43
43
Once more, I was wrenched out of the chair and to my feet, dragged through the manor by Kipling to the basement where I was kept before. Only this time, they didn’t take me into the cold room where carcasses were butchered. David led us further into the basement to a refrigerated room kept below freezing where all of Dalesbloom and the Inkscales’ meat was stored. I didn’t realize they had so much meat in storage. They must have been hunting to excess in the past few weeks in order to keep their numbers fed. That would explain why Grandbay and Eastpeak hadn’t been having as much luck hunting. They were going hungry because Dalesbloom and the dragons were killing everything in sight and hoarding it where nobody else could get it.
Cold air raked my skin, making my hair stand on end. My feet stung, and I shivered as I walked across the icy concrete floor, immediately feeling my energy drained not only from the freezing temperature but the enveloping presence of meat. Fresh blood was most intensely poisonous to me, but the meat could be just as bad; these exposed tracts of muscle and bone that should have been alive. Now it was dead, the process of decay—the antithesis of a unicorn’s source of magic, which was life and healing—suspended in the cold. Kipling skulked toward me. Condensed air fled from my lips as I snarled at him, kicking in resistance when he grabbed me in his arms and lifted me up off the ground. “Let me go! Screw you! You asshole, I hope the Mythguard put a bullet in your head!”
He ignored me.
Behind me, David grabbed two heavy chains wrapped around a thick metal bar extending between the walls. With the hooks on the ends of each chain, he secured the ropes around my wrists, then snapped a padlock around the links of both chains. Kipling let me go, and gravity abruptly tugged me down until I was left hanging helplessly by the chains, my feet dangling and neck aching.
“Let’s allow her to cool off a little bit, hm?” David snickered, then turned to the nearby carcass of a whole pig left to hang upside down. It was still fresh—probably only killed the day before. “Now, I don’t want to keep this horn on me in case somebody gets an idea. I want to keep it down here as a reminder to Kiara of her failures. Perhaps, if she can prove strong enough, then she’ll embody the hypocrisy she loves so much and rip this horn out of flesh just as we did.”
Nausea flooded me as I watched David stab into the abdomen of the hanging pig with the horn, shearing flesh and impaling organs, plunging his hand into its gore until he had lodged the horn in its body. A cruel hiding place in plain sight, knowing that I would have to poison myself to recover it if I managed to free myself from the chains.
David smacked the pig and threw a wicked grin at me before gesturing for Kipling to follow him, his hand slick with crimson. “Meditate on your fate, Kiara. You’ll have a few hours yet before I’m ready for you.”
They walked out of the room to the sound of me spewing obscenities at them. The door slammed shut, sealing me inside the refrigerated room with my screams stifled by icy walls. I struggled, kicking at the air and thrashing my body as the sound of rattling chains filled my ears. Rage and anguish welled up so powerfully inside of me that I screamed, and my voice echoed off the carcasses and back at me. David left me to freeze in this room, surrounded by my greatest weakness. My hybrid beast howled with hunger and pain. I wanted to eat so badly, but the stench of the meat stung my throat. This was the worst possible place for me to be.
I screamed and roared and struggled in the chains for twenty minutes before exhaustion finally took over. Frost gathered on my bare skin as the heat of my anger gradually lost against the cold. Still, I wouldn’t allow tears to fall. Desperate and tattered breaths wracked my body as I went limp, redirecting my energy to my mental endeavors instead.
I had to find a way out of here. The longer I stayed, the weaker I became, but I wasn’t going to give David the satisfaction of killing me. Not if I could help it.
My gaze fixed on the pig where my mother’s horn was kept. David would pay dearly for this sick, twisted offense. I wasn’t a sadistic person, but David… I wanted to make him suffer for this.
Chapter 26: Colt
I
didn’t remember falling asleep, but when I jolted awake on the couch, the sun hadn’t even risen yet. The front door cracked open, and Everett spoke quietly to somebody just coming in. Gavin was still dozing beside me, with Billie beside him and Aislin on the other end of the couch. Craning my neck, I looked past the couch and saw a few men clad in black step inside, then met Everett’s eyes.
“The Mythguard are here,” he said. “Wake everyone up. We’ll begin planning while the recon team visits the mine.”
Aislin was already unfurling her limbs and blinking sleep out of her eyes, which was fine. I didn’t want to get near her. I gently shook Gavin’s arm, then tipped forward to my feet while he and Billie stirred, looking up at the people coming inside. Everett welcomed a swarm of strangers into our space, looking focused and hardened while we sagged with exhaustion and dark circles under our eyes.
After a quick breakfast, we sat around the table with five Mythguard representatives. Another four patrolled outside, while the remaining six that were sent as backup went to check on the rest of Everett and Gavin’s packmates, taking refuge at Everett’s mother’s house. The recon team consisted of ten more operatives. We had twenty-five Mythguard operatives in total, plus the five of us. We were still outnumbered by Dalesbloom and the Inkscales, but we only needed to get as far as taking out David and Lothair before the fight would likely end—it was doubtful the rest of their followers would continue fighting if their leaders fell. We counted on their loyalty wavering once David and Lothair became Lycan.