Thorn woke, first one eye slow to see darkness and then the other. He tried to stretch out an anxious hand with an anxious finger which was no longer there.
He tried to get hold of his muddle mind. There was nothing to hold on to. Feeling the chains covering him, and feeling unlike himself—weak and exhausted, he let out a hard breath. The voice hadn’t tied Thorn in ropes yet. Thorn had counted on that.
Thorn calculated on Zoey’s ability to persuade the voice. With ropes he could gnaw them until they came undone. It would have been hilarious if the voice had made that mistake at first. But now nothing was amusing about a werewolf chained in a basement and unable to do anything but sleep and wake to another horrible day.
The voice wanted ropes and duct tape which would have been nice, he thought. But he didn’t have a rope. The only device in the house were chains and a lock his father had used to keep vandals from stealing his antique fifty-six blue and white Chevy out in the attached garage. The chains had been recycled. The chains were to keep out unwanted teenagers to his parent’s cabin during the fall and winter months, but now it was to keep in an unsuspecting werewolf.
This place stood secluded except for a few old houses and a few old people who couldn’t afford two residences. The voice’s parents could afford that and more, and when the voice needed a place to run to, he would go there.
The voice’s parents would go to their second home in Phoenix to relax, and to get away from their wayward adult son who kept them worried constantly about his frame of mind, which at the moment bordered on stupidity and madness.
This place was perfect for getting drunk with his friends who were his buddies in high school. Some of the same failures like him. Some of the same losers like him. Some of the same fuck-ups like him. Not the ones he had met in college. They were successful now and soon to become doctors. But the voice was on his way to becoming a murder.
There was no preparation on the voice’s part for bringing in kidnapped victims. The thought never came into his mind until he saw what he wanted and went after her. He lived his life that way. Whatever came into his fucked-up mind he would follow through on it. There is nothing wrong with thinking about things. The problem comes with acting on it. He had thought of the kidnapping on the spur of the moment. One minute he’s thinking about fucking a woman and the next he’s thinking about killing her and her husband. So he didn’t think about ropes. He improvised with the chains.
The ropes never could hold a werewolf. When the voice in the darkness cut off Thorn’s finger, Thorn had to reach deep down within himself not to change, and not to give away that he was a werewolf. Saying he was a werewolf just brought laughter to the man behind the voice in the darkness, however, Thorn had to remind himself of who he is, because it appeared to be slipping away each minute he had been drugged out of his mind.
But what about Zoey. Maybe the voice had pressured her to the point where she had given in to him. Maybe she couldn’t handle being abused and she broke and surrendered to him and his friends, Thorn thought.
Thorn wondered if the voice was one of the young men sitting in the dining area challenging and baiting him. His head groggy, his mind dazed. Thorn couldn’t remember a time he felt like this. No control. No sense of being. Whatever the voice gave him, it had dulled the pain and was keeping him medicated to the point where he didn’t feel anything and he didn’t need to eat or drink water. He didn’t remember even using the bathroom. Maybe he hadn’t because his body felt as if it would shut down any minute.
It was a dreadful feeling not having control over his once strong powerful body, and he didn’t like the cold clammy sensation his body was going through. Despite it being cold in the cellar he sweated profusely. He didn’t feel the large drops of sweat beading on his forehead until it fell on his hand. And even then he wondered about the water dropping continuously.
He wanted to see Zoey to know if she was alright, and when his mind fixed on her, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and he heard the sound of light footsteps.
“Zoey? Is that you... Zoey?” He said; his speech slurred. His head turning in the direction of the sound searching for light. Enough light to see Zoey’s pretty face.
But it was dark and it would stay dark and he wouldn’t get the luxury of seeing her before he died, he thought.
When the clatter of shoes stopped on the cement floor, Thorn heard a hard breath and loud breathing. “I’m here, Thorn,” her voice weak from stress. Zoey passed her soft hand over his forehead and Thorn raised his head smelling her wrist. It was Zoey. By now the voice had bought duct tape to cover his eyes. Maybe he could convince the voice to buy a rope, if his mind wasn’t so muddled, and he could talk to the voice. But the voice had sent Zoey.
Thorn wondered why.
All Thorn could do was smile and say, “Baby... is it you?” His voice weak from the lack of food and too much medication.
“Yes, Thorn,” she whispered in his ear. Zoey didn’t like to see Thorn like this. A beautiful virile man reduced to begging for her. How could this happen to him. She blamed herself. She must have done something wrong. Why didn’t they go with Tracker?
“Did he hurt you?” Zoey said.
“It’s nothing I haven’t experienced before. I’m still alive,” he said trying to open his mouth and give her a smile of confidence. She barely saw his beautiful teeth. They appeared weak like his body.
She placed a piece of meat to his mouth. Thorn turned his head from the smell. “You have to eat. Eat this for me. You need your strength.”
Thorn tried eating once more. His mouth hurt. His teeth hurt, but he ate one small piece at a time. The medication had to be wearing off. Now he could feel pain. A piece of beef, but he hadn’t eating in over a week. He would have to eat fresh meat soon. He looked pale in the dim light of the room.
She whispered, “It may take time for me to find the key to that lock, but I’ll do it. But you have to be strong enough. He has friends,” she whispered as if he could hear her.
“Convince him to buy a rope.”
“He may get suspicious.”
“That’s my only chance to free me and you. He’s planning on killing me, and I don’t know what he would do to you.” Zoey had known that without Thorn saying it. Hearing the sound of Thorn’s weak voice, she knew she had to act soon, or it would be over for both of them.
Thorn took another bite even though he wanted to vomit up the cooked food. “I’ll get you a steak next time. And I won’t cook it. But he’s watching at me all the time and I get nervous around him.”
“I love you, Zoey.”
“I know. I love you more than you can ever know, Thorn.” He could only barely nod his head as it jaunted to the right and fell forward. She repeated his name for him to know who he was. He could never forget that he was the son of Lycell a werewolf. The last of a dying breed. And because of that he knew that he had to survive. He had to go on and have pups and grow his pack. And he wanted no other female but Zoey to give birth to his offspring. Because of that, he would find a way to survive.
She crouched and kissed him on his lips, stood, held his hand and left him. When she reached the stairs she walked slowly up the creaky wooden stairs. She needed time to think about how to handle the voice. When she raised her head, standing in the opening with the light streaming down, a gruff voice came from the doorway.
“Hurry up. I have something for you to do. I want my food. You’re wasting your time with a dead man.” And the voice laughed louder than before.
When she reached the door, Thorn’s heavy head raised to see under the duct tape. He saw a sliver of light and a silhouette of Zoey. He saw the man grab her and pull her into the light and close the door with a bang, and then there wasn’t any light, and Thorn languished thinking about what next.
Zoey had to face her plight. She may have exchanged Beau for The Voice, one useless piece of trash for another.
Thorn promised her that he would take care of her and here he was sitting in the dark unresponsive to anything, and thinking about his life as a Samsa. He didn’t realize that the world of men was filled with dangers at every turn.
And now he knew. Zoey knew all along how dangerous her world was and she thought being with Tracker and Thorn would lessen her problems, but now they were more complicated than ever.
After Zoey served the voice and his three friends, they sat back watching television. She loaded the old dishwasher with the plates she cleared from the table and shuddered when a body closed in on her. She felt his hard length on and under her dress. He put his arms around her waist like nothing had happened, and kissed her neck. Chills rose on the back of her neck. He took that as acceptance. She knew it to be sheer terror.
She turned trying to hide her contempt for him. She gave him a weak smile and he said to her, “You are a pretty woman. Much prettier than I thought. My mother and father would like you. I think I’ll keep you,” he said like a little child who had found a puppy, and didn’t want to return it even though he knew it belonged to the neighbors.
“That man in the cellar isn’t really my husband. After you get the money, we should let him go and get a fresh start.”
The voice grabbed her by her neck and brought her to him and said, “Why didn’t you tell me that before.”
“I was afraid.” Her voice small, meek, and trembling. He released her. “If we are going to get a new start, then we should tie him up instead of chaining him. Those chains could kill him before...” Zoey didn’t finish. She looked at the voice’s cold dark eyes as they lit up. “You keep him drugged so why does he need to be in chains. The chains are making him sick. They are too heavy. His skin is turning blue. He can’t do anything or go anywhere. You want him alive at least until you get some money?”
“What money?”
“His family is rich. Didn’t you know that?”
“Of course I did.” A lie.
Zoey had dealt with men like the voice all her life. First with Beau and then his friends. They all wanted her and she had to learn how to play them against each other to keep the abuse at a minimum, or to the point where she could tolerate it. Her thoughts about Beau always centered on how she could get away from him, and when she saw her chance she took it. Now the game had taken on a new set of players and she had to start all over again if she wanted to survive.
She had used her body to survive with Beau and his friends, but now she had to use her cunning and body, and she didn’t know if it would work and if it did, she didn’t have a plan for later.
Zoey sucked in a small breath. She let him get close to her by moving a few inches closer to him. She saw the flush in his cheeks. He was attracted to her, but he tried to pretend in front of his friends that she was just another fuck. Someone to tie up, beat, and fuck her when he got bored.
The voice let his friends stick around in case he needed help. They hoped he would get tired of Zoey, and offer her to them. But he was greedy and didn’t want to share someone as pretty as Zoey, just like he didn’t want to share her with Thorn. Now she was his, and he wouldn’t let her go. But he might go along with letting Thorn go. But not the way Zoey wanted.
He said, “I’ll think about it. Before we leave, maybe I’ll get a rope.” And he gave Zoey a kiss on her lips. He pulled her close then turned her around and patted her behind hard like she was his wife. “Now take a bath and be ready for me tonight. We’re dropping off that finger and a ransom note early tomorrow morning. You’re going with me. I need some company.”
“Can I stay here?”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Zoey shuddered because she thought he was on to her. “I don’t want to come back here and find that my boys have raped you. You’re mine. All mine.”
She had heard Beau say that when he was dating her, and she knew the implications of that. He had plans to do unspeakable things to her.