Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-Four

Saffron stared up at her attacker with a mixture of terror and loathing as he loomed above her, his dagger poised directly over her heart.

Heart beating wildly against her chest, she swallowed the panic that threatened to consume her, knowing that she couldn’t let it win.

Now that it had taken her a few moments to think, thanks to the drugs that were still coursing through her system, she realized that her attacker had not yet attacked her, even though he had most definitely come into her cell to do so.

No, he was staring at her, or more at the exposed skin at the base of her throat, showing off a sliver of her bosom, as her chest rose and fell rapidly.

Her attacker was mesmerized by her boobs. Her damn boobs were the reason why she wasn’t dead yet.

A giggle tried to escape her lips, but she swallowed it down, knowing that the sound could trigger her attacker and break whatever trance he had found himself in.

She needed him to be focused on her boobs while she figured out a way to get the dagger out of his hands and save herself from him.

Unfortunately, a bit of the giggling sound escaped her lips, and the spell was broken.

Alaric Vaughn shook his head, his lips parting in confusion before he sneered at her, raising his dagger to spear it into her heart.

But unfortunately for him, Saffron had anticipated the move and had sluggishly rolled away from his line of attack, narrowly missing the blade by an inch, as she fell down on the floor, hard.

It happened too fast for her to comprehend, Alaric following her down and rolling her onto her back, his palm wrapping around her throat, just enough to lift her head up and slam it down against the dusty stone floor.

Light danced around her vision before it bled into waves of inky black as pain exploded at the back of her head.

Another hit of her head against the floor had her seeing stars.

Her lungs started to beg for air, as his hand clamped so tightly around her that she couldn’t breathe.

Saffron couldn’t see or think. She was blind and suffocating from the outside, while her body struggled to fight against the influence of the drugs on the inside.

She bucked upward, squirming sluggishly, trying to dislodge him from her body. It worked, his hold slackening a bit, just enough for her to suck in air greedily.

As her vision cleared a bit, there was nothing pushing her except the most primal need for survival clawing its way to the forefront of her mind, eclipsing every emotion and lack of energy in her body.

The pain she felt was now diminished by the adrenaline coursing through her veins, pushing out any fear in her system.

Throat itching and lungs burning as they tried to replenish themselves with the oxygen they have been deprived of, Saffron fought against him once again, her body thrashing from side to side, as she tried to buck against his large form.

She raised her hands up, scratching at his exposed forearms, wanting to hurt him, grateful that her nails had grown since she had been taken from the island.

Blood gushed out from his open wounds, but he didn’t let up. Instead, his hold tightened even more.

And soon, her hands began to go slack, as the lack of oxygen went to her head, her body becoming nothing more than dead weight.

Adrenaline was greatly reduced, panic pushed itself back into her system, and in one split moment of clarity, Saffron determined that she was not going to let them win.

No, she was not going to die this way.

She was going to live, and she was going to claw her way out of this. She was going to fight, starting with the monster above her.

Knowing that she only had seconds to act, Saffron blindly reached for the dagger that had been thrown away, when she had rolled out of the cot.

Her hand touched the cool blade, but she didn’t allow herself a moment to rejoice or to think about what she was about to do.

All that mattered to her at that moment was surviving the monster who had come to take her life.

Her life wasn’t his for the taking, and neither was it for the Alpha to take. No! Her life belonged to her and her alone. Only she would decide when and how she died.

She closed her hand over the blade of the dagger, not caring about the blood that now dripped down her arm.

Instead, she focused on the feel of the blade in her hand as she flipped it around, so she was now grabbing it by the hilt and not by the blade.

With a surge of energy she didn’t know she possessed, Saffron brought the dagger up and wedged it deep enough into his stomach, the blade sliding in with a sickening squelch.

There was a pause in that moment as Alaric Vaughn stared down at the silver dagger lodged in his abdomen in shock before his eyes found the girl who was responsible for placing it there.

Before she could let the heaviness and shock of the situation get to her, Saffron yanked out the blade and sent it into his stomach once again before yanking it out again and sending it through his heart.

She did it all while he was still straddling her, while his palm was still wrapped around her own neck.

He crushed his hand over her windpipe, not waiting to rejoice at the cracking sound that echoed through the cell as he released her and tried to pull the dagger out of his chest, wanting to get it as far away from him as possible.

But it was too late.

The poison in the blade had already worked its way into his system.

Alaric could feel the silver burning him from the inside out. Add in the wolfsbane he had tipped the blade’s edge in earlier, and the holes now oozing with black blood, he knew that he was a dead man.

Blood gurgled from his lips, dripping down his chest, as bitter bile rose from his throat, the burning intensifying inside him.

One moment he was crouching on the ground clutching his abdomen, and the next, he was sprawled on the ground, as dead as his Alpha had wanted the girl next to him to be.

Pain assaulted Saffron as she slipped in and out of consciousness, her head sticking out at an odd angle. She knew without checking that Alaric Vaughn had broken something along the lines of her neck and throat.

Sprawled on the ground like she was, she didn’t allow herself to think about the body lying right next to her. A dead body which was in that state because of her.

Dimly, her eyes flicked towards the camera in the corner of the room, which was still blinking, recording every sordid tale that had occurred in her cell today.

The taste and scent of the air had changed from dank and moldy to something sharp, metallic, and acidic—the scent of death and rot.

She rolled her head to the side, wanting to escape the stench, wincing as the movement caused her pain. She gulped in air, her eyes staring up at the decrepit ceiling, tears pooling up in her eyes as even the simple act of breathing caused her pain.

Head pounding, body aching, and heart racing, Saffron laid in the pool of blood, unable to move for fear of hurting herself even further.

‘You need to get up and run, Saffron,’ the voice in her head stated.

She knew that needed to run, to hide.

But how?

Everything hurt.

Where would she even hide?

She had no idea where she was or how to even get out.

Soon, either Ivan or the Alpha would be here. And if they hadn’t seen her kill Alaric, then it was only a matter of time before they found out and sought to kill her.

She hadn’t thought about it then, her desire to live outweighing every other rational thought.

In that situation, it had been kill or be killed. And she had chosen the former.

It didn’t matter, though. She was going to be dead soon anyway.

At least, if she was going to die, then it was a good thing that she had taken the brute with her.

‘Get up!’ the voice commanded.

And before she could grasp at what had happened, Saffron found herself standing outside the door of her cell, the door swinging shut behind her.

Her feet carried her away from the cell, and up she went, over the stairs, and out into another hallway, the scent of fresh air and warmth beckoning her forward.