Torture

I screamed as one by one, my fingernails were torn from their beds with a pair of pliers. I screamed as red hot nails were driven through the soles of my feet. I screamed as the Alpha carved away little strips of my skin with a knife and inch at a time.

Eventually, the shock my body was experiencing grew too much, and I willingly succumbed to unconsciousness. I hoped to hide there in the warm nothingness, safe and unaware of the horrors that reality held, but reality wasn’t done with me.

My heart leaped and took off like a startled rabbit, sending my back arching up off the table. Every muscle strained against the straps that bound me, but to no avail. This place was designed to hold werewolves. There was no escape.

“I wasn’t done with you, Little Silver. You can’t sleep now, not when we’re just getting to the good part.” He held a syringe up where I could see it. “Adrenaline works wonders on the fight or flight response I’ve discovered.”

I whimpered, a huge wave of despair and terror sweeping over me. I had to get out. I had to get free.

A new scream rose from deep in my throat, riding the surging tide of a shift. First one shoulder, then the other swiveled and popped, sending more pain shooting through me. Wolves were not meant to be bound as a human might. Everything was in the wrong place. The panic brought on by these thoughts spurred the shift onward. My back arched off the table, ribcage crunching into a lupine shape. I couldn’t stop it. They were all going to die because of me. Tears began to pour from my eyes, blurring the world as colors shifted and shadows receded.

"Hush, Little One." Silver’s voice wrapped around my consciousness with a brush of soft fur. Fur that soothed the terror and dulled the pain. "I have you."

Perception shifted until it looked like I was viewing the world from a distance. I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t obey my commands.

"You just rest. All will be well." Little by little, my body fought back the change. No. Silver fought back the change. She kept us human. She kept the others safe.

She kept me sane.

Each and every time I was dragged to the dungeon to be tortured over the next four years, Silver would pull me back from the brink of a shift and keep our secret safe. As time went on, I lasted longer and longer on the torture table. My increasing tolerance for pain frustrating Alpha Greyson more and more. The remaining five of us held on for those four years. We endured the torture, the physical abuse, the verbal abuse, the psychological trauma. We tended each other’s wounds, whispered words of encouragement in the dark basement. We saw firsthand what would happen to us when we turned sixteen and had our first heat.

Lyra had been acting weird all day. She squirmed a lot and was flush in her cheeks like she had a fever but she wouldn't tell us what was going on. Finally at the end of the day when we were safely locked in the basement she confessed in a terrified whisper.

"I'm in heat. That means I'm… I'm fertile. For the next week I can get pregnant. The worst part is that my body really, really wants it. If I'm not careful they might smell me." She shot a panicked glance up at the door and scooted closer, whispering even quieter. "Neither of you were here the last time one of us went into heat, but it wasn't pretty. The Beta's mate can't conceive so the Alpha let's him fuck any of us in heat in hopes of a child. The last few times…" Lyra paused chewing on her lip then shook her head. "Neither the girl nor the baby survived. I don't want to be next."

After that, we did anything we could think of to disguise Lyra's scent. We crushed dandelion leaves and rubbed them on all of us whenever we did yard work. We coated ourselves in even more dirt to clog her pores. We stayed as close to her as possible so our scents overlapped with hers. This worked for five days and we thought that we could make it to seven.

But the hope that had bloomed in our chests withered when the Beta came stomping down the stairs with a hungry grin.