29. Bexley

29

BEXLEY

I couldn’t sleep. Even with the comfortable bed and the cozy, crackling fire, I was wide fucking awake. It happened, sometimes, whenever I was in enemy territory. Adrenaline coursed its way through the marrow of my bones, vibrating me from the inside out. I pulled the comforter up to my chin. I turned myself into every angle and on every side imaginable, trying to get comfortable. Hell, I even had two glasses of red wine from the endless decanter sitting on my bedside table. But nothing worked to relax me. Nothing worked to settle me down.

I decided to put my energy to good use.

I silenced my footsteps as I slipped out of bed. Still dressed in my clothes from the solstice celebration, my dress wafted around my legs as I eased my way out into the hallway. Silence poured over the entire hallway. Not even a footstep was heard. There was no moaning. No walking around. No talking. No… nothing.

I have to figure out where I am.

The first thing I needed was a good look at my outside surroundings. I needed to find a window. My bedroom didn’t have one, and neither did my bathroom. Which meant whatever grand castle-like structure I was in, it had outer corridors I had to find. I kept my footsteps as silent as possible, inching through the darkness and staying out of the way of the candlelight sconces. If I stuck to the shadows, they didn’t illuminate, which made me wonder if they were blessed with magic as well, or whatever the fuck. Motion-sensored candlelight? There was a time in my life where that would have shocked me.

Not much shocked me anymore, though.

Not with the world I was thrust into, anyway.

“Ooooooh, right there.”

I froze at the sound of the moaning.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

I ground my teeth together as I perched next to a door. The sounds filtered through the door before a rhythmic thumping sounded softly against the wall at my back. The thumping grew as the sounds mounted, and I curled my lips over my teeth to keep myself quiet.

“Oh, fuck. I’m coming. Yes. Please. Oh, fuck. Yes!”

A growl came from the room as the thumping turned into thrashing. And as the noises mounted, I took my shot. I scurried quickly past the door, leaving the sounds that curdled my stomach in the background. It didn’t take a genius to know what the hell they were doing. Were there really humans in this place exchanging sex and food for bloodletting? The thought shivered me to my fucking core.

“Goddamn it, so tight for me.”

The growling voice was the last thing I heard before I turned down another hallway. I shook my head as I continued on, walking down hallways in a box-like fashion until I finally came upon the outer corridors. Just like I suspected, windows lined the outer hallways like a big rectangle. I approached one of the arched bay windows, and glanced up at the sky.

But the cloud cover concealed the stars from view.

Shit. Are you serious?

I pulled my stare out of the clouds and leveled it with the horizon. I moved from window to window, trying to get a different angle of the darkened landscape beyond the glass. But all I saw was thick, dense forest. There were maybe four or so acres of sprawling grassland, and then nothing but trees. And the trees were so dense that the silhouette they carved out against the night sky looked almost like jagged fucking teeth.

Like I sat in the mouth of the beast.

I raced quietly down the hallway. I perched in window after window, trying to get a better view of the sky. If I just clocked even a partial constellation, I’d be able to figure out where the hell I was in relation to the pack. Then, it was just a way of figuring out how to?—

“Oh, no,” I whispered to myself.

Finally, after turning down yet another hallway, I found a patch of the sky where the heavy-hanging clouds cleared out. The stars sparkled in the millions, it seemed like, and my eyes moved with the hole in the clouds as it panned over the night sky. But it wasn’t until that little sneaky-peek hole rolled over the North Star that I froze.

Holy fucking shit, that was our position under the North Star?

“That can’t be,” I whispered as I raced to another window.

I backtracked down the hallways, retracing my steps as I followed the hole in the cloud coverage. I caught the edge of the Little Dipper as well as the belt of Orion. But the hard, raw confirmation came when the cloud coverage parted long enough for me to see the Milky Way. Our own galaxy. Just like I had that night on top of that mountain with Voss. That galaxy was right in front of us. As if it sliced the sky in half every night. Now, it was far off to my right.

And if I coupled that with the position of the North Star…

Jesus Christ, I’m at least an hour and a half southeast.

Wharglblghblghblgh!

The sound of something gurgling caught my ear and it stopped me in my tracks. The hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end. Goosebumps fled across my body by the dozens. My jaw quivered as my entire body seemed to lock out, like it already knew what the hell was happening before my brain did.

Wharglblbrbghbrb!

I had to resist the urge to take off running. Never in my life had my fight or flight response kicked in with the idea of running. I forced myself to draw in a few deep breaths as I stuck to the shadows. I stayed out of the line of sight of those fucking sconces on the wall as I pressed myself into the darkness. I tiptoed toward the sound. I found a black door with a crystal knob, just like mine, cracked open randomly in the middle of the hallway. The smell of a fresh fire poured through the crack. I heard shuffling as well as a soft voice that sounded like a woman whispering something. Then a sound kicked up again. Only this time, it wasn’t a gurgling sound.

It was a groan of pain.

“Oooooooh, God. Help me… please…”

The whispered voice grew slowly as I stood there just outside the door, perched, with tears lining my widened gaze.

“When it’s done, you’ll be free. When it’s done, you’ll be free. No more pain. No more fighting. No more war.”

Fucking hell, was that Delilah’s voice?

The stammering voice finally choked out something else. “P-p-p—peace?”

“Yes,” Delilah said softly as she finally gave a voice to her whispered words, “when it’s done, you’ll be free and at peace. I promise.”

The shivering voice choked out again. “P-p-p-p—pro—mise?”

I shook my head as Delilah answered. “Yes, my child. When the process is over, you’ll be free from the chronic pain of your old body. You’ll be free to serve however you wish, in whatever capacity, and you won’t be held back. No more fighting. No more battles. No more war. No more front lines.”

The choked voice whimpered. “ What—what a dream.”

“Just accept it. Say it. Just say, ‘I accept.’”

I shook my head out in the hallway. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. She’s lying. She’s throwing you for a loop. Holy fucking hell, the guys were right. She’s feeding people whatever they need to hear in order to agree with the transformation.

The choked voice became breathless. “I… accept…”

I whipped around and started away from the door. No. I couldn’t stay there a second longer. I had to get out of there. I had to get back to the guys. They were right, and they were in trouble. Both of the packs were. The further away from the door I got, the quicker I moved. Until I felt so confident in my ability to keep silent that I sprinted back toward the hallway with the windows. Maybe I could bust one out. Or maybe I’d find something sharp enough to carve out a hole in the glass for me to climb through. But as I skidded around the corner, facing the hallway lined with those bay windows, I didn’t even take a step down it.

Someone grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back.