Chapter 23: Chapter Twenty-Three

Saffron gulped down the water he had given her greedily, letting the empty bottle fall on the ground with a loud thud, as she grabbed the plate of sandwich and began to wolf it down too.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten or even had a drink of water. It wasn’t the first time she had gone days without either food or water, but it was the first time her body had gone through such beatings, so it was no wonder that she had an appetite.

The swelling around her face had gone down incredibly well, and the pain she felt was nothing more than a dull itch she wanted to scratch.

She had no idea how long it had been, as she had been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since she had woken up. And every time she woke up, he was always there, silent and intimidating, as he played sentinel over her.

His protectiveness now annoyed the hell out of her. But, she also knew that she needed his help, even if she refused to acknowledge it.

Her plan had gone down the drain with the Alpha’s arrival, and she had neither the will nor the energy to try for an escape. She knew that her life was forfeit, and there was nothing she could do to change that fate.

But still, she had to try, one last time.

“I suppose it would be a waste of time to ask you to let me go?” she asked, even though she meant it as a statement.

Her voice was low and croaky, the sound dragging through her throat and making it itch even more.

He stared at her without a word, nodding his head in confirmation of her statement.

A sigh escaped her lips as she brought another bottle to her lips and gulped it down in one go.

“Can you at least tell me your name, so I can properly thank my savior?” she asked when she brought the bottle down.

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes falling to the empty bottles on the ground, to the empty plate, and back up to her face.

A guilty expression crossed his features, but then it was gone in a flash, his face settling back into its neutral façade.

“Alex,” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest. “Alex Vaughn.”

A sharp jolt of pain pierced through her heart at the mention of his name, and she raised her eyes, so she could meet his gaze, betrayal reflecting in her brown eyes.

Brown to green, they stared down at each other, his eyes not showing even an inch of remorse, while hers carried her regret for trusting him even when she knew he was the enemy, not knowing he was literally one with the enemy.

“I told you before,” he began, the tone of his voice cold and unapologetic. “There is no mercy to be found within these walls.”

Her limbs began to feel heavy then, her thoughts becoming disoriented. And it was only as her gaze found the empty plate of food and water she had taken that she realized what that guilty expression in his eyes had been.

He had drugged her through the food.

She thought he had taken care of her and provided the food because he felt pity for her. But instead, it was just another game orchestrated by the Alpha to break her.

“I… trust… trusted you,” she accused, her tone a slur as the drugs began to take effect.

Terror gripped her in a stronghold, washing through her whole body, as her hold on reality began to fade away.

“Why?” she asked weakly, her eyes rolling back in her head, but she got no reply from him.

Instead, she heard his feet shuffle around the cell before the cell was plunged into darkness.

Numb, she heard the door open and close shut behind him, the loud scraping sound grating on her nerves and the incessant pounding inside her head.

The sound of the deadbolt settling in echoed through her pitch-black cell, rattling everything inside of her.

Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, a sob threatening to slip out of her lips, but she quickly swallowed it down, not allowing a sound to escape her.

Shame and anger filled her, as she thought about how she had readily given her trust to the one person she shouldn’t have, who hadn’t hesitated to stab her in the back.

But she didn’t let the shame overwhelm her. Instead, she let the anger overshadow the shame, letting it empower her, as she began to devise ways to escape from this prison she had found herself in.

Her plans were half-formed, though; the drugs made it hard to hold onto a coherent thought. And soon, nothing made sense to her.

But, she had endured the Alpha’s machinations and survived it. This too, she would survive.

It wasn’t the first time that she had been drugged, and she knew that it wouldn’t be the last time. But she would be damned if she let them break her now.

She had endured far worse and still lived.

For now, she had to survive through the suffocating darkness of her cell, and later, when the drugs were out of her system, she would begin to strategize.

This time, she had to go on the offense and not the defense she had been taken on since her first captivation.

She was going to take them by surprise.

The voice had been silent in her head for so long now, it felt like she wasn’t complete.

But, she wouldn’t let even that to deter her from her course of action.

Closing her eyes, Saffron willed for the sweet darkness of sleep to take her, but nothing did.

For long moments, nothing happened, making her grow frustrated by each passing minute. Her limbs were heavy but sleep still refused to take her.

The loud banging of the door had her eyes snapping open, her head jerking towards the door.

She refused to be helpless against whoever it was that had come in, but she also had no way of fighting back.

However, she couldn’t make out who it was, through the clawing unrelenting darkness.

No one came to her, and no sound was emitted for so long that she wondered if she had hallucinated the sound of the door opening.

Had it been real? Or was it just the drugs messing with her head?

Suddenly, the room was plunged into full brightness, the sharpness of it burning through her retinas, and making her snap her eyes closed instantly.

‘It’s going to be okay. We will get out of here,’ the voice spoke, after a long time of silence.

Tears flooded her eyes at the sound of it, its tone as familiar to her as the sound of her own heartbeat.

‘Where have you been?’ she wanted to ask, but the feel of hands on her body had her eyes flying open, a scream escaping her lips as she came face to face with a dagger and a sinister smile from her would-be attacker.