Chapter 37
The first thing she realized was that her head hurt and her body ached. Daphne opened her eyes to find the world sort of blurry before her memories came to her.
The attack. Owen’s chuckling. She’d struggled.
She sat up as her heart began to thud hard and fast in her chest. She’d been kidnapped by Owen. Where was she? Would Arthur be able to find her? Was everyone dead or had they only attacked the village to kidnap her and left everyone else alive?
What did he want with her?
She shuddered in fear and tears pricked her eyes. She cast her gaze around. The room was solid stone it looked like, dark and cold with only the smallest sliver of light coming from down the corridor outside the heavy iron door.
She struggled to her feet to feel around the room and found there was only one chair in the room, but there was a small window on the far wall. There was just enough room to squeeze through if it hadn’t been covered with bars. She peered out the window as the wind rushed past. She couldn’t be sure how high up she was, but she was in a tower at least seven meters above the dark forest surrounding it. At the bottom of the tower was a long, low, dilapidated fence.
Red lights flashed and moved. Hundreds of them circled and milled about below and she gasped in terror as light spilled over the lights from a torch.
There were hundreds of rogues inside the fence, seemingly guarding the tower.
She shuddered. Owen had brought her to his home base. Even if she managed to get out of the room, she’d still have to deal with all the rogues below.
If Arthur found her, he’d have to fight them all and Owen.
Maybe, if she could get the information to him through their bond, he’d be able to rally enough wolves to attack them.
She closed her eyes and tried to reach out to him the way she had before.
Arthur? Arthur, can you hear me? I’m at the rogue’s base!
There was no response and she worried her lip, pushing harder.
Arthur? Arthur!
She worried her lip anxiously. What was going on? Was she going about it the wrong way? Maybe it was because of the distance?
“Arthur?” she whispered to the wind. “Arthur? Arthur, please answer if you can hear me.”
“Don’t bother,” a cold voice rang out from behind her. “He can’t hear you.”
She flinched and turn around as the lock of the door clinked and slotted open. The iron screeched as it swung open revealing Owen on the other side, draped in a long black robe.
She shuddered as his burning red eyes fell on her. He looked like a grim reaper.
A frightened gasped escaped her as she pressed her body against the far wall of the room, staring at him in terror. What did he want?
Was he here to hurt her again? Was he here to kill her?
Owen closed the iron door behind him with a heavy thud and sat in the only chair in the room, looking at her.
“The walls of this tower are special.” He smirked. “This used to be the territory of vampires... They built towers with special stones to imprison werewolves and stop them from communicating using their bonds, but twenty years ago they were defeated by my father and withdrew from this land, so this large area became a neutral zone.”
Owen chuckled to himself, “Wolves hate the stench of vampires left here, so they hardly ever come here.”
Daphne wasn’t sure what to think of it. She knew that werewolves and vampires were races that were hostile to each other, but that was all she knew about vampires. When she still lived with her grandmother in the forest cabin, her grandmother cautioned her about werewolves, but she never mentioned vampires.
“Do you think Arthur will come to this place? Will he come to your rescue?”
Of course, Daphne wanted Arthur to come, but it was such an obvious trap. Knowing Arthur, he’d find a way to come rescue her and have to face all the rogues below. Daphne looked at Owen, critically.
Owen had a cruel smile. She used to think Arthur was scary, a raging and dangerous lunatic, but Arthur’s fury was nothing like Owen’s calm malice.
He seemed fully in control of his anger, smart and sensible but cruel.
An elegant psychopath was worth more than even the most powerful raging maniac. A psychopath could plan.
“Y-You said you were Arthur's brother.” Daphne swallowed thickly, trying to steady her voice. “If you were brothers, why have you kidnapped me? Why are you trying to kill Arthur?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her and smirked, “Oh, he didn't tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Daphne asked, cautiously.
Owen laughed, his face lighting up with cruel glee.
“He didn't tell you! Well, that's normal. If you knew, you'd probably have left him a long time ago!” He snickered. “The first time I met you in the forest, you were planning to run away from him, right? A weak and incompetent human...”
Daphne glared at him. He didn’t have the right to bring up that night even if he was right.
“I won't leave him now! Just you wait, he will beat you!”
Owen shrugged, leaning back to lounge in the chair, “Oh, I'll wait. I’m counting on him coming. After all, we're the two remaining Royals.”
She frowned. What did he mean by that? Was that their last name or was he talking about actual royalty?
“I have to kill him, anyway.” He laughed. “With him out of the way, there'll be no one to stop me from getting the throne!”
“Royals?” Daphne asked. “What throne are you talking about?”
“The Royal family are special,” Owen said magnanimously. “We were once the royal family of the werewolf kingdom, the rulers. We are more powerful than any werewolf. Our strength is how we came to reign over the werewolf kingdom.”
His lips twitched and a spark of anger wen through his eyes that made her flinch.
“Decades ago, a dispute broke out between his parents and my father, and almost all of the royal family died in the civil unrest.”
Arthur's father was the king of the werewolf kingdom? Daphne's mouth opened in a surprised gasp. But, Arthur said he grew up in a remote pack. He said the leader of that pack wasn't his real father, so Arthur’s real father could have been the king, but it seemed so surreal.
She thought of Arthur’s golden fur and his strength. Was being immune to poison a part of what made him and his family special?
“Arthur wants revenge for his parents, and so do I,” he growled. “My father was killed by the king and the luna.”
Daphne swallowed her fear and met his gaze, “B-But why would the king and the luna kill your father? The king had the throne, and they were relatives, weren't they?”
Owen snorted, “My father defeated the vampires. Arthur’s father just sat on the throne! The strongest is the one who deserves to be king. My father could not defeat Arthur’s father, so now, it's his son's turn to face me for the throne!”
“That’s not fair!” Daphne screamed, “You took me hostage, and you tried to defeat Arthur by such underhanded means!”
She glared at him as he grew silent, “It looks like you’re not confident of your strength to have to do all of this. You must be weaker than him just like your father was weaker than his—”
She choked as Owen jumped up from his seat, wrapped his hand around her throat, and pushed her into the wall. She squirmed, pulling at his hands as she struggled to breathe.
Owen growled at her, baring his teeth and glaring at her.
“Watch your mouth, bitch.”
His voice was cold and furious as she looked into his burning red eyes. She thought of Arthur. He had seemed to be hiding something for a while. This had to be what he was hiding, but she couldn’t blame him.
If he had told her, maybe Owen was right and she would have run from him again. She was just a human, orphan girl who’d lived in the woods all of her life.
Arthur was royalty of the werewolf kingdom. She couldn’t stand at his side as anything more than a burden.
Arthur’s lonely figure sitting on the training pitch came to mind and the depth of despair that had shimmered in his eyes. He had lost his sister, and now he was forced to plan to kill his cousin. Daphne knew very well that Arthur was a good man. The abuse he had survived had not destroyed the goodness in him.
Fury and courage filled her at the thought of him as she looked up at Owen. She struggled harder, forgetting her fear and the pain in her body.
She couldn’t die at Owen’s hands. She had to see Arthur again.
She’d promised that she would be at his side.
“I’m Arthur’s mate!” she yelled, “Get off of me, asshole!”
