Chapter 3

Another round of feeding came before anyone returned for her and Drake, very quietly, tried to relay to her what he knew.

“There’s good news and bad news about this situation,” he said.

“That sounds absolutely not encouraging at all, but lay it on me,” Alessia said, biting into a surprisingly crisp apple. They cared about their health enough to vary their diet options.

“The good news is, we’re not in an organization headed by Orlando,” he said. “The bad news is, that’s all I know. Could be worse, could be just as bad. But at least we’re not in his hands. You’d be dead already.”

Alessia shuddered as she nibbled at what remained of the flesh of the apple around the core. Was any of that good news? She wasn’t the prisoner of one madman but she might be the prisoner of another. It wasn’t exactly encouraging, or, if it was, it was immediately canceled out by everything they didn’t know about their current situation. And that was the real danger in all of this.

“I know it’s not much,” he said, shrugging. “But trust me, it’s better.”

“The only person we don’t know is alive is Diego,” Alessia said.

“Is there a reason he wouldn’t be if Erik is alive?”

“You tell me.”

He sighed and leaned back, thinking. These were politics that Alessia hadn’t been prepared to face. Fighting for the social justice of the group was one thing. But this was internal fights, internal issues. She was an outsider trapped in something she knew was much bigger than her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how known he was outside of Orlando’s group. He might have put a bounty on him. But just as many shifters would be willing to recruit him to piss Orlando off as they would be to hand him over. That man inspires as much hatred as he inspires fear.”

Alessia nodded. She desperately wished she had access to some kind of library or some way of seeking out this information. But she was helpless, locked in a cell, being fed on a schedule like an animal.

They came back for her that night but, this time, left her in the cage.

“We’re here to talk to you both,” James said. “No sense in dragging anyone anywhere. Besides, I want you where you will be most comfortable, nice and cozy at home. Pretend it’s a house call.”

“Fuck you,” Drake spat.

“Drake, I know how much you’re constantly jonesing for some punishment but right now, I want information out of you,” he said with a much less playful demeanor. “We have the same enemy. And I just have to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Drake continued to glare and Alessia felt the heat in the room rise. He was getting agitated. And when he got agitated, things got very, very dangerous. She’d felt the heat before. If this James guy was a dragon too, she might be boiled alive by their death glares to each other and their perpetual dick-measuring contest.

She placed a hand on Drake’s arm. His skin was so warm she very nearly dragged her hand away. But she held it there. He didn’t get any less tense, but a flicker in his eyes told her he knew she was next to him. The movement and the motion of it all wasn’t lost on their capture either. Alessia watched his eyes bounce between her hand and then the pair of them. His smirk was gone, however. Whatever playfulness had been there before was now gone.

“How did you meet our good professor here?” James asked. He didn’t address Alessia by name and she turned to glare to him. She wouldn’t be ordered around like an animal or pet. “Come on, my good friend Alessia Monroe. Tell me all about it.”

“I’m a graduate student at the school,” she said.

“There’s more to it than that, let’s hear it all.” She was half-tempted to tell him fuck you as well. But he seemed to sense that as well as he sat back and crossed his arms. “I’d be glad to bring your friend back in here for another manicure.”

She swallowed. She was fairly certain he was bluffing but he raised an eyebrow and she decided her pride wasn’t worth it. “I’m the teaching fellow for his class. He teaches undergrads.”

“You’re a non,” he said and it wasn’t a question. Nor was it untrue. She shrugged. “And you’re helping to teach classes about shifter culture?”

“It’s my area of study.”

“Isn’t that a little invasive of you?”

“I want to help.”

“By breaking into our safe houses?”

“We had no idea where we were. We were looking for Drake after you kidnapped him right from my apartment. Diego was showing us a place we might find him.”

“Ah, good old Diego.”

The playfulness was back but it felt dangerous. It felt wrong. There was a story with Diego. Alessia thought about what Drake had told her about his girlfriend, how they’d so brutally hurt her. She swallowed. “What did you do to him?”

“He’s around, just like you,” he said.

“I know what you did to him, to his girlfriend,” she said and felt Drake tense next to her. He’d been the one to spill the beans on that, she couldn’t blame him.

“We didn’t do anything. Damien Orlando is a nutcase,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we like Diego. He’s pretty useless to us.”

“Why?”

“Is this your interrogation or mine?” James laughed. “Diego is a wild dog. He’s got no place here.”

“Wild dog?” she asked with a furrowed brow.

Drake put a hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear. “A wolf.”

It took a moment for everything to click properly in Alessia’s head. He was a wolf shifter and they were surrounded by dragons. So that was it then. Even the oppressed could oppress each other. She knew that wolf shifters were a bit rarer than dragons and, for some reason, that wasn’t admired. Trish never wanted to go to shifter events because she’d been afraid it would be full of dragons.

“You’re keeping him locked up because he’s a wolf?” Alessia asked, incredulously. “Shouldn’t you be banding together?”

“You don’t know the half of what goes on here, girl,” he said. “It’s not some sunshine and rainbows version of a resistance like they like to paint for you in movies. We have to cut off weak limbs and Diego is one of the weakest of the weak, especially now that he’s had his tail between his legs since that bullshit over the summer.”

Alessia had known Diego for a few hours and hadn’t been entirely sure that he wasn’t walking them into a trap. But now she felt the need to defend him.

“I don’t know about you, Lana,” James said. “But this conversation is boring me. I was hoping you were at least some kind of spy. You’re just a bumbling kid with some very misguided and naive notions about the world.”

She opened her mouth to protest but Drake’s hand on her shoulder held her still and the protests died in her throat and open mouth.

“I’ll decide what to do with you tomorrow.” He stood, sighing as if he’d just risen from a long day of working. He yawned and seemed to be contemplating something. “Let’s mix things up, shall we? Alessia, you come with me.”

He snapped his fingers and Lana moved to open the cell, Drake immediately went on the defensive. “Where are you taking her?” he asked as he stepped in front of her and Lana lazily rolled her eyes at the show of protection.

“I don’t get much entertainment here and you lot are like a reality TV show,” was all James said before he left, snapping at Lana to follow after him.

Alessia calmly stepped around Drake. She wouldn’t watch him get hurt again trying to protect her. Besides, she could hold her own here. Something told her these people had no intention of hurting her. They would have done it already, they had plenty of chances. So she brushed his arm and hazard to place a kiss on his cheek. She didn’t want to be overly affectionate, but they already knew and she wanted him to be comforted by it.

“I’ll be okay,” she whispered and then she walked over to Lana, jerking away when the woman tried to forcibly take her by the arm. “I can walk myself.”

Lana shrugged and obeyed. It was a start. The pendulum would swing in her favor soon, she was sure of it.