9. Shya

Chapter nine

Shya

I clawed my way back to consciousness, my head pounding and my thoughts scattered. I blinked open my eyes, trying to focus through the haze of pain that enveloped me. A wave of scents hit me, so strong that it nearly made me gag. Every smell seemed to be amplified, and the most overwhelming of all was the stench of blood.

It was everywhere, the coppery tang of it filling my nostrils and coating the back of my throat. Some of it was fresh, still warm and pulsing with life. But there were older scents, too, blood that had dried and crusted over hours ago.

Other scents mingled with the blood—sweat, fear, anger. It was a nauseating cocktail, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to retch.

I couldn't make sense of where I was. The world seemed to be moving, shifting and swaying in a way that made my stomach churn even more. I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn't cooperate. I blinked, realizing my hands and feet were bound, the rough fibers of rope digging into my skin.

Panic shot through me, hot and sharp. I struggled against my restraints, my breath coming in short, desperate gasps. Where the fuck was I? What had happened?

Memories came back to me in fragmented pieces, like shards of a broken mirror. The town square. Cliff and his men. The fight.

I remembered the blows raining down on me, the sickening crunch of bone, and the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. I remembered the moment when I knew I was beaten, when the darkness had rushed up to claim me.

So how had I ended up here, trussed up like an animal?

I forced myself to take a deep breath, to try to calm the racing of my heart.

Remember your training. I could hear Dad's voice in my head.

Right. I needed to think, to assess my situation, and find a way out.

I looked around, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. I was in the back of a van, the metal walls shuddering with each bump and turn in the road. The engine roared, and I could hear voices murmuring nearby, though I couldn't make out the words.

I tested my bonds again, hoping to find some give in the ropes. But they held fast, biting into my wrists and ankles with every movement and tying me to the side of the van with a bolted-on clip. Whoever had tied me up knew what they were doing.

Frustration and fear warred within me, but I pushed them down. I needed to stay calm and wait for an opportunity.

It was another five minutes before I felt a presence looming over me. I looked up and recoiled. Tristan was crouched beside me, smiling.

I went for him, my hands reaching to rip the smile off his face. The bolt clanged but held fast, my hands inches away from Tristan. He hadn't moved; just kept smiling as he watched me try to get to him.

"Look who's finally awake." His hand brushed a strand of hair from my face. I knocked it aside. "Hush now, you're finally where you belong."

His words sent a chill through me.

The scent of blood was strong on Tristan—blood and sweat, old adrenaline, and spikes of fear. Then, I caught a scent that was achingly familiar, even through the chaos. It was my father's scent, as recognizable to me as my own heartbeat.

For a moment, hope surged through me. If my father was here, maybe there was a chance. Maybe we could fight our way out of this together.

But as quickly as the hope had come, it faded. It wasn't my father's scent; it was the smell of his blood.

Ice-cold fear gripped my heart. Was he hurt? Dying? The thought was too awful to think about. The world was starting to spin again, the edges of my vision blurring and darkening. I tried to hold on, to ask Tristan about my dad. Tristan was saying something, his lips moving, but I couldn't hear him over the roaring in my ears. I caught one last glimpse of his face before the darkness claimed me once more.

Cold had seeped into my bones, making my muscles shiver and ache. I blinked open my eyes, wincing at the dull throb of pain in my temples.

I was lying on something hard and cold, the surface sucking all my heat away. For a moment, my vision swam before it righted itself.

Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Everything was sore. Ribs, legs, head. Nothing had escaped the fists and feet of Cliff's men. When I got out of here, I was going to hunt them down and make sure I paid every one of them back.

I squinted, trying to work out where I was. Thick metal bars surrounded me on all sides. So, a cage then. How original of Tristan. The floor was a sheet of metal, cold and unyielding. The space inside the cage was barely big enough for me to stretch out. The cage had been placed in a tent, a large one, by the looks of it, though it was empty of everything except my cage and a chair and table set to one side of the closed door-flap.

Outside, I could hear the sounds of the forest—the rustling of leaves in the wind, the chirping of birds, the scurrying of small creatures in the underbrush. No voices, though.

Fear clawed at my throat, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. I rattled the cage door, then felt along all the bars. The gaps between them were too narrow for me to squeeze through. The floor had been welded onto the bars, and the roof of the cage was, like the floor, a solid piece of metal.

Shit. I was well and truly trapped.

The flap of the tent swished open, and Tristan stepped inside. He looked me up and down, assessing.

"You're awake," he said, his tone smug and self-satisfied. "Good. I was starting to worry Cliff might have hit you a little too hard back there."

I glared at him through the bars of the cage, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. "What the fuck, Tristan? Where am I? Where's my family?"

He waved a dismissive hand as if my questions were nothing more than pesky flies to be swatted away. "Your family's not important right now. What matters is that we got what we came for. You."

He stepped closer to the cage, his eyes glinting with a fierce kind of pride. "The attack was a success, Shya. We took Bridgetown by surprise, and we got you out. That's all that matters."

I felt a rush of anger rise up inside me, hot and potent. "All that matters? What about Bridgetown? My family, my Pack?"

"Like I said, not important. The only question now is just how much of a fight will you put up before you acknowledge I'm your mate?"

I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You can't honestly believe I'm going to fall for that again. You tried once; it didn't work, Tristan. Not then, not now."

I thought he might be angry, but Tristan seemed unfazed, his posture relaxed and confident. "Once you've accepted me, we'll go back to Bridgetown and make things right."

I narrowed my eyes. "Make things right? You mean with the humans?"

"You treat humans as our equals. And we werewolves tie ourselves in knots, trying to make them feel safe. We have become so much less than what we really are. And why? Why do we pander to them? We've been brainwashed, Shya. We've been told that the peace with the humans is the only thing that matters. That if they saw us for real, they'd only see monsters. They'd rise up, try to kill us all. So, we have to make ourselves less so that they can pretend to be more.

"Werewolves have become so afraid of them that we've been neutered, reduced to pale imitations of what we should be. But what if it wasn't that way? What if we let ourselves be our true selves? The blood that runs through our veins is blood to be honored, not hidden away. I say we take back control. We live how we are supposed to live and fuck the humans. They want to rise up against us? Let them. We'll show them what it means to be truly scared. We'll finally show the humans what we really are. Bridgetown should no longer be a Disney fucking tourist town but a proper Shifter town. For real werewolves."

I stared at him. "You've gone mad! Bridgetown is a symbol of peace between humans and werewolves."

He scoffed. "Yes, that is precisely why we have to hit there first. You have to ask yourself, Shya, what's so bad about war? I have no doubt who will end up on top. It's time that the humans bow down to Shifters. That's how it's supposed to be."

I shook my head, my hands gripping the bars of the cage until my knuckles turned white. "I'll never agree with any of this."

Tristan stepped closer. "You won't just agree, Shya. You're going to believe, truly believe."

There was something in his eyes, a resolve and certainty that shook me to my core. He had no doubts that he could make me fall in line, that he could twist my mind to match his own warped vision.

Without another word, he turned and left, the tent flap fluttering closed behind him. I sank back down to the floor of the cage, my heart pounding and my thoughts racing.

Tristan was insane, that much was clear. But what scared me was the absolute conviction in his voice when he spoke of his plans. He truly believed that he could bring about this new world order with Shifters ruling over humans.

And he expected me to be by his side when he did it.