“She’s right. My entire pack was deceived. I have to get Sienna.”
I push off the wall, but a voice stops me before I can take a single step. Deceptively gentle and so familiar.
“I really don’t think I can let you do that, Lucas.”
Lydia steps into the doorway. And she’s not alone.
Behind her, the corridor is filled with enhanced soldiers.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sienna
The cell is almost pitch black.
I lie on my side on the iron floor for a long time after the sound of Lydia’s heels fades down the corridor. My shoulder aches. The cuffs on my wrists are heavy. My wolf is so far back inside me, she barely answers when I reach for her.
I hate iron.
I roll onto my back and stare at nothingness. If Lydia thinks I’m going to be this easy to get rid of, the backstabbing bitch has another think coming. My mate is out there. I don’t have time to be wasting away in a cell.
I get up. My legs hold despite my various injuries.
I shuffle along the cell with both palms pressed to the wall, handcuffs clinking with each step, the chain between them keeping my hands no more than six inches apart. I find the door. Silver-coated iron. The hinges are on the wrong side, and the grate at the bottom where the operative’s glove came through has been welded shut from the outside.
I try my wolf again.
She lifts her head slightly inside me, but then, she is pressed down to nothing. The whine she lets out is so weak, I can hardly hear it. I press my forehead against the door and think.
It’s just silver and iron, two of the only things that can weaken and suppress a shifter’s wolf. No big deal.
You got this.
Three steps along the second wall, and the fingers of my bound hands find bars, set floor to ceiling, dividing my cell from whatever is on the other side. Dim gray light leaks through the grate at the bottom of the next door, just enough to outline a body on the far wall.
It’s a woman.
She is folded in on herself, knees drawn up at unnatural angles that look incredibly painful. The legs below those knees lie crooked at the shin, the bones set wrong. Gray, matted hair falls over her face. Her arms inside the rags she is wearing are so thin, I can see the wing of her shoulder blade through the fabric.
As my eyes adjust to the low light, I press my face to the bars.
“Hey,” I whisper.
She does not move.
“Hey. Can you hear me?”
Her head turns slowly, the motion taking longer than it should. Her eyes find mine through the bars. They are dull, weary. She opens her mouth and shows me the space behind her teeth. It is empty.
My breath catches. I try not to let the sight get to me, and after wetting my lips, I ask, “How long have you been here?”
She stares at me and then lifts her hand and shows me two fingers.
“Two months?”
She shakes her head.
“Two years?”
