Two: Imprisonment.

RAFAEL.

ONE WEEK EARLIER.

I was harshly thrown to the ground on which I gnashed my bloodied head against. My hands were bound in concrete chains and I was tied in such a way that I couldn’t move. The next second, there was a whiplash that struck my back repeatedly. I fumed beneath my forceful breath as I struggled to hold the pain within me.

My wolf could not be awoken because I was poisoned by wolfsbane by the Alpha of this pack before I was dragged down here. I fell to my knees in agony and the veins protruded through the lines on my temple.

I was harmless and vulnerable at Archer’s hands.

“Well if it isn’t one of the rotten ones” He growled at me and I clenched my jaw tightly. “Do you really think you can mess with us and get away with it?” He asked. The beads of sweat that formed across my forehead began to trickle down my wounded skin and stung me with more pain.

“There’s only one rule and that is boundaries. We don’t cross yours and you don’t cross ours. Today, you crossed that boundary, Rafael” With each word, Archer kept whipping me. It reached a point where I was zapped in the side of my neck. I was beyond broken as I laid across the floor but he took no pity until he was satisfied.

The first night’s torture was by far the worst and when he finally left, I could finally have my peace. The poison boiled through my veins and it was as though my body were to contract and explode. My wolf was tied inside of me and fought so hard to break free.

We wouldn’t be here if I had outran them.

My whole life I’ve always been running from something—be it taking up the throne from my dying father as king or my mother’s desires to marry me off to any virgin she deemed fit. But tonight I ran from our enemies and failed miserably.

“Give him the food. I don’t want him to die here” Archer’s low voice crept back to me and there was a very distinctive scent that I picked up with my nose. It was like cinnamon and a pint of rosemary oil. “Okay father” There it was.

That voice that tricked me like i knew it forever.

My heart began to stomp in my chest as the faint footsteps drew closer and then through a partition of the cage, she bent forward to slide the food through. I caught her eyes but I feared that she saw mine. They were red with a vicious poison and I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.

“Are you not going to eat?” Her tender voice asked like song to my ears and I could my feel my pain slowly soothe—she awoke something in me and all I did was gaze upon her in the silence. She was an ethereal sight to behold and an instant fiery connection. Everything I had heard about finding one’s mate. I could scent her as mine and there was that urge to mark her but I doubted she could scent me.

My whole life I’ve searched for my mate ever since I knew what it was and just on the cusp of surrender, here she was. Though her clothes were worn out and dull, her emerald green eyes shone the brightest.

“Who are you?” I was compelled to ask.

“I’m Kayla” I could smell her nervousness, not fear.

“Archer is my father” She added and I had to calm my primal aggressiveness for her. “You’re bleeding” Her eyes fell to my wounded chest and she suddenly brought out something from behind her. She had a spare clamp of keys and she wasn’t hesitant to open the doors.

She reached for my hands and there was a burning sensation at first.

“Are you not scared?” I asked.

There was an innocent smile that curved her lips as she wiped my wounds and it should sting but it didn’t. Perhaps it was because she held still to my hands. Kayla avoided eye contact but it didn’t calm the tension between us.

“There” She let my hands go after.

And then our eyes met in a moment that the air between us grew thick with something undefined. Her eyes remained engrossed in mine until I turned away—I feared she would see me for who I am.

I knew who she was, she was the daughter of my father’s enemy and I shouldn’t feel this way towards Kayla. But she was unlike the monster that everyone claimed she was. I’d heard about her mother dying at birth but it seemed like I was the only one that didn’t blame her for it.

“Who are you, Kayla?” I asked with intrigue.

“You should eat” She avoided the question.

“I’ll eat when you answer my question” I leveraged and an exhale escaped her lips. I noticed there was a fresh bruise across her face that my eyes couldn’t untether from. “What happened there?” I asked.

“I tripped down the stairs” Color drained out of her face and I could tell she was a terrible liar. “Come on.” I howled and she rolled her eyes. “It was my sister. She poured hot water on me but it was my fault” She was quick to add and the sign of her maltreatment was as evident as daylight.

“No one’s here” I reassured her when she threw a terrified glance over her shoulders.

“Now you eat” Kayla batted her lashes to hold back the tears in her eyes and I showed her my cuffed wrists. “I can’t” I scoffed which led into a faint cough. I felt myself getting sicker but that was because of the poison still flowing in my veins.

She dipped her fingers into the food and pulled me closer. She was never afraid. “Open your mouth” She whispered and I parted my lips slowly. She tipped the food through them and dropped it in my mouth. I clenched my jaw and her hands didn’t move from my broad shoulders.

My eyes flashed with heat and I slowly perused her body from head to toe. Her eyes wasn’t denying of the sizzling chemistry until she turned back.

“You’re burning up with a fever.” Kayla noted. “You should probably get some rest. Let me help you up” Her hands stretched around me and slowly but steadily, she pulled me to the bed where I laid. Her hands found the nape of my heated neck and sympathy filled her eyes.

“I’m sorry my father did that to you.”

“It’s not your fault” I replied and she stood by the door. “Will you come back tomorrow?” I asked and Kayla nodded.

Seeing her was a reason to stay alive.

She kept to her promise of showing up every night with food and some ointment. But I just wanted to see her face. Days seemed to morph together and soon a week had passed in confinement.

“Are you okay?” She turned to me suddenly and my eyes were barely opened by the seventh day. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t speak and she could tell. “Uh-hum” I nodded.

My throat contracted and then I began to cough so much that blood spilled to my hands, I was in fact not okay. Kayla charged at me to soothe my back with her massaging palms, all while hefting a glass of water for me to drink.

I could scent her uneasiness from the rapid beating of her heart.

She was worried, more than usual and I wasn’t even sure that I would make it till tomorrow. Her hands slipped through mine and I summoned enough strength to squeeze around it. “I’m in so much pain”

“Is there anything i can do to help it?” She asked.

Except you can retrieve the antidote from your father’s chamber, then there’s nothing” I replied her and pushing a lump down her throat, it was evident that she gave it a thought.

“I can’t” Came an exhale.

“He’s going to kill me if I do” She whispered.

“Hey it’s okay” I shook my head. “I just don’t want to leave you” I choked a second time and you could hear the last surviving breathes from my lungs. She bit into her lips as a lone tear fell down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to leave you too.” She said and after a few minutes, she arose to walk out of the dungeon. “I’ll be right back” Was all she said, only to reappear around ten minutes later. She had a glass cup in her hands and there was green fluid inside of it.

“What is this?”

“Do you trust me?” At this time, the cup was already centimeters from my lips and I nodded so easily. “Then drink this, it’s the antidote.” She seemed confident by the sound of her voice and I drank the spicy liquid and then looked to her.

“Kayla but your father—“

“I can’t blame myself for another person’s death” She cut through my words before laying next to me in the silence. My wolf was finally freed and I was better in no time. Kayla didn’t leave that night but she stayed with me while I recharged. Up until the next morning that I watched the sun come out.

The doors were open and there was my chance to escape and so I slipped away from her grasp, careful to not wake her but alas, Kayla caught me by the door.

“You’re leaving?” There was shrouded pain looming in her voice.

“Should I not—“

I looked down at the fresh clothes she’d given me and the completely healed scars across my body. “No. Go” She heaved. When I inched closer, she turned away from me.

“Will you be okay?” I asked and she was convincing with a nod. “They can’t hate me more than they already do” She said. “You go” Her hands pushed into my chest until I pulled away.

"I'm headed to the forest but i’ll come back, Kayla" She didn’t trust me but she nodded nonetheless.

“I didn’t get your name.”

“My name is Rafael Cordero” I replied but could tell she already knew who I was. She always knew but that never stopped Kayla Matthews. I leapt outside the windows and raced my way across town to my clan. I swindled through the guards and barged into my parent’s castle.

Breathless, I faced the throne where they were sat.

“Goodness, where have you been?” My mother, the Luna Queen was relieved to see me but I was quick to cut her short. “I want to be Alpha now—the King of the Pack” I pushed a hard lump down my throat and it caught them by surprise.

“I found my mate and I want to be made Lycan King of the Clan” I added. “It’s the only way I get my revenge on the Blood Moon Pack and take what is truly mine” There was vengeance in my eyes as they looked to each other in contemplation. All it took was the Aegean Ring and I was finally ready.

It took Kayla Matthews for me to finally realize that.