Chapter 6
1554 Words
6
I led the way up the stairs to the floor above us and meant to get off on the first landing, but the young man grabbed my arm and yanked me up the stairs. “We go higher,” he ordered me.
I tried to wrench my arm from his hold, but it was like a vice grip. “Are you always this bossy to kidnapped girls, or is this your first time?” I snapped.
“First time,” he quipped as he pulled me up the stairs.
There was another twenty-foot flight and the stairs stopped at the next landing. He led me by the arm down the hall and I glimpsed the modern portion of the building. Unfortunately, he turned us onto a side hallway and led us deep into the strange, hive-like building. This floor had more windows and a cool breeze blew through the drafty passages. I shivered and rubbed myself with my free arm.
“Why aren’t we going to the New Den?” I asked him.
“Because my suite resides in the old one,” he told me.
“Not inclined to indoor plumbing?” I quipped.
“A soft life leads to a soft mind and body,” he philosophized.
“And a lot of sore muscles. . .” I muttered as my feet complained of the hard rocks as their sharp points dug into the rubber of my heels.
The man led me down the halls and to a long corridor that ran to the left and right. On the opposite wall from us was a long row of arches and a short wall. A stream of moonlight swept into the passage and illuminated the stone walls and floor. One could lean out and look at the view of the large lake and its still waters. The clear sky was reflected in those calm waters. The sight was an opposite image to the frantic thoughts abuzz in my mind. I had to escape and try to find the others, but I was at the mercy of this strong, handsome, and brutish man who cared nothing for me.
My brooding guide pulled me to the left down the hall. There were very few doors along the passage, and he stopped in front of the last one. He opened a pair of wooden doors and revealed to me a large, medieval suite. The space was a single, large room furnished with a tall four-poster bed and several rugs made of dead animals. A large fireplace stood off to the right, and before it were two large chairs and a small table. The floors and walls were stone like the hallways, and tapestries hung from large nails. Beside the tapestries was a large collection of weapons, both old and new. There were daggers, crossbows, bows, hatches, and even a club with nails embedded deep into its wood.
The only modern part of the room’s structure was a skylight in the ceiling. It allowed natural light into the otherwise dark room, though a small pile of coals still lived in the fireplace. The man pulled me inside and released me so he could shut the doors with both hands. They slammed shut with an ominous clank.
The man turned to a small buffet beside the door. He knelt in front of its two lower doors and brought out two glasses and a decanter of wine. My captor filled the glasses and turned to me. He held out one of the glasses to me.
“This will warm you,” he told me. I frowned and stepped back. His scowl deepened. “If you have some problem with alcohol than I’m afraid you will be very unhappy here,” he mused.
“It’s the company I don’t like,” I told him.
“Then in that you will also be disappointed,” he mused. He downed the offered glass and took up the other one. The man strode over to the fire and grabbed a poker which he used to revive the dying fire. His back was turned to me, but in the quiet, shadowed room his voice was loud and clear. “What’s your name?” he asked me.
“Sophia,” I replied.
“No other name?” he wondered.
“That’s enough for you,” I quipped. I folded my arms across my chest and looked him over. “What’s yours?”
“Erik.”
“Erik Greenwood?” I guessed. He nodded. “All right, Greenwood, what the hell am I and the other girls really doing here?”
“You were present at the Choosing,” he reminded me.
I waved a hand in front of me. “I know all that bullshit, but I want the sane truth.”
Greenwood downed the contents of his second glass and gazed into the fire. The flickering flames cast an orange glow over his face. “The truth is that you have come to a very cursed place.”
“I said sane,” I reminded him.
A bitter smile slipped onto his lips. “I can’t give you what you want. The truth is that you and the others were brought here to be the wives of werewolves. You were chosen through the blood to be my bride, and against both our wills we are stuck together until I can find a way to break this union.”
“No. Just. . .just no,” I insisted. I stepped backwards closer to the doors. “This is too much. I just want me and the rest of the girls to be let go and go back home-”
He whipped his head up and his gray eyes glowed in the darkness. “You will stay here until I can sort this mess out,” he ordered me.
I stopped and glared at him. “Like hell I will.” I turned my head to and fro, and my eyes fell on a hatchet on the wall. I leapt at the weapon and pulled it off the wall. It was heavier than it looked, and I nearly dropped it from the weight. I pulled it off the ground and held it in front of me and towards the man. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “Just let me go and I don’t have to use this,” I warned him.
“Try to leave,” he dared me.
I frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Is this some sort of trick?”
“If it was, I wouldn’t tell you, and if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t believe me,” he replied.
He had a point. I slowly stepped backwards to the door and grasped one of the large handles. The hatchet drooped in only one hand, and I kept both my eyes on Greenwood. He didn’t stop me, but he did follow me with his eyes. I pushed the door open and made my escape into the hall.
Well, that’s what I wanted to do. What I did was stand there stupidly mesmerized by his eerily glowing eyes. I ground my teeth together and tried to force myself to push the door open. My hand on the handle shivered, but wouldn’t obey me. My whole body shook with the effort to free myself from the room. The exertion forced me to gasp for air, but I couldn’t will myself to open the door. It was as though something else had control of my body.
Or someone else.
I dropped the handle and grasped the hatchet in both hands. My gaze was stuck on the man who stood beside the crackling fire.
“What the hell did you do to me?” I growled.
He turned away from me and placed both hands on the back of one of the chairs. His body was tense and his brow furrowed. He appeared to be in some sort of mental or physical anguish, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be free.
Greenwood shook his head. “I did nothing. The Choosing-”
“I don’t care about some stupid Choosing! I just want to go home!” I demanded.
He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his short hair. His teeth clenched together and his breathing came out in harsh growls. “Quiet. Your yells only excite me,” he hissed.
“I won’t be quiet! Let me go!” I insisted.
Greenwood let out a terrifying growl before he picked up the chair and flung it across the room. It landed near the bed, and the thick pieces of wood shattered into a dozen pieces. My eyes flickered between the broken chair and the man who so easily destroyed it. I raised the hatchet and stepped towards the opposite side of the bed as him.
I couldn’t keep a quiver out of my voice. “Whatever the hell you want you’re not getting it from me.”
He was silhouetted against the light of the fire, but I could still see his eyes. They glowed with a strange yellow light that sent delicious shivers down my spine. Thoughts of silk sheets naked bodies invaded my mind. I tried to shake them loose, but they stubbornly stuck to my mind. My breath quickened and my hands shook. My voice came out in a breathy gasp.
“W-what are you doing to me?” I whispered.
“Merely calming you,” came his deep, seductive voice.
His shadowed self moved closer to me. I ground my teeth together and raised the hatchet. “S-stay back,” I ordered him.
“You and I both know we can’t do that. You can feel the pull as well as I,” he whispered.
He came within reach of me. I growled and swung the hatchet. He caught the handle just above my hands and wrenched the hatchet from my hand. The weapon flew from our grips and landed with a loud clatter on the ground close to the fireplace. I was without protection, and at the mercy of this strange, seductive man.
- Writer
