53. Chapter 53

Chapter 53

L ayla sat on the edge of the filthy mattress on the floor, staring at the blank wall.

There was no TV or a comfortable bed, and they hadn't provided another meal. The only thing they gave her was a new gown. The Commander liked mind games. Her people were stuck in their cages, cursing her for what they thought she did, losing their trust in their Queen. They thought she was living in luxury while they suffered.

She hadn't been able to mindlink Faith or Rebecca, but she could sense their emotions, even from the basement.

The Commander never had any intention of treating her like a person. He was trying to alienate her to continue using her for his sick project. Motherfucker.

Her fists clenched for so long that they were numb. But she wouldn't make the mistake of moving too soon again.

The sound of wheels rolling on the concrete floor shifted her attention to the door. They kept the overly bright lights on in the small room, so she still couldn't tell what time it was, but the scent of the food on the trolley told her it was breakfast time. Someone was having bacon, sausages, eggs and toast, so it definitely wasn't for her. The food was for the Hunters.

They surrounded her. The base was more extensive than she first imagined because they took her down several flights of stairs, past several rooms occupied by Hunters. They'd looked like sleeping quarters for the guards responsible for guarding the wolves that ended up down there. She'd caught the scent of at least two other wolves in the rooms next to hers.

The only good thing about the room was that she could stand at full height and stretch her legs. Other than that, it was a more dangerous prison than the cage she first occupied.

The room was a vault with the same gas contraption on the ceiling. The door was silver, but even though she could touch it, it was a thick, heavy one that could only be opened electronically by the authorised guard's fingerprints. Her special guard. The one who ran his mouth in the warehouse only took her as far as the stairs, where he'd handed her to a team of other Hunters. She could sense four of them standing outside her door as they had since locking her in. They hadn't moved, even for a toilet break.

The trolley wheeled past her door without stopping, and frustration bubbled up inside her. They were taking too long. Her body ached from trying to hold everything in, and her skin itched from the tension.

Her gaze returned to the wall and then lowered to the bucket in the corner. As if she could use it, even if she wanted to. There were cameras on all four corners of the room. The red lights on them blinked since they locked her up. She didn't dare look directly at them in case her eyes were glowing. Her emotions were unstable, and she'd felt her wolf for the past couple of hours. Felt the beast in all its murderous glory.

Diedre told her she just needed to trust herself and her wolf. There was nothing to lose now. She was stewing in powerful emotions that almost overwhelmed her, but for a change, she couldn't tell which belonged to the wolf. They felt the same. She also wanted to see the Hunters' blood—to rip them apart.

The scene that excited her wolf when she walked in on the carnage Jax caused at the Circle's trial played in her head on a loop. That would be the Commander's future, even if she endured more crap to get to him. She would wait.

The trolley rolled back the way it came, past her guards and towards the elevator at the end of the hall. Maybe they would get her after breakfast. The Commander was eager for his plan to work; he'd probably have several other Hunters for her to bite.

And she would. She would bite the crap out of them.

‘Are you going to listen to me now?'

The voice wasn't as jarring as the first time in the warehouse.

‘It depends. Are you going to just do things without telling me?'

Or just disappear after dropping her in shit? How could she listen to something so unreliable?

‘Unreliable? Really? Who is it who keeps getting you out of trouble?'

And it still listened to her thoughts without permission.

‘It? You still have no idea what you are, do you? You think I'm a monster and have no place in your world. But you seem to forget one thing. I'm you. There is no separation. My thoughts, my actions, everything is all you. You need to realise that quickly before you get everybody killed.'

The voice disappeared, leaving a hollow feeling as the wolf cut her off again.

Before she could react, the sound of a keypad at the door drew her attention back to her situation. The door whirred and swung open, and a Hunter with a full arsenal strapped on his body stepped in. He ducked as he stepped past the threshold and straightened to his full height when he stood before her.

He was the tallest one she had seen, and his features were just as off as the guards who'd stood outside her door all night. It made her wonder when exactly the Commander started his experiments. Had they found a way to enhance themselves even more?

‘Get up,' he growled.

She did as told, and the Hunter twisted her arm to her back without caring how much force he used. The cold metal of some thick handcuffs bit into her wrists before he grabbed her by the scruff of her new gown. The jerk shoved her out into the hallway, where other Hunters came out of their rooms and joined her guards, lining the hallway walls as they did when she arrived.

The Hunter behind her shoved her again to make her move. She stumbled but caught herself before she fell. Her anger rose again for a moment, but she pushed it down and began to walk down the hallway. She would not meet her end in the bowels of the Hunters' base. No. Her end would be much more spectacular.

They forced her to bypass the elevator and go up the same double flight of stairs she came down last night, probably so more guards were watching her at any time. The Hunters didn't look her in the eyes, they kept their gazes forward, but she knew the memory of her killing their friends was still at the top of their minds.

‘Focus,' the voice in her head said.

Right. She had to keep all senses on full alert. She needed to take every detail in and map every possible means of escape.

The moment they opened the doors at the top of the stairwell, something snapped in place, as if her links to the pack members in the warehouse were restored. Was there something blocking that in the basement? She had assumed that whatever potions they injected in her weakened her links to the pack, the same way it broke off the connection with the wolves outside of the base. But she was clean. Whatever the Hunters used on her burnt off when she half-shifted and healed.

So that only meant one thing.

Magic.

That was the only way they could have blocked her in the basement.

Did the Commander get the help of a witch? Did they know about witches? The first time she saw them, they broke through wards set up by generations of witches in the forest as if they were nothing. She hadn't thought of that. What if whatever the Hunters were doing had dark magic involved?

The white door marked ‘Restricted' came into her view, and she knew the direction of the warehouse from there. But where was the way out?

She almost walked past the door when the Hunter grabbed her gown again and forced her to stop. Then the doors to the restricted area were unlocked and opened.

Her breath hitched at the first look inside. She'd known the Commander did something nefarious there, but she hadn't expected it to be so blatant.

The Hunter shoved her in, but she was too shocked to stop herself from falling flat on her face. When she lifted her head, the familiar face of a Hunter hound was growling down at her, snarling at her with a thick glass wall between them. It frothed at the mouth, showing giant, sharp teeth and blood-red eyes. Evil. She sensed nothing but evil intentions from it.

Someone pulled her up and shoved her to continue walking. There were glass cages on one side, full of giant beasts. And on the other side, cowering at the back of their cages were normal dogs.

They made these beasts?! Did the Commander fuck with nature so much that he created the beasts they used to hunt them?

Cold seeped down her bones at the thought of what he expected her to do. If the Hunters experimented that long to create their hounds, they were probably confident they could turn into wolves.

"Sorry to drag you here so early, but you have work to do, Layla."

She looked away from the dogs to see the Commander standing in an open doorway with a proud look on his face. He didn't look sorry at all.

He turned and walked into the next room without a word, and she was once again shoved to follow. The next room was worse. Instead of dogs in glass cages, there were people. Half shifted with mangled faces—patchy fur and bulging eyes. Claws coming out of the wrong areas.

Her heart pounded hard against her chest as she walked past each failed experiment, following the Commander's bulky frame. What sort of person did such horrible things and still woke up with a clear conscience each day?

The commander entered another room at the end and turned to face her.

"I want you to be the first to see the results," he said with a grin.

There were two glass cages in the room. In the first one, Rebecca sat on the floor, eyes glued on the second cage.

‘Mum?'

Rebecca turned her head slowly, and their gazes met.

‘What did you do?' Rebecca whispered in her head.

It felt good to finally hear her mother's voice, but the fear in her mother's tone wiped that out straight away.

‘I'll fix out. I'll get you out of here,' she vowed.

Her mother turned to look at the other cage again.

‘I don't think you can,' she said.

She turned and looked at the second cage, and her eyes widened. It was the Hunter she bit. He wasn't mangled or half-shifted, but his muscles were more defined than they should have been. He paced the length of his cage, clenching and unclenching his fists.

His eyes flickered between his usual blue and blood red.

And he smelled like a wolf.

"It's time for the next stage, Layla," the Commander said, facing her.

And she knew by the look in his beady eyes that she would not like it.

"Bite me," he said.