Read For Their Happiness Online
Authors: Jayton Young
I woke with a start as cold water was thrown on my face from a bucket.
I was chained up against a cold block wall in a cell of some sort.
I looked around and saw three men
in the room with me
. T
wo of them were
so dirty and grimy I couldn’t really tell their features.
They
were staring into space, their yes holding no emotion. It truly looked like there was no one home in their bodies. I don’t even know how to describe it, but I had never felt as scared as I did at that moment.
I looked over to the third man when I could no longer handle the look in the others’ eyes. I could see intelligence in his
green
eyes, and it seemed
as if they held some regret, but his words held none. He was short, and pudgy with sandy blond hair. He was much cleaner than the other two.
“I hope that you will cooperate with me because I really need your help.” He said. “The other two fought me, and when I finally had them broken
down and willing to do what I wanted
, they couldn’t calm my wolves
and were torn to pieces
.
Pissed me off, but I was too late both times.
”
“Who are you and what is it you want?” I asked. I was proud of myself because my voice sounded more confident then I felt.
“I have been making wolves; trying to form my own pack that will be stronger than all others, but they all keep turning feral as of late. Your friend was one of my earlier wolves, but he refused to fight for me.” He walked closer. “Since I was his maker, he had to obey my command, so he ran away at the first opportunity, a
nd I was never able to find him until I walked into the airport in Beaumont. I followed him into the bathroom and started questioning him. What did I find out but that he was joining the pack of a born Omega, which I know the legends told of them, so I think ‘Hey! Maybe she’ll be able to tame my army’.”
“You made Bolton help you?”
“Yes.” He said jovially. I had to reassess my first impression of his intelligence. This man was crazy. “It’s one of the many benefits of being a maker. Your wolf has to obey you until they find a mate. Which is almost unheard of.
A natural born Omega…
”
He shook his head in delighted wonder. “The power you hold that you don’t even realize.”
“What exactly do you want me to do? Calm your pack and that’s it?” It seemed too easy for everything that he’d done. H had to have another plan. Why was he training an army?
“That’s the biggest part, but I do need information from you.”
“What kind of information?”
“I’m going to take over your pack,
after the other packs merge with yours of course,
and then we’ll have enough wolves to challenge the King.” He said happily like it was a done deal.
“No! I won’t help you take over my pack or any others.”
He immediately lost his smile and jovial demeanor. “You will if you want to make it back your precious pack! The only way you’ll go back is when I take over the Alpha’s position!”
“I would rather die than betray my friends and family.” I told him and knew that I would. It was the only way for me to protect them all. “Why do you want to do this? What is your name?”
“The ‘King’,” He said making quotation marks with his fingers when he said king. “Killed my family in his rise to power. The
were
do not need a king; we were doing fine without one, but then when he came out to claim his royal birthright
, he killed any who opposed him. That included my brother, his mate and his kids. All because my brother said he would not bow down to a king.”
I knew this history. There had not been a king or queen in two hundred years, but then a male was finally born with the royal mark signaling the rise of another king. He’d been hidden and trained until his twenty-first birthday when he came out of hiding to claim the throne. All but one America
n pack had celebrated. The River
stone pack had been a vicious and deadly pack. The Alpha, Weston Hughes,
and his brother Will
had
both
openly s
t
ated that
t
he
y
had plans to assassinate the king, so the royal guard had killed the Alpha couple and taken the children to be raised in the royal cour
t. They then disbanded the River
stone pack; separating them into the other American packs. It had all been done humanely.
“But those children are alive and well. The king had a family in his pack raise them. I met them when I went.”
“LIES!” He yelled, making me cringe back further against the wall. “That’s what he tell
s
everyone, but he MURDERED THEM!”
He stood there, trying to calm his breathing. The fear coming off of me couldn’t have helped his situation. Finally, with him staring at the floor, he asked
calmly
. “Are you going to help me?”
I shook my head. I wouldn’t help this man seek his revenge.
He turned to leave, but when he got to the door he turned to the other two men. “Show her how we welcome newcomers.” And then he walked out as the two feral rogues advanced on me.
I was so scared I was literally shaking, but I tried as hard I could to project calm to the two ferals in front of me. They seemed to hesitate, but kept advancing
; shifting to wolf form as they did
. I guess I couldn’t project something I was nowhere near feeling.
They both attacked at the same time, one biting into my leg and the other attacking my side with his sharp fangs. I screamed at the pain coursing through my body, I couldn’t control it. My whole body felt like it was on fire, but amidst my screams, I heard the two wolves whine out in pain, though I couldn’t concentrate on the sound.
Another stabbing pain shot through my already shre
dded leg;
this time it was closer to my hip. Again, in the back of my pain ridden mind, I heard the cry of pain come from one of the wolves.
By the time I was finally able to open my eyes and clear my mind a little of the pain I was in, the sight before me
had my mouth gaping open
. The two feral wolves were battling each other, teeth gnashing and claws slicing through fur. The snarling sound was almost deafening. My stomach, which was already rolling with the shock settling in my system, emptied itself of what little contents were in there.
I saw one of the wolves grab hold of the other’s haunch with his teeth, shaking him back and forth, tearing the
meat he had hold of. It was like
a dog with a chew toy, but this
chew toy fought back by reaching around and latching on to the other’s foreleg and snapping the bone, actually tearing the paw off.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, but the smell of blood in the room didn’t help my stomach.
Then it hit me
, I was
smelling
the blood. I could smell the coppery tang of the blood. I could even pick up the fact that there was three sources of the fresh blood, plus some traces of old blood. I hadn’t been
able to scent things like that in
a couple of y
ears. Did that mean my senses were
returning?
Was my wolf back?
I tried to feel her presence, but still had silence and stillness where she should be. Still, though, I tried tugging at my restraints to see if my strength had returned, but it yielded no results. I did notice that my pain had subsided somewhat, so was praying that my healing was coming back, too. I didn’t know why it was happening, but I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
I opened my eyes to see why the wolves had stopped snarling, and saw one with his head tilted at an unnatural angle and the other was just lying there on the concrete floor, panting. He had killed the other one. I couldn’t understand why
they had fought. Their orders had been to attack me, but when they had…
they
had cried out in pain. Did that mean they felt the pain they had inflicted on me? I guess that would make sense. Any animal in pain lashes out if another animal comes close, and that’s basically all ferals are is animals. They have lost all of their humanity.
If they felt my pain, then why hadn’t anyone else? Where was everyone else? I wondered if Will Hughes kept others far from me to lessen any effect of my punishments on the other wolves.
I didn’t know. What I did know was that I needed to try to get away.
Trent and the others would be trying to find me, but how would they know where I
was
? One thing a werewolf can’t do is follow a car
trail
and I knew that I would have been moved by car or truck.
There were too many vehicles on the road to differentiate the motor, gas, and oil scents. I tried again to reach my wolf. I knew she was coming back or I would be in a heck of a lot more pain than I was. I was healing, though it wasn’t
were
speed, it was faster than I had been
before
. I tried to hear any sounds outside of the wolf that was now passed out on the floor.
I heard nothing; no voices, no footsteps, no movement, nothing. I tried calling for a shift, but whatever they had injected me with must have made those reflexes unresponsive. I was so frustrated. I refused to sit here and be used as a pawn in some insane need for revenge. I wou
ld not betray my
people like that;
I would not
betray my mate like that. I had to get out and warn my pack
,
and the King
,
of Hughes’ plans. I obviously had some effect on that man or he would have stayed and probably helped with the attack on me.
I kept moving, jerking on the restraints until I could feel some give to them. I took a break to give my arms a rest. They were bleeding from where the cuffs had cut into my skin, and that was when I realized that my arm was no longer broken. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it sooner, but with everything else on my mind, I hadn’t considered it.
The blood had stopped flowing from my wrists so, this time I grabbed hold of the cable holding me so the cuffs weren’t baring down, and started again with the jerking. I felt strength return to me, little by little. This wasn’t the normal, hu
man-like strength I had been fee
ling. No, it was my wolf’s strength that I had missed for so long. I could feel her stirring, and rejoiced at the return of my wolf.
‘Mate!’
I heard her cry softly in my head.
‘Mate’s coming. Close.’
Did that mean she could feel Trent? Was he here or on his way? Whatever it was, I was happy. With a huge smile on my face I kept working the steel cable. I probably looked like a maniac; all bloody and tied up,
naked and
smiling like a fool, but I couldn’t help it. My wolf was coming back and I knew it was because our mate was coming for me. She was
ecstatic
that my mate knew us and was happy
with us. I could tell she was weak from suppressing herself, but the longer I worked myself, the stronger she became to help me. We were one again.
Finally the cables broke free of the rings that were in the cement walls. When I tried one last time to shift, it actually worked. I shifted back to see how I could open the steel door. I thought that maybe Will had been the only one with a key. I looked at the door and laughed at the stupidity of the person that designed it. The hinges were on the inside. All I had to do was work on the pins and I would be able to lift the door out of the way.
Listening hard, I tried to hear if anyone else was in the building, wherever I was. I still couldn’t hear anything, I guess I should have thought more of it, but I was just too excited to have my wolf back and to be free, I didn’t consider anything else.
The pins were real easy. I just grabbed the top and yanked them out.
It felt so wonderful to have that strength back. I hadn’t realized how low I had felt being at human strength, but the joy and buoyancy I felt
now
was overwhelming.
‘Mate here!’
Trent was there! I didn’t think of anything else, I just grabbed the door and moved it out of my way.
As soon as I did, though, I heard a loud bang, and felt a sharp, burning pain in my hip; the same one that the wolf had bitten. When I looked down I saw blood pouring from a hole. I had been shot. I looked up to see a manic smile on Will’s face, but it faded and a look of extr
eme pain crossed his face as
a wolf jumped him. It was the feral wolf from my cell. He had attacked Will and tore his throat out before Will had time to even realize anything had happened.
I was numb. The pain from the gunshot was gone, but I couldn’t move. I just held my hand over the wound and stood frozen until my wolf took over forcing me to shift; stemming the flow of blood.