Nick raised his head in alarm as he heard the doors overhead being slid open. The voices were muffled, but he made them out to be the man who guarded the cell and Jonathan, the man who’d caught him.

He pushed himself off the stone wall and came to stand by the bars as the men moved closer. There was no use in them bringing him any more food. He’d rather rot in this cell than accept something they’d poisoned.

The door to the dungeon flew open and a fresh night breeze flowed inside. He inhaled deeply, savoring what freedom would taste like. Wolves were never meant to be caged. It was a dreadful punishment. The punishment for trespassing.

Jonathan came down the stairs, and Nick immediately flashed fang. When he saw a body over the man’s shoulders, he withdrew them just a bit.

He carried a female.

Nick couldn’t see her face, only long black hair cascading down as she hung her head toward the floor. She wasn’t even moving. Was she dead?

One of the men unlocked the cell door. They brought the woman’s limp body into view.

He should have made an escape for it then, but shock had him frozen to the spot.

They threw her on the floor and slammed the doors shut.

“Lookie there, you’ve got a cell mate.” Jonathan chuckled as he trekked back up the stairs.

The woman whined, but still made no move to get up. Her long thick hair still covered her face. She was half naked with only a matching floral bra and panty set on. There was an undressed wound at her side and a wide scrape down the left side of her arm. She curled into a ball facing away from him and started to cry.

“I should have killed him,” she whimpered. “God, I should have killed him.”

Nick shrunk back. The woman didn’t seem to know that he was in the cell. She was talking to herself.

“Why didn’t I listen to you, Dad? You told me not to go anywhere alone,” the woman continued.

He didn’t know whether to leave her be or answer her. Her scent wafted toward him. It was a delicate blend of nutmeg and brown sugar. An underlying scent also told him that she was human.

“I’m so scared.” She cried some more.

Nick cleared his throat. “Hello?”

The woman jumped up like a leopard, scrambled into a corner of the cell, and screamed. It was a high pitched shrill that should have shattered the glass windows in the room above them.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re one of them!” She shouted. “What kind of people are you?”

He pressed his lips together and ran his tongue across his teeth willing his fangs to disappear. “No, I’m not.”

“You better not come near me!”

He stepped closer. “Sssshh…please. You’ll draw attention.”

“I’ll kill you!”

He tried to hold back his amusement. No woman had ever uttered those three little words to him. “I’m locked up in this cell with you. Do you really think I want to harm you?”

“Just stay right there.” She held up a hand. There was a jagged cut on the palm and her fingers were covered in blood.

From the scent of it, it was her blood and someone else’s. Someone familiar.

He wasn’t taking any chances; he didn’t want his blood added to the equation. “Okay, okay. I’ll stay back.” He took a few steps back.

The woman hugged her body with her arms in an attempt to cover up. She shivered as well. He figured the combination of fear and cold had taken over her.

He pulled his shirt over his head and offered it to her. “Here.”

The woman eyed him like a hawk, her gaze sliding from his face to the shirt he offered. Stepping forward, she snatched it, ran into her corner, turned her back, and pulled it over her. She sat down, bringing her knees to her chest with her bloodied hands balled into fists.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. Following suit, he moved to the other corner and sat down facing her. He wanted to go over to her and comfort her, but figured that wasn’t the wise thing to do given her threat to kill him.

“I was attacked. How can I not be afraid?”

“Of me, I meant. Don’t be afraid of me.”

She looked up to level her stare at him. “I don’t trust you.”

Her lips were pursed in fury. They were a perfect set of lips. Rosy in color and plump and sexy. Her feral gaze nearly hypnotized him.

He shook his head. “That’s okay. I’m a stranger. I know.” He studied her. Even in her state of distress, she was clearly a very beautiful woman. “My name is Nick.”

“Why are you locked up?”

“I was captured, and brought here for trespassing.”

She returned an ambiguous stare. “Me too. They brought me here and will not let me go.”

“How long have you been here?” He had no idea that Darius kept human servants nowadays.

“I was traveling to visit a friend when I swerved to miss an animal in the road. My car crashed off the main highway. I must have blacked out. Next thing I know, I woke up on a cot with Mr. Mangled Face staring down at me. It’s been a day or two, maybe.”

“Mr. Mangled Face?” His gaze dropped to her bloodied fists. “What happened to your hands?”

“I stabbed Scarface with broken glass.”

“Scarface?” Who were these people she was talking about?

“He attacked me. They called him Darius. He had the ugly, mangled scars on his face.”

Nick ground his teeth. The nerve of him to attack an innocent woman. “Are you alright?”

“No.”

“I can help.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she managed to shed not one of them. “This was a mistake. I want to go home.”

“I’ll get you out of here,” Nick said.

Hope filled her eyes, replacing the tears. “Hi, Nick. I’m Selene.”

“Selene,” he whispered.

“Yes, but not like the singer. Mine’s spelled with an S.”

He smiled. “Right. Pretty name.”

She shrugged. “It’s alright. My dad named me.”

The casual conversation seemed to calm her, so he carried on, all the while examining her slowly. “What would you rather be called then?”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s an odd thing to ask someone.”

Her eyes were a deep brown. Bedroom eyes. Eyes you could get lost in for hours on end.

“You have an accent. Northern and maybe Spanish?”

Selene cracked a small smile, and lowered her thick eyelashes. “There’s no disguising this accent. I’ve tried many times, but I always slip and most people figure it out.”

“I like your accent.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since this afternoon, but it seems like forever.”

She scanned the room outside their cell, really observing their surroundings for the first time with a troublesome expression on her face. What had Darius done to her?

The only light in the room was from the moonbeams that snuck through a tiny barred window. It was dark inside, and if it wasn’t for his wolf eyes, he would not be enjoying how lovely she looked despite her distress.

“Do you have a plan to get out of here?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

She was relentless.

“The guards are sloppy. I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“You’re patient, then?”

He nodded. “In order to defeat an enemy, you must know him thoroughly.”

“Makes sense.”

From across the room, Nick heard her stomach grumble. It wasn’t gas. Evidently, she was experiencing hunger pangs. “You haven’t eaten since you’ve been here, have you?”

She didn’t answer.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of jerky wrapped in a plastic. It was the last piece he had. He’d been saving it for tomorrow in case his plans backfired. He handed it to her, arms outstretched.

Surprisingly, she came forward and accepted it. “Thank you.”

He inhaled her scent again as her small fingers opened the package and extracted the jerky. She tore the dried meat in half and handed one to him.

He smiled and accepted his piece, eating it in one bite.

She sat beside him and nibbled hers slowly.

Her toes were painted a bright red, the same color as her nails. His shirt barely covered her and his gaze ran over long shapely calves and plush thighs. She was a light cinnamon complexion, just like her smell. It would be difficult keeping his eyes off of her.

After eating the jerky, she rested her head on the wall of the cell and yawned. “Talk to me some more, so I don’t fall asleep.”

“If you’re tired, why don’t you sleep?”

She glanced at him then, but her eyelids were heavy. “Because I’m scared.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you, but what about?”

“Anything.” Her speech slurred. “I love the sound of your voice.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you a bit about myself.” Nick swallowed. “I grew up in a very small town in Virginia. Near the mountains. A place where everyone knows everyone. My parents owned the supermarket where I worked until I was old enough to move out of their home. I then attended a nearby technical school and began my career as a welder. It wasn’t my dream profession. I dreamed of something bigger.” He frowned. “Something happened in my small home town. Things weren’t the same. Our close nit community began falling to pieces. I wasn’t the only one who could see that. If it wasn’t for Devin, my closest friend, I probably would have given up on my dreams…”

Nick stole a glance at Selene. He knew before he started that he wouldn’t get to finish is boring life story.

Her head had fallen on his shoulder, and she was fast asleep.