Dark Times

Chapter Fourteen

I watched them skulk off into the dark till there was only myself, the Alpha and a sleeping Peter left. In my head, I pictured their deaths. All the ways I'd make them suffer. All the ways I'd make them cry. I'd use their darkest moments against them. For Igor, I'd remind him of all the people he'd failed with his inability to kill his Alpha. For Trish, all I'd really have to do was tell her it was her fault.

"Lorrie, please look at me."

"I am looking at you."

"My eyes, not my forehead."

"What difference will it make?"

He had no right. Igor had no right to tell this possessive, pissy Alpha about my situation. About what he knew of my life. I was lucky I kept my story tight. I wasn't telling any of these bastards that.

If we were to have such little care for each other's secrets, I'd have to bear that in mind next time I decided to spill a truth or two about them. I wondered how much respect Igor might lose at the rogue bases when I told everyone he had his life saved by me.

"You've been without a pack for twelve years."

"Wow, you have ears. You realise we've just been through this fact."

He wouldn't be deterred by me shutting him down. Not when he'd waited so long to hear something about his mate. Anything. And here, he'd been given the rundown of my entire life.

"Is the last time you were really part of a pack when you were eight?"

"I don't owe you any type of explanation. We're not mates. I don't have to tell you anything."

He frowned. "You still want to deny it? Baby, you can't feel the sparks because it's been twelve years."

"Don't call me that."

Baby wasn't something I'd let him call me. I wasn't his baby. I wasn't his anything. Nicknames were for people you were close to, or at least intending to get close to. We weren't close, and if I had things my way, we never would be.

"What would you rather me call you?"

"Hmm, I don't know- maybe my name."

"Undo these chains."

"And why on Earth would I do that?"

"I want to hug you."

That was pushing it.

"You can fuck off. I'm not letting you out and giving you the chance to kill me. I might be a rogue but I'm not stupid."

So yeah, my education had been pretty shit. Past reading and writing, there wasn't really much I could do. But I had logic. I had fighting skills and mad survival skills. I wasn't stupid at all. I was good at biology. I had to be to know what I was doing. Knowing what I could and couldn't remove was good for torture. Knowing what I could remove to have someone bleed out was the type of skill I'd need for life.

Fuck mathematics.

"I'm not going to kill my own mate."

"Trish did it."

"Well I'm not."

If Trish did it when she wasn't a murderous raging Alpha who already had a prejudice against what her mate was, then why couldn't Aidan do the same thing? It couldn't be that hard.

"I don't believe you."

"You think I'd hurt you?"

In a heartbeat.

"Uh, yes. For starters, we barely know each other. All you've done from the minute we met is show me ways in which we'd be horrible together. Then, let's not forget that conversation we had about rogues. To you, I'm not a person. I'm just an it. I don't feel things right. My entire existence is pointless. You told me you'd drag my death out if you got the chance because you've got to take into consideration all the people I must've killed. If you have it your way, I'll die screaming."