I woke wishing I could sleep for eternity, never knowing about my loss and the pain that ripped through my gut every time my eyes opened. They were gone. All of them--Seth, Gracie, Janae, Jake, and the rest of my brothers. At first I didn't believe my captors. My pack was strong, and with Jake and the allied vampires, we were a force to be reckoned with. But my guard had been only too happy to escort me to a room where they'd laid out my friends' bodies. I'm not ashamed to admit that I wept, for hours.
Now I sat day after day alone, my eyes dry. In this cage, I am held against my will. The rogue vampires had finally won. They ruled Bendmore, and, I assumed, the country. If not the world, then they soon would. Humans had nothing that would withstand these evil creatures. Their fall was inevitable.
The gate opened. My guard stood there with a tray in his hand. Disgusted, I could smell the cooked meat, the roasted vegetables. "Time to eat." The smirk on his face told me he knew how much I hated the food.
"Why do you keep bringing me this crap?" I demanded. "I eat my food raw, in the wild, and only after I've hunted it down."
The man, a vampire, laughed. His sharp canines extended as I watched, teasing me with the fact that mine were no longer present in my mouth, or rather not the longer ones of a werewolf. That, too, sapped me of hope. "How many times do I have to tell you, human? You are cured. You're no longer a werewolf. Not even a wolf. Get used to cooked food." The tray clattered on the card table beside my bed, and the man turned to go.
"Wait!" I jumped to my feet, and the guard took a defensive stance. I had tested his muscle that first night I awoke in this place. Not sure how long ago that was. I had stopped counting the days. I was big at six-foot-four. He was bigger and stronger. With only one hand, he had tossed me across the room. Slamming against the wall only added broken ribs to my broken heart and my loneliness. I hadn't tried again after viewing my dead friends. "Look, I don't want any trouble. But just once, can't you bring me something else? A rabbit?"
"You're disgusting," he spat. "You have one job and one only in here. That's to suffer a long, slow death. And bringing you raw meat when you are most definitely not a wolf would only speed that up."
Frustration ate at me. He wanted me to suffer, to be alone, and to feel like I was losing my mind. They had what they wanted, but still it was not enough. "Why me? Huh? Why not kill me as you've done to my pack, my friends? I don't get this!" In a fit, I upset the table, causing the food to splatter on the floor.
The guard frowned. "You can lick that up when you get hungry enough." He stomped into the hall, the metal gate clanging closed behind him. I was alone again. He would only bring food once a day, and when I did not behave as he liked, punishment was no food for days.
How could this have happened? The rogue vampires were not as strong or as numerous as the creatures desiring to protect humankind. So, how did they gain sway? For hours, days, weeks, I had been searching my memories of the events prior to my capture, but nothing stood out. In fact, other than Seth presenting to me and the rest of the pack a very intriguing change in Janae, I couldn't remember anything else after that. Had I not known better, I would have thought someone had erased my mind.
I stepped over my spoiled dinner and moved to the old-fashioned sink on the far wall. After running water into my palms, I attempted to see my reflection. As I had done before, I looked for evidence that I was still a werewolf. I willed myself to change, but nothing happened. My theory was that maybe, somehow, I was too far underground where the moon's effects could not work on me. That sounded absurd, but I was desperate for an explanation. The guard had said I was cured, but the beast had been a part of me for years now. How could they snatch it away so easily? And was I grateful since I had never chosen this life--or did I miss my superhuman strength, my enhanced eyesight, and my heightened sense of smell? I wasn't sure. How could anything be clear in this hellhole?
This day would be another to drag on for hours that seemed like years. I would walk back and forth talking to myself, sometimes talking to Seth. At other times, I would exercise to keep my body in top form. With the way things were going for me so far, it was all pointless. I shook my hands dry and then strolled to the gate. Pressing my face to the bars, I glanced up and down the hall. Nothing but a stone-carved passage that led off into darkness. Without the wolf's eyes, my sight couldn't extend far. I felt helpless.
"Well, Seth," I spoke to the empty room. "You got me in another mess. Running around Bendmore, no sleep for days, chasing down rogue vampires before they turned the last of the Innocents. If I'll admit the truth, I felt like a hero saving the day. Now what do we have?"
My pack leader couldn't answer, of course. He was dead. Despair washed over me for the millionth time. I ran a hand through my hair, lifting it from my forehead and out of my eyes. I chuckled, remembering something.
"Seth, your girl Janae liked my hair. She said I looked like a bad boy, something that turned the women on." I groaned as I slid to the floor, my back against the bars. "I never told you how jealous I was that you had found her. I had no one. Maybe if I had, this would be more tolerable."
"Do you hear me, Seth?" I cried out.
"Who is Seth?" A soft feminine voice reverberated all around me.
I froze and glanced at my surroundings. No one was near. Outside the cage remained still. I was finally losing it. Now I was imaging a woman speaking to me since I was so lonely. Most of the time, I convinced myself I didn't care that I had no steady woman. An occasional fling here and there with a female wolf had been all.
"Are you going to answer or what?" The woman spoke again. This time I realized she wasn't all around me, but inside my mind. Fear that I was cracking up gripped me. "Please talk to me. I'm so lonely."
Her tone reflected my own feelings--desperation, hopelessness. "I don't believe you are real," I told her. "I must be losing my mind."
"Well, if you are, then surely it has to be more tolerable than staying alone in this place." He had to admit, she made sense. "So, tell me, who is Seth and what is your name?"
"Anyone ever tell you it's impolite to read other people's minds?" I grinned into the empty room, happy for the moment that the woman had given me something to grin about. While she spoke in my mind, I answered out loud. "My name is Loch. I am ... was ... a werewolf. I don't know what I am now. And Seth was my pack leader and friend. He's dead."
"I hear the despair in your voice. I, too, have lost everything, everyone I cared about." She paused. "Perhaps we can be friends, get each other through this?"
I laughed. "Why should I believe you are real? And if you are, this could all be a trick. I've been a prisoner for at least three years before I stopped counting the days. In this hole with no one. And now all of a sudden, here you are. Very convenient."
At first, I thought she was gone, that I had offended her into ending the conversation or uncovered her ploy. But finally she spoke. "If it was convenient, it would have been long ago, before you lost heart, wouldn't it? It takes a very strong mind to have held on to his sanity after losing so much."
"I suppose you are an expert in what makes a strong mind," I told her. "You know my name, what's yours? Who are you and why are you invading my thoughts?"
A low-key tapping down the hall made me pause. I hadn't heard it before. Every sound, every scent, even without my abilities, was etched on my mind. There was nothing else to do.
"Do you hear that? It's me," the mystery woman whispered. "I am Larissa, also a prisoner of the vampires. I'm not sure how long I've been here. I think I was drugged for a while. When I thought I would lose my mind, I tried projecting out my thoughts to see if there was anyone close by."
"I take it the vampires don't know about your special ability or they would have cured you." Jealousy rose in me, answering my question as to whether I missed who I had been. Being ordinary didn't appeal.
"Cured me? Oh, yes, you said you were a werewolf. I was under the impression that a bite from a werewolf is incurable. Somehow the vampires took it away, made you human again?"
Angry, I rose to my feet and pressed my face again to the bars. There were no changes out there. "I was not bitten to turn me into a werewolf. I was one of the original people infected with the curse from the meteor that crashed in Bendmore. As you already know, it killed some with a deadly disease and caused others to become vampires, werewolves, or other monsters."
I moved back across the room to my spilled food. I reached out to grab the Salisbury steak smothered in gravy, but then drew back. I'd rather starve. "So, Larissa, you read minds and communicate with others mentally. Is that a result of the meteor?"
"No, I was born this way." I heard her gasp. "I have to go."
"Wait!"
But she was gone. As silence internally and externally spread around me, the despair returned. I had no way of knowing if the woman in my mind was real or if she was just a figment of a demented psyche. For the short time we spoke, the darkness had receded. If the vampires were simply toying with me, I couldn't see the reason. They had what they wanted. Rogue vampires could move about the country and the world unhindered by vampires and werewolves who felt humans should have a chance to live normal lives.
According to the guard, after all the leaders were killed, the army fighting the rogue vampires was brought down easily. It was like the old adage, "strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter." Of course, in our case, the vampires and werewolves would scatter. However, I was still left with the question of why they had spared me and Larissa. What reasoning did they have?
The vampires had probably expected me to give up hope long before now, to wither into a shell of my former self, especially without my wolf DNA active. And I had been heading down that road when I had opened my eyes today. The bloodsucking cretins had made an error in not learning all about Larissa's mind-reading ability. The sexy-voiced woman was going to at the very least be my entertainment while stuck here and at most keep me from sinking into total meltdown.
As I returned to my bed that night, having done nothing more strenuous than to do five hundred sit-ups, I had thoughts of making Larissa the object of some very steamy dreams. Every night, before I fell asleep, I dreamed of what life would be like if I hadn't been caught, if the leaders were not dead, and the rogue vampires were just a thorn in our sides. Tonight would be different. It would help if I could get a description of her, but I would fill in the blanks on my own and hopefully she would contact me again. Then I would mind-seduce my fellow inmate just to pass the time.
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