Imperial Moon [Complete]

Chapter Two - Captive

The holding cell was bad, really bad. Katja grimaced at Tate as he locked her away behind heavy iron bars, arranged so that she couldn't stand, but she couldn't sit properly either.

"Don't sit up straight, you'll have to hunch over" Tate whispered to her.

Katja looked up at the roof of the cage, she felt hot, as though she was standing too close to a fire.

"The top bars are dipped in silver, try not to touch them."

She shrank down to the bottom of the cage in fear, touching the silver wouldn't kill her, but it would burn like hell. She looked up into Tate's apologetic eyes.

"I don't know why he wants you here, Katja. But be thankful you're not dead."

"You could have just let me leave in the forest. Spare me the belated friendship, Beta." Katja hissed, she was no longer in the mood to chat. It would be a long night curled up in the torture cage. She would not let it beat her though, she would not.

Tate sighed and walked away, back toward the mansion. He threw one last longing look over his shoulder before shifting into his brown wolf and disappearing into the night.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Katja thought. Finally alone, she wallowed in her idiocy. She should have kept running once she had shifted; she should have torn them both to shreds. She could have taken them on and survived, easily. Why hadn't she? Something had stopped her. She could not, for the life of her, think what.

She peeked around her in the dark. She was at the edge of an open field, surrounded by cages that matched her own. Some were occupied and some lay empty, waiting for a captive. Every so often, there would be a whimper in the distance, some poor wolf that had brushed too close to the silver.

Poor wolf? She laughed internally. There was a reason they were here, all of them, they must have broken a law. She had broken a law, "wandering" into claimed territory. But she didn't know it was claimed and she hadn't wandered, she had been chased.

She wondered bitterly where the other rogue had gone, it had disappeared the moment Tate found them.

Katja had just wanted to pass through the town, in human form. But the rogue had sniffed her out, chased her into the depths of the forest, and forced her into the claws of ImperialMoon. Was the rogue aware of that? Aware of where they had found themselves?

Katja sighed. She hoped the rogue was dead. Ripped to pieces by a perimeter wolf. She imagined it's death, it's neck being torn out as it ran for cover. That's what it deserved, she decided.

Tate reappeared from the bushes, dragging a girl behind him. She had matted black hair, cut just below her chin, her brown eyes caught Katja's and the girl scowled, baring her teeth.

So much for a brutal death.

"Don't put her next to me" The girl rasped at Tate.

He looked at Katja, confused, before pushing the girl into a cage 5 spaces away. He didn't warn her about the silver bars.

"Prisoners don't make demands here." he told her coldly.

"Then why did you put me so far away from her?" the little she-wolf asked brazenly.

Tate growled, low in his chest, it bubbled to the surface and burst from his teeth.

"I put you further into the clearing, where the Moon can see you most clearly." Tate spat the words at her, knowing their effect. The rogue whimpered and Katja looked up, realising that she had been placed under the cover of a large tree whilst the other she-wolf had no barrier between her and Her judgment.