A Beast's Prisoner

Chapter Four

-Gage POV-

I hate coming to these things. It is early in the morning. It takes us three hours to get here. Other packs take longer so they end up staying overnight. It is not always the same location. We have meetings like this in every major city. We are at the neutral meeting where all pack Alphas gather to discuss major Alpha business once a month. It is a neutral ground and no one can challenge or attack. If something like that happens, by our law, they are enemies of all packs. Hence, why Max and James talked me out of doing something to that shithead Hendrix while we are here.

I sit across that smug fucker and every time he looks at me, he gives me a challenge with his eyes. Whenever I come to these meetings, I have to work extra hard on keeping my wolf in.

“Rogues are becoming a problem.” An Alpha says.

“Not from my side.” I say.

“That’s because you are taking them in and that’s crazy.” Another Alpha says.

Hendrix smirks. “He just wants to get his numbers up to get to me. There’s no other way he can beat me and he knows it.”

I abruptly get up. The chair falls with a big loud bang on the floor.

“If that is what you think then I challenge you right now! Fight me!” I growl.

"You are breaking the rules." Hendrix says with a smirk.

"I'll f*****g kill you and take everything from you!" I shout with rage.

"Gage." Max says pulling me back.

“Enough!” The elder and the commanding authority say. “This is not one of your unruly sideshows! We are here to have civilized conversations!”

Hendrix smiles. “Seems he wants to start a war with everyone.” He says.

My claws dig into the table.

Max and James are right. The coward wants me to make a move here.

I take a deep breath, sit back down, and compose myself.

“I apologize, it won’t happen again.” I say to the elder.

The elder nods and the meeting continues.

Hendrix's smile falls and now he looks annoyed.

I sit there and tune everything out as I try to keep myself calm. I think back to last night. I took all my frustrations out on Claudia. Not in a bad way, it was mutual and I’m not into pain. It was all pure pleasure. Claudia is a beautiful she-wolf but she knows that I am not interested in her other than as a mutual physical interest.

The meeting goes on but then, to my pleasure, Hendrix gets a call that upsets him.

“What?!” He shouts in the meeting room.

“Hendrix!” The Elder shouts at him.

Hendrix gets up ignoring the elder and leaves.

“I hope to the goddess it’s something bad.” I mumble.

The elder sighs and the meeting continues.

-Malena POV-

-The previous day when Hendrix left for his overnight meeting. -

As I watch Hendrix's car leave, I quickly and calmly head inside with Vera and Dayton. We go upstairs to our rooms like we always do.

The sun will set soon. It takes Hendrix about six to seven hours to get to where he is going. If we do this right, no one will know we left until tomorrow morning when he is in his meeting.

The three of us enter my room and when the door closes, I rush to the back of my closet. I open a small compartment concealed on the wall that Vera made for me.

“Mom? What are you doing?” Dayton asks.

“Hush Dayton, let your mom do what she needs to do.” Vera says to him.

I grab a black bag from inside and take it to the bed where I start checking its contents, making sure everything is there.

I take out a flashlight, a white envelope, an unopened cedarwood bar soap, a bit of food, two changes of clothes, and shoes for me and Dayton that are inside two big zipped-up bags and have not been touched by me or him.

I put everything back in the backpack and go back to my closet. I change into pants and a shirt and put sneakers on. Vera is actually the one who got me everything that I needed. I had to hide these clothes too because I never wear anything like that since it is not of Hendrix taste. He likes women in tight dresses and high heels.

Vera hands me Dayton’s clothes.

“Come on sweetheart.”

“Mommy, what is going on?” He asks.

“Let’s get you dressed first and I’ll explain everything to you.”

I help him get dressed in basketball shorts, a simple t-shirt, and running shoes.

I get to his level. “Listen, there are tunnels that run from the house to the forest. They are located in the basement. We are going to make it there and we are going to take those tunnels-”

He cuts me off but has a huge grin on his face. “Are we escaping?”

I look at him for a moment surprised at his reaction. “Yes.”

“Yes!” He almost shouts.

I have to cover his mouth but it breaks my heart that my son is happy to want to leave a place that is supposed to be his home. No child should feel like that or be scared to live in his own home.

That is what Hendrix has done and I hate him for it. He is always Alpha first and never a father to him. Our son doesn’t know what a real father is.

“This is all going to happen at exactly seven. I have it perfected. So you have to do everything I tell you.” I say.

He nods vigorously.

“First things first.” Vera says handing me two syringes.

I sigh and take them. I put one away and open the cap of the other one.

“I hate this. Do we really have to do this?” I ask her.

“Yes, or they’ll know I helped you.” She says.

“Okay. And you are sure this will only weaken you?”

“Yes, that’s what wolfsbane does to us.” She says.

I nod and take the syringe.

“Thank you, Vera. I don’t think I could have survived this long without you.” I say.

She smiles.

I stand behind her, take a deep breath, and inject it on her neck. She grunts and starts to fall. I hold her so she doesn’t get hurt. Dayton, who has not complained or questioned me, helps me put Vera on the floor.

When she is out, I look at my watch and notice we have ten minutes till the guard passes through our door and goes down the stairs.

I put my bag on and wait.

When nine minutes have passed, I hear the guard walking outside.

I look at Dayton. “Ready?”

He nods.

“From here on out, you can’t say a single word until I tell you to.” I say.

He nods again.

I nod and when I know that guard has reached the bottom of the stair by now, I open the door.

We rush out with me pulling on Dayton’s hand. We nimbly and quietly make it to the stairs. I look down and see no one, as I had expected. We go down the stairs and turn into the corridor that leads us to the basement.

Before continuing, I open a door that leads to a closet and go in with Dayton, shutting the door behind us.

I put my finger across my mouth telling Dayton to be quiet. He nods and we listen. As I expected, a guard walks by the door. I count in my head a whole minute and open the door where the guard is nowhere to be seen now.

I continue pulling Dayton down the corridor and quickly make it to the basement door.

(Now this is going to be the hard part.)

I take out the extra syringe Vera gave me with wolfsbane and get it ready.

I open the door to the basement and start descending down the stairs.

There is a guard there, when he looks up, he is completely surprised to see me and I use that moment to lunge at him with the syringe. I inject it on his arm but he starts to thrash around. Dayton jumps on him and bites his legs. The guy lets out a shout that I quickly muffle with my hand and he slowly loses consciousness.

I take a deep breath.

“Do we hide him, mommy?” Dayton asks very lowly and I shake my head telling him no.

“They just switched guards. That's why we hid in the closet upstairs. They won't have another switch until morning and he won’t wake till then either.”

Dayton nods understanding.

We walk inside the basement and get to an area with two corridors. One leads to the dungeons and one to the storage area.

We head to the storage. When we get there, I take the flashlight out and walk until we find the end wall where I go to pull on one of the old candlesticks on the wall. On the corner, the wall opens up.

I heard of this a couple of years ago from one of the maids. Vera came here to find it for me and then told me about it.

(God please protect her.) I pray. She didn’t want to come with me because her whole family is there.

“From here, we run.” I say to Dayton and he nods looking completely ready.

I feel bad because I know I’m going to have to push him to his limit here.

I take Dayton’s hand and we start running. It is straight and dark. It is full of webs and has a dirt smell. Looks like no one has used this in a long time which is good and it leads us to the edge of the woods where Hendrix territory ends.

We run for like twenty minutes. Dayton is out of breath and is dragging his feet but he hasn’t complained once. I finally see the moonlight at the end and that’s when we stop.

We catch our breath.

“Dayton baby, I’m going to need your help here.” I say.

He looks at me looking completely tired and nods.

“I don’t know if there are any pack warriors patrolling around here, so I need you to listen carefully for any movement and tell me anything you hear.” I tell him.

He nods and closes his eyes, concentrating. I grab his hand and start walking closer to the broken-down gate at the end of the tunnel.

He looks up at me. “I can’t hear anyone.”

That doesn’t mean there isn't anyone around. I know his hearing is not completely developed like older werewolves, but it's all we have right now.

I nod and start slowly walking. We keep low and go as quietly as possible until we reach the edge. That’s when we take off running. We keep to the woods but we are at the edge of the road.

I am focused on one thing only and I see it. We stop on a bunch of bushes that look like they were unnaturally stacked up together. I start moving them, uncovering what it’s hiding. A car.

I quickly open my backpack and take out the white envelope that has the car keys and a map.

“Get in.” I say to Dayton and he doesn’t hesitate.

I get in and turn on the car. I am now tingling with excitement.

I give Dayton a smile and he smiles back.

“Let’s go.”