1
Willow
Pain.
So. Much. Pain.
I tried to move, to scream, to beg them to stop, but nothing worked. Not my lips. Not my throat. Not even my lungs. I was a prisoner in my own body, feeling every torturous assault as they ripped me in half.
The drugs numbed me enough to keep the concept of reality from fracturing my mind. Yet I felt every prod. Every dig of their claws. Each swipe of a tongue.
Something was very wrong.
They usually came at me one at a time, reeking of liquor and smoke.
But the stench of alcohol was different this time, the poking sharper and drawing blood.
“She’s crashing,” one of them said.
“No shit, asshole,” another hissed.
“Fuck off,” a third snapped. “Out. Now.”
I tried to open my eyes, to see my aggressors, to figure out what had changed. They always kept me lucid enough to feel them, to force my unwilling participation through this wretched dance with fate.
Yet I was floating now.
High, high, high above the ground.
Mmm, that’s good. A cloud of bliss and nothingness. So dark. So bleak. So me.
Electricity sizzled through my veins, forcing me back into awareness, my fate a dark blip on the horizon.
No. No. No.
I don’t want to be here.
I don’t want to see.
Please don’t make me. Please!
Growls penetrated my ears, excruciating agony ripping through my insides. It was too much. My eyes flashed open, the startling light of the room flipping on a switch inside my mind. Blazing green irises grinned down at me, his feral enjoyment palpable and consuming.
Then silence fell, the only sound the beating of my own heart.
I glanced around, searching for the perpetrators and finding myself alone in a sea of blood-red and white.
The door hung open, illuminating a hallway of dusky stone.
Where am I? I wondered, swallowing and flinching at the sandpaper feel of my throat. This isn’t my cage.
It reminded me of a physician’s examination room, similar to the ones I’d visited monthly at the university. Had they just taken samples again?
No. I frowned. I’m not at the university anymore. But where am I?
Then my gaze fell to my abdomen, and a scream threatened to escape my mouth. I clamped a hand over my lips before I could release it, black dots dancing before my eyes at the gruesome display below.
Claw marks.
Bites.
Blood.
Oh, Goddess… They’d tried to eat me. Fucking lycans!
I wanted to slaughter them all.
Burn this entire world to the damn ground.
I should have been a Vigil. No, I should have gone to the Immortal Cup. Not to the breeding camps.
My stomach heaved as I leaned over to expel the contents onto the linoleum floor. Nothing came out, just acidic burn.
This place resembled the worst kind of nightmare, one I’d barely acknowledged for however long I’d been here because of the drugs.
But I was fully lucid now.
Why?
Had they left me here in this pool of gore to die?
Fuck. That. I hadn’t survived this horrible existence just to meet my end on a table in some stark white lab.
The door, I thought, finding it again. It’s still open.
Some part of me had expected it to close, for my mind to play an evil trick on me regarding a potential escape. Because there was no avoiding this life.
Humans were cattle.
Prey.
The bottom of the food chain.
Lycans and vampires ruled. They made the edicts. They chose our fates. They sent me here.
I hated them. Wanted to slaughter them all. A false fantasy, one I knew couldn’t be done. They were too strong. Supernatural. Immortal. But a girl could dream, and dream I did.
That door, I thought again, stirring from the table. Still. Open.
It had to be a trick. A game. Perhaps the lycans had decided to invite me into an infamous moon chase.
I shivered at the notion. No, thank you.
But what if I outran them?
My legs were okay.
Wouldn’t dying with dignity be better than succumbing to fate on this table? I wondered, slightly delirious from the idea of running. It would exhaust me. Probably kill me. But that had to be better than being fucked to death.
Which was exactly what would happen if I remained here, in the custody of these lycans.
Breeding was the last thing I wanted.
They could create their own fucking wolves. My body was mine. Now and always.
Prove it, a dark voice in my mind whispered. Run.
And go where? I asked myself.
Anywhere is better than here.
I groaned, my stomach churning with a fresh wave of torment. I curled into a ball and immediately regretted it, my insides pulsating with wrongness.
I’m going to die, I realized, my blood suddenly on fire from the mental proclamation. I’m going to die on this fucking table. In this fucking room. By my fucking self.
A growl threatened my raw throat at the injustice of it all.
I had worked so hard for my position in this world. To be relegated to the breeding camp was a big slap in the face. That these animals had pummeled me into a pile of raw meat only grated on my nerves more.
No.
I was not going to die like this.
Not here.
I would at least see the sun one more time. Because screw the lycans. Screw all of this.
A scream caught in my throat as I forced myself to roll off the table onto my feet, but my knees locked, holding me up.
The bruises on my thighs throbbed with each step toward the door, just as a sticky substance ran down my legs. Blood. My blood.
“Move,” I breathed to myself. “Don’t think. Just run.” I barely recognized my voice. It was a rasp of sound, one the lycans probably heard. Only, the hallway was empty.
I didn’t recognize this part of the compound. It had bare walls, more exam rooms, and very little else.
It reminded me of a hospital ward.
However, the one I’d visited at the university after an accident had a lot more movement. Silas had prodded me during a sparring exercise, his knife swiping too close to my ribs and creating a harsh gash. He’d felt horrible afterward, but I’d healed.
I glanced down. Not sure I’ll be healing from this.
My palm was red, my fingers more inside me than out. The claw marks across my skin resembled grooves of hideous intent. I couldn’t remember how they appeared, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
No one stopped me as I reached the exit.
Alarms didn’t sound as I pushed outside, where I was met by the moon and not the sun. I shivered, taking in the size. Please don’t be full. If they’d released me just to chase me… Oh, Goddess, no. I’d fight them. I’d go down screaming. I no longer cared. I refused to be raped and used again. To be bred.
Fuck!
I started to move, adrenaline coursing through my system and sending me tumbling—
Down, down, down to the riverbank.
The world shifted as I rolled violently into the chilly water below. I wasn’t even sure how I’d gotten this far, my memory of the last few minutes skipping through my mind.
This is death.
The final moments.
No. Keep. Running.
The stench reminded me of hell. Murky. Gross. Thick.
I cradled my stomach, the mud mingling with my wounds.
Maybe it would deter the lycans from eating me later.