Chapter 88 Chapter 88
Calum kept his head down and completely still while he assessed why his skull was pounding like someone had taken a hammer to it. If he’d fallen down the damn mountain, Devin and Gage would never let him live that down… ever.
Think. What is the last thing you remember? Damn, his head hurt. He breathed out slowly, his chest seemed okay. Hadn’t he been in cat form? His mind was a swirling pool of sludge… aside from the pain, that was clear. Focus. He had shifted. Oh, shit this is worse. If he fell while in cat form… hell, he’d have to leave the country so they wouldn’t heckle him for life. A cat always lands on its feet, the jokes would haunt him until his dying day.
He attempted to open his eyes. His eyelids were fluttering and straining like he was lifting weights with them, they were that heavy. Maybe he needed to start at the bottom first. He moved his right leg, then left. They seemed uninjured and oddly, not entirely attached to his body. He’d come back to that. His head though, he must have wacked it a good one. Deciding he should just lay right down and sort this through while he wasn’t so lightheaded, he tried to lean to the side and met some resistance. Something was caught around his neck. To move either way he was going to choke himself. Brilliant, I’ve fallen off a damn mountain and I’m strangling myself with vines as I’m slumped here and think of…
Voices. He heard voices and just hoped they weren’t only in his head… also that they weren’t anyone he knew that would tell those two thankless bastards he’d grown up with… and couldn’t live without, about the predicament he’d landed himself in.
Groggy was an understatement was the first thought as he climbed through the fog that was his mind, and tried to wake up. He vaguely remembered coming to earlier, and thinking the most ridiculous things, ever. He paused for a second, not even breathing, as he assessed his condition. His head was still pounding, but slightly less this time. He exhaled in relief. Maybe he was going to live after all. Whoever had found him, he owed them a big…
He froze as he tried to touch his head and see how bad the injury was. He heard chains and his hand could not move any further. Chains. He clenched his hand and felt cold metal on his wrist. Eyes wide open, he jerked his head up, almost screaming with the pain to look at his hand. Following the chain attached to the cuff on his wrist he saw it was very securely attached to a cement post. He was shackled. Shackled! What the holy fuck is going on? Head snapping in the other direction, he found that arm in the same state. Someone is going to get their ass beat! Leaning forward he went to stand up and found out he could only lean about six inches forward before the chain ran out…
On. The. Collar. Around. His. Neck.
Clenching his jaw, he inhaled and exhaled slowly through his nose while he tried to digest the fact he was chained up like a… hell, an animal didn’t even get restrained this way. Giving his head a quick shake, he stared at the wall across from him as he concentrated on the last thing he’d done. He’d shifted and was looking for his missing clan mates, he caught a scent that made his fur stand on end and was going to hightail it to higher ground when… that was it, then he woke up with the headache from hell and chained to a god damned wall.
He jerked his arms forward, hard, a few times, testing the strength of the chain. Whatever they’d given him, he was either weak as a kitten or they were solidly attached to the wall. If he could partially shift, the cuffs might pop, but the cold metal collar, that felt damn heavy… that insured he couldn’t shift anything at all. Even partially shifting required most, if not all, of his muscles to expand… he’d choke before he transformed all the way.
Dread hit him as he looked around the very solidly constructed room, with no window and only one door. Where the hell was he and why? Tipping his head carefully, he looked down to see he wore no shirt, but they’d at least put some sort of cotton pajama-like pants on him. That was a plus, he supposed, that he wasn’t chained here butt naked.
He heard footsteps outside the door. Putting his head back down he watched through his thick bangs. When they came to check on him he could head butt them… then what, watch them fall on his legs? That wasn’t going to work. The door flew open before he could formulate a better plan. He couldn’t see anything but the boots they wore. Damn.
“He’s out now.”
“Yeah, finally after a double dose.”
Three men stepped in the room.
“You gave him two tranqs?”
Holy shit. That explains the fog.
“Took two to bring him down, too.”
The one walked closer.
“Strong son of a bitch.”
“He was huge too, chief. If I had to guess, I’d say bigger than you are.”
“Really?”
Calum fought to stay limp and appear unconscious. Carefully, he tried to inhale. Bigger than you? Were they shifters? He couldn’t tell for sure, the drugs must have his senses messed up.
“And his coat was black?”
Someone chuckled, “as midnight.”
“Well, that’s… but his eyes are green?”
My eyes? What the hell do my eyes have to do with anything?
“Not just green, chief, but deep green like emeralds. Never seen a color like that before.”
Chief grunted some sort of acknowledgement. “He’s out now. Get Nona back down here to patch him up. I don’t want him bleeding out before we can find a use for him.”
Bleed out? I’m bleeding? It took patience he hadn’t thought he possessed to remain still. He tried to take stock of his body and all it’s parts, but he was still half numb from four god damned tranquilizers. Four. He was lucky he was breathing at all.
They left and closed the door behind them, loudly.
Jerking his head up, he tried to see where he was bleeding. Turning, he looked at his right arm and saw blood dripping under it, down his ribs, but couldn’t see from where. His senses were wrecked if he couldn’t smell blood dripping from his own body. And what the hell was that god-awful smell? Had they rolled him in garbage before they chained him up? He didn’t know who Nona was, but hoped they got here soon to stitch him up. Not being able to shift meant the healing would be slow. After they stopped the bleeding, he was going to create some bleeding of his own. On their bodies.