Chapter 14: Chapter Fourteen

There was little Cassidy remembered over the next few weeks. She had been brought back to the cell she and Jett shared and returned to her chains. A day later, they switched her chains from regular iron out to silver in preparation of her turning into a werewolf from the bite of the Alpha. In humans, if they were bitten, it took maybe four days maximum for a human to make the change. Some died within the first twenty four hours, their bodies unable to handle the venom in their blood. Some died during the actual change when their mind could not accommodate or accept the primal nature of the wolfs soul merging into them. A good majority of them went insane and labeled the term Feral and they were brought to a swift end. A small handful of humans could handle the change and shift and accept the wolf as a part of them but even then, it was always difficult to let go of the human.

Jett was a hot mess. The first day he was there, he refused to say anything. The next day after they had brought Cassidy back and stripped her of the rest of her clothes and left her to lay and suffer in the corner of the room, he had begged them to help her. He told them everything he knew. He told them the truth of who they were and where they came from. Where they were going. None of it mattered. The hazel eyed black haired man he found out was named Hunter had his mind set on not believing him. He was not harmed physically that second day, but he came back to men putting silver chains on Cassidy’s unconscious body.

Jett had told them Cassidy was wolf-less. None of them believed him. A wolf-less soul was so extremely rare and it only happened in the lowest classes of the subordinates. No one believed that she was an alpha to begin with and they laughed in his face when he tried to claim otherwise. The night of not only listening to Cassidy whimper and suffer from the bite but then to know she had to be in even more pain because of the silver, had him set his mind to fighting the bastards that were responsible. That day forward, Jett fought each and every one of them. Each and every single time they came into the room or took him anywhere.

When she never changed and did not wake up, Hunter made the order to stop feeding her and Jett. The guards and Hunter could not execute them without the Alpha’s orders, but that only meant it was a waiting game for their bodies to give out. There were times when Cassidy would come around to awareness, listening to angry yelling from Jett and other men. Other times it would be dark and quiet and she could focus just a little but never enough to move. Cassidy’s favorite times were when the soft and kind face of the doctor would be there with her, a cool hand on her face and her pained neck with soft worried words she could never quite grasp.

Cassidy never heard the Alpha’s voice in her mind again. There had been a few moments of consciousness where she was sure she could feel him there on that link between them. Silent and brooding but as soon as she felt it, it was gone like a dream. Days would go by and as the venom was slowly leaving her system she was becoming more and more aware of her surroundings. However the more aware she became, the weaker she felt.

Three weeks had gone by to the day they had arrived when the pain of the venom was gone and she was waking up fully aware of herself. She moved slowly, weakly, hissing between her teeth at the nasty and stinging burns from the silver around her wrists, glaring at the cuffs as she sat up. She first noticed the IV line that was hooked into her arm and a bag of fluid hung from overhead. Her eyes wandered over to where Jett had been, his spot empty for the time being.

It was everything she could do at the moment to just sit upright and lean against the wall. The alpha’s bite packed more of a punch than she thought wolves could give and she reached up slowly, letting her fingers trace over the now smooth, healed skin where the man had bitten her. She frowned a little, moving her fingers across and along the crook of her shoulder, trying to feel something from the bite but there was nothing there. Did she even get bitten? Just as she was asking herself, the door clicked and swung open with the doctor, a relieved look on her face as she visibly relaxed. “Oh goodness… You are awake. I thought the fever had taken you!” she said as she came close, a guard standing watch in the doorway behind her as she came quickly into the room and knelt down at Cassi’s side.

At that moment, it was when Cassidy realized her clothes were gone and she was extraordinarily thin to what she had been before coming to this hell hole. “I-” she started to speak but all that came out was a breathy scratchy sound.

“Dont speak right now. You have been down for awhile and your voice is weak. Just sit and let me make sure you are doing okay.” The woman said in her gentle yet bossy tone. She seen Cassidy’s eyes flick over to where her male companion had been just a few hours ago and frowned as she went to work getting the young female’s vitals. “Your companion is alive. He will be very happy to see you awake.” She tried to assure Cassidy. “I will need to take some more blood work today. Please don't fight me.”

Cassidy gave the woman a look that clearly said ‘I couldn't if I tried’ when she was asked not to fight. They had taken Cass’s blood several times while she was out, every four or five days. The doctor had to ship the blood to another pack in Oregon for the DNA composition work to be done. Except each time the blood was shipped out, it never arrived where it should have been and the work was never done to tell them the truth about Cassidy. Jaz could tell the woman wasn't human but she wasn't wolf either and she had tried to explain it to hunter to tell the Alpha, but all she was given was a shake of the head and a firm expression with ‘I have orders.’

“I'm going to try and make you as comfortable as I can. Alright?”

Cassidy leaned her head back against the cool brick wall and closed her eyes, nodding just a little in answer. She was so tired. She had been past the point of being hungry for days now. Her body was emaciated and wasting away on its own. She let out a shake breath when the cuffs were opened and removed, followed by the collar around her neck. “Boss said to keep her chained up Doc.” The guard growled, a hand going to his gun that earned him a deadly glare from the healer. “Tell your boss I said he can kiss my ass. This child can not harm anyone right now.” Jasmine snapped at the guard before she returned to applying bandages and a soothing cream to the raw and open marks on her skin from the silver. “Dont you worry dear. You just try to rest now.”

Hands helped Cassidy back down to the floor after the girl nodded in agreement. Sleep did sound like the better option. She couldn't fight or try to make an escape right now if she wanted to. It took the doctor a few more minutes to finish up her examination before she left her alone, whispering something about a fever as she stood up. Cassidy wanted to ask what was wrong with her not thinking for a second that it had been ordered for them to be starved until they gave some reliable information, but once she was laying back down exhaustion from the little amount of activity she had done quickly set in. She felt the link that had been made between her and the alpha open slightly. Connect just enough the stronger party on the link could feel her before it slammed shut again as she was drifting off to sleep.

Darkness had swept in on her, taking her to a place of peace where physical pain couldn't reach her as she slept. Dreams slipped in and out of her mind, fleeting and hard to grasp until she found herself stretched, burning metal around her hands and she lay in a bed of fire. Except the fire didn't burn like fire. Warmth was cradling her from behind, contrasting with cool air above her. It was difficult to decipher what was happening in her dream when one moment she was chained, the next the chains were gone and burning hands touched and ran over her body, the voice of the alpha wolf distant and echoing in her mind words she could not make out. They were important words, ones she felt she should have known but were like a foreign language to her ears. The hands gripped her hips, searing on her skin and breath fanned her neck. Cassidy heard her name off in the distance. It was a desperate sound that held a tone of fear in it. Cass could not move from the hands that held her at her hips, an arm made of the same fire where she lay shot out and wrapped itself around her, trapping her and pulling her down deeper into the flames. The fire began to burn as it engulfed her skin, white hot as teeth bit and held her at the nape of the neck while she sank deeper. The Alpha’s voice and the single word that had been burned into her mind whispered from the fire ‘Mine’ just as she became submerged with a shout as the pain escalated beyond what she had ever known.

“Cass… Cassidy! Gods help her… Someone!” the words were faded, but the fire was real as her body was engulfed in searing heat and the first of the unbearable shattering of her bones echoed in the cell at the start of her first shift.