Chapter 113 : Frost
MAXINE.
Draco moves slowly, like a snake being charmed. He keeps his eyes on me but he’s fumbling with a lot of stuff from his pocket.
He takes out an array of tubes and sets them down on the small table in the corner. My eyes sting when he turns on the lights, and that’s when I see just how greasy the entire place is. Full of mold and moss and decay. I can see some stains on the floor that look suspiciously like very old blood. I want to recoil but I’m still bound in the chains with no real way of getting out.
At least, not when he’s still here.
Draco looks more horrifying now. Objectively, I could say that he was a very handsome man. He had that regal look spiced up by that sly rebellion. But now, he looks like half-melted ice cream sitting in the summer sun. Half of his face is still raw and red and oozing strange liquids. He seems to have stabbed at his blisters because now they have slits.
He smells too. Like rot and decay, blending in with pretty much everything in this place.
One of his eyes is also taking on a weird color. It’s almost white in the irises, as though a milky white film just settled in its place. It’s quite nasty, but I find that I can’t look away.
While he keeps himself busy, I decide to keep breathing on the patch of chains closest to my lips, letting frost build until hopefully it gets brittle enough for me to break through.
When he finishes, he just turns around to face me with a flourish. He’s smiling, and I’m shocked to find out that his teeth are showing through his cheeks in patches.
“Well, it’s all ready,” he says in a strange reedy voice. “All I need from you now would be your sample, and after that, everything I worked for would be possible.”
I need time. As he approaches, that’s all I got. I need more time. I need to distract him so I can build more frost.
“What do you need from me?” I ask, exhaling and breathing out more coldness. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, you see, your White Wolf blood is stronger than any venom from any wolf in existence,” he explains slowly as though I’m a child and he’s a teacher. “Believe me, we also tried our best. We even experimented with my father’s venom and the Human subjects would still need about two to three doses. But your records are astounding. You have more Werewolf cells than any of us. Your blood alone can turn a Human into a full Werewolf with ease. One drop. One drop is all I need, and I can replicate it… ain’t I so smart?”
He laughs for himself and I can’t help but feel repulsed and scared. If he gets his hands on my blood, then their plan for domination would not even take days. One prick may be all it would take. One drop to the mouth. One single small way to enter the bloodstream….
Draco flicks the tip of the syringe as he crouches in front of me. I can see the insanity in his eyes, and I know I can work it to my advantage. I can get him talking and talking until I find a way to get out of here.
“You are smart,” I say, hoping he won’t catch the sarcasm. “How did you even know that I hold that power?”
His eyes glaze over, and he seems to be sinking into a pool of memories, slowly getting lost until he slumps down and just talks. “It was a long process. We’ve been planning to turn Humans into Werewolves for a long time. Really long time, my dad says. Fifty, sixty years ago. It was a plan handed down to him by granddad, who never had the balls to actually make it happen. It all started when a man named Adam Ellsworth showed up and demanded a lot of shit from my father, who was just newly appointed as the Alpha Supreme then.”
I know the story, but I keep quiet to make him talk.
“Well, my father had him executed because he was rousing so much and causing so much shit.” He lets out a low laugh. “But he wasn’t alone. He left a woman pregnant. My father killed that woman to take the kid, but he didn’t manage in the end. That was you, by the way.”
Anger flares inside me. So Alpha Rex killed my mother himself. More frost builds on the chains as my rage grows.
“But yeah, we had to watch over you,” he whispers dramatically. “You didn’t really show signs of being like your father. No power, no anything. It looked hopeless. We wanted to do something about it, just to see. Then, your ditzy bimbo friend showed up. It was so easy to hand her an invitation to get her to bring her friend to a Werewolf den. But Ajax caught you and you ran before I could even talk to you in secret. Of course, he had no idea I was there. So I chased you. You and your friend. I waited until you crashed, and I bit you.”
“So you’re the one who turned me?” I mutter, the chains now wrapped up in coldness.
Draco nods absently. “Yes. I turned you. I still remember the taste of your blood in my mouth. It was so sweet I could have finished you up, but thankfully that Unclaimed upstart showed up and stopped me. My father was proud. You turned. And then I saw that you are just like your father. A White Wolf. Victory was so close. It’s so close…”
With that, he opens the cell door and kneels beside me. He kicks me to my side and then, the chains break at the impact of his boots, now overcome by frost completely.
I roll away from him, getting to my feet in one swift motion. He staggers back in shock, but I don’t give him time for his tricks. As he swings for me with the syringe, I ram him against the wall.
The impact of the blow rocks the whole basement. Dust rains down on both of us. Fear flares in his face, but he still tries to shift and bite me.
But my anger is too much now. It’s flying out of me in waves, my vision red with it.
I grab his jaw and pry it open, cracking it and ripping the already tender part of his cheeks. He cries out in pain as blood spatters on my hands, but I’m not done with him yet. I can’t be done with him until he stops breathing.
I wrestle Draco down on the floor, pressing my knee against his throat. He starts to groan, gurgling blood, but his words miraculously ring clear.
“I can show you,” Draco moans, his eyes sharpening with malice. “Ajax and Theo… I can show you where they are. Where they’re fighting to the death for you.”