Chapter 152: Shattered dreams

I awoke, jagged pieces of a lost dream lingering on the edge of my frantically racing brain. Unnaturally cold clung in the air, and I startled awake in the blackened, constricted room. My head ached, struggling to think, and I found to horror swelling by the second that I no longer lay safely within our pack den. Rather, I was bound, arms and legs locked in tight position on a splintered wooden chair. Terror set in, as I realized that I had not yet been rescued, I squirmed powerlessly to try to escape, but the ropes did not yield, as unyielding as the stone walls that they surrounded.

As I was trying to gather my thoughts together , a soft voice broke through the mist. "Althea, get up," my mother commanded. She had a voice firm but soothing, with authority that came with a sound which had not sounded for decades. I blinked aggressively, disorientated, as she moved into the faint illumination of the cell.

“How did you know I was here?" I croaked, my voice trembling both with relief and with awe.

My mother's eyes, the same as mine in their curiosity , softened as she approached me. "No time to ask questions now, dear," she panted, deftly unwinding the thick ropes that held my wrists and ankles. "You must talk to Grayson. He has to save you, we must leave now because there’s no more time to waste ."

I could only give in and, my heart pounding with hope and terror, as she pulled me up, I clung to her hand, drawing strength from being close to her. Her peace was a balm to the storm raging within me, but compared to the desolation of the situation, words were an opening of hope, a promise that there was deliverance on the road.

Gradually, my mother led me through the vaulted, curving passages to the bluestone pack house. The cold, unyielding stone walls radiated softly in the earliest light as we walked, her steps never broken or faltering. My mind, stunned with shock at captivity, clung to every reassuring word she uttered, "Hurry, Althea. Grayson is waiting."

Each step towards the pack house was an adrenalin high and a hope against hope. My exhausted body found renewed energy as I remembered Grayson's unbeatable place in my heart. When we finally reached the great door of the bluestone building, I almost ran, my heart pounding at the thought of being reunited with him.

I dashed up the stairs quickly, my boots thudding down the empty hall. My own breathing was ragged, hacking breaths as I dashed for Grayson's office, a tiny sanctuary I'd longed for these tormented hours. I threw the creaking door open with shaking hands, and he sat there.

Grayson stood in the golden lamplight, his stormy grey eyes opened wide with relief and wordless, violent threat. I waited not for words, dashing into his arms. Body heat enveloped me, holding the shock of capture, the cold fear that had ridden with it.

“I’ve been searching for you,” he murmured, his voice low and resolute as he held me tightly. The familiar scent of pine and leather enveloped me, a balm to my wounded heart. In that moment, nothing else existed, only  the fierce, protective love of Grayson and the desperate need to be held safe.

With gasps, I managed to say to him, "Cassius. and Selene. They did this. They abducted me from the market place days back and left me in an empty building way deep in the center of the forest, out in the free lands." My voice was trembling, hardly above a whisper, with rage and fear.

Grayson's eyes seared with anger and stubborn will. "I won't let you go , Althea. I swear on my honor, I'll get you home no matter what." His fingers clamped tight, and for an unspeakably, unthinkable eternity, his promise beat like a sustained heartbeat.

I held on to Grayson's embrace, the weight of his words imprinted on the raw feeling that etched its way through me. But as the warm vignette receded into the distance on the horizon, a queasiness slipped in. creeping, incremental self-awareness that what I had just seen perhaps never existed at all.

I shivered and opened my eyes, and the gentle light of the room evaporated into nothing. I sucked in a lungful of air, my heart contorting into jagged, burning fear. I was alone, once again. The gentle hello with Grayson, the hug, all lost to me. I sat up, bewildered, my body heavy and numb. A dream? My brain spun in an attempt to anchor itself to reality.

I was shaken by the pounding footsteps, a plodding, deliberate shudder down the narrow stretch of my tiny cell. My heart missed a beat as I realized that something was happening. I could sense the air piling up, heavy with foreboding fear. I suspended my breathing through sheer force of will, clinging to the dying recollection of that dream-remembered vision of Grayson.

And then, as if time itself was playing some sort of sick joke on my confusion, the cell door groaned open with a splintering crash. I sprang in fear at the appearance of some shape entering the room. a shape whose face contained a wicked, sly smile. It was Selene.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here!!” Selene’s commanding voice roared as she entered the room, a smile as icy and lethal as an animal's. I struggled to be bold. "What do you want?" I said past parched lips, tussling with the last frays.

Selene's gaze came to rest on me, and her lips curled into a crooked smile, a smile that divided her face in two in a manner that sent shivers coursing down my spine. "I do not have much interest with you, Althea," she snarled, her tone sneering but with a disquieting confidence. "My only interest is Grayson.”

I was immobilized, my mind seizing up in indignation at what she'd said. "How do you know Grayson?" I struggled out of my lips, the words tumbling over one another in equal amounts of horror and raw fear.

Selene's eyes burned with evil laughter as she replied, "All will be revealed in due course." She used the voice of threat and promise, the final cover of secrecy still hanging heavily over the coldness of my imprisonment.

I stared at her, my pounding heart racing to a peak of fear and bewilderment, as the hallway went quiet around us. The world had been altered, fuzzy memories and close moments torn apart in a nightmare, and I struggled with shards of a love that was irretrievable.

Who was Selene really? And how was she connected to Grayson?