Page 100 of Rejected By a Wolf

Witches were known to be gentle and loving beings who spent their days healing all living things - including the very earth itself. Entrapping souls didn’t sound like anything Sophia was taught to believe a witch would do.

Wrong!The voice in her head screamed again.Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The creeping realization that she most definitely made a horrible decision while in a fit of rage finally hitting her, Sophia could think of nothing to do but continue asking questions in hopes to learn more about the situation she impulsively threw herself into and the danger she was undeniably about to face.

“Weren’t you going to take me to my parents?”

“I told you I’d take you anywhere you wished. In that moment, I believed you would’ve wished to be anywhere else, so long as it was far away from that beast.”

Sophia couldn’t understand why she cringed when she heard the witch refer to Antonio as abeast.That’s what he was, wasn’the? How could someone who had given so little regard to all that mattered in her life be anything more?

“I want to be with my parents. Is it possible you can bring me to them?”

“I can.” The witch didn’t sound excited about it, not even when Sophia perked up, excitement coursing through her, her fear almost vanishing entirely.

Well,almost. The sinking feeling that she’d made a terrible decision stuck to her bones like glue. “But I don’t think you’d want me to.”

“Oh, I’m certain I do.”

Drusilla shook her head, sighing as she came to a stop in front of a heavy metal door. The barred window located at eye level was the only indication Sophia needed to know this door led to a cell of sorts, and she had a pretty good idea who that cell would soon be holding.

“It was a lie. You’re not going to bring me to my parents, are you?”

“No, I’ll bring you to them if that’s what you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Not unless you wish to be taken six feet under, which I can assure you would be a fate much worse than death. Eternal suffocation for an immortal isnota pleasant experience, and certainly not one I’d want to give to you. Remember, Iamon your side.” Drusilla cast Sophia a sorry look, her blue eyes seeming to glow against the surrounding darkness.

“You don’t mean…” Sophia couldn’t seem to find the words, struggling to articulate her thoughts, finding it difficult to comprehend what she was just told.

Drusilla lifted her hand and a set of keys fell from her fingertips, dangling beneath them. “They’re dead. They have been for a long time.” Drusilla’s news was delivered sympathetically yet bluntly, her tone a mixture of someone who cared yet didn’t care at the same time. It was unnerving,reminding Sophia of someone who could kill without remorse one day, but cry over a stubbed toe the next.

Drusilla was totally unhinged.

“I… Why should I believe you?”

“Because I have no reason to lie to you. Any fey that was captured and turned vampire proved to be a huge disappointment to Artem and the Voivod. You see, fey are small but lithe. But when turned, too much muscle was packed onto much too small bodies. Simply put, fey don’t make good vampires. Hell, humans make better vampires than the fey did. Go figure.”

“Than the feydid?” Sophia’s world was shattering around her.

Drusilla’s fingers began playing with the keys in her hands, seeming to search for one in particular. “With their bodies adapting so poorly to the change, they didn’t last long. The work was too demanding and most of them couldn’t keep up.Ah!Found it.” Drusilla grinned at a single key before using it to unlock the door she stood in front of.

Ignoring the fact that Drusilla was opening the door to a cell she was most likely about to be thrown into, Sophia grappled to hold onto any bit of hope she could find. “You just saidmostof them couldn’t keep up, which meant some did. Right?” Sophia’s parents would’ve been able to keep up, she was sure of it.

“Mostof them couldn’t keep up and died because of it. The rest were considered a waste of space by Artem and were killed off about five years after they were turned.”

“Five years after…” For the second time this day, Sophia struggled to breathe, her chest tightening.

For decades, Sophia’s entire existence revolved around one day saving her parents one. Nothing else in her life had been worth fighting for except that. It broke her to learn the fey were wiped off the earth only five years after Trim had beendecimated, which meant her parents had been dead for decades. All those years spent training was for nothing and had been for nothing since the beginning. Her life since the fall of Trim held so little meaning she might as well have been dead herself.

“Ah, don’t feel ashamed for not knowing. Hell, most vampiresstilldon’t know what happened to the fey. I only know because it’s information we gleaned from one of Circe’s souls.”

“It was all for nothing,” Sophia whispered, her voice cracking.

“Anyway, do you want to get back at that wolf?”

“Fuck that wolf.” Sophia couldn’t find it in her to care about anything. She was drowning and didn’t have any fight left in her to swim for a surface.

“Very well.” Drusilla reached for Sophia’s limp hand and dragged her into the cell. Sophia didn’t protest. She didn’t protest because she didn’t care. Her world outside this cell would be just as bleak as her world within it, because now that everything she stood for was gone, she didn’t believe she mattered enough to exist inanyworld.

Who was Sophia Brenning without her drive to save her parents, to save her whole damn species?

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