Very odd.
He issued a warning, and they slowly advanced. His eyes on the map, he watched them move on it until he could make out a shape of a wooden cabin just ahead.
The smell had become so bad that the two wolves shifted as they made a face.
“Is this it?” Alan asked, trepidation in his voice.
Fergus did not speak. He wanted to barge in and find his mate, but his instincts, honed from years of hunting, warned him to wait.
And so, he did.
After a few minutes when there was still no movement, they advanced.
For what looked like an abandoned cabin built in the 1840s, the lock on it sure was new. When Matt was about to break it, Fergus put a restraining hand on his wrist.
“It could set off an alarm.”
When the hulking man looked disbelievingly at the harmless looking metal lock, Fergus didn’t even blink, “Better safe than sorry.”
He used his elbow to break open the window.
Shattering it completely, they entered one by one and looked around.
It was empty.
It was like a tight fist was clenching on Fergus’ heart.
Did it show that he was finding each breath a task?
“There’s nothing here,” The disappointment in Alan’s voice was acute. He looked over to his alpha whose head was bowed and his fists clenched. If he had not seen the tremble in that fist and the tightness in Fergus’ shoulders, the healer would never have seen the restrained anger.
Their alpha had such a tight hold over his emotions that it sometimes worried him. And right now, it looked like he was going to rip that map apart.
But he didn’t.
His fists unclenched, and Fergus smoothed the wrinkles on the parchment. His voice was calm, not betraying the storm of turmoil inside of him, “Why would the map bring me someplace she’s not?”
Both his packmates shared a sorrowful glance as something occurred to them. Diana might be here, but no longer alive. The map had led them to where remains were buried.
Fergus’ eyes darted all over the small cabin. Dust covered every aspect of it. Even the faded rug on the ground was moth bitten.
“I have to make a call.”
Alan and Matt waited as he deftly put one leg through the broken window.
A pained whimper.
Fergus froze.
He withdrew his leg and listened.
The sound came again, as if from a wounded creature.
It was muffled, but there was no mistaking it.
His voice cold, Fergus ordered, “Tear this place apart.”
Chapter 2
There were no false walls or any sign of life in the small cabin. Dust coated everything. The bare furniture looked so antique that Fergus wondered whether this was just a set up or this cabin had truly been furnished in the 1800s.
However, he and his men left nothing to chance. They stripped the bed, checked every nook and cranny, but came up empty. A few minutes later, they stood staring at the remains of their search, and Fergus growled, his animal coming into his eyes.
Where had that sound come from?
Frustrated, he studied each piece of furniture with more depth, his eyes running over each article with precision.
The moth-bitten carpet made him pause.
Why would someone place a carpet under a bed?
Especially when it did not even extend out enough from under the bed for someone to put their feet on it.
Walking over to the bed, he pushed it to one side, his expression grim when he felt how light it was, as if it was merely a prop.
The rug was tossed away and, kneeling down, he saw a trap door. The door was clean as was the iron handle on it. Which meant that it was in constant use. But why couldn’t he smell anything in this room?
It was like the entire place had been aired. Even airing a room still left behind traces of scent markers, but this was odd. However, the mixture of trepidation and impatience was terrifying. He pulled open the door and threw a glance over his shoulder at his two companions before ignoring the metal rails attached for support and jumping straight down.
Landing on his feet, he straightened up and staggered at that familiar scent. How long had it been since he had smelled this wild and untamed scent that was so particular to his mate? This place was covered in it, along with various others, all of them belonging to shifters.
The scent of blood, both fresh and old, made him snarl. It was dark inside, and his eyes adjusted themselves and he made out a large stone table in front of him.
He heard one of his men moving about, and he heard the click of the light switch. The flood of light had him blinking.
It was a torture room.
That was the only way to describe it.
Tightening the reigns on his temper, Fergus slowly moved about the room.
It was ancient.
Somebody had taken out a lot of effort to build this.
The stone walls provided zero ventilation inside.
His eyes roamed over equipment and instruments which had been put on display in front of the stone table, probably for maximum impact on the person tied to it. They varied in size, and each one was crueler and guaranteed to be more painful than the other.
They all had stains of blood on it, like no one had bothered to clean them.
The very thought of…
Fergus cut off his train of thought. He needed his wits with him, and as hard as it was to control himself, he had to keep it together.
However, he hadn’t accounted for what he found on the stone table.
It wasn’t the stains of blood that bothered him, or the metal fittings which were designed to restrict the victim’s movements.
No.
It was the scent of Diana’s freshly spilled blood that had him roaring out.
Alan and Matt stiffened, and Fergus could hear the growls that vibrated in their chests.
He looked around the room and when his eyes fell on the small, steel doors that blended in seamlessly in the stone walls, he studied the number of doors there were. His blood ran cold as he counted to around thirteen.
“Everyone take one door.”
The wolf shifters understood the rest of the instructions without Fergus saying anything.
Free everyone.
Fergus focused on the one door which carried Diana’s scent. His heart beating wildly against his chest, he tried to open the door, but it was reinforced steel. However, Fergus was an alpha and royalty. His strength was unrivalled.
Putting his strength into it, he pulled at the handle, and slowly the straining of the steel could be heard.
His hands were starting to burn, but he did not register the pain, desperate to get to the woman on the other side of the door. He heard the clutter behind him as his packmates got hold of those torture instruments and used them to open the doors.
He heard the whimper again, this time carrying pain and confusion.
However, Fergus didn’t give up. His hands bled as he curved his fingers around the part of the door which had dented with his strength and given him an opening. He kept tugging at it until the metal seams broke. The door nearly fell on him, but he stepped back and nearly avoided being crushed.
His ears registered the snarls of the prisoners as his wolves got a few doors open, but his eyes were focused on the pair of eyes that gleamed at him from the small chamber.
The glossy red coat that he had once used to groom every night was dirty and matted with blood and infection. Those green eyes that had always held laughter and mischief in them were now dull and filled with fear.
Fergus trembled as he studied his mate. His legs gave way, and he fell to his knees.
“Diana!” he called out.
The wolf in front of him did not respond to that name. She pressed herself against the back of the chamber, trying to make herself as small as possible. There was no recognition in her eyes, and when Fergus tried to approach her, she just snarled and snapped her teeth. He froze
.
She didn’t know him.
He hadn’t prepared for that.
For all his weeks of traveling and mentally preparing himself, he hadn’t once thought that she might not even remember him.
How could his own mate not know him?
What did they do to her?
When he took another step forward, her snarl lacked that luster and sounded weaker, but she gave it her all.
It broke his heart, and he couldn’t push back the burning in his eyes.
He studied her broken form, the way she cradled her right paw as if it was injured. She seemed so frightened of him – although she was trying not to show it – that it made him want to lose all that control he had spent ten years building up. He wanted to rage and make it rain blood.
His hands trembled with fury, and she must have caught onto his anger because it made her curl into herself, forcing him to stop.
Fergus took a deep breath and then tried to think. Maybe she would be more at ease if he was in wolf form. He saw Matt wearing his wolf form and herding a swan shifter toward the side. His subordinates might be on the right track.
Shifting in a shimmer of color, he watched Diana’s eyes widen and her form stiffen. He moved toward her, and this time did not hesitate. He nuzzled her neck until she relaxed and rubbed himself against her in a comforting manner.
Feeling the tremor that ran through her, he offered her the warmth of his body and, hesitating, she took it.
The female let this wolf lick her crushed paw and felt him offer comfort.
***
This was the same wolf she had seen in her dreams. Had he been real this whole time, or was this just another dream? He was more beautiful in person, and she allowed him to usher her out of her cell. She did not know what was going on.
The man in front of her had been so angry that she had thought he would hurt her. The men had just left this morning after making her spend an entire night on the table. And when this wolf in his human form had ripped open the door, she had found him to be more terrifying.
However, he offered her nothing but licks. He would nuzzle her, rub against her, telling her he was here and that she was safe.
But safety was an illusion.
When they hadn’t chosen her in weeks, she had thought she was safe.
But then they had come for her again.
Was this just a game? Another ploy to build up her hopes?
Her eyes widened as she saw the rest of her fellow prisoners being released from their cells with the help of two wolves. One of them shifted, and she stepped back in alarm, unable to help the fear that swept through her.
But he sat on the ground and let the two rabbit shifter children study him. They were twins, and they had come long after she had. Most of the torture they had gone through had been psychological, and Diana watched as one of them crept forward and sniffed at the human-wolf. The other followed suit. It was a process of a few minutes, and most of the shifters who had been held with her studied the wolf, ready to attack.
Even the female bristled, her eyes watching carefully. These were the only two children here, and their screams of pain and cries had been torture to hear. One of the rabbits put its paws on the man’s knees and it shifted into a short girl who could barely be five. She flung her arms around the naked wolf shifter and started crying. Her brother followed suit, and they clung onto the man. Their thin shoulders shook with the violence of their sobs, and the shifter stood up, carrying them out.
However, he had barely gotten to the door when the familiar sounds had the imprisoned shifters snarl. She had seen all of them come one by one, but she was the oldest one here. She watched a tiger shifter bare his teeth and saw the human shifter back up as she set the two children down, moving them behind him.
The weakened female left the silver wolf’s side, ignoring his protest, and moved toward the children, as did the other shifters.
No matter the type of shifter, the young were very sacred and were always the first to be protected in a fight. A female elk flanked the wolf’s side as he shifted, his teeth bared in a snarl.
The wolf licked the boy’s cheek comfortingly to stop his trembling, and although she knew she would be no good in a fight, she refused to back down.
Shouts of surprise and the thudding of loud footsteps. Three human men came into view, and when they saw their prisoners free from their cells, they paled. But not for long.
The number of drugs they had introduced in their systems had rendered most of these shifters weak and they might be able to fight on adrenaline, but their bodies would be quick to give way. Their confidence regained, they took out small rods from their pockets, which expanded into long sticks which made some of the shifter quiver.
Fergus glanced at Diana.
She was struggling to stand, but her injured foot and her malnourished frame wasn’t making it easy for her. The red rage that swept through Fergus at the sight of his mate had him snarling, and he stepped forward.
It must have occurred to the humans that there were more shifters than usual, and at the sight of three grown wolves, one of them tightened his jaw.
“Go for the wolves first,” he instructed his partners who nodded.
The tiger shifter roared and jumped at one of his captives. The long rod swung in his direction, and the stream of electricity had the tiger falling and his body twitching on the ground as the jolts of power pulsed through him.
So, stay away from rod, Fergus told himself, detaching his emotions. If he had to protect Diana right now, he couldn’t be feeling angry or confused.
He darted forward, and as the rod arced toward him, he slid sideways on the ground, his paw smashing into his attacker’s leg, making stumble.
Using the distraction of the humans, Matt jumped into the fight and tore at the throat of one of the humans. Ignoring the electricity which jolted him, he felt the gush of warm blood and finished off the gargling human with one blow.
Seeing one of their men down, the other one looked toward where Fergus was making quick work of his companion. He backed away and heard a snarl behind him. A grey wolf bared his teeth at him, and when the man blindly swung the rod in panic, the wolf actually grabbed the stick in his teeth.
In his fear, the human’s grip loosened enough for Alan to wrench the rod away.
Both companions gone, the man’s terror permeated the room, along with the smell of urine as the three wolves advanced on him. The shifters who had been held captive watched from the side, their bodies heavy with so many drugs running through their system.
With the threat removed, the female wolf’s legs gave way as she realized that they were being rescued. The silver wolf trotted up and stood next to her protectively as the other two wolves helped get the rest of the shifters out.
Fergus studied the place, the anger inside him a pulsing beat. When his eyes drifted upwards, he stiffened as he witnessed a horrifying sight, one which he would never forget. Nailed to the top tier of the walls were animal hides. No, not animal hides. These were the skin of shifters in their transformed state.
Trophies.
They had a fucking trophy wall.
He looked toward Diana, and his blood ran cold as the truth hit home.
He had buried her skinned coat. So, caught up in the fact that his mate was still alive, he had not connected the two facts until now.
She had survived a skinning.
She had been tortured in this hell hole.
For ten years.
While he had done nothing.
The guilt inside him was almost crippling.
***
Whining, the wolf nudged her with his nose, and she batted at him with her paw, startled. The misery that radiated from him was confusing. She liked his scent, but her body was throbbing in various places, and her right eye was hurting her.
She heard his growl and looked up at the various hides that were nailed to the wall. She had known most of them, or at least seen glimpses of them. Some
of them had been here before and some had come after her.
She turned her head away.
These humans killed with a methodology. When they started skinning, she would hear the screams, and she knew that this was that shifter’s last time on that table.
They had skinned her once, and she had survived. She had fought for her life, and when her coat had grown back at an alarming rate the next day, the humans had never attempted it again. But every time a shifter went through this process, she would cover her ears to muffle the shrieks. They would remind her of the pain that she had gone through.
Fergus nudged her to get her moving.
He watched Diana get to her feet and she struggled, falling down.
After watching her fail again and again, he shifted.
Ignoring her wariness, he lifted her wolf form. She was skin and bones, and that ate at him. He carried her out and gently deposited her on the ground.
The two children were sitting on the ground, their eyes fixed on Matt as the now shifted wolf conversed with the other shifters. Some of them had shifted, while the others were still in their true forms. Alan’s forehead was beaded with sweat as he healed one shifter after the other.
As he leaned back to take a breath, Fergus signaled to him, and his lieutenant immediately came over.
The injuries that covered Diana were extensive, and he sat on the ground, her head in his lap as Alan ran his healing magic over her. At first, she resisted his touch, and Fergus restrained her until she realized that the pain was leaving her body slowly.
Her green eyes watched as the healed shifters limped away one by one, wanting to leave this site where they had horrors inflicted upon them. The tiger had shifted into a heavily muscled man whose anger was evident on his face.
“These bastards destroyed my entire pack.” His snarl did not hide his grief, and Fergus felt his pain.
“How did they find your den? What about your barriers?”
The tiger, Lorne, looked grim, “They knew! Where the cubs slept, where the elders would be, where our sentinels were posted. They knew how to bypass our barriers. We had a witch set up these barriers a few years ago. They were fucking impenetrable. These bastards just waltzed in and started picking us off one by one. We didn’t even get a chance to fight back.”
Desired by Alpha Bear Page 59
