Page 16 of Wolf Caged
I reached into the cage with clawed, black-tipped fingers.
And took what was now mine.
Chapter 4
SAPHIRA
Pain was the first thing I was aware of as the world slowly dawned on me again, the darkness receding in my mind but not in my heart. My wolf side bayed mournfully and instincts pulled at me to return to my fated mate, neither understanding that he had rejected me.
Not like the human part of me could.
The rage burning within that side of me didn’t stop the pain from tearing into my soul, shredding it to pieces, or the crushing sorrow from threatening to devour me whole. I wallowed in it, drifting in the lightening night that enshrouded me, not ready to return to the world yet.
I wanted to remain here, far away from it all.
Far away from reality.
Nothing good awaited me on the other side of this soft darkness I clung to, too afraid to let it go and break to the surface. I wanted to stay here forever, where the pain was muted, because I knew when I woke, it would get worse.
So much worse.
I pined for the bastard who had crushed my heart and soul, and then sold me.
I fuckingpinedfor him.
And it sickened me, angered me so much that the black smoke around me became tinged with crimson, with the colour of my rage as my instincts did a one-eighty, flipping around to despising Lucas as he deserved and making him want to pay. I wanted him to suffer just as he had sentenced me to suffer. I wanted to watch him beg and break as I had in that cage.
I had been so stupid. So blind.
The potential mate-bond had made me weak to Lucas and I had fallen in love with him, and all he’d had to do was smile and tell me I was beautiful and pay attention to me. It had all been an act.
He had only been acting how people had thought he should—his parents, our packs, the world. He had been pretending and I hadn’t seen it. I had been blind to the truth, so eager to believe he meant every look and every word. So eager to have my fated mate and that foolish dream of a perfect future with him.
Through the endless night, I smelled a faint hint of storm, like snow or windswept mountains.
It transported me back to the cage, and for a moment, I thought I was back there, under that spotlight, exposed and vulnerable.
I knew that scent.
It had been there, muddled among the others, had caught my attention the second I had smelled it and I had tried to pinpoint who it was coming from, but then the auction had begun and it had all been a blur of terror and despair, and rage. So much rage.
I had never felt anything like it.
If someone had opened my cage, I would have launched from it to kill every person in that room.
And that shook me still.
It wasn’t like me to want to harm anyone. In that moment, it had felt as if someone else had been inside me, in control,a person I didn’t recognise. A person who had craved violence and bloodshed, and wouldn’t have felt an ounce of regret in the aftermath.
I wasn’t that person.
I wasn’t.
I curled into myself, slowly realising that I was on my side on a scratchy surface, and things were jabbing at my bare flesh. Things that itched and pushed that comforting darkness further away from me, pulling me up towards the world I didn’t want to face.
Together with distant voices.
I tugged the blanket over my shoulders, warding off the chill, and huddled into it, hoping I might disappear and whoever was coming wouldn’t see me. Anger at Lucas morphed into anger at myself. I was stronger than this. If I had to face myowner, I would face him knowing where I was and all possible escape routes.
