Page 1 of Midnight Deception

ChapterOne

The snake is poised to strike, its impossibly large spines rattling down the length of its back as it hisses at me in warning. A shout catches my attention—my father’s voice. Panic claws at my chest as I turn, finding the huge snake’s tail wrapped around my father’s body, constricting tightly.

My body shakes, but not with fear, as would be expected, but because of the icy air that suddenly wraps around me as tightly as if the snake still had me in its clutches. Breath mists the air before me, and I’m momentarily distracted. Everything seems to shift, and in the next blink of my watering eyes, I see Joel in the snake’s grip, not my father. Gasping, I jerk forward, only to pull up sharply as the snake hisses louder, its body coiling more tightly around my mate.

But then Joel is nowhere to be seen, and in his place is Syn. Horrified, I shake my head, unable to comprehend what’s happening. In the thump of a heartbeat, it’s now Nicolai who’s the unfortunate soul caught in the snake’s tightening embrace.

“Laelia! Save me!” he rasps, his face twisting in pain as his breath wheezes out of him, his chest being crushed with each passing second.

I try to run forward, not caring about myself as the snake roars its final warning, except my feet won’t move. Glancing down, I see ice encasing my legs, freezing me in place. Tugging with all my strength, I try to free myself, a cry of frustration ripping from me as I fail to break free of the ice.

Seeing that I’m no longer an immediate threat, the snake turns to my friend and slowly slithers towards him, its fanged maw opened wide. Shaking my head in denial, I shift my gaze to my friend.

He’s stopped struggling now, and he is looking at me with such crushing disappointment that it causes me physical pain. “Why didn’t you save me?”

Darkness surrounds me before I can reply, dragging me away from the horror that’s unfurling before me. I try to fight it, but the tugging is persistent and stronger than I am.

The darkness engulfs me fully, and an urgent feeling settles over me, telling me that something important is happening. Unable to resist it any longer, I become consumed by the shadows.

The dark fog clears from my mind, and I swim my way to consciousness, slowly becoming aware of something soft beneath me. Despite this, my whole body aches like I’ve just run a marathon. Did I sleep in a strange position? I have no idea where I am or what’s happening. All I know is that I have the feeling that something terrible just occurred. That, and I’m freezing cold. Instinctively, I reach for my bonds, only to find that they are gone, a sense of numbness surrounding the place where they usually reside in my chest.

This pulls me further from the fog, my mind sharpening. As I reach for my wolf, I’m relieved to find her still within me, but she doesn’t respond as she usually does. Instead, it feels like she’s slumbering and I can’t quite reach her. Even when I search for the forbidden presence that lives deep within my soul, I find a disconnection between us. Why am I so distant? Something is blocking my connections, something is wrong, and I need to figure it out soon.

However, I don’t rush to get up. I need to be smart about this. I don’t think I’m in any immediate danger, and playing dead is probably the best way to keep it that way for the time being.

I use the relative quiet to assess my current position. I’m lying on my front, sprawled across something soft, as though I’ve been deposited and left as I landed, my feet dangling over the edge. It doesn’t feel like I’m on a bed, so perhaps a couch. There’s a part of me that calms from knowing I’m not on a stranger’s bed. I don’t even want to contemplate where that could lead. My head is resting on my arm, which is extended above me, the numb, tingling feeling in my fingers telling me I’ve been here for some time. I should move to reposition myself and ease my aching limbs, but I feel so weak that even opening my eyes is impossible right now.

Face down and unable to take in the room around me, I use my other senses in the hopes that I can figure out where I am. Steady, rhythmic breathing tells me there are others in the room with me—two, I believe. The scents here are strange, almost metallic, and instinctively make me want to flinch away. The familiar, comforting smell of my pack is missing, meaning I’m not back home in our forest, which brings me to the question, where the hell am I?

Racking my brain, I slowly recall the events of the last couple of months. It all started with my moon ceremony, where I failed to shift, instead creating a wolf of magic. This was the catalyst that changed my life as I know it. Accused of using witchcraft, something that carries a death sentence, I was forced to take part in the Fang and Claw Trials, the deadly werewolf trials, to prove I deserve my place among the other werewolves. One of the only reasons I’m still alive today is because of the people around me, not to mention meeting two of my mates. I made it through to the semi-finals of the trials, the memory of which makes me flinch. There was a snake in that challenge… a snake that was wrapped around my father.

My dream suddenly slams into me—first, the images of my father caught between its coils, then my mates, followed by Nicolai being crushed by the snake. Rationally, I know it was a dream, that it didn’t happen like that, but my heart rate speeds up regardless as I struggle to separate truth from the nightmare. It takes a herculean effort for me to slow my pulse and steady my breathing, attempting to remain calm. My instincts have overridden my panic and are telling me it’s important for me to remain still, to keep pretending that I’m asleep.

The goddess’s presence settles over me as if in agreement, and a soothing warmth spreads through me as she reassures me. My eyes prick with tears of relief, but I don’t allow them to fall. Right as I’m feeling isolated and alone, my goddess embraces me, reminding me she’s here with me.A dream, it was only a dream, I tell myself, allowing myself to settle into the goddess’s comforting spiritual embrace and go over everything that Idoknow. Unfortunately, that’s not much.

My father was the bait in that challenge. They took him to hurt me, hoping it would distress me enough to cause me to make a mistake. I was about to fight the snake when three strangers appeared in the arena, and I was taken. Then, I woke up here, unable to feel my mates or connect fully with my wolf.

Are the others safe? I’ve seen what the werewolf council is capable of, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did something to my mates or my pack. Without my bonds, I can’t tell if my mates are okay, if the council tried to hurt them because of me, or if they even made it through their own trial unscathed. They will be going out of their minds with worry since they can’t feel me and I’m missing. I still don’t know who’s taken me, but one thing I can say is that they are not werewolves.

Even knowing all of this, and the fact that I should be focusing on who took me, my mind pulls me back to the dream. Nicolai’s whispered words echo in my thoughts, and I get a niggling feeling that my dream was more than just that. I know nightmares play on your fears and distort memories, but there is some truth behind this particular dream. Nicolai is dying, and I could do nothing to help him. Now, I won’t even be there to hold his hand as he slips away into the goddess’s embrace.

Despite my best efforts, my torso trembles, partially in my struggle to keep my emotions in check, but also from how cold I am. If anything, it seems to be getting colder in here. My legs sting as though they are being burnt from the cold. It’s only then that I realise my lower body is bound. What I’d thought was just my exhaustion keeping me in place is actually something immovable, the bite of cold explaining the burn I’m beginning to feel.

“You might want to ease off on the ice,” a female voice comments lightly. “The queen won’t be happy if you kill her before she’s seen her, especially after all the effort we put into finding her in the first place.” The severity of the stranger’s words is in complete contrast with the easy way she speaks, and it takes everything I have not to move at the sound of the unfamiliar voice.

She’s casually speaking about my death, and my whole body goes on alert, ready to defend myself if needed—not that I could do much with my bound legs and slumbering wolf. Am I in danger right now, or should I be more concerned that she’s suggesting that I might be killed after the queen is done with me?

Who is this queen she spoke of anyway, and why does she want to see me? I have so many questions. The stranger’s comment does answer something for me though—ice. That’s why my legs feel frozen in place, because they are, literally. Someone is controlling the ice and keeping me bound, the second person in the room I’m assuming.

There’s a low huff and a grumble of discontent. “She’s a werewolf,” a male replies, the venom in his voice is cutting. “She’s probably hunted our kind. I don’t trust her.”

“She’s only half werewolf,” the female justifies. “Besides, Kano seems to trust her.”

“That’s an act. Kano doesn’t trust anyone.” The male dismisses her comment easily as the two of them go back and forth, discussing how much of a threat I am.

I still have no idea who these people are and why they seem to dislike me so much. How do they know about me? Who is Kano? Is he one of the males who took me from the arena during my last trial? There were three of them then, two males and a female. It makes sense that the two currently in the room with me are the ones who brought me here—whereverhereis.

The male huffs out a sigh, and the slow tap of his footsteps alerts me to the fact that he’s coming closer. Every cell in my body is alert, and I ready myself in case he tries to hurt me. I feel the heat of his stare on me and force myself to keep still. Blessedly, the icy cold that surrounds me eases, and whatever was binding me releases my legs. The warmth of the room instantly surrounds me as my shivers begin to subside. He’s beside me the entire time, as if expecting me to jump up and attack. However, after a minute, I hear him spin on his heel and walk back over to his companion.

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