The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 31

"By that time, the group I had been with wanted to do something more, so they took the clothes we stole from the carriage and intended to wear them into the city to match city folk. If anyone suspected we were rogue, they could tell someone from the keep, and we would be punished for trespassing on Tophet territory."

I lay still, feeling weight around my wrists and ankles, waking for the first time in a situation I haven't lived in before with a painfully familiar hunger incinerating my stomach.

"Anyhow, they planned to enter at night, not too late, but late enough so the temple was mostly barren," a voice says, and I recognize it quickly as Senet's. "As you know, there are many fine objects of worship and such in the temple, and those materials can be sold, especially fine metals to be melted down. So when it was nearing time, we took off whatever dirty old clothes we were wearing and put on our disguises outside the walls of the city. I remember the feel of the fabric so vividly; I hadn't worn nice clothes in years. We hardly wore shirts and never shoes, and even though I chose to go rogue and forfeit those luxuries, I knew I missed them the second I adorned my disguise. But the clothing wasn't my true reason for abandoning our plans."

My eyelids are heavy, but I manage to hold them open long enough to assess my surroundings. I'm in a dungeon — that's clear. It looks similar to the cell Alpha Davra kept me in but is more spacious with cell bars instead of a door. I turn my head enough to see Senet sitting against a brick wall through the bars. He's wearing his usual priest garb, but to see him sit so casually is new.

"I've always had a fascination and love for the spiritual realm, and stealing from a temple — well, I couldn't. I didn't want to take from the goddess," he continues. "My rogue companions had turned their backs on the Goddess; many of them were born beyond packs and society and felt rejected by Her, so they felt empowered to infiltrate the temple, but I told them wouldn't be able to.

"Now, they didn't like that very much, so they beat me and left me to die, and I would have if those over the city wall didn't hear the altercation. Two men took me in, and I told them rogues had done it and were heading for the temple. Alexei was brought in with his men and they caught the rogues. I told Alexei the truth, that I was one of them and refused to participate, and he offered me asylum. He set me to work in the temple since I so passionately defended it, and I did so under the previous priest. Time passed as it does, and when that priest died, Alexei named me priest of this very temple."

I watch as he runs his palm over the space beside him, appreciating even the dust on the floor. I move my arms, and the clamor of chains draws his attention. Our eyes connect. "Brea? Do you remember me?"

I nod and touch my throat, rattling the chains more. "I'm—" The sound of my strained, dry voice only affirms how malnourished I feel — like a living corpse. My words scratch and itch and I immediately realize my lack of breath.

Senet rises and distracts me. His scent wafts as he hurries closer — not the scent of a wolf or a bond, but the smell of his body, flesh, and blood — yet my grisly attention shifts to the glass bottles of blood he slides through the cell bars. "Alexei hunted. He assumed you would need to drink," Senet says and steadily backs away.

I reach and take one, removing the glass stopper and letting the smell fill my nose. I sip and sip again then helplessly drink the first bottle as the dryness in my mouth and the burn in my belly subside. Senet watches, but my desperation disables my awareness, and I finish the remaining four bottles without a moment to think.

"It's done now, isn't it? The God's venom has taken over?"

"Where's Alexei?" I ask and place the last bottle down.

"He was here waiting with me, but he left not long ago. He had to ready himself to receive Gaius."

Reinvigorated by the animal blood, I bust open one iron cuff around my wrist and then the other. The locking mechanism in each simply breaks, popping open as though it's made of tin, so I do the same to the cuffs around my ankles and shake off the chains attached to the wall behind me. If I wasn't myself, I could easily escape, but I'm relieved Alexei listened to my requests. Perhaps this means he would have followed my others as well. If I was totally lost to the venom, maybe he would have taken measures to protect himself.