Hannah Pole - Song Of The Wolf

Carefully she braided her long mane of blonde hair. Even tied as it was it still fell to her hips. She used the piece of thread she’d pulled from the mattress to tie the end of the braid, keeping it in place, then carefully slid the two pieces of wire into the middle of the plait. It should hide them, just long enough for her to get out of her cell anyway.

Alison knew they would come soon. They usually visited her once a day to ‘wash’ and feed her. She dreaded their presence. Knowing what they were going to do made her skin crawl and bile rise into her throat.

She had spent most of her time in this horrible place trying to avoid them but nothing had worked so far. The High Lord had thankfully stopped coming of late; the Magi had visited her once a day, taken her down to a room somewhere beneath her cell, the same room where he had bound her. Bile rose at the thought, fresh tears stinging her eyes, but she violently shoved them aside. That memory was something she was going to push into the deepest depths of her mind and never think of, never speak of.

She knew he wouldn’t be coming to day; he had been so angry on his last visit, as he had been every time he’d come. He’d cut her so many times with various ritual knives, made her bleed on that stone and chanted so many different spells as he did and nothing had ever worked.

Maker only knew she had no idea what he was trying to do, but every time whatever it was hadn’t worked, he’d taken it out on her.

He’d stopped coming a few days ago, and that in itself was one small mercy. She only had these two brutes to deal with currently.

And though she had spent her days and nights dreading their visits, now she looked forward to it. Now she had a plan.

Alison sat in silence on the mattress waiting for them.

As she contemplated what she planned to do, she couldn’t help the stab of fear that hit her in the gut. She was not like Tamriel and Sapphire, she was not a strong female who could fight and hold her own in battle.

She hadn’t been trained for it. Alison had been trained to be a good mate and to bear children. Nevertheless, her spirit was strong, new-found hope fuelling her.

Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. As she waited, her body pumped with the stuff, making her heart race and her mind hum with a strange combination of dread and excitement.

She could do this. She had to.

Hours passed until finally the muffled voices in the room beyond became louder. They were coming to get her.

Fear slammed into her chest making her struggle to breathe. Tears prickled at her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Yes these bastards abused her, hurt her. Raped her. She was absolutely terrified of them.

But she had a plan this time. She knew what she had to do.

“Wake up, little wolf,” the tomb hissed from the other side of the door.

Alison physically recoiled at the sound of his voice, panic surging to the surface. She violently shoved it away. Now was not the time.

There was a loud clink that seemed to shake the walls of her cell; she’d come to know that sound as the lock being opened.

She held her breath, her whole body trembling in fear of what was to come.

“Little wolf…” the bastard breathed as he slid his body through the door. Alison sat, motionless, fear freezing her in place as he sauntered across the room. Light flooded through the open doorway, making her squint against the brightness.

As he neared Alison, the stench of death and rot hit her nose. She absently brought her hand to her throat, her cold bones shaking uncontrollably.

As her fingers brushed her long hair, the image of that bit of wire shot into her mind, bringing with it fresh determination. Adrenaline surged but she pushed it away. Though welcome, she needed to make them believe she was as terrified and weak as ever.

“Please, leave me alone!” she squeaked, scuttling back on the mattress, out of his reach.

“That’s not a nice thing to say to your lover is it?” he spat, so close to her now that little bits of spittle hit her face. His breath stank of whisky, and his movements were sluggish. He no doubt had been drinking all day.

As his cold hands came in search of her, she couldn’t help but swallow the scream that rose. Those hands had hurt and abused her so often it had almost wiped away any memory of a life without fear. Almost.

His touch was like ice as he gripped her, his sausage-like fingers wrapping around her fragile, bony arms as he violently pulled her forward.

Alison jerked away from his touch, scrambling further backwards on the mattress as far as she could get from him, and a squeak of terror escaped her lips.

“Don’t be a bitch,” he growled at her, leaning forward on wobbly legs and wrapping his hands around her hair. He put all his strength into ripping her forward, dragging her by her long hair. Tears stung her eyes as she lost her balance and fell forward. The tomb didn’t stop, he just continued dragging her, as she scrambled, bare-footed on the concrete floor, trying to get up.

She obviously was moving too slowly for him because he bent down and gripped her throat hard enough to bruise.

Hefting her to her feet, he spun her around and marched her out of the cell by her neck.

Alison was openly trembling, fear reverberating through her every fibre as he forced her out of her cell, past the door held open by the second tomb. Now she was out she could try and execute her plan of escape.

She knew they were too difficult to fight when they were together, Maker only knew she’d tried. No, she needed to take them out one by one.

And there was only one time when they weren’t together. Bile rose at the thought but it was the only time she had a chance in hell of taking them down.

Alison could feel the fragile skin of her neck bruising underneath his heavy touch; not that it really mattered, her body was littered with cuts and bruises anyway but that was nothing compared to the fact that she was, in truth, a tuhrned herself.

The former High Lord had kidnapped her, and technically almost killed her in the process of binding her soul. Her body was destined to rot and die though her soul lived on.

Knowing she was technically a tomb as well didn’t make these two brutes any less…disgusting. Her body was still relatively unmarred by the rotting hands of time, she’d only been in this state for little more than a few months, whereas these two were clearly long-lived tombs, she would hazard a guess that they had been tuhrned decades ago.

The tomb’s thinning brown hair hung loose from the top of his almost completely bald head, his skin so pale it seemed to glow an eerie blue. His companion was no less disgusting, though his hair had fared much better, the black waves hanging limply in long strands. They both looked like their bodies had given up on life. Though they were broad and muscular, they both had an almost bloated look to them, their bodies fighting the decay trying to overtake them.

Their skin was as cold as hers, though they didn’t seem to notice the temperature as much as she did. She suspected this had something to do with the fact that their nerves were so far into the rotting stages that they didn’t feel much any more which would probably explain why they were so vicious when they were ‘with’ her.

The hallway they were leading her down was as grim as her cell, the brick walls damp and slimy, the floor stained with mould and grime. The one thing they did have that she didn’t was light, bare bulbs on spindly-looking cables hung periodically from the ceiling, running the length of the small section of the building. They were dim and flickered but any light was better than none. There wasn’t far to go, as far as she could gather there really wasn’t much here. Behind her was a hatch that led downwards, further into the bowels of the building. Fear rose anew as she thought of that hatch, of the room, hidden beneath it. The High Lord had tortured her there so often, even the thought of that place made her skin crawl. Alison desperately tried to focus on what was to come, rather than what had been. Opposite her cell was another room that the two tombs spent all their time in. At the end of the hallway was a small bathroom and a door that led to places unknown. That door was her goal, it was her way out.