The Alpha's Captive (13 page)

Sacha was still being punished, held in the basement of the manor. It was three weeks since the incident that had sparked Sacha’s incarceration and Hannah’s too. She supposed she should hate the woman who had so brutally attacked her, but at that moment in the dark of the darkest night, Sacha seemed like the closest thing to an ally.

It had been made very clear that nobody, especially not Hannah, was supposed to go down and see Sacha aside from the pack members responsible for guarding her, but Hannah figured there were probably a few hours in the very dead of night where there were no guards. Nobody to see her. Nobody to get her into trouble.

Hannah slid out from under Lorcan’s protective arm and tiptoed across the bedroom. She was wearing nothing but a sheer white nightgown, which made her feel all the more vulnerable as she made her way down the staircase, under Honoraria’s sparkling gaze and further down beneath the main staircase, into the very innards of the earth.

As she had hoped, there were no guards in sight. Sacha’s quarters were not hard to find, being behind literal bars. Hannah had never been down to the basement before, but she was not surprised that it was more like a dungeon than a basement. She felt a growing sense of camaraderie with the one who loathed her. They were both prisoners. Perhaps they could help one another.

Hannah found Sacha sitting in the corner of her basement room, curled in the shadows. She was a bitter, terrifying figure, but Hannah forced herself to walk right up to the bars.

“Um. Hi.”

Dark lashes rose over pale gold eyes, pupils widening in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Hannah was terrified. Sacha was not to be trifled with, and she knew very well that going to her was very dangerous. Sacha rose to her feet, reminding Hannah how tall she was, how powerful she was, how utterly devastating her unbridled predatory nature could be. The low light of the room emphasized cruel high cheekbones, the narrow set of her eyes. Hannah’s heart began to thunder in her chest, a rushing sound in her ears as blood flooded her head. Her hands were trembling and her stomach was churning.

Sacha rolled her eyes impatiently. “Did you come just to quiver before me, or did you want something?”

Hannah took a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor!?” Sacha laughed. “You come to ask me a favor. You have nerve.” She put her finger to her cheek in a thoughtful pose and looked down at Hannah with slightly more light in her eyes. “What is this favor you would ask of me?”

“Lorcan will not let me leave,” Hannah said. “And I don’t want to leave. But I don’t want to be just me anymore either. I want to be like you are, and like he is. I want to be able to be a wolf…” It sounded silly when she said it, but the words were true.

Sacha’s eyes narrowed to slivers as she nodded. “Ah. You want the blood. That is more than a favor you are asking for. You are asking me to defy the alpha, who is already very close to having my head as it is. You are asking me to risk being the death of you. You are asking me to take your blood on my hands. And for what?”

“So I can be as you are.”

“That answers what you want,” Sacha replied with thinly veiled impatience. “I am asking a different question. Why should I do you this, or any other favor?”

“Oh.”

That was a good point, one Hannah had not thought of.

“You are a self-centered little wretch,” Sacha sighed. “Being young and pretty may earn you immediate favor with my brother, but I am not so easily swayed. If I am to do this for you, I will ask much of you, and you will give it, for I will have given you life. You will give me your loyalty and your obedience. You will be mine. My blood. My whelp.”

Hannah felt the knot in her stomach screwing tighter. Sacha was asking for something Hannah was not sure she could give. It was frightening enough to be taken as Lorcan’s possession. To be under Sacha’s authority was more terrifying than she could consider.

“Think on it,” Sacha said. “The moon is not full for three days. That is the best, perhaps the only time to do this. If you still desire this, come to me then.”

“Does the moon need to be full for it to work? Or is there some kind of magic…”

“It’s easier to see where I am biting in the glow of a full moon,” Sacha replied, her eyes gleaming pale cold gold at Hannah. “Go. Think on this. It is no small matter.”

Hannah nodded, mumbled a quick thanks, and backed her way up the stairs. She was so deep in thought she did not see that her emergence from the basement had not gone unnoticed. As she climbed the stairs, her thoughts whirling about her head, she did not even stop for the mountain of male flesh waiting for her at the top of them.

Lorcan was awake. He must have noticed her leaving, or at least become aware of her absence. He was looking down at her with his powerful gaze and he did not look pleased.

“What were you doing down there?” Lorcan asked the question grimly.

Hannah decided to tell as much of the truth as was possible. “I was just, uh, seeing how Sacha is. Nobody sees her. I couldn’t sleep and I thought she might like the company.”

Lorcan’s eyes widened at her in disbelief. “You thought the woman who tried to kill you might like some company?” He turned her and dealt a harsh slap to her nightgown-clad bottom. “Get back to bed, now, Hannah. You are an innocent who seeks out beasts, and that will not do.”

When she did not move immediately, Lorcan swept her up and carried her off to bed. He seemed to enjoy the physicality of being able to take her from place to place, control her each and every motion. She could sense his worry at her having sought out Sacha, but he seemed to be putting it down to silly naivety, and not a darker plan.

Hannah did not struggle overly much; she was too busy thinking about what Sacha had said. If she returned to her, and asked her to do the deed, what Lorcan was about to do would be as nothing. There was much pain ahead no matter what she chose.

“You’re very quiet,” Lorcan observed, dropping her onto the bed. “What is going on in your head?”

“Nothing,” Hannah lied.

“Mm-hmm. Usually you fight me like hell when I’m about to punish you. What have you been up to, Hannah?”

“Nothing,” she lied again.

The bed dipped as he dropped down next to her on the bed, took her by the wrists and pinned her arms up above her head. She looked up into his amber gaze that demanded everything from her, the good, the bad, the truth. The truth she could not give.

“Tell me what’s going on, Hannah. I know you’re up to something. What were you doing with Sacha? Were you tormenting her?”

“No! I was uh… seeing if she is alright.”

Again his expression became perplexed. “Hannah, she tried to kill you, why would you go and see if she is alright? Why would you concern yourself with her at all?”

Hannah held her breath, sensing that he was trying to decide whether to believe her or not.

“You are a strange little creature,” he said, sliding to the side. “Sacha tries to kill you and your instinct is to go and befriend her? In my experience, that is not how females relate to one another.”

“Maybe you’re not as experienced with women as you think,” Hannah shot back. “Women, not females, you archaic brute.”

He laughed at her attitude and Hannah sensed a reprieve. Maybe she could talk him into turning her after all. Maybe she didn’t have to sneak around with Sacha. Maybe this could all work out.

“You must forgive her,” Hannah said, sitting up. “She is miserable.”

“She deserves to be miserable,” Lorcan said. “She has long challenged me, and she overstepped her bounds when she tried to kill you.”

“But maybe she wasn’t trying to kill me. Maybe she was actually trying to make me like you. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.”

Lorcan shot her a sudden angry look. “You do not know what you are talking about, whelp” he said in flat refusal of the idea. “You would suffer greatly and likely perish. It is nothing like what you might imagine.”

“It’s like being something more than human,” Hannah pressed. “I would be part of your pack.”

“You are part of my pack regardless,” Lorcan said. “A mortal, untainted part, and I intend on keeping you that way.”

“A mere human among wolves,” Hannah pointed out. “Safe as a hotdog at a barbecue convention.”

“You will come to no harm,” he frowned. “I know how to keep my pack in line.”

“By banishing them to the basement.”

“You are a silly little thing,” Lorcan scowled at her. “Feeling sorry for someone who would spill your blood in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t patronize me, Lorcan,” Hannah said, her eyes narrowing at him. “I’m not silly, or little, or a thing, for that matter. I was drawn here, just like my great-aunt was. She became part of the pack. She was turned, why can’t I be?”

“Because I’m alpha, and because I say so.”

“Because I’m alpha, and I say so,” Hannah mimicked him mockingly. There was no point trying to have a conversation with him. He treated her like a juvenile, so she may as well act like one.

“Oh, really, pup,” he drawled in dark tones. “You think it a good idea to tease me now, in this mood?”

“You think it a good idea to…” She only got so far through the sentence before Lorcan grabbed her and started spanking her without any ceremony at all, his palm whacking her behind without much in the way of mercy.

Hannah squealed and laughed at first, then simply squealed. It was fun to tease him when he played the serious and infallible alpha, but the consequences were not nearly as fun. Lorcan was taking the whole situation beyond seriously, as was evidenced in the way he yanked up her nightgown and started spanking her already very well spanked rear with even harder slaps and swats.

“You will stay away from Sacha,” he said grimly. “She has ill intentions for you, and you do not know the depth of the pain you seek.”

“That’s rich considering you’re beating my ass,” Hannah whined.

“You’re getting a little spanking,” Lorcan replied. “This is nothing compared to what she already did to you, and what she will do to you if she gets the chance.”

And so Hannah’s night ended much as it had begun, with her bare bottom squirming under the alpha’s palm, her anus aching, her welted cheeks still stinging, punishment after punishment only serving to temporarily tire her out. She laid there on the bed with Lorcan’s palm bouncing off her cheeks and swore to herself that sooner rather than later, she would take Sacha’s deal.

Three days later the full moon rose, and Hannah once more crept out of the alpha’s bed to take herself down to the basement where Sacha was being held. To her surprise, Sacha was not behind bars. She was standing at the base of the stairs with a dark smirk on her face, almost as if she had been expecting her.

Hannah wondered for a brief moment if Sacha had ever actually been a prisoner. Sacha seemed to do just as she pleased. She was a darker, much more devious version of her brother and she seemed completely prepared for what was to happen next.

“Come,” she said, beckoning Hannah to a small door in the recesses of the basement. “We will not do this in the manor. We cannot risk being disturbed.”

The little door led up a series of very little stairs and passageways that led onto the heath. Hannah found herself emerging from the earth not unlike a mole, the silver of the moon casting a glow over the landscape.

“This way,” Sacha urged, walking through the misty night air toward what at first seemed from a distance to be some kind of walled pen, but which Hannah realized the closer she got to it was a cemetery. A very, very old cemetery with headstones in the shape of wolves and teeth and angels besides.

She felt no small amount of trepidation as Sacha led her to the very middle of the holy ground and bade her sit down.

“This is where our ancestors are buried,” Sacha explained as she lit candles, which seemed to have little effect given the power of the moon’s glow. “This is the place where our power resides, where generations have been laid to rest. Tonight they will watch over you as you are transformed, or welcome you as you go to your eternal rest.”

Hannah felt the grimness of the situation, the weight of a moment that would truly be life or death. Sacha sat cross-legged in front of her, looking her over with a calculating gaze.

“Do you understand what it is we are about to do?”

“You are about to make me as I should be,” Hannah said, locking eyes with the female alpha. “My ancestor is buried here too. Honoraria. She led me here, and I do not believe that she intended for me to stay weak and human and some pet for an alpha to punish daily.”

Sacha smiled and nodded, approving of her rebellion. “You have been little other than a plaything for my brother,” she agreed. “It is an honor to help you claim your birthright, but I must tell you, whelp. This will hurt. I must bite you so deeply you stand a real chance of bleeding out. That is the best way to ensure that the lycanthropy is delivered deep enough into your body to take hold.”

“Do it,” Hannah said. She was not thinking about pain or the prospect of death. There in that dark graveyard she was thinking only about life, the life Honoraria had meant for her to have, the life she would have as her full self, woman and beast.

“Your life as you know it will end,” Sacha continued, showing more restraint than Hannah had given her credit for. “If I do this, you either die or you are reborn. There is no coming back.”

“I will not live as a prisoner here, separate from the pack,” Hannah repeated herself. “I will be of it, or I will be gone.”

Still Sacha spoke, moderating Hannah’s impulsiveness with calm words.

“Do not think this will earn you Lorcan’s favor. He will be furious. We will be breaking a code that has been in place for over a hundred years. You will be the first new whelp in the Darkwood pack in more than a century. You will lust for prey, you will challenge each of us, and you will be whipped for it. He will not be merciful—and neither will I.”

Hannah stood up, stripped her gown from her body, and stood naked in the moonlight. “I am ready, Sacha,” she said in a voice that was clear with resolve. “Take me.”