Page 19 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

I glanced back at her.

The unicorn raised her head, her eyes looking sunken and sad. “I’ll help Sibyelle. Take me to her.”

With a silent nod, I went to the cable wrapped around the metal hooks and used my father’s key to unlock the padlock on it. After fastening the cable around my non-injured hand, I led Muriel through the tunnel to Sibyelle, whose condition had deteriorated even more. Her body was being wracked with contractions. Lothair was urging her to push while two women and my father knelt by her knees. Muriel gasped, and I imagined the thick stench of blood was already making her nauseous, stinging her nose and throat.

“The unicorn’s here,” Lothair murmured to his wife. “You’re going to be okay, Sibyelle. You and our child will be okay.”

Sibyelle belted out an ungodly noise, crying and shaking as her body went rigid. “Help me! Please, do something!” she begged, her voice reeling in frantic, anguished moans.

Muriel dropped beside her and placed her hands on the dragon’s swollen belly. “Shh, shh. Okay. Just breathe. Focus on the warmth of my hands,” she cooed. Although her wrists were still bound by the cuffs, Muriel tried her best to gently stroke Sibyelle’s skin with her palms, radiating magical heat that would infuse the dragon and hopefully ease her suffering.

I could do nothing but stand by and watch.

There was no relief. Even though Muriel had agreed to help, it was too late.

Sibyelle’s screams ripped through the cavern. Blood poured from between her legs as the midwives wrestled a small, fragile body out of her womb. It was all very difficult for me to watch: Sibyelle in pain, the way her body seemed to tear open, Lothair quaking and pleading quietly for Sibyelle to be strong.

A flurry of hushed murmurs, shouted instructions, dreadful wails, and harsh commands overwhelmed the tunnel, deafening me. I was frozen to the spot, wishing there were something more I could do. The stench of blood and amniotic fluid was strong enough that even I thought I’d be sick. The birth of Sibyelle’s child became chaotic with panic and desperation. The slimy pink infant didn’t move once it was extracted from Sibyelle; its dark umbilical cord was cut perhaps too quickly. Sibyelle wept and appeared dizzy, barely clinging to consciousness as Lothair frantically begged her to stay with them. Muriel’s hands were now covered in blood, and she was gasping through the pain of blood poisoning as she tried desperately to mend all that had broken in Sibyelle.

Then, the new mother fell still. The air in our collective lungs trickled out in grief to the undertones of Lothair’s hysterical mumbling.

For long minutes, silence dominated the tunnel until it was abruptly shattered by a neonatal cry. We all looked at the premature baby cradled in David’s arms, taking her first, jagged breath.

Chapter 13

Kiara

When I woke, I didn’t know how much time had passed. There was no indication of the time of day in the cold room that I was kept in: no windows, no clock, just sterile, buzzing light. My body was stiff from being cramped in the cage, and my shoulder hurt from lying on my side. At least I’d managed to squirm free of the cords Colt had left around my arms. Stretching my limbs in the little space I had, I sat up on my knees and stared blearily into the room, listening for evidence that somebody might be nearby. Not that anybody in this house would help me. But if Colt was around, that might give me another opportunity to try to escape.

There was only stillness. I sighed, my shoulders sagging in dismay.

The disappointment accompanying the stillness was so much heavier than I’d anticipated. It struck me like a freight train, the weight of some intangible sadness I couldn’t describe. My heart became lead and dragged me back down to the floor, where I lay and stared into nothingness, letting tears bubble up from my eyes and roll down my cheeks. Vivid empathy for some unknown loss strangled me, and if I’d known what it was for, perhaps I would have been better equipped to deal with it. But I had no idea why I felt this way, and it overwhelmed me. For an hour, I found myself shaking, suddenly doubting that I could be strong enough to endure this. Was I crying because I was trapped? My sorrow didn’t feel like my own.

The intense emotion drained me of energy, leaving my eyes stinging and my chest aching until I drifted back into a fragmented dream. When I woke the second time, it was to hunger, thirst, and a full bladder.

Sorrow still haunted me, but it was tolerable now that the most intense waves of empathy had passed. My biological needs made it easier for me to concentrate on escaping. I didn’t want to soil myself in this cage, and I especially didn’t want Colt to find me in a puddle. Although, the idea of letting myself die of dehydration in my human form was appealing.

I crawled over to the cage door and stuck my fingers through the wire to examine the padlock. It was a standard 30mm brass padlock that took a small key. With enough force, it could be broken open, but I couldn’t access it well enough to strike it with anything. My only other option was to pick the lock. And fortunately, as a unicorn hybrid, my mother had been conscious enough of the dangers to our kind that she’d prepared me for instances where I might need to escape capture. She taught me to pick locks when I was young, and that skill had come in handy more than once while on the run these past few months. I just needed something to use as a pick.

The cage was in the middle of the room. I couldn’t reach anything from here, and all I had in the cage with me were a couple of bungee cords.

Another wave of melancholy paralyzed me, and I slumped into a ball as I retreated inwardly, bemoaning that I wouldn’t get anywhere without a good pick for the lock. What was I supposed to do now? Was I going to be trapped here until Colt’s despicable pack came to drag me to my fate? Had I truly failed in rescuing my mother?

No. It can’t end like this.

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself upright. I had to think. Grabbing two bungee cords, I linked them together and, holding on to one end, flung them between the wire walls of the cage toward the counter. Unfortunately, as I’d predicted, I couldn’t reach anything on it—and I even lost one of the bungee cords when it unhooked from the one in my hand. Damn it. Okay, maybe I wasn’t going to be able to pick the lock. There had to be something else I could do!

Returning to the idea of breaking the padlock, I stared at my nemesis, assessing it, and then remembered that if I could pull the shackle and tap on the side, it might be possible to dislodge the tumblers inside. But again, I couldn’t do that from inside the cage, not with the limited accessibility I had. Using the bungee cord, however…

I looped the cord through the shackle, secured the hook, and then stretched the cord as far as I could, hooking the other end to a crossbar of the cage’s frame. The tension on the shackle would pull it apart for me. Then, I reached my fingers between the wires of the cage door, tilting the padlock carefully with one hand; with the other, I tapped hard with my fingertip. Every now and then, I heard a click. It was mind-numbing—I kept at it for what felt like an hour, my fingers aching from the effort. Finally, my determination was rewarded when, with one fateful tap, the lock cracked open.

I stared in disbelief. It had actually worked! My sore fingertips were worth it.

Freedom was within reach. I frantically removed the padlock, kicked open the door, and crawled out of the cage. A delicious moment was spent stretching my arms and legs, breathing deeply in relief at my victory. But I had to hurry—now that I’d escaped my cell, I couldn’t waste any more time.

Leaving the cold room, I made my way up the basement stairs and into the dinette Colt had dragged me through. The sun shone brightly outside, clear blue skies suggesting warmth in the air. Even the sunshine pouring in through the glass door felt nice on my skin. The floor was strangely clean, though I remembered having left a mess behind when Colt was taking me downstairs. No matter. I paused to listen and look around me a few seconds longer, but it was clear nobody was in the house and hadn’t been all day. After unlocking the door and stepping through, I didn’t bother closing it again—perhaps a final act of defiance toward Colt, leaving his doors wide open as I fled into the yard. Then, I shifted, resuming the form of my hybrid beast.

Once I was animal again, I roared with hunger. My first priority was to eat, but all I could do was forage, even though the anger that had been rekindled in me made me want to attack something. And still, sorrow lingered deep in my chest in a way I couldn’t dispel. Resisting these emotions, I focused on tracking down a meal.

---