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Either way, everyday we remained prisoners of FrostFur the bleaker things became. Wolves didn’t like dealing in prisoners. It had nothing to do with a hassle, because we didn’t have a lot of rules surrounding the treatment of prisoners. We only had a very short list of very specific things that could not be done.
If given the choice of being a werewolf prisoner, or a werewolf casualty, choose being a casualty. Always be a casualty.
Werewolves took prisoners for three reasons: interrogation, ransom, or most commonly: torture. Not torture for the sake of information, but torture for the sake of degradation and humiliation. Torture was carefully documented so the other pack would know every awful detail. It certainly caused the whole pack to suffer and struggle to heal, and could weaken a pack so badly that conquest was later achieved.
Being an archive brat, I’d read plenty of these accounts. They got sent to the Chroniclers to be recorded for all history.
Always be a casualty.
I spared Hamid these details. He said nothing about how we hadn’t been fed or my injuries treated. He wisely did not presume a bunch of crazy sovereign state survivalist druids would follow the Geneva Convention & Protocol anyway.
Hamid and I returned to our chess game while I tried to ignore the throbbing pain in my hip, the dull pain in my chest, the scratching pain in my back, and the growling in my gut. And my keen desire for a cup of coffee. I’d have punched out one of those windows with my bare hands if there was coffee on the other side.
The cabin door opened.
Don't Beg
Mercedes strode across the floor, smashed the chess set onto the ground and snarled at me. “Your mate declined.”
“You’re an ignorant feral if you think you can just boss around billionaires. They’re the ones who do the bossing,” I retorted.
Mercedes’ anger ratcheted up a notch. “He’s too used to dealing with soft pink city dwellers. I think he needs a little instruction on how ferals do business. Get up!”
Hamid made no move to say a thing or intervene. Good. Excellent. Be a pissed off meatshield.
Mercedes grabbed me by the hair. “We’ll bring you back. Not in one piece, but you’ll be back.”
Say nothing.
Silence was the only power I had here.
She shoved me towards the door. I stumbled over my bruises, regained my balance and she shoved again. I didn’t stumble this time, but did stagger as the cold beyond the door smashed into me. Two warriors caught me, each one seizing an arm.
“That’s not necessary,” I said, the cold already bleeding dexterity from me.
No response.
Alan, Mercedes, and the two warriors took me to the large pile of logs burning in the center of the camp. Faris appeared with a long iron poker to stir it into burning flames again, and somewhere a wolf howled. The warmth from the fire chased away much of the cold and around it was a puddle of wetness from melted snow. Wolves crept out of cabins and the treeline.
This was an account for the Archives and it would be written as mine. Shivering seized me but my teeth didn’t chatter from cold. More wolves stepped out of the treeline including both of my grandparents.
They walked to the middle of the group, and wolves parted around them to let them see. Their faces were perfect masks, but their eyes burned with things I couldn’t describe.
Had the Council charged my father with slaying the monster he’d created?
Jared appeared with some of my cousins, who stared at me with disgust and hatred. Spring was nowhere to be seen. Was she in a snow-pit riding out a punishment… it wasn’t her fault, even though it sort of was, because I’d beguiled her. Jared wasn’t on Team Spring when it came to anything Mortcombe-related.
It was so cold, and as more and more wolves stepped around trees and from behind buildings just to watch… then one wolf held up a phone to record the scene.
I licked my lips, regretted it as the cold sliced into them and killed the outer layer, and salted the cracks. Whatever was about to happen was going to be so very, very, very bad that FrostFur wanted history to remember. Fear gnawed on my spine like a crazed badger.
Mercedes cackled at my wide-eyed realization. She gestured to the two warriors.
They shoved me onto my knees in the mucky thaw.
One warrior pulled my hands behind my back. Rough, abrasive loops of nylon cord knotted my wrists. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth while I adjusted to the discomfort, talking myself through it, telling myself I could endure it, it was nothing. No reason to be scared of some rope.
The second warrior cut my sweater off me. He whipped it away like the tablecloth and plate trick, then flung it into the fire. The first warrior dropped to one knee across my calves. I clenched my teeth against a cry of pain, and hissed as we sank deeper into the muck, and his hand twisted the cord on my wrist so it dug into my skin.
