A Spiritual's Mark

Chapter 6: Tortured

-Phoenix-

I am not scared. How can I be when all I see was her? Her white hair blowing in the wind, the water behind her glistening under the low rays of the sun. She turns around, smiling at me, holding out her hand while, without a sound, indicating for me to come to her. Her lips are moving, but I hear nothing. Her eyes are practically shining as she stands on the rocks near the edge of the water. I walk over to her and grasp her hand. Goddess, she is beautiful, I think, as I pull her close to me. Her smiling eyes change, now so curious. All I want is to devour her. All I want is to own her because she is mine. She is everything I have ever dreamt of. Why was she given to me? I have no answer to that, but she is my escape. She is what will keep me sane.

My whole body jumped as I heard my cell door open. I was surprised to find my mate when I ventured into my safe space in my mind. Usually, I saw nothing but darkness, sometimes with a few scattered colors. Once, it transformed into my home, but this time, it was only her.

My captors entered my cell. Chris wasn't wrong about us being kept weak. I could barely fight back as they grabbed me. They had taken Chris a little earlier, and he hadn't returned yet. Had they killed him? We hadn't spoken much after I revealed my true nature. Though I was relieved he wasn't speaking to me anymore, I still couldn't help but wonder where they had taken him or why it was taking so long. He had spat on one of them, resulting in him being dragged away, but it seemed excessive for him to be gone for so long just because of that.

I hadn't done anything, and now they had finally come for me. They all wore small black masks, covering only their mouths and noses to protect against whatever they pumped through the small vents in the ceiling. Smart. I had to admit, they had thought this through, but I didn't believe it would help them in the end.

Even if I didn't escape, I didn't think Connor would emerge as the ultimate victor. Even if he broke the queen, trapping her forever in her wolf form, there would always be someone stronger out there. Connor might achieve his goals for a while, but someone would inevitably rise against him. Someone always did.

“NOOOOOOO!” That was the first word I had heard come out of the queen’s mouth since I got here. I had no idea what they were doing to her, but as I was dragged past a large metal door, the shouting was so loud that I could only assume they were keeping her there, far away from where they kept me and Chris. They pulled me down a few more hallways before they brought me into a square room with only a surgical chair in the middle of it.

“Here he is, doc,” one of them reported.

All of them carried masks, even the psycho standing over by all the torture tools and wearing clothes that would protect him from all the blood.

“Put him there.”

They got me up on the chair, and I tried to resist. I managed to latch onto one of them. He screamed like a f*cking girl as I sank my teeth into his arm before pulling back. I took a chunk of flesh with me before spitting it out, smiling cruelly as the man took a few steps back, clutching his injured arm.

The doctor approached him, instructing him to be quiet as he examined the wound, while the others restrained me completely. Not just my ankles and wrists, but my head as well, with two straps running over my chest and stomach. I couldn’t move an inch. I tried to squirm, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

Though I enjoyed the taste, it was hard to savor knowing what was coming. With only two lights in the room, it was difficult to see any of them. One larger light was directly above me, while a smaller one stood on the table beside the tools. Sh*t, this was going to hurt. But that was okay. I retreated to that comforting place in my mind where I would find solace. Yeah, I wouldn't lose my mind. Whatever they wanted from me, I wouldn't give it to them. I owed Hunter. I wouldn't do anything to betray him.

“Take him away. He will heal!” the doctor commanded, showing little sympathy for the injured man.

I didn't feel much either, but you'd think people working together would show more concern. I had taken a substantial bite out of his arm, yet the others simply escorted him away while he glared at me. I could barely see them leave from my restrained position. I wasn't completely horizontal, but I wagered the doctor could adjust the chair's settings to position me exactly as he needed when he began his work on my body. When the door closed, it was just him and me.

He returned to his tools and began sorting through them under the light, wiping them clean. I wasn't sure if they had been recently used or if he was simply sanitizing them to prevent infection. Wolves might heal fast, but the risk of infection was always present. Left untreated, it could lead to scarring or even death.

“Now, where should we start?” the male inquired.

He wasn't speaking to me, of course. I knew that, but damn, his voice, while it wasn't the same from my past, brought back some bad memories of the time when I was kept in a cage and tortured as well. Back then, it wasn't because I was on the wrong side of things. No, at that time, it was to break me and rebuild me into the man I am today—cold, uncaring, with a thirst for blood and pain.

“Just begin somewhere,” I remarked. “Doesn't matter.”

“But it does,” he countered, looking back at me with eyes that I knew thirsted for my screams.

Some people just carried that sick look. I wondered if the people I had hurt had seen the same thing in my eyes. I couldn’t say I was much different from this man. Though he lived to hear the screams of his victims, I never had.

It was not that I didn’t enjoy them, but I had also been a soldier. I had done what I had been told until I was tired of it, until I wanted to make my own decisions. Until it wasn't enough to only hurt people when I was allowed to do it. It didn't feed the beast enough inside me. No, there was more it wanted.

Hunter had given me that chance, that chance to truly feed it with everything it desired, because he knew what it was like having such a monster inside him, craving violence and blood. He understood better than most.

“First, you and I will get to know each other,” the male teased, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I need to know how much you can take, what hurts and what doesn’t. What will break you, and what will only push you a little closer to the edge. It is a delicate art, you see. I can’t break you too fast, or I won’t get what I need.”

“What? An orgsam?” I quipped. “I bet you get off on this sh*t. Tell me, how is the queen?”

The older male clearly didn’t seem to enjoy my jokes. I wondered if I had spent too much time with Chris and his dry humor because usually, I wouldn’t be talking at all. Yeah, this was Chris’s fault, though I did want to know how far they were with the queen.

She was stronger than most females. After all, she was the mad king’s daughter, trained for this ordeal, having lived in the woods most of her life after Valerio killed King Xavier. She was resilient, but we all had a breaking point. None of us had impenetrable minds, which meant at some point, we all broke. It was just a matter of when or how.

It was clear they put a lot of energy into torturing the queen, but they didn’t just want to break her. It was about subjecting her to so much pain that she would retreat so far into her mind, losing herself to her primal instincts, which would take over and never relinquish control. Once it took over, she would be nothing but instinct—a tormented creature ready to tear into anyone who crossed her path.

A powerful card. That's what she would become until she had no purpose anymore. Even if the king found a way to capture her, he would never get her back. Were they going to change me too? They would have to work hard, though. Maybe Connor would want to change Chris as well? I didn’t see it happening, but we couldn’t underestimate Connor. He might find some use for Chris by transforming him too.

Suddenly, the light shining into my eyes was extinguished by a large figure looming over me. Goddess, he had that vile look in his eyes—the promise of not just pain, but true misery as well. I knew he was smiling from the way his eyes narrowed and gleamed. I could see the lines in his face, indicating his older age and the scattered grey hairs, but of course, wolves didn’t age the same way as humans.

The older male brought a pair of scissors in front of my face, and I struggled in the chair. However, he was only cutting through my dirty t-shirt, exposing my whole upper body to him. Then he disappeared again, and I attempted to wriggle around in the chair.

“Save your strength,” he advised. “You will need it.”

Suddenly there was a scream running through the vent that was in the room. The vents were clearly connected to each other, but it wasn’t the queen’s I heard. No, that had to be Chris’s. It had a deeper tone than hers. At least he was still alive, but for how long? For how long would any of us be alive?

“So, am I just something to sharpen your skills on, or do you actually have a use for me?” I inquired as I heard him coming back.

He placed himself in my line of sight again, this time with a small knife. One you would use for surgery.

“We have use for you,” he replied in a dark and twisted manner.

“I’m guessing you won’t tell me yet.”

He shook his head.

“Good way to mess with my mind, but let me tell you something, doc, my mind is already screwed up, so do your worst.”

I took a little inspiration from Chris and spat in his face. Oh, the sight, it was too satisfying, but only for about two seconds. Then the doctor got over the shock of it and wiped his face clean with his sleeve before he went over to the table, putting the knife down.

“I think we are going to start differently,” he stated darkly, before scrambling around in the room.

When he appeared again, he forced rubber into my mouth and bound it around the head of the chair, so I couldn’t spit it out. Then I heard the sound of sparks. Oh, f*ck no! But there was nowhere to escape as the doctor shocked me, making my whole body shake. The pain was so intense it was close to making me blackout, yet sadly, I knew this was just the beginning.