of his blood, the elevation of his heart rate, and the rapid jump in his pulse.
He knows what’s out there. He knows what we’re up against. And if he’s this afraid, we’re all in trouble.
As my wolf howls and feeds off his fear, I wonder who is commanding these panthers and what they’ll do to the master if they get hold of him.
What will they do to the wolves once we escape?
“If something is out there threatening us, we’re all going to have to work together to destroy it,” I say, hoping he’ll tell me exactly what were up against but knowing better than to come right out and ask.
“So this is the reason you wanted to see me? To warn me that something is out there.”
I nod.
“And to think that just yesterday you tried to attack me because I wanted to breed you.” He gives a cruel smirk. “Such conflicting behavior does make me question whether you’re working with me, or working against me.”
“With you,” I say and keep the urgency from my voice when I add, “Why would I have come here to warn you about the dangers on the outside.”
“Why indeed?”
“Just because I don’t want to breed doesn’t mean I’m not loyal and I came to tell you because I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Don’t worry, Pride,” he says, letting me know the subject is closed for discussion. While I’m walking away without having gained much information at least I’m able to walk away from this, because I know this situation could have gone down a whole lot worse for me.
“I have everything under control.” He makes a noise in his throat and takes a step closer to me. “If you really want to prove you’re loyal then you won’t put up a fight when I breed you in five days.”
I stare at him and it suddenly occurs to me that he’s stalling. Why would he wait for the full moon? I know it’s when Stone is at his strongest and when I’m most fertile, but my instincts tell me he’s putting off the mating for another reason. He needs something else from me.
“I won’t put up a fight,” I assure him. And I won’t, simply because I plan on being gone from this prison long before then.
His smile is crooked when he turns to Mario, dismissing me like I’m yesterday’s news. “Take her to her cell.” Dark eyes move to mine when he says, “I’ll see you in the courtyard tomorrow, Pride. It should be an interesting day.”
Everything in his cruel gaze tells me he has something planned, something I’m not going to like.
Mario grips my arm, and when he gives it a tug to set me into motion, my ponytail swishes against my neck. My heart goes into my throat when I feel the key dislodge, the cold metal scraping over my nape. I suck in a sharp breath and hold it, just waiting for the ball to drop, or in this case, the key to slip free and clang on the cement floor.
We move past the master, and he stands there watching, his arms folded across his chest. I walk slowly, fearing he’s going to see the key, to know what I’ve done.
Once Mario opens the door leading to the kitchen, I let the air out of my lungs, and inconspicuously run my hands along the length of my hair to slide the key into my palm before it falls.
I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief, but turn in time to see the master’s savage smile before the thick metal door clicks shut behind us.
His smirk fills me with fear.
What does he have planned for the courtyard tomorrow?
Chapter Ten
An uncomfortable silence falls over us as Mario leads me back to the cellar. His expression is bored as we pass by the master’s staff but I can see the tension in his posture.
We reach the long staircase leading to my own personal dungeon and I descent the steps slowly, prolonging the inevitable as my wolf howls desperately inside me. Our plan was to get in and out as quickly as possible and after promising her only one night of solitary confinements, it’s slowly killing her to be back in the dank basement.
Forcing my legs to carry me into my cage, a cold chill falls over me as I enter but I embrace the discomfort. Once inside, I quiet my wolf and turn to face Mario, my expression questioning.
Does he know what the master has planned?
I search his eyes for answers, looking for something, anything to let me know what I’m going to be up against tomorrow. But from the strained look on his face, combined with the fatigue in his eyes, I can tell he’s as in the dark as I am. Only the master knows what tomorrow will bring.
With that he closes the door gently and my heart beats faster as he secures my lock. Then his eyes meet mine, and he isn’t even trying to mask the worry I see there.
“Do you have a plan?” he questions in whispered words.
“I’m working on it,” I assure him, thankful that Sandy is still in the courtyard and we can talk privately.
He stands there for a long time, his forehead braced against the cage, then he lifts his head and the pain I see on his face presses against my heart. “I’m sorry, Pride.”
“Don’t,” I say quickly, holding my hands up to stop him because I’m suddenly not sure I can deal with his pain or his emotions. Mine are in enough turmoil as it is.
But he doesn’t stop. Instead he says, “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to stop him from doing this to you.”
His fingers slip through my metal bars and when his hands tighten on them, I close my small palm over them.
“Please,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “This isn’t your fault. You had a family to worry about. I understand that now.”
He gives me a small grateful smile that doesn’t reach his eyes when he whispers, “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I push the words past the lump in my throat. “I’ll be fine.”
After a long moment he breaks the quiet, gives a slow sure nod of his head and says, “If anyone can pull this off, Pride, it’s you.”
As his words ring in my head—words I once heard from Clover before I bolted three weeks ago—it does something to me. Without conscious thought my hand fists over my heart. Even though Clover is gone, I know she’s still with me, here in my heart, urging me to do the right thing. It was her confidence in my abilities that helped me escape the first time and the faith both she and Mario have in me wil
l help me do what needs to be done a second time. I’m sure of it.
“Just be careful, okay?”
I nod but a bang at the top of the stairs has us both stiffening. Mario steps back. His back goes straight and his face hardens, then after returning to handler mode he twists and takes the stairs two at a time. A moment later I listen to the door slip shut, and the deadbolt slide home.
With chaos erupting inside me, I push down my emotions and turn to find bread and bacon wrapped in a small napkin. My stomach takes that moment to grumble, but before I dive into it and devour it like a starved dog, I hurry to the corner of my cot, lift it slightly, and gingerly place the key underneath. I don’t dare try it on the lock just yet, not when anyone could come sauntering down the stairs and catch me. No, I’ll have to wait until after dark, when the house is quiet and my bunkmate is asleep.
Once the key is hidden, I lower myself onto my cot. As I carefully peel open the napkin, I wonder who could have delivered this food to me. If I didn’t know better I’d think I had my own little guardian angel. But I do know better. With the exception of a few, in this place it’s pretty much every wolf for himself.
I breathe deep to see if I can catch any unfamiliar scents lingering in the air but when I find none I peer into Sandy’s empty cage. Not that I think she’d share her victor’s winnings with me, anyway.
I don’t spend too much time thinking about who gifted me with this much needed nourishment, not with the way my belly is growling loudly. I take a bite and force myself to chew slowly, otherwise I know my empty stomach will rebel. The dry bread lodges in my throat, and without water I have to work extra hard to swallow it down.
Once I’m finished I lay on my cot, and soon Sandy returns. She comes bounding down the steps like an exuberant puppy, and after Lawrence deposits her in her cell, she crawls into her bed without saying a word to me. I note the curious way she’s watching me, like she suspects I’m up to something.
Keeping my pulse steady and the blood flowing slowly through my veins to avoid raising her suspicions I turn from her, and use that time to think about my next move. But as I stare at the ventilation system overhead and think about the twists and turns I’ll have to take to make my way around the upstairs, I wonder about my father’s scent. Will I pick up on it again? If I catch a whiff, do I dare follow it? Will it lead me to answers? Or will it lead me to danger?
