Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham
Iglared at Cain from my position taped to a chair in the CCTV observation room as he stood with his back to the door and his arms folded across his chest.
He’d shot me in here so fast that I’d barely been able to figure out which way was up before my ass hit this chair and my hands were restrained behind my back by a swathe of duct tape which also served to immobilise my magic
My chest heaved up and down while I bared my teeth at him and the echoes of Ethan’s pain slowly faded from my limbs. But that did nothing to ease the ache in my heart over knowing that he was out there, hurting, needing me.
The mate bond gripped my heart in a vice and squeezed as it urged me to go to him, help him, protect him from the source of this pain. But I couldn’t move a single inch thanks to the overbearing bastardo who was currently blocking the door.
“I’m going to rip your head off for this,” I snarled at him but Cain didn’t even blink, though the way his left arm muscles flexed made me think the curse was giving him some trouble right about now. “This isn’t protecting me, can’t you see that? You’re just trapping me here and letting them rip my heart from my chest piece by piece. I have to go to them. I miei compagni della luna. They need me.” That last sentence came out choked and I fought the urge to break as I strained against the duct tape once more. I couldn’t break. Not here. Not now. They needed me and I wasn’t some weak bitch to be beaten. I was their mate and I refused to abandon them. I just wasn’t getting much choice in that at the moment.
“I’m protecting you,” Cain bit out, his eyes flaring with determination as he gritted his teeth against the pain the curse was clearly delivering to him.
“Then why is your curse growing?” I snarled. “Tell me that. If what you’re doing is what’s right for me then why is it digging its way beneath your skin and burying itself in your bones as we speak?”
“Are you controlling it?” he accused.
I barked a humourless laugh. “No, boss man, I don’t control the moon. It controls me. And I can feel the power of it burning through the air just like I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. The moon knows you’re hurting me so it’s hurting you right back.”
“I’m not hurting you,” he insisted. “I’m keeping you safe. Out there everyone wants to kill you, all of the prisoners are out for a taste of your blood. You’re not the leader of the Oscuras in here anymore, Rosalie! You’re just a girl who I can’t bear to see-”
Cain cut himself off and turned away from me, glaring up at the screens - not that it would do him much good. Some of the inmates had clearly taken to destroying the cameras and now only a couple of them remained functioning, none of which gave us any information on where the others were or what was happening to them.
“To see what? Me hurt? Because you’re hurting me right now by doing this. You’re tearing lumps from my soul and setting them alight. I need them, Mason. I need to go to them and protect them and hell, I’d even die with them if that was what it came to. Don’t you get that? Can’t you even try to understand what it feels like to value someone else’s life over your own because of how you feel for them?”
Cain looked back at me sharply, like he thought I was trying to trick or trap him, but I had no conniving left in me anymore. I was just a beaten, broken girl with a failed dream and a heart that was in the process of tearing from my chest without my mates.
“Please,” I breathed, a tear breaking free of my restraint and tumbling down my cheek in a rush.
Cain’s jaw ticked, his gaze cutting from me to the screens before meeting mine again. That steely grey colour of his pupils seemed to harden before he shook his head with a violent jerk.
“No,” he barked. “I’m not sending you out there to your death.”
My chest cleaved in two at his words just as pain flared through my ribs, letting me know that Ethan was being hurt yet again. I tipped my head back and howled, a long, low, mournful tune which sung my heartache to the skies way above us and begged the moon to help me.
Cain swore before dropping to his knees in front of me, one hand slamming to the floor while the other clawed at his jumpsuit in desperation. He tore the fabric open and I sucked in a breath as I found the curse mark covering the entire left side of his body, the silvery rose vines creeping up the side of his throat and crossing his chest like it was aiming for his heart.
Cain’s muscles flexed against the agony the curse was causing him, his veins bulging as a snarl of pain escaped his lips and as his gaze moved up to meet mine again, I found blood trailing down his face from his eyes.
“Mason,” I gasped in panic, yanking against my restraints once more while he remained on his hands and knees, prostrated before me and struggling to stay upright.
“Rosalie Oscura!” Gustard’s magically amplified voice suddenly boomed through the prison and my heart stilled as I held Cain’s gaze while listening to hear what else that psychotic bastardo had to say to me. “You and I are overdue some quality time together. So I’m going to make this nice and simple. You have one hour to find your way up here to the Mess Hall or I’m going to start taking heads from your loyal little followers.”
Silence fell and I howled again, battling against my restraints and snarling furiously.
“You have to let me go,” I insisted, fighting so hard that the chair I was strapped to began to buck off the floor.
“I can’t!” Cain roared suddenly, shooting towards me and leaning down to snarl right in my face. “Don’t you get it? I can’t just let you go and watch you walk to your death with that psychopath. This whole plan of yours was insane from the beginning, but you have to see now that it’s over. This is all over. You’re out of luck, out of ideas and you’re running out of time too. Just admit it, Rosalie. Just accept it. You can’t get all of them out of here...but that doesn’t have to mean it’s the end for you as well.”
I stared up at him as a drip of his blood ran down his cheek like a tear from his eye before falling and splashing against the knee of my jumpsuit.
“Let it go now, Rosalie. You did what you could, more than any other Fae would have managed in your position. But it wasn’t enough. Because this place is impenetrable. You can’t break out. You know it as well as I do,” Cain said, his voice imploring.
“I don’t,” I replied in a broken whisper, my heart thrashing like the wings of a hummingbird inside my chest. “I don’t know that, and I refuse to even allow the thought of it to take up room inside my mind for a single second.”
“There’s still a chance for you,” Cain begged. “A chance for us if you really meant any of the things you said to me. Because the guards or the FIB will be taking this place back under their control sooner or later. But you have your gifts from the moon. You can hide at my side, I can protect you and get you out of here. Don’t throw your life away down here on a hopeless dream.” His hands gripped the arms of my chair so tightly that I was pretty certain that was the only thing holding him up against the agony of the curse which was burning through his veins.
I looked back at him as more blood slowly tracked its way down his face from the corners of his eyes, reigning in my temper as I tried to show him the pain I was feeling at being trapped down here while my mates were in trouble.
“The curse is hurting you because you’re hurting me,” I told him firmly, needing him to hear me. “Don’t you get that? Keeping me away from them hurts me, it tears at my soul and rips me open inside. I can’t breathe knowing they’re in pain somewhere, needing me, waiting for me. How do you think I would survive it if you took me out of here and left them behind? You’d be cursing me to a life of suffering and pining and wasting away without them out there.”
“But you’d have me,” Cain said, flinching a little at the words as if he hadn’t meant to give voice to them.
“I need them too,” I replied, my voice catching as another spike of pain flared through my flesh in an echo of what was happening to Ethan. But that wasn’t even the worst of this. My Wolf bond to Ethan meant I could sense his pain, but my link to Roary didn’t work in the same way, so I had no idea if he or Sin were even still alive. And the fear I felt over that was all encompassing.
Cain finally seemed to grasp what I was saying, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he sagged forward and pressed his forehead to mine, his blood dripping against my cheeks.
“I can’t just let you run into Gustard’s trap,” he growled. “We need to come up with something better than that.”
“Well we need to come up with it fast, stronzo, or they’re going to run out of time and you’re going to start bleeding from your ass too,” I growled.
Cain breathed a hopeless laugh before dropping his mouth over mine and kissing me hard, his fingers moving to the tape he’d used to secure me to this star damned chair as he used a flash of fire magic to release me.
I bit down on his bottom lip, shoving to my feet as he jerked back a step and he gave me an appraising look as he swiped the blood from his face.
“I’m not going to bleed to death from my fucking asshole,” he said firmly and I smirked at him as I felt the curse receding through my connection to it now that he was helping me.
“Then maybe you need to learn to play nicer with others,” I suggested, nudging past him as I moved to look up at the few functioning feeds from the CCTV cameras. “Or better yet, just learn to take your orders from me from now on. We all know I’m going to be the top dog in this little game of ours long term anyway.”
Cain scoffed as he moved to my side, glancing at the screens before looking at me again.
“So tell me what amazing plan you’ve got now?” he prompted, his tone saying he didn’t believe I had one. But as my gaze landed on the feed from the isolation unit, a small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
“What’s that old saying - the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” I asked slowly.
“Down here, the enemy of your enemy is more likely to just be the next in line to try and kill you,” Cain replied.
“Maybe. But only after they’ve finished with our mutual adversary first.” I turned to look at Cain with a dark smile taking my lips captive and the look of dread on his face only made it widen.
“Why do I just know I’m not going to like this plan one bit?” he huffed.
“Because it’s brilliant. But all the most brilliant plans come with at least a little risk attached.”
Cain sighed, massaging his arm where the curse mark plagued him before nodding for me to continue.
“Remember that big scary Vampire dude who’s been locked away down in isolation for fuck knows how long after he killed a bunch of people up in the Magic Compound?” I asked innocently.
“No,” Cain snapped instantly.
“The one who is probably unhinged and kills without mercy...”
“No,” he snarled more forcefully.
“The one who just so happens to hate Gustard with a vengeance to rival my own...”
“I said no, Twelve, have you lost your fucking mind? That man is a monster given flesh if ever I saw one. It takes eight guards to escort him for his showers down there and that’s without him having access to his magic. If we let him out of the hole he’ll cause a massacre, he’ll-”
“Probably be mighty grateful to whoever it was who set him free,” I supplied, my smile deepening. “Especially if they happened to bring food and information on where he could find Gustard...”
“You’re insane,” Cain said angrily, turning away from me and swiping a hand down his face. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.”
“No, I’m Rosalie Oscura. And I always have a plan. This will work, you know it. He’ll want the food and he’ll want out of isolation. Besides, he already hates Gustard and wants his head. I say we let him have it.”
“Why did the stars curse me to fall for a crazy woman?” Cain hissed beneath his breath as he paced back towards the door.
I moved after him, catching his hand and pulling him around to look at me so that I could tug at the front of the jumpsuit he wore and reveal his bare chest beneath it.
I ran my fingertips over the silver rose vines which were now spreading across his chest and he groaned softly as I caressed them.
“I am your curse, Mason,” I breathed, dropping my mouth to one of the rosebuds on his neck and feeling my moon gifts buzzing through my flesh as I placed a kiss against his skin which made him shiver. “But maybe I could be a blessing too if you let me?”
I drew back and he sighed as the vines retreated a little, moving away from his heart and back down from his neck. I could feel the magic in me swelling for a moment like I was running beneath the light of the moon, but as I tried to get the curse to retreat further, it halted. And I knew in no uncertain terms that this wasn’t on me to break.
Cain seemed to understand that too as he looked down at his chest before reaching up to cup my cheek in his rough palm.
“I guess we’re going to release a madman on the prison then,” he said in a resigned tone and I grinned at him before darting across the room and rummaging in some of the cupboards there where we’d found the guards’ supply of snacks earlier. Luckily we hadn’t eaten all of it and I found a big bag of BBQ flavoured chips alongside a couple of chocolate bars lurking in the back.
I hurried to the door, ignoring Cain’s negative grumbling as I called on my moon gifts and managed to make myself invisible once more. Cain covered his features with a concealment spell and we slipped out of the surveillance room together before hurrying to the isolation unit.
“What the hell happened back there anyway?” I asked as we ran. “How did the prisoners all get control of their magic again?”
“Wilder,” Cain growled. “He shifted and pretended he was you. Then he let himself get hurt and asked me to heal him so that he could get a read on my magical signature. The cuffs were off before I realised what the fuck he’d done.”
A furious snarl ripped through me as I realised what had happened. I’d told that Incubus. I’d made myself more than clear and he’d gone against my orders again. Gah! I was going to kill him once I got done saving his infuriating damn life.
We stopped outside the Isolation Unit and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand as I waited for Cain to open the door.
Cain hesitated for a moment before using his magical signature to unlock the door for us and directing me into the cold corridor ahead of him.
I released my hold on my moon gifts and strode to the far end of the block, standing before the heavy metal door there and reaching out to open the hatch.
Cain tensed beside me, clearly still hating this plan, but he did nothing to stop me as I opened the hatch and peered into the darkness within the cell.
“Hey,” I called. “I thought you might be hungry.”
I placed the bag of chips and one of the chocolate bars on the little ledge created by the hatch and stepped back again, remembering how easily Sin had grabbed me when I’d spoken to him like this and choosing not to be an idiota by standing so close again.
Silence greeted me from inside the cell and I straightened my shoulders as I went on.
“You don’t know me, but I’m thinking the two of us could be friends. You see, there’s a riot going on right now and all the guards have been driven out of the prison. And I happen to be about to go upstairs to the Mess Hall to kill Gustard. But because he’s an unFae piece of shit, he’s got a whole gang waiting to take me on at once and stop me from doing that. So I was thinking maybe if I got you out of there, you might be interested in evening the odds?”
Silence lingered in the air again but then suddenly the chips and chocolate bar were snatched from the hatch and my heart leapt as the sound of the wrappers being torn open filled the air.
Cain was tense and rigid at my side, but he said nothing, just waiting and letting me go on.
“I’m not talking about us fighting like him, just to be clear. But I hear you’re a powerful bastardo and I happen to be able to pack a punch myself. There’s no strings attached. No star bonds or bullshit to pass between us. Just your freedom and the option to come help me kill that stronzo. Sound good?”
The sound of him eating continued and I couldn’t help but think of Sin’s stories about this guy. Had he really eaten his own face? That seemed too ridiculous to be true. But then everyone down here was at least a little unhinged. So maybe. Perhaps I was about to let him loose and discover that he had no face at all.
Only one way to find out, I guess.
I nodded to Cain who looked more than a little dubious about this whole thing, but as a flare of Ethan’s pain sang through my veins again, I gritted my teeth and nodded firmly.
“Do it,” I snarled. “Let him out.”
My palms tingled with the magic I might need to use to defend myself if this all went horribly wrong, but I felt confident somehow, my instincts urging me on. And they’d never guided me wrong before.
Cain unlocked the cell door and I yanked it open, remembering how sweet freedom had tasted to me when I’d been released from my cell after spending months down here. Fuck knew how he must have felt after being trapped in that cell for years.
A prickle ran down my spine as the thump of heavy footsteps moved in the darkness of the cell, drawing closer to me as the shadows inside hid this new beast from my eyes.
The guy was huge, like a Dragon Shifter on steroids huge and he had to duck to step beneath the doorway of the cell he’d spent his life trapped inside up until this moment.
Light spilled onto his face and I smirked up at him as he looked down at me from within a curtain of dark, lank hair. He had a face. And it was pretty handsome beneath the rough beard that coated it, his eyes dark and full of wicked promises which I couldn’t wait to see him unleash.
I got the distinct impression he was considering ripping my head clean off of my body as his assessing gaze roamed over me and my smile widened.
“Welcome back, big man,” I purred, not showing the least bit of fear despite the fact that he was about four times the size of me.
I pulled a shot of Order suppressant antidote from my pocket and felt Cain tense beside me as I offered it to our new friend alongside the other bar of chocolate. But if he was going to be able to help us, he’d need magic which meant topping up his power and that meant he needed access to those bitey Vampire fangs of his.
I was just hoping he wouldn’t decide to try his luck chomping on me first. “Let’s go wreak some havoc.”